Information Systems Report: Walmart's Business Units and Data Use

This report provides an overview of Walmart's information systems, focusing on the interconnection of its business units and the role of data warehousing. It examines Walmart's hierarchical organizational structure and the flow of data within the company, highlighting the rationale behind this structure and its benefits for managing various business units. The report discusses different forms of data used by Walmart, the application of data mining techniques, and the importance of data warehousing for improving business efficiency. It also evaluates the current information systems used by Walmart, including EDI and Big Data technologies, and recommends the implementation of Big Data features to enhance customer relations, privacy, and talent acquisition. Furthermore, the report contrasts Walmart's strategies with those of Amazon, analyzing the advantages and disadvantages of Amazon's e-commerce approach. The report concludes by addressing key concerns related to moral, legal, and professional implications associated with information handling and security within the organization.

Information Systems
(Distinction Criteria)

Table of Contents
Information Systems (Distinction Criteria).....................................................................................1
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Description about how business unit of Walmart are interconnected..........................................3
Different form of data and role of data warehousing for the Walmart:.......................................5
Key concerns about moral, legal and professional implications associated with information
handling and security...................................................................................................................8
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTION
Information system define as a formal system of the organization which is used to
gather, process or store the Distributed information. It is the computer information system which
is used in businesses to interpret the information for better use. An information system is the
union of Hardware and the software system (Xin and et.al 2017). As for the organization it is
very helpful to provide the data which can be managed to improve the efficiency of the business.
Walmart is the multinational retail organization who have large number of stores in international
market as well. Company has the number of employees who carry out their operational task
effectively. This report covers the Different business unit of the Walmart along with the chart, it
further includes the various form of data and its data warehousing role for the Walmart company.
It further lay out the adding of new GDPR data protection law for the Walmart programme.
MAIN BODY
Description about how business unit of Walmart are interconnected
Business unit are define as a different part of the company which is used to create and
implements the processes within the core business. Interconnected business unit are beneficial as
they carry out the operation independently to meet the desire goals of the organization. Walmart
company has the large business, they carried out large number of operation in their every store,
and their structured work provide them a benefit as in form of good revenues. Business unit for
the Walmart company are in a structured form, as they have the store in every city, country
which are interlinked so that communication can be made to complete the task. As Walmart
company mainly engage in the wholesale or in a retail business (Hall, Hayes and Swinney,
2020). Company offers the merchandise and regular services at affordable price. As for the
organization it is important for them that their every department which can be a finance,
marketing, technological or operation are in a linked form or interconnected to each other. It is
beneficial for the company to implement the better communication process between the
departments so that it improves the efficiency in carrying out the task.
Organisational structure plays an important role as it is essential to carry out the task in a
systematic manner, it also helpful for fulfilling the goals of the company. As for the Walmart
company they operate in a hierarchical structure, it involves the command chin which is start
from the top executive to the junior or regular staff. This structure has mainly functioned based

and the hierarchy approach. The main advantage of this system as it is beneficial to improve the
inter activities between the departments, for the Walmart they have the large business units and
each operate independently to complete the task in effective manner, therefore for the company
hierarchical structure is better in every aspects (Magnani and et.al 2019).
Data flow diagram for Walmart:
As for the Walmart company they are considered as the largest chain in retail industry, more than
million employees are working under their organization. Company is able to meet the customer's
demand as by providing them a better product and services in a affordable prices. Data flow for
the Walmart define as now every delivery is done online, payments also done online along with
the invoices. Walmart company buys the raw materials from the different suppliers, as the
product quantity is always greater which the company manage at the same rate for all stores. In
the return company receives the order invoices, and those goods are sold to their potential
customer or to the other stores. In which the Walmart company sends the invoices to the stores or
also to the customers as in exchange company receives the order from the other stores as well as
from their potential customers.
Rationale behind the structure:
Illustration 1: Data flow chart for Walmart

