Walmart I) What Major Threats Organization\'s Ability

¶ … WALMART i) What major threats organization's ability serve stakeholders make mission a reality? ii) What major opportunities improve organization's ability meet make vision ? Please write pages, give, issue creatively.

Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart is one of the largest corporations at the global scale, and the supreme leader of the retail industry within the United States. Throughout its existence, the company has been faced with fierce criticism regarding the working conditions of its staffs or the negative impact upon the environments in which it operates (Copeland and Labuski, 2013). Despite these however, the company remains highly profitable and remains true to its original mission of saving people money so that they can live better (Website of Wal-Mart, 2013).

Aside from the core purpose of saving people money, the organization's mission has also been extended to include an organizational commitment to "work together" in order to "lower the cost of living for everyone… we'll give the world an opportunity to see what it's like to save and have a better life" (Farfan).

In attaining this mission and serving the interests of its various stakeholder categories (employees, customers, business partners, governmental and non-governmental institutions, the general public and so on), the company faces a series of challenges, as well as opportunities. At the level of the threats to attaining the mission, these commonly include the high degrees of competition, the global economic recession or by the negative image of the company.

First off, Wal-Mart is the largest retailer in the United States and it has established this leading position by creating economies of scale and implementing a low retail price. This model has nevertheless been adopted by other retailers within the United States, as well as outside the country. This virtually means that the company's target to provide the lowest price possible is matched by similar efforts by other retailers.

Within the international market place, this challenge is even more so severe, since there are even more retailers. Additionally, the local retailers are already accustomed to the local industry and market place, and are less sensitive to cultural differences. In the case of Wal-Mart, its strategy for global expansion has been an unsuccessful one due to the company's inability to adapt to the features of the local market. The most eloquent example in this sense is represented by the failure in Germany, where the enthusiastic model was applied to a reserved people; where the managers refused to speak in German and where the competition in retail was intense (Knorr and Arndt, 2003).

Another threat to attaining the organizational mission is represented by the negative perception the company has within the market place. Wal-Mart is as such perceived as an employer that does not respect its staff members, or its customers. The employees are asked to put in long hours, they are over worked and underpaid, whereas the customers are often presented with products of a low quality, as well as poor services (Copeland and Labuski, 2013). With such a negative image, the company might find it difficult to attract customers, yet this issue is easily overcome due to the existence of price sensitive consumers, which still pursue the company, regardless of its reputation. Evidence of this stand the increasing revenues and profits of the corporation, which continue to thrive despite the economic crisis.

This brings one to the final threat for Wal-Mart, namely the recession, which creates more price sensitive consumers, for which the low retail price implemented by Wal-Mart is still insufficient to cover for their basic needs. In such a setting, the company is continually forced to seek new methods of lowering prices, and is still unable to help those people save money and live better.

Despite these threats to attaining its pre-established mission, the company is also presented with the possibility of pursuing its mission by launching its services into emergent markets, as well as increasing its reach of customers through online sales. In terms of the emergent markets, the company could open new stores across the globe, and present the local customers with the possibility of buying the cost effective Wal-Mart products. This strategy is supported by the fact that the disposable incomes in emergent countries increase, but is limited by the additional logistics complexities which arise from expanding global operations, as well as the previously mentioned challenge of adapting to local cultures.

At the technological level, it is noted that the IT&C community continually evolves and creates new innovations, among which a highly notable one is represented by online sales. This would allow the company to further save customers' money by eliminating the need to spend time and money on a trip to the store; the customers would as such simply pick the items they desire from the comfort of their own home, and would have the items delivered to the doorstep, without further efforts.