What are Wal-Mart's immediate problems, and what are their long-term problems?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Wal-Mart does not seem to have too many immediate problems. It was already the world's biggest corporation and
Fortunes most admired company- and it strived to be everywhere and nowhere- hidden in plain sight, just your
friendly hometown superpower. The only issue it faced was that someone would probably decide that Wal-Mart had
too much power and the government could break up companies that got this big, for example a situation similar to
what happened to Microsoft. Some other problems involve lawsuits against them-these could prove to be difficult to
get away from owing to the sheer size of the company. Any number of people would be willing to sue Wal-Mart
over frivolous reasons. The only real problems that Wal-Mart faces in the short-term are to determine the right
strategy that will allow them accomplish the growth that they want.
In the long-term Wal-Mart faces the problem of saturation. How long will it be before they run out of ideas and
places to grow? The current CEO Lee Scott believes that Wal-Mart could be at least three times its current size. Is
his enthusiasm well grounded? Even if Wal-Mart's current annual growth rate of 15% is sustained, Wal-Mart would
grow to be twice its current size in five years. Wal-Mart already seems to be doing many things right by
experimenting in a variety of areas such as building neighborhood markets or ‘small marts’ with smartly designed
food/drug combos, conveniences like self checkout, honor system coffee and pastries, drive-through pharmacies and
half hour film processing to take advantage of smaller markets. If these experimental stores work out, they could be
rolled out nationally and prove to be a new revenue stream and the driver of future growth for Wal-Mart.