As the Hierarchical structure is mainly operated in the Walmart organization they usually prefer
this structure as their business is wide and it operated in every countries. These structure helps
them to solve any problem which might arise in their business. As junior staff report to their
executive manager so that work can be carried out in a effective manner (Lan, Yang and Tseng,
2019).
Hierarchical structure mainly involves the Hierarchy based and the functional based structure.
Hierarchy based structure:
In this structure all the functionality of every store and for the employees only one chief is there
they report to one superior who directs them in a forward direction. The top position is mainly
for the CEO whom the employees are accountable.
Functional based structure:
In this type of structure the functions of the organisation are mainly depends on the capabilities
of the employees. As in this every employee are divide according to their skills and knowledge
to the respective department, such as finance, customer care, operational department. Walmart
also follow this approach and provide the better interconnectivity between the employees so that
every task can carry out in effectual manner to meet the company's goals.
Thus the main reason for implementing this structure as it provide the benefit to the
company to manage their business units effectively. Because of their efficient functionalities
Walmart is able to achieve their goals and also able to anticipate the international market.
Functional based organisational structure helped the company to improvise their employee
ability and to guide them to follow their tasks (Ruffle and et.al 2021). As this is the main reason
for them as organisation is proceeding to enhancing their merchandise power in the individual
market field, which is not mainly depends on the economic landscape.
Different form of data and role of data warehousing for the Walmart:
For the Walmart organisation they mainly use the data mining approach which is used to
obtain their sales data pattern. This technology will help the company to observe the patterns
from the data sets which is beneficial for taking the effective decision for the company. Data
warehousing for the Walmart define as the secure electronic storage which collects all their
business activities for which they can further use to improve their work efficiency. Data
warehousing also define as the library or systematic approach for collecting the data it also

collects the historical data which is used to obtain the future patterns. Company has goos
technological aspects and has a individual department to monitor or manage all the information
regarding their business (Hanson, Head and Dougan, 2019).
Current information system for the Walmart organisation:
Walmart is the giant company who have different information system to manage their data, they
use the EDI system which is the electronic data interchange process, it generally allows to share
the data over a internet. It gives the flexibility to their supplier as they can easily track their
orders. Along with this Big data technology is the major used technology which helps to manage
the large data sets. It provides the flexibility to maintain the large data sets, sometimes it is
difficult to processed the large data with the traditional tools. Therefore this technology will
come in support, as company is huge therefore their data is also bigger in size. The main reason
for using the big data technology as it enable the Walmart to improve the customer relation with
their services and products.
Big data features as a recommendation to implement in the business:
It is important to take the support of the board members to implement this technology as to
improve the business efficiency.
Great privacy:
Big data technology mainly reduce the redundancy from the data set, it helps to manage the
sensitive unstructured data. It stores the data in location which do not give the privacy concern,
by implementing this technology it will allow the Walmart company to provide the better and
transparent services to their customer (Gaspary, Moura and Wegner, 2020). It will also enables
the customer to show their trust in company's policies which is good for the business revenues.
It enables to hire the skill full employee:
Through the Big data company will be able to scan the data of the candidate without wasting any
time, if their knowledge matched the job profile then it is a quick procedure for the company. As
Walmart always a big company and required a number of labour force to carry out their task at
every store. This technology will make them able to hire the best talent for their work place.
Enables to focus on local clients:
Big data technology will allow to access the taste preferences of the local clients, so that to
manage the data company can easily proceed to design their products accordingly which can be
able to achieve their good revenues goals. For the Walmart organisation their stores are

everywhere as for the individual store success this technology will help to deliver the product
according to the audience preferences of that particular location. It will also enable the finance
department of the company to evaluate their company's finance statement and to analyse their
business position.
Therefore this can be the recommendation for the big data to implement in the company's
functionality so that every task can be completed in a easier manner or to be beneficial for the
good decision making process. Amazon is a retail company who deals in electronic commerce
and present necessary models and objects with a wide range of products. It includes book-store,
video games, furnitures and even clothing and accessories. Thus, in approximately two year the
rapid increase of web commerce makes the amazon company to create a high growth and offered
mainly twenty products which has become efficient is internet marketing. In any department it is
obvious that there are both impacts as positive-negative. Here, framing Amazon company
advantage-disadvantage to the following selling strategy.
Advantage
It is obvious that in any kind of industry it is important to follow the strategy and model to keep
an increasing growth and maintain the selling scale of their products in day to day life. Amazon
e-commerce organization also analysed and practice the strategy from which it is having the
huge benefits and able to balance the development in a global society. It makes an ideology as
they don not make a counter system and clients or customer can select and grab the goods
accordingly(Smith, and Crawford, 2019.). Avoiding the counter system helps amazon to increase
their economy scale as In this modern and developing era, many people have their busy schedule
from which they do not have so much time to spend in the shopping and at last for the billing at
the counter. Amazon followed this strategy from which they can give a time-consuming service
to the customer, and they can achieve a respective growth in the business cooperation. Walmart
also can utilize this strategy by not including the counter system in their policies and laws so that
they can have an opportunity to attract the consumer and provide their high maintenance service.
This strategy is a huge and wide advantage to the Amazon company to build their success in
web-market.
Disadvantage
Moving ahead to demonstrate the disadvantage of the Amazon commerce strategy as it is
mentioned above that they do not create a service of billing at counter place, this can be effective

