walmart assignment1

CASE ANALYSIS

– WALMART

Contents 1.

HOW ATTRACTIVE WAS THE DISCOUNTING RETAILING INDUSTRY IN THE USA WHEN WAL-MART

FIRST BEGAN ITS OPERATIONS IN THE 1950S. ........................................................................................ ........................................................................................ 2 THE DEGREE OF RIVALRY – HIGH ........................................................................................................ 2 THE THREAT OF ENTRY – LOW............................................................................................................ ............................................................................................................ 2 THE THREAT OF SUBSTITUTES SUBSTITUTES - LOW............................................................ .................................................................................................. ...................................... 3 BARGAINING BARGAINING POWER OF BUYERS - LOW ............................................................................................ ............................................................................................ 3 BARGAINING BARGAINING POWER OF SUPPLIERS - MEDIUM .................................................................... ................................................................................. ............. 3 2.

WITH REFERENCE TO THE KEY COMPONENTS OF ITS BUSINESS MODEL, DESCRIBE THE SOURCES OF WAL-MART’S COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE IN THE USA. ................................................................... ..................................................................... .. 4 3.

HOW SUSTAINABLE IS WAL-MARTS COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE IN DISCOUNT RETAILING IN THE

USA? ....................................................... ............................................................................................................................. ................................................................................................. ........................... 6 RESPONSES TO IMITATION ................................................................................................................. ................................................................................................................. 6 RESPONSES TO SUBSTITUTION SUBSTITUTION ........................................................................................................... 7 RESPONSES TO HOLD-UP ....................................................................................................... .................................................................................................................... ............. 7 RESPONSES TO SLACK ......................................................................................................................... ......................................................................................................................... 8 4.

WITH REFERENCE TO DUNNINGS ELECTIC PARADIGM OF FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT (FDI),

COMPARE AND CONTRAST WAL-MART’S ENTRY INTO THE GERMAN MARKET IN 1998 WITH ITS SUBSEQUENT ENTRY INTO THE UK MARKET IN 1999. WHY WAS WAL-MART UNSUCCESFUL IN GERMANY, WITHDRAWING WITHDRAWING IN 2006, AND RELATIVELY SUCCESFUL IN THE UK? ................................... 9 REFERENCES.......................................................................................................................................... .......................................................................................................................................... 12 APPENDICES.......................................................................................................................................... .......................................................................................................................................... 13 Appendix A ........................................................................................................................................ ........................................................................................................................................ 13

1 Mohammed Kamran Rauf

1. HOW ATTRACTIVE WAS THE DISCOUNTING RETAILING INDUSTRY IN THE USA WHEN WAL-MART FIRST BEGAN ITS OPERATIONS IN THE 1950S. To identify the attractiveness of the retailing i ndustry in the 1950’s it would be appropriate to use Michael E Porters “ Five Forces framework for Industry Analysis. ”

THE DEGREE OF RIVALRY – HIGH The degree of rivalry is the most obvious of the “Five Forces” in an industry – and the one which

strategists generally focussed historically. It influences the extent to which the value created by an industry will be dispersed through direct competition. There were several signs of industry growth at the time as was USA’s economy; this led to a number

of newly emerging discount stores trying to exploit the potential of high profit. This led to intense competition at the time and increasing rivalry for market share. Due to this industry concentration was low at the time. There was not one dominant player within the industry; they were more equally balanced thus increasing rivalry. The High fixed cost for running a discount store resulted in an economies of scale effect, this can be seen when Wal-Mart decided to gain economies of scale by building their own distribution centres to add value. Going public in order to finance the extra storage was important for Wal-Mart to utilise capacity as efficiently as possible, they did this by creating distribution hub around 15-20 stores. The increased rivalry continues, this was due to the low levels of product differentiation and little in the way of own branding, products were standard in nature through all discount stores. Also the low switching cost and consumer awareness of shopping around to find the best bargains increased competition around stores to capture customers. Corporate stakes were high for Wal-Mart, this can be seen in its earlier years (Ben Franklin stores) where they were losing market share by increased price competition from larger format discount stores, again increasing rivalry. Majority of these discount stores were located in within large towns (min population-100,000), Wal-Mart diversified from this by targeting smaller towns and setting the price right to attract more consumers from wider areas. Low exit barriers because of saleable assets also increased competition.

