Procurement & Supply Chain Management Analysis: Walmart Case

This report provides an in-depth analysis of Walmart's procurement and supply chain management. It begins by outlining the company's vision, mission, and strategic goals, followed by detailed findings from supply, operations, information, integration, and sustainability analyses. The report identifies key challenges such as inventory management, supplier relations, and the bullwhip effect. It also explores the use of technology and collaborative practices to enhance supply chain efficiency. Furthermore, the analysis highlights Walmart's commitment to sustainability through various initiatives. The report concludes by discussing improvement programs aimed at optimizing operations, reducing costs, and fostering stronger customer relationships, emphasizing the importance of adapting to market changes and leveraging technology for a competitive advantage.

Running head: PROCUREMENT AND SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT
PROCUREMENT AND SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT
Name of student
Name of university
Author’s note:

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Table of Contents
Vision, mission and strategic goals of the company......................................................3
Findings of supply analysis............................................................................................3
Findings of operations analysis......................................................................................4
Findings of information analysis....................................................................................5
Findings of integration analysis.....................................................................................6
Findings of sustainability analysis.................................................................................7
Procurement and supply chain analysis of Walmart......................................................7
Improvement programs..................................................................................................9
Importance of improvement programs.........................................................................10
Conclusion....................................................................................................................10
References....................................................................................................................12

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Executive summary
This report intends to discuss the aspects of the procurement and supply chain management
process of Walmart Company. Brief discussion of the vision, mission, as well as the strategic
goals of the company has been discussed in this report. The findings of supply analysis has
been briefly discussed in this report. The findings of operations analysis has been briefly
discussed in this report along with information analysis of the company. The integration
analysis has been briefly stated in this report and the findings of the sustainability analysis
has been briefly discussed in this report. The chosen company for this assignment is Walmart
Company. This company is presently considered as major retailer who are presently
executing the operations from almost 15 countries and the supply chain management of this
company has been reflected as the major strongpoint of the company because of the
optimised delivery schemes and methods, this company has been able to deliver customers
with the optimised goods and services.

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Vision, mission and strategic goals of the company
The mission statement of company is providing the opportunity of saving significant
money to the people and help them live better. This statement allows the company to
maintain the proper direction in the growth and development. The vision of company is
becoming the sole end for customer to protect significant money, regardless the methods of
shopping. This particular vision of the company is the modified version of the previous
statement that stated “to be the best retailer in hearts and the minds of the customers as well
as the employees. The strategic goal of the company is to offer the most enhanced products to
the customers of the company and thrive in the business environment.
Findings of supply analysis
The crucial product classifications that are vital to be managed by procurement
department are grocery section, the furniture and home appliances, product category of
sports, and electronics (Biggs et al. 2017). The procurement department has been tasked with
the proper management of health products like medicines and pharmacy. The Walmart stores
makes significant money, making major relationship with the global retail giant the cost-
effective and the distinct experience for the suppliers. The company prevails to increase their
operations and the company is intending to introduce to the new markets with the enhanced
process and then provide the customers of the new markets with the improved products. The
crucial suppliers of this company are Funai Electric Co., Green Dot Corporation, CCA
industries, Plug power, and Primo Water Corporation. The considered product of canned
foods are majorly supplied by the Green Dot Corporation (Gaur, Goel and Jain 2015). These
particular company provides the company with the most developed products and the
enhanced processes that allows the company to offer the customers with improved products.
The importance of the sourcing could be comprehended as it provides the companies with the

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opportunity of the leveraging the organisation for developing the steady, joined supplier base
along with the long term cost, delivery benefits and the quality (Christopher 2016). It offers
the constant enhancements over the factors and it also helps in empowering the organisation
for taking the advantage of the power of purchasing. It offers the strong procurement
planning for the straight materials within the retail organisation. The major problems that the
company are facing while the effective management of supply chain are the inappropriate
management of the inventory, inappropriate management of the suppliers, inappropriate
safety and quality management (Kshetri and Loukoianova 2019).
Findings of operations analysis
The market of this company major comprises of the customers who intends to gain the
best quality products in the minimum time. The major customers of the company are almost
4000 customers and as per recent survey, it has been indomitable that nearly half of the
customers of company are women and children. There is the major requirement of growing
the business online and statistically the huge online shoppers are discovered to be the ones
with the huge income (Chichoni and Webb 2018). The inventory management is considered
as the exercise of the pursuing and the governing of inventory informations, the usage and the
storage with proper supervision of the finished goods which could be sold to the customers.
The inventory management of this company are executed by the company using the methods
of the ABC analysis, the method of the Material Requirement Planning and the Economic
Order Quantity model. With the help of these particular methods of inventory management,
the company is able to manage the inventory of the company with increased optimisation. It
is determined that the inappropriate inventory management could chief to the upsurge in the
storage price, the occupied capital and the depletion of the labour resources (Saberi et al.
2018). The major inventory management challenges that the company is facing are the little
product turnover, the additional inventory, the disaster of the keeping the appropriate tracking

