See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/339948634

Information Systems Utilization of an Organization: The Case of Walmart Inc.

Research · February 2020

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.34979.81447

CITATION READS
1 22,931

1 author:

Gene Joseph Garcia

Malayan Colleges Laguna
7 PUBLICATIONS   3 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Use of Smartphone Application for the Selected Emergency Hotlines: A Study on Perception of Residence of Mamatid and Uniform Personnel View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Gene Joseph Garcia on 16 March 2020.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

COLLEGE OF COMPUTER AND INFORMATION SCIENCE

Academic Year 2019 - 2020

INFORMATION SYSTEMS UTILIZATION

OF AN ORGANIZATION: THE CASE OF
WALMART INC.

Student:
Gene Joseph Villalobos Garcia

Course Adviser:
Dr. Ellenita R. Red

A Final Project Submitted

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Course of

IS100 Fundamentals of Information Systems

TABLE OF CONTENS

BACKGROUND OF WALMART INC. ................................................................................................. 3

MISSION, VISSION, OBJECTIVES, AND GOALS............................................................................. 3

Mission ................................................................................................................................................... 3

Vision ...................................................................................................................................................... 3

Objectives ............................................................................................................................................... 4

Goals....................................................................................................................................................... 4

INFORMATION SYSTEMS ECOSYSTEM .......................................................................................... 4

Database System, Data Center, and Business Intelligence ..................................................................... 4

Telecommunication, the Internet, Intranets, and Extranets ..................................................................... 5

Electronic and Mobile Commerce and Enterprise Systems ..................................................................... 6

Information and Decision Support Systems ............................................................................................ 7

Knowledge Management and Specialized IS ........................................................................................... 8

System Acquisition and Development...................................................................................................... 9

SUMMARY ............................................................................................................................................. 10

REFERENCES ....................................................................................................................................... 12

Page | 2
BACKGROUND OF WALMART INC.

Wal-Mart, now known as Walmart Inc., founded by Sam Walton on 1962 in Rogers,
Arkansas, with the help of his brother Bud. However, Sam is already running a store, Walton’s
Five and Dime. The business model of Sam Wilton, compared to others, was different; it focused
on providing discounts and putting up branches in some small towns in Arkansas (Muhammad
Atif, 2013). In 1968 branches in Oklahoma and Missouri was built (Brenner, Eidlin, & Candaele,
2006, as cited in Muhammad Atif, 2013). Moreover, they’ve also introduced Sam’s Club that
opened in Iowa, Nebraska, and Indiana in 1983.

Walmart Inc. is one largest multinational retailing corporation that operate on various
segments; Walmart Inc. deals with an operation inside the United States, The Sam's Club,
membership-only retail warehouse clubs, and Walmart International, that operates outside the US,
such as Japan, United Kingdom, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, etc. (Jacques, P., Thomas, R., Foster,
D., McCann, J., & Tunno, M., 2003, p. 515). It also provides different services such as, Walmart-
2-Walmart money transfer service, Walmart MoneyCard, Store Pickup, and Walmart Pay (Course
Hero, 2013, pp. 2-3). On the other hand, Walmart has a division named Walmart Supercenter. This
division provides its customers with a wide array of products and services, such as pet shops,
pharmacies, optical centers, etc., that Walmart doesn't offer. Basically, Walmart Supercenter is a
bigger Walmart store. The company implements the “Every Day Low Price” (EDLP) strategy to
deviate from its competitors.

MISSION, VISSION, OBJECTIVES, AND GOALS

Mission
Saving people money so that they can live better.

Vision
To be the best retailer in the hearts and minds of consumers and employees.

Page | 3
Objectives
Sell more goods to American consumers who shop online (Ferguson, E., 2019).
Provide the best quality goods with lowest price (Essays, UK., 2018).
Walmart hopes to make progress in areas that are the basis of long-term growth and
higher shareholder returns (Course Hero, 2017, p. 2).

Goals
To bring Mr. Sam's culture and philosophy to the Internet (Walmart, n.d.).
To support the dignity of workers in the retail value chain (Gading, D. K., 2019, p. 6).
To bring together stakeholders, international organizations, governments, civil society,
and industries, to address major potential risks (Gading, D. K., 2019, p. 6).

Slogan Save money. Live better.

