Comments on: Wal-Mart’s confused SAP strategy

By: Rich

Rich — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 01:47:16 +0000

What a mistake. Home-grown is what gave WM the advantage to begin with. Now they’re going with a massive piece of junk software that is notoriously bad in use. Home Depot’s installation here in Canada is a fine example of how it’s confusing people, turning obvious practice into delayed response service, and delaying HD’s IT’s real role of providing IT to get advantages. Ironically that CIO is gone, and they chose Canada as a test bed for the rollout. Their move to a centralized distribution system will make much more sense. Corporate IT fails yet again. As per usual, they need to go to business school to “get it”.

By: Brent

Brent — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 14:09:33 +0000

I agree with the comments posted and general questions posed (RFID, wages, etc), but the author is out of touch with international growth of Wal-Mart thru acquisition. Compounded over the last nine years, international growth of Wal-mart is 667%, excluding US. Include the US and it’s still a very healthy 174% over the same time frame. Total net sales on a global basis grew last year nearly 9%. That’s $30 billion. The year before that, it was closer to 10% growth. This pace doubles their net sales by 2014-15. They needed a revamped systems strategy different than home grown to keep up.

By: Walt

Walt — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 16:52:05 +0000

The title of this article is misleading. Wal-mart’s SAP strategy is not confused; however, their business growth strategy may be.

By: MC

MC — Fri, 30 May 2008 11:50:03 +0000

So well said Demir - I couldn’t agree more. ERP software has never been a fix for anything but IT problems. Important for IT providing day-to-day project requests for missing features because of the high cost of labor in the US, but certainly not a bottom-line issue. Indeed, where labor is cheap, it’s usually not even an issue at all - until a company becomes fat with profits (which are usually better spent elsewhere anywhere (see Warren Buffett’s thoughts on this matter..:-)
Regards
Mark

By: Abhinav Bansal

Abhinav Bansal — Fri, 30 May 2008 09:44:17 +0000

It is rightly said that IT can be an enabler of business, but not the driving force behind it. In the same context, migration of Walmart from in-house IT development to vendor-based systems may just prove to be a minor improvement to their overall business framework. However, since SAP is vastly used by many other retail firms, it may prove worthy in case of any acquisitions made by Walmart.

By: Marco

Marco — Fri, 30 May 2008 00:37:08 +0000

You are right! Sound like Wal-Mart is out for reality again!
Thank you for information.