Research Design and Analysis Largest Multinational Retail

Question: Discuss about the Report for Research Design and Analysis for Largest Multinational Retail. Answer: 1. Walmart is one of the largest multinational retail institutions today. Sam Walton founded the company in 1962 at Rogers, Ark. Walmart is an American multinational retailer that does business in large discount stores and warehouse stores. It became Walmart Stores inc. In 1969. Presently Walmart reports a customer base of 260 million in 28 countries. Walmart as a large corporate had revenue of $482.1 billion in 2016 (Corporate.walmart.com, 2016). Walmart strongly believes in community giving and environmental sustainability. Walmart maintains its own fleet to move goods. Walmart believes in providing every day low prices (EDLP) on a multitude of products both in the stores and online. The present CEO and Walmart US president is Greg Foran. Walmart has established its presence in North and South America, parts of Africa, UK, India and China. During this process of expansion it used different strategies in different countries. The main strategy it used in Mexico was the multi-format strategy. When entering Mexico it tied up with the largest retailer in Mexico CIFRA. This was a symbiotic relationship where Walmart used CIFRAs knowledge of the local culture and market in exchange for Walmarts superior supply chain management. In Canada it used a different strategy to enter the market. In 1994 Walmart purchased 120 of 142 stores of Woolco Discount stores. Walmart with this acquisition got more than 100,000 square feet of floor space in addition to other benefits. In 2011 Walmart again acquired 39 stores of Zellers. While in China it used the Chinese manufacturing business to get its supplies at affordable goods. This was in agreement with the EDLP policy of Walmart. It also faced challenges from the Chinese government regulations and other retailers (Mun and Yazdanifard 2012). Walmart is known for its anti-union policy. Thus it had to agree to unions in China (Yue, Rao and Ingram 2013). In Australia the biggest players in the retail and wholesale sector are Woolworths and Coles. ALDI the German is also going strong. Woolworths as of March 2015 commanded a market share of 38.5% while Coles had a market share of 31.8%. ALDI a distant third had a market share of 11.8% (Forbes.com, 2016). The decision problem in case of Australia hence would be Walmart first has to understand the government regulations in setting up a retail and wholesale business. Since Walmart has both retail and online stores Walmart has to decide how it would set up the retail as well as the online stores. How would Walmart like to enter the Australian market? Whether it wishes it acquire certain small or big retailers or it wants to start on its own? If it wants to set up its own business then it how will it go about to set up its own business. If it wants to set up its own then how does it get the products to be sold at the stores, the supply chain management. How does it challenge the present market leaders in Australia Woolworths and Coles? How does it challenge ALDI which is fast growing and is even challenging the growth of Woolworths and Coles. As and when Walmart decides to enter Australia it will have to do some market research. Walmart will have to do research regarding: Who are the market leaders in the sector in Australia? What are the market strategies employed by the competitors? What are the pricing policies of the competitors? How does it compete with the loyalty programs of Woolworths and Coles? Who can be the potential suppliers for Walmart? What supply chain management techniques to use? 2. Walmarts started the Supercenter concept in 1988. The supercenters at Walmarts are open 24hours of the day and they are a one stop shopping experience (Corporate.walmart.com, 2016). The research design process is the background for doing the marketing research. Walmart in the present case needs to understand the market dynamics (Malhotra 2013). Since Walmart has at present no presence in Australia it needs to understand, the regulatory requirements needed to build its supercenter concept. Walmart in the present context needs to understand its competitors. Its major in Australia are Woolworths, Coles and ALDI. Thus, it needs to understand how these competitors work. Walmart needs to understand the different strategies its competitors in Australia undertake to bring consumers, the different loyalty programs, discounts offered. Since Walmart wishes to build supercenters hence it will need grocery and other items. Hence, Walmart needs suppliers to supply them with goods. Thus, Walmart wi ll have to find out how what are the different types of goods it can get and how to get the goods to its various centres. Since the problem at hand is still loosely defined, hence Walmart will have to conduct an exploratory research first. Exploratory research consists of conducting and in-depth interview. It will have to conduct a research by interviewing both industry experts as well as consumers (Mooi and Sarstedt 2014). The exploratory research will help Walmart to get an idea about the size of the market. Who are the main players in the market? How do they arrange for the raw materials (grocery and others)? How are the raw materials transported? This exploratory research can be used to develop more conclusive research. 