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WALMART: STRATEGIC RECOMMENDATIONS
Competitive Advantage: The “Knowledge Colony” data warehouse.
Since 1989, WalMart has supported its business strategy by constructing its trademarked “Knowledge Colony” data warehouse. In 1990, WalMart started with a half-terabyte warehouse. ... In 1997, WalMart in a strategic move expanded the 7-terabyte system into a 24-terabyte system. The new system allowed WalMart to handle 500,000 queries per week, to keep rolling data for 65 weeks, and to track 65 million transactions per week. By 1999, WalMart expanded their data warehouse to over 100 terabytes. ... Today, WalMart’s Knowledge Colony is what is believed to be the worlds largest, and most sophisticated, commercial data warehouse.
No other mass retailer or trading community -- domestic, foreign, or global -- has developed a system even close to WalMart’s capabilities in supply chain and distribution management and optimization. However, competitors have allocated significant resources to developing state-of-the-art data warehouses that, like WalMart’s, go beyond collecting point-of-sale data to drive replenishment. ... To continue to maintain the Knowledge Colony as a strategic advantage, WalMart must continue development to further increase the effectiveness and efficiency of its supply chain management systems, to advance the development of its distribution management system, and add new capabilities as the technologies and customer service opportunities arise.
Recommendation: Strategic Partnerships
Traditionally, WalMart has built its proprietary Knowledge Colony in-house, although it uses offerings of several vendors in its construction. WalMart has developed several important win-win partnerships and could consider expanding this strategy to utilize more IT-based services provided by external suppliers. ... For example:
· WalMart has joined with AOL to bridge “the digital divide” by bringing low-cost ISP service to the small and mid-size communities in the US that WalMart has traditionally served. This opportunity joins WalMart’s 100-million weekly customers and AOL’s 20+ million subscriber base. ... In 1999, 40% of the 2,485 US towns in which WalMart operates did not have Internet access. ... WalMart may wish to expand its AOL relationship in a way similar to Sears, which has also joined with AOL.
Approximate Word count = 1721
Approximate Pages = 6.9
(250 words per page double spaced)
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