When introducing its services into the setting of a different country, an organization needs to be quite elaborate and meticulous with its business strategy. Based on the specifics of the local environment and especially eh needs of customers, the business strategy may need to be tweaked. The German Walmart’s approach toward managing its business appears to have been stakeholder-oriented initially, which has increased the company’s competitive advantage and the chances to attract customers (Head & Jing, 2014). In turn, the Colombian Walmart has been utilizing a target-centric approach, which, combined with Walmart’s trademark low prices has produced quite a stunning effect, attracting multiple customers (Head & Jing, 2014). However, the lack of effective infrastructure has reduced the opportunities to explore the Colombian market. Therefore, the German experiment in developing a business strategy can be considered rather unsuccessful compared to the Colombian one.
Customer Retention Approach
Due to the unsuccessful business model initially applied to the environment of the German market, the German Walmart has been struggling to establish the strategy for retaining customers ad gaining their loyalty. The specified challenge has been aggravated by the fact that Walmart’s approach toward managing its staff members has been known as rather inefficient (Head & Jing, 2014). However, due to the focus on quality, the German subdivision of Walmart has managed to find its target audience and appeal to it in the way that has led to a slight rise in customer retention and engagement levels (Head & Jing, 2014). In its turn, the Colombian Walmart has selected a slightly different strategy, following strictly the established Walmart formula and using its pricing framework as the main tool for keeping customers engaged (Head & Jing, 2014). However, the specified approach seems to have been failing due to the recent complaints concerning product quality (Head & Jing, 2014). Therefore, Colombia Walmart will have to focus on quality control as an essential tool in retaining buyers.
Supply Chain
In turn, the approaches toward building the supply chain within the target environments are quite close in both German and Columbian Walmart. The German Walmart’s supply chain can be characterized by high levels of efficacy and timely management of key processes. In turn, the Colombian Walmart seems to suffer from a rather disjointed infrastructure of its supply chain and poor communication with key stakeholders, primarily, with suppliers (Head & Jing, 2014). Therefore, further adjustments in the exploration of the local infrastructure and the search for effective tools for controlling the transfer of information and resources across the supply chain will be needed for the Colombian Walmart.
Human Resource Management
The issue of human resource management (HRM) has been a major problem across all Walmart’s offices, the Colombian and German ones not being an exception to this phenomenon. Due to the need to cut costs significantly and provide goods to its target audience at the lowest prices possible, Walmart has been deflating on the update of its HRM framework, hence multiple issues with the management of its staff (Head & Jing, 2014). In addition, the way in which staff members are treated at Walmart both in Germany and in Colombia is quite low (Head & Jing, 2014). Namely, employees’ personal needs are rarely taken into account, whereas the extent of the workload with which they have to deal daily increases regularly (Head & Jing, 2014). The described issue can be observed both at the Colombian Walmart and at the German one, although the extent of the specified problem varies significantly in the specified states. However, despite the changes in the degree of the concern are different, the problem of poor HRM remains a significant hindrance to successful performance both at German and at Colombian Walmart.
Reference
Head, K., Jing, R., & Swenson, D. L. (2014). From Beijing to Bentonville: Do multinational retailers link markets? Journal of Development Economics, 110, pp. 79-92.