Internal Analysis of Walmart: Strengths, Weaknesses & Strategy
This paper presents an internal analysis of the Walmart Corporation, evaluating the retail giant's strategic capabilities, core competencies, and market position through a VRIN framework (Value, Rarity, Inimitability, Non-Substitutability). The analysis examines Walmart's extensive resource base, its mastery of supply chain management, and its ability to deliver consistently low prices to consumers. It also addresses significant weaknesses, particularly Walmart's record on labor rights, sweatshop conditions in developing-country supplier factories, and environmental concerns. The paper concludes that while Walmart's economic dominance remains formidable, the company must undertake meaningful internal reforms to align with evolving international legal and ethical standards.
- Introduction: Overview of Walmart's dual reputation and analysis scope
- Strategic Capabilities: Resources and Competencies: Walmart's resource base, workforce, and cost-control competency
- VRIN Analysis: Value, rarity, inimitability, and non-substitutability examined
- Strengths and Weaknesses: Supply chain strengths versus labor and human rights failures
- Conclusion: Economic latitude as foundation for ethical reform
✍️ How to write this paper — guide, tools & examples ▾
What makes this paper effective
- The paper balances praise and criticism evenly, acknowledging Walmart's genuine competitive strengths before turning to its ethical and legal vulnerabilities — giving the analysis credibility.
- It grounds abstract strategic frameworks (VRIN, value chain) in concrete evidence, including revenue figures, supplier interviews, and direct quotes from corporate sources.
- The conclusion ties the internal analysis back to a forward-looking recommendation, showing how Walmart's economic latitude could fund reform rather than merely cataloguing problems.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates the effective use of the VRIN framework as a structured analytical lens. Rather than simply listing company facts, the student applies each VRIN criterion — Value, Rarity, Inimitability, Non-Substitutability — as a distinct analytical category, using cited evidence to populate each. This shows how theoretical frameworks can organize business intelligence into a coherent strategic argument.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a framing introduction that acknowledges Walmart's dual reputation, then moves through two preparatory sections (resources and competencies) before entering the core VRIN analysis. A strengths-and-weaknesses section follows, providing evaluative depth beyond the VRIN criteria. The brief conclusion synthesizes the findings into a normative recommendation. This five-part structure — context, capabilities, framework analysis, evaluation, synthesis — is a reliable model for business case papers.
Introduction
The Walmart Corporation is among the most successful, recognizable, and well-known brand names in the world. The chain of retail stores is associated with low prices, convenient one-stop shopping, and geographically pervasive accessibility. However, the retail chain is also frequently associated with a poor record on labor rights, negative environmental performance, destructive community orientation, abuse of human rights in its developing-world production operations, distribution of low-grade products, and a general strategy of stifling local business enterprises and devastating local economies.
The result is a mixed outlook for Walmart, which will certainly continue to enjoy some level of dominance in U.S. and global retail markets but which must also work to make internal organizational changes that can improve its reputation and its compliance with expectations regarding the environment, human rights, labor, and community citizenship. The internal analysis conducted below assesses various dimensions of Walmart's corporate policies, market orientation, and operational practices, balancing consideration of both the positive and negative conditions that comprise the retail giant's identity.
Strategic Capabilities: Resources and Competencies
Resources
With respect to the resources at its disposal, Walmart is easily among the most successful firms in the world. The real estate, operational, transport, and monetary resources claimed by Walmart are substantial. According to Chandran (2003), the retail chain reported revenues of $219.81 billion in 2002. This also translated, at that juncture, to ownership of over 3,500 Walmart stores, Walmart Supercenters, and Sam's Clubs in the United States and an additional 1,170 locations outside the U.S. (Chandran, p. 2). The company also maintained a highly visited e-commerce operation at walmart.com. (Chandran, p. 2). Chandran further reported that Walmart carried roughly 1.28 million employees on its global payroll and that its ownership of its own trucking fleet, distribution centers, and warehouses, as well as its close partnerships with suppliers in developing countries, made it one of the most pervasive firms in the global retail business (Chandran, p. 4).
Competencies
One of Walmart's core competencies is its capacity to control costs for the consumer. The result is a relative market singularity for the firm, which is therefore capable of expanding rapidly and maintaining massive retail locations across income areas of wide variance. In particular, Walmart has made customer-loyalty inroads with lower- and lower-middle-class socioeconomic demographics that are the most penetrating in the retail industry. This is reflected in the company's own stated orientation: "Our commitment to price leadership helped them save money when they needed it the most, which drove significant increases in store traffic. More people shopped at Walmart U.S. this year than ever before. More customers also shopped online during the year and their use of our Site to Store® free delivery service led to a record year for sales with this program." (Walmart, 2010, p. 1).
References
Banker, S. (2010). The Walmart sustainability value chain. Logistics Viewpoints.
Blanchard, C. (2008). Adding value to service providers: Benchmarking Walmart. Benchmarking: An International Journal, 15(2), 166–177.
Chandran, P. M. (2003). Walmart's supply chain management practices. ICFAI Center for Management Research.
Gogoi, P. (2008). Walmart supplier accused of sweatshop conditions. BusinessWeek.
Walmart. (2010). 2009 annual report. Walmartstores.com.
Create your account
Always verify citation format against your institution’s current style guide requirements.