I’m afraid there is a big issue with this submission, and that is that it is not always focused on an analysis

of the industry, but instead on Walmart. To improve this, look at the industry. I think you have defined
that explicitly in the overview, but the other sections are not consistent. One section actually defines the
industry as Walmart, which makes no sense. Some sections stick to retail and others don't, but is this
retail, big box retail, discount retail. You state at one point it is the latter, but you exclude important
competitors like Dollar Stores and Dollar General from your analysis. You should be consistent as to how
the industry is defined, i.e. the unit of analysis. Also note, if you define it too narrowly, you can miss
things. 
 
Overall, this submission does not demonstrate that the industry was adequately researched. You list a
lot of sources, but I think you’d find it much more informative and efficient if you look at the type of
industry reports that can really help with this analysis. Look at the Industry Reports (that is attached 44-
45 Retail Trade in the US) as a reference on the Industry. These reports discuss much of the data and
provide analysis that are needed in an industry analysis. Take advantage of that. The will give you data
and statistics and even discuss some analysis similar to what you are required to report in your analysis.
See specific comments below. 
 
Appendix B: Pestle Analysis – under political factors I’m surprised you didn’t discuss the internet and

online shopping

 
Appendix C: Industry Structure Analysis – this section misses the mark, as it should be

analyzing the industry and not just Walmart. This is important, as your analysis misses

important aspects of the retail industry. Like Bargaining Power of Buyers; it isn’t low, its

high. Buyers can easily switch to a different retailer or grocery store, which mean that

these stores work hard to try to find ways to impose switching costs and rewards systems,

like they do when they add in loyalty card of offering fuel perks. Revisit this section.

 
Appendix D: Industry groups – WalMart is NOT an industry. The industry, as you

defined it in the overview, is the discount retail industry. So how can you graph and then

group the competitors in this industry so as to demonstrate who is really competing with

the same strategy? Your mapping of the competitors in your graph doesn’t do this, in part

because you mapped them without combining them by strategy, and your variables are

probably not suitable for this exercise. Price/quality, which can be confusing as it can

play out as high/high, high/low, low/low and low/high, won’t say a lot for an industry if

you’re defining it as the discount retail industry. How about bricks versus clicks, i.e.

Dollar Stores and Dollar General (who you omitted) versus Walmart versus Amazon?

Target demographic can also be interesting in this industry.

 
Appendix E: Industry Key Success Factors – This section misses the mark, as it looks at

Walmart rather than the industry. Revisit this section to identify the CSFs for the

industry, which would start by identifying what is important to customers and what does

it take to survive the competition. Basic KSFs in retail include things like sales per square

foot, high traffic areas, adequate parking, etc. They are general to all competitors.

Revisiting this report will help you in developing the next deliverables, and help your grade in the long
run.