Challenges of Supply Chain Management in Walmart

This report discusses the challenges faced by Walmart in supply chain management, including oil pricing, information technology, and sustainability. It provides an overview of each challenge, its impact on the company, and recommendations to address them.

Assignment 2 - Recommendations for Supply
Network improvement
Topic - the Walmart Company
Task:please write in this report only
As you can seeI have completed most of the sections of the report but
In some parts I AM confused, so write them accordingly
I have highlighted in yellow in some of the headings and have
mentioned clearly which of those sections that you should write.
You can find some challenges and solutions are missing, so please
write a good logical report and the grammar should be good as well
Please write a logical report without any grammar errors and
plagiarism
Task description: ( assignment requirement)
you will need to pick 4-5 key supply chain challenges directly affecting your selected organization.
These challenges are mainly created by the external environment, such as oil prices, technological
challenge, sustainability, reshoring .
Try to include these topics in each of the challenges: First, identify and explain the
given challenge, what the challenge is, why it is a challenge, why it is important
(state rationale), Second, discuss the implication of the challenge on the company,
what is the impact now, and what will be the impact in future (the coming decade!),

how the company is/will be coping, what's not happening/working and finally offer
some recommendation to tackle this challenge.
- Please check marking criteria/rubric for assessment 2. You will see that there is a
heavy weighting on your assumptions and imagination, that means you need to take
a futuristic perspective and assume something that will happen in the future and offer
recommendations accordingly. Further, there is a huge weighting for the use of
references. You really need to support your idea through your detailed research and
use various perspective in each of the challenges. If you are using a particular
model, please go ahead but also make sure that you referred to other sources as
well for a convincing discussion.
MY ASSIGNMNET STARTS HERE
Discussion
Challenges of supply chain of Walmart- ( Can you write a small paragraph about
an overall challenges that the company is facing LIKE A introduction for
challenges (not introduction paragraph for Walmart company )just to get a
small idea of what the report is about , which looks good for the readers )
This report highlights some challenges of supply chain management
faced by Walmart in the retail sector. These challenges stand in the way of
development of the company in the long run. Issues and solutions have
been discussed in this report. Challenges from increasing oil prices,
information technology, and reshoring have been discussed. Sustainability-
related issues also exist for the company. For addressing the issues, several
solutions have been discussed in this report.

1. Challenges of the oil pricing( I have written, no need to change )
Within the recent years of the company, providing the altering business realities
associated with the globalisation, the issues of the supply chain is the prime concern of the
management of the company (Hugos, 2018). The petroleum products are extensively
exploited within the economies of the world that has led to the increase of the prices of oil
and the petroleum products. In the Walmart Company, the use of the fuels is significantly
done for allowing the rapid supply of the products to the customers and achieve growth. This
challenges is significantly important for business as it leads to the increase in the prices of the
products due to the increase in the production costs. The diesel and the gasoline are
commonly the primary fuels that are used in the road transport. Oil is extensively used in the
power generation that accounts for almost 11 percent of the complete electricity and help the
company to achieve growth (Shin &Eksioglu, 2015). The adequate and reliable supply of the
transport services and the electricity in the turn are significantly for the economic
development. If the pricing mechanism is based on the average deduced from specific time
period of the world prices, it might be easy to effectively predict the time duration when next
fluctuation might take place (Chae, 2015).
The major issue to the supply chain of the organisation is faced when there is
significant rise in the prices of the oil. The logistics of the company is directly dependent on
prices of oil in the economy. When the price of oil is significantly high, it leads to the
increase in the price of the products that might not be suitable for the customers and for
maintaining the constant business, the company is required to sell the products at the lower
costs than the production costs. The prices of the fuels and the food that are traded
internationally have increased in the recent times and it has been observed that it has been
fluctuating ever since. The fiscal breakeven price of the oil that is required for balancing the
budget in the major oil exporters is rising sharply within the past few years that makes it the

