Strengths and weaknesses of Wal-Mart's entry strategy into Mexico Coursework - 1

Strengths and weaknesses of Wal-Mart's entry strategy into Mexico - Coursework Example This is the reason why Wal-Mart decided to move south of the United States to Mexico. When one understands how this move came about, the strengths and weaknesses are easily distinguished. The strengths that can be accounted here included the already known name of Wal-Mart which spoke volumes about the kind of trust and confidence that the American consumers had in this retail giant. Also the everyday low pricing mechanism, and the highly efficient operations with state of the art logistics spoke at length of how Wal-Mart had made its name as a benchmark within the American retail spheres. This was the era of early 1990s when Wal-Mart had made a decision to explore the Mexican market. It teamed up with one of the already established retailers – Cifra, so that assistance could come in handy for both the chains. They decided to launch supercenters which would sell groceries and general merchandise. Wal-Mart had a win-win situation because it was entering into a completely new mar ket and its operations within the United States had taught it that diverse customers can be served well, if there was a proper hierarchy within tasks and when operations were handled amicably. Thus the strengths for Wal-Mart depended a great deal on how it entered into the Mexican markets and created a name for itself all over again. Even though it was renowned in the United States, the slow down in the home country meant that Wal-Mart had to come up with something different and new. This could have only taken place with entrance within a new zone, yet being attached with the United States in one way or the other. Mexico is a neighboring nation of the United States and hence there were fewer risks involved for Wal-Mart because the region was more or less the same. With these strengths, came the weaknesses as well. Wal-Mart did not quite study the Mexican shopping habits and since it had already teamed up with Cifra, it knew little about the shopping trends revolving around the Mexic ans. This was an important aspect related with Wal-Mart as it needed to find out more about them to begin with. The Mexicans preferred to buy fresh produce from local stores which included items like meat, tortillas and pan duice. This was an important understanding that must have been worked upon well by Wal-Mart before it decided to land within the Mexican market. Yet somehow there was a missing link present here. Since the Mexicans did not quite have large refrigerators at home, this meant that they bought on a regular basis. It actually asked them to come back again and purchase fresh produce. Also many Mexicans did not have cars which essentially meant that they could not shop much in one go. They would come back and buy small chunks though (Anand, 2009:171). This implied for fewer volumes of purchases on their part which defied the concept of large retail chains which were introduced by Wal-Mart in the first place. Hence the weaknesses were quite of a stringent nature as far a s Wal-Mart was concerned. These needed to be worked upon at to produce sound results. What this fundamentally meant was the fact that Wal-Mart was losing ground within Mexico and since it was a new market, anything to this effect was not at all appreciated by the head quarters. Wal-Mart knew that its strengths and weaknesses

Compare and Contrast Great Britain and France's most recent elections Research Paper

Compare and Contrast Great Britain and France's most recent elections - Research Paper Example This writing will focus upon the recent elections that took place in France as well as Great Britain. This writing will focus upon the differences between the election procedures, power structures, voting trends and voting systems experienced by the Great Britain and France. Body French Elections 2012 The presidential elections of 2012 that were held in France during the month of 2012 had a total of 10 individuals running for the president. These ten individuals included Francois Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy. Sarkozy was the previous president of France and was running for the seat for the second time and according to the constitution of France; he was running for the second and the final time. After the first set of elections, both Sarkozy and Hollande stood as the leaders with 28% votes earned by Hollande and 27% votes earned by Sarkozy. This led to the second round in which both Hollande and Sarkozy took part, the end result of the second round was that both failed to gain majorit y and the difference between the percentage of votes for both the candidates was only 3%. Hollande took the lead by winning 51.64 votes and Sarkozy stood second by winning 48.36% votes (Thompson 131). This ended in the victory of Hollande and after this election followed the elections of Legislative level. The number of people who voted during the second round was much higher than the number of people who voted in the elections of the Great Britain. The average votes from all the territories was 82%, in which highest turnaround was experienced in the voters of Lot and lowest turnaround was experienced in the votes from the region of Saint-Martin. Sarkozy had a stronger hold in the southern and eastern regions of the nation and he was able to secure 60% of the total votes. Sarkozy even gained majority in areas that had voted in round one for Marine Le Pen but ample amount for support from Hollande was even available because of his proposal of Change. A two staged election process is used in France to select the president of the nation, in the first round different parties take part and one candidate from these parties is selected to run for the president’s office. Those who are elected as candidates have to attain 500 endorsements before being selected as a candidate. If the results of the first round do not select a majority, then a second round takes place in which two candidates who have the most number of votes run for the office and the individual who secures the majority of the votes in the second round, ends up securing the position. The voters list of France comprises of all French citizens who have reached the age of 18, these people include only those who are regarded as French Nationals and are registered to vote. There are several issues on which the voters of French presidential elections cast their vote. One of the major issues concerning the voters is the issue of unemployment which as been quite high in the recent past. According to the 2 007 statistics, the rate of unemployment in France was 9% (Brooke 757). The most lethal issue experienced by voters is the issue of immigration. It is said that the French community has become divided due to the issue of immigration. The numbers of immigrants that have been deported from France since 2002 have increased and have doubled. Another issue experienced by the voters of presidential elections is the issue of Law and order. The most popular party