MARKETING

Role of Strategy in Wal-Mart

Role of Strategy in Wal-Mart

Background Context to Strategy

When executives have to devise strategies for their organizations, an external check on the conditions and competitors is highly significant. The intricacies of the market need to be examined in a comprehensive manner since it can change within seconds. The market conditions have a huge bearing on the aspect of strategy formulation and implementation. On the other hand, a critical check on the competitor's practices also has a huge role in the strategic decision making since the competitor's practices would shape a guideline for the organization to follow. It has been observed that many organizations failed to accomplish their organizational goals just because they failed to strategize (Gamble, Thompson, & Peteraf, 2013).

With a comprehensive analysis of the competitor's activities, the organization is in a position to successfully build and enhance its competitive advantage. The core competency of an organization can only be enhanced if it successfully establishes a strategic position in the context of its organizational environment. A distinctive advantage can only be enjoyed by organizations in the scenario where they successfully have adequate resources in place for outperforming their competitors. By carefully studying the pros and cons of their competitors, organizations have an accurate baseline for successfully implementing their strategic decisions (Klingebiel, & De Meyer, 2013).

Organizations usually look to differentiate themselves on the basis of offering economical costs or offering high quality products with a premium. Customers look for products that are offered on a low cost as compared to other organizations. As a result, many organizations look to incorporate a low cost model for attracting their customers while their competitors use an exorbitantly priced model. The strategic formulation cannot be comprehended without aligning appropriate resources to the strategic decision making. The essence of strategic decision making lies in future oriented thinking and thus the organization has to foresee and predict in an accurate manner. The managers responsible for strategic decision making must make use of the organization's distinct value chain since it has a huge role to play in the strategic decision making. In addition, different strategies must be devised for the different departments according to their performance. There might be some departments that require a complete overhaul and there will also be departments that require minor strategic positioning. Different strategic decisions for human resource, marketing, production and finance must be taken appropriately. In addition, the different strategies pertaining to financial and budgeting aspects must be devised.

There is a huge role of organizational structure on the aspect of strategic decision making since the structure takes into account the major intricacies in the context of the organization. We have already discussed the role environment plays in strategic decision making. Structure is one of the foremost aspects in strategic decision making since the organizational performance in a large part depends on its behavior. As a result, while devising strategies, managers must look for factors like suppliers, barriers to entry, customers and other ...