Wal-Mart Essay

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MBA 6008-Global Economic Environment

Final Project: Wal-Mart

Capella University

Theresa Patterson December 30, 2011

Wal-Mart is a successful retail corporation that is known worldwide. The retail company has created economic benefits for consumers that are extremely tremendous. Wal-Mart has provided more choices for consumers at lower prices in communities where local retail monopolies were evident prior to this retail chains arrival. This company operates their retail stores in numerous formats worldwide. Their commitment is saving people money so they can have better lives. With that being said, we will begin by analyzing Wal-Marts environment …show more content…
Part of the reason for this is the retail production function, the inputs and outputs that are relevant, and their relationship between them has begun to receive academic attention. Nevertheless, numerous studies by industry analysts and academic economist provide a glimpse into the source of Wal-Mart’s advantage. By all reasons, technology and scale are at the core of this retailer’s advantage over its competition (Basker, E. 2007)
In the retail sector, stores that are a part of the retail chains tend to be more efficient than single-store retailers, and chains tend to invest more in information technology (Foster, Haltiwanger, and Krizan, 2006; Doms, Jarmin, and Klimek, 2004). The technological edge of Wal-Mart is in its logistics, distribution, and inventory control; by installing a computer in its first distribution center in 1969, it had connected all Wal-Mart stores and distribution along with their headquarter to a computer network by the late 1970s. Wal-Mart was starting to become technological savvy (Basker, E. 2007).
Wal-Mart also became an early adopter of the bar-code technology. The installation of bar-code readers in all their distribution centers in the late 1980s reduced their labor cost of processing shipments by half (Vance and Scott, 1994). Wal-Mart introduced Retail Link software in 1990, connecting its stores, distribution centers and suppliers which
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