THE THREAT OF ENTRY – LOW Industry profitability is influenced by existing as well as potential competitors. The threats of entry are the entry barriers which prevent firms to enter within an industry. With no Patents, minimum proprietary knowledge at the time and minimum Government policy (Retail Price maintenance) it is right to say that barriers to entry were low. The goods sold were of little brand franchise and standard in nature thus allowing competitors easy entry. Even though capital requirement were high, assets were easily transferable in case of exit. The increased competition in the 1950s onwards proves that barriers to entry were low. 2 Mohammed Kamran Rauf

However access to distribution can be difficult depending on the size and location of the entrant, it is also important to mention that to achieve economies of scale several stores or a distribution outlet, take Wal-Mart for example which had the ability to achieve Minimum Efficient Scale.

THE THREAT OF SUBSTITUTES - LOW When it comes to this market they aren’t many substitutions that offer convenience and low pricing.

The consumers have the choice of going to many specialist stores to get their desired products but are not going to find Wal-Mart’s low pricing. Switching costs were low, there were other discount stores in larger towns offering similar kind of products which consumers were able to choose from and shop around freely.

BARGAINING POWER OF BUYERS - LOW The power of buyers is the impact that consumers have on the value created by an industry. Wal-Mart’s focused on the smaller towns that the other discount stores were ignoring, this allowed them to gain some sort of advantage over buyers by targeting consumers away from the larger discount stores. Their pricing strategy also attracted consumers from wider areas, this shows that there is a level of price sensitivity, however consumers are fragmented and no buyer has any particular influence on product or price. Wal-Mart was aware of difficulties that they may face from distribution, they decision of forward integration to control their own distribution gave them the ability to buy in volume at attractive prices and pass on these savings to consumers thus lowering buyer power. However the only major concern for Wal-Mart was excess competition and buyers shopping at other stores, the products were standard in nature and there was little in the way of own branding. This meant that they were no switching costs apart from travelling to the next nearest store and convenience.

BARGAINING POWER OF SUPPLIERS - MEDIUM Supplier power in the 1950’s onwards had more power t han suppliers of today. Suppliers were more concentrated and the importance of volume was a key aspect for suppliers, as Wal-Mart discovered in its early years. As Wal-Mart expanded they were able to gain the attention and weaken supplier power by forward integration, by controlling its distribution. This allowed Wal-Mart to buy in volume at a lower price. However retail price maintenance was legal at the time and manufacturers were able to stipulate the price at which their products had to be sold in stores, thus giving suppliers some bargaining power.

Taking all the factors mentioned above it is right to say that industry was quite attractive in the 1950’s.


2. WITH REFERENCE TO THE KEY COMPONENTS OF ITS BUSINESS MODEL, DESCRIBE THE SOURCES OF WAL- MART’S COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE IN THE USA. Over the years Wal-Mart has shown incredible ability to gain competitive advantage over their competitors, this is due to Wal-Mart’s capabilities of fully utilising their capability of strategic resources to create a competitive advantage. Using a resource based view we can identify the factors within Wal-Mart’s business model that have given them a competitive edge over their competitors and also looking at Porters Generic Strategies we can see where they are placed within the model whether its differentiation, cost leadership or focus. Wal-Mart’s Resources have proven to outweigh its competitors to a large extent, starting from their financial resources, they earn as much profits as the next five largest retailers combined, Wal-Mart also has much more cash and assets available compared to its supplier. Joint ventures and acquisitions permitted them to exploit local knowledge and utilise the resources and capabilities of strong local players (Asda). Wal-Mart’s major strategic resource was its leading edge use of Information technology. Wal-Mart was the first retailer to introduce electronic data interchange (EDI) with it suppliers, and to introduce bar code scanning for point of sale (POS) and inventory control. Wal-Mart also pioneered the use of Radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags. Wal-Mart physical resources which outshines its competitors is its extremely large distribution centres which served around 150 stores within a 200 mile radius, and the use of their own distribution trucks and trailers. With the use of its financial resources Wal-Mart was capable of investing in a $24 million on the largest two way fully integrated private satellite, which gave them the capability of inventory control, credit card authorisation and enhanced EDI. Two intangible resources that have brought great success to Wal-Mart is it reputation and brand image of ‘everyday low prices.’ The other is human resources of management and employees which were referred to as ‘associates.’ These resources have given them capabilities to create a competitive advantage. The use of ICT has allowed them to support decision making promote efficiency and customer responsiveness. Methods such as EDI and POS data analysis has given Wal-Mart the capability to identify sales patterns of consumers, forecast, replenish and merchandise stock to understand and meet customer requirements at a product by product, store by store level. Wal-Mart’s information technology capability has given them a superior edge over their competition in understanding customer’s needs, responsiveness and efficiency. Wal-Mart technological capabilities have integrated supply chain management with its suppliers and distribution. 81% of Wal-Mart’s purchases are distributed from Wal-Mart’s distribution centre; they showed a balance of efficiency and flexibility of their distribution expertise. Wal-Mart has shown great ability to take full advantage of economies of scale, by closer collaboration (retail link) with their suppliers. By sharing their technology advances with their suppliers (EDI between 70% of its vendors) it has allowed the vendors to manage inventory, forecasting planning, production scheduling and shipping 4 Mohammed Kamran Rauf

