case study on supply chain management of walmart pdf

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An analysis of current supply chain best practices in the retail industry with case studies of Wal-Mart and Amazon.com

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Wal-Mart’s Supply Chain Management Practices

January 8, 2010

Case Study Abstract

The focus of this case study is the supply chain of the world’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart in recent years has struggled with its supply chain. The big question is: Will Wal-Mart be able to revive the competitive advantage it had in the past with its efficient supply chain? This case discusses the supply chain management practices of Wal-Mart over the years. A brief of Wal-Mart’s past distribution, logistics and inventory management processes is covered. The use of innovative Information Technology (IT) practices to enable the supply chain is discussed and highlighted. The benefits or competitive advantage Wal-Mart derived over the years from its supply chain management practices is also covered.

Introduction – Can Wal-Mart sustain its Supply Chain Advantage?
Wal-Mart in US Retail Market
Wal-Mart – Company Background
Wal-Mart – Timeline
Wal-Mart: Quick Facts (Revenues, Total Employees and Stores, Competitors, Major Brands/Labels, Business/Growth Strategy)
MANAGING THE SUPPLY CHAIN – THE WAL-MART WAY
Pricing and Procurement Strategy
Supply Chain Integration through Product/Process Knowledge Sharing
Supply Chain Partnerships
Distribution Strategy
Logistics Management
Cross Docking
Inventory Management
Store Formats
Wal-Mart – International operating formats
Related Reading
Questions for discussion
View sample pages of this case study

Case Study Keywords: Wal-Mart, Supply Chain Management, Retailing Strategy Case Study, Logistics and Distribution, IT enabled supply chain, Information Technology, Supply Chain Partnerships, supply chain integration, information sharing, inventory management, retail store formats, cross docking, pricing and procurement, Sam Walton, discount stores, walmart.com.

Case questions for discussion.

Wal-Mart’s focus on supply chain management is responsible for its leadership in the retail industry. Discuss the distribution and logistics practices adopted by Wal-Mart. How far has Wal-Mart’s supply chain contributed to its competitive advantage? Explain.
Companies that have significant buyer power and are very focused on exerting price pressure on their suppliers rather than seeking increased profitability through business process innovations. Support this statement with examples/best practices from your own field.
Wal-Mart has always used innovative information technology tools to supplement its supply chain. In a few words, explain how use of IT tools/enabled processes have benefited Wal-Mart. How has IT impacted you/your department?
What steps can Wal-Mart take in order to revive/sustain its supply chain advantage?
Wal-Mart invited its major suppliers to develop profitable supply chain partnerships. Discuss how good/bad is sharing knowledge/critical information with vendors/suppliers or even customers?
“It’s not a sale; it’s a great price you can count on every day to make your dollar go further at Wal-Mart.”, as quoted in the article, “Pricing Philosophy,” posted on www.walmart.com. Comment.

Other Case Studies on Wal-Mart

Organization Culture at Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart in Japan
Tesco takes on US Wal-Mart

Case Updates/Snippets

Wal-Mart’s new slogan – In September 2007, Wal-mart changed its slogan to “Save Money. Live Better.” Wal-Mart’s earlier slogan for 19 years was “Always Low Prices.”
Benefits of shopping at Wal-Mart – According to a study by research firm Global Insight, Wal-Mart saves American families $2,500 each year. This figure rose from $2,329 in 2004 by 7.3 percent.
Wal-Mart’s new slogan in 2011 : Wal-Mart’s latest tagline is “Low Prices. Every Day. On Everything.”
Wal-Mart Online – Wal-Mart has 10,000 stores globally with annual revenues of more than $400 billion and 200 million weekly shoppers. According to Internet Retailer, it ranks six as in the largest Internet retailer list. Wal-Mart trails Amazon.com Inc, Staples Inc, Apple Inc, Dell Inc and Office Depot Inc. Wal-Mart does online business in United States, the UK, Canada and Brazil and does not reveal the percentage of online sales. Its digital technology unit called @WalmartLabs targets smartphones and social networking audience.