3. Walmart business started in the United States in the late 1960s. Grocery stores, departmental stores are the main business of Walmart .The company has set an example to the whole world what the markret system could achieve. It is a company with huge variety of products. The prices charged are also reasonable. The company has faced many critical issues. Many people has given negative feedback about the company. The company has been criticized for unemployement, low wages of labour, and making profit by keeping the prices high (Morillo, McNally and Block 2015). A study reveals that most of the people thinks the company to be bad for the economy of the country ( Bonanno and Goetz 2012).But the company has been able to overcome the difficulty and establish themselves as a successful business. The Walmart business has grown rapidly in the present days. There are few factors that has helped in the growth. These are the advertisement policies, corporate social responsibilities, using local food supply, using social media for advertising, charging low prices and others. 1. Advertisement: Advertising is an important factor that has contributed to the growth of business of Walmart. The advertisement of Walmart can attract many customers. With the help of proper advertisement the company has able to establish its business in different countries. The company has also attended different trade fairs to promote its goods. The import and export fair in China is one of them where the company has participated along with other companies like Target, Best Buy, Staples.More than 200000 customers visits the fair and there are about 75 reatail companies from all over the world who participates in the fair(Lister,, LeBaron and Dauvergne 2013). CSR: The policy of social responsibility followed by the company can be classified into two types. In one part the company manufactures products, takes care of preparing it and sells it into the market. The company also takes care of the its customers by preparing good kind of products, for example, products with low trans fat and high nutritional value (Taillie, Ng and Popkin 2016). In the other part, the company do not follow any CSR policies that are visible as such. Walmart has joined hands with American organizations to ensure food safety. Wlmart claims that they do not supply food to the city people. They are for people living by the countryside ( Ken 2014) 3. Workforce of the company: The company has almost 2.2 million workers. But the company has faced many criticisms like not paying proper salary to the workers, wages of workers being low. All these comes under the section of corporate social responsibility(Koca-Helvaci 2015). The company wanted to buy and collaborate with other companies in South Africa in the year 2011. The labor unions of South Africa with the help of the labour unions from UK and USA fought the merging ( Kenny 2014). To enter into the business of Australia, the company needs to hire workers from the country. The company has to maintain good relation with the labor force of the country. Women empowerment: The Company supports the growth of women empowerment in the society. Women are running business nowadays and are preparing products. This in another way reflects the social responsibility of the company. Walmart has decided to take about more than 20 billion dollars of products from the businesses that are run by women (Arnold, Brocato and Bone 2015). In an interview Shanthi Flynn one of the top employee of the company has said that Walmart cares encourages women empowerment by taking women and disable people into their company.The posts of Department manger and store manager are offered to them(Chan 2013). Helping the farmers of different countries: The Company has contributed to the agricultural improvement of different countries. The agricultural countries like Bangladesh are benefitted by the Walmart business. In Bangladesh, the AAPI Walmart foundation has operated mainly in three districts namely Barishal, Khulna and Dhaka. The main products that the company trades in this region are brinjal, tomato, cauliflower and cabbage. The main objective of the company is to measure the capacity of fruits and vegetable markets in the country. This project of the company has greatly benefitted the poor farmers of the country. I f the business operates in Australia, the local farmers of the country will be benefitted (Nagarajan 2014).The contractual farming increases supply of food. The contractual farming is practiced in South African countries. The company promotes this in order to get their product supply (Michelson 2013). Collaboration:The main competitor of Walmart in Australia is the Woolworth company. The Woolworth Company was started about 80 years ago and the company employs more than one lakh eighty thousand people of the country. The company also ranks among the top 25 retail companies of the world and the company mainly sells grocery. In order to operate business successfully, Walmart needs to join hands with the Woolworths Company. This joint collaboration would help in the growth and development of business of both the companies (Arli et al. 2013). Labour relations:The NLRB law plays a significant role in the Walmarts labour relations and policies of social media.There has been cases when the company was forced revise its NLRB policy and labour relation rules(Thornthwaite 2015). Influence of Social media: Social media has played a wide role in nowadays life. An idea about the consumer satisfaction of the customers can be obtained from the Facebook pages of the company. In many places, sarcastic comments are made about the company. This creates a negative impression about the company among local peoples. This in turn affects the business of the company (Peeroo Samy and Jones 2015). 