in line with Wal-Mart’s sales, thus allowing better communication and efficiency. Wal-Mart’s competitive advantage is not just the use of technology it has available but its continuous approach of seeking new ways to make distribution system faster and more reliable. Their ‘remix system’ has allowed them to order from suppliers within 5 days rather than 4 weeks leading to lower inventory levels thus saving them costs. The technological and distribution capabilities Wal-Mart has acquired are difficult to imitate and implement, it requires excess capital, expertise and resources. A key component that plays an important role in Wal-Mart’s competitive advantage is its human resources, their culture and organisational routine. The unique idea of Decentralising store management and empowerment has allowed decision making authority in relation to product range, positioning and their pricing has allowed greater ability to adjust to consumer needs as increasing sales and reducing costs. Sam Walton’s principles and values have transferred through to the management. By visiting stores and having meetings on the weekend allowed a fast response management response system. The continual development of business operations allowed Wal-Mart to out speed its competition and grow almost as a matter of routine. Porters Generic Strategy consists of three elements: cost leadership, differentiation and focus. The model requires a firm to place itself amongst one of these categories; however the one we will be focusing on is cost leadership. Cost Leadership is when a firm sets out to be the low cost producer in the industry and exploits all sources that will allow them to gain this advantage above their competitors. This may be through economies of scale, proprietary technology or cheaper raw material costs. A cost leader can demand prices at industry average or lower, but are still able to generate supernormal profits. Before the Introduction of Wal-Mart, it is plausible to say that it were more cost focus as they only decided to target smaller more rural areas, which competitors seemed to ignore. However, as time went by Wal-Mart eventually grew and become public this strategy changed. The slogan says it all ‘everyday low prices.’ With the use of all its resources and capabilities mentioned above Wal -Mart

has been able to adopt a cost leadership strategy. It is capable of passing its saving from lower costs onto customers in the form of lower prices. They have been capable of reducing cost at all aspects of the value chain, which has helped them gain a competitive advantage over their competition; it has allowed them to under price competition whilst retaining the same profit margins. This cost leadership strategy improved even further, when Wal-Mart began its expansion and diversified i nto other retail formats. Both, Sam’s warehouse clubs and Supercentres focused on the cost leadership strategy and even though competition was high, Wal-Mart was thriving. This allowed them to expand through acquisitions such as The Whole Sales Company and gain tighter control over their distribution networks by acquiring McLane. Wal-Mart’s value chain model can be found in ‘ appendix A’ which shows how they able to create a competitive advantage. 5 Mohammed Kamran Rauf

3. HOW SUSTAINABLE IS WAL-MARTS COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE IN DISCOUNT RETAILING IN THE USA? Companies such as Wal-Mart are always trying to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage, using the Porters 5 forces and Resource Based will allow you to recognise certain traits of competitive advantage and its ability to sustain superior performance however it can lack a clear conceptual basis, it’s useful to distinguish between their added/scarcity value and their appropriability. This is where the Tetra threat framework comes into action, it describes how to analyse sustainability of superior performance. There are four specific conditions under which resources will or will not continue to sustain superior performance and four threat to them which will be explained through the analysis of Wal-Mart. The framework focuses upon two specific areas: industry level and within industry performance; it requires the use of sticky resources (durable, specialised resources) which are important for longterm strategies and the ability to sustain within-industry profit differences.

