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Walmart and ATT - Environmental Scanning Paper
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Environmental Scanning
Environmental scanning is the process of gathering information relevant to an
organization’s assessment in terms of its external and internal factors so as to explore the
opportunities and threats to that particular organization. Environmental scans are usually
performed to assess the position of an organization in the market, its relevance and how it can
improve its current status into a better position. This article will focus on the environmental
scans of Walmart and AT&T companies in relevance to their progress in the market.
Walmart
When conducting an environmental scan on Walmart on account of its external and
factors, there were five major categories that reflect the organization's core values, the business
principle as well as it a competitive edge over other retail stores in the country. These external
and internal factors can be classified into social, competitive, regulatory, technological and
economic factors. In regards to the social factors, Walmart has been able to incorporate a diverse
variety of materials that are suitable for people of all ages, all genders, different ethnic
backgrounds as well as different occupations. This makes them virtually be able to provide any
item that the market demands creating reliability among the customers hence loyalty to the
stores. This can also be reflected internally from its diverse choice of employees whose ratio
maintains an ideal balance in diversification.
In addition, Walmart has a keen sense of economic indulgence as proven by its vision and
mission statements which reflect on the income, expenditures and utilization of resources which
are the aspects that a business should consider to be successful. Moreover, Walmart also covers
its basis in the technological sector by providing the latest upgrades in technological devices as
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from the different manufacturers who also use the store as a platform to increase their sales
hence creating a mutually beneficial relationship that favors them both. The competition between
different manufacturers puts Walmart at an advantage as it can have the newest products
produced by these manufacturers as they appear on the market.
Furthermore, Walmart, through controlling pricing of its products, redefining its
marketing strategies and provision of adequate resources, ensures the complete satisfaction of its
customers as compared to other stores putting them at an advantage over the other stores. As
change is inevitable, Walmart continues to restructure its organizational structure so as to
incorporate new changes while still maintaining a close and tight relationship with its
shareholders, its employees, the customers and ultimately the environment thus creating
flexibility to adapt to any situations that may arise either internally or externally.
Walmart has a unique competitive advantage over its competitors as cultivated through
years of strategic thinking and decision making putting them ahead of their competitors. The
greatest asset that Walmart possesses over other stores is its low cost on products which favor the
customers. These low costs have been achieved through a variety of strategies like; getting their
products directly from the manufactures making them get the products at significantly low costs
hence an overall cost reduction. It also employs other tactics like creating strategic partnerships
with large suppliers which create a clear channel of supply of inputs and assets as compared to
its competitors. What's more, Walmart applies sophisticated inbound logistics which enable them
to significantly lower the prices of the goods they sell giving them a competitive advantage over
its competitors.
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Walmart uses some several measurement guidelines to evaluate its strategic effectiveness
in the market. One of those strategies involves timely performance measurement where they
evaluate the targets that they were to achieve within a given time frame. They also analyze the
retailer demand-driven performance metrics to determine whether the products distributed are up
to standard with the desired supply in the market.(Berndt, 2006) In addition, Walmart uses
sustainability metrics in their measurement for strategic effectiveness to analyze their
productivity through a report system which allows them to test potential areas of vulnerabilities
that need to be looked into.(Nagappan, 2012)
AT&T Company
The other company in question is the AT&T, which is among the top companies in the
world. An environmental scan on both the external and internal factors of the AT&T Company
shows that there are several factors that influenced the organization’s productivity and progress.
Similar to Walmart, the external and internal factors related to AT&T can also be categorized
into socio-cultural, economic and technological factors. The socio-cultural factors involve
lifestyle changes and demographic changes which are very rampant as the company has been
around for quite some time and has faced many changes over the years. AT&T is has shown the
ability to adapt to all manner of changes by incorporating this changes into the organization to
increase work output and efficiency among the employees as well as the customer service that it
provides. (Milestones in AT&T History.2016)AT&T incorporates all aspects of networking to
create a well-diversified system that covers all occupations and personal communication
preferences that an individual might prefer making them infallible in their industry.
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On account of technology, AT&T has teams working effortlessly to keep up with the
technology which is growing at warp speed. Its ability to be updated with new technologies as
they come up and provide better and quality services to its customers is one of the factors that
has enabled the organization to be the among the top service providers of mobile phones over the
years. AT&T has been able to create new innovative technologies by itself, which are usually
customer oriented by helping the customer find easier ways of communicating and convenient
ways of making this happen. AT&T has also been able to maintain a good relationship with the
government economic wise in terms of rates and government economic policies. It has continued
to provide better employment rates and income than its competitors as well as maintain a steady
uptrend in the market growth since two thousand and eight.
AT&T uses language and fast network reliability as its competitive advantage over other
companies. AT&T can implement this competitive advantage by using the majority of their
resources to build structures that will facilitate the production of a reliable network connection to
a vast group of people who very much need it owing to the advancement of globalization. AT&T
also uses strategies such as constantly inventing new technologies that are meant to facilitate this
reliability and convenience. They also have maintained strong relationships with large cell phone
companies such as the iPhone which is pretty popular in the world today. All these strategies in
maintaining their status quo as the giants of cell phone service providers give them an edge over
their competitors.(Flack, 2015)
AT&T employs similar measurement guidelines to strategic effectiveness as Walmart
does because it employs time performance measurements to assess the set targets within specific
time frames as well as sustainability metrics to evaluate the productivity. The sustainability
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metrics enable AT&T to b able to effectively identify flaws in the network distribution
effectively and measure up to their expectation of fast and reliable connectivity.
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References.
Berndt, B. (2006). Timely Performance Measurement and Analytics in a Demand-Driven World.
Retrieved on 14th February 2016, from
http://www.foodqualityandsafety.com/article/timely-performance-measurement-andanalytics-in-a-demand-driven-world/
Flack, T. (2015). AT&T Connected CommunitiesSM Provides a Competitive Advantage for
Modern Digital Dwellings. Retrieved on 14th February 2016, from
https://communities.att.com/advantages
Milestones in AT&T History. (2016) Retrieved on 14th February 2016, from
http://www.corp.att.com/history/milestones.html
Nagappan, P. (2012). How Walmart is using sustainability metrics to drive productivity.
Retrieved on 14th February 2016, from
http://www.greenbiz.com/events/greenbiz-forum/phoenix/2016/tracks/purpose-leadership