INFORMATION SYSTEMS ECOSYSTEM

Database System, Data Center, and Business Intelligence

Walmart, the world’s biggest retailer with 20,000 stores in 28 countries, developed and
build one of the world’s biggest private cloud, where, it could process more than 2.5 petabytes of
data every hour (Bernard, 2017, as cited in Mohammed Kemal, 2019). It is in Bentonville,
Arkansas and named Data Café, state-of-the-art analytics hub (Marr, B., 2017). Since, it caters
many customers worldwide, and to ensure affordability of products they have developed their own
cloud to help in analyzing customer, competition, and market data, also ensures the security of
these data. Walmart has full control of their infrastructure they may, in their own discretion,
implement appropriate security measures. Walmart’s transactional database in 2012, estimated,
contained about 2.5 petabytes of customer data (Edosio, U. Z., 2014, p. 3).

Data Café helps in cutting down time data processing to 20 or 30 minutes from two or three
weeks, when given large amount of clean and verified data. In article of Forbes by Bernard Marr
(2017), the grocery team was puzzled and unsure why a product category declined, Data Café have

Page | 4
showed that there had been pricing miscalculation at those products those were given a higher
price than what it should be. On the other hand, during Halloween, two stores had a decline in
sales on novelty cookies; Data Café was able to identify that the products were unable to be put on
the shelves.

Telecommunication, the Internet, Intranets, and Extranets

According to Kaup Mohamed’s paper (2014), Walmart launched the world’s largest private
integrated satellite communication network, provides a two-way voice and one-way video
transmission from the headquarters to various Walmart stores. Its primary goal is to connect each
Walmart stores through video and voice conferencing from the management. Furthermore, it
allows the executives to have an update on their stores anytime, hence, improving the operation
control and compliance to the company’s procedures (p. 73). This is one of the reason Walmart’s
performance has improve significantly. If the management has any message to a store, they can
effortlessly relay, instead of going to the physical geographic location that damages efficiency of
work and management.

Walmart utilizes their satellite for downward, upward, and horizontal formal
communication. Downward communication for the management and to provide information,
goals, operational procedures, motivate employees, etc.; Upward communication, where
employees provide their feedback on management, issues, etc.; Horizontal communication, on the
other hand, allows each store to converse own improvements to other stores to drive Walmart’s
operation success.

Numerous companies today are aiming to be sustainable, environmental responsibility, as

part of the corporate social responsibility (CSR). Walmart also aims to be sustainable, evident in
their 2018 Global Responsibility Report. The irrigation system of the company is cloud-based to
be able to monitor data movement and track real-time, and control watering instruction (Walmart,
2018, p. 87.). Moreover, the system provides weather-specific information to influence the
watering instructions, rainy weather implies that turning on the irrigation system is unnecessary.

Page | 5
Plant products needs to be watered continuously, however, a lot of waters are being wasted and at
the same not all plants are watered.

According to Accenture (2013), “retailers are using cloud-based tools to engage

customers,” because different companies implements strategies to increase their sales. Walmart in
2012 hosted a contest named Get on the Shelf, where every customer has the chance to pitch their
own product invention (p. 18). The winners that was selected by the public, according to Walmart,
will be invited to personally sell their products at their eCommerce website, Walmart.com. The
latest contest happened in November 2013; the winning products are Elvis Presley Home Bedding
Collection, bedding sets decorated with Elvis Presley, and SKRIBS Customizable Wristbands
(Walmart, 2013).

Electronic and Mobile Commerce and Enterprise Systems

Utilizing the internal cloud network of Walmart, they have showed to grab a larger portion
of online shopping. Furthermore, they are aiming to beat Amazon’s use of cloud-powered big data
that drives digital sales (Mohammed Kemal, 2019).

Walmart has bought Jet.com, an online shopping site, to take a big step in competing
against Amazon (Lunden, I., 2016). They are expanding their online shopping to various
independent company to further widen their scope of customers.

Walmart Labs teamed up with Salsify to develop a product content management platform
for their suppliers (Salsify, n.d., p. 3). Together, they have successful integrated it with Walmart’s
API. The software allows suppliers to push their products online, then, those products, through the
API, will uploaded to Walmart.com in seconds. They are empowering the suppliers to a more
immersed role in merchandising their products to the market. Walmart knew that they could not
rely on customers that buys item in the aisles of the store, moreover, these customers are owners
of smartphones that could the experience shopping with their hands; hence, the company brought
the convenience to its customers and to be at par with competitors.

