Introduction

The report illustrates the view of the business from a consultancypoint of view. Itentails the functioning of Walmart in the markets from its imitation.Since from the initiation, underthe leadership of Sam, the company adopted the cost-leadership strategy and offered the model of “everyday low prices” in US and Canada. Such model gained immense popularity and thus raised the brandawareness which ultimatelyled to building strongbrandimage in the market.

Walmart from its inceptionfocused on its supply chain efficiency to gain competitive edge in the market. It developed the models such as stock keeping units and cross dockings to reduce inventory costand toincrease the effectiveness of business in targeted markets. Such adoption of model allowed it to penetrate markets efficiently, depending on the fundamental factor of cost leadership.

In addition, the company also incorporated technology such as point of saletechnique to managethe inventory and to locate the shelfspaceaccordingly with right running product.Although, the company has gained enough brand loyaltyandbrand equity in the market, three problems are threatening the business sustainability of Walmart.Such issues include (Emergence of new business models-convenience stores (2) Ecommerce Giants-Amazon and (3) Imitation of the supply chains strategy of Walmart by other business.

The report is hence designed to highlight those issues and outline the roles of in bringing theright outcomes for company through right and adequate number of deliverables.

Keywords: Competitive Edge, Supply chain

Walmart Supply Chain Harvard Case Solution & Analysis

Background

Walmart is one of the world’s largest brick and plasterretailer. Its revenue increased to $67 billion in 1993 from $16 billion in 1987. The founder of the company was Sam Walton who first opened a retail shop by the name of Ben Franklin franchise store in 1945. Around the year 1994, Walmart had around 1,953 overall stores in U.S. One of the key strategies for the Walmart distribution is it would establish its retail stores in low population rural areas where its competitor would ignore building stores.

Over the period of time, the company increased in size and pursued the market penetration strategy to capture big market share in US. Till now Walmart has 11695 stores and clubs in more than 28 countries. The company has the world’s largest revenues of $480 billion with employee base of 2.3 million. The company has substantial market share and sales revenues from the US market and accounts.

Since from the initiation of the Walmart business, the company focused on its supply chain functions to manage its cost of operations and to offer price cutting strategy products in the market. In doing so, the company focused on backward integration and forward integration as well so to have a strong control over the operation and organizational function.

Walmart in initiating its smart and well-integrated business operations opened up its own distribution centers and applied the smart supply chain management techniques such as POS and SASS management to manage the inventory.Such techniques and expertise allowed WALMART to manage the inventory cost and cost stacked up into the inventory. (Sehgal, 2014)

It has been Walmart that initiated the stock keeping..............

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