Part B: Strategic Marketing Plan

15

ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSIS AND SWOT ANALYSIS

Environmental analysis and SWOTT analysis

Company description

Walmart Inc. is a profit-making and privately-owned organization based in the United States, headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas. Walmart offers a series of products and services to market users, including grocery and farm products, hypermarkets, and warehouse and storage services. The mission statement of Walmart Company is to aid its customers and other market users to save their money by offering affordable products and services. With the mission statements, the management body and stakeholders have been working per the tastes and preferences of their customers to guarantee low price products and services per their satisfaction. In line with their mission statement, the vision statement of Walmart Company is to be a one-stop-shop in the market that offers a variety of affordable services and products to their customers despite the types of goods or services needed by the market users. Being the destination for cheaper services and products has been the driving force for the company's management, stakeholder, and shareholders to work around the clock to provide goods and services at a lower cost than its competitors.

Walmart Company offers a wide range of products and services to its customers. The company has a chain of hypermarkets in significant cities and towns of the United States, which gives room for various products. The company also offers warehousing and storage services to market users. The store services are meant to offer the customers storage facilities for their goods before being delivered or waiting for clearance from the concerned authority. Goods such as groceries and other farm products like milk and meat are also part of the products offered in their chains of hypermarkets. Walmart Company is one of the largest private employer firms with an estimation of 2.2 million employees. A large number of employees within the company justifies the size of the Walmart Company. In addition, the company has several branches both in the United States and foreign countries, thus making it a global company. With a revenue estimation of US$548.743 billion, Walmart Company has proved to be one of the largest and competitive firms in the market, both local and foreign markets, as the estimated revenue symbolizes the size of the company.

Environmental analysis

Competitive forces

Amazon Company is one of the key competitors against Walmart in the market. Walmart has developed a pricing strategy as its competitive advantage to outdo Amazon organization in the market (Nandonde, 2019). Walmart Company has based its strengths on its pricing slogan to save customers money to gain a significant market share despite stiff competition from Amazon and other firms in the market. In line with their mission statement, Walmart has been offering a low price on goods and services to achieve their mission statement as an organization. Walmart company has attracted a large number of Market users to their products hence outstands its competitors.

Economic forces

Walmart's economic environment has been favorable to its customers regarding its prices and services. Low prices charged on goods and services have boosted the economic status of Walmart Company, following the high number of customers turn out to their services (Perera, 2017). The management's effort to reduce their production cost and saves customers’ money has been affected by such an economic move, thereby makes their suppliers supply their products and services at a lower cost. Therefore, suppliers have to coincide with the economic move of Walmart management to save customers money, thus reducing the pricing of their supplies.

Political forces

The political push for higher wages by the federal government has negatively affected the operations and productivity of the company. The political amendment on the employment act requires the company to increase the wages per hour from a minimum of $ 6 to $7, affecting the firm's profitability. In addition, the wage pressure from the politicians has made the company lay off some workers to reduce the cost of production and aid them in achieving their mission and vision statement.

Legal, regulatory and ethical issues

Legal and regulatory issues are government regulation of business activities (Vintilă et al., 2017). Such regulations might impact Walmart's operational activities in terms of the labor and employment act. Based on the adjustment made of the labor and employment act, the employers are expected to increase the salaries and wages paid per hour to casual workers, which conflicts with their profitability projections. Increasing the wages will impact the cost of operations of the business, thus reduces its profitability. Increasing the wages and salaries will affect the mission statements of the Walmart Company. The management will increase their prices to cater to the increased cost of production. Ethically, the company might face ethical criticism from the community due to the abrupt price increase. Based on the consumer protection act, an abrupt increase in pricing is unethical as it aims to exploit and frustrate the customers.

Technological forces

The emergence of technology will affect Walmart Company's operations and marketing activities following the adoption of online marketing technology, thus via the company’s website. Walmart Company will have to embrace online marketing to attract more users to their products and services globally.

Social forces

Social forces like the consumption of pork products by Muslim society have negatively impacted the sales and marketability of pork products. The business planning to cease offering pork products as part of the farm produces due to social norms, thus makes the product abomination in society.

