Computer System Management (CSM) (CT012-3-3-CSM) Group Assignment

Computer Systems Management UC3FIT
Computer System Management (CSM)

(CT012-3-3-CSM)
Group Assignment
Lecturer Name: KHURSHID BEGUM BINTI ABDUL JABBAR
Intake Code: UC3F1701IT
Hand Out Date: 12 April 2017 Lim Mei Yen TP036999

Lilian Binti Alick TP032290
Group member’s name and Mohammed Salah Salem Abdullah TP028367
Baktygali Adilov TP029948
ID:
Abdyrazakov Nurtai TP028997
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Table of Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................4
Current Scenario..........................................................................................................................................5
Business Model...........................................................................................................................................6
Business Strategy.........................................................................................................................................6
Strategies (Location, Distribution, Sourcing)................................................................................................7
Walmart’s Information System and Information Technology Strategy.........................................................9
Satellite System........................................................................................................................................9
Collaboration Information System...........................................................................................................9
Critical Evaluation......................................................................................................................................10
Individual Part...........................................................................................................................................11
Walmart Pay (Lim Mei Yen - TP036999).................................................................................................11
SWOT Analysis.....................................................................................................................................12
Strengths............................................................................................................................................12
Weaknesses........................................................................................................................................12
Opportunities....................................................................................................................................13
Threats...............................................................................................................................................14
Recommendations.................................................................................................................................15
Security Threats.....................................................................................................................................16
Walmart’s Online Grocery Service (Lilian Binti Alick - TP032290)..........................................................17
SWOT Analysis.....................................................................................................................................18
Strength.............................................................................................................................................18
Weakness...........................................................................................................................................19
Opportunities.....................................................................................................................................19
Threats...............................................................................................................................................19
Security Threats and Recommendations................................................................................................22
Conclusion.............................................................................................................................................22
An Environmental Analysis of Walmart’s Straight Talk Service (Abdyrazakov Nurtai - TP028997).........23
SWOT Analysis.....................................................................................................................................24
Strengths (Internal forces).................................................................................................................24
Weaknesses (Internal forces).............................................................................................................25
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Opportunities (External forces)..........................................................................................................26

Threats (External forces)...................................................................................................................27
Security threats and recommendations..................................................................................................28
Pick-up service of Walmart (Baktygali Adilov - TP029948).....................................................................29
SWOT analysis......................................................................................................................................29
Strength.............................................................................................................................................29
Weakness...........................................................................................................................................30
Opportunities.....................................................................................................................................30
Threat................................................................................................................................................31
Recommendation...................................................................................................................................32
Walmart Online Grocery Pickup (Mohammed Salah Salem Abdullah - TP028367)................................35
SWOT Analysis of Walmart....................................................................................................................36
Strengths...........................................................................................................................................37
Weaknesses.......................................................................................................................................37
Opportunities....................................................................................................................................37
Threats...............................................................................................................................................38
References.................................................................................................................................................41
Workload Matrix........................................................................................................................................49
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Introduction
Walmart is an American multi-national retailing corporation that operates as a chain of
hypermarkets, discount department stores, and grocery stores. Headquartered in Bentonville,
Arkansas, the company was founded by Sam Walton in 1962 and incorporated on October 31,
1969. As of December 31, 2016, Walmart has 11,666 stores and clubs in 28 countries, under a
total of 63 banners (wikipedia, 2017). The company operates under the name Walmart in the
United States and Canada.
Walmart is the world's largest company by revenue, according the Fortune Global 500 list in
2016, as well as the largest private employer in the world with 2.2 million employees (wikipedia,
2017). Walmart is a family-owned business, which is controlled by the Walton family. Likewise,
Sam Walton's heirs own over 50 percent of Walmart through their holding company, Walton
Enterprises, and through their individual holdings. It is also one of the world's most valuable
companies by market value and is also the largest grocery retailer in the U.S. In 2016, 62.3
percent of Walmart's US$478.614 billion sales came from its U.S. operations (wikipedia, 2017).
Walmart creates the ideal one-stop shopping experience. Walmart is organized into ten distinct
divisions, which included Walmart stores, SAM'S CLUBS, Neighborhood Markets
International, walmart.com, Tire & Lube Express, Walmart Optical, Walmart Pharmacy, Walmart
Vacations, and Walmart's Used Fixture Auctions (Scribd, 2009). Based on these divisions,
Walmart offers thousands of products and services. For example, Walmart stores contain various
types of daily necessities such as groceries, clothes, bedding, sports and recreation, automotive,
healthcare products, toys, and electronic gadgets. Thus, consumer can get what they need in
Walmart and walk out without having to stop at other store for anything that they could need,
because of those conglomerations of products in Walmart.
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Current Scenario
Walmart’s total e-commerce and digital capital expenditures will be approximately $900 million
in this year and $1.1 billion in fiscal year 2017 (Walmart, 2017). The CFO Charles Holley
announced it will be the “heaviest investment period” of Walmart in 2017. David Glass, the CEO
of Walmart has stated out the two objectives that they focus on including i) providing the
customers what they want, when they want it, all at a value, and ii) treating each other as we
would help to be treated, acknowledging our total dependency on our associate-partners to
sustain our success. Walmart is building a digital relationship with its customers, uses a
sophisticated system of satellite-based communications and provide them with convenience by
layering new digital capabilities over the store experience to make shopping faster and easier.
Walmart developed a new platform that it can scale across the business, improved its fulfillment
capabilities with new fulfillment centers to help in delivering orders to customers’ doorstep,
faster and more efficiency, and is growing in-store pickup for online orders (Grill-Goodman,
2016). Walmart made improvements to its U.S. supply chain capabilities, opening a new e-
commerce fulfillment center in Atlanta with more than 1 million ft² of space which is the
company's fifth next-generation fulfillment center. Walmart also expanded 85 additional
locations to its online grocery pickup service, bringing the total to almost 140 locations across 25
markets.
Apart from that, Walmart also rolled out Walmart Pay in 2017 and has started testing it in a small
group of stores. In fact, Walmart was partnering with Uber, Lyft and Deliv to begin testing last-
mile grocery delivery services. Walmart expects to start the pilot program in Denver and one
additional, unspecified market. (Gagliordi, 2016) Otherwise, Walmart has also built its own
cloud data centers and is bulking up its fleet of national fulfillment centers. The retailer
announced plans to open source called OneOps, which allows Walmart to use multiple clouds,
move applications between its internal and external private clouds to overcome issues with cloud
lock-in by open-sourcing the software. Cloud portability enables developers to seamlessly move
applications, databases or entire cloud environments from one cloud provider to another. (King,
2015)
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Business Model
Walmart U.S., Walmart International, and Sam’s Club are the three business segments of
Walmart’s business operations. It offers its product through physical retail (for example,
supermarkets, hypermarkets, and convenience stores) and digital retail. Walmart maintained
its global leadership in retail segment by leading on price and assortment. EDLC (Everyday
Low Cost) and EDLP (Everyday Low Prices) are the main strategy of Walmart to became the
top in this industry. The company’s performance improved due mainly to the adoption of new
technologies as well as low prices obtained from vendors.
Today, retail environments are more competitive especially with e-commerce. Walmart will
lead on price, invest to differentiate on access, be competitive on assortment and deliver a
great experience to win in the industry. Walmart’s business model is an adapt platform where
it committed to experimentation, and its key suppliers have become business partners,
sharing the technical and business risks, integrated into the planning processes of the
company. Walmart delivers all their goods faster than its competitors such Sears Roebuck, JC
Penney, Kmart etc.
Business Strategy
Walmart uses a combination strategy of cost leadership and differentiation. They provide a wider
variety of products and services with the same or better quality at a price that is cheaper than
their competitors can provide. Walmart concentrate on finding ways to lower their costs by
constantly rethinking how to complete their primary and support activities to reduce costs while
maintaining competitive levels of differentiation. Walmart created widespread name recognition
and customer satisfaction with the Walmart brand, associate the retailer with the reputation of
offering the best prices, and branching out into new sectors of retailing such as pharmacies,
automotive repair, grocery sales, and so on. Their successful supply chain management helps the
company to implement a successful cost leadership strategy [Ada15]. They have effective
inbound logistics by using just-in-time inventory. Moreover, they have cut costs from outbound
logistics by creating better fuel efficiency in their trucks and decreasing empty miles driven by
their trucks. Walmart also reduces costs by buying in large blocks. Technology plays a key role
in Walmart’s supply chain too, it allows Walmart to accurately forecast demand, track and predict
inventory levels, create highly efficient transportation routes, and manage customer relationships
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and service response logistics. In conclusion, Walmart's successful overall cost leadership and
differentiation strategy leads to high entry barriers for competitors.
Strategies (Location, Distribution, Sourcing)

