Critical assessment on business strategy from aviation to retail industry during COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Covid-19 has deeper effects on our current understanding of business strategy and its implementation. Strategic management practices became more mandatory. In fact, it is a continuous process exploiting the opportunities for the sake of competitive advantages. From the aviation industry to retail, the new normal will continue to affect the value chain process of traditional companies. As a case in this study, Walmart is a well-known company with its cost leadership strategy. Cost is controlled by its most efficient value chain system, which includes all the activities from the buying of raw material to sending a product to the market. This efficient working approach and cost leadership strategy of the organization make it competitive across the globe. The company has a hand on to deal with the challenges from the internal and external environment due to changing technology and people demand. This literature-based study tries to cover the business strategy of Walmart, especially the low-cost leadership strategy and management activities in the value chain system.

The Investigation and Research on Operation Management

“…Walmart focuses on operational performance targets that aim to decrease costs and waste through enhancing productivity and optimizing resource planning and use. Embracing a cost leadership generic strategy involves supplying goods and services at cheaper rates than competitors, which can only be achieved by maintaining low costs throughout the entire process [3]. The company has successfully provided affordable products and improved client experiences by utilizing many elements of operations management, including supply chain, inventory, quality, and capacity management.…”

Consumers going online for big‐box retailers: Exploring the role of feeling disconnected during a pandemic

“…However, big‐box retailers (i.e., Walmart, Target, Home Depot, Lowe's, and Costco) survived and even flourished by tilting their operations toward e‐commerce (Nassauer & Maloney, 2020). Many big‐box retailers had invested in the technologies and infrastructure needed to increase online sales (Nassauer & Maloney, 2020), so that in early 2020 when the pandemic began, they were well placed to address a surge in digital sales and provide add‐on services such as home delivery and curbside pickup (Nilufer, 2020). For instance, Lowe's, Costco, and Best Buy, among others, quickly implemented curbside pickup and same‐day home delivery services (Boyle, 2021).…”

“…

The term 'big-box store' derives from the physical appearance of retail stores that occupy a massive space and offer a wide range of products (Nilufer, 2020). The COVID-19 global pandemic hit the retail industry hard and most store-based retailers experienced financial challenges under the pandemic (Salpini, 2021).

…”

“…According to Target's CEO Brian Cornell, online options such as mobile apps for pickup have had a higher rate of consumer retention, and shoppers are likely to repeat shop at these stores (Boyle, 2021;Keenan, 2020). Walmart saw sales of online groceries increase by 54% (i.e., $100 billion) as people prepared more meals at home (Boyle, 2021;Nilufer, 2020). All of this indicates that successful big-box retailers have shown how changes in strategy can increase online sales volumes and revenues under a pandemic.Regardless of how long the COVID-19 pandemic lasts, storebased big-box retailers will likely extend their services into online spaces and adjust to the after-effects throughout 2021 and beyond (Salpini, 2021).…”