Walmart
1. Where does Walmart’s supply chain start? What triggers Walmart’s Retail Link system to ship goods to local Walmart Stores?
Pull vs push decisions. In this case, leadership traits connected to ¨push¨ include telling, directing, and delegating. And ¨pull¨ traits would include empowerment, collaboration, and coaching. The first one is a more old school way of doing things and the second one is a more collaborative way.
Walmart’s Retail Link is their IT infrastructure, it is triggered by consumer purchases in local stores by point-of-purchase cash register data. This is in contrast to more traditional supply chains which often start with a manufacturer or distributor shipping goods to local stores based on forecast sales or the hope of making more sales by flooding isles with products (“push” driven supply chains). In the case of Walmart, the supply chain is driven by consumer behavior which “pulls” replacement stock from inventory.
2. Why is a detailed knowledge of consumer purchases at each store important to Walmart’s success?
Because of several reasons such as they can identify the goods that they must have in their stores depending on the location in order to attract customers. With this knowledge they can predict customers behavior depending on weather and they can forecast the demand and supply accordingly. At Walmart they are aware of the stock of each product so they know when they are running out of units.
3. Why can’t other large retailers easily duplicate Walmart’s Retail Link?
Retail link is a tool that allows suppliers to link directly over the internet into Walmart’s inventory management system. Retail Link has been updated, and now it has been improved from being a supply chain management tool towards a more collaborative forecasting, planning, and replenishment system. This is important for Walmart because it gives them a advantage for negotiating with even the largest suppliers.
Walmart has the most effective B2B supply chain in the world, they have mastered on a global scale the following capabilities: cross docking, demand planning, forecasting, inventory management, strategic sourcing, and distribution management. It’s also the largest purchaser of consumer goods in the world so its size gives Walmart a clear advantage. This two facts and also they have been able to use information technology to achieve a decisive cost advantage over competitors. All this combine makes Walmart’s Retail Link very difficult to replicate.
4. Why does Walmart encourage its vendors to learn how to use Retail Link?
Because it provides lots of information and it doesn’t require to invest on expensive EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) software solutions, instead, they can use standard browsers and PCs loaded with free software from Walmart. Also Walmart is able to offload some of the cost of keeping its shelves full to vendors. Vendors monitor the stock of their goods in all Walmart stores and are incentivized to keep goods in stock (avoid stock-outs).
The future of Walmart is business analytics
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Link to this information on Evernote
https://www.evernote.com/l/ATmOQa4OBEFC-JPOr2u3TYmLZxXjjBAkWr0
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