Chain Systems, Retail Logistics Systems

Because Wal Mart has delivered on its low price promise so well over the years, it has contributed to the elevation of customers’ expectations in regard to product assortment, quality, availability, and price.

This in turn means working even closer with vendors to cut expenses out of their product and delivery costs.

Wal Mart’s guiding strategies remain simple, but the execution has become complex, requiring the most advanced logistics, technology, and supply chain systems the company could develop. Retail Link (Wal Mart’s electronic data interchange [EDI] technology) and Wal Mart’s satellite communications network (the largest private one in the United States) have revolutionized retail logistics systems and supply chain strategies. Not only are stores connected to Bentonville via voice, data, or video, but over 30,000 suppliers are linked to dozens of warehouses and can monitor daily sales figures. WalMart’s systems help vendors improve inventory positions and reduce costs, thereby making competitors’ systems seem hopelessly out of date. The company’s investment in technology to analyze inventory, assortment, costs, transportation, and delivery continues to fuel its gains in productivity, profits, and customer satisfaction.

We Can All Be Fired Perhaps even more important than the logistics and operations systems Wal Mart developed to provide value to its customers are the corporate culture and values system that Sam Walton instilled. From the founding of the company, Walton held Saturday morning meetings in which store managers and company executives met at headquarters to talk about sales performance, marketing and product ideas, and observations about other retailers and about customers.