Walmart Update, 2019

David B. Yoffie; Daniel  Fisher

Case | HBS Case Collection | April 2019

Walmart Update, 2019

Abstract

In 2019 Walmart was still the world's largest company, with over $500 billion in annual revenue and operations around the world. Although it had mostly vanquished its rival discount retailers in the U.S., it was struggling to find the right growth strategy. Facing a mature U.S. market, it had looked to ecommerce and international sales as an engine of growth. Walmart leadership also faced intense competition from dominant online retailer Amazon. In such a competitive environment, how should Walmart respond to the reality that its traditional strengths no longer guaranteed robust growth?

Keywords: E-Commerce strategy; Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Business Growth and Maturation; Growth and Development Strategy; Global Range; Business Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Retail Industry;

Language: English

Format: Print

14 pages

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Citation:

Yoffie, David B., and Daniel Fisher. "Walmart Update, 2019." Harvard Business School Case 719-504, April 2019.

In the summer of 2016, wearables “wunderkind” and Pebble founder and CEO, Eric Migicovsky, was pleased with the young startup’s success in the five years since its founding. The Silicon Valley–based company had recently shipped its two millionth smartwatch; held the record for three of the four highest Kickstarter campaigns ever (raising cumulatively over $40 million on the site); launched its first non-watch product dubbed a “wearables game changer”; and enjoyed a loyal customer base, particularly among technology early adopters and the community of software developers that created applications and watch faces for its products. Nonetheless, the young company faced a variety of challenges. The nascent smartwatch industry recently saw a dramatic uptick in competition. Apple had introduced its smartwatch the prior year, other established technology companies such as Samsung and Motorola offered smartwatches, U.S.-based fitness tracker Fitbit had recently launched its first smartwatch, and Chinese firm Xiaomi was soon to release a low-priced smartwatch. Migicovsky considers an array of strategic options as he looks ahead.

By early 2018, voice-controlled intelligent assistants had become a major new front in the battle between the giants of the technology sector. "Voice War" focuses on Alphabet’s strategy for Google Assistant, its entrant in the voice assistant space, and asks how the voice assistant should fit in with Alphabet's larger portfolio of products and services. While the mobile phone was the major platform for Google Assistant, Alphabet had recently introduced a range of smart home speakers to challenge first-mover Amazon’s Echo of devices, which were powered by its intelligent assistant, Alexa. Google also faced competition from Apple, whose intelligent assistant Siri had long been a staple of its mobile devices, but which introduced a smart home speaker in early 2018. Other competitors included Microsoft and Samsung, along with Chinese players Tencent, Alibaba, and Xiaomi.

Supplement | HBS Case Collection | January 2020

MoviePass: The 'Get Big Fast' Strategy

Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel Fisher

In August 2017, MoviePass dramatically lowered its subscription price from $50 per month to just $10 for up to one movie per day. The idea was to rapidly scale the business to the point where they could generate incremental revenue streams form related businesses (e.g., a share of ticket and concession revenues from theaters, advertising revenue from movie studios; and revenue from ride-sharing companies). Within two days, Moviepass had gotten 150k new subscribers; within six months, they had more than 2 million. But as of February 2018, the company faced three challenges: theaters were resisting the concept, investors were shorting the stock in record numbers, and competitors were beginning to appear. Could CEO Lowe convince investors that they did, indeed, have a viable business model and could monetize their growing subscriber base? At the same time, Lowe had to decide whether to raise subscription prices to cover the growing losses or keep prices low to attract subscribers as quickly as possible.

Keywords: Market entry; growth strategy; profit vs. growth; subscription business; cash burn; Data Analytics; get-big-fast; Business Strategy; value creation; buyer power; strategy implementation; entrepreneurship; United States; movie industry; Racing; Business Strategy; Value Creation; Consolidation; Cash Flow; Growth Management; Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Disruptive Innovation; Mobile Technology; Motion Pictures and Video Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Advertising Industry; Information Industry; United States;

Citation:

Esty, Benjamin C., and Daniel Fisher. "MoviePass: The 'Get Big Fast' Strategy." Harvard Business School Spreadsheet Supplement 720-854, January 2020. View Details

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