Wal-Mart is an extremely successful organization that has achieved its goals of becoming one of the top retail stores in the world. In order to reach the top, managers have to plan, organize, lead, and control each component possible in order for the company to be successful. Internal and external factors can impact the four functions of management within a company. Management's responsibility is to take the four factors into consideration to make sure the company will be successful.The four factors can be its strengths, weaknesses and opportunities as well as its threats and trends. A comparison of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats normally is referred to as a SWOT analysis. (Bateman-Snell, 2009) SWOT is an analysis that assists management in going over facts and forecasts resulting from the external and internal analyses. After reviewing the analysis, management can organize a strategy ...view middle of the document...
Local availability, location, and cost to train newly hired staff as well. External factors that may have been considered might have been accessibility to consumers, transport links, marketing i.e. appeal to customers of business' location. There will always be uncontrollable external factors that will constantly affect a company both in a positive and a negative way and depending on those circumstances, the external factors can make a company re-plan its objective to accomplish certain goals desired.After analyzing the external environment and internal resources, strategic planning managers have the information needed to put together corporate, business, and functional strategies for the company. Careful planning is designed to even out the strengths of a company while minimizing the effects of its weaknesses.The internal factors can be viewed as a strength or weakness depending on the impact on the company. A strength for one objective can also be a weakness for a different objective. External factors can include macroeconomic matters, technological change, legislation, and socio-cultural changes, as well as changes in the marketplace or competitive position.To manage the factors described, management will have to keep track of all changes and keep resources up to date in order to maintain the competitive advantage. By being creative, maintaining, improving the competitive advantage, and evaluating decisions is all part of strategic management planning. To keep up, the company must do an assessment of its internal and external environment, defend its possible threats, manage products and services by getting rid of the negatives and improving where need be by implementing strategies.Management must look at all departments, staff, and the best way to handle necessary tasks and disbursement of information within the company. Work can then be divided upon the appropriate personnel to be completed.References:Rane, Sanjay. (2009). The Four Functions of Management: Foundation for All Management Concepts . Retrieved from http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/373994/the_four_functions_of_management_foundation.html?singlepage=true&
