Walmart External Environment Analysis

External Environment Analysis

Margaret Ross-Jones

MGT/488

09/12/2011

Christina Behling

External Environment Analysis

"Each student was asked to prepare a 1,750 to 2,100-word paper regarding the external business environment.

* Analyze the external business market and its influence on the firm's strategic business continuity plan.

* Include analysis of general, industry, and competitor environments.

* Explain the role of business ethics in gathering competitor intelligence.

* Reference your readings and at least four other sources, including datamonitor 360, IBIS World, the internet, the Electronic Reserve Readings, and other properly cited sources." (University of Phoenix, 2011)

External Business Market and Its Influence on Wal-Mart

General, Industry, and Competitor Environments

Wal-Mart's external environment is very challenging. Wal-Mart must find ways to deal with the opportunities and threats that occurs in the environment. Within the external environment, there are three parts which are general, industry and competitor environment. How is the general environment composed? It is composed of dimensions that influence the firms or an industry within it. In the general environment, there are six environmental segments that play a part which are demographic, political/legal, economic, technological, sociocultural, and global. A company or business cannot control the general environment. If a company or business wants to be successful, they will gather information to understand the segment, its implications and implementation of the strategy.

In the general environment, Wal-Mart is faced with turbulent, global, and complex conditions. To get a better understanding of the general environment and to cope, Wal-Mart has to engage in four activities which are scanning, forecasting, monitoring, and assessing. Opportunities and threats are very important objective to understanding the general environment. One way that Wal-Mart can achieve strategic competitiveness is through opportunity.

The industry environment is what influences a firm and the competitive responses and actions that that firm takes. These are actions that they take because of the threat of new entrants, supplier's power, buyer's power, substitutes of products, and a competitor's rivalry intensity. These are some of the factors that will determine a company's