Walmart’s desire in becoming most extensive locally and globally was only possible through
its effective strategies such as distribution strategies, location strategies and sourcing
strategies. Many argue that the company has this unparalleled ability to diminish intricate
business strategies by concentrating more on a centralized communication channels rather
than concentrating more on the design complexities.
Walmart’s location strategy concentrates on its stores located in near urban centers and
vicinity of its distribution networks as well. The company’s goal is to maximize market
expansion such as Walmart supercenters, Walmart neighborhood markets, Walmart express
stores, Walmart express stores and Walmart discount stores. Consumer-goods are made
available to the company’s target consumers by locating its stores close to them which are
proximity of its distribution centers and utilizing a technique known as cross-docking for the
trucking fleet. This allows Walmart to carry out Just in Time (JIT) shipping methodology
from its warehouses to its supercenters and replenish stock quicker (Laura Wei, Shuojun
Wang, Jiangbo Zhang and Yongheng Ao, 2013) (Laura Marcilla, 2014).
In addition, Walmart owns its trucking fleet which allows the company to operate its
distribution operations on schedule with lower cost compared to suppliers-to-store shipping.
To this end, Walmart utilizes general distribution centers, which consolidate merchandise
from suppliers prior shipping them to warehouses to then be transported to retail stores. This
assists minimize transportation costs since instead of having the suppliers ship inventory to
the diverse distribution centers, they instead ship to any strategically located center point
centers (Our Business, 2016) (Walmart Distribution Center Network USA | MWPVL, 2016).
Walmart embarked on strategic sourcing to find merchandise directly from the manufacturers
at the preferable price from suppliers who can guarantee they are able to meet the demand.
The company then establishes strategic partnerships with most of their vendors, offering
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them the potential for long-term and high volume purchases in exchange for the lowest
possible prices.
Walmart coordinated supply chain management by constructing relationship and
communication with suppliers to ameliorate merchandise flow with minimum inventories.
The relationship networks between the warehouses, suppliers and retail stores are described
as behaving almost such as a single company (Clara Lu, 2014).
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Walmart’s Information System and Information

Technology Strategy
Walmart is one of the biggest retail giants out there which is managing billions of dollars in
inventory, as well as massive operations worldwide. Handling those kinds of numbers requires a
very effective Information Strategy, otherwise all of that could be done in an ineffective way
which means less productivity and income.
Satellite System
After implementing a satellite system into fast growing supply chain, Walmart’s information
management developed into something bigger and became one of the best in the world. Satellite
systems allows:
 Easier data collection and analysis

 Monitoring product flow, overstock and discount
 Video transmissions, credit card authorizations, and stock management (Saeed, 2012)
This network provides very fast flow of information among headquarters, distribution centers,
suppliers and shops. In addition, this system allows easier management communication between
all employees, or even better, to assign meetings with the head from each branch to get direct
report as quickly as possible. (Simkiss, 2007)
Collaboration Information System

