I need 600 words case study in "Problem Statement and goal statement"

INSTRUCTIONS

I already started it! I chose eBay's issue with its Loyalty Program. I have done a few research also. I completed to Purpose part of it. below is the instruction 

JUST WRITE 2 POINTS 

"Problem Statement" section and the "goal statement" 

NOT THE WHOLE PAPER 

The pages does not really matter. Look at the instructions* and the example* I sent you. The quality of work is what matters. It has to be backed up with research and data. 

The base of this assignment is that Amazon' Prime is doing very good, but ebay Plus is going slow. That's the problem. Now how can we fix this? Well eBay Plus is only in one country, Germany (they are testing is there) and they don't even have a fulfillment center. They pretty much count on sellers to send products. 

In the documents I sent you will find those information in it. 

I just found this 

https://www.statista.com/statistics/233761/year-on-year-revenue-of-amazon-and-ebay-since-2006/

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Attachment 1:

Walmart: Case writeup

Propose:

This document will dissect the problems faced by Walmart in the overseas market and its growth and expansion, reasons behind those, possible approaches and solutions in handling the issue, and the possible impacts and outcomes after the implementation of the approaches and solutions.

Problem Statement:

Although Walmart has been successful enough to continue growth and success in the US, it has not been able to attain similar results in other countries. Unlike the US market, which has grown every year, the overseas market saw a drop of 9.3% in 2016, and another plunge in sales by around 5.9% in the year 2017. The year 2018 saw a small increment of 1.6 percent compared to the previous year. Over the past five years, the company has an average negative growth at the rate of -2.5 percent per annum in the international market and has an average growth rate of 3.03 percent per annum in the domestic market (Key figures of retail, 2019).

                     Source: Statista 2019

Goal Statement:

The primary goal to be set forth in this context is to increase international sales at a rate similar to the domestic market. The negative growth rate of -2.5% in the international market shall be turned into a positive 2.5%. This paper will primarily focus on solving the issues that existed and exists in German, South Korean, Brazil, UK, and Chinese market.

Background

Walmart was started by Sam Walton in 1962 with its strategy to provide wide varieties of quality products and services at a fairly low price. Positioning itself as a discount retail store, it began by capturing its market in suburban areas close to the major highways. This strategy allowed Walmart to face a low level of competition capturing the market segment who lived in the suburbs and had an average and below-average income. Being far away from the cities, the company had a lower burden of paying hefty amounts of rent. Moreover, the decision to invest in distribution centers and warehousing, by 1970, to cut-off intermediaries and benefit from economies of scale had a good paid-off to the company. Having its own satellite network, allowing two-way communication between the stores and warehouses, in 1987, allowed the company to take the company’s logistics and supply chain system to the next level. Walmart’s success much lied on its ability to forecast the future with higher precision and by becoming early adapter in terms of technological advancements. By 2006, the business flourished in such a way that it operated more than 3800 in the US and more than 2600 stores in 15 other nations (Bradley & Ghemawat, January 1994 (Revised November 2002)).

The major strength lies in the ability of Walmart to stick with its “everyday low price” policy. Since the beginning, Sam Walton focused on providing merchandise and services at the lowest possible price. These investments toward lean inventory management system have allowed the company to maintain a lower amount of inventory compared to the growth over its sales.

The journey of Walmart towards success, however, has many ups and downs. While the ball lies in the court of Walmart within the United States as one of the most successful retail chains, Walmart does not seem to have clinched the success as anticipated at the stores outside the US. This weakness basically was due to the barrier that existed and inexperience of a USbased company to understand the culture, linguistics and consumer behavior. The company has also faced multiple lawsuits and campaigns against for various reasons as it expanded within and outside the US. This even led to the closure of Walmart stores in a few places and compelled the company to spend high on public relations and advertising (Bradley & Ghemawat, January 1994 (Revised November 2002)).

Problems in the overseas market:

In 2018, Walmart announced a retreat from the Brazilian market selling majority of its stake to Advent International and now only retains 20 percent stake in the business. The decision came after 23 years of loss and struggle of the company to compete in the market (Boyle, 2018). While the number of stores run by the company in 2013 peaked to 558, by 2018 the company had closed 120 stores facing loss in most of the stores (Geeter, 2018).

