Now, Wal-Mart is expected to exceed “$200 billion a year in sales by 2002…(with current figures of) more than 100 million shoppers a week…(and as of 1999) it became the first (private-sector) company in the world to have more than one million employees.”

Why? One reason is that Wal-Mart has continued “to lead the way in adopting cutting-edge technology to track how people shop, and to buy and deliver goods more efficiently and cheaply than any other rival.”

Many examples exist throughout Wal-Mart’s history including its use of networks, satellite communication, UPC/barcode adoption and more. Much of the technology that was utilized helped Sam Walton more efficiently track what he originally noted on yellow legal pads. From the very beginning, he wanted to know what the customers purchased, what inventory was selling and what stock was not selling.

Wal-Mart now “tracks on an almost instantaneous basis the ordering, shipment, and delivery of literally every item it sells, and that it requires its suppliers to hook into the system, enabling

At the same time, large corporations became another “dominant form of business”, such as with U.S. Steel, Swift, R.J. Reynolds, and Procter & Gamble. Department stores such as Woolworth, Penney, Sears, A&P, and Kroger became known in the retail environment.

“Once the satellite and computer systems were rolled out, Kmart (Wal-Mart’s primary competitor) erased much of Wal-Mart’s technological edge; but, Kmart didn’t use the data it gathered as quickly or efficiently.” In fact, “most of Kmart’s buyers didn’t know how to use their computers effectively to track sales and orders; some of Kmart’s buyers didn’t use their computers at all; and Kmart’s cash registers often had out of date information and rang up wrong prices”. “Kmart still couldn’t keep in stock; it never had enough of the best selling items and repeatedly had to take huge markdowns on clothing and other goods it had too much of.” Their executives “didn’t seem to appreciate the urgency of getting goods back on store shelves”, tracking trends, managing inventory needs and the power of the data that the computers could collect.

“Piece by piece, Wal-Mart was building a system that would give its executives a complete picture, at any point in time, of where goods were and how fast they were moving, all the way from the factory to the checkout counter. Instead of poring over last month’s or last week’s reports from each store or region, executives (in the main office) could call up the data on the computer from one day to the next; they could easily follow from day to day how quickly (or slowly) any item…was selling in one region compared to another. This made it easier to tailor the assortment of goods according to local tastes and to experiment. They could display an item several different ways in different stores, and then quickly order all the stores to adopt the way that worked best. This also meant Wal-Mart could keep less inventory on hand (tying up less cash), because it could reorder goods more quickly and be more certain of when they would arrive.”

Some topics in this essay:
Sam Walton, Product Code, Selling Item’, Technology Walton’s, Wal-Mart Kmart, Kmart Wal-Mart’s, Oklahoma Missouri, Arkansas Wal-Mart, Henry Ford, David Glass, sam walton, cash registers, yellow legal, credit card, kmart’s buyers didn’t, edge kmart, stock selling, computer system, hand held, buyers didn’t computers, industrial revolution, hand held scanners, selling customers, electronic cash registers, yellow legal pads,