Integrated Legal Business Strategy
The world is globalizing and thus acting as a driving force to the change that is being witnessed in most of the companies and corporations as well as in organizations. All these business sectors have realized the crucial role that is played by the legal potentials in the success of a business. The incorporation f the legal systems in the business strategy has attributed to the ongoing success of the business and much understanding on the significance of working in collaboration with the legal counsel. Over time most of the managers have viewed the law as a hindrance on the managerial decision making process primarily viewing the process as an issue of expense and compliance (Shearer et al 2007). However the perception has changed with time as there has been an increment in the adoption of the strategy by many companies and there have been good results from those companies. These companies in their implementation of deploying the legal systems in their legal departments have helped to shape their legal environment and hence they have been able to safeguard a long term competitive benefit. These legal systems formulate a pathway that the business has to follow so as to realize these benefits and to have a high value of strategic impact. These legal pathways that a company may choose to follow include compliance, evasion, prevention, significance and transformation. Therefore the company should be able to find the most appropriate legal path to follow. This is influenced by the manager’s mind-set towards the legal systems, their level of understanding on law, the capability of the legal department to work well with the managers so as to attain the company’s strategic objectives. This paper therefore will discuss on the issues that are facing the Wal-Mart company in United States which are not yet resolved and the institutions to be involved in the business strategy and the information that they need so as to be able to solve all these issues.
Wal-mart is one of the largest retail companies in US and is listed among the top fortune companies. However, the company has been affected and is still being affected currently due to some unresolved issues. One of the issues is on labor. The company has an economical labor wage compensation performance, their over reliance on part time laborers and unfair shift scheduling program. As a result of these conditions the employees’ environment is un-conducive and this results in the creation of discord among the employees (Hayden et al 2002). As a result of these harsh conditions, labor unions are viewed as necessary to be established as it would help to fight for the rights of the employees. The company therefore uses force to carry out their activities as they cut on costs through pushing of the available boundaries so as to achieve what they want. This has resulted to the fall of the company as a victim of lawsuits as it is sued for huge amounts of cash. The company has therefore prohibited the formation of unions by their employees as they are well aware of their unfair labor systems. This therefore denies the employees the right o voice out their ideas and opinions within their workplace and hence they are subject to oppression by the company (Hayden et al 2002). Automotive separation of Wal-marts employees who want to be in a union is one of the current issues facing Wal-mart. This is one of the great mistakes that the company is doing and in the long run it will affect the performance of the company the company is expending much on the lawsuits as the employees fights back. This makes the company to ruin their reputation as well as credibility.
The Surrounding environment issue is also one that currently affects the performance of Wal-mart company. Aggressiveness is essential in any corporate business strategy. However, Wal-mart has an un-healthy aggressiveness in their market place which seems o be more of ruthless. This is because the company seeks to benefit themselves without consideration of other business people within the community and this destroys the entire community. Wal0mart usually comes in a community and they usually cause the shutting down of businesses and later they proceeds into other regions (Hayden et al 2002). They pride themselves in offering job opportunities for the surrounding community but the truth is the community only works there as their local stores are closed down. This has not been received well by most of the communities and hence any attempt of the company to open up a new store is opposed greatly by the surrounding community as they are determined to lock out the retail giant out of their society.
Though the company is trying hard to pride themselves in the green economy, they are still faced with environmental issues. The company has been releasing million tons of carbon four oxides which are hazardous onto the environment as they result in the depletion of the ozone layer hence resulting to climate variation. The company is also responsible for the high production of low quality goods that encourages waste production hence polluting the environment and the scenic beauty. They are as well involved in the construction of large sized warehouses stores. The company consumes huge amounts of energy and this may result to depletion of the energy as it is extremely used. The increasing number of retailers leads to increment n industrialized agriculture where intensive farming practices are carried out. This results to an overexploitation of the available and limited natural resources with increased pollution while small farmers and businesses are forced out of their businesses. Through the high rates of organic chemicals such as fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides and insecticides, and the high consumption of water and the air pollution there is a high risk on the habitats as well as on the public health of the local people.
Employers are important stakeholders in any organization and they are even more crucial. This is because of their implicit knowledge and commitment which helps the company to improve on innovative strategies. Through the company allowing the employees to have a legal labor representative in the company through the union of employees is very essential in solving issues to do with employees. Thus the employees have opportunities to voice out their viewpoints and thus allowing a strong working relation within the company hence good performance.
The company should therefore transform from being more systematic but rather utilizing the social planning techniques using legal social officials. They should be able to organize brainstorming gatherings so as to be able to identify the various issues affecting them. In these sessions the company will be in a position to retreat so as to persuade the executives and all the stakeholders to share a common interest (Hayden et al 2002). As the company operates several focus groups, they will be able to understand the stakeholder’s perceptions and this will enhance them to be able to build up a consensus hence future development. Thus the company will be able to organize and design strategies where stakeholders will be incorporated in the entire process thus allowing them to accept and adopt any possible strategy (Tricker 2012). The core goal of this strategy is to foster collaborated understanding of the issue and encourage an integrated commitment to various ways of settling it.
The company should also ensure that they follow the value legal path where they aim at improving the environment in which they operate in as this is essential. Our environment is very important and hence Wal-mart should ensure that they get legal advice from the legal environmentalist who would recommend on measures of reducing carbon emission and waste emission. This would help in the reduction of wastes onto the atmosphere and even underground systems. This will help in the safeguarding of the habitat’s and public health hence resulting to a healthier society. The company should therefore implement sustainable utilization measures and much of recycling of the already used resources such as water so as to reduce the water usage. The company should also provide education to the farmers persuading them to use inorganic material s so as to increase their production. This will as well reduce pollution emission.Wal-mart therefore needs to collect adequate information on their community, employees and the environment to which they are suited on. The company may decide to carry out a research on the number f the local populace, the nature of the environment surrounding the company and the needs for employees. In doing so, the company will be able to fully understand the level and extent of intervention that is needed so as to solve the problems effectively. The uses of successful legal strategies starts by understanding and elaborating the business approach and later transform approaches into actionable strategies that can be utilized in the management of the company’s performance (Tricker 2012). As the company’s leadership executes objectives, educates all the stakeholders and measures the performance index then change and improvement in the company will be realized (Mair et al 2012).
Conclusion
It is therefore important to note that professionalism is required for a successful planning and in the drive for execution hence most firms are turning out to be non-attorneys. Wal-mart Company should therefore have a wide acceptance of the legal systems as this would help in influencing their administration and as a result their performance. There have been tremendous losses following the many laws suits that he Wal-mart Company has spent on due to the occurring and unresolved issues. These issues are not hat complex and therefore they can be easily solved through the integration mechanisms f the legal system in the company’s system. This has helped in easier solving of problems for most of the companies and hence Wal-mart should also try out this method.
References
Top of Form
Hayden, P., Lee, S., McMahon, K., & Pereira, M. (2002). Wal-Mart: Staying on Top of the Fortune 500. Corporate Strategy and Public Affairs Lecture, the Graduate School of Political Management, George Washington University, Washington DC.
Mair, J., Martí, I., & Ventresca, M. J. (2012). Building inclusive markets in rural Bangladesh: How intermediaries work institutional voids. Academy of Management Journal, 55(4), 819-850.
Shearer, R., & National Knowledge & Intellectual Property Management Taskforce. (2007). Business power: Creating new wealth from IP assets. Hoboken, N.J: J. Wiley.
Tricker, R. I. (2012). Corporate governance: Principles, policies and practices. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