                              Source: Statista 2019

Similar is the story of Walmart in UK. During the same year, 2018, Walmart Inc. decided to sell 60 percent of its stake to J Sainsbury PLC. The company had run its 600 stores and has the second largest market share under the name of Asda after acquiring it in the year 1999 (Nassauer, 2018). Although the processing of selling the majority of the stake to Sainsbury is still in limbo while waiting for a green light from the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to make the sale, Walmart has for sure lost the battle in UK (Jolly, 2018).

Prior to these failures, Walmart had stepped back from South Korea and Germany in the year 2006. The company had sold 16 of its stores to a local retail business after entering the market during the late 1990s. In the same year, another major defeat of Walmart was announced in Germany, with the company selling 85 of its stores at a loss of US $1 billion (Landler, 2006).

The growth of Walmart in the Chinese market has also not been fascinating. Even after operating for 23 years in the world’s most populated country, Walmart has only expanded to 420 stores. Compared to a growth of over 1400 stores within the 23 years of operation in the domestic market, the company seems to have lagged far behind in China (Walmart, 2018).

Root Cause:

Brazil:

According to Ricardo Sfair of Euromonitor International, Brazilians value discounts and offers in a very punctual manner. However, the regular “every day low prices” did not appeal to the Brazilian consumers since it did not have any time specific or occasion-specific offers. The customers tend to prefer cash-and-carry format hypermarket stores, locally known as atacarejo, compared to large supermarkets or stores (Donatelli, Hoefel, Resstom, & Stul, 2016). In between 2017 and 2018, the atacarejo’s grew at the rate of 11%, however, supermarkets and convenience stores grew at just 3.7% (Retailing in Brazil, 2019). It has lagged behind with the competitors such as Carrefour and Casino who are leaders in hypermarket format stores.

Walmart’s acquisition of Maxxi Atacado, a atacarejo format store did prove to be profitable. Yet, unable to acquire more similar types of store, Walmart could not grow (Geeter, 2018).

UK:

Although briefly stepping into the number two spot in terms of the market share, Asda, the Walmart owned store, could not step above the third position since entering into UK’s market in 1999. It faced fierce competition with Sainsbury, while Tesco dominated the market with more than 25 percent of the market share (Grocery market share in Great Britain 20152018, 2019). Thus, the decision to merge with Sainsbury comes as an option to grow and compete in the market while Tesco leads the market and other small businesses are aggressively coming up as a challenge (O’Byrne, 2018).

China:

During the initial days of operation, Walmart went through a hard lesson of understanding the Chinese operations. Delayed shipping and deliveries lead to the problem of stocks being out in the store and increased the expenses of the company to meet the needs of the customers (Jacobs, 2017). SunArt Group, the market leader in terms of market share, has been successful to attract customers, who are accustomed to shopping at local outdoor street markets, through its combination of street market and supermarket store (Team, 2014). The retail giant is also pushing for home goods and electronics in the Chinese market while much of the consumers buy these products through online stores (Jacobs H. , 2018).

Germany:

As stated by the analysts, Walmart was never able to understand German culture and gain traction in the market (Landler & Barbaro, Wal-Mart Finds That Its Formula Doesn’t Fit Every Culture, 2006). “Walmart's attempt to apply the company's proven US success formula in an unmodified manner to the German market turned out to be nothing short of a fiasco.", stated Andres Knorr and Andreas Arndt in their book “Why did Walmart fail in Germany?”. While the discounted stores was not a new concept to the people of the country, the strategy of “everyday low prices” did not provide the company with an competitive edge in the market. Walmart’s cookie cutter policy on human resources and customer hospitality proved to backfire the company. Company’s anti-unionization policy in terms of the labor was considered to be antidemocratic. The policy did not allow any kind of personal intimacy between the employees. The company’s “Ten Foot Rule” implied the employees to greet and smile where male customers thought smiling clerks were flirting (Lutz, 2013). What German customers disliked was also the offering of the bags to the customers since the Germans preferred having their own bag. The company had even failed to understand the differing needs between the German and American customers. For instance, Walmart got large stocks of unsold pillowcases since the size of pillows in Germany differed from the once in the US (Schaefer, 2006).