An important part of Walmart’s success in information handling is their Collaboration
Information System. This system allows Walmart to properly approach investors, suppliers,
manufacturers and storehouses. The important part of collaboration information system is
Computer Based Side which consists of two things:
1) Hardware
2) Software
If talking about hardware part, there are many technologies which help Walmart in a proper
information management but the most used one is probably RFID technology. RFID provides
easier tracking of inventory both inside and outside the store. This means that managers can
easily see when an inventory needs to be restocked, which automatically means that they won’t
buy an excessive amount of inventory thus saving money.
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As for the software part, Walmart uses SAP AG as their primary ERP software, which helps
them by making customer relationships better, improving partnership with other parties, creating
efficient way of managing supply chain and other business activities. (Lawrespect.com, 2017)
This is the main strategy of how Walmart handles the information within organization, which
includes the basics of information management which let them to gain competitive leadership
among other retail companies.
Critical Evaluation
Walmart uses strategy calling Everyday Low Price (EDLP). This strategy helps to introduce the
product into new trading places. Disadvantages of this strategy is quality of the product of
Walmart market, which can attract the opposite effect. Walmart can be trying to make their
product cheaper and lose money because the price will not correspond to the turnover. It
concerns places where Walmart open their market first time and put critical low price in the first
periods.
Everyday Low Price can increase number of customers in the Walmart but Walmart always must
analysis price of their product and put a limit of the price to not lose money. Walmart do have
refund for customers if customers found any product price is cheaper than their company. It’s
bringing the negative issue which customer will always looking the cheaper prize from other
company to do refund in Walmart. This business strategy remains the previous company slogan,
which is “always low prices”, and now their motto is “Save Money, Live Better”. The motive of
Walmart is creating a multinational retailing corporation that provided the cheapest price of
products amongst competitor and they succeed to leading among the retailers.
Walmart have branch nationally and they analyze all data by using satellite system. It helps to
analyze the market faster and do not lose connection with the branches. This system brings
advantages to the company and helps them process work more efficiency and faster compares
to other competitors whose have poor connection of the Internet in their system. Certainly,
information technologies that used by Walmart could bring benefits to both consumer and
retailer, in which they spent a huge amount of investments in their system, yet they can earn
more profits in the future.
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Individual Part
Walmart Pay (Lim Mei Yen - TP036999)
The mission of Walmart is to maintain low prices and offering quality customer service, and
improve the living standard of a common man. Walmart provide online grocery service or known
as e-commerce business, which they have their own website for customer to do online purchases
and they do have mobile application for smartphone user. Walmart has continuously improved
and upgrade customer’s shopping experience in store, online or on a mobile device. Walmart, as
the market leader with unprecedented scale, which gives a competitive advantage and its market
capitalization has market cap of 214.20 billion US dollars[ych17] in 2016 which is the highest in
discount, variety stores industry. Apparently, by using information technology such as mobile
application and Internet, its bring a lot of profits to Walmart.
Walmart Pay is a feature built into the Walmart mobile app that allows user to use their
smartphones to pay for in-store purchases[Wal171], which is one of the top retail apps with 22
million active monthly users. It was announced on December 10th 2015 and rolled out nationwide
to all US stores in July 2016, with the mission of provide a fast, easy and secure way for
customers to pay with their smartphones in Walmart stores. With using Walmart Pay, user can
purchase items more fast and convenient, while keeping financial information of user safe and
secure. This service relies on scan-able QR codes, which have made a surprising gain in retail
stores as means of connecting phones to registers, use a PIN or Touch ID to activate the camera,
and scan the code at the register. Its need customers’ information to do verification and then
proceed to payment. Recipient will receive text or email of the receipt and reference number by
the app.
Walmart app ranks among the top three retail apps in both Google Play Store and Apple App
Store with twenty-two million customers whose actively use the Walmart app. The Walmart app
enhances the shopping experience in Walmart stores with features including checking in to pick
up an online order at a Walmart store, refilling pharmacy prescriptions and finding an item’s
store location[Wal171]. Besides, it allows customers to use most of their saved Walmart.com
payment methods in-store including split tender transactions. Customers can do payment in
Walmart store by using Walmart Pay in several steps, which is select Walmart Pay in Walmart
app, unlock with Touch ID or Passcode in the app, scanning QR code on the Point of Sales
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system(POS) to activate, scan all items they wish to purchase and press the done button to
proceed to the invoice page, and finally customers will receive the eReceipt[Fir16]. The new
capabilities, including both the Money Services and Pharmacy “Express Lanes,” will start to roll
out on March 2017, with support for nearly all of Walmart’s 4,700 stores expected.
SWOT Analysis
Strengths
Apparently, information technology is an important strength of Walmart, in which it supports
Walmart's efficient procurement and improved customer shopping experience.
Walmart.com[Wal171] is providing more than 1,000,000 products available online, evidently a
website has allowed for increased sales all over the world. With the Walmart application, user
can online do comparison prices and so on. One of the benefit of Walmart application is Walmart
Pay, which uses QR “pay codes” like MCX’s CurrentC, of which Walmart is a major backer, but
Walmart says this new offering is not technically related. Merchants such as Starbucks, Dunkin’
Donuts, Neiman Marcus, and Express already have their own mobile wallets but Walmart Pay
could be a catalyst for more proprietary action. Notably, following Walmart’s announcement, the
competitors such as Kohl’s announced plans to follow suit and Target is reported to be exploring
wallet solution[Fir16].
Weaknesses
Walmart Pay lack of a strong rewards incentive, which is the major challenge of Walmart and it
was a catalyst for Starbucks’ mobile success. For example, Starbucks mobile application is tied
to a loyalty program, which gives frequent users free beverages and coupons. Otherwise, its
allows customers to order ahead which is less time consuming and they don’t have to wait in line
for their beverages. Walmart Pay is not integrated with other mobile payment method such as
Apple Pay, unlike the Starbucks’ functionality, customers can do the payment services with
Apple Pay, which lets iPhone owners pay with a tap at millions of retail stores. Those limitations
and pitfalls may bring down the Walmart Pay’s adoption.
Opportunities
The purpose of Walmart launched Walmart Pay is they want to control the complete shopping
experience of customers with the integration of payments. Walmart Pay provided digital receipts
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which can simplify product warranty claims and product returns and customers enable to
complete the shopping lifecycle in Walmart stores. Notably, the benefit of the application that
brings to Walmart is they able to collect important shopping data from customers which then will
provide insight to drive loyalty by engaging customers with personalized offers and relevant
interactions.
Walmart is disrupting mobile payment industry and as leader of retailers, it leads the way over
the consumer mobile payment battle. These innovations of information strategy will help drive
mass consumer awareness and adoption of mobile payment systems, and will eventually lead to
an overall expansion of customer loyalty programs in retail. The diagram below shown the
forecasts of US customers use mobile wallets to pay in stores by Forrester Research, Fortune.
Walmart Pay supports Apple iOS and Android and works across varied devices. The application
can do payment by adding a credit or debit card or even a pre-paid or Walmart gift card, also can
be set up to pay using a combination of payment types to split the payment between Walmart Pay
and cash.
Threats
Starbucks and Walmart Pay are using the similar technologies of mobile payment services, yet
the biggest difference between Starbucks and Walmart Pay are Starbucks’s functionality is
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payment and customer loyalty, but with Walmart, it is to provide an in-store shopping experience
that crescendos with in store payment[PYM16]. The limitation of Walmart Pay will cause
consumer lose interested on it with using other mobile payment services.
While Walmart has indeed bypassed many other retailers that are coping with transitions to
mobile payments services, yet it doesn't achieve much with customer loyalty nor does it provide
the fuller range of services that some mobile customers might expect[Mat15]. With using
Starbucks mobile payments, for instance, customers are linked to programs to get rewards for
purchases and even a free coffee on their birthday, in which it will attract more consumers to use
the services. Walmart Pay only getting customers’ contact info and purchase history without
maintaining a loyalty program.
Walmart Pay gathers more data of customers which have an easier experience tracking, but the
actual payment method is less convenient compares to Apple Pay. Apple Pay using the method of
waving the iPhone devices over the checkout terminal, only requires a fingerprint with Touch ID
to authenticate, which means the process is frictionless. However, by comparison, Walmart Pay
requires having the Walmart iOS app installed, then finding and launching it at the checkout line
before scanning a barcode on a terminal with the camera. The process to set up isn’t as simple as
Apple Pay, yet it is also the actual payment transaction process is not very elegant[Zac16].
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Recommendations
As a leader of retailers, Walmart should do some implementation and improvement on Walmart
Pay to leading the market among the competitor. The Walmart competitor, Target, plans to launch
its own mobile payment service in stores in 2017, which would allow customers to pay for goods
using an app on their mobile phones, same as Walmart Pay. Therefore, with the recommendation,
Walmart should quickly adopt the third category, fringe benefits, by sending coupons, special
offers and other customized specials to its users based on previous shopping behavior in Walmart
Pay, in the results, it will attract more consumer with its benefits. Apparently, retail payment
applications succeed when they are more than a payment opportunity. They should offer
experiences and value options, features that should describe every retail services, as well as
Walmart mobile payment service. As more retailers create their own unique payment app,
consumers will be forced to make choices and pick favorites. Obviously, Walmart must look
beyond simply offering mobile payment solutions, to providing value for customers, in order to
entice customers to download and continue using their apps.
Besides, for other mobile payment applications such as Apple Pay and Android Pay, its require
fewer steps to do mobile payment, which is just needed to tap on the payment terminal, unlike
Walmart Pay, it is the least intuitive because customers have to trigger an app and complete a
