COMPANY 2. WALMART Investigate and analyse how Walmart has defended its position and the growth strategies it used to keep its dominance in the retail industry over the last ten years. Answer the following questions: How did Walmart keep its dominant position in the market? What makes it hard for competitors to imitate Walmart's formula? Based on what you learned, what do you recommend a company should do to defend its position in the market when the conditions of the business environment change? To answer the questions, you should: Analyze the conditions of competition in the global retail industry Analyse Walmart's business model Identify and analyze the resources and capabilities Walmart possess that enable them to keep its position in the market. Identify new capabilities they need to develop.

The main discussions from the lectures include Business models and the scope of strategic decisions, Industry structure analysis (e.g., five forces), the resource-based view, capabilities, and strategic options.

Process 1. Identify the main sources from which you will get the information about the company to support your findings 2. Identify the concepts and the frameworks in the (academic) literature that help to analyse the strategic issue in question. 3. Organise the information about the company: according to the concepts and chronologically. 4. Identify the patterns in the companys evolution and strategies in the respective issue. 5. Make sense of the information and establish the discussion by using the frameworks you used from the (academic) literature. E.g., business model design, strategic choices and sources of competitive advantage.