External/Internal Factors

External/Internal Factors

Walmart is a multi-billion dollar organization that began in 1962 with founder Sam Walton and his wife Helen putting up 95 percent of the capital to open one store in Rogers, Arkansas. The company includes Sam’s Club, a member-only warehouse store that has grown to 8,650 locations in 15 countries and employs more than two million employees (Walmart, 2010). A company cannot become as large as Walmart without facing internal and external factors such as globalization, diversity, ethical issues, changing technology, and the introduction of E-business.

Globalization

Globalization and the four functions of management go hand in hand. When a business wants to make an expansion, the company has to take into consideration the market and the countries that they want to target. When Walmart decided to expand their company base around the world and through the Internet, they had to look at the population that they were going to affect and what they needed to do to draw them in. Walmart has expanded its operation to 15 countries, Mexico, United Kingdom, Japan, India, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, South Africa, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Costa Rica. Walmart works with each countries management strategically to create a store format that is appropriate for each country. The way that the American population can go and spend, is not the same way that the population in poorer countries can. Countries that have a poorer demographic cannot afford to purchase products at the price that Americans can.

Meeting the needs of the Latino consumer is different from meeting the needs of the American consumer. They use different spices and flour to make the staple food that they eat every day. Walmart met that need by bringing in vendors that catered to the Latino community. They worked closely with these vendors and listened to the voice that they had to make sure that the Latino consumer was taken care of....