7.Other factors: One of the important factor contributing to the growth of the Walmarts policies is low priced charged by the company. Its low prices attract customers. The products offered by the company are also eco friendly. It is the general psychology of any people to spend less money and avail high discounts. Walmart uses RFID technology for its products. The company has started this practice in 2003 in the US. The RFID tag attached on the product helps in reducing errors of scanning the product. This in turn reduces labor costs (Shin Eksioglu 2015). There has also been some discussions that the region where Walmart operates there is a higher rate of crimes. It is mainly found in the counties of United States. The rates of crime are higher in places where there is a Walmart shop. The business that has been started in 1969 by Sam Walto has now grown into one of the leading multinational companies of the world. The company generates highest revenue in the world and employs maximum number of workers. The company also takes good care of its employees. The company also looks after its customers and is honest to them. They provide the customer with products with good nutritional value . Thus by taking good care of the customers and employers the company has been able to establish itself as one of the leading company today. 4: Walmart still does not have a presence in Australia. It thus has to undertake an exploratory research to estimate the different factors that will influence its market. Since Walmart at Australia wants to emulate its supercenter concept hence it would require more than only suppliers of grocery, fresh food products, dairy products, toys and apparel. The supercenter concept of Walmart is more than a supermarket. The supercenters of Walmarts are open 24 hours and also sell electronics and home appliances. These centers also have restaurants, banks and salons. Hence Walmart would need to undertake a qualitative research. Qualitative research is usually undertaken to describe the problem. The research that can be undertaken are: What is the most important characteristics of a supercenter that a customer would be looking for in Australia. Is a customer in Australia interested in the price of the product, the discount on the product or the ambience and accessibility of the store? Would a customer in Australia be amenable to the idea of a supercenter which apart from housing grocery, bakery, fresh food also has banks, home furnishing and electronic goods? What are the strategies being undertaken by the competitors of Walmart Australia? What are some of the loyalty programs being introduces by its competitors? How does the competitors website and mobile store function? Since Walmart has a policy of no unions will the policy work in Australia? Will it get enough employees to work for with its no-union policy. Walmart would also have to conduct research on the supplier chain. A qualitative research would be more useful for Walmart since it requires a sample size. With the help of exploratory research Walmart would be able to develop an understanding of the problem. The objective of Walmart would be gain an insight into how to get into the opportunities and threats in the Australian market. Since Walmart would be new to the Austalian market, hence customers who are loyal to Woolworths and Coles, the largest two market players in the retail supermarket business in Australia may not be forthcoming to divulge all information about the retailers. Some customers may evade or give false answers to even simple questions like How many times in a week do you visit the retail store. Under such circumstances the information desired by Walmart can be obtained by using a qualitative research methodology. Walmart should conduct both direct and indirect qualitative research. In the direct form of qualitative research it should conduct focus group interviews. Focus group interviews are essential since it is an unstructured interview. The salient feature of focus group interview is unexpected findings from the group discussions. Since a focus group interview consists of conducting interview with a homogenous group of persons, Walmart will get an understanding of the demands and requirements of different groups in Australia which may be different from other countries in which Walmart operates. From the focus group interview the following may be the research outcomes: Walmart can possibly identify the household criteria used in selecting a supermarket. Walmart could identify what an Australian customer would search in a product which would differentiate it from its competitors Walmart would be able to identify how to make loyal Australian customers. Walmart would be able to identify the traits in an Australian customer to make him loyal to Walmart in the long run The results of the focus group interview should not be thought of as conclusive, since they are not representative of the true population. Thus the results of the focus group interview should be probed further to understand the issues that might face Walmart, Australia. Walmart could