Prof Goodwin then went on and spoke about Walmart expansion into different countries and the challenges that it faced in each of the countries. He stressed on the challenges that Walmart faced particularly in Germany. While, in Germany, Walmart ran into a number of cross-cultural problems like the consumer habits, the ethics policy, Walmart being anti-union and the cultural practices, these factors eventually led to Walmart's demise in Germany.
He concluded his lecture by stating the lessons that we could learn from Walmart. The standard business practices that were followed by Walmart proved to be ineffective when they moved outside the US, a company would therefore have to flexible enough to mould its practices according to those followed by the country it plans to enter. Before entering a country the market research that is carried out by companies is very limited and does not extend to cultural issues, thus adopting the target culture would require awareness of both the national culture and local practices so that the product could be aligned in accordance to the needs of the public.
All in all, the session turned out to be a very informative and enriching one for the students of VGSoM, IIT Kharagpur, it helped the students understand the implication that cultural factors have on businesses.
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