Mark van Rijmenam
Melbourne, Australia
March 26, 2014
Walmart Makes Big Data Part of Its DNA
Mark van Rijmenam
Founder
Datafloq
Big Data Strategist
International Keynote speaker
Author Think Bigger
There was 5 Exabytes of
information created between
the dawn of civilization
through 2003, but that much
information is now created
every 2 days and the
Pace is
Increasing
100 times back and forth
Accelerated Change is the only Constant
Walmart	was	doing	Big	Data	before	it	was	called	Big	Data	
1987:	the	largest	
private	satellite	
communica7on	system	
1990:	First	data	
warehouse	prototype	to	
store	historical	sales	data	
1990s:	Walmart	
already	has	180	
Terabyte	of	data	
1980s:	Op7mizing	
supply	chain	with	
data	and	sta7s7cs	
1996:	Launch	of	
Walmart.com	
2002:	Walmart	uses	the	
Internet	for	data	
exchange	with	suppliers
What	do	Strawberry	
Poptarts	and	hurricanes	
have	in	common?
“Our	ability	to	pull	
data	together	is	
unmatched.”	
	
—Walmart	U.S.	
CEO	Bill	Simon,		
September	2013
Walmart – the largest retailer in the world
Walmart averages a profit of AU$ 2 million
- every hour
Walmart's net sales were AU$ 516 billion in
2012 – ¼ of Australia’s GDP
35 million people shop at Walmart - every
day
The average Walmart Supercenter sells
140.000 individual items
Walmart opened between four and five
new stores every week in 2012
90% of Americans live within 15 minutes of
a Walmart
Walmart has 2.2 million employees – that’s
more than the population of Brisbane
>1 million customer transactions every
hour, creating 2.5 petabytes of data
Walmart reportedly has data over 145
million Americans – Petabytes of data
Walmart shares consumers’ online data
with more than 50 third parties
In 2011 it bought Kosmix for reportedly AU$
332 million & turned it into @WalmartLabs
Walmart	went	on	a	shopping	spree
What	are	they	doing?	
1)  The	Social	Genome	
2)  ShopyCat	
3)  Search	Engine	Polaris	
4)  Walmart.com	&	recommenda7ons	
5)  Mobile	solu7ons
Walmart’s	Social	Media	Presence	
>	34.500.000	likes	on	Facebook	
>	800.000	followers	on	TwiZer	with	a	dozen	channels	
>	330.000	followers	on	LinkedIn	
~	40.000	followers	on	Pinterest	
>	21.000	followers	on	Google+
The	Social	Genome	
Source:	Vint	Soge7
The	Social	Genome	
Source:	Vint	Soge7
Shopycat:	RecommendaGons	made	personal
•  Built	internally	from	scratch	in	just	10	months	
•  Increase	conversion	rates	by	10-15	percent	
•  Users	don’t	only	get	results,	but	are	shown	topic	pages	
•  Based	on	seman7c	technology	
•  Capable	of	query	understanding	and	synonym	mining
The	SemanGcs	
Reasoning	
Natural	
Language	
Processing	
Ontology	search	
Contextual	
analy7cs
Walmart.com	e-commerce	plaIorm	
45	million	
monthly	
visitors!
Trending	Now	
A	richer	visual	browsing	experience	
	
Discover	and	buy	new	products	
	
Reaching	new	customer	segments
200 million customers
Global mobile sales to reach $ 700 billion
Source:	@WalmartLabs
Open	source	tools	
Hapi	–	Framework 	 	 	Mupd8	–	Server 	 	 	Lout	–	U7li7es	
	
	
	
	
	
	
Joi	–	U7li7es 	 	 	 	Flod	–	U7li7es	 	 	 	Lumbar	&	Thorax	-	Web
“We	want	to	know	what	
every	product	in	the	world	is.	
We	want	to	know	who	every	
person	in	the	world	is.	And	
we	want	to	have	the	ability	
to	connect	them	together	in	
transacGon.”	
	
CEO	Global	E-commerce	–	
Neil	Ashe
Thank you
@vanRijmenam
https://datafloq.com
Available on Amazon

Walmart Makes Big Data Part of Its DNA - Keynote Presentation