...Running head: Walmart Information Systems 1 Walmart Information Systems Research Project-Group2 CIS 511 Fall 2011 Amber Slemmons, Brooke Williams, Cheri Evans, Ismael Molina, & Wesley Belz Walmart Information Systems Walmart Information Systems Executive Summary: 2 Walmart, the billion dollar retail giant, has grown significantly over the past five decades, incorporating numerous different types of information systems into their daily operations. The company is well recognized for their innovation when it comes to utilizing the latest technologies and information systems to maximize their profitability. Information systems structures and processes play a critical role in Walmart’s success and today they are bringing that innovative spirit to the market as they move toward full implementation of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID). This technology allows for Walmart’s operations to function efficiently and effectively as they are capable of sending and receiving real time data to the networks. By doing so they are able to communicate the information to the retailer and the product manufactures making it possible for Walmart to remain competitive in the retail industry by properly controlling its inventories. This report will explain how Walmart has utilized several information systems throughout the course of its history such as: point of sale, satellite communication systems, data warehouses, retail link systems, electronic data interchange (EDI), and most recently...
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...Case Study Using Information Technologies at Federal Express Federal Express, founded in 1971, handles an average of 3 million package-tracking requests every day (http://about.fedex.designcdt.com). To stay ahead in a highly competitive industry, Federal Express focuses on customer service by maintaining a comprehensive Web site, FedEx.com, to assist customers and reduce costs. For example, every request for information is handled at the Web site instead of going to the call center saves roughly $1.87. Federal Express has reported that customer calls have decreased by 83, 000 per day since 2000, which saves the company $57.56 million per year. In addition, each package-tracking costs Federal Express three cents; by using Web site instead of the call center to handle these requests, costs have been reduced from more than $1.36 billion per year to $21.6 million per year. Another technology for improving customer service is Ship Manager, an application installed on customers’ sites so that users can weigh packages, determine shipping charges, and print shipping labels. Customers can also link their invoicing, billing, accounting, and inventory systems to Ship Manager. However, Federal, Express still spends almost $326 million per year on its call center to reduce customers’ frustration when the Web site is down or when customers have difficulty in using it. Federal Express uses customer relationship management software called Clarify in its call centers to make customer service...
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...Technology Dhananjay Singh 1311611 Walmart’s Supply Chain For Walmart, the major business initiative being used is Supply Chain Management. A supply chain management system is an IT system that supports activities by automating the tracking of inventory and information among business processes and across companies. Wal-Mart is to ensure that all their suppliers are using Electronic Product Codes and for those who do not have the capability they work with them to find packages that are within their price range. This allows for a successful ensuring that customers get what they order in a timely manner. It allows for logistics, fulfilment, production, revenue and profit, cost and price efficiency Riding a rising six-year trend,Walmart reported grosses of $486 billion in the fiscal year that ended in January 2015, an increase of almost $10 billion from fiscal 2014. That's up from $408 billion over the past five years, according to The Wall Street Journal’s Market Watch. That income was generated by more than 4,500 stores in the U.S. alone, and fed by a sprawling supply chain, which moved from No. 14 to No. 13 on research and analyst company Gartner's annual ranking. Walmart’s inventory management funnels information from stores such as point-of-sale data, warehouse inventory and real-time sales into a centralized database. The data is shared with suppliers who know when to ship more products. Supply chain integration connects the flow...
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...lot of research and development, jobs, and relationships were a result of such a massive long term initiative. Fast forward to 2013, Walmart, the largest retailer in the world (If sales was GDP it would be the 19th largest country in the world) is faced with its own design initiative. Walmart wants to implement sustainability strategy into its business model. This is not implementing a new green product into the product offering, this is a project like the earlier example of NASA. Walmart is going to reengineer and re-create the way it does business.Walmart can leverage its current technologies and resources to get sustainability an issue of the past. In order for Walmart to reengineer/re-create it will have to follow 5 steps outlined below. * Step one, Identify all parties who are touched by Walmart. * Step two, understand and identify interactions amongst parties. * Step three, organize group meetings, partnerships, and training * Step four, use ERP, Web 2.0 and other technologies to build platforms that allow cross communication from all parties. * Step five, implement audits and performance reviews to stay on track. The first step Walmart must do is to identify all the parties that are touched by Walmart. This includes customers, employees, distributers, suppliers, countries, NGO’s, and competition. Everyone that Walmart touches is an important asset to leverage in this initiative. The house wife in...
