Section 1
Walmart’s relationship with the government is one that has been characterized by lobbying in matters relating to government policy. It holds numerous campaigns to with the Commerce Department (Norman 2). Walmart, as an industry giant, is expected to be a neutral party when in matters relating to politics. Hillary Clinton has been associated with the giant retailers who had campaigned against labor unions. It was claimed that she got campaign funding from the firm. This may be the reason for their refusal to brutalize the retail giant about its policies relating to anti-union (Riddell 2).
Section 2
The porter’s five forces is an important tool when it comes to analyzing the competitive market of business (Indiatsy et al., 77). Companies such as Walmart, need to apply this tool to ensure that they optimize the available resources while ensuring that they maintain their competitiveness (Jaradat, Almomani and Bataineh 458). These tools usually entail consideration of the competition intensity, threat of new entrants and consumer bargaining power as the most important points. The others include supplier bargaining power and presence of substitutes.
Walmart has to consider the other growing competitors. There are numerous retail companies, who present a strong force because of the aggressiveness of the organizations. These considerations are crucial despite it being an industry leader. Buyer bargaining presents external forces such as the size of the population, which is a strong force and demographic diversity and purchase power as the weak ones. Projections on these factors would help in determining the expected sales. As for the supplier bargaining power, the factors to note are usually the supply availability and competitiveness of the suppliers as the weak forces, followed by the supplier population as the strong force.
Substitution is an external factor that is bound to affect the retail planning process because their availability affects the demand for Walmart’s products. In addition, they might be a lower price leading to clients’ preference for the substitutes. New entrants also threaten the competitive strategies of Walmart. Entrants usually penetrate the market because it is convenient, consideration of the location as well as specialty. They are typically a threat because they have the potential to grow into stiff competition.
Works Cited
Indiatsy, C. Masinde, Mucheru Mwangi, Evans Mandere, Julius Bichanga and Gongera George. “The Application of Porter’s Five Forces Model on Organization Performance: A Case of Cooperative Bank of Kenya Ltd. European Journal of Business and Management, 6.16: 75-85
Jaradat Saleh, Almomani Salam, and Bataineh Mansour. The Impact of Porter’s Model’s Five Competence Powers on Selecting Business Strategy. Interdisciplinary Journal of Contemporary Research in Business, 5(3); 457-465
Riddell, Kelly. “Hillary Clinton’s Walmart Ties Breed Mistrust among Liberals, Boosts Bernie Sanders. Washington Times. 17 Feb. 2016. Web. 16 April. 2016
(http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/feb/17/hillary-clintons-wal-mart-ties- breed-mistrust-amon/?page=all)
Norman, Al. Walmart’s Invisible Army of Lobbyists.” Huffington Post. 22 July. 2013. Web. 16 April. 2016 (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/al-norman/walmart- lobbyists_b_3632526.html)
