Walmart Strategic Recommendation As one of the largest retailers in the U.S. and one of the biggest multinational companies in the world, Wal-Mart is strategically positioned to continue to grow. In 2011, Wal-Mart’s net sales were nearly $20 billion, had over 8,400 stores in 14 countries, and employed nearly 2 million people worldwide. However, due to competitors such as Target and Amazon and a smaller global market, Wal-Mart is struggling to keep up with its annual 10% increase in sales. Currently, Wal-Mart operates in Mexico, Canada, Britain, Argentina, Japan, Germany, South Korea, and most recently, China, India, and South Africa. As an international retailer, the company has to expand more aggressively in order to become dominant. A strategic goal of Wal-Mart is to continue to expand globally. Wal-Mart’s strategy for expansion is simple: dominant every sector where it does business. As long as the company is doing well in sales and has dominance over its competitors, it has been successful. The company should continue to expand internationally. In 2011, 26% of net sales were overseas and if Wal-Mart continues to grow in untapped markets, the percentage of overseas sales will be more than domestic sales. As of February 2011, Wal-Mart has only 329 stores in China and only operates jointly with a company in India. Also, while Wal-Mart has been in the Japanese market for almost 10 years, it only has a 2.9% market share. These three countries are where Wal-Mart needs to aggressively expand in order to gain more sales. China has a population of over 1 trillion people and India has over 1 trillion people as well, a total of 2 trillion consumers waiting to be customers of Wal-Mart. The company needs to be aggressive by using previous strategies in previous countries – acquisition, partnership, and go-it-alone ventures. Wal-Mart should merge with existing companies that have been