BUSI 200 City University of New York Walmart and Best Buy Research Analysis Presentation STEP 1: PREPARE A WRITTEN ANALYSIS Select two business that: 1. Ar

BUSI 200 City University of New York Walmart and Best Buy Research Analysis Presentation STEP 1: PREPARE A WRITTEN ANALYSIS Select two business that: 1. Are closely aligned in business practices and/or products or are direct competitors, 2. Have publicly accessible company information (web-based) related to the key factors you will analyze, and 3. Are frequently reviewed/written about in Forbes, the Wall Street Journal and/or New York Times Examples include but are not limited to (you can select your own pairing): a. IBM & Microsoft b. General Electric & Siemens AG c. Yahoo & Google d. Airbnb & Uber e. Amazon & E-Bay f. Costco Wholesale Corporation & BJ’s Wholesale Club g. Facebook & Twitter Research the following key factors: 1. Management theory in practice 2. Strategic Planning method utilized and outcomes 3. Organization Structure – Leadership and Management effectiveness/styles 4. Human Resources management practices 5. Corporate Responsibility efforts/outcomes 6. Financial outcomes Prepare a written research analysis that includes the following: 1. Overview and description of the companies and why you selected them to study 2. Describe the method you utilized to research and analyze the companies key factors 3. Present a comparative analysis of the key factors related to the companies 4. Detail your argument for either one of the companies and support your claim The written analysis is to be no less than 6 typed pages (1” margins, 12pt font, double spaced) and MUST follow APA format. Note: I uploaded a Written Analysis Example Paper below. STEP 2: Create a PowerPoint Presentation, of a minimum of 6 slides, that focuses on the research findings detailed in the posed questions: a. The businesses analyzed and why b. The approach you took to your analysis including the key factors you considered and why c. Your finding Note: I uploaded a PowerPoint Presentation Example below Running Head: Walmart a better company than Target
Walmart a better company than Target
Maheya Jasin Afnan
Student ID: 23614764
BUS 200- 050W [11293]
Borough of Manhattan Community College
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Walmart a better company than Target
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Introduction:
Walmart and Target both are two of the largest retail corporations that manage different
kinds of retail formats including Supercenters, Discount Stores, Neighborhood Markets, and
other small formats. Walmart was founded by Sam Walton headquartered in Bentonville,
Arkansas, whereas Target was founded by George Dayton and headquartered in Minneapolis.
According to the Fortune Global 500, Walmart holds the title for the world’s largest company by
revenue, and Target is listed as No. 39 on the list. Walmart is controlled by the Walton family,
and they made it to the top of the list as the world’s largest private employer. With a very strong
supply chain management, Walmart focuses on the low-price strategy to attract its target market.
On the other hand, Target mainly focuses on the younger generation and middle class family
who want to make their lifelong loyal customer. It’s hard to decide one of them as best retail
because everyone has their own way of seeing things, however, from my perspective looking at
Walmart’s efficiency of supply chain, the strategies taken to streamline their business, the work
environment they have created, and the way they are giving back to the society make them a
better retail corporation in my eyes than Target. Throughout my research on both of these
companies, I will look at both of their organizational structure, Leadership and Management
styles, Strategic Planning, corporate social responsibility, marketing/ financial strategies, work
environments, global reputation and transparency in order to justify my stand for Walmart and
will extend on my statement on Walmart.
Organizational Structure:
Organizational structure is one of the essential parts of any company; it manages
workflow and determines how an employee will build a relationship with the company. With
Sam Walton’s principles and values, Walmart created its organizational structure which is
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consists of a hierarchical function with two features: hierarchy and function-based definition
(LOMBARDO, 2019). Hierarchy features a vertical line of command and authority, and in
function-based definition it provides a group of employees to work together to fulfill certain
functions throughout the organization. Beside this, Walmart has a divisional structure that is
divided into three different categories, such as product, market, and geography.
Target’s organizational structure consists of a functional organizational structure which is
not entirely similar to Walmart’s organizational structure. Its organizational structure begins with
Brain Cornell, the CEO of the company, and then there are different executive vice presidents
and chief officers from the core and extended ERP divisions. This structure, later on, breaks
down to different parts throughout the entire organization and goes down to the very bottom and
ends with hourly paid employees (Taget , n.d.).
