- Walmart President & CEO Doug McMillon recently discussed some of the company initiatives being considered at the store level
Walmart President & CEO Doug McMillon recently went on stage during a strategy meeting to talk about some of the advanced technological capabilities coming to the store level. The Wall Street Journal retailer reporter Sarah Nassauer published an article about how McMillon is planning to have Walmart perform better in a world where e-commerce businesses are reigning supreme. One of the plans is to make its supercenters the focal point of its operations.
Advancing technologies at the store level would be a fundamental shift from Walmart’s previous strategy of snapping up e-commerce companies. For example, Walmart sold ModCloth to Go Global Retail. Walmart had reportedly considered selling off Bonobos and the company is also exploring the sale of its Vudu video streaming service as well.
Within its existing stores, Walmart plans to offer customers an experience featuring rapid delivery and additional options for picking up items in stores. Plus Walmart is planning to prepare its supercenters for “edge computing” environments. And the warehouses will be turned into processing and shipping centers for third-party products sold through the retailer’s website.
With the edge computing environments, Walmart could also potentially rent out data processing power that is more local to customers rather than cloud service providers. This would be especially beneficial for drone testing and autonomous vehicles.
The majority of Americans live within 10 miles of a Walmart store, which gives the company an advantage that Amazon does not have so the company is looking into more ways to take advantage of that.
At some of its stores, Walmart is utilizing Internet of Things devices like robotic technologies like floor cleaning robots and freezer temperature sensors. Another initiative Walmart is looking into is the rollout of 5G. Walmart is talking to several major telecommunications companies about a plan to install 5G antennas on the roof of its stores.
Walmart has been spending a substantial amount of capital remodeling stores to improve the shopping experience such as making aisles wider and making the produce department looking more appealing. The revamped design makes Walmart look more comparable to the layout you would see in a Target or Kohl’s.
Walmart may also invest more in health initiatives. The health clinics in Walmart could draw in more foot traffic.
Currently, Walmart has 2.2 million associates around the world. And the company reported $514.4 billion in total revenue for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2019. McMillon has been at Walmart for nearly 30 years and he started working for the company as a teenager unloading trucks for an hourly wage. Under Doug’s leadership, Walmart also launched an ambitious program called Project Gigaton to combat climate change and work with suppliers to avoid 1 billion metric tons of carbon emissions worldwide.
