Walmart - Digital transformation strategies

This report provides insight into Walmart's tech activities, including its digital transformation strategies, its innovation programs, its technology initiatives, its estimated ICT budget, and its major ICT contracts.

Walmart Inc (Walmart) is a US-based omni-channel retailer which sells groceries, consumables, health & wellness products, office products, apparel, fuel, and home furnishings, among others through grocery stores, supermarkets, hypermarkets, department and discount stores, e-commerce portals and neighborhood markets. The company also offers financial services and other related products, including money orders, prepaid cards, wire transfers, check cashing and bill payments.

In March 2017, Walmart launched its incubation arm Store N° 8 in Silicon Valley, USA. It incubates startups in the fields of mixed reality & metaverse, social commerce & creator economy, sustainability & circular economy, health & wellness, web 3 & decentralized commerce, customer experience & loyalty, and food & next-gen agriculture. Till date, the incubation arm strengthened Walmart’s operations with conversational commerce technology, the InHome e-commerce service, the Intelligent Retail Lab (IRL), and Aspectiva (an AI-driven shopping assistant).

In 2020, Walmart Labs, Walmart’s technology arm, was renamed as Walmart Global Tech. It comprises hundreds of software engineers, data scientists, cybersecurity professionals, and business service professionals who develop innovative digital solutions for simplifying the shopping experience of customers and improving operational efficiencies across Walmart, Walmart International, and Sam’s Club.

Scope

• Sam’s Club equipped its existing fleet of 600 robotic scrubbers with AI-powered inventory scan towers to ensure the availability of best-selling products on the shelves of its warehouses across the US. The robots scan shelves and capture data about product inventory as they travel around a warehouse cleaning their floors. When the AI algorithms in the scan towers conclude that a product must be re-stocked in a shelf, they automatically alert the stock room so that staff can immediately replenish the shelf.
• Walmart U.S. launched its same-day drone delivery service in December 2022 in select markets in Florida, Arizona, and Texas in partnership with drone operator DroneUp. Participating stores have a DroneUp delivery hub and a team of certified pilots which ensures safe drone operations. Upon receiving an order, the store packages it and loads it into a drone, which then drops the package in the customer’s yard using a cable. The drones have the capacity to deliver packages weighing up to 10 pounds.
• Walmart U.S. uses Internet of Things (IoT) to ensure optimal functioning of refrigerators and freezers at its stores across the US. The business segment of Walmart manages over 7 million unique IoT data points across its stores in the US. Every day, this network of connected devices sends around 1.5 billion messages regarding the energy use and functioning of the refrigerators and freezers. The data is then analyzed using a proprietary software to detect issues and quickly resolve them.

Reasons to Buy

• Gain insights into Walmart's tech operations.
• Gain insights into its tech strategies and innovation initiatives.
• Gain insights into its technology themes under focus.
• Gain insights into various product launches, partnerships, investments, and acquisition strategies.