prospect of the prolonged periods of the low prices that are unlikely in future (Ghosh & Shah,
2015). Equivalently important, marginal cost of the oil production within 2011 was
significantly high and it has been predicted that it could rise further if this is the major trend
that is being followed. (Sanders, 2016). The governments are forced to execute the reforms
within the policies due to the frequent fluctuations .The impact of the rising oil prices has
been discovered by the fact that the company is significantly hit by the rise of the fuel prices
as it specialises in the delivery of the products to the customers by their own and there have
been decrease in the growth that could be achieved by the company. With the increase in the
fuel prices, the supply chain of the company was required to implement the modern day
technologies and the machineries that would help in reduction of the fuel consumption
(Hackius& Petersen, 2017). In future, it has been predicted that the company might need to
invest huge capital for the introduction of the modernised technology for the proper fuel
management or the introduction of renewable energy that could be used by the logistics of the
company. Even though the company introduced the modern machineries, the company faced
the significant setback as significant capital was invested while the purchasing of the
machineries was being done (Christopher, 2016). The supply chain of the company was also
damaged as there was a requirement of providing the required training to the employees for
properly working with the machineries that are being introduced in the company and till the
time, the employees become fluent with the working of the machineries, the effective
production was significantly hampered and it was observed that it lowered exponentially.
2. Challenges of information technology
The implementation of the information technology in the supply chain management of
the organisation are helping the organisation to achieve significant growth and increase the
productivity. The challenges related to the information technology is the improper integration
of the processes with the information technology. This challenge is important for the business

because it damages the proper working of the business as there is no coordination among the
various departments of this organisation (Kshetri, 2018). Without the proper utilisation of the
IT, the supply chain management could not be able to accomplish the higher results that it has
been achieving in the present times. With the consideration of this discussion, the company
Walmart also implemented the information technology within the business of the
organisation for allowing the enhanced working of the supply chain and fulfil the
requirements of the customers with better knowledge and increased quality (Waller, Fawcett
& Johnson, 2015). But it has been observed that even though the company gained
significantly from the implementation of the information technology in the supply chain of
the organisation, there are some challenges that have risen due the improper integration of
Handling the processes of the supply chain with the information technology(Ji,
Gunasekaran& Yang, 2014). Such challenges gives the rise to significant issues that could
hamper the proper working of the organisation and restrict the proper development. The
implementation of the information technology within the supply chain management could be
considered as both beneficial as well as challenging. (Brockhaus et al., 2016).
It could be considered that the processes of the supply chain impact significantly on
the critical value chain of the mission of the company (Ren et al., 2015). The value chain of
any company helps in driving the business for proper development and growth. Prior the
implementation of the information technology in the supply chain management of the
organisation, it is important to conduct research for ensuring that this new technology has
been supported by correct processes and it is based in the best practices in the cross industry
associated to the process (Sanders, 2014). The company considered that the availability of the
real time data and the information is the sole purpose of integrating the information
technology within the organisation.

The issue that is faced by the company is the improper management of the timely data
and the information that is significantly required for the proper working of the organisation
(Galvin, 2017). Walmart faces this challenge due to the fact that the employees of the
organisation are not able to understand the implementation of the information technology and
they try to use the conventional methods of executing the business. It is popularly considered
that the broad based team that has been empowered in making the decisions regarding the
planning and the implementation would ensure the successful deployment of the information
technology within the organisation (LeBaron, Lister &Dauvergne, 2017). The company
implemented the technology of the ERP system that was considered to provide the
automation of the various processes and also allow the integration of the various processes of
the organisation (Li, 2014). With the implementation of the ERP systems in the organisation,
it gained significant benefits but it was observed that the employees were significantly
reluctant in utilising the ERP system within the supply chain management of the organisation.
The modifications in the supply chain of the organisation was done with the implementation
of the SAP technology (Souza, 2014). The employees did not have the proper knowledge
about the technology and this led to the failure of the implementation project. In the past
researches, it is claimed that when any company undertakes the initiative of integrating the
supply chain management with the modern technology, it is required to properly manage the
internal culture of the organisation for successfully implementing the information technology
tools.
The challenge faced by the implementation of information technology has been
considered as significant issue within the organisation because it led to the loss of the
competitive advantage that was gained by the organisation in the recent years and huge
capital is lost by the organisation. The impact of this challenge could be analysed as major

failure in the execution of proper business using the modern technologies. The company is
tackling this situation by providing the employees with the proper information for working
efficiently using the modern technologies. This challenge is important for the organisation
because without the resolving of this challenge, the execution of proper working using
technology could not be done within the supply chain.
The company claims that the integration process of the supply chain with the
information technology requires the acceptance of the change by the employees within the
organisation and specifically in the Walmart organisation as there is the specific mindset that
has prevailed for several years. Moreover, even though it is significantly difficult to
accomplish, the changes could be implemented successfully when it has been directed by the
strong and the knowledgeable leader who has the proper understanding of the tools that are
available for the achieving of positive changes and the role in the initiation and the sustaining
of the changes within the organisation (Chakravarty, 2014).
The incompatible systems at the buyer and the facilities are another management
challenge that has to be tackled by the organisation. If the suppliers are using outdated
technologies and the platform of the company has been updated then there might be some
compatibility issues that could lead to issues in order placing. The effective data sharing with
the diverse stakeholders like the suppliers and the customers, the filtering and the data mining
that is generated for the discovery of the business value of data are some of the issues that are
being faced by the organisation (Narsimhalu, Potdar& Kaur, 2015). The organisation faces
the issue of the disconnected enterprise system that creates the data redundancy, the errors
could lead to the costly inefficiencies of the business. The poor coordination among the
enterprise systems majorly leads to the flawed plans of the production, an increase in the

