The fundamental strategy of Wal-Mart is cost efficiency where the weakening of prices is the basic theory. The success of Wal-Mart is based on its favorable internal and external conditions. The section evaluates the internal and exterior environment of Wal-Mart.
Internal Environment
Wal-Mart has a solid brand name with world's greatest revenues since last a long time. The brand makes image of products and services popular. Furthermore durability of the company is its capability to make tactical adjustments whenever there is a dependence on it. Also Wal-Mart has a powerful supply string system where the business keeps the merchandise in a safe place until it is necessary in a certain branch.
The main weakness of Wal-Mart is the problems with maintaining the promised low prices. Businesses today are moving towards customization and mass customization since customers want their alternatives to be mirrored in the merchandise and services. Wal-Mart on the other side promises low prices and not customized products. Also Wal-Mart is facing poor sales in clothing merchandise (Barbaro, 2007). The company does not prosper in this kind of product due to the company not being known as a reseller of such product.
External Environment
An chance of the business is to learn more methods to provide a unique look and types with their stores and branches. Doing this, it will have competitive benefit over other stores. The website and online marketing is another opportunity that may get more customers. Wal-Mart can continue steadily to understanding newer areas where it can offer its products and services.
Besides the opportunities, there are some threats confronted by business as well. Included in these are the competitors at first place.
The main menace to the Wal-Mart is the competitors. Two major rivals Tesco and Carre-Four attempt numerous tactics to overwhelm the position of the company in industry. The tariffs and fees are also a challenge on the market that the business enterprise has in different countries, each countries has its rate of fees and tariff which makes added expenses for the business (Li, 2011). The culture of some clients far away is another threat since not having the ability to suit other cultures means losing marketplaces and spoiling the opportunities made.
Internal and exterior environments of Toyota
The center philosophies of Toyota are constant improvement quality management. This philosophy is effectively translated into strategy which makes Toyota one of the leading automobile players of the world. The factors in internal and external environment that support Toyota's success are discussed below.
Internal Environment
Toyota is rolling out its lean creation system so marvelously that other players in the industry find it hard to lessen costs up to the particular level attained by Toyota. This lean-manufacturing is strength of Toyota that provides it with a competitive edge over competition. Also Toyota has globalized their business and has long its business to more than 170 countries. The management team of Toyota and its culture of continuous learning and improvement is its power as well. He customers know that Toyota will never compromise on its quality since the company has recalled back again the defective product often in history as well.
Innovation is strength of Toyota where administration plans for advancement when they start their assignments. The innovative ideas help Toyota enrich brand and increase income and go into new territories with ideal strategies.
Diversity is another factor contributing to company's strong internal environment. Management focuses on diversity when creating training for employees (The Hufftington Post).
Toyota's weakness is however weakened links in its resource chain anticipated to which it confronted complex issues in its even famous models like Prius. These complex issues caused a number of mishaps and Toyota has to recall an incredible number of vehicles even today. Furthermore additionally it is said that Toyota could not handle its vast global enlargement.
External Environment
Toyota is right now focusing on global expansions and working towards growing economies like BRIC. This has opened up new opportunities for Toyota with in the emerging markets. Further there is an increase in environmental concern anticipated to which demand for environmental friendly cars like electric and cross types has risen. So this is a great chance of Toyota to concentrate on its modern scientific integration in environmental friendly autos manufacturing.
Competitors like Basic Motors and Honda are the biggest risk for Toyota as they have a tendency to give it an strong competition. In addition political pushes like the ones Toyota faced in America during 2011 can also cause a menace to its stability. Other factors such as import tasks and trade tariffs are also more likely to affect the sales of Toyota vehicles in other countries.
Competitive advantages
Each business running successfully has some competitive border specially the big players of the industry. The competitive good thing about Wal-Mart is its low prices which of Toyota is lean production and quality improvement. These competitive advantages have let both the organizations grow in size, volume and profits. Both organizations are functioning worldwide and are extending each year.
Maintaining the competitive benefits takes a supportive organizational culture and management and employees that make the quest achievable through put together efforts. Both the organizations have held the techniques simple and focused that help focus efforts in obtaining mass creation and climbing earnings curves. Low prices in Wal-Mart and quality in Toyota is made the part of every process so that each step the business enterprise will take helps it step towards success.
Creating value and sustaining competitive advantage
The value creation and sustainability of Business Types of Toyota and Wal-Mart depend on their capacity to change within the varying environment, continuously satisfying clients' needs and finding and catching the biggest value. Both the organizations revise its strategies constantly and assess in other to assure that the organization is heading to the right way. For calculating the performance, not only the income, growth, growth is counted but also they make sure employees are satisfied and motivated to make possible what business aspires to attain.
The most successful businesses understand that reason for their lifestyle is to generate value for clients, employees, and shareholders, and everything the stake holders. Therefore, maintainable value can't be shaped for just one group unless it is established for all of them. The first target is to generate value for the customer, and this is achieved when the staff target aligns with the organizational goal of growth, quality management and cost effectiveness. The position of individual and organizational goal requires the effective role of human recourse department so the right people are enticed, picked, developed, trained and rewarded. This right team also helps in bringing in the investors that believe the employees will put all the efforts in increasing the worth of their investment. Wal-Mart and Toyota also concentrate on hiring and collection of its employees so that it helps in attaining quality and value creation.
MEASUREMENT GUIDELINES
Toyota uses the Six Sigma as an excellent way of measuring and control tool to evaluate its strategic efficiency. The Six Sigma tool is utilized to measure defects per million of the output and the company tries to improve the quality while increasing the level of Six Sigma. This technique helps Toyota to continually improve its business operations. Further, this technique has been quite successful in calculating the quality degree of the manufactured products.
As Wal-Mart is dependent mainly on the support of its suppliers it has developed a scorecard because of their suppliers, which really helps to evaluate them on the basis of innovation, environmental benchmarks, energy efficiencies and use of material. This packaging scorecard helps Wal-Mart to run its business procedures better. Wal-Mart has also produced a Strategic Planning and Finance committee to assess the designed strategies and evaluate whether they are get together company's strategic goals or not. Methods like financial ratios, balanced score credit card and other statistical techniques are used for this activity.