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Examining the response to covid-19 in logistics and supply chain processes: insights from a state-of-the-art literature review and case study analysis.

1. Introduction

RQ1 (scientific): How have researchers studied the impact of COVID-19 on logistics and supply chain processes? Which industrial sectors were mostly studied and why? Which additional topics can be related to COVID-19 and logistics/supply chain?
RQ2 (practical): What effects of COVID-19 on logistics and supply chain processes were experienced by companies?

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. systematic literature review, 2.1.1. sample creation, 2.1.2. descriptive analyses, 2.1.3. paper classification.

Macro theme: sustainability, resilience, risk, information technology, economics, performance, planning and food security. This classification represents paper’s core topic.
Industrial sector: aerospace, agri-food, apparel, automotive, construction, e-commerce, electronic, energy, fast-moving consumer goods, food, healthcare, logistics, manufacturing and service.
Data collection method: questionnaire/interview, third-party sources or case study. This classification represents the method used by the authors to collect the data useful to their study.
Research method: statistical, decision-making, simulation, empirical, literature review or economic. This category describes the tool used by the authors to conduct the study and reach the related goals.
Specific method, e.g., descriptive statistics, structural equation modeling (SEM), multi-criteria decision making (MCDM), etc.; this feature describes more accurately the type of work carried out by the authors and the tools used.
Country: it reflects the geographical area in which the study was carried out, in terms, for instance, of the country in which a sample of people has been interviewed or where empirical data were collected, or where the simulation was set. This method of classification, although more elaborated, was preferred over traditional approaches, in which the country of the study is defined based merely on the affiliation of the first author of the paper, because the exact knowledge of the country in which the study was carried out is, for sure, a more representative source of information about the research. This is true in general, but it is even more important for this subject matter, as the management of the COVID-19 pandemic was made on a country or regional basis, with significant differences from country to country; knowing the exact location of the study helps in better interpreting the research outcomes. Possible entries in this field also include “multiple countries” and “not specified”, with the obvious meanings of the terms.

2.1.4. Cross-Analyses

2.1.5. interrelated aspects, 2.2. case study, 2.2.1. data collection.

Economic data: some key economic data were retrieved from the company’s balance sheet, from 2019 up to the latest available document, which refers to 2022.
Organizational data: these data describe changes in the operational, decision-making and business structure of the company in terms, e.g., of number of employees hired, number of drivers, etc.
The related data were collected and elaborated between July and September 2023.

2.2.2. Survey Phase

2.2.3. analysis and summary, 3. results—systematic literature review, 3.1. descriptive statistics, 3.2. common classification fields, 3.2.1. macro theme, 3.2.2. industrial sector, 3.2.3. data collection method, 3.2.4. research method, 3.2.5. country, 3.3. cross-analyses, 3.3.1. macro theme vs. industrial sector, 3.3.2. research method vs. macro theme, 3.4. interrelated aspects, 4. results—case study, 4.1. company overview, 4.2. pre-covid-19 period, 4.3. covid-19 period, 4.4. post-covid-19 period, 4.5. analysis and summary.

Strengths : at present, Company A benefits from a robust network of relationships with customers and suppliers (e.g., drivers), which was leveraged during the pandemic period to provide a rapid response to the increased request by the consumers. The company has also leveraged the usage of digital technologies, which made logistics activities more efficient and, again, allowed the company to respond to consumer demand in the pandemic period.
Weaknesses : Company A has suffered from low economic results, in particular in the post-COVID-19 period, mainly due to the high production costs. Efforts must be made by the company to reduce expenses. At the same time, however, the service level, in terms of delivery lead time or on-time delivery, should be safeguarded.
Opportunities : the growth of e-commerce, experienced in the COVID-19 period but expected to last over time, creates opportunities for increasing the volume of items handled by Company A. Indeed, the survey phase demonstrated that the company’s consumers have shifted towards the usage of online sales; hence, the company could consider investing in this area to increase its market share. By leveraging the e-commerce logistics and diversifying service, expansions could also be possible at an international level. Even if the company has already embraced the implementation of digital technologies, some emerging technologies (e.g., drones or advanced traceability systems) could also be introduced for further improving the logistics efficiency. Finally, sustainability is another opportunity to be leveraged, because of the current push towards the adoption of environmental-friendly logistics solutions. Examples of those solutions include a reduction in CO 2 emissions, and the usage of electric vehicles or zero-impact materials.
Threats : the growth of e-commerce can be seen as an opportunity, but because many logistics companies have already entered this field, the sector is characterized by very high competition, which could limit the market share of Company A; this could instead be seen as a threat needing to be properly managed. Another threat comes from the increased cost of fuel, which, for sure, for a logistics company plays an important role in determining the cost of the transport activities (also, having previously observed that the company suffered from a limited revenue in recent years). This factor could further push towards the adoption of environmentally friendly transport modes (e.g., electric vehicles), which have been previously mentioned as an opportunity for leveraging in the logistics sector.