pressure of the supply chain and the diminished customer service. The lack of the visibility of
the orders, the schedules and the shipments could lead to the costly administrative processes
of decision making (Sadouskaya, 2017). From the above discussion, it could be concluded
that the implementation of the tools of information technology provides several benefits for
the organisations. Walmart faced some issues in the initial phase of the implementation but
with the extensive research and analysis of the requirements of organisation, these underlying
issues could be mitigated.
3. Challenges in the sustainability( Please write a good challenges for
the sustainability issue that is faced by the Walmart
company) (please mention the solution for the same in the solution
section )
Walmart faces some issues in sustainability. Programme of
sustainability of Walmart does not address the challenge created by many
short-lived products.
Renewable energy use has been insignificant to the company. It is
lagging on renewable power. If its present position is considered then it
needs to wait several years more for reaching the set objective of maximum
renewable energy. Contradictory to this, many competitors of Walmart are
ahead in this respect (Christopher, 2016). The company is not willing to invest
in renewable energy and the reason is that sponsoring low carbon
technologies is unlikely to address the needs of return on investment.

The company struggles hard to control the emission of greenhouse
gas. Even the firm wants to control this emission there is no possibility of
minimisation in the next few years. Due to this reason, the company is
criticised by many and its environmental protection agenda is not served
completely (Monczka et al, 2015).
Business expansion and development strategy of Walmart have an
impact on the environment. Due to the rapid expansion of business the firm
is often in a hurry to build its supercenter stores which consume many
lands that would have been habitats for many species. The business,
therefore, contributes to both air pollution and water pollution.
Walmart always supports sustainable agriculture but based on its
nature of business such as retail grocery large scale and industrialized
system of food have developed. Farmers find their portion of income
reduced.
Although the company is very much interested in improving its
quantity of foods which are locally produced, the adopted distribution
model of business promotes only large supply networks for addressing
demands of foods and items (Hugos, 2018).
Walmart strives to maintain the quality of its organic foods. Organic
milk brand of Walmart is criticised as dairy cows are fostered in factory
farm conditions and numerous cows are sheltered in a single facility.

4. Challenges associated with the reshoring strategy
The uncertainties associated with the decisions among the governments, the demands
of the consumers and the competitive advantages as well as the strategies formulated by the
organisation could be immensely perceived as the challenge of changing (Ayers &Odegaard,
2017).
The reshoring is the section of dynamics of internationalisation strategies of the
companies that is focussed on the transferring of the operations of the business to the
countries or the regions of the origin. This particular strategy provided several benefits to the
Walmart organisation but it has been several implementation issues. It has been observed that
the reshoring causes the straight shift of the sourcing and the strategies of the manufacturing
in the supply chains. The company faced the issues of the potential disruption of production,
inefficient management time, the consistency and the quality of the suppliers, searching for
appropriate skilled workers and the uncertainty regarding the costs and the benefits.
Moreover, it has been stated that the manufacturing always develops the secondary jobs and
the manufacturing department of the company is significantly capable of generating the jobs
for common people. In the organisation, the application of reshoring is increasing as it has
risen the influence on the configurations of the supply chain, the dynamic relies significantly
on the profile of the industry, the business strategy of the company and the capabilities. In the
organisation, there has been significant bottlenecks that restricts the positive effects and the
success of the strategy of the reshoring.
Among the major crucial challenges is the stabilising of the local workforce in the
high wage countries. The results of this research on the company indicates that the shifts in
the global production systems are increasing the barriers like understanding of the workers as
well as the expectations related to the production job within the modern factories. The major
challenge that is being faced by the organisation is the shortage of the skilled co-workers that

