Wal-Mart

[Name of the Institute]

Wal-Mart

Introduction

The name of the company derives from its founder, Sam Walton from (Wal Mart's ton). On 2 July 1962 Sam Walton opened his first Wal-Mart in Rogers (Arkansas), after its first store in 1950, a dime store at Town Square & Nickel town Bentonville, Arkansas had opened (Zellner, Schmidt, Ihlwan, & Dawley, 2001). Ten years later, in 1972, the company went public, which gave Sam Walton the necessary capital for expansion. The big rise only started in 1987 when Wal-Mart opened its first supermarkets under the name “Hypermarket USA”, with a time over the department store average ten times as large retail space (Rock, 2001).

The first store outside the United States opened in 1991 in Polanco in Mexico City. Wal-Mart now dominates much of the U.S. retail industry and with a turnover of 405.6 billion U.S. dollars (2008), the most profitable companies in the world (Zellner, Schmidt, Ihlwan, & Dawley, 2001). The group is also by far the largest private employer in the world with nearly two million employees (2006) (Bianco, 2003). In this paper I will consider a contingency plan for Wal-Mart to expand its business in the Asian market. The country that the company has focused for its business expansion is Japan. Japanese retail market has evolved over the years. However, there are a number of problem for Wal-Mart to establish workable strategies to penetrate in the market. The biggest problem faced by the company is to adjust in the Japanese culture.

Objectives

Wal-Mart's mission is set to be the best retail store with a large assortment of high quality and low prices both in Japan. Following are some of the objectives of the company.

Wal-Mart is a group of dedicated people and common workers have come together to accomplish extraordinary things. They are people of different races, cultures, etc. (Lohr, 2003).

Want customers to believe the pricing policy of Wal-Mart and always find the lowest prices with excellent service.

New ideas and goals make Wal-Mart reaches further than ever before. It's about finding new and innovative ways to break our barriers and constantly improving (Zellner, 2001).

Functional Tactic

Wal-Mart's rational for moving in Japan was twofold; on one hand, the company wanted to improve its business in terms of volume and demand, secondly, it wanted to enter into Asian market through Asian Giants Japan. The objectives of Wal-Mart are appropriate as international expansion is the major strategy of most of the progressive companies. Similarly, many companies try to enter and establish in one major market, in a region, and from there on, companies gradually expand within a region. Wal-Mart always strives to “provide quality products at an everyday low price and with extended customer service”. In order to achieve this, they have adopted a series of strategies which range from loyalty programs for customers to e-tailing. Some of the major strategies include building divisions, which include: smaller stores built in small communities with a population of less than 5000 people; this strategy allows Wal-Mart to give special attention to ...