Walmart's Struggle In International Marketing

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I. Introduction Globalization is the biggest phenomenon of the 20th century. Organizations realized the potential of new untapped markets and expanded their operations of reap the benefits of globalization. While some organizations were successful in the first attempt, others failed miserably. Doing business in foreign markets is different than in domestic markets. Those who succeeded, obviously, did a few things differently than those could not manage to conquer the foreign market. This report is a study of factors associated with international marketing such as environmental differences of a new market, market entry methods, marketing mix strategies, segmentation and positioning. The report uses Wal-Mart’s struggle in India to exemplify …show more content…

American Marketing Association (AMA) refers to international marketing as the multinational process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion and distribution of ideas, goods, and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational objectives. However, the external and uncontrollable factors in international marketing environment are much more complex. The managers involved in international marketing have to acquire new skills and capabilities to tackle the multidimensional environment in global markets. Depending on the level of involvement of the parent company in foreign markets, international can be classified as export marketing, global marketing or international marketing. The decision about level of involvement is based on environmental analysis of various elements of the marketing environment. Marketers often use SLEPT approach i.e., analysis of socio-cultural, legal, economic, political and technological elements to examine the aspects of international marketing …show more content…

STP- segmentation, targeting and positioning- STP approach is based on the assumption that mass markets are made up of homogenous groups that have unique needs and demands. Marketers identify these segments and position their brands accordingly to appeal to the target market. Basic segmentation can be based on various demographic, geographic, psychological and behavioral aspects. However, different markets should be segmented using different variable depending on the type of business (Lynn, 2011). For instance, an automobile manufacturer would segment a market on the basis of economic factors while a fast food company would be interested in cultural background along with economic aspects. Once the markets are segmented, marketer should select the segments which would be targeted. Since there could be more than one segment that a company would like to target, marketers use different positioning strategies to appeal to different segments. For example, banks position their brand depending on the target segment such as high net worth clients, loan customers and senior citizens. Positioning is a critical strategic decision because it implies a segmentation commitment and an overt decision to ignore other and may be larger parts of the market to concentrate only on certain segments (Aaker ,

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