Page | 6
 According to Thi Thu Ha, Nguyen (2017), the supply chain management (SCM) of
Walmart is the key to its growth. They consider three factors: procurement and distribution,
logistics, and inventory management. To continually offer low prices the company eliminated the
middleman and directly transact with suppliers, including the procurement (p. 106). The logistics
or the trucking system of Walmart is also known to be successful because it can delivery from
inbound to outbound trailers without intermediate storage (p. 104). The private trucking system is
able to deliver to stores and replenish stock inventory in a short amount of time, hence, reducing
expenses (p. 107). The inventory management system of Walmart can detect products that are low
in stocks and will notify the store and distribution center for replenishment (p. 108).

Information and Decision Support Systems

More companies are giving back and helping the people and the community. Similarly,
Walmart is giving to the local communities by donating goods to various charities. Moreover,
Global Governance Digital Solutions developed Global Donation Management System (GDMS)
that scans and validates products to be donated and verifies if it complies with the policies
(Walmart, 2018, p. 205).

Furthermore, Walmart also launched an initiative for identifying harmful chemicals,

namely Chemical Intensive Product Initiative, integrated to some products. They have partnered
with The WERCS to develop a software that screens chemicals and was named GreenWERCS
Chemical Screening Tool. Current and future suppliers of Walmart must submit the added
chemical ingredients in the products, the system would then now analyze and identify the harmful
chemicals. It produces a score, red, yellow, and green, for the supplier to identify on whether the
product is free from harmful chemicals and materials, moreover, the tool provides alternative
ingredients that would be environmentally friendly (Torrie, Y., Buczek, M., Morose, G., &
Tickner, J., 2009, 29-30). This assures the products are eco-friendly and encourages the suppliers
to produce sustainable products.

A social media start-up focused on e-commerce named Kosmix, currently known as

Walmart Labs, was bought in 2011 by Walmart. Kosmix have developed a system that can search

Page | 7
and analyze social media platforms, such as Facebook, twitter, etc., to obtain personal and person-
to-person-based insights (Edosio, U. Z., 2014, p. 5).

Walmart, through Walmart Labs, was able to develop Social Genome (Edosio, U. Z., 2014,
p. 5). The software was publicly referred to as Walmart Shopycat where it collects data, real-time,
from social media sites. Walmart Shopycat performs semantic analysis, capable of analyzing
phrases, words, sentences, and paragraphs with independent meanings, and is able to understand
the trends and popular products; furthermore, it can predict trends in certain location of Walmart
store (Edosio, U. Z., 2014, p. 6). Walmart as marketed it as a gift finder solution.

Walmart has implemented Retail Link, a strategic decision support system. The system
uses the satellite technologies of Walmart where many have tried to mimic but failed. It gathers
sales data from many stores and then processes into insightful reports that are distributed to
suppliers. Retail Link causes few inventories on stores; however, focuses on products that would
sell, and would replenish the stock at the right time and place (Garcia, F., n.d. p. 16).

Knowledge Management and Specialized IS

The company values the promotion of food safety to their associates to further server the
customer well. Walmart uses a combination of web-based and computer-based learning;
implemented on teaching food handling. The industry has recognized the company’s use of 3D
animated technology to teach. Preparation of chicken rotisserie was thought using the 3D
technology (Walmart, 2018, p. 151).

Walmart integrates RFID tags to their products and their systems that improves
management of inventory, such as products sold and stock replenishments. Moreover, it helps on
identifying the exact location and number of products without manually looking for the product
and counting them. Moreover, it can contain the manufacturing date, expiration date, etc. Walmart
decided to user RFID tags because it can store more data than the usual barcodes (Thi Thu Ha,
Nguyen, 2017, pp. 107-108). This contributes to the efficiency and reduction of time needed to the
management of products.

Page | 8
 Walmart has also used a knowledge management system, it incorporates knowledges, such
as discussion forums, corporate libraries, mentoring program, and professional training. The KMS
has also help Walmart cut operational cost and has allowed the growth of value for the
shareholders. It made big financial gains on annual products in Walmart stores. Furthermore, skills
of employees are enhanced through the various knowledges that can be queried in the KMS. The
human resource management of Walmart has learned to properly lead the people and business
operations in a well-planned framework or guidelines. On the other hand, the managers have
discovered to tackle issues with staffs without receiving grievances from them. Managers have
learned it from the shared knowledge. Walmart is aiming the employee retention until retirement
by providing rewards and bonuses, and performance appraisal (Knowledge Management-A Case
Study of Walmart, 2014, pp. 1-3).