to the employment of the society. It is obvious that a company which is not providing such table
activity then there will be decrease of employee and employment in a community. Apart from
this, it will also put the effect on the functional process of the organization. Every industry needs
and requires the labour services because each work at a workplace cannot be done with the help
of machinery and electronic equipments(Resche, 2020). For running and maintaining the
machine system also needs human to control and evaluate the procedure. This unemployment is
making a wide effect on the society and even at global level from which it decreases the
economy scale of the country.
Key concerns about moral, legal and professional implications associated with information
handling and security.
The company Walmart which is an international retail organization with 220 million
consumer and 10,500 stores in 24 countries to e-commerce website. For running any
organization applies many approaches and model to attract the people but the major concept it
how and what kind of theory they follow from which customer and an individual can gain
beneficial deal and objectives. Walmart has creates its own rules and regulations and also follow
the ethic principle to maintain a fixed reputation by the legal compliance. The way or pattern by
which an organization conduct their management is essential for the selling of the products and
goods as well. People who work at Walmart are expected to contribute and support the high
standards of respect, value, integrity and excellence. They practice the ethics and compliance at
the global level in a retail market. Walmart make the strategy of conducting the training and
preparation from which it can be effective to the company economy values. On other hand, the
company also has to face the ethical issues and get a negative impact from that which create a
bad image. Ethical issues includes discrimination and harassment, health-safety, privacy,
nepotism and leadership authority. Looking at new GDP data protection legislation which is a
law for securing the data and information to the entire community.
GDP : The general data protection legislation is the fill form of GDPR which is a European
parliament changes and modify its legislation in 2018 in UK for how companies protect the
citizen data. All the industry and organization has to implement this new rules and regulations
which has been made on 25 May 2018 for the benefit of the public as well the companies
including the Walmart organization(Straube, 2019). According to article 17 & 18, GDPR has
automatically control over the data and also can provide the service easily which is called as

right to probability and may direct erase or remove the personal information which has under the
right to erasure. An organization who is not following these laws have to pay and serve the
penalties and it will create a major issue in their future respective.
Moral Issues : The most common issues is every organization is facing the promotional
activities. Female employee who is providing the advertisements and putting the efforts in
attracting the consumer mostly fail because many people think female employee don't have
knowledge and experience in this industry(Asperti, and et.al., 2020). Even looking at Walmart,
they also have faced such issues when female worker is making an advertising activities and get
fails to get these positions. Apart from this, many of the highly educated people also cannot
maintain the position as they leave and resign early and not get experience in this developing
industry. In Walmart, if an employee is for long-term basis and making their career in the
organization then only can get a position.
Concerns : Health care law in Walmart in also an ethical issue as it is facing many obstacles in
this sector. In research also it has been founded that in 2002 the employee have to wait and hold
for the new plan and strategy to make a healthy and safety benefits plan. The retired employee
are not a part of such health programs. Walmart has 45% less than other companies of UK health
scale and 25% lower in the entire retail industry. It is a concern of Walmart company to make an
accurate beneficial plan for according to be aware of hygiene and safety for the consumers and
foe the employees as well.
Approaches : Moving ahead to approacher, Walmart has numerous employees working in the
organization, and they are the one of the major reason for the development of the company. In
this modern era, the supply chain is affected because of the holiday leaves and cannot able to
deliver the products to the consumer. The CEO of the Walmart company stated that there is big
reason of the growth of this industry and it has been occurred with the shareholder. The code of
conduct reflects the associates, consumers, investors, supplier any many business relations. Each
of the shareholder is important and essential to run a business. Without a single decrease and
removal of shareholder it will put a great impact and even a huge loss to the company.
These individuals are the key approaches on the company. According to the legislation
and law, it is important to look out for the safety and security of the employee working in an
industry(MUñOZ, 2021). It has been founded that many of the worker feel unsafe especially a
female employee who can be suffered and tolerating the misconduct from a longer time and not

able to give their best in the productivity of the company. A company has to evaluate and make a
communication relation at least from which they can feel to tell the management about what so
ever is bothering them.
Discrimination and exploitation : Sometimes Walmart has face lawsuits by the employee
working there in the purpose of discrimination and unethical practices happening in a
company(Grover, and et.al., 2018). In research, it has founded that in 2004, many of the
employee has given a lawsuit and facing the problem in the company. Walmart is a widest and
largest store at global level and have many employee working there. Each employee has its
personal and profession consequences but huge criticism matters especially in the employment.
The unfavourable environment of the organization by the gender is an inappropriate and against
the law policies of the company.
CONCLUSION
The overview of this report demonstrates that the company Walmart who is an
international retail company how manages its business association. Walmart has playing
different roles of data securing and information of the consumers and interconnected with
different business units(Durand, and Milberg, 2020). The report is illustrating the concept of
Walmart strategy and models and their advantages and disadvantages in respect to the amazon
company. Apart from this, how the Walmart has facing the ethical challenges and legislation to
make a comfortable growth at the global level.

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