Étude de l'article “Growing pains” (document en anglais)

ANGLAIS DEV 3

This document is an article from The Economist newspaper, written on April 16th 2005,

entitled “Growing pains”. This article deals with the difficulty for big local retailers chains, to

expand overseas.

Despite the success of those local retailers in their own countries, why have they difficulties

to expand abroad?

We have to see first of all the local differences, and then we will see the financials

consequences.

The article takes the examples of the famous retailers Wal-Mart (from America), Carrefour

(from France) and Tesco (from Great-Britain).The first problem of expanding overseas is to

be able to adapt to the local culture. Indeed as the article said, “what works in a country does

not necessarily work in another”. For instance, the biggest retailers Wal-Mart has difficulties

to expand in Japan because-the- Japanese associate low prices with poor quality. So the

discount concept cannot be export-ed- in all the countries. Moreover, Wal-Mart has problem

in his-its- own country,-the- United States, because it is a non-union firm which is a problem

there. We see also that local differences are important factor to expand overseas. In Great-

Britain, to conform to the market where Tesco is the number one, Wal-Mart created the Asda

chain so that-as- to be-a- competitor with the local market.

As for Carrefour which is the most international retailer, the losses it had overseas oblige himthem-

to quit some countries or to sell its-their- stores like he-they- did in Japan or in Mexico

where he-they- want to sell about twenty nine stores. Jose Luis Duran the chief executive of

Carrefour said that the retailer chain will quit all the stores where it isn’t among the best. Sir

Terry Leahy who is the boss of Tesco emphasized the fact that-it- is very difficult to create an

international retailing business.

As for Tesco, S ANGLAIS DEV 3

This document is an article from The Economist newspaper, written on April 16th 2005,

entitled “Growing pains”. This article deals with the difficulty for big local retailers chains, to

expand overseas.

Despite the success of those local retailers in their own countries, why have they difficulties

to expand abroad?

We have to see first of all the local differences, and then we will see the financials

consequences.

The article takes the examples of the famous retailers Wal-Mart (from America), Carrefour

(from France) and Tesco (from Great-Britain).The first problem of expanding overseas is to

be able to adapt to the local culture. Indeed as the article said, “what works in a country does

not necessarily work in another”. For instance, the biggest retailers Wal-Mart has difficulties

to expand in Japan because-the- Japanese associate low prices with poor quality. So the

discount concept cannot be export-ed- in all the countries. Moreover, Wal-Mart has problem

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