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...Course: BADM 425 – Production and Operations Management Instructor: Professor Tom Martin Report Written by: Raja Vinjamuri (7291237) Firm chosen: Walmart Person Interviewed: Mr. Clay Peltier (Assistant Manager) Report: Before, we discuss about the Supply chain management of Walmart, I would like to clarify their business philosophy, which is to keep prices as low as possible. Even if their margins weren't higher than competitors and in fact very less, they could make up for that in volume. Various factors like Technology combined with flawless Supply chain management, enables them to maintain such low costs. Now let’s see various elements of their supply chain management. The relationships of the firms in Supply chain: Normally any supply chain has a suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, wholesalers and retailers. Though walmart is technically considered as a retailer, in the words of one of its assistant manager of operations, “it is actually a wholesaler with a huge number of its own retail outlets”. Because Walmart supply chain has so many suppliers, as they sell a wide range of products they tend to do a lot of “Vertical integration” which is to own a major part of supply chain. Actually, based on types of integration of supply chain, they have various types of stores such as Walmart store U.S, Walmart Discount Stores, Walmart Supercenter, Sam's Club etc. So a supply chain integration connects the flow of work and information among all links in the supply chain to maximize...
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...Walmart Case Study Case study Questions and Answers: 1- Examine the development of Wal-Mart over its 40 year history. It is now nearly half a century since Walmart exists. From humble beginnings in the 1960s in Arkansas to the world’s leading retailer, Walmart has come a long way to its success. Starting domestically in Arkansas, it was dedicated to its principals; genuine customer courtesy, a culture of respect for the individual and everyday low prices. In the 1960s, Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart, started his business with a strong foundation which is providing everything to customers with low prices they can afford. From that time forward, Walmart kept its low price strategy and in return it became bigger and bigger. The company at this decade reached $ 12.7 million in sales and was incorporated as Wal-Mart stores, Inc. In the 1970s, the most appealing development in this decade was listing the company on the New York Stock Exchange (WMT). Also at that time, Walmart was growing nationally. In the 1980s, Walmart decided to take the lead among other businesses. The first Sam’s club opened to serve individuals and small businesses, the first supercentre opened in Washington that combines a supermarket with a general merchandise in order to provide one-stop shopping experience. We can say that the 80s in Walmart history was aiming to make things easier for its customers. That was clear when Walmart installed the biggest private satellite communication system in the...
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...Walmart currently employees more that 2 million people worldwide in their more than 10,000 retail stores, strategically located in 27 different countries worldwide (Walmart Inc., 2013). In 2012 the company reported earning well over 400 billion dollars (Walmart Inc., 2013; "Walmart- Refocus," 2006). Here in the third week of the needs assessment being conducted on behalf of our client BJ’s a division of Walmart Inc., the focus surrounds the collection and its analysis. Following the collection of data and a meeting was held with BJ’s management and a recommendation was made based on this analysis. The recommendations made was based on the findings generated from random customer satisfaction survey, selection process for focus groups, identifying and documenting key organizational objectives through questionnaires and surveys, collecting and tabulating responses from returned email questionnaires conducted over a two week period. As the world’s largest retailer, Walmart still faces the potential of not having the relative flexibility to act swiftly in response to changing global markets, fostering a universal company culture in all its locations, addressing the high rates of turnovers, or providing the same level of customer service and productivity globally. Realizing that there are several areas that need to be address using data collected from several source, random customer survey, employee surveys and questionnaire, small focus groups, the data determined the best...
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...New Frontier: Data Analytics Phylicia Marie Phillips Professor Progress Mtshali, Ph. D. Information Systems Decision-Making April 17, 2016 In the past, analytics was reserved for back-room debates by data geeks producing monthly reports on how things are going. Today, analytics make a difference in how a company does business, day to day, and even minute by minute; more specifically how Walmart does business. As many know, Walmart is an American based multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets, grocery stores and discount stores. With over eleven thousand stores and clubs in 27 countries, information technology and data analytics play a major role in Walmart’s survival and helps maintain its competitive advantage. Data Analytics Overview The business intelligence and analytic technologies and applications currently adopted in industry can be considered as BI&A 1.0, where data are mostly structured, collected by companies through various legacy systems, and often stored in commercial relational database management systems (Bottles and Begoli, 2014). The analytical techniques most commonly used in these systems, popularized in the 1990s, are mainly grounded in statistical methods developed in the 1970s and data mining techniques developed in the 1980s (Chiang, 2012). The digitalization of information has created more data and the development of cloud computing, and faster and faster computers has made the increased data more accessible...
