Wal-Mart External Environment

General environment consists of seven dimensions in the broader society that affects everyone in an industry and the companies. The seven general environment factors affecting Wal-Mart are listed below:

i. Demographic

* Age structure: There is a trend that the population in America is increasingly aging throughout the years. For example, the number of U.S. population who aged 65 and above are estimated to grow from approximately 35 million in 2000 (12.4 percent of total U.S. population in 2000) to 86.7 million by 2050 (20.7 percent of estimated U.S. population by 2050).

* There is also a trend that the workforce in U.S. is becoming more diverse in term of ethnicity and gender. The whites/non-Hispanics comprised of 76 percent of the workforce in 1995 but in 2020, it is estimated to decline to 68 percent. The number of U.S. women labor force that over the age of 16 years old are increasingly larger over the years.

* Besides, the rich nations in America are getting richer while the poor nations are getting poorer. There is bifurcation in income distribution due to the rising returns to education in U.S.

ii. Economic

iii. Political/legal

iv. Sociocultural

v. Technological

The development of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) has plays an important role in retail industry for the next evolution of supply chain management. This RFID can helps the retailers to track inventory locations, store shelving status, packages en-route to and from suppliers, warehouses, shelves and even shoplifting. The RFID chips also can hold more information and fit into different shapes and sizes. Currently, RFID is the technology that Wal-Mart is pursuing now in order to replace the barcode system and achieve the benefits offer by RFID technology. Besides, the increasing growths of electronic commerce and broadband access have also affected the retail industry. Since the consumers now are tend to use the Web for getting information, entertainment, and...