scan through a barcode reader. More importantly, Apple Pay and Android Pay can be used
anywhere. Walmart Pay use is limited. Yet Walmart should have big plans for the application,
and how it will be an integrated part of the experience of shopping at Walmart from anywhere.
Nevertheless, Walmart should have partnership with other companies, for example, corporate
with Android Pay by their pay wave method with the mobile at the terminal, which is less time-
consuming compares to existing services, scanning the QR code with camera.
It was the beginning of a new era in the retail and payments industries with the launch of
Walmart Pay. These innovations will help drive mass consumer awareness and adoption of
mobile payment systems, and will eventually lead to an overall expansion of customer loyalty
programs in retail. As the world becomes smaller and faster, reducing paper consumption is a
simple way to have a huge impact on the environment. Walmart Pay provided eReceipt which
seems conducted business in mobile environment resulting in simplify business processes, saving
in time and faster responses from consumers. Moreover, peoples are more emphasize on green
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environmental, with paperless business operation, it can reduce cost associated with paper,
copiers, printers and so on, and present a professional image to customers with mobile
computing application such as Walmart Pay.
Security Threats
Based on Walmart Privacy Policy, it used various type of reasonable security measures, including
administrative, physical and technical safeguards to keep data and information secure. Passwords
are required to access online account and help to protect account information. They also using
encryption technology such as Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption, which helps to protect
personal information. For payment card information, it used secured networks, monitoring and
tests of security systems, and other information security practices[Wal172].
Unfortunately, there is some security issues’ incident happened. The unencrypted information
stored in the Walmart app is instantaneously available on any device that isn't protected by a
password. Walmart did use HTTPS, but it didn't encrypt or otherwise protect it, as it did with
other information. Most mobile devices can be locked with a four-digit PIN, but that's hardly
state-of-the-art security[And16]. An attacker or cyber thief might use brute-force attack, a
method that attacker systematically checks all possible passwords and passphrases until the
correct one is found, so they could simply break the PIN through that method. If a malicious user
strips the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption off, then they will be able to recover the
username and password as they are sending it unencrypted within the request.
There is still a lot of progress to be done when it comes to mobile security practice and testing.
The mobile industry still need the implementation and improvement before a ubiquitous adoption
of security best practices, as well as Walmart still have difficulty delivering applications that
protect user data. To combat this, application need to utilize certificate pinning. As a developer,
they can either pin the Web service's certificate within the application itself, which takes the
Certificate Authority out of the picture, limiting trust to only certificates signed by that
CA[Eva16]. This is important because it reduces the threat against a malicious user being able to
introduce their rogue certificate into the mix and prevent an attacker from utilizing a proxy
server to masquerade as the server. While not an end-all, it helps defend against intercepting on
the server side.
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Walmart’s Online Grocery Service (Lilian Binti Alick - TP032290)
As it was said before, most of the Walmart’s sales come from physical stores. Nevertheless, the
firm has created a very powerful website through the one the clients can purchase online. In the
website www.walmart.com, client able to see weekly discounts, download manufacturer’s
coupons, read customers reviews, sign-up for newsletter, search for closest store and the most
importantly, customer able to do shopping online with variety of products selection
[Placeholder1]. Shipping is free if the cost of purchase exceeds $50. Also, the order can be track
after payment has been done.
Another remarkable fact about Walmart is that its stores are very easy to access, it has figured out
where there are 75 percent of the U.S. population lives within five miles of a Walmart store
[Placeholder2]. A part of the fact that online purchase is available 24/7 for customer, which helps
with customer satisfaction aspect of the whole business. Walmart has expanded online grocery
services to 40 markets in United State cities on 2015, and more expected number in the future
that will triple the number of stores and markets offering the services. Walmart online grocery
service is available in any platform including mobile application, website, and brick-and mortar
stores providing one seamless shopping experience to customers.
Recently, Walmart has started out a pilot program in the cities to test out third-party home
delivery services which partnering with Uber, Lyft and Deliv [Sar16]. In fact, Walmart has been
rapidly expanding its online grocery service’s business and focusing on their “click-and-collect”
model which allows customers to collect orders at stores. This idea is benefit for those who
rushing with time to spend on wander around in the store looking for desire products, where
Walmart’s staff prepare any item ordered and ready for customer to pick up at the counter. “click-
and-collect” service has been expanded over 100 markets in the United State last year.
In the following, we will carry out with SWOT analysis for further discussion of Walmart’s
online grocery service. This technique is used to studies the performance of Walmart by
evaluating in two different perspectives includes internal (Strengths and Weaknesses) and
external (Opportunities and Threats).
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SWOT Analysis
STRENGTHS WEAKNESSES
 Low cost structure  Lack of differentiation
 Cost leadership strategy  Poor public image
 Wide range of products  Neglect actual strong competitor
 Competence in information systems
 Effective online operations and
delivery services
 Customer centric
OPPORTUNITIES THREATS
 Rising acceptance of own label  Increasing of online competitors
products  Government policy (high tax)
 Online shopping growth
 Global expansion
 Improvement in quality standards
[Ovi171]
Strength
Walmart online sales is way more ahead than its retail store sales with growth of 29 percent in
the previous year [Placeholder3]. Main key of the growth is Walmart continuous the investment
to strengthen its online capabilities and remain its extensive information system [Phi17], this
leads to save significant of cost where Walmart able to track every activity in real time that all
the data can be instantly retrieved and analyzed for faster decision making at each store. [Gre16]
Recently, Walmart has launched a mobile application “Scan & Go”, which allow users to scan
and pay at a self-checkout kiosk after presenting the data from their cellphones.
Moreover, Walmart is attracting customers through enhanced its merchandise offerings. The
company added over eight million SKUs (stock keeping units) to its online business over the past
six months. There are currently offerings over 23 million units through its online channels. In
fact, Walmart everyday low price (EDLP) structure is always remaining in that way even with its
online channels, and no extra charge of delivery for their pickup orders at the store. [Jef17]
Weakness
Walmart has no differentiation compared to its competitors which may causes the company in
losing customers in the future if commodity prices or average consumer income increased. Worst
case scenario, the cost leadership strategy will be ineffective and new strategy will need to be
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created to offer something else than cheap items if that happened. On the other hand, Walmart
has a negative publicity where it is criticized such as bribery of authorities or poor work
conditions. This damages corporate’s reputation. Lately, Walmart has putting a heavy investment
to compete its competitor, Amazon. This caused Walmart neglected another actual stronger
competitor. This results the company lose its cost and time while they could be used to enhance
the company. [Zam17]
Opportunities
Sales of Walmart’s own label products have increased more than 40 percent over the last 10
years. This has proved that number of customer acceptance of their own products are increased.
Meanwhile, Walmart has an opportunity to increase and promote their private label products sold
and earn higher profit [Sha16]. In 2013, Walmart’s online retail sector has grown by 4.7 percent.
The company has an opportunity to expand its business towards many countries that are still left,
such as Latin America and Asia [NAT17]. Due to the size of the company, it has an advantage to
expand and creating better presence in the online market. In addition, with its low-cost structure
and significant growth of Walmart’s online retail, enhance quality standards in term of both
products and services will advantaged the company, as well as consumers. [Sey14]
Threats
Online retailer is very typical in today technology, and nearly 80 percent emerging from
traditional retail to online retailer. There are many competitors like Target, Amazon [Ovi17], and
Tesco are putting huge efforts to eliminate price differences that Walmart enjoys. Low prices are
the main advantage of the firm or the company will lose customers and experience increased
competition in the future. Recent year, Walmart has been invested heavily in its online retailing
to better compete with Amazon. Even though Walmart has successfully taken a step ahead, but
the company has neglected the actual stronger competitor from Germany, Aldi that is going to
enter its market into U.S with prices 30 percent lower than Walmart. [Dap16]
Nevertheless, Walmart’s domestic operations enjoyed a strong quarter, but government policy
changes could complicate future growth prospects. For example, the currency impacts on net
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sales during the quarter that about $600 million. Another example, tax and tariff shakeups could
muddy Walmart’s path forward. Walmart imports about $50 billion in goods each year from
China, a 20 percent border tax would cost $10 billion per year from Walmart’s profit. [And17]
21
Recommendations
From the perspective of threats, increasing number of competitors and neglect actual strong
competitor, Walmart could have improved its customer relationship management (CRM) to
compete its competitors other than using low cost strategy. For example, Walmart has been
partnered with Uber as to analyzed activities throughout the customer’s orders and deliveries to
improve business relationships with customers. At the same time, business is increase as well as
the company’s reputation turns into better when excellent delivery service provided. This will
increase customer’s satisfactory and customer’s loyalty will be built simultaneously. The
company could tie up price, convenience, sales, and good customer service are the powerful
combination toward a successful retailer.
From the opportunities of Walmart mentioned earlier, Walmart should exploit the opportunities
in the global online retail by using its powerful strengths. Expand its business into especially
Asia since e-commerce in Asia is not as competitive and difficult to be compared. With its online
merchandise and services provided excellently, Walmart will higher its online shopping
experience to many customers.
Walmart is not ready to sell perishable items such as fruits and vegetables online. Same-day
delivery is only available in a handful of states [Cla13]. Its need the infrastructure, or Walmart
should improve its networks to build more supplier’s relationship in smaller regional to able sell
and distribute its perishable items with remaining low prices. This strategy will create a lot of
customers especially those busy households.
22
Security Threats and Recommendations