Management theory in practice:
Even though both Walmart and Target follows a very similar organizational structure, but
their management theories are different than each other. Walmart is mainly focused on Fredrick
Taylor’s Scientific and Max Weber’s bureaucracy Management theory. Improving the
employer’s productivity and planning for the future actions to maximize profit is considered as
two vital components in their management theory. They also focused on coordination, efficiency,
and effectiveness of organizational operation through their innovative supply chain management;
everyone is blended together in an effort to achieving a unified goal. Recently, Walmart adapted
some changes by following certain components of Alfred Sloane’s Modern Business Enterprise
management theory. Now they are providing flexibility in taking initiative at each of their
operating divisions, but still having a centralized administration.
Walmart a better company than Target
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On the other hand, Target follows Mary Parker Follett’s Modern Management Theory.
They believe in teamwork where everyone is responsible for putting their share of work. All of
its employees are directly connected with their managers, and the managers maintain a reciprocal
relationship with all its employees. Target believes in synchronization and improvising their
work every day.
Leadership and Management styles:
The key to success for any company is to have a successful and effective leadership style
as it can motivate everyone in the company to work efficiently and competently. Walmart’s key
to success is no different than this, they have mustered their leadership and management style by
following mainly both transactional and transformational leadership styles. Transactional
leadership helps them running the day to day operations, whereas transformational leadership
handles the company’s vision and gives them direction. Besides, this two primary leadership
style Walmart also follow some other leadership style including Charismatic, Visionary, Ethical,
Strategic, Shared/ distributed, Chaos and complexity leadership (Leadership at Wal-Mart, n.d.).
Recently, Walmart is bringing more organization changes by bringing physical and digital
operation leaders together in an expectation to create a seamless experience for customers
(CNBC, 2019).
On the contrary, Target corporation took a slightly different approach in their Leadership
and Management style than Walmart by following their new CEO Brain Cornell’s Six leadership
principles. Their six leadership principles are consisting of their motto “Great shopping, anytime,
anywhere”, community support and engagement, celebrating diversity & inclusion, Fun and
rewarding place to work, design for all, and “more for your money” slogan (Cornell, 2018).
August 2014, after Cornell joined Target corporation, he had to face a variety of challenges and
Walmart a better company than Target
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overcome huge damages that were done before he joined Target (Harris, 2014). Till now he is
constantly trying to strengthen Target’s structure by keeping them as transparent as possible.
Transparency:
Both Walmart and Target are very clear about their information, mission, and vision in
every possible place including their website, stores, banner, advertisement campaigns, etc. With
the slogan “Save Money, Live Better” Walmart is promising everyday low prices, free shipping,
and pickup discounts for its customers. The corporate website of Walmart is designed to give
ample information about the company, its responsibility, and provides information about its
investors & suppliers. Five of those criteria on the website later are divided into various
subgroups to provide in-depth information about the company (Walmart, n.d.). Overall Walmart
puts out a lot of disruptive information about their company on the website which shows their
transparency to general people.
At the same time, Target with the slogan “expect more, pay less” provides its customers
with valued and quality products with comparatively less price than its close competition. They
are no different than Walmart in terms of their transparency; its corporate website gives an
overview of the company. The website is divided into six different tabs including about, career,
news & feature, corporate responsibility, investors, and peers page. Each division subsequently
breaks down into subgroups to provide details information about the company (Target A
Bullseye View, n.d.). What I liked most about Target’s corporate website is that they are very
clear about their corporate responsibilities and the career opportunities that they have. This
proves they are in the market not only for business but also to extend an opportunity for the
society.
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Talking about the corporate website for both of the companies it leads me to their general
website where I noticed how they aligned everything to attract customers. Walmart’s general
website is driven to help their customers in navigating the company and shop smoothly. It is
divided into three major categories including online shopping tools, different departments, and
Walmart services. Later, each division is broken down to separate links that help customers to
shop easily at their convenience. Alongside their corporate website, they also have their general
website which is very user-friendly and primarily divides into four criteria which later gets
broken down to specific subgroups to help the customer navigate and shop.
Strategic Planning method:
To have a better idea about both of the companies and know more about their business, in
this section, I am going to explore both of the company’s strategic planning and outcome.
