Introduction
Walmart is a multinational retail corporation based in America and operates a chain of large warehouses and discount department stores around the world. The company was established in 1962 by Sam Walton and became fully incorporated in 1969. The company operates in 27 countries, with approximately 11,000 stores. Although it only operates under the name Walmart in the US, it has different other names for each of its operations in other parts of the world. This paper examines the environmental and organizational pressures, which the company is facing, and how the company is dealing with them.
Table 1.1 Walmart’s Pressures.
Organization Pressures
High-performance expectations
Walmart is among the organizations which are highly pressured to produce high-performance results to respond to the expectations of customers, highly skilled and experienced employees, and organizational changes (Lynn, 2006). Due to its growing influence, the number of Walmart’s customers continues to rise daily, hence putting pressure on the company to produce more.
Impact on the Company
It, therefore, translates that the company has to produce more and work harder in order to cater to the needs of increasing customers. With high-performance, Walmart’s financial performance also increases drastically, since more goods are produced, and the same is sold.
Impact on Employees
However, for a high-performance level to be achieved, a lot has to be done, and the people who do all these are the employees. This, therefore, means that employees have to work hard and extend to extra hours so that the set target for a particular day is achieved. This affects the employees immensely since they do not get enough time to rest or sleep, and this could constitute to poor health and low motivation among them.
Walmart’s Response
One of the strategies, which Walmart is employing in achieving its performance expectations, is opening up more and more branches in order to share the workforce and reduce pressure.
Price Challenges
Walmart has, over the years, received many accusations mainly from its competitors, all basing their case on Walmart selling their products at a very low price. This has resulted in some of its competitor’s suing the corporation for what they term as predatory pricing. Predatory pricing is a term used to refer sell of products cheaply in order to force competitors out of the market (Keil & Spector, 2005).
Effect to the Company
The high number of legal cases has consequently affected the company’s financial aspects in negative ways. This is because the company has to hire the best lawyers to ensure that they win such cases.
Effect on Employees
On the other hand, employees are affected by the low pricing because it reflects in their pay.
Company strategy
Walmart believes that by offering goods at lower prices, its sales increase drastically. Moreover, it considers this as one way of forcing competitors out of the market since they will lack clients. In essence, this approach has been effective for Walmart since the company has been able to expand over time, despite the low pricing of its merchandise.
Few workers
Although Walmart is very prominent for its low prices of commodities and goods, it is also known to have extremely few workers. This is attributed to the fact that Walmart believes that a small number of employees is easy to manage. Even as it opens more branches, the number of workers remains constant (Keil & Spector, 2005).
Impact on employees
A lower number of employees means that they will have to work more on a daily basis in order to meet the high demands.
Effect on the Company
A lower number of employees means that the company will strive to meet high customer demands. Consequently, this will give competitors an opportunity to outdo Walmart in meeting customer demand
Company Response
Walmart has all along endeavored to create efficiency from the fewer numbers of workers by training them accordingly.
Environmental Pressures
Environmental Pollution
Much as Walmart works hard to portray itself as an environmentally friendly firm, critics have consistently blamed it for causing immense pollution to the environment. For instance, critics have argued that Walmart emits a high quantity of CO2, which negatively affects the ecosystem owing to its large production and operations on a daily basis.
Impact on company performance
These kinds of pressure usually have some impact on the financial performance of the company since its image is distorted in a way, making customers consider shifting to other places for their shopping.
Effect on Employees
The employees of this organization are affected too because, if sales go down, the company may lay off some workers since there is no much work to do.
Company response
Walmart has, however, tried to prevent environmental pollution in various ways. It includes the use of renewable energy, fuel cells that produce light, among others, that do not pose a danger to the environment (Lynn, 2006).
Waste
The name and reputation of Walmart have undergone ruin in some way because of the amount of waste it releases from its operations. The filling of its waste products in landfills has raised the concerns of the public and government on its operations (Lynn, 2006).
Effect to the Company
This negative reputation turns away potential and existing customers from buying the company products
Effect on Employees
Employees fail to develop self-confidence and trust in the company due to this bad reputation.
Company Response
However, the company has launched a new way of recycling its waste, and currently, more than 80 percent of the company’s waste is recycled. Other wastes like the one pallets are reused, and usable food is donated to charity while other food is turned into compost or animal feed.
Use of High Quantity of Energy
The use of a high quantity of energy for its operations is also one of the environmental pressures affecting WalMart. In fact, the amount of energy the company used in a single day is equivalent to that used in 1,095 U.S. homes in just one day (Keil & Spector, 2005).
Impact on the Company
The high quantity of energy used translates to high expenses with negative implications for the company’s financial status.
Effect on Employees
Consequently, employees are not well paid since the company does not make good money; hence they are demoralized
Company Response
However, in trying to resolve this challenge, the company has prioritized creating energy efficiency and use of renewable energy that will help it is operating at a low cost. At the same time, this approach allows Walmart to be a steward in environmental protection (Keil & Spector, 2005).
Recommendations
Both organizational and environmental pressures have their effects on a company, and if managed accordingly, the company can still realize its full potential. For Walmart to fully deal with the pressures of high-performance and few employees, the only possible way out is hiring more employees. This will ensure equal distribution of duties and faster completion of production without strain.
References
Keil, S., & Spector, L. (2005). The Impact of Walmart on Income and Unemployment Differentials in Alabama. The Review Of Regional Studies, 35(3), 336-355.
Lynn, B. (2006). Breaking the chain: The antitrust case against Walmart. Essay, Harper Magazine, 7, 29-36.
Roper, W., & Humstone, E. (1997). Walmart in Vermont-The Case Against Sprawl. Vt. L. Rev., 22,755.