For the past few years, Walmart has been reported as one of the hacker’s victim among the
earliest targets of a wave of cyberattacks that went after the bank-card processing systems of
brick-and-mortar stores around the United States beginning in 2005 [Zet09]. Walmart had many
security vulnerabilities including customer data, and customer purchasing data that were housed
on company networks in unencrypted form. This will easily attracts attention of hacker to steal
confidential data.
There are many types of frauds involve with technology especially sensitive data stored in the
website’s storage. Walmart should be very aware before it happened such as encrypting
customer’s transaction data (credit card number and customer information). Most critically, the
server security must under certain protection prevent from possible server crashed and virus
attacked. Implement proper security tools such as anti-virus, and data back up in essential.
[Den16]
Conclusion
Walmart’s biggest mistake has made due to lacking of customer research before entering online
market. The understanding of people, the rules and regulations, and the competitions are the
factors to build a succeed business. Walmart would have introduced the appropriate changes and
its business approaches with a proper research done. Nevertheless, Walmart should have been
aware of the German’s locations preferences to shop, the regulations regarding pricing, the very
competitive industry they were to face, and the need of a new strategy to differentiate themselves
and not depending only with low costs.
23
An Environmental Analysis of Walmart’s Straight Talk Service

(Abdyrazakov Nurtai - TP028997)
As it is known, Walmart provides thousands of products and a lot of services to its customers
worldwide, thus making it one of the biggest and successful retailers in the world. The service
which is going to be discussed now is generally known as Walmart’s Straight Talk Service. This
service is generally considered as one of the most popular among other carriers, which is exactly
why it was chosen for this individual part. Before generating any kind of analysis, it is needed to
know what exactly Straight Talk Service is.
Straight Talk Service is a monthly prepaid mobile network service provided by Walmart and
supported by Tracfone. Tracfone is a mobile network operator which sells special mobile phones
designed for Straight Talk and SIM cards via Walmart shops and Walmart website all over
United States. Straight Talk is a service which does not require customers to have any contract
with mobile operators like AT&T or T-Mobile. (HowardForums, 2014)
So why Straight Talk is so popular?
That moment when a person decides to choose what carrier should be used, it is generally
necessary to check on prices first and that’s where Straight Talk exceeds.
For only 45$ per month any Straight Talk customer can enjoy unlimited amount of voice
minutes, text messages (SMS) as well as limitless 4G LTE data usage. Generally, customers who
exceeds the amount of GB data per month are then throttled to slow speeds again (2G) but with
Straight Talk customers can experience full speed potential with no speed limits. (Carlozo, 2015)
Obviously there are still many factors which could affect the speed but in most cases Straight
Talk is doing a great job in that part.
24
SWOT Analysis
In order to properly analyze the given Walmart’s Straight Talk Service, SWOT analysis is
implemented. As it is one of the most effective frameworks which can be used to analyze any
products or services in a company such as Walmart.
Strengths (Internal forces)

It is well known that Walmart is considered as one of the biggest retail companies out there and
thus every strengths that Straight Talk Service has, is directly related to the size of the Walmart’s
business size.
Crew experience
Being the largest retailer in the world is not easy, therefore a lot of experience is required in order
to understand the customer’s needs. Due to that, Walmart is able to adapt the crew which works
on Straight Talk service to properly consider the ongoing plans for that service and what is
needed in the future. Even if people are not qualified enough, Walmart can manage to give their
employees needed trainings.
Cheap service price
As was mentioned before, Straight Talk has the lowest price among other carriers, this is mostly
due to the Walmart’s pricing strategy. Walmart charges around 45$ for Straight Talk service
which is considerably lower than any other carrier provides. For example a big carrier like T-
Mobile charges 50$ for its data usage but it only has around 1GB data quota which is pretty low.
Not to mention the speed reduction after reaching that 1GB quota. Offering cheap price for its
services is definitely a big strength for Straight Talk, especially for the long term (years).
Act of freedom
Being a big retailer as Walmart, gives a lot more freedom in terms of experimenting with the
services. This is due to Walmart’s global organizational size, which means they have deep
pockets to fund their research and improve Straight Talk in terms of new ideas/technologies etc.
In simple words, Walmart can easily afford any experiments with Straight Talk service if they
please. (Smithson, 2017)
25
Weaknesses (Internal forces)

Straight Talk is definitely a strong solution for anyone who wants to save money, but it does have
some weaknesses too and here are some of them.
Lack of flexibility
Walmart is definitely a big retailer but it is not a mobile network operator, which means it cannot
focus specifically for Straight Talk to be successful. It would need to take other markets such as
food, furniture, pharmacy etc into consideration while planning their operations. This will
generally mean that Walmart might not have enough attention towards Straight Talk compared to
other more focused competitors. (Bhasin, 2016)
Small amount of profit in a short term
Because of the Walmart pricing strategy, talking about any profits for a short amount of time like
months or maybe even 1 year will be irrelevant. This is generally because of how cheap Straight
Talk actually is. As was mentioned before, it is only 45$ per month for all mobile services. This
means that Walmart is aiming for a long term profitability which will be very huge after some
years.
Less demand due to other big competitor’s options
Even though Straight Talk is quite popular in United States that does not mean it has the highest
market share. There are big giants like AT&T & T-Mobile which are considered the biggest
mobile carriers in the world, which prevent Straight Talk to exceed. This is mostly because of the
reputation AT&T and T-Mobile have, usually people already know about those two without even
getting a phone first. Therefore when people have a choice between carriers, they usually choose
the biggest ones mostly because of the reputation and status those carriers established among
years of service, which therefore leaves Straight Talk in less demand.
26
Opportunities (External forces)

There are many opportunities for Straight Talk that Walmart can use in order to fulfill their
business plan. One of the most obvious would be simple expanding. Currently Straight Talk
Service is only covering all of the United States, which means it can only work within that area,
so if a person decides to leave USA, his SIM card will automatically deactivate. This is generally
not very practical for people who love to travel abroad or need to travel because of the job or
studies. Expanding service worldwide would greatly benefit not only Walmart’s revenues but
also Straight Talk’s overall reputation. Customers from other countries will know the success of
Straight Talk in North America and will also show interest towards applying for the service
which will then result in greater market shares for Walmart in mobile network sector.
Figure 1: Walmart Location Areas (Corporate.walmart.com, 2017)
As stated from the figure above, this is Walmart’s shop location areas. It is clearly seen that it is
almost fully covering South America and big giants like India, China and Japan. Expanding
Straight Talk into these parts of the world (especially for India and China) would greatly benefit
Walmart in every possible way. Living costs in these countries are generally lower than in United
States which means Walmart’s cheap prices will ensure people’s interests.
Another great opportunity is to join with other companies to make strategic alliances which will
then help Straight Talk in terms of improving overall quality of service as well as implementing a
27
third party solutions to an existing system. There are definitely many companies which can help
Walmart in creating a perfect mobile network.
Threats (External forces)

