Wal-mart supermarket Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Wal-mart supermarket - Essay Example The final important consideration by the company is that they should prioritize business processes and procedures more than the technology at hand; technology should be incorporated on the basis of business needs rather than joining the race of being equipped with the latest technology. The formulation of this strategy helps the company to maintain the technological development and ensure that it is directed towards the acquisition of the company goals. The founders of Wal-Mart have always treasured their customers and employees by giving them the status of ‘associates’; Koselka (1992) stated that Wal-Mart benefits these stakeholders in the following manner; by giving better prices and quality to their customers and empowering their employees. Information has been an integral part in the growth of the organization. Relevant and latest information has been available to the company with the help of their information systems. 3. Point of Sales System K-mart was initially co nsidered to be the biggest competitor of Wal-Mart. When K-mart started improving their business processes with technology, Wal-Mart also realized the need and deployed point of sales system in their stores. This system identifies each product in the store on the basis of its unique number and gives the respective price of the product from a database that is maintained by the IT department. A receipt is automatically generated with the respective product numbers and prices. This information is added in the sales reports and also used in the process of reordering inventory when more quantity is needed. The hardware technology that is used to identify the products is the barcode scanner. Barcode scanner makes the data available in the database immediately...Wal-Mart adapted the barcode technology while being influenced by its competitor. The incorporation of technology in the company reflects their commitment to providing value to their customers and improving their service. The point of sales system that was equipped with barcode technology proved to benefit the company in many different aspects; from automatic generation of receipts to accurate entries of transactions, from immediate entry of records to providing latest data for analytical purposes. However, barcode technology was adopted by the respective organization when computer technology was not as common as it is today. The lack of skills of several employees in this regard caused a certain level of resistance towards the technological change. Effective measures were taken to get the system accepted by the employees. Wal-Mart also utilized information technology to develop effective networking links with their suppliers. This technique reduced their communication barriers and avoided instances of undersupply. Timely re-orders resulted in a constant supply of products in the store and results in effective service for the consumer. The suppliers networking with the retailers provide them with useful information about the buying behaviour of the consumer so that they can alter their products according to the consumer requirements. RFID is a developing technology that will prove to be even more effective than the barcode technology.