Walmart has taken three strategic initiatives to keep them at the top of the industry which are:
1. Save Money, Live Better
2. Win, Play, Show
3. Fast, Friendly, Clean
Every initiative later has different components which are related to their marketing mix,
optimization, and how they placed themselves in the market (MURRAY, 2018).
Similarly, Target corporation is not behind with its strategic planning; last year they
announced their new retail plan mainly focusing on their delivery service. Their new strategy
includes:
1. Free two days shipping
2. Drive-Up; a service using Target’s App
3. Instore purchase delivered to customer’s house
Walmart a better company than Target
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4. Increasing the minimum wage for its hourly employees
5. Remodeling stores
Target is trying to bland their online and in-person shopping experiences together and create a
better shopping experience. In recent years they also mortified their vision and mission statement
as a part of their strategic planning (Target, n.d.).
SWOT:
Walmart’s biggest strength is its global supply chain; the high efficiency and
effectiveness of the supply chain. Besides, their international market size gave them a
competitive advantage over its competitors and made them one of the biggest retail corporations
around the world. To provide everyday low-price Walmart makes a thin profit margin in their
business, however, they rely more on volume sales to maximize their profit. There is still a lot of
opportunities for Walmart to expand its business, especially in developing countries. Similar to
other retail business Walmart also faces threat from different online retails and aggressive
competitions, but Walmart has always come up with innovative ideas to sustain in the business
(SMITHSON, 2019).
After Walmart, Target is one of the largest discount stores that operates in the US,
focusing on the youth group target is a fun place to go for shopping. Target’s biggest strengths
are providing a quality product at a reasonable price, having an exclusive partnership with
companies like Starbucks, and its beautiful store appearance that makes shopping more
enjoyable for customers. Limited demographics compare to Walmart and other stores, not having
enough international visibility, and higher employee turnover are some of their weaknesses. This
weakness can be transformed into opportunity if Target corporation can work on expending their
business in the international market. Similar to Walmart, Target also faces new retail segment
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competition, but recently they started working on their strategies to come up with better
placement for them so that they can sustain in the long run.
Marketing Mix:
Marketing strategy is often best described by the organization’s Marketing Mix. Walmart
and Target both have their different Strategic Planning method to place them to sustain in the
market. Starting with Walmart, for pricing Walmart uses low price strategy and they were able to
manage this price by having a large footprint and massive customer base. They also get low price
from their vendors as they purchase in volume as maintains a strong supply chain management.
Walmart has placed themselves as a multi-branded store with various departments including
electronics, entertainment, appliances, grocery, pharmacy, and almost everything that anyone can
think of for their day to day life. For promotion, Walmart follows a unique aggressive marketing
strategy through social media, billboards, TV ads, e-commerce website, and their catchy slogans
like “Save money, Live better.” (Mbaskool.com). By addressing customer’s day to day needs
with lower price Walmart placed themselves as an ultimate shopping destination for anyone and
reached almost every nook and corner of the US. As a result of having multiple locations in
various places around the world and by using different pricing strategies, Walmart is able to offer
a lower price than its competition. They have placed themselves in a way that it is very
accessible to the customers from anywhere in the US and the different international market.
Besides all this, Walmart’s effective and efficient supply chain made them even more successful
in the market. They have also taken three generic business strategies consist of the Focus
strategy, the Differentiation strategy, and Overall Cost leadership to succeed in the business.
They are very open to their consumers about their marketing strategies, and because of that on
their corporate website, they talk about various strategic initiatives and outlines that they are
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taking in place to thrive in the market. Some of the examples include strategies like prioritizing
store remodeling and digitalizing new store experience and eCommerce investments ideas
(Walmart Corporation, n.d.).