There are some potential threats which can really harm any business operations and Walmart is
no exception. Having enormous worldwide business scales like Walmart, can lay down some
negative impact on Straight Talk service. One of those is being a focused competition target
among other carriers. This means that companies with their service alternatives will generally
improve their products or services based on Walmart’s Straight Talk weaknesses specifically.
They will fear Walmart as a competitor and will definitely try and reduce the presence of Straight
Talk in market. Such focused attacks might harm Walmart’s ability to adapt its mobile service
and can cause troubles later. This generally cannot be overcome, unless Walmart improves its
Straight Talk service to the point where other carriers can’t compete properly anymore.
Another major threat is being involved in political and government policies IF Walmart decides
to expand its Straight Talk to other countries. Usually governments of such big countries like
China or India tend to have a clear eye on a companies like Walmart. Mostly because of how big
Walmart is, one wrong step in implementing Straight Talk service and government will
immediately take an opportunity and try resolve it in court. Which will therefore lead for some
big problems inside Walmart and harm the deployment of Straight Talk Service in that country.
Recommendations
Based on research made so far, there are some recommendations which can in theory nullify the
weaknesses of Straight Talk service as well as improve the strengths.
Right now Walmart is trying to divide its attention across every market sector it has (food,
grocery, pharmacy and etc.) which clearly is not good for Straight Talk itself. How to overcome?
Basically Walmart needs to open another branch within organization which will focus on mobile
network and Straight Talk service only. This will eliminate the need of being flexible in every
sector and provide Straight Talk with focused team and needed attention, so that it can improve
the actual quality of service. It would require to hire additional people but with such big business
scales it should not be a big deal for Walmart.
28
As was said before, Walmart is being targeted by other competitors heavily at the moment. In
researcher’s opinion, it is best to merge forces with an organization or a company which can
provide needed knowledge and maybe resources to collect data, compile it and see what is
needed to be done in order to improve Walmart’s Straight Talk service. Minor Quality Of Life
decisions do always matter a lot in the end, which can then lead to being superior in such
competitive market.
Security threats and recommendations

Being a top retailer in the world makes it very difficult to fight cyber-attacks from hackers. Over
the past few years there were a lot of attacks on Walmart servers which eventually lead to
account information leaks. Straight Talk is a very popular mobile carrier nowadays in USA and
hacking it would not be any surprise. When people register their phones at Walmart they also
leave a bunch of their personal information like passport ID’s, addresses etc which will then be
saved in a database. If a hacker somehow gained an access to Walmart databases, he could steal
all that personal information so that later he can use it to steal money from Walmart’s customers.
In order to prevent this to happen Walmart needs to cooperate with the biggest Information
Security companies like Cisco or Symantec in order to protect its customer’s data. (Rivera, 2017)
On the other hand, customers should also be properly notified about security measures they can
take in order to protect themselves from being hacked. Walmart needs to address this issue to
their loyal customers, something like Maybank does nowadays on their website, which clearly
helps a lot.
29
Pick-up service of Walmart (Baktygali Adilov - TP029948)
There is pick-up system in the Walmart company in Kansas City, Boise, Idaho, Alabama,
South Carolina and other regions of the United States of America. At the time when, Amazon,
Google, Instacart, Postmates are creating fast delivery system. Company started to create a
totally different system. Customer of the Walmart can make online shopping or in mobile
application of the company, then they will put goods to the cart in the system. Customer can
make order and put a time when he/she can take products. Order can be making one week before
pick up. System mostly care about housewife who do not have enough time to come and
shopping in the supermarket and can make shopping in the car. Customers can pick up his goods
until 10:00 PM. All product which customer will be fresh, like milk, meat or another product
which need to save in the fridge.
SWOT analysis
SWOT analysis is founded in 1960s and 1970s by Albert Humphrey. Nowadays, SWOT analysis
using by the all company. Objective of the SWOT analysis is to find positive and negative side of
the product or service and what kind fail it. In SWOT analysis, managers of the company will
analyze Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunity and Threat of the product or service. Strength and
Opportunities are positive, Weakness and Threat are negative, but Strength and Weakness are
internal and Opportunities and Threat are external which mean manager will analyze internal and
external factor which can effect to the product or service. In this documentation, will be making
SWOT analysis of the pick-up system of Walmart.
Strength
Save Time
Quickly staff maintenance plays a significant role for Walmart. At a time when the rest of the
supermarkets will have huge queues at the ticket offices and they will only be able to serve a
limit number of customers. With the help of the pick-up service, Walmart will be able to increase
the patency of customers a day at times. Walmart will already have a product ready and spread
out in a package that reduces the amount of time for the cashier. The cashier only accepts
payment and transfers the products to the client, which in principle will take about 1 minute.
Whereas in the usual checkout 1 the customer will be 5-6 minutes.
30
Save Place
Nowadays, to make successful business you need to use the place of trade competently. The
pick-up service will allow companies to save space and maximize profitable use of the target
zone. The pick-up service will increase the number of cashiers without expanding the
supermarket. The amount of cash in the supermarket will depend on the size of the building,
whereas outside, the company can supply several more payment points and acceptance of goods
without reconstruction of the supermarket.
Weakness
Traffic jam
Traffic jam is the main weakness of the pick-up service. Customers can specify the date and time
of their arrival for the products. But this time can change into a traffic jam on the road or near a
supermarket. This means that the schedule of clients' approaches will also change and it will be
difficult for workers to prepare fresh goods with what Walmart supermarkets are famous.
Opportunities
Not necessary of opening new branch
Opening new branches is always spending a lot of money by the company. Pick-up system will
save a lot of money to the company. When company will open new branch, they need to build
new supermarket, deliver new technology to input and set up delivery system of goods. Installing
pick-up system will equal with opening new branch and it will take less money.
Expand grocery department
Company will sell more product than they have in the supermarket. Pick-up system will increase
the number of cash desks we customers can take their goods. It will work like two supermarket
or shop in the one. Which means supermarket will need to have a lot of stock of the production.
System is similar with McDonald’s pick-up system, but customers of McDonald’s need to order
right now and can take on that time. In the Walmart, customer will able to choose a time when
will be able to take it. All the products are fresh.
31
Online Shopping growth
Nowadays, online shopping is big area where company trying to be in the top place. Amazon and
Ebay is the top online shop the customers making order each second and it will not stop. All
what customer need is connection with internet. Customer can make order in the website of the
company or mobile application. Pick-up system care about customers and their time. Not all
customers able to go to the supermarket and make shopping, but customer can make shopping at
home or when he/she will stop in the traffic gam, then put pick-up time and go to the any near
shop of the Walmart and pick-up goods which he/she ordered.
Threat
Hacker Attack
Pick-up system will be online and will have connection with the Internet. System also will
connect with the payment card of the customer and with the system of Walmart. Without
protection, company can loss their customers if hacker will hack customer account and will get
his/her ATM card number and pin or will hack Walmart system and delete all the database of the
company. All working process of the company will start and delivery system from factory to the
supermarket or shop will stop. It will bring a big threat to the company, because first they will
need to increase their system by creating new which will take a lot of money. They will need to
pay compensation to the customers for inconvenience.
System will fall down.
As hackers will able to access to the system, they can off the system and stuff of the Walmart
will make mistake in orders. It is not looking as a big trouble for the company, but customers can
do not like the market and make shopping in the other markets. Such oversight harms the image
of the company.
32
Recommendation.
Threat 1. Hacker attack.
Nowadays, most of the companies paying to hackers to they will hack the system and will report
system bugs. Facebook pays between 10,000-1,000,000 $ to the hackers. Amount of the bill
depends of what they will hack and how they did it. Company can pay to a few of hackers that
will hack pick up system and will check program weaknesses. Amount of it can be between
1,000-10,000$. This amount will not be big when customers of the Walmart will feel safety
themselves and use the pick-up service. Company can use Intrusion Detection System (IDS) and
Intrusion Prevention System (IPS). It is a firewall system which can detect the system from
access from outside. Firewall will check all the files or process which coming in and out to the
system. System will block ports where potential hacker attacks can be implement. Besides, there
can be two-three level of access of the customers to the system. First level is login and password
system, where customer must type. Second level is identification level when they will access to
the system. It can be message to their phone number or email address, it will make troubles to the
customer accessing process but they will more care about their security and safety of their
information than their comfortable during using of the system.
Quality of security of the service will give guarantee of keeping customers. When customers
know about that their confidential information is secure, they will recommend use the pick-up
service to their friends. It will increase number of customers and saving previous customers.
Mobile application is big market area where customers are making shopping and security of will
increase profit of the Walmart.
Technology to secure the system is not much more expensive and big company like Walmart can
afford to install them. All what Walmart need are desktop computer and firewall devices.
Desktop computer will be between 2000$-4000$ which is not big amount for big company. Ten
peace of computer will give area where hackers can try to hack and manage the security of the
system. Firewall devices price are between 500$-2000$ which also not big amount. To buying
several types of firewall will make flexibility of the security system. Programmers of the
company will able to use them as they want and they think will be more secure.
33
Threat 2. System will fall down.
Falling down of the system will affect to the image of company and there will not be
trust to the Walmart form their customer. Recommendation to solve this problem is making
several servers to the system. Spare server will be using when main server fall down and spare
server will save all order of the customers and stuff will not make any mistakes in the order.
Strategy of spare servers are to minimize mistakes in order of the customers. Quality of
the service will increase number of customers. Walmart is famous by their low price of the
product and quality of pick-up service. Spare server will give a time to change main server and
fix it, but working process of pick-up service will not stop.
According to PC Magazine, cost of servers and its details are between 200$ to 2000$.
Company can put two or three servers in the market where there is pick-up service and make on
place to manage the servers of all markets and pick-up place in one city or region. This will make
easy of controlling of the pick-up service.
Opportunity 1. Not necessary of opening new branch.
Market place is plaining crucial role in the market business. There are a lot of customers in
Walmart supermarket and company cannot increase the building of market to increase number of
customers. To increase building, market will need to decrease parking place or buy building
close to the market and destroy them which is not good to market reputation. Company need to
plan the road of pick-up service. Open a few windows and counters where customers can take
order and pay it.
Comfortable pick-up service will increase the number of customers and company will not spend
budget to build new market and expand old building. Pick-up service saving money to the
company and increasing number of the customers. Customers can shop by using their phone
which making it very comfortable to them. Comfortable road of pick-up service will save time of
the customers and they will recommend the pick-up service to their friend, but it also will
increase number of order which stuff can service per one day.
34
Technology what company need is cashier apparatus and apparatus for payment by credit card.
Price of casher apparatus are between 300$ to 1500$. Credit card machine are between 100-
300$. One pick-up place will need four-five windows which will in amount in technology
between 400-1800$ for one window.
Opportunity 2. Online Shopping growth
Online shopping is a big market place in the modern world. Amazon, Ali Express, Ebay are big
online markets over the world. To compete with them, Walmart need to make discount system on
their application and point system.
By using pick-up system, customer will take 10% discount or cashback to their account in
mobile application of Walmart. It will make them loyal customer to the Walmart and make them
to come again to the market.
Technology to make it possible is a server like already written before. Server will control the
program working ability and to prevent the lugs of the mobile application.
35
Walmart Online Grocery Pickup (Mohammed Salah Salem Abdullah -

