Wal-Mart’s Entry into International Market

Introduction
Wal-Mart is a leading multinational corporation and an international retail chain of stores whose presence in the global market is very huge. The organization has a strong footage in Mexico, Brazil, Canada, Puerto Rico, Germany, United Kingdom, South Korea, Argentina and China among others (Wal-Mart, 2015). The global growth also comes with challenges facing the organization. This paper evaluates
the strategic marketing objectives of the organization as well as the marketing issues and the company at large.
Vision and Mission Statement of the Organization
The mission statement of Wal-Mart is considered one of the best mission statements in the world. The mission statement is one of the shortest yet still communicating volumes. Vision statement describes the organization and elucidates what the organization yearns to achieve in the near future (Brunn, 2006). Since Wal-Mart is operating globally its mission is to “give ordinary folks a chance to buy the same things as rich people” (Wal-Mart, 2015). On the other hand a mission statement refers to a sentence or piece of paragraph written about an entity reflecting its core purpose, values and core business objectives (Brunn, 2006). The organization’s mission statement is simply: “Help people save money so they can live better” (Wal-Mart, 2015). The mission and vision statements offer the management team a major base to take efficient decisions and implement them. Also coming up with a competent and challenging mission is important as it envisages the organizational affair.
Marketing Strategies
Wal-Mart boasts of around 8500 stores across the globe in 15 different countries having different names (Wal-Mart, 2015). The company has a brilliant marketing strategy that keeps it going. First off, the company offers incredibly low prices on its products. This is to some extent fulfilling their mission statement (Bagons, 2013).  This helps anyone who is looking for lowest prices to opt for the retail store. The company promulgates its lower price campaign in its advertisements in different platforms and the customers can visit the company website. This makes most of the customers loyal and it gives the company competitive advantage over its peers (Bagons, 2013).
Secondly, the store is easily accessible by all means. There are thousands to nearly millions of Wal-Mart’s retail stores well distributed across the world (Bagons, 2013). The company has also invested in a good e-marketing system that enables customers to make purchases online. This makes it easy for the customers to meet their demands whenever they want something and wherever they are (Bagons, 2013). The company also has a 24/7 customer care service that responds to customer requests and is able to meet the wide customer requests thus customer satisfaction (Dudley, 2013). Additionally, the company operates 24 hrs. Apart from easy access it also helps in segmenting the market based on the data (Bagons, 2013).
The company also offers a variety of products targeting various customer segments. The beauty products, home accessories, cleaning and hygiene products, toys electronics and even groceries make the organization stand on its own bar (Bagons, 2013). Nearly any product a customer would need is very much available making the organization to appeal to nearly all kinds of personalities. This strategy helps the organization have a wide consumer base as well as different target markets thus taking hold of the market (Bagons, 2013). Demographically the company targets families that have modest income reflected in the number of products it deals in (Bagons, 2013). As a matter of fact, the customers are more interested in value other than the branding of the products.
The company is also focused in social media campaigns that are regarded as one of the best promotion vehicles. The various platforms such as MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and Blogs have made it possible for the company to reach global customers at the click of a button (Bagons, 2013). The campaigns are not only aggressive but also have attracted negative publicity on the organization. However, the retail multinational organization still outdoes others in the market.
Major Marketing Issues
The main purpose of marketing is to communicate with the customers. Wal-Mart has faced some challenges especially when expanding its global coverage. One of the major challenges has been cultural difference (Dudley, 2013). The expending business faces the resistance of different customers along cultural lines. In Japan for example, and could be the case too in other countries, the culture is that low prices are associated with poor quality (Dudley, 2013). As such the company is not able to communicate effectively with the customer in various segments in such markets. There are also different regulations pertaining marketing that has been facing Wal-Mart being that it is now operating in different time zones. The pricing issue and language barrier also forms the core challenges that still impede the success of the organization (Dudley, 2013).
Conclusion
The store is doing very well at the global scales and thus has to have some challenges that have been explored. However, despite the few marketing issues, Wal-mart’s strategy still remains the best and businesses should strive to integrate and emulate the giant.



References
Bagons, S. (2013, September 18). Top Marketing strategies that can be Learned from WalMart | Money News Now. Retrieved from http://www.moneynewsnow.com/2013/09/top-marketing-strategies-that-can-be-learned-from-walmart/
Brunn, S. D. (2006). Wal-Mart world: The world's biggest corporation in the global economy. New York: Routledge.
Dudley, R. (2013, March 28). Walmart Faces the Cost of Cost-Cutting: Empty Shelves - Businessweek. Retrieved from http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2013-03-28/walmart-faces-the-cost-of-cost-cutting-empty-shelves
Wal-Mart. (2015). Walmart Corporate - We save people money so they can live better. Retrieved from http://corporate.walmart.com/