Introduction 3
I. Globalization and Retailing market 4
Market overview 4
Forces driving competition 5
• Buyer power 5
• Supplier power 5
• New entrants 6
• Threats of substitutes 6
• Degree of rivalry 6
II. Carrefour SWOT 7
Strengths 7
Weaknesses 8
Opportunities 8
Threats 9
III. External business environment: Key challenges and implications 10
Political and legal 10
Economic and Financial 11
Social, cultural, and Environmental 11
Technological 12
IV. Conclusion 13
Sources 14

Introduction

For businesses, globalization is a great opportunity to stretch further and thus reach another level. Hamilton and Webster (2009) state that “globalization generates opportunities for business to enter new markets, take advantage of differences in the …show more content…

(Marketline, 2012).
Food and grocery is the largest segment, accounting for 61% of the industry’s total value, with total revenues of $6,678.9 in 2011. For comparison, the apparel, luxury goods and accessories segment accounts only for 15.6% of the industry generated revenues of $1,708.7 billion in 2011. (Marketline, 2012).
Economists forecast an acceleration of this performance with an increase of 26.2% since 2011. This expected growth would drive the industry to a value of $13,815.8 billion by the end of 2016.
Surprisingly, despite the economic crisis, 2012 was the fastest growing year for retailing since 1999. And this is due to emerging markets that are performing well. For example, China has seen a 10% growth in its retailing market in 2012. The other factor that contributed to this growth is the growth of Internet retailing. This fastest growing channel grew 20% in 2012 and now account for 4% of all retail sales globally. This trend is expected to grow and rise 6% by 2017. However, this global growth has to be moderate since there is some inflation to be taken into account. (Latev, D. 2012).
The other trend that is important to notice is the Middle East and Africa’s growths. Indeed, these markets surpassed Latin America in 2012, which was one of the markets driving the global growth. Increasing by 14%, they became the fastest growing region. (Euromonitor, 2012). According to Daniel Latev (2012), unlike in