Case Study Description of Greening Walmart: Progress and Controversy
In 2005, Walmart, the world's largest retailer, launched a sustainability initiative aimed at reducing waste and making the company more environmentally and socially conscious. By 2015, the company had made progress on multiple dimensions: energy efficiency in its stores and its supply chain, lower levels of greenhouse gas emissions, safer products for customers and manufacturers, and better treatment of its workers. The company promoted the idea that its size gave it significant influence in the economy and that if it took steps to operate more sustainably, and demanded its suppliers do the same, this would have an impact on its own bottom line and make the world a better place for everyone. Students can explore whether Walmart is making these changes to improve its battered public image, improve its bottom line, or because it is the right thing to do.
Swot Analysis of "Greening Walmart: Progress and Controversy" written by Rebecca M Henderson, James Weber includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Walmart Bottom facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Greening Walmart: Progress and Controversy case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Ethics, Motivating people, Public relations, Strategy, Sustainability and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Greening Walmart: Progress and Controversy casestudy better are - – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing transportation and logistics costs, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, wage bills are increasing, technology disruption, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
increasing energy prices, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Greening Walmart: Progress and Controversy
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Greening Walmart: Progress and Controversy case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Walmart Bottom, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Walmart Bottom operates in.
According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of the managers use SWOT analysis for various purposes such as – evaluating current scenario, strategic planning, new venture feasibility, personal growth goals, new market entry, Go To market strategies, portfolio management and strategic trade-off assessment, organizational restructuring, etc.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of Greening Walmart: Progress and Controversy can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Greening Walmart: Progress and Controversy case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Walmart Bottom
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Leadership & Managing People field.
4. Making a Leadership & Managing People topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Walmart Bottom
Strengths Greening Walmart: Progress and Controversy | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Walmart Bottom in Greening Walmart: Progress and Controversy Harvard Business Review case study are -
Training and development
– Walmart Bottom has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Greening Walmart: Progress and Controversy Harvard Business Review case study by analyzing – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Walmart Bottom in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Analytics focus
– Walmart Bottom is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the industry. The technology infrastructure suggested by Rebecca M Henderson, James Weber can also help it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
High brand equity
– Walmart Bottom has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Walmart Bottom to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Greening Walmart: Progress and Controversy Harvard Business Review case study comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Walmart Bottom is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Greening Walmart: Progress and Controversy are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Walmart Bottom has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive segment. Secondly the value chain collaborators of the firm in Greening Walmart: Progress and Controversy HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Strong track record of project management
– Walmart Bottom is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– Greening Walmart: Progress and Controversy firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Walmart Bottom to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Walmart Bottom to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of Walmart Bottom
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Walmart Bottom does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Walmart Bottom has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Walmart Bottom in the sector have low bargaining power. Greening Walmart: Progress and Controversy has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Walmart Bottom to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Weaknesses Greening Walmart: Progress and Controversy | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Greening Walmart: Progress and Controversy are -
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Walmart Bottom, firm in the HBR case study Greening Walmart: Progress and Controversy needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Walmart Bottom has some of the most successful products in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. firm in the HBR case study - Greening Walmart: Progress and Controversy should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Greening Walmart: Progress and Controversy, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Leadership & Managing People strategy. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Walmart Bottom has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Walmart Bottom needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Walmart Bottom supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Greening Walmart: Progress and Controversy, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Walmart Bottom vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Greening Walmart: Progress and Controversy has high operating costs in the. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Walmart Bottom 's lucrative customers.
Lack of clear differentiation of Walmart Bottom products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Walmart Bottom needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Need for greater diversity
– Walmart Bottom has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Greening Walmart: Progress and Controversy, it seems that the employees of Walmart Bottom don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Walmart Bottom is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Greening Walmart: Progress and Controversy can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Opportunities Greening Walmart: Progress and Controversy | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities highlighted in the Harvard Business Review case study Greening Walmart: Progress and Controversy are -
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Walmart Bottom can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Walmart Bottom can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Loyalty marketing
– Walmart Bottom has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Walmart Bottom can build a diversified supply chain model across various countries in - South East Asia, India, and other parts of the world. This reconfiguration of global supply chain can help, as suggested in case study, Greening Walmart: Progress and Controversy, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Walmart Bottom to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Leadership & Managing People industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Walmart Bottom can take advantage of these changes in consumer behavior to build a far more efficient business model. For example consumer regular ordering of products can reduce both last mile delivery costs and market penetration costs. Walmart Bottom can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Walmart Bottom can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Walmart Bottom operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Walmart Bottom can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Walmart Bottom has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Walmart Bottom to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Greening Walmart: Progress and Controversy case study. Walmart Bottom can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Walmart Bottom can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Leadership & Managing People industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Walmart Bottom can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Developing new processes and practices
– Walmart Bottom can develop new processes and procedures in Leadership & Managing People industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Walmart Bottom has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in the sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled, as illustrated in the Harvard case study Greening Walmart: Progress and Controversy - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Walmart Bottom to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Threats Greening Walmart: Progress and Controversy External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Greening Walmart: Progress and Controversy are -
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Walmart Bottom needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Walmart Bottom is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Walmart Bottom high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Walmart Bottom has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Walmart Bottom needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Leadership & Managing People sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Walmart Bottom with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Walmart Bottom can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the field.
Regulatory challenges
– Walmart Bottom needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the Leadership & Managing People industry regulations.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Leadership & Managing People field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Walmart Bottom can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Instability in the European markets
– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Walmart Bottom will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
Environmental challenges
– Walmart Bottom needs to have a robust strategy against the disruptions arising from climate change and energy requirements. EU has identified it as key priority area and spending 30% of its 880 billion Euros European post Covid-19 recovery funds on green technology. Walmart Bottom can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
Backlash against dominant players
– US Congress and other legislative arms of the government are getting tough on big business especially technology companies. The digital arm of Walmart Bottom business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Greening Walmart: Progress and Controversy Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers in the HBR case study Greening Walmart: Progress and Controversy needs to zero down on the relative importance of each factor mentioned in the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants.
We can provide the relative importance to each factor by assigning relative weights. Weighted SWOT analysis process is a three stage process –
First stage for doing weighted SWOT analysis of the case study Greening Walmart: Progress and Controversy is to rank the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This will help you to assess the most important strengths and weaknesses of the firm and which one of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the initial lists are marginal and can be left out.
Second stage for conducting weighted SWOT analysis of the Harvard case study Greening Walmart: Progress and Controversy is to give probabilities to the external strategic factors thus better understanding the opportunities and threats arising out of macro environment changes and developments.
Third stage of constructing weighted SWOT analysis of Greening Walmart: Progress and Controversy is to provide strategic recommendations includes – joining likelihood of external strategic factors such as opportunities and threats to the internal strategic factors – strengths and weaknesses. You should start with external factors as they will provide the direction of the overall industry. Secondly by joining probabilities with internal strategic factors can help the company not only strategic fit but also the most probably strategic trade-off that Walmart Bottom needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