are extensively qualified in the engineering and the technical areas because of the fact that the
real consideration of the reshoring strategies generated from in the earlier decade. The
importance of this particular challenge could be comprehended by the fact that when the
company is being introduced in any new market, then the managers of the supply chain is
required to form relationship with the suppliers for obtaining the required supplies for
conducting business. The importance of this challenge could be comprehended by the aspect
when the company is introducing their business in the market where the wages of the workers
are significantly high and the company is required to provide the similar kind of wages to the
workers of the organisation.
Solution for the different challengesfaced by Walmart
1. Solution for Information technology-(write a good recommendation to the
Walmart company for the problem of Information technology,
Read the above paragraph about the challenges about Information technology
accordingly write the solution.
please use references to support your arguments and do citations)
Walmart’s focus on the integration of information technology into its
supply chain management can leverage the whole procedural
effectiveness. However, it’s essential for minimising of challenges
related to information technology. Better enterprise system needs to
be developed by IT experts so that the volume of data redundancy
and erroneous data can be minimised to the maximum extent. A

specific team of information technology and supply chain
management can be developed by the company and they will work
together for delivering the maximum benefit of information
technology integrated into the system of supply chain management
(Brandenburg et al, 2014).
The firm needs to decide about the users of the system and their
proper training must be arranged. This is the basic step as without
better knowledge of application and utilisation better output cannot
be achieved. Proper evaluation of knowledge and skill must follow
under the supervision of the special team of experts formed by the
firm. Lack of coordination among several departments needs to be
reduced and this can be possible if management sets its clear agenda
regarding supply chain management based on the use of modern
technology and information technology (Wisner, Tan & Leong, 2014).
Therefore awareness across the important departments needs to be
developed by the firm. Encouragement among employees and
suppliers and stakeholders regarding the application of the new
system of information technology in supply chain domain of business
can become easy if there is minimum resistance among them to
accept this change in process of the firm. Periodical evaluation and
training for employees can deliver the expected level of efficiency of
staffs and system (Fahimnia, Sarkis & Davarzani,2015). If suppliers have

outdated technology and application then they must be encouraged to
replace their systems with a better and advanced system. A trial run
of the system can be conducted in the presence of all stakeholders
who are involved in the operation of the business.
Team of supply chain management and information technology along
with employees entrusted with operation of the new application of
information technology can enhance their skills and knowledge from
the system at its initial checking and an enhanced platform of
integrated working of supply chain management can be achieved by
minimising the challenges of information technology (Mangan, Lalwani
& Lalwani, 2016).
2. Solution for Reshoring( also add some more solution points for the reshoring to the
Walmart company ) try to include your points with what I have written, add your
references too. Read the above paragraph to the challenges that I have mentioned
The issues of the reshoring could be mitigated by the efficient understanding of the
probable scenarios that could emerge with the reshoring. With the proper understanding of
any probable scenarios that could emerge is described as having the deep understanding of
the landscape of the trade policies, the stakeholders, the probable actions, likely outcomes
and the timelines (Ayers &Odegaard, 2017). The issues of reshoring could be eradicated with
the development of strong responses to any of the scenario by evaluation of all the probable
outcomes and then developing the option that could help in mitigating the risks, guide the
strategies and then capture the emerging opportunities.

Reshoring has several advantages over offshoring and Walmart
needs to ensure that these can be achieved by modifying its strategies so
that the firm can stabilise the profitability without hampering the quality
of products. Management needs to understand the importance of
collaboration with suppliers who can assure of providing with better raw
materials to the company. These can reduce delivery times and at the same
time better product quality can be maintained (Rushton, Croucher & Baker,
2014). This could help the firm satisfy its customers on a continual basis.
Walmart needs to consider maintaining a low cost of inventory
maintenance and this can be achieved by reducing inventory by proper
inventory management. Therefore additional costs can be reduced. This
can help the firm pay better wages to employees who will be always
delighted to work at the modern factories with the potential of better
production capacity.
Employees’ dissatisfaction can be reduced and better quality of
products can be maintained. Additionally, Walmart needs to consider
changes in demands among local customers much more and this additional
responsiveness by the company can help achieve a better solution for the
overall challenges of reshoring (Stadtler, 2015). Strategies for achieving a
better response from local customers with the help of promotional

strategies can be beneficial for the firm to achieve better efficiency of
reshoring and challenges can be mitigated (Monczka et al, 2015)
3. Solution for sustainability (write a good recommendation to the Walmart
company for the issue of sustainability , please use references to
support your arguments and do citations)
Waste minimisation needs to be immediately ensured by the
company. Products need to be arranged in shelves according to their shelf
life. These can make customers aware and the products can be consumed
as long as being within their shelf lives. This requires consultation with
quality checking officials. Wastage of short-lived products, therefore, can
be minimised and waste can be reduced. The company needs to focus on
renewable energy and the required investment related to this. Feasibility of
low carbon technology needs to be evaluated by the company (Beske &
Seuring, 2014).
Additionally, the company needs to set objectives and target
regarding renewable energy and its related projects. Greenhouse gas
emission must be reduced by the company and environment-friendly better
operations and processes can be adopted by the company. This can help
the firm improve its brand image. Discussion with the government
regarding land acquisition in a legitimate way can be beneficial for the
company to support demands for land to set supercentres without

