As a company that connects individuals and businesses, Alibaba wants to be “bigger than Walmart” and recently enjoyed a sky-high Initial Public Offering. It has 279 million active buyers and its growth rate doesn’t seem to be stopping any time soon. As someone who has visited Taobao before, I can certainly see the striking similarities between Alibaba and Amazon. By not holding inventory, this company enjoys a competitive advantage over its rivals. A professor at Georgetown said that Alibaba is like eBay, Amazon, and Paypal all merged into one “and much more”. While this business model is a game-changer, it also has the potential to be too unfocused in the long run. Will Alibaba sell off parts of its operations in the future? Will it be able to grow in a cost-efficient manner without losing speed?

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/international-business/us-business/alibaba-shares-surge-46-in-their-debut/article20693217/

Walmart, one of the biggest retailers worldwide, vowed to discontinue shipments from banned Bangladesh factories in the middle of 2011. However, reports showed that this was not the case. At least 2 factories were still doing business with Walmart a couple years later. A spokesman said that this was caused by the factory’s confusion over compliance with different companies’ standards. From these incidents arose concerns about Walmart’s supply chain management.

As a result of increasing pressure from international labour groups, many retailers have signed an accord that is legally binding and significantly improves the safety standards of Bangladesh factories. Walmart, on the other hand, did not sign the accord, but chose to implement a safety plan of its own. However, despite this sunny proposal, critics are saying that Walmart is just making empty promises. On the other side of the issue, suppliers do not wish to cut ties with the retailer giant for fear of bankruptcy. They believe that Walmart should continue the relationship and help improve the factories’ working conditions.

Friedman’s stakeholder theory states that a business should comply with the demands of its stakeholders. In this case, Walmart is trying to be socially responsible by making a safety plan to address the problem of poor working conditions. However, by continuing business with blacklisted factories, Walmart is contradicting itself and thus sending the wrong message. Walmart needs to have a more concrete approach when it comes to addressing the needs of its stakeholders.

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