Current target market

The target market for Walmart services and products are the households that regularly consume the groceries and other farm products in the store. The households member mainly targeted are mostly the female shoppers whom regularly do the household shopping. In addition, the store and warehousing services target the importers and assembling firms and investors who will need to keep their goods safely with the company as they await delivery. Supply chain firms also add to the list of targeted customers. Finally, the warehousing services targets primarily foreign businesses.

Reviewing current marketing

The company has embarked on online marketing platforms, thus following many potential consumers using social media platforms. In addition, Walmart will be using its website to advertise and respond to queries, suggestions, and complaints from customers.

SWOTT analysis

Strengths

Low pricing on their products and services is one of the competitive advantages of the Walmart Company. In addition, the company is specialized in a variety of products and services at a one-stop shop, thus saves customers time and choice of the products or services they need, unlike their competitors like Amazon.

Weakness

Society norms on some of the products offered by the Walmart Company have been a limitation to its success. For instance, the norm of Muslim society not consuming pork products has negatively impacted the sales volume of pork products.

Opportunities

Free market entry in the international market will enable the business to expand its branches to foreign markets (Deshpande, 2019). Expanding the branches in foreign markets will increase the market share of Walmart Company and consequently increases its profitability.

Threats

Stiff competition from other firms offering similar services and products to the market has threatened the business. According to Bonfante et al. (2021), competition has reduced the market share and profitability of the business. In addition, regular amendments and adjustments of labor and employment laws by the government have also impacted the organization's operations regarding salaries and wages increment.

Trends

The current market trends in marketing involved using online platforms for advertisement, connecting with customers, and making sales (Gürel & Tat, 2017). The use of the business website has enabled online sales and marketing trends, reducing marketing processes like advertisements, promotions, and roadshows.

Strengths to opportunity and converting weakness to threat

Low pricing and availability of various goods under one shop create an opportunity for the Walmart organization. It attracts more users from the market to their products as the cost is affordable and all their shopping needs are availed under one roof. So many customers turn out to their products will increases their sales volumes impacts the profitability.

Walmart's continuous trading on pork products will create a market gap for its competitors to offer alternative products to Muslim users. Society will prefer its competitors' products since it aligns with their cultural beliefs and practices. Thereby, Walmart will lose its esteemed customers, which is a threat to them.

Marketing objectives

· Walmart Company will embrace online marketing trends by creating a customer care response platform.

· The company will align with the norms and production culture with that of the society in which they operate, limiting the scenario of producing goods that conflicts with their beliefs.

· To beat the market competition, Walmart will ensure their productivity matches the market taste and preferences, thus guarantees market satisfaction.

Part B: marketing data analysis

Internal data

source	what it measures	potential usage
Sales report	Sales volume	Determine market share
Financial documents	The financial status of the business	To determine the profitability of the firm
HRM	Staff performance	To determine Individual staff productivity
Inventories	Number of inventories in the store	To find the value of the business
Operations	Productivity	To determine the operations requirements of the firm
Employees suggestions	General operations of the firm	To determine internal relations of the staff

Secondary data

Source	What it measures	Potential usage
Customer feedback	Satisfaction of goods and services	To determine costumers satisfaction
Retail market analytics	The values of sales	Market share analysis
Suppliers feedback	Availability of raw material	To determine the production volume thus per the available raw material.
Society reviews	Market influence of the business	To find out the market influence and public image about the business.

Primary data

Sources	What it measures	Data	Potential usage
Focus group	Decision-making process group satisfaction	Qualitative	Applied in decision making
Survey	Market review Public opinion	Qualitative	To determine customers tastes and preferences
staff interview	Employees satisfaction	Qualitative	To determine employees' satisfaction with the management of the organization.

Customer relationship management

CRM	Purpose and CRM objectives	Data	Potential data usage
Customer suggestions from the website	Identifies customers tastes and preferences	Customer purchase portal	To determine the satisfaction of the customers
Customer review	Identifies market influence of the products and services	Surveys	To determine the satisfaction of products and services offered to the market users.
Customer profile information	Identifies the number of customers served by the business	Sales record	To determine esteemed customers' location, tastes, purchasing power.

