Current technology in Wal-Mart
Over the past few years, supermarkets have shown to utilize technology in order to increase Return on Investments. The industry is operating at narrow profit margins and so the organizations operating in the same industry have to work hard to survive market competition (Lichtenstein, 2010). In this regard solutions need to be developed to avert these issues so as to increase amount of sales and revenues, and cut down the operation expenses. There are technologies that have been developed to promote the client’s experience in the store, for example a quicker checkout or means to offer extra information to the clients though it is challenging at times to justify especially when chains are dealt with on their worst.
Following the evolvement of technology in the past few years, many organizations’ retailers have constructed a patchwork of fraught systems on various platforms in the entire Wal-Mart store. Hardware and its associated accessories have also developed and servers, printers, personal computers, as well as wireless handled appliances have been adopted in favor of the changing business environment and behaviors. The systems are not interconnected or are poorly connected in that manual intervention is necessary. Extraction of information from existing data stores is difficult, and newly released technology need a lot of resources to manage. There is lack of consistency in terms of capability in the software products that were bought from software vendors. The same application programs have overlapping extents and are seldom integrated in terms of functionality and data. There are systems which are based on obsolete architecture and lack functional flexibility making it hard to modify processes and rules that govern business operation. The old systems in place also fail to integrate with new technologies in market for example, hardware devices lack proper interface with the existing old hardware systems. The old hardware is hard and expensive to maintain. Information Technology departments have shown increase in size as the new technology has been released in over the years. Many studies about Information Technology leaders have revealed that 70% of retailer’s IT assets are dedicated to maintaining and running existing capability, and the remaining 30% for exploring and executing new technology capabilities.
Examples of systems in place include:
POS checkout system track records of sales and information regarding finances and gather data related to customer and products.
Self-checkout system, a self-service point of sale station whereby the clients call and make payments for their purchases system, supports the reception of products from manufacturers or suppliers on their own vehicles skipping the retail warehouse facilities.
Item Price Verification system is wireless systems that have connection with the Point Of Sale to audit item prices still lying on the shelves.
Workforce training (e.g. ongoing training to meet new technology)
Following lack of technical know-how and insight including the talents to co-create the powerful Information Technology systems, Wal-Mart considers outsourcing its IT department. The company is need of home experts, computer application experts, business analysts, and architects to offer solutions and client squads to construct just only one IT-platform. After constructing it already, Wal-Mart will have to employ consultancy organizations to control the familiarity and insight as well as helpdesk firm to carry out troubleshooting activities when an application or the server tends to malfunction. In this regard Wal-Mart has to spend a lot of money leading to reduced returns.
The undertaking of training for a new worker consumes a lot of time. The fresh workers have to work closely with the assistance of an expert worker for a period of about two weeks before the new worker starts working individually (Daft, 2008). This scheme is regarded the best tool that gives assurance of competence. The disadvantage to this training scheme is the expense. Wal-Mart’s elevated revenue pace makes the training scheme to be expensive. For Wal-Mart, at least every location has to train fifty new workers quarterly. This translates to 32,000 hours of training for every location in every year.
Top level management has been striving to get a solution to solve the issue of training over the past two years. However, a team was consigned to look for a lasting solution. The team agreed on new training programs on computer to be offered in different test stores across the US. Challenges brought by uncertainty of new technology
Being a leader in technology, Wal-Mart has to invest generously in technology in an attempt to operate in a more efficient manner and a more satisfying manner. By so doing the clients will like being associated with Wal-Mart. Unfortunately, the technology is ever changing. So the organization has to move very fast with technology so that it cannot become obsolete technologically. The normal way of doing business manually is now changing to electronic operation thus e-commerce (Daft, 2008). There is need for Wal-Mart to even get better understanding of the role played by mobile technology in business. The Wal-Mart organization has to research on the customers’ wants, the way they want it to be, and where they want it take place. Wal-Mart CEO explained that Wal-Mart has been outperformed by its competitors and to counter the same, best website might be a solution.
Special characteristics of high-technology personnel
Inadequate labor skills have made training and educational institutions to design even more valuable programs for advancing human skills (Brunn, 2006). Some of these trained personnel may use their gained skills with malicious intends when hired. For example in Wal-Mart employs that have knowledge on how special computing programs carry out their tasks may alter their normal operation to suit their selfish interests.
Recruitment in a technological-driven workplace
Wal-Mart faced a great challenge in trying to employ personnel to work in its retail outlets. This is because the change in technology makes it hard to recruit workers having the technological skills that will fit tomorrow’s technology. Personnel who is well equipped with technological skills are feared that their skills may become obsolete in the near future and if they must be retained, they need to be trained so us to keep pace with the changing technology. All these add up to extra expenses for Wal-Mart.
Wal-Mart is a multi-generational workplace with people of all ages, young and old, and consumers are going digital. Employees have no option but to adapt the changes. All workers of all generations are working under same roof and all wants to be heard. In terms of technology, the young thinks the old can’t keep up with them and on the other hand, the old thinks the young don’t have the work experience and work ethics they have. For this reason Wal-Mart must look for reliable leaders that have acceptable management of business and proper leadership capabilities to head the organization through the mentioned variance. In addition, bringing to board new workers with digital capabilities is a real challenge to Wal-Mart.
Acquisition of resources (e.g., purchase, investment, and upgrading of new technology)
There is need for every business organization to adopt new releases of technology so as to keep pace with changes in technology that will help them realize ROI (Bianco &Zeller, 2003). Purchase of IT equipment, IT software programs, and new technological hardware are key elements that lead to business success. The rate of new releases is so fast that newly bought products of technology become obsolete in a very short span of time. Wal-Mart purchases of new hardware and development and implementation of applications is faced by the fast moving technology. All these releases are key aspects of business success because they are the ones responsible for placing a company in a better position in terms of competitiveness.
New organizations needed to meet and embrace new technology (e.g., new departments to support emerging business functions)
The dynamic change in the technology places companies in a desperate position. Wal-Mart is faced with a challenge of emergence of new technology especially when trying to open up new stores or new departments within existing stores. When new technology comes, it is a high time for organizations to quickly grab before it passes to pave way for new ones. A has to be linked with the existing stores for efficient operation and accountability. In an attempt to interconnect these stores technology incompatibility becomes a problem. The old systems in the Wal-Mart stores could not match with the newly emerging technology. For example, interfacing various devices (hardware) is a challenge since new releases have been deployed and even before they are adopted, new ones pops up. Wal-Mart had to embrace new technology in order to stand tall against its competitors in market. Newly emerging competitors are savvy with latest technology and so for Wal-Mart to survive it has to employ the current technology or else it will be kicked out of market. To manage this issue Wal-Mart might consider deploying new technology in all stores across the region of business operation so as to ensure technology compatibility and ease of integration.
References
Bianco, A., Zellner, W. (2003). Is Wal-Mart Too Powerful? BusinessWeek.
Brunn, S. D. (2006). Walmart world: the world's biggest corporation in the global economy. US: Routledge.
Daft, R. L. (2008). New era of management. New Jersey: Cengage Learning EMEA.
Lichtenstein0, N. (2010). The Retail Revolution: How Walmart Created a Brave New World of Business. New York: Picador
