Introduction
Being one of the world´s largest retailers, Walmart is operating in more than 27 countries with around 2.2 million employees. As a giant retailer, Walmart is offering a wide range of different products and has a broad customer base. Accordingly, the company is constantly required to carefully weigh up risks and opportunities through intensive decision-making processes. A closer look at Walmart´s operation management reveals that Walmart´s immense success as well as its decline in performance in recent years can be to great extend attributed to both efficiencies and inefficiencies of its supply chain.
In this report, the supply chain strategy of Walmart and the associated challenges, Walmart faces at different stages in its supply chain will be analysed with the purpose of evaluating the current supply chain and advising the company on improving its supply chain management in the best possible way. Firstly, some background information on the company´s profile will be provided. Secondly, a detailed description of general business process will be given in an attempt to depict Walmart´s approach and core competencies from which it derives its strengths. Following, Walmart´s flow of supply chain, along with supply chain challenges the company faces, will be elaborated on. …show more content…
Core competencies are considered to be the main strengths and depict strategic advantages of a business. Core competencies are the combination of pooled knowledge and technical capacities that allow a business to be competitive in the marketplace. Basically, a core competency should enable a company to expand into new end markets as well as provide a significant benefit to customers. Consequently, core competencies are rather difficult to replicate (Investopedia, 2015). In the case of Walmart, the company´s main core competencies are culture, low cost operations and highly optimized
Being one of the world´s largest retailers, Walmart is operating in more than 27 countries with around 2.2 million employees. As a giant retailer, Walmart is offering a wide range of different products and has a broad customer base. Accordingly, the company is constantly required to carefully weigh up risks and opportunities through intensive decision-making processes. A closer look at Walmart´s operation management reveals that Walmart´s immense success as well as its decline in performance in recent years can be to great extend attributed to both efficiencies and inefficiencies of its supply chain.
In this report, the supply chain strategy of Walmart and the associated challenges, Walmart faces at different stages in its supply chain will be analysed with the purpose of evaluating the current supply chain and advising the company on improving its supply chain management in the best possible way. Firstly, some background information on the company´s profile will be provided. Secondly, a detailed description of general business process will be given in an attempt to depict Walmart´s approach and core competencies from which it derives its strengths. Following, Walmart´s flow of supply chain, along with supply chain challenges the company faces, will be elaborated on. …show more content…
Core competencies are considered to be the main strengths and depict strategic advantages of a business. Core competencies are the combination of pooled knowledge and technical capacities that allow a business to be competitive in the marketplace. Basically, a core competency should enable a company to expand into new end markets as well as provide a significant benefit to customers. Consequently, core competencies are rather difficult to replicate (Investopedia, 2015). In the case of Walmart, the company´s main core competencies are culture, low cost operations and highly optimized