Initial question

Reviewing your Strategic Plan that you have developed anticipate any gaps in alignment of strategy for the organization.

My response

Gap analysis entails evaluation of a firm’s current performance to determine the difference between its current state and where it targets to be. This aspect allows firms to develop suitable measures to enhance fulfillment of their goals and plans (Gooderham, Grøgaard, & Foss, 2019). In the strategic plan, it is depicted that Walmart tries to enter into low and middle-income markets. The management needs to understand the new market to improve its outcome of the strategic plan (Walmart, Inc., 2019).

Culture is an aspect that may bring forth gap in the organization. Even though the firm has an experience of more than 50 years, its main operations have focused on high-income countries. This issues makes operations in countries with different cultures may limit the firm’s strategic development. The firm may also have little political knowledge of the targeted markets for its products. If the countries have strict policies towards multi-national entities, Walmart may incur significant losses (Gooderham, Grøgaard, & Foss, 2019).

Expansion into the new market may also make the firm not to meet its speculated sales. Therefore, it needs to create a suitable development plan to enhance control of its product’s sales. Poor supply chain operations may also occur in Walmart’s new venture. This is because the firm does not manufacture its own products. Therefore, operations in a wider market may involve delays in schedules. This gap may lead to customer disloyalty. In addition, the organization’s employees may not have suitable cultural skills to meet the requirements of the new market. It will also be difficult to anticipate consumer’s preference for the firm’s brand. This is because it is a different market set up, whose reaction is unpredictable (Gooderham, Grøgaard, & Foss, 2019).

References

Gooderham, P. N., Grøgaard, B., & Foss, K. (2019). Global strategy and management theory

and practice. Cheltenham, UK; Northampton, MA,USA Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd.

Walmart, Inc. (2019). 2019 annual report: Defining the future of retail. Walmart, Inc. Retrieved

from https://s2.q4cdn.com/056532643/files/doc_financials/2019/annual/Walmart-2019-AR-Final.pdf

Respond to this classmate response

Thank you for calling out culture as part of the gap analysis. This past week I was in a meeting with my supervisor and he was sharing he received from a leadership session and this example highlights the culture gap at the leadership level:

Our President and CEO was reviewing the culture of our organization with his key leadership team. They identified 3 key words that described our organizational culture. The same questionnaire was subsequently scared with approx. 70 leaders in our health system. These leaders identified 3 other words that described the culture of our organization. Between the 2 groups, only 1 of the 3 words were the same. The president and his team identified the most important cultural aspect of our health care system was CARING. The 70 plus leaders that took the same survey identified that RESULTS were the most important word in our culture.

This was interesting because the focus on health care has shifted to outcomes over the last while and this obsession with outcomes and results has obviously created a gap in what the president and his team feel is the main culture vs what the direct leadership team feel. If I was asked to chose between the two words, I also would have chosen the work results.

50 words apa. no title page.

Good call out. Important fact on how the organization’s leaders and staff must be aligned with the culture!