Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Failing In a Global Market

After discussing global marketing strategies in class for the past week, it brought me back to the intro to management course, and how we looked at  Wal-Mart as an example of a global company. Although Wal-Mart is an extremely successful company for multiple reasons, it didn't consider a few sociocultural and economic forces, especially in Japan. When the company first launched in Japan, Wal-Mart assumed that people there had the same wants and needs that consumers in countries like the US and Canada do. After doing a little bit of research, a couple articles mention that Japan has a higher demand for smaller, local businesses rather than large ones. Wal-Mart came into the country thinking that just because they are successful in many other countries, they would be the same here as well.

Before entering Japan, Wal-Mart failed to scan and analyze their environment. Japan is a highly populated country with a high income rate. Wal-Mart carries low quality and low priced products, items  that aren't in high demand in Japan. Does anyone have another example of a company that went into the global market and failed? What did they forget to consider before doing so?

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