Conclusion

 We know that Walmart contains a plethora of systems that are used to conduct their business. This is true for both their online site and for their physical stores for shoppers to buy whatever they want. We mentioned how Walmart continues to structure their business process to make them more competitively profitable. From the Swimlane diagram, it starts off with the customer with them shopping for the product which moves to the cashier scanning the product. If it does scan, it moves to SAP which will then record a sale in the database to then generate an invoice. After this, the next step is the cashier who will then print out the invoice for the customer. Now, if the cashier cannot scan the product, it has to get moved to the sales representative who will have to resolve the issue with the scanner. After this, then it goes towards the SAP to generate an invoice, and the cashier will then pack the product and print out the receipt.

 Retail Dominance may stack up and beat out its competitors. As we all know, Walmart competitors are Target, Amazon, Home Depot, Alibaba, Best Buy, Kroger and many more. What makes Walmart competitive enough to have an advantage over these companies is their diversity. Walmart offers a wide range of products from food to mechanical items. Amazon also offers that and many more. What makes Walmart dominant though against Amazon are a few things. It is the largest retailer (physically), has better brand value, close proximity meaning that there is a store within a 10 mile radius of customers or the local population, and has groceries which are at a low price. 

To make Walmart the number one retailer inclusive of in store and online would take some work to do but it is possible. Their customer service is ranked 25 while its competitors are ranked in the top 5. The shareholders would need to hold a meeting to get their services up at least within the top 20. Walmart advertises seasonally while some competitors advertise throughout the year. The need for fulfillment centers would naturally increase if there is a need for more products to be brought in their warehouses. This would likely increase if there were more advertisements for the company. Competitors like Amazon have the third biggest advertising plan on the digital scale. 

Our problem analysis addressed some issues. A main issue with Walmart is the retention of customers. Lines in general are something no one wants to be in for too long or it’ll lead to the loss of customers. A process to help with this would be to implement the Check out with me app so that customers would be able to check out with any employee that has the app installed in the company phone that’ll then complete the invoice and print out the receipt. This will make Walmart in turn better at keeping customers satisfied with faster checkout times, then that of their competitors. 

Even though Walmart has some strengths and weaknesses, Walmart’s business process could be improved to help drive more sales, and potentially bring in more customers. With bringing in more customers to both their in person stores and their online sites, there would need to be an improvement towards their swim lane diagram or business model they follow. As previously mentioned in the recommendations section there are a few ways to make this occur. We could implement B2C sales, order execution, and KPI’s to perform better and to dominate not only the retail store but also online, putting Walmart ahead of Amazon to be the best overall retail company. With these implementations towards the company, it will better the company standing against its competitors. It will also provide greater direct value for the company’s customers. It will reduce check out time, which will help retain customers. Same is said with fewer app crashes from our solutions to it, order execution will show customers real time updates with inventory to prevent backorders and potentially loss of customers, and KPI’s will show the company how well it is doing overall from the given solutions we have provided. These KPI’s will show the company the growth or decline and then adjustments will be made to make the company more profitable by being effective overall. 

In our analysis, we have also come across wrong inventory counts which impacts not only the store, but the consumers as well. An issue with brick and mortar stores is inventory counts. When the count in the store is done, sometimes the right amount is not correct, it will impact what is being shown online. For example, Walmart had an issue with the amount of medicine during the start of the pandemic inclusive of grocery items. Walmart had noted for these items, the inventory count in the physical store was less than what was actually shown on the store website. This led to backordered items and during the pandemic, shipping was delayed. From this, Walmart decided to overstock on high demand items which would have worked out when the demand for it was high as well. This led to stock items going bad or having to be discarded from the shelves. From this, Walmart was losing millions of dollars from having to waste items that could have been avoided. With the correct inventory count that refreshed often like mentioned before from the recommendations section, this will help not only retain customers since they do not have to wait for items that are being backordered, but it will also help Walmart save millions of dollars preventing the waste of items by having the proper amount of stock based on the customers’ demand for said items. From this, we will see that a few minor changes will help put Walmart ahead of its competitors within the retail industry.