Walmart

Abstract

Business today takes place on a multinational scale crossing cultural and country boundaries. Companies are no longer doing business at a single physical location; instead they are now conducting business virtually. Wal-Mart has started a new branch called Wal-Mart Labs. Wal-Mart Labs has been tasked with the assignment to create a phone application to promote sales and Wal-Mart merchandise. Wal-Mart Labs opened a secondary headquarters in Bangalore, India to partner with their headquarters in San Bruno, California. This new location opened the need for multicultural geographically distributed virtual teams (MCGDVT) and also began the discussion about challenges that this team may face and explore possible solutions. These two locations have different cultural values, cultural norms, work ethics, trust and distance. Team building activities and employee exchange opportunities can address these problems. It is also suggested that members of the California team travel to the Bangalore and vise versa. These are some of the ways that can help overcome the challenges and limitations of Wal-Mart Labs virtual teams.

Introduction

Much of today’s business takes place on a multinational scale with people interacting across cultural boundaries. Recently business has changed its marketplace. Instead of occurring in a physical location business is now largely conducted electronically through the use of the Internet. E-commerce is still a nebulous topic and many companies are still experimenting to find the best way to use electronic business tools to their advantage.

Wal-Mart Labs

Many companies use the global market to reduce costs, none of which is more iconic than Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart uses its reach across the planet to provide products at significantly discounted prices (Fishman, 2006). Wal-Mart has expanded into the market of pure e-commerce through their division, Wal-Mart Lab. The new division efficiently combines international business...