TP028367)
The world's largest retailer, Walmart is part of a trend across the industry in
which grocers are battling for the food dollars of time-starved families who
are finding it increasingly difficult to spend time in a store every week.
Walmart launched its Online Grocery Pickup service in 2015, a move that has
been almost certainly adding to the region's already hyper-competitive
supermarket scene (Taschler, 2017).
The grocery industry now appears to be growing around two different

models: the click-and-collect where consumers select their groceries online
and then go pick them up or the click-and-deliver where a consumer makes
online selections and then has them delivered. Walmart has been rapidly
expanding its online grocery business and concentrating on the click-and-
collect model in a number of locations across the U.S. (Taschler, 2017).
Customers can shop online or through a mobile browser to build their online
basket and place an order more than 40,000 mainly grocery items, roughly
the same assortment as in stores. A personal shopper then selects the items
for the customer and assembles the order. Customers select the most
convenient location and time for them to pick up the order (Layne, 2016).
Once the order is placed, customers receive an email confirmation to let

them know the specific location at the store where they will pick up their
order typically in the front or side of the store.
Once a customer arrives at the pickup location, they’ll call a designated

number to alert an employee in the store. The entire pickup process is
finished in just a few minutes, and it is a completely free service to the
customer (Walmart, 2017).
36
Steps of Walmart Online Grocery Pickup (https://www.walmart.com/cp/store-

pickup/2281929).
37
SWOT Analysis of Walmart
Strengths Weaknesses
 Well-recognized Brand  Thin Profit Margins
Internal  Loyalty of Customers  Some of Its Brands Are
 Prices Lower Than Competitors Struggling Against
 The Widest Selection of Competitions
Products among Retailers
Opportunities Threats
 E-Commerce Initiatives  Online Competition
External
on Many Fronts
SWOT is an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.
It is a powerful strategic management tool that can help at identifying a
business’ important strengths and weaknesses. This helps at planning to
exploit the opportunities available to the business and countering its threats.
Strengths and weaknesses are internal factors while opportunities and
threats are external. SWOT analysis can improve the business’ chances of
success by exploiting available opportunities and increasing the business’
strengths (Taylor, 2017). SWOT analysis of Walmart Online Grocery Pickup as
follows:
38
Strengths
Walmart has a universally recognized brand, and moreover, is the world’s
second largest company by revenue and the largest retailer in the world.
These attributes obviously will determine the further direction of the
company’s expansion. During the recent years, Walmart made some
remarkable changes to its approach such as Walmart’s grocery pickup
service, This gives the retailing giant a competitive angle to counter the
often pricier online grocery services. This change has resulted in an increase
in profits and revenue. The brand has an excellent information system (IS)
infrastructure in place to support its fast pace of growth (Pratap, 2016).
Walmart has adopted the pricing strategy. It keeps the everyday prices for its
products low whether at physical stores or online, this addresses one of the
larger concerns among Walmart’s core demographic. While this strategy
helps the brand achieve large sales, the margins remain relatively thin
compared to the competitors who sell at higher prices (Pratap, 2016).
Weaknesses
Walmart has adopted the pricing strategy. This is also its key point of
differentiation. Under this strategy, it keeps the everyday prices for its
products low. While this strategy helps the brand achieve large sales, the
margins remain relatively thin compared to the competitors who sell at
higher prices. Some of its brands like the Sam’s Club are struggling against
their rivals. In the area of E-commerce too Wal-Mart’s growth is weaker
compared to other large retailers.
Opportunities
Walmart rolled out Online Grocery Pickup, which allows customers to order
and purchase from a selection of more than 40,000 products online and pick
them up curbside at a company store. Last years, the company has acquired
e-commerce sites (Walmart, 2016). The acquisition allows the company to
build on and complement the significant foundation already in place to serve
customers across the Walmart e-commerce and its position for even faster e-
39
commerce growth in the future by expanding customer reach and adding