  South Korea:

The decision to step back from South Korean market was due to the failure of Walmart to open new stores, leading to an inability to secure a market share that would allow the company to enjoy bargaining power so as to lower the prices of the suppliers. The company failed to understand the need for food and beverages, while it focused more on selling electronics and clothing to its customers. Moreover, while Korean customers had uncompromisable views towards freshness of the food and were willing to make frequent trips to purchase at smaller quantities, Walmart failed to convince the customers in making a bulk purchase (Kim, 2008). Similarly, the warehouse-style retail format was not valued by the Korean customers since they were used to with being assisted by the salespeople and gladly accepted being helped (J.O. Kim, 2001).

Recommendations and Implementation:

The company seems to have not been able to confront the barrier that exists as a US-based company to understand the culture, linguistics and consumer behavior in the foreign land.

In many of the countries like South Korea and China, people are yet uncommon to the notion that supermarkets can be cheaper than the street shops. Thus, rigorous work towards changing customer perception through extreme discounts over fresh veggies and groceries could allow the customers to have a positive perception towards larger stores such as Walmart. The need to focus on the concentration of products towards food and beverage category shall be realized in order to meet the needs of the consumers in these markets. The company also needs to look into restructuring and renovating its layout into hypermarket style in the countries with consumers being super price conscious and preferring bulk purchase.

In UK, with changing shopping habits of the customers from weekly bulk buying shopping trend to more frequent but with a purchase of fewer items per visit, smaller stores opened in the neighborhood market are taking over the certain portion of the Walmart’s customer base (Smithers, 2017). Provision of smaller carts, packing of products in smaller boxes, and discounts over smaller quantities could provide a competitive edge to the company. Moreover, with dining out culture growing in these countries, setting up food places within the store space might pull up the sales.

The failure in Germany shall be considered as a lesson learned in understanding the strong differences in people culture and human resource policies. Thus, the company shall give up its cookie-cutter strategy of implementing and standardizing its policies throughout all the countries it operates at. The value that people are willing to exchange for the price they are paying at the store is different in each of the countries or place. Based on these differences Walmart should be flexible in restructuring its secondary values while maintaining its core low price policy.

The changes basically requires change over people and process function of the organization with some level restructuring in the organization. Implementation of these changes can begin from one country and can be moved to the other based on the outcomes and the fruitfulness. With growing number of stores company will then be able to enjoy bargaining power which it has acquired in the domestic, US, market.

References

Boyle, M. (2018, June 04). Walmart's Brazilian Blunder Comes to an End With Advent Deal. From Bloomberg: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-04/walmart-s-brazilian-blundercomes-to-an-end-with-sale-to-advent

Bradley, S. P., & Ghemawat, P. (January 1994 (Revised November 2002)). Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Harvard Business School Case 794-024.

Donatelli, M., Hoefel, F., Resstom, S., & Stul, F. (2016, July). Meet the new Brazilian consumer. From McKinsey & Company: https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/consumer-packaged-goods/ourinsights/meet-the-new-brazilian-consumer

Geeter, D. (2018, December 2018). Why Walmart failed in Brazil. From CNBC: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/11/walmart-fail-brazil-carrefour-retail.html Grocery market share in Great Britain 2015-2018. (2019). From Statista:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/280208/grocery-market-share-in-the-united-kingdom-uk/

Jacobs, C. (2017, February 25). Why major American corporations have struggled in China: Walmart. From ReadWrite: https://readwrite.com/2017/02/25/why-major-american-corporations-havestruggled-china-walmart-il1/

Jacobs, H. (2018, May 1). Photos reveal what it’s like to shop at Walmart in China. From Business Insider: https://www.businessinsider.com/walmart-in-china-most-popular-internationalsupermarket-photos-2018-4#overall-it-seemed-little-surprise-that-walmart-has-struggled-somuch-in-china-the-store-i-visited-had-a-confused-inventory-of-mid-range-groceries-with-a-

Jolly, J. (2018, December 18). Sainsbury’s and Asda get extra time over CMA merger inquiry. From The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/dec/14/sainsburys-and-asda-get-extratime-to-respond-to-cma-merger-investigation

Key figures of retail. (2019). From Statista: https://www.statista.com/statistics/269403/net-sales-ofwalmart-worldwide-by-division/

Kim, R. B. (2008). Wal-Mart Korea: Challenges of Entering a Foreign. Journal of Asia-Pacific Business.