RESPONSES TO IMITATION

PRIVATE INFORMATION

Wal-Mart’s value chain has proven itself to have tacit knowledge. It has looked at and adopted numerous methods of retailing more efficiently and effectively within its business model therefore making it difficult to imitate. In addition, it aggressively “borrows” ideas from all over and maintains the second largest customer database in the world. SWITCHING COSTS/RELATIONSHIPS

Wal-Mart is often seen as having the lowest prices even in markets where it doesn’t, so swit ching common may not be as common as thought out to be. Cultivating relationships with suppliers has increased Wal-Mart’s ability to persuade and involve suppliers to make Wal -Mart specific investment system such as EDI and Retail Link, which gives the suppliers, computerised access to real time data on the sales and inventories of their products within the stores. ECONOMIES OF SCALE AND SCOPE

At first Wal-Mart only utilised local scale economies by locating in smaller towns with little or no competition. However with some difficulties it faced it decided to exploit regional scale economies after building its first distribution and centre and developing its hub and spoke distribution system. It then was capable of pursuing national scale economies after greater expansion and dealing with suppliers and intermediaries. THREATS OF RETALIATION

Wal-Mart’s decentralisation strategy gave management mo re power to make decisions on pricing products equivalent/cheaper than competitors. It allowed managers to drop up to 5% on a product


compared it to its cheapest rival. This method presumably concerns not only competitors but also potential entrants; it shows the ferocity of Wal-Mart. IMITATION LAGS/UPGRADING

Wal-Mart has kept its competitors astray by continuously upgrading its capabilities, particularly in information technology and logistics. Also by continuously expanding, exploiting other markets and resource commitments such as Retail Link has definitely created more barriers for imitation. Even trying to imitate their culture or its entire complex activity system would probably take a very long time even if it were feasible.

RESPONSES TO SUBSTITUTION

The major substitution threat that Wal-Mart has faced has been related to the risk that its discounting store may be replaced by a new format. This kind of format is risk highlighted by the theory of the “wheel of retailing,” which predicts that operat ors of old formats will struggle to adjust to new formats. Wal-Mart is not the one to sit around and not respond to substitution threats; they are always active and continuously exploring potential substitutes for its traditional discount store. Wal-Mart’s continuous expansion in new discount stores around the globe Wal-Mart is enjoying enormous success this partly due to their edge in logistics and tacit knowledge over their substitutes. Wal-Mart’s ability to decrease its cost is largely due to its log istics and technology systems that have been placed. It has proclaimed itself to be the leader of bringing innovative technology with transformational potential - such as RFID or wireless tags that can be used to track goods from suppliers to warehouses to suppliers. This has allowed them to leapfrog the substitute. Its continuous emphasis on deploying new technology has always given them a time advantage over their competitors, not to mention a capital advantage. Wal-Mart switching from one format to another was instilled by Sam Walton and can be seen in formats such as European Hybrid food non-food format Superstores and smaller format stores. WalMart has also counteracted substitutions by entering warehouse clubs (Sam clubs) and in Foreign Direct Investment.

RESPONSES TO HOLD-UP

It’s important for us to differentiate between suppliers of merchandise and employees. Wal -Mart’s

extraordinary growth has allowed them to build a significant amount of bargaining power with its suppliers even the bigger ones such as Proctor and Gamble, 15% of its total revenues from sale are to Wal-Mart while the same represents 3.3%. Wal-Mart does bargain hard with its suppliers thus, adding appropriated value. Wal-Mart’s mutual dependence and integrating technologies and has


been the key to its success, With the use of Retail Link which cost Wal-Mart $4 billion has allowed greater trust by allowing suppliers enough surplus-in terms of real time information and shared expertise which both have benefited from. Also by vertical integration (investing in distribution centres and producing own items) it has helped Wal-Mart to reduce its costs. However Labour Holdup is more of a problem. Wal-Mart has been capable of holding the unionisation of its employees, but this has caused disruptions in employee de-motivation and high turnover rates which has tainted the image of Wal-Mart and its relationships with its employees. Now being the most dominant firm in the World it is important for Wal-Mart to improve on its public image by addressing these issues which they have been doing and has seen some success, however Wal-Mart’s penny-pinching and power are likely to continue to be concerns and possible catalysts for non market holdups for the foreseeable future.

RESPONSES TO SLACK

Wal-Mart seems to have experienced limited slack so far. With the Wal-Mart family owning over 40% of the company and the chair-man of the board being Rob Walton the interests of the firm are kept secure. Employees are kept motivated especially at the store manager level and above through incentives, with the use of tightly gathered information and monitoring of performance. The pursuit of cost based strategy and social control through deeply embedded principles and v alues of frugality and continuous set by Sam Walton has helped shape norms and create a common goal for all employees. However with 2 million employees within larger stores, running for 24 hours and more stores constantly developing it is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain the traditional culture of WalMart. The horizontal span of control is always widening making it an increasingly complex bureaucracy.