new capabilities, which has allowed Walmart to create new levels of
personalization and convenience for customers. As more and more people
buy groceries online, this platform, which has had a lot of success thus far,
should become an even more important part of the company’s overall
strategy ( Weinswig, 2016).
40
Threats
The grocery store segment is an extremely competitive one characterized by
intense price competition, market consolidation, aggressive expansion, and
the entry of rivals and expansion their presence particularly in the Online
Grocery market. Some of these firms include Amazon (Pickup Points), Kroger
(ClickList), Target (Store Pickup) and other rivals, which have been increasing
their Online Grocery Pickup revenue. These large retailers benefit from
economies of scale and can further gain leverage by cutting prices. As these
retailers increase their offerings, this could lower revenues and cut into e-
commerce initiatives for Walmart (Walmart ,2016) ( Weinswig, 2016).
Recommendations
Based on SWOT analysis the researcher identified opportunities and threats
that will be taken into account during this analysis. The following points
showing the most important recommendations that Walmart can take
advantage from it. And how they can overcome challenges and risks that
may facing the Walmart in the online market.
As more and more people buy groceries online, Walmart should improve its
e-commerce strategy. Last year, the company has completed Its acquisition
of jet.com.
which is the largest for an online startup, will give Wal-Mart access to
Jet.com's innovative pricing software and will help the Bentonville, Arkansas-
based retailer to compete with online rival. with its ability to lower prices as
customers add more items to their shopping carts, will help the world's
largest retailer reach more customers such as millennial shoppers. The deal
would also strengthen Walmart's existing e-commerce infrastructure.
Walmart should developed a plan on spending on its e-commerce and make

more acquisitions. Moreover, the company has to continue its competition
41
with online retails and plan to invest more time and resources into online
retail and serving customers.
42
Disaster recovery plans
Unfortunately, there is no expected time to disasters, thus a natural disaster

might happen any time, and possibly cause mass destruction of Walmart
company's IT infrastructure. To avoid such cases, Walmart needs to develop
a disaster recovery plan that based on the business strategy with minimal
losses and less cost and time as well (Snedaker, 2014).
For Walmart, proposed system that based on the change system

recommendations have been providing disaster recovery plan when loss
access to the system (Walmart Online Website), which include as the first
step creates the disaster recovery team and define the roles and
responsibilities (Easthope, 2014), the team tasks to determine the expected
disasters and create scenarios of disasters and expected losses in order to
define the level of protection for the expensive resources (Cavusgil, 2014).
Walmart has to create hot-side recovery plan for data center linked with
cloud computing providers (Data center Backups in the cloud and regular
backups.). In order to avoid big losses once the disaster happened
(Disasterrecovery, 2016).
This disaster recovery plan involves a thorough analysis of existing network

structure, applications, databases, equipment, organization setup, and
related details. Define the components business document, expected
duration of recovery (Mohamed, 2014).
In the following table showing the summary of disaster recovery plan of the
Walmart proposal system:
Data Backups Data center in the cloud and

regular backups.
Network availability Backup paths
Include applications, networks,
Proactive Monitoring security, computers and data
centers.
43
Which a component is duplicated so

Redundancy planning. if it fails there will be a backup.
Keep the backup data offsite to the
Offsite local geographical location.
Should be real test for the defined
Test plan recovery components
Update and auditing recovery plan
Audit and Update for Walmart system.
44
References
Gagliordi, N., 2016. Walmart's online grocery services drive e-commerce growth strategy.
[Online]
Available at: http://www.zdnet.com/article/walmarts-online-grocery-..
[Accessed 2 4
2017].
Grill-Goodman, J., 2016. The 3 E-Commerce Areas Walmart's Focused On. [Online]
Available at: https://risnews.com/3-e-commerce-areas-walmarts-focused
[Accessed 28 3 2017].
King, J., 2015. WalmartLabs is releasing OneOps cloud technology to the world as open
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52
53
Workload Matrix
Group Member Group Part Individual Part
Introduction, Current
Lim Mei Yen (TP036999) Walmart Pay
Scenario, Critical Evaluation
Business Model, Business
Strategy, Strategies Walmart’s Online Grocery
Lilian binti Alick (TP032290)
(Distribution, Location and Service
Sourcing)
Critical Evaluation, Walmart’s
Information System and
Baktygali Adilov (TP029948) Pick-up service of Walmart
Information Technology
Strategy
Abdyrazakov Nurtai Strategies (Distribution, Walmart’s Straight Talk
(TP028997) Location and Sourcing) Service
Walmart’s Information
Mohammad Salah Salem Walmart’s Online Grocery
System and Information
Abdullah (TP028367) Pickup
Technology Strategy
54

Computer System Management (CSM) (CT012-3-3-CSM) Group Assignment

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Computer Systems Management UC3FIT

Computer System Management (CSM)

Lecturer Name: KHURSHID BEGUM BINTI ABDUL JABBAR

Intake Code: UC3F1701IT

Hand Out Date: 12 April 2017 Lim Mei Yen TP036999

Opportunities (External forces)..........................................................................................................26

Strategies (Location, Distribution, Sourcing)

Walmart’s Information System and Information

 Easier data collection and analysis

Collaboration Information System

Walmart’s Online Grocery Service (Lilian Binti Alick - TP032290)

Security Threats and Recommendations

An Environmental Analysis of Walmart’s Straight Talk Service

So why Straight Talk is so popular?

Strengths (Internal forces)

Cheap service price

Weaknesses (Internal forces)

Small amount of profit in a short term

Less demand due to other big competitor’s options

Opportunities (External forces)

Figure 1: Walmart Location Areas (Corporate.walmart.com, 2017)

Threats (External forces)

Security threats and recommendations

Pick-up service of Walmart (Baktygali Adilov - TP029948)

Expand grocery department

Online Shopping growth

System will fall down.

Threat 2. System will fall down.

Opportunity 1. Not necessary of opening new branch.

Opportunity 2. Online Shopping growth

Walmart Online Grocery Pickup (Mohammed Salah Salem Abdullah -

The grocery industry now appears to be growing around two different

Once the order is placed, customers receive an email confirmation to let

Once a customer arrives at the pickup location, they’ll call a designated

Steps of Walmart Online Grocery Pickup (https://www.walmart.com/cp/store-

SWOT Analysis of Walmart

commerce growth in the future by expanding customer reach and adding

Walmart should developed a plan on spending on its e-commerce and make

Disaster recovery plans

Unfortunately, there is no expected time to disasters, thus a natural disaster

For Walmart, proposed system that based on the change system

This disaster recovery plan involves a thorough analysis of existing network

Data Backups Data center in the cloud and

Which a component is duplicated so

Scribd, 2009. Walmart Analysis. [Online]

Stroup, A., 2016. Walmart faces mobile-app security problems. [Online]

Walmart, 2017. Walmart. [Online]

Walmart, 2017. Walmart Privacy Policy Frequently Asked Questions. [Online]

wikipedia, 2017. Walmart. [Online]

ycharts, 2017. Wal-Mart Stores Market Cap Chart. [Online]

Anon., n.d. Business & Strategy. [Online]

Anon., n.d. Walmart. [Online]

Available at: http://www.cnbc.com/2017/03/24/wal-mart-best-positioned-in-online-grocery-

Jurevicius, O., 2017. Amazon SWOT analysis 2017. [Online]

Jurevicius, O., 2017. Walmart SWOT analysis 2017. [Online]

Raju, S., 2014. What is the business model of Walmart?. [Online]

SMITHSON, N., 2017. Walmart SWOT Analysis & Recommendations. [Online]

Soni, P., 2015. Walmart’s Earnings Outperform Wall Street. [Online]

Available at: http://fortune.com/2017/02/21/walmart-results/

Corporate.walmart.com. (2017). Our Locations. [online] Available at: http://corporate.walmart.com/our-

Bhasin, H. (2016). SWOT Analysis of Walmart. [online] Marketing91.com. Available at:

Rivera, P. (2017). 10 Top Cybersecurity Companies. [online] CYBERSECURITY Investing News.

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