Baby Lyn B.

Manchus

Prof. Evangeline Lim

BSBA-MM 4-1

August 20, 2015

Walmart move into Germany

In 1997 and 1998 Walmart acquired two companies - Wertkauf and Interspar - in
Germany. During its expansion Walmart managed to also successfully enter a number
of

international

markets

including

Canada,

Chili,

Brazil,

India,

and

China.

However, during this whole period of expansion Walmart also experienced a number of
defeats. Germany was one of them.
Analysts still argue about the reasons behind the failure of Walmart in Germany.
However, among them are a number of culture-related issues that come up rather often.
There were two groups of factors, which contributed to Walmarts failure in Germany.
As a culture manager of the company, I need to really take a look at the part of the
employees. Different nationalities of different employees from the two companies should
be managed and taken into consideration. I will study and analyze their culture for me to
know how to handle them. After that, my subordinates and the top management should
also know what I have analyzed. I should make all of them understand each others
culture so that conflict can be avoided. Since there is no perfect solution to
organizational problem, it would be a continuous process until flaws regarding cultural
conflict would be as much as possible avoided. I should teach everyone how to respect
each other. I will make them comfortable of the culture of the organization itself. They
should adhere to that. In simple way of respecting each other and working on their
differences, the problem would have a stepping stone towards the solution. Also, as a
culture manager, I would make sure that there would be a balanced working
environment for everyone.