Case Study Analysis of Wal-Mart: the Main Street Merchant
Wall-Marts massive footprint has had three primary areas of concern: 1) Putting local small business merchants out of business 2) The creation of urban sprawl 3) Traffic congestion Largest purchase made from overseas which forced local manufacturers out of business. Oppositions from labor unions and activists organizations regards to low wage, low benefits and taking advantage of Illegal Immigrants. Gender discrimination against women. Most sued company In America in respect of lawsuits.
In the mid sass’s, Wall-Mart was becoming responsible for the loss of American Jobs due to the sheer volume of foreign purchases from its overseas vendors.
The company was contacted by then Gob. Bill Clinton and he requested that they devise a plan to support American manufacturing. Wall-Mart responded with a “Buy American” program to support American manufacturers, but the plan was eventually abandoned. Wall-Mart Is currently the largest purchaser of Chinese products. This shift In policy caused the loss of American manufacturing Jobs once again.
The aggressive marketing of Wall-Mart, Its purchasing power and Intent to provide very Inexpensive goods to the consumer has shut down many local merchants.
Even with continued resistance in many communities, Wall-Mart has continued to expand worldwide in brute force. The varying cultures across the globe that Wall-Mart attempts to move into have also proven to be very resistant. There have been cases of Wall-Mart not respecting the language or culture of the respecting community and they have closed their doors or taken a different approach including the purchase of well known local chains to retain a familiarity and business model that works.
Analyses/Evaluation: The primary social stakeholders of Wall-Mart are the citizens in the community, local consumers, employees, local environment, American nutcrackers, local small business and shareholders. The secondary social stakeholders are the local, state and federal government (state ND federal due to Wall-Mart’s enormous financial impact on the U. S.
Economy and its lobbying power), anti-Wall-Mart activists (including local community activists, broad- based activists against the spread of “The Wall-Mart Way’, and environmental activists), the media.
Responsibilities Economical Responsibilities: Provide fair paying Jobs, profit to shareholders with as little impact as possible on local merchants, purchasing from U. S. Manufacturers as much as possible Legal Responsibilities: Protecting Wall-Mart employees, protecting shareholders with mound business practices and limiting costly lawsuits that may affect their bottom line, comply with local/state/federal environmental and consumer laws.
