Walmart: Pest Analysis

In 1962, Wal-Mart opened their first store in Rogers, Arkansas. In 1970, Wal-Mart's first distribution center and home office in Bentonville, Ark. open and Wal-Mart went public on the New York Stock Exchange. Just nine years from that, Wal-Mart's annual sales exceeded one billion dollars. In 1988, Wal-Mart super centers opened across the country. In a merely three years from that, Wal-Mart opened their own store in Mexico City, Mexico; making Wal-Mart an international corporation. Not even sixty years has past, and yet, Wal-Mart is over-powering our country.

In 1962, Wal-Mart opened their first store in Rogers, Arkansas. In 1970, Wal-Mart's first distribution center and home office in Bentonville, Ark. open and Wal-Mart went public on the New York Stock Exchange. Just nine years from that, Wal-Mart's annual sales exceeded one billion dollars. In 1988, Wal-Mart super centers opened across the country. In a merely three years from that, Wal-Mart opened their own store in Mexico City, Mexico; making Wal-Mart an international corporation. Not even sixty years has past, and yet, Wal-Mart is over-powering our country.

Wal-Mart, founded by Sam Walton in 1962, is the world’s largest retailer and public corporation. It operates over 6,500 stores worldwide, employs 1.9 million associates, and serves more

Wal-Mart is now the largest grocer, largest retailer, largest corporation in the world. "If Wal-Mart was a nation, it would have a bigger economy than 80 percent of the world's countries"(Singer and Mason). About "138 million people go to one of Wal-Mart's 5,000 stores in the United States and nine other countries", and purchase more than $300 billion every year (Singer and Mason). With a 1.6 million global workforce, Wal-Mart has become the biggest private employer "in the United States, as well as in Mexico and Canada"(Singer and Mason). "Wal-Mart already has 11 percent of all U.S. Grocery store sales," and "by 2013 that figure is likely to rise to 21 percent"(Singer and

This pattern of growth, allowing it to build market share and secure volume advantages quickly, through large expenditures on warehouses, is also evident in the manner in which Wal-Mart built its stores. Wal-Mart stores were initially built of a smaller average size than its direct competitors and only if there was space in the location for future expansion; this increased Wal-Mart’s flexibility and it helped reduce unnecessary costs, as indicated by Wal-Marts lower proportion of rental expense and its significantly higher sales per square foot. Indeed, this is just one manner in which Wal-Mart, unusually for a service industry, was able to create a real competitive advantage. However, because this advantage is clearly imitable Wal-Mart has been aggressive in maintaining its technological lead.

Walmart stores Inc., started as a small discount store that grew into about 11,695 stores worldwide (Kamboj, & Kalia, 2011). Currently the store is the world’s largest commercial employer, and the second-largest employer in the world behind the Chinese military (Kamboj, & Kalia, 2011). Founded in 1962 by Sam Walton, the company is headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas (Kamboj, & Kalia, 2011). In 2014, the firm recorded204.75 billion dollars in total assets and 485.65 billion dollars in revenue (Kamboj, & Kalia,

This paper will discuss the macro environment of the Kroger Company. Using the PESTEL analysis political, economic condition, sociocultural forces, technological factors, environmental forces, legal and regulatory factors will determine which of the six components of PESTEL are most relevant at present. The five forces model will decide which of the five forces is giving the company its strongest competitive pressure. The VRIN test will determine the company’s sustainable competitive advantage by examining their tangible and intangible resources. Conducting a SWOT analysis will show the company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats will determine how the company should move forward (Bethel University,2017).

With around 5000 retail outlets worldwide, operating in more then a dozen countries and with over US$286 billion in annual sales, Wal-Mart is the top retail chain and number one fortune 500 company in the world. Wal-Mart is the top employer in the U.S. with 1.3 million employees, “the company accounts for 9 cents of every US retail dollar and sells around 20 per cent of the nation’s groceries and pharmaceuticals.” (Times News Network).

PEST is an acronym used for companies with in the political, economic, social and technological views. PEST allows companies to view and observe certain areas that might have been overlooked. The company I will be discussing the PEST analysis is Target. Target is a large scale company and is constantly changing in the industry. The political views of Target is that they must have an unbreakable bond with China due to majority of its products coming from that country. They must be aware and stray away from any conflicts because it can create a negative affect in the operation of Target. Also the company is altered by taxation, tariffs, cost, and trade restrictions especially when they're trying to broden outside the United States. The economic

Wal-Mart is a world-wide active American retail trade company and currently the largest retail company in the world. Beginning in 1962, Wal-Mart has made the transition from a small firm in Arkansas to the largest employer with 3, 800 store units in the United States with record revenues today. But nevertheless, since Wal-Mart launched its online branch, it had to suffer from substantial setbacks from competitors such as Amazon.com or Ebay.

Walmart faced strong entrenched competition in Canada and Europe. In these developed countries, they couldn’t gain critical mass through internal growth, so they had to acquire companies that have been in the market already. They acquired Woolco, a money losing operation, applied many of the American business practices, and within a few years, the Canadian operations were successful. They have 317 stores, and they account for more than 35 percent of the Canadian discount and department store market. In Europe, Walmart entered Germany by acquiring the Wertkauf hypermarket chain in 1998 and entered the UK by acquiring the 229-store ASDA group. They the leader and are now losing ground to Tesco. A major problem for Walmart in the European market is overexpansion. Accompanied with the famous “Always low prices” approach, they met large resistance from the competition and regulators. Large price wars began because Walmart was accused of underselling the competition. They struggled to build a strong competitive base in German losing more than $1 billion. They were unable to create a competitive advantage, so they sold their operations to a competitor, Metro. They also faced problems in Korea, so

Since 1962 and the beginning of the discount retailer market Wal-Mart has been ahead of the retail game. By 1967 there were 24 Wal-Marts that had grossed 12.6 million dollars. In just 7 years Wal-mart had spread into 9 states. By 1979 Wal-Mart was the fastest store to reach a billion dollars in sales. In 2005 Wal-Mart has 3,800 domestic stores along with 3,800 stores internationally, and had made over 312 billion dollars. As you can see the Wal-Mart empire has grown monumentally. To move into this segment of the market would be tough.

Wal-Mart is the highest revenue generating organisation in the world (Forbes, 2014). According to WalMart’s annual report (2014), the company owns 6,100 stores in 27 countries. It employees 2.2 million

Posting net sales of $43.9 billion in 1991, Wal-Mart claimed the title of world’s largest retailer.

In the United States of America "fortune" magazine published 2011 Annual Global Fortune 500 rankings, WAL-MART, In the global top 500 enterprises once again won the top，with the business income is 421849 dollar, annual profit of 16389 million dollar. Also worth noting is, in March ten before the other enterprises in the vast majority of oil or electric power resource monopoly enterprises. Then, as a major in retail industry, WAL-MART 's tremendous achievements stunning!