Landler, M. (2006, July 28). Wal-Mart gives up Germany. From New York Times:

https://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/28/business/worldbusiness/28iht-walmart.2325266.html

Landler, M., & Barbaro, M. (2006, August 02). Wal-Mart Finds That Its Formula Doesn’t Fit Every Culture. From New York Times:

https://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/02/business/worldbusiness/02walmart.html

Lutz, A. (2013, October 11). 4 Countries That Wal-Mart Has Failed To Impress. From Business Insider:

https://www.businessinsider.com/countries-that-wal-mart-hasnt-dominated-2013-10

Nassauer, S. (2018, April 20). Walmart resets its international ambitions. From Marketwatch:

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/walmart-resets-its-international-ambitions-2018-04-30

O’Byrne, K. (2018, April 30). Why Walmart is willing to check out of Asda in £13bn Sainsbury's merger. (I. King, Interviewer)

(2019). Retailing in Brazil. London: Euromonitor International.

Schaefer, L. (2006, July 28). World's Biggest Retailer Wal-Mart Closes Up Shop in Germany. From DW:

https://www.businessinsider.com/countries-that-wal-mart-hasnt-dominated-2013-10

Smithers, R. (2017, November 1). Why Britain is ditching the weekly shop. From The Gardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/nov/01/weekly-shop-daily-spending-waitrosesupermarket

Team, T. (2014, June 18). Why Wal-Mart Never Picked Up In China? From Forbes:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2014/06/18/why-wal-mart-never-picked-up-inchina/#503604747fb8

Walmart. (2018, August). From Walmart: https://corporate.walmart.com/media-library/document/chinamarket-fact-sheet-october-2018/_proxyDocument?id=00000166-78e7-d0f7-a5fe-fcef93c20001

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Attachment 2:

eBay: Case Study

- Name 

Purpose:

This case study will investigate the issue eBay is having with its loyalty program; eBay Plus. eBay has been in the online shopping industry before Amazon who happens to be its biggest competitor on the market, and yet fails to come any closer to Amazon’s number who is the leader in the industry. The document will further discuss the reasons behind eBay Plus’ problem and the solution approach it.

Problem Statement:

Goal statement:  

Background:

Data Validation/Root Cause:  

Recommendations and Implementations:     

Research: 

https://startupbros.com/amazon-vs-ebay/

I got the 3 month trial for eBay+ and haven't used it. 

Prime however actually has some benefits:

● PrimeVideo

● Twitch Prime

● Free Expedited Shipping (and there are a lot of Prime items)

● Prime Music (which is pretty bad but it's still included)

Cheap groceries and deals are common.

https://www.netohq.com/blog/ebay-vs-amazon-australia  

Nasdaq:  

https://www.google.com/search?q=nasdaq+amazon&rlz=1C1GCEA_enUS891&oq=nasdaq+ama&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0l5.8199j1j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

https://www.google.com/search?q=nasdaq+ebay&rlz=1C1GCEA_enUS891&oq=nasdaq+ebay&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.7911j1j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8   

reason why eBay is failling:  

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Archive-Selling/Four-Reasons-eBay-is-Failing/td-p/23216809

What is eBay Plus? You may not have heard of the feature up until now; the main reason for that is that it is only available on eBay Germany and no other eBay marketplace:  

https://www.ghacks.net/2016/07/06/ebay-plus/

https://crazylister.com/blog/top-selling-items-on-ebay/   

 
eBay Plus would rival Amazon Prime, but not come with Amazon’s bells and whistles such as audio and video streaming. eBay does not have its own fulfillment centers in Germany, and would have to rely on its sellers (problem) to fulfill items such as David Hasselhoff signed photos and David Hasselhoff CDs in a timely fashion.  

→ https://multichannelmerchant.com/ecommerce/ebay-to-offer-shipping-club-in-germany/

eBay set to offer shipping club, starting in Germany --> 

https://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/09/11/ebay-set-to-offer-shipping-club-starting-in-germany/

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Attachment 3:

White Paper Definition (Wikipedia): 

Since the early 1990s, the term "white paper" has been applied to documents used as marketing or sales tools in business. These papers use selected facts and logical arguments to build a case favorable to the company sponsoring the document. B2B white papers are often used to generate sales leads, establish thought leadership, make a business case, or inform and persuade prospective customers, channel partners, journalists, analysts, or investors.

Background:

White papers (commonly referred to as “narratives”) were introduced to businesses, as a way to encourage inclusion of facts and data to present a problem and solution. It’s also common when presenting to large, diverse audiences, in an effort to use the paper to proactively address questions and eliminate meeting “spin”. It is appropriate for narratives to undergo multiple iterations before a final product is published.

