Walmart Innovates To Win With Omni-Channel, Big Data
By Anna Rose Welch, Editorial & Community Director, Advancing RNA
Company takes risks, makes improvements to channels and technology to create cohesive customer experience
Walmart might be the world’s largest retailer, but that position still comes with a lot of pressures. Keeping all channels running smoothly and ensuring that the company remains innovative in terms of technology are some of the main challenges on the retailer’s plate moving forward today. At a recent Q&A session at the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Annual Leadership Meeting in February, Neil Ashe, Walmart’s CEO of global e-commerce, discussed how Walmart plans to keep tackling and improving omni-channel.
According to Fierce Retail, a large part of this plan involves building a commerce technology company dedicated to inventing new solutions. Ashe told IAB that, because a customer now likes to choose how, where, and when they wish to interact with a retailer, “We have to bring together marketing and merchandising and operations and technology in ways that they never were before.” In order to unite these operations, the company created its “One Customer. One Walmart” strategy. Through this this strategy, the company is working to create an internal organizational structure that will simulate a seamless experience for users on the outside, regardless of channel.
The company is also striving to take the widely discussed Big Data and turn that noun into an actionable verb, Ashe told IAB. “We want to help our customers find one more item, we want to help our merchants sell one more item, and we want to help our operators do this by building one less facility. That’s how data then becomes truly actionable.” Of course, the company aims to use Big Data to meet customers’ demands, but this data also helps streamline the company’s operations and makes business much more efficient. According to Ashe, this “actionable” data helps merchants evaluate products Walmart carries, helps operators allocate inventory, and will soon be used to benefit the company’s suppliers. Ashe says, “All this boils down to how can we help our customers be more efficient, how can we bring this data together in a way that allows us to optimize the demand chain in the same way as the supply chain?”
Using Intelligent Video To Improve Retail Operations
Another important part of creating a seamless experience for customers is being available in a variety of different locations. For Walmart, a key part of the company’s growth strategy is the development of an “eco-system.” Customers visiting Walmart generally take three different types of shopping trips, the Washington Post described in an article last fall. Through its Supercenters, neighborhood markets, and its Express store format, the company aims to cater to whichever kind of shopping trip its customers are looking to take for the day. To make this “ecosystem” work best, the company relies on a process called “tethering.” This process essentially unites back-office functions, inventory distribution systems, and online orders, allowing goods to be sent promptly to whichever store might need them.
Of course, e-commerce and mobile commerce are becoming important players in Walmart’s “tethered” ecosystem. The company recently saw its global e-commerce sales jump 30 percent, surpassing $10 billion. This amount is expected to hit $13 billion over the course of this year as the company continues to improve its customer experience, mobile apps, and fulfillment operations.