Introduction to international business free essay sample

A few of Wal-Mart’s FSA’s are the ‘every day low price’ (ELPD) and the their so called ‘exceptional service’. Their very low price is reached by a very efficient distributing systems, innovative technology, low prices negotiated with the supplier and efficient processes with suppliers. And their ‘exceptional’ service means smiling at customers, assisting them and exceeding their expectations. If we look at this general strategy it would seem these are all international transferable FSA’s, you can implement the same efficient systems in the new host country, negotiate low prices and teach the Wal-Mart staff to give ‘exceptional’ service. Of course small adjustments have to be made to coop well with the local culture. But in general these FSA’s all seem internationally transferable. 2. American retailers faced distance components in Germany. Wal-Mart had only two warehouses, in west-Germany, nearly 500 kilometers away from their stores in east and south- Germany. We will write a custom essay sample on Introduction to international business or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page The physical distance between the headquarters of the two former companies also forced Wal-Mart to consolidate and shut down one of the former headquarters. 3. Considering the statement: ‘Hey we are in Germany, isn’t that great? ’ to be true. We do think Wal-Mart overestimated the transferability of its FSAs. However, Wal-Mart’s main reason for failing is the underestimation of the differences between the US-market and the German market. If Wal-Mart went to for example the Netherlands, the customers would be less parsimonious, and the American products might have been a lot more bought. Wal-Mart did overestimated the general transferability of its FSAs to an unspecified country. Germany doesn’t lend itself to a company with a foreign culture, where smaller countries would do so. Wal-Mart basically had to deal with laws that were against Wal-Mart. Some other countries have looser restrictions for supermarkets. Wal-Mart didn’t make a distinction between foreign countries. Therefore, we think Wal-Mart did underestimate Germany more than overestimating the transferability of its FSAs. 4. As stated in the case Wal-Mart is a ‘hypermarket’ from the United States. Wal-Mart currently is in 27 countries, countries I could find 22 of them, they are: The United States, Mexico, Canada, Puerto Rico, Nicaragua, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, United Kingdom, China, India, Ghana, Nigeria, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, Mozambique, Namibia, Botswana, South-Africa, Lesotho, Swaziland. Although this seems a lot, only a few of them have a lot of supermarkets. All retail units combined show Wal-Mart has 11,000 retail units, of which 6,265 use Wal-Mart’s name. The biggest retailer, which does not use Wal-Mart’s name is Sam’s Club with 622 shops. Wal-Mart’s first time abroad was in Mexico in 1991. Mexico still has the most retails of all foreign countries. Many countries just recently (in the past 5 years) saw Wal-Mart coming, and except for Mexico (Mexico has more than 2,400) no countries have more than 1,000 retails. To conclude, Wal-Mart might be in a lot of countries, most of them are either tiny, or don’t have many Wal-Marts.