Narratives in Business:

A narrative should be used for critical review of a business problem (new or existing); including research and investigation of current pain points and solution. The idea is to spend the right time on alignment; which enables you to go faster when your work is “turned on”.

Well-written narratives provide three distinct benefits:

1. Deep analysis/understanding of a problem or issue

2. Audience clarity and alignment to the problem, supporting data and recommended path forward

3. Consistent reference point

Examples of types of narratives:

Narratives can effectively be used for many types of communication, but are primarily seen to: communicate a business strategy, provide a comparative study of technical solutions, and share progress on continuous improvement opportunities. Specific examples include:

o Business Development Decision

o Business Investment

o Operational Change/Decision

o Planning of Merchandise Strategy

o Inventory Strategy

o People Strategy

o Recruiting Strategy-How/when to build future capabilities

Template (may vary slightly based on topic): 

*=Required Section

1. *Purpose:

a. Why are you here today?

b. What do you need from the audience?

c. What is the scope of the narrative (will/not be “covered”)?

2. *Problem Statement: 

This is the most critical section of the narrative, and can be the most challenging in which to gain alignment. The problem statement should reflect the team’s deepest level of thinking regarding what it is trying to solve.

a. What is the narrative trying to solve?

b. What is the customer’s point of view? (If that is not applicable, then define the problem relative to the business need/requirement.)

c. What are your supporting metrics?

d. Example: “Target’s shipping cost is currently XX units per package, which is YY% more than industry or leading competitor”

3. *Goal Statement: 

This section needs to be succinct and clear (never longer than the problem statement). The goal statement should also reflect a bold, long-term view of the desired outcome, not just incremental progress.

a. What is your desired business outcome?

b. What are your supporting metrics?

c. What does the future look like?

4. *Background 

a. Include necessary context to understand problem statement and current landscape

b. Competitive situation and strategies

c. Finanicial/business results with the objective of identifying the key issues

5. *Data Validation/Root Cause: 

This section should further validate the problem statement, while also providing support you have identified the correct solution.

a. What is the impact of the problem?

b. Why is this problem is happening?

c. What are your supporting metrics?

d. What other factors should the audience consider (related data, business risk, partner dependencies, etc.)

6. *Approaches and Solutions: 

Review all options considered, but further define the best possible solution to the problem by expanding your thinking beyond existing capabilities and appropriately considering impacts to future state. This is the second most important section of the narrative (after defining the problem statement). Avoid “options”; focus on one, primary recommendation.

a. What are your supporting metrics?

b. Who/what are your most important project dependencies (i.e., people, process or technology that is required to be successful)?

c. What does sequencing look like? How will your solution look today…tomorrow…in the future…?

d. How does this solution align or conflict with the future state?

7. People Impacts: 

a. People impact is defined as (but not limited to):

• cultural disruption, change management

• team engagement, behavioral changes required

• creating a new skill or process, or evolving existing ones

1. job descriptions, job codes, compensation market analysis

2. training requirements

• work force needs

1. flex staffing strategy (Temps/Seasonals vs FTE)

2. support roles required

3. community engagement, demographics/multicultural needs, competitive landscape

• safety impacts and preparedness

• org design/impacts or reporting structure changes

• operational hours/key or schedule impacts

• HR Systems impacts

8. *Next Steps: 

a. What action needs to be taken to implement solution?

b. What timeframe would you recommend next steps to occur?

c. What is your recommendation for the sequence of next steps?

9. Other: 

These sections should only be included if they drive clearer understanding of the problem.

a. Operational Definitions

a. FAQs

b. Appendix

Presenting the Narrative: 

1. Post your narrative on Blackboard by the due date and time assigned

2. Presenter provide soft or hard copy to the class the week prior to narrative review week

3. Discussion Week: Presenter will begin with 5-10 minute review of how they chose their problem to solve and an overview of the solutions to be evaluated based on the supporting information provided

4. Remainder of the meeting will be spent going page by page to: review the document, and allow for questions

5. Narratives should not exceed six pages (not including Appendix)

Narrative Paper Review Matrix: 

Narrative Application Planning

1-3 page Narrative Typically takes 10 minutes to review and 20-30 minutes to discuss

4-6 page Narrative Typically takes 15-20 minutes to review and 30-45 minutes to discuss