Essay Sample on Walmart: World's Biggest Retailer & Inventory Management Practices

Introduction

Walmart has grown to be the world's biggest retailer. The high records sales in the world are because of their inventory management practices. Some of the inventory management practices of Walmart are as follows. Walmart has a strategic inventory program that helps in the management of the distribution centers. The bulk merchandise in Walmart is sold with the best charges. The strategy ensures that suppliers and the service providers meet the demand and are quoting the best prices. It has good financial relationships with vendors and sellers. This ensures long-term purchases and reduced prices. Walmart has straight supply chain procedures that ensure good communication between the service providers and Walmart (Heller,2017). These all are taken care of by a lower inventory. It is also made to monitor the movement of goods from the vendors to the warehouses and finally, the sales point. This makes the company function well.

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Decisions on Sourcing

Sourcing for materials and information is done carefully by the company. The data provided at each stage of purchase, shipment, and employee management is important for the company to run well. The contractors directly supply the products to Walmart's delivery midpoints. The products are then shipped and delivered to the stalls of Walmart. Shipping can make the transportation cost cheaper and even transportation time and removes inefficiencies. Another inventory practice of Walmart is based on technology; it has the principal statistics of the individual companies worldwide also it has the state of the art of technology and networks that are made to give Walmart exact forecast demand and can also get to know the inventory levels, it can also control the customer's relationship. Walmart's efforts on sourcing the supply chain to proceed without any risk are something that the company improved. The firm has mentioned the extension of a new inventory of delivering services that will be managed in New Orleans, Los Angeles, and in Nashville (Barney, 2016). With effective management, managers ensure effective transfer service is moved to spread in municipal extents. Walmart currently has an effective chain administration scheme that is inspired by successful changes over the past years. Walmart has created digital age apps that most people could access using smartphones. The firm has also created an app database called My Productivity, which was released in the year 2016. Walmart has also boycotted the use of the backroom stores to create a database and advanced technology which facilitates the supply chain management by putting the employees directly in the hand of work. People could use the app by just installing in their smartphones and make things happen for example use e-marketing procedures to acquire goods and information about certain products that could also be delivered whenever and wherever it is needed efficiently.

The technological advances by Walmart do not require one to either sign in or leave the platform to access the sales of the product and refresh the data. It has also taken the initiative of making sure that the store managers have the whole knowledge needed to operate with the system invented. The company has also put its employees on the front line to administer better services to the clients (Pagell, M., & Wu, 2017). Its collaboration with the customers and the employees of the company and the idea of working together is the most effective way that Walmart uses to make it possible for a developing chain supply to being recognized worldwide retailing example.

References

Barney, J. B. (2016). Purchasing, supply chain management and sustained competitive advantage: The relevance of resourcebased theory. Journal of supply chain management, 48(2), 3-6. Retrieved from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1745-493X.2012.03265.x

Heller, F. (2017). Technological innovation applied to Walmart and Tesco's supply chain (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from http://run.unl.pt/handle/10362/28327

Pagell, M., & Wu, Z. (2017). Business implications of sustainability practices in supply chains. In Sustainable Supply Chains (pp. 339-353). Springer, Cham. Retrieved from https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-29791-0_15