Part C: Market strategy, channels, implementation, and monitoring

New target market

Walmart company target opening a new branch in California based on many product users from that specific region. Since California will be a new market, Walmart's services will include warehousing and storage service and other nonperishable goods. Walmart will introduce perishable goods into the store upon gaining market share and influence from the public. The pricing will be per the mission statement, which aims at saving customers money by offering low prices for their products and services. The products and services will be availed to the California branch by the company trucks upon the need (Braciníková & Matušínská, 2017).

To create awareness of the new business in California, Walmart will distribute business cards and flyers randomly to the potential customers to promote the business through the sales and marketing team. Rahmah & Prasetio, E. A. (2020) argued that online promotion would involve email marketing, designing branch websites, and creating online press about the product and services offered to the market users.

Marketing implementation

The sales and marketing manager will be responsible for implementing the marketing plans designed for the new branch. Sales representatives will aid in implementing the plan using the marketing mix model identified for the California branch. Business cards and flyers will be randomly given to the public by sales agents based on the location, purchasing power, and social influence; thus, the public with the said qualities will be prioritized by the sales representatives. The online promotional team will focus on the market response, queries, and suggestions via the branch's website.

Marketing communication channel

Channel	Target market	Advantages	Disadvantages
Publication	Middle class residential	Cheap to disseminate information	Only applies to literate customers
Television	Low-class residents	Reach out to a large number of users	Limited to those who have access to the television device
Direct mail	First-class residents	Reach out to specifically targeted customers	Costly and time-consuming

Strategic action

Action	Date	Personnel	Standard/metrics
Designing flyers and postcards	30/5/2021	Whitson Kim	Sales manager
Drafting emails and sending mails	31/5/2021	Harris Campbell	Sales manager
Distribution of flyers and cards	1/6/2021	John Frank	Sales manager

Monitoring

Action	Target	Person responsible	Inter-measurement
Flyers	1200 inquiries	Sales manager- California branch	400 inquires in the first three weeks of the campaign
Business cards	800 inquiries	Sales manager- California branch	500 inquires in the first five weeks of the campaign
Direct mails	2000 inquires	Sales manager- California branch	1200 inquires in the first four weeks of the campaign

References

Bonfante, M. C., Raspini, J. P., Fernandes, I. B., Fernandes, S., Campos, L. M., & Alarcon, O. E. (2021). Achieving Sustainable Development Goals in rare earth magnets production: A review on state of the art and SWOT analysis. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 137, 110616.

Braciníková, V., & Matušínská, K. (2017, December). Marketing mix of financial services from the customers’ perspective. In Forum Scientiae Oeconomia (Vol. 5, No. 4, pp. 36-48).

Deshpande, S. (2019). Social marketing’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT): A commentary. Social Marketing Quarterly, 25(4), 231-242.

Gürel, E., & Tat, M. (2017). SWOT analysis: a theoretical review. Journal of International Social Research, 10(51).

Nandonde, F. A. (2019). A PESTLE analysis of international retailing in the East African Community. Global Business and Organizational Excellence, 38(4), 54-61.

Perera, R. (2017). The PESTLE analysis. Nerdynaut.

Rahmah, N., & Prasetio, E. A. (2020). PROPOSED NEW MARKETING MIX STRATEGY TO INCREASE SALES (CASE ARINE). In The conference encourages submissions for paper presentations from academics and practitioners. In order to reach the goals of the sharing and exchange of experiences of both theoretical developments and applications, these presentations may have a focus on either research studies or case studies of best practices on related topics. (p. 17).

Vintilă, D. F., Filip, C., Stan, M. I., & Ţenea, D. D. (2017, October). A Political, Economic, Social, Technology, Legal and Environmental (PESTLE) Approach for Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP) in the Romanian Black Sea. In International Conference on Management and Industrial Engineering (No. 8, pp. 653-666). Niculescu Publishing House.