4. WITH REFERENCE TO DUNNINGS ELECTIC PARADIGM OF FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT (FDI), COMPARE AND CONTRAST WAL-MART’S ENTRY INTO THE GERMAN MARKET IN 1998 WITH ITS SUBSEQUENT ENTRY INTO THE UK MARKET IN 1999. WHY WAS WAL-MART UNSUCCESFUL IN GERMANY, WITHDRAWING IN 2006, AND RELATIVELY SUCCESFUL IN THE UK? Dunning’s electic theory first developed by John Dunning (1980) specifies a set of three conditions

that must be met if a firm is to engage in foreign operations. Firm specific/ownership advantages, Location-specific advantages, and internalization advantages. Wal-Mart have shown to have several advantages to aid them with FDI, these advantages can be transferrable through Foreign Direct Investment. They first advantage is there huge amount of capital they have been able to attain with the unparalleled success in the USA; this is a key factor for any firm wanting to expand over borders. Wal-Mart’s main intangible asset is the technology and system in place to handle the supply chain from the suppliers onto the shelves and back again. This in turn has helped them achieve economies of scale over all competitors within the USA. They ability to identify consumer needs at a store level has brought them great success and a management team striving for low cost and excellent customer service. Wal-Mart implementation of its ownership advantages in Germany, failed right from the beginning when they acquired one of the weakest German Retailers, Spar Handel AG stores which majority of them were on lease. This flawed acquisition strategy weakened Wal-Mart’s strength within Germany. Another Failure in terms of ownership advantages was there management team who showed a lack of competence and management skills. The management team showed ignorance and complete disregard of Culture within in the Management team and the way they ran the business. The methods used not only demotivated the pervious managers but also forced them to leave or look elsewhere. Their aim for excellent customer service and design of the stores typical to American standards was not what the consumer wanted Wal-Mart did not make any real effort in understanding consumer patronage behaviour. Wal-Mart acquisition of Asda brought much better success to Wal-Mart than in the German market; their operations and organisational culture were very similar. Wal-Mart’s ownership of technology such as the Retail link made Asda a success by helping them increase their efficiency, supply chain management and stock availability. This gave them the chance to build on their similarities to further their success and continuously expand in more ownership advantages. A firm must consider the firm specific advantages they would have in order to be profitable and the advantages the host countries will grant before they decide to FDI. Wal-Mart in Germany, their location advantages in theory seemed to be good by targeting the biggest retailing market in the World after USA and Japan. However tackling the extremely competitive, family owned, saturated retail market in Germany that has shown to be stagnant may not have been easy as anticipated by Wal-Mart, especially when in 2002 spending decreased from 40% to 30%. The ambition to become market leaders within this market was not possible especially 9 Mohammed Kamran Rauf

with their shrinking market share (1.5%). One of the causes was the amount of low price retailers in Germany, such as Aldi and Lidl.

Aldi and Lidl have opted to adapt the same strategy for Germany where they offer hard discounters, typically offer a range of 600-700 products with a high share of their own brands, at low prices with low very margins. In Germany the view of ‘pile -em-high, sell-em-cheap’ account for around a third of the food market whereas in the UK it accounts for only 10 per cent. (Knorr and Arndt, 2003)In Germany, the hard discounters are also competing with traditional non-food segments. Aldi, has been selling high quality own-brand computers at very attractive prices, and has become Germany’s biggest P.C retailer with a market share of 21.5% ahead of Fujitsu Siemens (16.9 %) and it has become one of the countries key distributors in clothing as well as many other product categories. Aldi was also capable of doubling profit when the euro conversion took place in 2002, where other retailers were in a confused state and were overcharging. Due to this intense competition within Germany, it is not surprising to see such low profit margins, its average profits for West Germany was at 0.8% dropping from the 3.4% in 1970 and has 0.5% profit in East Germany. This meant that Germany was the least profitable retail industry in the industrialised world. Wal-Mart’s inability to follow the legal and institutional framework was also a major problem. Firstly, Wal-Mart were not able to implement the loss leadership pricing strategy due to fair trade laws and the 80 hours a week limit to shop opening was something Wal-Mart were not used to. In addition, Wal-Mart was sued for not disclosing financial information, this created bad publicity for them. Wal-Mart’s Strategy of EDLP failed due to lack of experience within Germany and mainly due to its ignorance of its management team. Wal-Mart was not capable of undercutting Aldi and the other top retailers. Wall-Marts business model in USA was implemented to the retailing industry of Germany, which did not work too well with German Consumers. Wal-Mart had hoped to invoke the market spoiler effect through its customer service initiatives in these more spacious revamped stores, by adding store greeters and bag packers. All this and topped off with Wal-Martian hospitality. Not only this dramatically increase costs (higher than industry average) but it was also something that consumers did not want, they preferred self-service, this increase in cost also effected Wal-Mart’s ability to achieve Economies of scale. The consumer preference in Germany hold price and Value much higher esteem than service and quality.