Walmart Neighborhood Market, located in Levittown, New York has transformed.

Walmart has been integrating artificial intelligence to its retail experience. A unique real-world
experience in shopping of Walmart is named Intelligent Retail Lab (IRL). The store is installed
with cameras and sensors that detects product movement and current stock in aisle (Smith, M.,
2019). Various touch screen devices, Informational Stations are installed to help customers.
Moreover, it houses processors, that retailers can see through glass window, that could process at
high rate and produces 1.6 terabytes of data. Meat products’ standby time in the aisle is recorded
to ensure quality, moreover, once a movement of product going out of the shelves is detected the
sensors and cameras are triggered, notifying staffs to restock if needed.

System Acquisition and Development

Walmart partners with different organization for certain software. Walmart tapped IBM for
caching service, so that subset of data so that future request will be much faster. The developers
of Walmart needed caching solution for new features into their systems. Session information from
the server farm of Walmart are required to be stored and retrieved (Foley, J., et. al, 2016, p. 8).

Page | 9
 To give back the people and communities Walmart implemented the software Global
Donation Management System (GDMS) of the Global Governance Digital Solutions (Walmart,
2018, p. 205).

Walmart labs has used agile development lifecycle in developing their software. The lab
had formed 130 teams to build software guided by the agile development (King, R., 2014).
Walmart is adapting this development lifecycle because of the focus of the agile approach. They
can develop software faster; there would be feature updates that are based on feedback from its
users. The team will be able to push changes with a rational reason and not making assumptions
of user needs. According to Mark Tallman (as cited in King, R., 2014), he stated that agile approach
is just one tool, it is not always applicable to development, such as building data centers.

Expo, an in-house platform to test development and setup was developed by teams in
Walmart Labs. Walmart was able to customize the program to satisfy its needs in testing their
developments (Tang, A., 2018). The testing method they used is called A/B testing, they have
integrated it with their software development life cycle. A/B testing, according to Optimizely, is
creating variations of UI and UX of a webpage or an application, they now deploy the variations
and would be used by their customers and clients. Engagement with each variation is measured
and recorded and displayed in a dashboard.

SUMMARY

Walmart’s mission and vision, to provide consumers with quality products that are
economical and to make a lasting impression has been made successful through the use if different
information systems. Prominent technology that Walmart have used are their SCM, where their
delivery, stocking and inventory are managed well by their employees, Data Café, a data analytics
hub in their large data farm where processing petabytes of data are effective solve problems, and
IRL, that effectively monitors product stock and improvement store management.

No one could determine that a retail company would have integrated numerous systems
and technology the improves their day-to-day and future operations and decision-making. Most

Page | 10
people, even I, have thought that Walmart’s process is just order products from suppliers and stock
it in their inventory. Walmart has showed that to be on top one must determine the most optimal
ways to improve. The competition of Walmart and Amazon has led the former to build their own
data farm to be at par at Amazon’s large eCommerce.

Moreover, Walmart’s goals to be sustainable has led them to integrate information system
in monitoring their impact on the environment, such as GreenWERCS Chemical Screening Tool.
Before, companies were only concerned in their profit, however, companies today are improving
their procedures to help mitigating global warming. Even the smallest detail, watering system,
Walmart has implemented to be environmentally friendly.

Page | 11
REFERENCES

[Website]

Essays, UK. (2018). Examining Wal Marts information system. Retrieved from
https://www.ukessays.com/essays/management/examining-wal-marts-information-
system-management-essay.php?vref=1

Ferguson, E. (2019). Walmart’s mission statement & vision statement, generic & intensive
strategies. Retrieved from http://panmore.com/walmart-vision-mission-statement-
intensive-generic-strategies

King, R. (2014). Wal-Mart becomes agile but finds some limits. Retrieved from
https://blogs.wsj.com/cio/2014/10/22/wal-mart-becomes-agile-but-finds-some-limits/

Lunden, I. (2016). Confirmed: Walmart buys Jet.com for $3B in cash to fight Amazon. Retrieved
from https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/08/confirmed-walmart-buys-jet-com-for-3b-in-
cash/

Marr, B. (2017). Really Big Data at Walmart: real-time insights from their 40+ petabyte data
cloud. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2017/01/23/really-big-
data-at-walmart-real-time-insights-from-their-40-petabyte-data-cloud/#7b8b099f6c10