5. Conclusions

5.1. answer to the research questions, 5.2. scientific and practical implications, 5.3. suggestions for future research directions, author contributions, institutional review board statement, informed consent statement, data availability statement, conflicts of interest.

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Click here to enlarge figure

Source	No. of Papers	Scimago Ranking
Sustainability (Switzerland)	10	Q1–Q2
International Journal of Logistics Management	6	Q1
Journal of Global Operations and Strategic Sourcing	5	Q2
Agricultural Systems	5	Q1
Benchmarking	4	Q1
International Journal of Production Research	3	Q1

Research Method	No. of Papers

ANOVA	2
Contingency analysis and frequency analysis	1
Cronbach’s alpha	1
Descriptive statistics	8
Econometric	1
Hypothesis test	5
Keyword analysis	1
Logistic regression—R software	1
Partial Least Square (PLS)	1
PLS-SEM	11
Random forest regression	1
Regression	3
SEM	9
Descriptive statistics, bias and common method variance test, multiple regression analysis and mediation test	1
Analysis with SPSS and Nvivo	1

Best Worst Method	1
Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL)	1
DEMATEL—Maximum mean de-entropy (MMDE)	1
Fuzzy	10
ISM	1
ISM-Bayesian network (BN)	1
ISM-Cross-Impact Matrix Multiplication Applied to Classification (MICMAC)	1
Multi-Attribute Decision Making (MADM)	1
Multi-Attribute Utility Theory (MAUT)	1
Multi-Criteria Decision Methods (MCDM)	6
SWOT analysis	2
Total Interpretive Structural Modelling (TISM) + MICMAC analysis	1

Case study	7
Framework and case study	1
Product design changes (PDC)—domain modelling	1
Qualitative	5


ABC analysis	2
Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood (PPML)	1
Method of stochastic factor economic–mathematical analysis	1

Discrete Event Simulation (DES)	1
System dynamics approach	1
Multi-period simulation	1

Industrial Sector	No. of Papers
Logistics	13
Manufacturing	4
Food	4
Automotive	3
Agri-food	3

Industrial Sector	No. of Papers
Logistics	10
Food	7
Agri-food	6
Manufacturing	6
Healthcare	2
Electronic	2

Industrial Sector	No. of Papers
Logistics	9
Food	3
Agri-food	3
Manufacturing	2

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Share and Cite

Monferdini, L.; Bottani, E. Examining the Response to COVID-19 in Logistics and Supply Chain Processes: Insights from a State-of-the-Art Literature Review and Case Study Analysis. Appl. Sci. 2024 , 14 , 5317. https://doi.org/10.3390/app14125317

Monferdini L, Bottani E. Examining the Response to COVID-19 in Logistics and Supply Chain Processes: Insights from a State-of-the-Art Literature Review and Case Study Analysis. Applied Sciences . 2024; 14(12):5317. https://doi.org/10.3390/app14125317

Monferdini, Laura, and Eleonora Bottani. 2024. "Examining the Response to COVID-19 in Logistics and Supply Chain Processes: Insights from a State-of-the-Art Literature Review and Case Study Analysis" Applied Sciences 14, no. 12: 5317. https://doi.org/10.3390/app14125317

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