Wal-Mart Case AnalysisCompetitive Advantage and Competitive DynamicsWhat might explain Wal-Mart's performance over time in discount retailing? Are these industry or company specific factors? After World War II, the retail style in the United States evolved into discount merchandising. At the time, Wal-Mart was quick enough to ride the wave and develop a global cost leadership model that allowed it to emerge as a market leader in the discount retail industry. Wal-Mart's performance is driven by overall cost leadership. Wal-Mart's strategy over time has helped it establish a leadership position in discount retailing. He used underserved rural markets to announce his arrival. It has also used the levers of innovation, customer centricity, positioning as a low-cost player, and effective stakeholder management, including employees, suppliers, and shareholders, to gain a distinctive competitive advantage. It has successfully outperformed other companies in the industry by leveraging its strategy to achieve overall cost leadership. The experience curve concept has been successfully adopted by Wal-Mart. The various levers used to achieve cost leadership included: |Achieve economies of scale |Rapidly expand geographic presence, as well as number of stores, store variety, and store size ||Vigorous pursuit of cost reductions |Apply aggressively the buyer's bargaining power savings as an additional estimate 3-4% |