The government were concerned about high prices and feared British consumers were being ‘ripped off.’ This was an incentive for Wal -Mart to acquire a highly regarded (top four UK grocers at the time) Asda store with a similar style of operating, market and organisation culture. They were just lacking in technology and propriety knowledge that Wal-Mart were willing to provide. Asda also had the same reputation of low price products every day. The Competition Commission would not allow them to acquire Safeway. The store has expanded from 229 to 265 stores since 1999. It was much easier for Wal-Mart to integrate with the similar British culture in comparison to the German culture. The long opening hours (168 hours) also suited Wal-Mart. By acquiring Asda there was little need of organic growth, Wal-Mart were capable of creating a competitive advantage on all the


competitors apart from Tesco’s. Tesco’s has been doing much better within the UK market through the convenience stores and online.

By internalising their efforts abroad, Wal-Mart was able to maintain and protect the propriety knowledge and protect and their innovative technology systems that have given them the biggest advantage especially within the UK. Even though they may not have been the most successful retailer internationally as some others, it did succeed quite well in Mexico and Canada. By acquiring other retailers, Wal-Mart was able to increase the potential profit they could generate and expand their operations, by having direct claim and ownership. However, internalisation means Wal-Mart must take responsibility for the bad publicity and bad reputation German co nsumer’s associate with Wal-Mart Germany. The blame of their failure in Germany is due to several factors such as acquiring Spar, which did affect the market share and made losses due to this (1 billion Euros). Another problem with acquiring Spar was that majority of t he premises were leased this meant that Wal-Mart did not own these properties. Wal-Mart was forced to cut staff, but majority of them were already demotivated and the top managers wanted to leave to other companies. Their ignorance of learning and culture and business ways from experienced top managers within the German firms was the cause; it could have been the deciding factor of success or failure. Had Wal-Mart understood the culture it would have saved them their reputation and loss of capital. In addition, the ignorance and lack of cooperation from the US managers that were redeployed to Germany did not combine their knowledge with local wants and needs to improve the position of Wal-Mart Germany. These location or country specific advantages proved to be more of a disadvantage for Wal-Mart Germany; in addition, they were unable to boost its success.


REFERENCES Porter, M (1998). Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance . New York: The Free Press. p4-15. Knorr, A. Arndt, A (2003). Why Did Wal-Mart Fail in Germany? [Online] [Accessed 19th December 2011] http://moodle.mmu.ac.uk/file.php/3056/Why_Did_Wal_Mart_Fail_in_Germany.pdf Pioch, E. Gerhard, U. Fernie, J. Arnold, S. et al (2008) Consumer Acceptance and Market Success: th Wal-Mart in the UK and Germany . [Online] [Accessed: 20 December 2011] http://moodle.mmu.ac.uk/file.php/3056/Wal_Mart_in_the_UK_Germany.pdf Grant, R. (1998). The Resource-Based Theory of Competitive Advantage: Implications for Strategy Formulation. In: Segal-horn, S The Strategy Reader . London: Blackwell Business. 179-199. Dunnings Electic Paradigm. Chapter 3: The Triad and International Business. Pp 93-95. Available from Moodle. Date accessed (19th December 2011) http://moodle.mmu.ac.uk/file.php/3056/Dunning_s_eclectic_paradigm.pdf Fernie, J. Hahn, B. Gerhard, U. Pioch, E. Arnold, J, S. (2006). The Impact of Wal-Mart’s Entry into the German and Uk Grocery Markets. Agribusiness, Vol. 22 , no. 2, pp247-267. [Online] [Accessed on: 19th December 2011] Ghemawat, P. (2009) Strategy and the Business Landscape. 3rd ed., New Jersey: Prentice Hall.


APPENDICES Appendix A


walmart assignment1

Recommend Documents