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...Internal Environment Walmart: 1.Company Profile : * History : Walmart is a well known American company that operates retail stores including grocery stores, discount stores,wearhouse , clubs and combination of general merchandise store. It was founded in 1962 by Sam Walton along with his brother Bud in Rogers Arkansas. At the beginning he opened more stores in Arkansas but later he expanded walmart to Oklahoma and Missouri in 1968. In 1972 the company listed in the Newyork Stock Exchange. Walton group also introduced the Sam's Club Warehous store in Iowa ,Nibrasca ,Indianna in 1983. During 1980's the company rises considerably by reaching 25.8 billion dollars sales with almost 1,525 stores and 271,000 workers at the end of the decade. In 1990's walmart considered as a largest retailer of the nation and it continued the acheivement by opening more stores within an outside country. The company entered in Japan by buying 36% stake of Seiyu in 2002 and Walmart increased its stake about 67% in 2007.According to the fiscal year sale of Walmart is about 469.2 Billion in 2013 with 2.2 million workers worldwide and 11 thousand stores under 69 banners in 27 countries. * Scale of Operation: The strong market position is the main strength of Walmart with more then 400 billion dollars revenue and almost 11 thousand stores worldwide and consumer trust that differentiate walmart from its competitors. Walmart can also acheive higher profit because of its huge size and it has a strong...
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...success of the business. Technology has set Walmart apart and ahead from its competitors. Leading is part of the culture at Walmart. Sam Walton never intended to have the largest company in the world, but the best company in the world. The company runs on a basic goal, set when the first store opened in 1962: Save money, live better. It’s the statement that is in the front of every store, right below the company’s logo. To accomplish this goal, Walmart has built a very efficient communications network that includes suppliers, stores, distribution centers, and customers. Until a few years ago, when people thought of a private company that was a technology leader in the industry, Walmart was first in the list. Technology at Walmart means more than computers. Organizing is, among many other things, having a truck fleet that deliver products to all the stores efficiently. One of Walmart’s goals is to “Double our truck fleet efficiency in the U.S. by October 2015 (2005 Baseline)” (Walmart, 2011, Goals, para. 1). In working toward this goal, Walmart has partnered with leading companies to test new technologies that reduce the impact on the environment, are viable for the business, and provide a return in investment. Walmart has been working with Daimler Trucks North America to build a hybrid-electric truck. With Arvin-Meritor, Walmart is testing a diesel-electric truck in the Detroit area, powered solely by batteries. In Phoenix, Arizona, Walmart is retrofitting fifteen trucks to run on...
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...An E-Business Analysis of Walmart Patricia Brandon-Garst E-Business Professor Victor Olufeso August 29, 2011 An E-Business Analysis of Walmart Walmart is the world’s largest company and quite possibly the most powerful retailer. Walmart began as strictly a brick and mortar store but has advanced into click and mortar over the last five decades. Walmart may soon become a major competition for huge online only retailers like Amazon. The recent acquisitions by Walmart are sure to be placing this retailer in place for an online invasion of epic proportions. Walmart was started by Sam Walton in rural Arkansas in 1962. Sam Walton had previously owned a franchise in the Ben Franklin stores since 1944 and also opened a small chain of stores called Walton’s 5 & 10. Sam Walton was extremely industrious and had a knack for increasing sales in businesses. His ability to find ways to slash prices to the lowest bottom line is the reason for the success of Walmart. (Sam Walton, 2009) Walmart stores have been geared toward the low-income customer segment. The concept of frugality is the central tenet of the company. Even the Walmart headquarters is a drab and plain building in a small town in central Arkansas. There are no luxuries at the headquarters and it is not based in a fancy big city. During the recent downturn of the world economy when other businesses were going under, Walmart had reported sales growth of 11%, amounting...
