Corporate Sustainability Project: Discuss Sustainable Business Practices

Corporate Sustainability Project
Executive Summary
Most business organizations have adopted sustainable business practices. These practices can be described as a process by which any business unit takes charge to manage factors in their organization. Among the factors that most organizations try to take charge include financial, environmental risks and obligations, opportunities for expansion and the business's obligation to the community, i.e., the cooperate business image CITATION Sha17 \l 1033 (Alijani & Karyotis, 2017). These factors have been commonly referred to profit, planet, and people. Sustainable practices can be in other word being taken as organizations being economically stable, environmentally friendly and socially responsible to the local community. The business unit has been established in such a way that they have to carry out some activities to ensure they attain sustainability. Among the activities that any organization should carry out include creation and maintenance of long financial value, ether top managers should ensure the actions of the organizations are environmentally friendly and that the business structure should care for the employees, customers and the surrounding community. For a business to be in control of all its operations, it is necessary to adopt a sustainability system that is well established and effective. Most companies in this age have proven to fight off competition by obtaining support from the community. This support can only be achieved by ensuring they have a good cooperate image. There has always been the need to adopt the sustainable business practice, and the Walmart Inc. is an excellent example of companies that are practicing viable business acts.
Introduction
For this particular paper, I will thoroughly discuss sustainable business practices, and I have selected Walmart Inc. as my case study. This organization is located in America, and it has its operation running globally. The topic for this particular paper is sustainable business practices, how they can be established, how they can be maintained and how various organizations have enjoyed benefits arising from this strategy. The Walmart Inc. aims at reducing the cost incurred by its customers when obtaining groceries and thus it ensures that this particular organization efficiently handles its competitors. Among the adopted sustainable business practices taken by this company include Holding greenhouse gas emissions steady or driving them down while adding stores may be quite hard and issues in doubling fleet efficiency. This paper is going to critically analyze the various strategies adopted by this organization and the challenges encountered in the process.
Organizational profile
The need to enjoy the benefits of adopting sustainable business practices have led to Walmart Inc. being on the top list of the already established businesses. The Walmart Inc. is multinational retail cooperation that is found in America. This business unit takes the structure of a corporation, and it is known for operating a chain of hypermarkets, grocery stores and departmental stores that allow a discount. This particular business unit was evolved from Sam wanton's goal of creating exceptional value and service which was first opened and established in Arkansas in 1962 (Gunther, 2015). The Walmart Inc. is organized and has its headquarters in Bentonville. This organization has been found in such a way that it has invested a lot of resources in customer service. Among the funds that have been injected in to ensure better customer service include trained human resource who offers good customer relation services. Apart from improving the customer service, these company has also invested a lot of resources in ensuring its groceries are fresh, and it has accommodated the organic options in its operations. The purpose of this organization is to help people across the globe to save significant amounts of money as a way of enabling them to love a quality life. These company has achieved efficiently this aim by ensuring that every action carried out in this particular organization focus on keeping the cost as low as possible and they try as much as possible to have their charges lower than those of their competitors (Walmart, 2017). To achieve a sustainable business practice the Walmart's Inc. has established its operation in such a way that the company's leaders are strong and skilled in their actions. Leadership in this company is just one of the strongholds that have held this company in a position since the year 2000.
Analysis of this operation of this organization has indicated some of its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats over time. This analysis has been commonly referred as SWOT analysis, and it is one of the best tools when it comes to establishing the position of an organization. SWOT analysis has indicated the strengths of this business unit that this particular company has a powerful retail brand operation which gives it a higher value of money. Another strength of this organization is that it has a wide range of products in the market and thus it serves many customers in the market. The wide range of products is a strength in that when one product is in low season the other one is likely to be in its peak season. This factor allows the organization to remain operational in the market throughout the seasons and the year.
A company that is in operation cannot be perfect, and thus the Walmart is not different from the rest as it also has some weaknesses. As per the SWOT analysis, the failings of this corporation include high running costs as the leadership strategy adopted by this firm has led to low-profit margins and also exposing the business structure to competitors and thus making it possible to copy this structure. The company is also facing another weakness which involves the company selling its products across different sectors and therefore unable to attain flexibility as it focuses on competitors.
The SWOT analysis is effective as it also indicates the opportunities and threats available in any given organization (Laszlo& Zhexembayeva, 2011). Among the opportunities available for exploration by the Walmart include the fact that this company can expand its operations in such a way that it develops the nations basing on its high growth economic rate. In addition to this, the firm can also improve the quality of its human resource and raise the standards of the current human resource to ensure that they address customers on various issues such as additional health information (Walmart case study). These opportunities are open for grab and are likely to increase the profit margin rates if they are exploited efficiently. Exploiting this opportunity is quite an easy process which does not require a lot of resources and time as some are already in progress.
This is a multinational firm which has its operations running in a number of countries. Due to the nature of its services, this firm is faced with some threats such as aggressive competition from both local and international business and political interference. These two threats are likely to cause panic in the organization as they are the primary macro factors affecting the business. These factors have to be taken care of as they are likely to cripple the operations of the business. Competition can only be handled using having prices below those of competitors. This will decrease the profit margin, but it will help on some issues such as reducing wastage and storage costs. Threats are meant to keep the business at its toe, but they must be handled effectively as they might interfere with the operation of the business. To effectively make use of the SWOT analysis this business has established efficiently some operations which are referred as sustainable business practices. Among the adopted sustainable business strategies adopted the following are the main and the most effective.
Leadership
The leaders of Walmart are skilled in the practice and very functional as they effectively carry out their roles. Among the roles that the managers of this organization play best include directing, planning, controlling and exploring new opportunities CITATION Isa16 \l 1033 (Wedl & Heinrichs, 2016). However, they face various challenges when implementing sustainability initiatives. One barrier is they find it to gather the required information since the scope of sustainability differs between the organizations and sector. Secondly, they find it hard to develop a sound case for sustainability because it has intangible results and they are achieved after a long period of time. Also, leaders who are committed to sustainability find it had in engaging the workforce.
The sustainability of any business depends on its leadership. A top-down, vision, commitment and leadership has been ide...