disturbing natural habitats (Fredendall & Hill, 2016). Quality checking and set
up of producing Organic foods must be improved so that the quality of
products will enhance and the firm will achieve trusts among customers
and stakeholders. Walmart needs to understand that locally produced
products and food items can be of huge demands among customers and
other stakeholders. This can lead to better brand image development. The
firm needs to develop a relationship with local farmers for procuring better
produced local products and accordingly better payments to be disbursed
to the farmers for procuring products from them (Stadtler, 2015).
4. Solution for Oil Pricing (write a good recommendation to the
Walmart company for the problem of increasing oil prices , please
use references to support your arguments and do citations)
Increase in oil pricing is an unavoidable circumstance and this
cannot be mitigated by a company. Policy reform of government and active
intervention can lead to a modification to some extent only. The solution
therefore for this problem rests within strategies developed by Walmart for
battling with a price increase of oil. For Walmart, the feasible means for
mitigating the challenge of increasing oil price are better pricing
mechanism and deployment of better technologies and machinery for
improving effectiveness for reducing oil consumption (Coyle et al, 2016). The

firm needs to be careful that the quality of products cannot be
compromised. Therefore a combined strategy can be adopted by the firm
and this is the adoption of effective pricing strategies as per the quality of
products by making customers aware of the quality aspects of products as
well as better production machinery along with a better process for
supporting operation which needs minimum oil consumption. This can help
the firm achieve an efficiency of production, enhanced quality and least
consumption of oil. Moreover, customers will remain satisfied and the
profitability of the company will not be hampered (Hugos, 2018). When oil
prices will dip the prices must be slashed down and this will encourage
customers to stay associated with the brand when products will cost more
to them to procure. Therefore Walmart needs to take the aforementioned
strategies for keeping its sales growth unhindered even amid the challenge
of an increase in oil price.
Conclusion (Write a good conclusion paragraph for the
overall Walmart report)
Supply chain management holds importance in any sector wherein
competition is huge. Walmart is a big retail organisation which keeps its
focus on supply chain management. However, challenges still persist for the
company and these have been discussed in this report. Customers and
other stakeholders are always important for the firm. Challenges for the

firm are mostly external factors of the business environment. These
challenges can be mitigated by better strategies and their implementation.
The firm needs to focus on maintaining its brand image by better policy
making and its subsequent implementation for addressing the issues that
have been discussed in this report.
References ( write all the academic references that you used for this
reportAPA FORMAT )
Christopher, M. (2016). Logistics & supply chain management. Pearson UK.
Monczka, R. M., Handfield, R. B., Giunipero, L. C., & Patterson, J. L. (2015).
Purchasing and supply chain management. Cengage Learning.
Hugos, M. H. (2018). Essentials of supply chain management. John Wiley & Sons.
Brandenburg, M., Govindan, K., Sarkis, J., & Seuring, S. (2014). Quantitative models for
sustainable supply chain management: Developments and directions. European
journal of operational research, 233(2), 299-312.
Wisner, J. D., Tan, K. C., & Leong, G. K. (2014). Principles of supply chain management: A
balanced approach. Cengage Learning.
Mangan, J., Lalwani, C., & Lalwani, C. L. (2016). Global logistics and supply chain
management. John Wiley & Sons.

Fahimnia, B., Sarkis, J., & Davarzani, H. (2015). Green supply chain management: A review
and bibliometric analysis. International Journal of Production Economics, 162, 101-
114.
Rushton, A., Croucher, P., & Baker, P. (2014). The handbook of logistics and distribution
management: Understanding the supply chain. Kogan Page Publishers.
Stadtler, H. (2015). Supply chain management: An overview. In Supply chain management
and advanced planning (pp. 3-28). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
Beske, P., & Seuring, S. (2014). Putting sustainability into supply chain management. Supply
Chain Management: an international journal, 19(3), 322-331.
Coyle, J. J., Langley, C. J., Novack, R. A., & Gibson, B. (2016). Supply chain management:
a logistics perspective. Nelson Education.
Fredendall, L. D., & Hill, E. (2016). Basics of supply chain management. CRC Press.