use the depth interview procedure. In the depth interview procedure a single customer will be interviewed using unstructured questionnaire regarding his experiences of going to a supermarket. An in depth interview probes the customer into revealing hidden information. The in depth interview would answer the reasons behind the customers purchasing decisions. Whether the decision to purchase a product is because of its quality or price. Since Walmart wishes to open the supercenter hence an in depth interview would be able to uncover the customer preference for high value items like home furnishings or electronic goods. An in depth interview could also be used to get answers to confidential and sensitive topics. Since in depth interviews are conducted hence Walmart would be able to get an idea where in Australia do social norms influence shopping behaviours. In depth interviews could also be conducted with market researchers who have prior knowledge of the market dynamics. An in depth interview could also be taken up by Walmart with the suppliers of groceries, fresh produce, bakery items to the would be competitors like Woolworths and Coles. In addition to the direct form of the interview Walmart should also use the indirect form of interview. In the indirect Walmart could use the construction technique. The construction technique is useful in probing the customer about his preferences for different dairy, grocery, bakery and even electronic and household products. 5: The survey that has to be conducted can be conducted with the help of research questionnaire. The research questionaire can be sent to different people with the help of their email or with the help of internet sites that conduct research works. The data collected in the process is the primary data. The data has to reach people all over the country. A pilot survey can be conducted to know about the economic condition of the country, major risks faced by the country, the history of the companies that has already operated business previously in the country. The company cannot open business in the era when there is lot of political unrest or natural calamities. For the business to run smoothly, the taste and preference of the customers of the country are to be known. This information are obtainable from the research questionnaire. The whole country can be subdivided into different regions. The major cities like Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne are the major cities of the country. These are th e metropolitan cities where shopping malls are located. These places will get maximum customers. The country can be classified into four distinct regions- Major metropolitan cities-Sydney, Brisbane Outer major regions like Darwin Inner major regions Remote and very remote places. Data has to be collected from all peoples both rich and poor. The taste and preferences of the customer needs to be known. The data should be subjected to sampling errors. 6: In a Likert Scale a questionnaire is administered to the respondent. The scale usually measure from very strongly positive to very strongly negative. Usually it is in a five point scale with the central being neutral. Sometime a seven point scale or a three point scale can also be administered. Likert Scale Q1. How much do you think price of goods or services matters in a supermarket Always Very Often Sometimes Rarely Never Q2. How much do you think is online sales necessary for a supermarket Always Very Often Sometimes Rarely Never Q3. How important it is for a supermarkets to be open work for 24 hours Very Important Important Moderately Important Slightly Important Not Important Q4. How many times do you visit a supermarket in a Week Once a Day More than once a Day About 15 times About 15 to 20 times More than 21 times The semantic differential measures the attitude of the customers. It is usually seven point bipolar rating scale. Semantic differential How is your experience with our competitors with regard to 1. Website Very Helpful - - - - - - - Not at Helpful 2. Service Superb - - - - - - - Worst 3. Prices Expensive - - - - - - - Affordable 4. Experience Pleasant - - - - - - - Unpleasant 5. Accessibility Easy - - - - - - - Tough -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 The staple scale was developed by Jan Stapel. It usually measures the attitudes of the customer with an adjective which is placed in the middle. The staple scale how much closer or further away is the attitude of the people. Stapel Scales The interviewer needs to ask the following questions on the various features of the competitors of Walmart (Zikmund et. al. 2013) -3 -3 -3 -3 -3 -2 -2 -2 -2 -2 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 Accessibility Services Employees Prices website 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 3 3 3 3 3 7: The sampling plan is the most important decision that Walmart has to take. The sampling plan will define the sample of customers to be selected, how to select the sample, the size of the sample and what should be the demography of the sample. Since the present research consists of only exploratory research and can be considered to be a feasibility study undertaken by Walmart hence the sample size should be small. Research has shown that for an exploratory study on understanding the market potential a minimum sample size of 500 with a maximum size of 2500 would be sufficient. The sample should consist of an equal