Lauren Klaassen

MGT 499
M-W 2:00-3:15
09/04/19
The Evolution of Wal-Mart
Question 1)
Sam Watson’s original strategic plan was to go into those southern small-town cities
where not many rival companies would be present. He wanted to draw out the civilians to come
to his discount store instead of possibly driving an hour to get to the nearest one. Which may be
in the bigger cities where there is a lot of competition. Wal-Mart was then able to in a way
control those small areas due to forcing out the local retailers with their lower prices. Come to
find out, when the competition came into play and noticed smaller areas could hold a large
discount store, they were too late. Wal-Mart stores had already anticipated rival plans and were
already spreading across America. This gave Wal-Mart a competitive advantage because they
were ahead of the game and nothing was stopping them from slowing down.

Question 2)
Walmart continued to strengthen its competitive advantage over others by improving their
skills and technology. Innovations were being created and shared to boost productivity while still
being able to have low costs for consumers. A unique feature they used was the use of barcodes
when an item got scanned. They were able to monitor and see what specific items consumers
were buying more of an interest in and tailored the inventory to their specific needs. This then
allowed them to not overstock and have unnecessary sales to get rid of products.

Question 3)
Near the 1990’s Wal-Mart was known to be the largest seller of general merchandise in
the United States according to our textbook. The expansion that they decided to flow with
allowed their company to merge into a supercenter which sold groceries and general
merchandise. They were able to create a purchasing power to lower the prices for suppliers.
Which in turn led consumers to the point where it was feasible for almost anyone to buy their
products. Wal-Mart was then able to gain more of a market share which helped heighten between
their suppliers to then lead them to gain competences by constructing their assembly schedules
for sales.

Question 4)
The case that Wal-Mart is encountering limits due to the saturation of the U.S. market and
the limits to growth overseas. Another issue with Wal-Mart running into growth expansions is
the lack of new products and development. Tying in with this is the loss of expansion of growth.
Possibly, Wal-Mart could look into getting exposed to more middle-class areas instead of the
lower southern regions to expand into more markets. They became diversified into the
warehouse district which led them to expand globally out to Mexico. This allowed them to
generate more foreign sales which helped boost their overall value in the company.

Question 5)
After reading and configuring what Wal-Mart’s plans were and how they have evolved
over the years, I can see how their planning and the outset that have set forth seemed to have
worked well for them. Overall as a company, they have expanded, offering customers an array of
products tailored to their likings and offering cheap prices. Back when Sam Watson initially
proposed his idea of getting into small towns to draw out the competitors and get more customers
to go to his stores, I do not think he knew how much they would expand after that. Regardless of
the countries overseas that stopped merging with Wal-Mart, the company still seems to be in
good standing. The nature of strategy development seems to play a key role in any sort of
business. Having a game plan to follow and goals to achieve is a strong suit to follow. Even
though, Wal-Mart now is seeing competitors come closer to being on their heels. A good plan
would be to think of better and brighter ways to keep their customers and how to draw new ones
in.