Contents1.Overview of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. background (3)2.Four global business categories of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc (3)3.The current main competitors to Wal-Mart Stores, Inc (4)4.The e-commerce related advantages of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc........... . (6)5.The diagram of logistics and supply chain system of Wal-Mart Stores,Inc................................................................................ . (7)6.The e-commerce related disadvantages of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc......... .. (7)7.In order to maintain or grow the leadership, what improvements shouldbe taken by Wal-Mart Stores, Inc (8)8.The possible difficulties that Wal-Malt stores may face during the processof improvement................................................................ . (9)9.Alternative actions (if any) if you were the CEO of one of Wal-Mart’scompetitors (9)10.References (10)1.Overview of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. backgroundWal-Mart Stores Inc. was founded by American retail legend Mr. Sam Walton in Arkansas in 1962. Over forty-year period, it has become the world’s largest private employer and retailer, on the top of the Fortune 500 list and has been among the most valuable brands for many years.Today, with over 2.1 million employees worldwide, Wal-Mart operates more than 8,000 units in 15 countries under 53 different brands, and serves more than 200 million customers per week. Wal-Mart had $405 billion in annual sales in fiscal year 2010 (FYE10, Feb. 1, 2009 to Jan. 31, 2010). The charitable giving numbers including cash and in-kind gifts valued more than $512 million in FYE10, a 20% increase over the previous year’s giving. In 2010, Wal-Mart regained the seat at the top of the Fortune 500, and ranked first among retailers in Fortune Magazine’s 2010 Most Admired Companies survey.Wal-Mart follows the three core values of “respect for the individual, service to the custome r, and striving for excellence”. It is well known that the classical management quotations: “The first item is that customers are right forever. The second item is that please consult the first item if customers are wrong.”2.Four global business categories of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.Wal-Mart Super-CenterWal-Mart designed the super-center concept to save customers time and money, and also offer a unique shopping experience based on the Wal-Mart philosophy of "Every Day Low Prices".SAM'S CLUBSAM'S CLUB is a low-cost members-only warehouse club named after the founder of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. - Sam Walton. The first SAM'S CLUB was founded in 1983. Acting like a purchasing agent for its members, SAM'S CLUB offers exceptional value on famous-brand merchandise at "member only" prices for bothbusiness and personal use. The First SAM'S CLUB was opened in April in Midwest City, Oklahoma in 1983.Wal-Mart StoresEvery customer who purchases in Wal-Mart stores can accept the welcome and greeting full of passion at the gate of stores. The commodities produced locally are usually in sales in Wal-Mart stores and on display automatically. In addition, the employees of Wal-Mart are entitled to decide who can achieve the funds donated by them.Wal-Mart Neighborhood MarketThe fourth kind is “neighborhood market”, which is a little smaller than the shopping plaza. It is usually set up in the community, and meets the community’s basic requirements, different from other convenient stores, it will also provide fresh products.3.The current main competitors to Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.The strongest competitors which Wal-Mart meets are Carrefour in France and Tesco in UK. These three retail giants have their own business strategies and business features. Now we will analyze advantages and disadvantages of Carrefour and Tesco.(1) Carrefour was found in 1959, which is the pioneer of the hype-market sector, the first largest retailer in Europe, the second largest international retail chains corporation in the world. At present, it owns over 11,000 operation retail units and its business area extends over 30 countries and districts all over the world. The enterprise leads the markets mainly with three business formats: hype-market sector, supermarkets and discount stores.The gap between Carrefour and Wal-Mart is as following:a.Carrefour prefers the commercial centers or resident centers as its new store siteand also highlights the dependence to commercial circle.b.Carrefour advocates everyday low prices, but it is actually a Hi-Low price strategy.The commodities Customers always purchase and compare which are in lowprices while the prices of the rest are generally higher than that in Wal-Mart.c.Carrefour attempts a variety of methods to adapt to different demands fromdifferent consuming groups. However, Wal-Mart is always defeated by Carrefour in the aspects to acceptance of customers and comfort due to a lack of theconformity with region culture and personality differences.d.The disadvantages of Carrefour compared with Wal-Mart: the performance ofsupply chain is inferior and the effective use of economy of scale is unavailable.