number of both males and females. It should also consist of equal number of young and old people. The sample could be divided into 2 or four groups. The groups could be based on the gender of the person or the age group of the person. Since presently Walmart would like to study the Australian market, for supercenters hence it should conduct the survey only at big cities in Australia. Walmart Supercenters in North America is located only at big cities. Thus the sample of the customers should be chosen only from Australian big cities. They should be working and staying in the big cities. Adults fulfilling the above criteria could be selected for the study. The customers could be chosen from random telephone numbers. The sample so selected should be a true representative of the city. The sample so selected should be validated for the accuracy of the sample. The respondents of the sample should be screened for the demographics, familiarity of the market strategies of its competitors, familiarity of different products and such other characteristics so as to ensure that the sample selected is a true representative of the population of the city. The respondents could be loyalty customers of the would be main competitors Woolworths and Coles. Whenever the sample is selected from one particular city it should be checked that they do not represent one particular area or zone of the city. It should also be ensured that the respondents from a particular city should not be visiting the same supermarket. Since this will be the first interview of Walmart and it is looking at exploratory research hence the questionnaire developed in the above section should be administered by an interviewer to the sampled customer. References Arli, V., Dylke, S., Burgess, R., Campus, R. and Soldo, E., 2013. Woolworths Australia and Walmart US: Best practices in supply chain collaboration.Journal of Economics, Business, and Accountancy| Ventura,16(1), pp.27-46. Arnold, G., Brocato, D. and Bone, S., 2015. Women in Business Branding: Consumer Behavior Based on Hedonic vs. Utilitarian Positioning. Bonanno, A. Goetz, S.J. 2012, "WalMart and Local Economic Development: A Survey", Economic Development Quarterly, vol. 26, no. 4, pp. 285-297. Chan, S. 2013, "The Walmart story: Part II", China Staff, vol. 19, no. 4-5, pp. 12. Corporate.walmart.com. (2016). Our Business. [online] Available at: https://corporate.walmart.com/our-story/our-business [Accessed 29 Aug. 2016]. Corporate.walmart.com. (2016). Our Story. [online] Available at: https://corporate.walmart.com/our-story [Accessed 29 Aug. 2016]. Forbes.com. (2016). Forbes Welcome. [online] Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2014/04/02/challenges-wal-mart-faces-in-mexico-and-china/#3a7e918a4e48 [Accessed 29 Aug. 2016]. Ken, I. 2014, "Profit in the Food Desert: Walmart Stakes its Claim", Theory in Action, vol. 7, no. 4, pp. 13-32. Kenny, B. 2014, "Walmart in South Africa: Precarious Labor and Retail Expansion", International Labor and Working-Class History, vol. 86, pp. 173-177. Koca-Helvaci, Z.C. 2015, "Walmart and its employee relations: organizational stance-taking and legitimacy", On the Horizon, vol. 23, no. 4, pp. 374-386. Lister, J., LeBaron, G. Dauvergne, P. 2013, "A Patch of Green", Alternatives Journal, vol. 39, no. 1, pp. 28 Malhotra, N. (2013). Essentials of marketing research. Frenchs Forest, N.S.W.: Pearson Education Australia. Michelson, H.C. 2013, "Small farmers, NGOs, and a Walmart world: welfare effects of supermarkets operating in Nicaragua", American Journal of Agricultural Economics, vol. 95, no. 3, pp. 628. Mooi, E. and Sarstedt, M. (2014). A Concise Guide to Market Research: The Process, Data, and Methods Using IBM SPSS Statistics. Berlin: Springer. Morillo, J., McNally, C. Block, W.E. 2015, "The Real Walmart", Business and Society Review, vol. 120, no. 3, pp. 385-408. Mun, L.Y. and Yazdanifard, R., 2012. Walmart Success In Mexico, Canada And China: Global Expansion, Strategies, Entry Modes, Threats And Opportunities. Nagarajan, L., 2014. Accelerating Agriculture Productivity Improvement (AAPI) Walmart Foundation Activity Improving Womens Access to Marketing of Fruits and Vegetables Final Report.. Peeroo, S., Samy, M. and Jones, B., 2015, December. Customer engagement manifestations on Facebook pages of Tesco and Walmart. InComputing, Communication and Security (ICCCS), 2015 International Conference on(pp. 1-8). IEEE. Shin, S. Eksioglu, B. 2015, "An empirical study of RFID productivity in the U.S. retail supply chain", International Journal of Production Economics, vol. 163, pp. 89-9 Taillie, L.S., Ng, S.W. and Popkin, B.M., 2016. Walmart and Other Food Retail Chains: Trends and Disparities in the Nutritional Profile of Packaged Food Purchases.American journal of preventive medicine,50(2), pp.171-179. Thornthwaite, L., 2015. Chilling times: social media policies, labour law and employment relations.Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources. Wolfe, S.E. and Pyrooz, D.C., 2014. Rolling back prices and raising crime rates? The Walmart effect on crime in the United States. British Journal of Criminology, 54(2), pp.199-221. Yue, L.Q., Rao, H. and Ingram, P., 2013. Information spillovers from protests against corporations a tale of Walmart and target. Administrative Science Quarterly, 58(4), pp.669-701. Zikmund W.G., Babin B.J., Carr J.C. and Griffin M. (2013) Business Research Methods 9th Ed. Cengage Learning