Walmart is the largest retailer in the world with over 11,000 stores in 27 countries generating $15 billion in annual revenue. It maintains a business strategy focused on cost leadership, product differentiation, innovation, and customer satisfaction. Walmart's information systems strategy supports this business strategy through applications that reduce supply chain costs, inventory and vendor management systems, and customer relationship management tools. Walmart is exploring opportunities with Internet of Things technologies to improve operations and customer experience, such as sensors to track inventory levels and prevent empty shelves. While Walmart pioneered barcode and satellite technologies, the company is evaluating whether and how to adopt emerging IoT solutions.

1. Innovating
Walmart
Roopali Aneja, Aravind Gopalakrishnan, Briana Lemon, Sohan Rane, Praveen Sundar

2. Wal-Mart in Numbers
● 11,000 stores
● 27 countries
● $15 billion annual revenue
● 2 million employees
● Market Share: 63%
● Closest Competitor: Costco (17%)

3. Business Strategy
● Maintain Cost Leadership
● Product Differentiation
● Control of IS / Tech Innovation
● Enterprise-wide Customer Satisfaction

4. IS Strategy Triangle

5. Porter’s Five Forces

6. Industry Analysis
D’Aveni’s Hypercompetition (7’S)
1. Superior Stakeholder Satisfaction
2. Strategic Soothsaying
3. Positioning for Speed
4. Positioning for Surprise
5. Shifting the Rules of Competition
6. Signaling Strategic Intent
7. Simultaneous and Sequential Strategic Thrusts

7. Firm Analysis
Dynamic Capabilities:
● Business model - Reduce costs of supply chains
● Successful inventory & vendor management
● Supply Chain Management
● Customer Relationship Management
● Local market outlets (US) with outside retailer
● Use of NodeJS for mobile applications

8. Alignment With Business Strategy
● Applications - Cost Leadership
● Infrastructure - Enterprise-Wide
Customer Satisfaction
● IS Organization - Cost Leadership
● Outsourcing - Tech Innovation
● Governance Style - Product
Differentiation

9. Internet of Things
● Sensors
● Connectivity
● People
● Processes

10. Internet of Things - Example
Business Strategy : Enterprise-wide customer satisfaction

11. Gartner’s Hype Chart

12. IoT Maturity - 5~10 years
Documents: Devices:
Source: Visual Capitalist

13. A Value-Added Solution
Empty Shelves
Grumpy Customers
Understaffed Stores
$3 Billion Opportunity

14. To Adopt or Not Adopt?
1984: Barcode & Satellites
2003: RFID
2015: IoT?

15. QUESTIONS?