(2) Tesco was found in 1932, which is the largest retail enterprise in Britain and also one of three largest retailers in the world. Apart from 691 local super shopping centers in UK, forty-two percent of the company’s stores distribute in the middle of Europe and each country of Southeast Asia and it is an international supermarket giant. In two respects, it mainly reflects the major competitive strength of Tesco.a.Tesco in Britain has a variety of business forms that has more strong adaptation asthe following five types:Tesco Extra:Tesco Extra where you can buy all products on sale in supermarket is a large warehouse store of Tesco.Tesco store:Tesco store is standard supermarket form and mainly sells foods and a few non-food commodities. It is the most common store of Tesco and the main source of revenue.Tesco Metro:Tesco Metro whose scale is between that of Tesco store and that of Tesco Express is the shops in the form, which is generally located in the city center or main streets.Tesco Express:Tesco Express is small-scale shop which mainly sells food and widely distributes in the busing urban sectors or shopping centers. By in February 2006, the number of Tesco Express throughout Britain had exceeded 650.One Stop:One Stop is the unique store which did not use the name “Tesco” and the small-scale store. They are always some small retailers that are taken over byTesco, however, they can still retain their original names.b. Tesco is good at database marketing. It can divide tens of millions of customers into eighty categories of customer groups such as young students, housewivesand so forth according to the features of customers such as physic, psychology, behavior and so on by constructing the EDMSYS (Email Direct Mall System). The skilful use of the data makes it achieve the irreplaceably competitive advantages.4.The e-commerce related advantages of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.(1) Wal-Mart introduced the company's e-commerce website in July 1996.The integrated high technology and the traditional retailing business strengths.(2) In 1999,Wal-Mart cooperated with AOL .AOL supplied the methods of Internet access service at low cost .In addition, AOL online shopping website also took an access to linking , which objectively made 19 millions users of AOL become the potential users of , to further enlarge the community of online consumers.(3) In January 2000, Wal-Mart collaborated with the venture capital firm Accel Partners to scrip online retailing department out from the company as a new independent Internet firm named which would be unrestricted to the control of the parent company in the development and established its own brand image.(4) Wal-Mart built an e-commerce distributing centre to improve the level of online business services to customers and meet the product distributing demands.(5) High standardization of administration, scientific of business idea. All managements of Wal-Mart are completed through information technology. All the employees must refer to the orders of computers to work and have never done anything casually.(6) The advanced logistics and supply chain management system. The strong electronic communication network formed on the basis of the dedicated satellite andlots of large computer servers administers and optimizes the distribution centers, chains, warehouses, cargo trucks and partners of Wal-Mart all over the world effectively and intensively. Details in diagram 5.1.(7) High quality of client resource, price and brand strengths.5.The diagram of logistics and supply chain system of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.Diagram 5.1 Logistics and Supply Chain System of Wal-Mart Stores6.The e-commerce related disadvantages of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.(1) High cost of technology and management. The investment in the construction of information systems and constant maintenance and upgrade later must bring higher cost of technology and management.(2) The strength of traditional markets overtakes that of online markets. It is more difficult to quickly transfer the concentration of customers on traditional markets to the online markets.(3) The construction of the new ecommerce site to some extent must affect the image of the brand which had been established in the minds of customers before. Particularly in the time that the customer service of the new company spun off can not be compared with that of the parent company.