Parallelly, Target’s offers quality products at a very reasonable price as they use price
matching strategy for their product pricing. Their products vary from commodities and groceries
to home appliances and apparel. They did product differentiation by bringing high end fashion
and better-quality products in the store. For promotion Target creates advertising, direct
marketing, and sales promotions campaigns keeping its target customers in mind; their catchy
slogans like “Expect more, pay less” is also a part of their promotional marketing strategy. It has
placed itself mostly aiming for the middle and upper-middle-class section of society by
promoting their fresh local food, family and community atmosphere, and establishing themselves
as a company where quality gets priority over low price. Target believes in customer service and
that is the reason they always focus on customers need and their expectation. Also, by testing out
new store layouts with personalized services they are trying to make a smooth and seamless
experience for their customers. By doing so it not only made the shopping experience better for
its customers but also their overall revenue went up. According to CNN, Target’s, stock price,
sales in stores and online went considerably high (Meyersohn, 2018).
Work place and Human resources management:
Walmart being the largest privet employer by holding opportunities for 2.2 million
associates around the world, has always maintained a very strong Human Resource Management
department. Walmart’s effective large-scale Human Resource management is known as Peoples
division; it plays a critical success factor in the overall growth of the company. Their Human
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Resource is responsible for some of their key component in their success. For example, its
responsible for ensuring operational efficiency for the company. They focus on reducing cost so
that company can maintain its low-price strategy for the consumers. Human Resource
Management is the department the one who actually connects people to their product. It also
ensures company’s profit and growth and committed to success for the company by driving
upward results every day. Finally, protecting price advantage is another important responsibility
of human resource management of Walmart. Walmart is also trying to bring back American
manufacturing jobs by facilitating and accelerating efforts of their suppliers, and since 2013 they
are meeting more suppliers and visited numerous factories across the U.S. Their JUMP Portal
helps Suppliers and many more in bringing U.S. Manufacturing and/or re-shoring their current
operations back. Moreover, Walmart has programs like empowering women with proper tanning,
market access, and by giving them more career opportunity to improve their lives (Walmart ,
n.d.). Besides Walmart’s human resource also manages workforce and business issues effectively
by addressing them in a proper manner (THOMPSON, 2019). Over all, It protects Walmart’s
pricing advantage, ensures operational success, provides cultural tanning to foster diversity,
makes connecting with people to the product, aligns every functional area with service, and helps
to eliminate business risks (HRMagazine, 2010).
Meanwhile, Target has a resource-based perspective of strategic human resources
management which provides them with a unique source of competitive advantage and has a
strong relationship with the company’s overall performance. Its strategy is divided into four core
areas including organizational culture, staffing, employee development, and employee retention.
However, Target still faces high employee turnover, but they are constantly working on this issue
by providing more benefits to its employees, encouraging employees to participate in different
projects, and rewarding them based on their performance (Ramlall).
Walmart a better company than Target
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Financial outcomes:
Walmart’s financial information is accessible to the public as its website features its most
of its financial report. Every financial quarter their website gets updated with a new financial
statement. Compare to last year Walmart saw an increase of $14.1 billion in their total revenue,
and their total revenue reached $515.1 billion in the 2019 fiscal year. Not only this, but Walmart
also increased its total sales by 3.6% than the previous fiscal year, and their online sales went up
by 40% with an improvement of the Customer Value Index. Walmart also generated $27.8
billion operating cash flow while returning $13.5 billion to shareholders (Walmart , n.d.).
According to Forbes news, the beginning of the year Walmart’s market share jumped to 3.6%
which made them the world’s largest retailer. Walmart thinks it was possible because of the rise
in its online selling (Cheng, 2019).
Similarly, Target also has its quarterly financial report available for everyone to see on
their corporate website. However, it is not as organized as Walmart’s financial report. As said by
Target’s website its sales grew in the second quarter by 3.4% and traffic by 2.4%. Same as
Walmart, Target’s online sales went up and grew by 34% which was mostly contributed by their
same-day fulfillment service. After publishing the 2019 second-quarter financial report, Target’s
CEO and chairman Brain Cornell commented that the company is very pleased to see better
performance in this quarter and that their strategies are paying off. After the third quarter,
Target’s total revenue increased by 3.6% which eventually gave them a total of $18.4 billion in
revenue. From 2018 their operating income went up by 16.9% and that gave them an increased
$1,324 million Operating income. Since 1946 till now, Target Corporation serving thousands of
customers every day at more than 1,800 locations, every week gives back 5% of its sales profit to
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its community which makes them a strong competitor for corporations like Walmart (Target,
n.d.).
Corporate Social Responsibility efforts/outcomes:
Walmart’s social responsibilit…
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