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...Walmart: E-business Analysis Dustin Cooper Intro to Information Systems Professor Young Bao Choi August 29, 2011 An E-Business Analysis of Walmart Walmart is the world’s largest company and quite possibly the most powerful retailer. Walmart began as strictly a brick and mortar store but has advanced into click and mortar over the last five decades. Walmart may soon become a major competition for huge online only retailers like Amazon. The recent acquisitions by Walmart are sure to be placing this retailer in place for an online invasion of epic proportions. Walmart was started by Sam Walton in rural Arkansas in 1962. Sam Walton had previously owned a franchise in the Ben Franklin stores since 1944 and also opened a small chain of stores called Walton’s 5 & 10. Sam Walton was extremely industrious and had a knack for increasing sales in businesses. His ability to find ways to slash prices to the lowest bottom line is the reason for the success of Walmart. (Sam Walton, 2009) Walmart stores have been geared toward the low-income customer segment. The concept of frugality is the central tenet of the company. Even the Walmart headquarters is a drab and plain building in a small town in central Arkansas. There are no luxuries at the headquarters and it is not based in a fancy big city. During the recent downturn of the world economy when other businesses were going under, Walmart had reported sales growth of 11%, amounting to $6.4 billion. Walmart has also made some...
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...Cost Leadership and Differentiation Strategies @Walmart Submitted by: Samrat Basu INDEX PAGE Walmart Origin Page-3 Walmart Mission/Vision Page-4 Corporate Culture@ Walmart Page-4 Competitive Position of Walmart Page 5-6 Strategies @ Walmart Page 6-9 Private Label and Store Layout Page 9-11 Conclusion Page-11 Appendix Page 12 References and Bibliography Page 13-14 Wal-Mart- Origin Wal-Mart was the product of Sam Walton, a businessman from Arkansas. In the late 1940s, in USA, a retailer who was successful in obtaining a sufficient discount for his products from the whole-seller, used to sell the products at full price to the customers and thus enjoyed a substantial amount of profit. Sam Walton during that time was working as a retailer at a J.C. Penney store in Des Moines, Iowa.(Walton & Huey, 1993) Incidentally while working there, he was introduced to Butler Brothers, a big retailer who had chains of variety stores known as Ben Franklin and Sam was offered...
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...Chapter Eleven: Order Fulfillment Along the Supply Chain and Other EC Support Services 11-1 Online File W11.1 What Services Do Customers Need? Insights on online customer services: ◗ Customer preferences. Customers tend not to do much self-service in terms of getting information from companies (e.g., only 19% use FAQs), so they require attention. As more companies offer online self-service, though, this situation is changing. When contacting companies for information, customers use e-mail more than the telephone (71% versus 51%). ◗ Types of service. Four types of service exist, based on where the customer is in the purchase experience: during shopping (search products, compare, find product attributes); during buying (questions on warranties, billing, receipt, payment); after placing the order (checking status in processing and in shipping); and after receiving the item (checking return procedures, how to use the item). ◗ Problem resolution. Customers expect quick resolutions to problems, and expect problems to be resolved to their satisfaction. Therefore, easy returns and order tracking are desirable. ◗ Shipping options. Several shipping options are usually needed to make customers happy. ◗ Fraud protection. Customers need to make sure that sellers or others are not going to cheat them (Chapters 9 and 14). ◗ Order status and updates. Customers want to have some way to check on the status of their order, which involves tracking either by phone or online. These services...
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...is centralized and hierarchical, with some level of decentralization. The hierarchical and centralized organizational structure refers to having central corporate headquarters that monitor and direct all activities in the organization. Corporate departments have jurisdiction over all the Walmart stores. Some degree of management decentralization also exists in the company. For example, each Walmart store has its own human resource department. Each store’s HR department has an HR manager to apply corporate HR strategy based on the unique needs of the individual store. This centralized organizational structure combined with partial decentralization is an acceptable concept. Centralization integrates Walmart’s organization so it functions as one entity. Decentralization makes the organization flexible enough to face new or emerging issues in the business. Thus, Walmart has clear and distinct definitions for every job position and level of the structure. 3.1 METHOD OF JOB ANALYSIS Job analysis data can be obtained in several ways. The more common methods of collecting the data needed to analyse jobs are interviews, questionnaires, observation, and diaries. As a method of job analysis, Walmart applies matching approach which involving interviews and direct observation on applicants, employees and supervisors to determine issues needed. Walmart’s aim is to align the actual needs with available human resources and to determine possible the two. 3.1.1 INTERVIEW In...
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