(4) It is quite difficult to enter the ecommerce of different countries and regions and adapt to it.(5) A lack of distinguishing and irreplaceable advantages compared with competitors. Taking China for example, Carrefour has led the online markets in Beijing rather than Wal-Mart.7.In order to maintain or grow the market leadership, what improvementsshould be taken by Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.(1) Focusing on local business. When Wal-Mart enters the new market in a country, it must do the detailed market research so as to adapt to the economic circumstance of different countries and the competition of the counterparts.(2) Establishing own local system of logistics and realizing the perfect butt between ecommerce and logistics. Instead, collaborating with third-party contract logistics companies.(3) Developing database marketing by learning about Tesco and carrying out the detailed customer segmentation. Recommending commodities to customers according to their consumption habits and conducting deep mining of client relation and maintaining it.(4) Improving public image and increasing the soft power. There is common criticism outside to Wal-Mart. You can refer to the documentary called “Wal-Mart: Low Prices, High Costs”. Wal-Mart should struggle to improve its public image and increase the strength of software by international procurement, products supply, environmental measures, trade subsidies, charities and labor welfare.(5) Wal-Mart should build the sustainable development plan. Apart from being accustomed to the low carbon trend and establishing the energy-saving andeco-friendly shopping center, it still needs to enhance the implementation of the project named “Agriculture Super Butt”. Which can not only raise the farmers’revenue but also bring the fresh , safe, delicious, affordable and eco-friendly agricultural products to Chinese consumers.8.The possible difficulties generated during the process of improvement.(1) The increase of business cost. It has some conflicts with Wal-Mart’s saving idea and requires the high class of Wal-Mart to think carefully.(2) Wal-Mart probably meets the high threshold the rivals have set. It needs more efforts to climb this threshold.(3) It is possible that Wal-Mart meets the barrier that government policy forms. Any markets can be confronted with it, no matter traditional markets or online markets.9.Alternative actions if I were the CEO of one of Wal-Malt’s competitors.If we stand in the seats of Wal-Mart’s competitors, I suggest the following measures we can take.First of all, considering that the spread of the Wal-mart’s VIP system is not so satisfying and the strength of the conducting is kind of lacking, more effective system should be established and executed. The admission for applying here is allowed to take the recent home-telephone bill. According to the phone number, there is no need for you to take the VIP card and you will just speak of your number stored in our database instead of that of the card. Moreover,we can send the advertisements to youruseful address gained from the bill to avoid wasting.Secondly, the pre-investigatement is of the great importance. Wal-Mart has aggressively to expand outside of the US, opening stores and making acquisitions in North American, Mexico, European and Asia .Mexico, Canada, and the UK are great success stories. Germany has been problematic while Indonesia was an outright failure. Look at the Wal-Mart and Carrefour at Heifei. As we all know, Carrefour is the first company march into China and it has achieved a significant success. The Carrefour at the Sanlian District in Hefei is the most profitable all over the world. While Wal-Mart do esn’t get enough reward is just because the latency of occupying the market. Therefore, research should be done considerate and suitable to that country.Thirdly, business-assosiation system would be developed .Meanwhile, the protection of the system band should be applied as soon as possible. They can be advertised and linked on our website. Furthermore, the record of the someone’s comsuption in those stores would be remarked to the database of our company. In that case, the customer can conveniently use the scores to exchange some goods on our mall-online without going out. What’s more, exchanging the scores to the money can effectively prevent people from the fear of unsafe online payment.10.ReferencesBaidu Encyclopedia /view/9389.htmWikipedia /zh-cn/%E6%B2%83%E5%B0%94%E7%8E%9B Wal-Mart China Website /People’s Net /GB/54849/59580/5767354.html Book——“Wal-Mart Retail Strategy” Written by Ruizhi, Published by Nanfang Daily Press 1st, June 2006Baidu Library——“Wal-Mart Case Analysis”Baidu Library——“Wal-Mart Plannig a Major E-life”Baidu Library——“Wal-Mart Logistics and Supply Chain Management”Baidu Library——“Wal-Mart Supply Chain Mainly Consists of Four Parts”Documentary——“Wal-Mart: Low Prices, High Costs”- 11 -。