Optimizely (n.d.). A/B testing. Retrieved from https://www.optimizely.com/optimization-

glossary/ab-testing/

Smith, M. (2019). Walmart’s new intelligent retail lab shows a glimpse into the future of retail,
IRL. Retrieved from https://corporate.walmart.com/newsroom/2019/04/25/walmarts-new-
intelligent-retail-lab-shows-a-glimpse-into-the-future-of-retail-irl

Walmart (2013). Walmart announces two grand prize winners of nationwide “get on the shelf”
contest. Retrieved from https://corporate.walmart.com/newsroom/2013/11/07/walmart-
announces-two-grand-prize-winners-of-nationwide-get-on-the-shelf-contest

[Online research]

Page | 12
Course Hero. (2017). Supply chain management (SCM) systems of Wal-Mart stores, Inc [Word
File]. Retrieved from https://www.coursehero.com/file/22285905/Supply-Chain-
Management-SCM-Systems-of-Wal-Mart-Stores-Inc/?justUnlocked=1#/doc/qa

[PDF]

Accenture (2013). A new era for retail. Retrieved from

https://www.accenture.com/_acnmedia/accenture/conversion-
assets/dotcom/documents/global/pdf/technology_4/accenture-a-new-era-for-retail.pdf

Edosio, U. Z. (2014). Big Data analytics and its application in e-commerce. Retrieved from
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Uyoyo_Edosio/publication/264129339_Big_Data_A
nalytics_and_its_Application_in_E-Commerce/links/53cf8ef30cf2f7e53cf811e0/Big-
Data-Analytics-and-its-Application-in-E-Commerce.pdf

Foley, J., Frerking, R., Hollands, M., Jackson, R., Mathis, K., Wakelin, P., & Webster, M.
(2016). How Walmart became a cloud service provider with IBM CICS. Retrieved from
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redbooks/pdfs/sg248347.pdf

Gading, D. K. (2019). Strategic management final exam assignment study of Walmart Inc. [PDF
File]. Retrieved from https://www.academia.edu/39737488/Strategic_Management_-
_Study_of_Walmart_Inc

Garcia, F. (n.d.). Chapter 2: gaining competitive advantage with DSS. Retrieved from
http://www.dsc.ufcg.edu.br/~garcia/cursos/SAD/Notas/Cap2DSSResources.pdf

Jacques, P., Thomas, R., Foster, D., McCann, J., & Tunno, M. (2003). Wal-Mart or World-Mart?
A Teaching Case Study. Review of Radical Political Economics. 35. 513-533.
10.1177/0486613403257808.

Kaup Mohamed (2014). Communication methods adopted by Wal Mart officials for its
successful operations. Asia Pacific Journal of Research, Vol. 1(18), 72-77. Retrieved
from https://apjor.com/downloads/011120149.pdf

Page | 13
 Kemal, Mohammed. (2019). Beneficial uses of cloud computing service and deployment models.
Retrieved from
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335318594_Beneficial_uses_of_Cloud_Compu
ting_Service_and_Deployment_Models

Knowledge Management-A Case Study of Walmart. (2014). Retrieved from

http://darviddree.blog.binusian.org/files/2014/09/178868964-KNOWLEDGE-
MANAGEMENT-walmart-pdf.pdf

Muhammad Atif (2013). A case study Wal-Mart [PDF File]. Retrieved from
https://www.academia.edu/7103937/A_Case_Study_of_Wal-Mart

Salsify (n.d.). How Walmart & Dr. Pepper Snapple Group met the new demands of digital
shoppers. Retrieved from https://www.salsify.com/content/case-study-walmart-dr-pepper-
snapple-digital-shopper

Thi Thu Ha, Nguyen. (2017). Wal-Mart's Successfully Integrated Supply Chain and the
Necessity of Establishing the Triple-A supply Chain in the 21st century. Journal of
Economics and Management. 29. 102-117. 10.22367/jem.2017.29.06.

Torrie, Y., Buczek, M., Morose, G., & Tickner, J. (2009). Best practices on product chemicals
management in the retail industry. Retrieved from
https://www.greenchemistryandcommerce.org/downloads/uml-rptBestPractices7-10.pdf

Walmart (2018). 2018 global responsibility report. Retrieved from

https://corporate.walmart.com/2018grr/media-library/document/2018-global-
responsibility-report/_proxyDocument?id=00000164-91a7-d2a1-ab6c-d9f7f1190000

Page | 14

View publication stats