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of the stock, the deprived service levels, the difficulty in the identification of the demand
arrangements and the lack of the visibility. These particular issues are creating significant
issues in the proper management of the inventory of the company (Min, Zacharia and Smith
2019).
Findings of information analysis
The bullwhip effect is faced by the company in the supply chain of organisation.
Within the journey of products from the raw materials to the finished products and to final
consumer of the Walmart Company, it easily moves across the various partners of the
channels. In the supply chain of company, the product moves across the raw materials to the
supplier then to the manufacturer, then to the wholesaler and then to the company who
performs the required retailing and then it is provided to the customers (Cheung et al. 2018).
The bullwhip effect is caused when channel partners have been acting on the false
information and the incorrect assumption, the stock access inventory or drastically reduce the
inventory and therefore it sends the wrong signals to supply chain of company. The remedy
of this issues that has been implemented by the organisation is the providing proper
information to the suppliers who are providing the required supplies. The crucial information
technology tools that are used by the company are the order processing apparatuses, the lean
inventory apparatuses, the warehouse management and the tools for specialised freight
handling (Paddock and Rao 2018). These particular tools helps the proper management of
supply chain of the company and track the supplies of the company with the improved
methods. The most extensively used tool by the company is the warehouse management tools
that helps in the proper management of the warehouses of the company and monitor the
inventory levels of the company. The major collaborative practices that are utilised by the
company are the integration of the information of the suppliers and the customer under the

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same platform and then providing the efficient information to both the suppliers and the
customers in real time.
Findings of integration analysis
Figure 1: Supply chain process of Walmart
Source: (Created by author)
The strategy of the company helps in the improvement of the processes that are
commonly required for the organisations and there are several benefits that are presented by
the proper alignment of the process objectives. Some of the profits that are obtained by the
company are keeping with pace of altering environment, minimising the competitive
drawback, the flawless sense of the strategic visualization and the shriller emphasis on the
goals as well as the purposes, then inspiring the employees and help in firming the decision
making. According to Lambert and Cooper (2000) and Lee et al. (2004), as the business is
executing the business in the present technological advanced environment, there is the chief
requirement keeping up with pace of the existing day environment and it is significantly
vigorous and also fast varying and therefore it makes significantly difficult for this business

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to operate efficiently (Lambert and Enz 2017). The competitive disadvantage is significantly
decreased and it helps in the addition of significant competitive advantage for the company.
The proper alignment with the strategic functions of the company helped the company to gain
several benefits (Simpson and Power 2016).
Findings of sustainability analysis
The company implemented the sustainability practices for effective management of
supply chain processes and the procurement activities. With the proper management and the
improvement of the environmental, economic and the social performance all through the
supply chains, it is majorly believed within the company that it could conserve the resources,
optimise the resources, optimise the processes, determine the product inventions, save
significant costs, upturn the productivity and then support the values of the corporation
(Johnson et al. 2018). The company believed that the incorporation of the sustainability in
supply chain is significantly complex but the failure of acting accordingly might be
significant risk for the organisation. The main practises that are utilised for the
implementation of the sustainable supply chain are mapping of the supply chain, effective
communicating of the expectations, standard the performance of suppliers, develop the
training and the programs and the capacity building, and drive the performance improvement
and finally join the collaboration with the industry (Wisner 2016). The company
implemented the sustainable procurement practices by the effective utilisation of the
collaboration with suppliers and the numerous departments of organisation. The use of the
innovation is done extensively for the integration of the sustainable practices within the
organisation (Basu and Wright 2016).

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Procurement and supply chain analysis of Walmart
The Walmart company is growing to be significantly successful in the modern
technological market because of the effective integration of the process and the business
under the technological platform. The supply chain as well as the procurement strategy is
significantly successful for the company because it effectively adapts to all the changes and
the requirement of the markets (Goodarzi, Fahimnia and Sarkis 2019). The commitment of
the company for improving the operations, lowering the factor of cost and the building of
relationship with the customer in the most appropriate manner is the main strategy that is
followed by the company. The supply chain management that has been adopted by the
company is majorly effective that solely reflects the context that the adequate concentration is
provided towards the procurement and the distribution of the products, the services and the
all the aspects in the retail segmentations that are solely aligned to single unit (Heydari, Choi
and Radkhah 2017). The supply chain strategy and procurement strategy is majorly
strengthened by the company due to the four influences, which are integration of technology,
distribution and procurement, effective inventory management and the effectual logistics
apparatuses (Zarea et al. 2018). With respect to this, the major factor is included the strength
of supply chain management of company is the significant emphasis and the increased force,
that is immense concentration on the development of lasting and the fostering relationship
with the customers, the employees and the suppliers. It has been observed that the main
reason why the supply chain management of Walmart is successful is because of the cross
docking operational expertise that has been adopted by this company in fulfilling the
processes of the supply chain management. It is observed that the globalisation has
significant influence on the supply chain and the procurement approach of the organisation
both negatively and positively. Moreover, it is claimed by the company that the globalisation
has helped the supply chain strategy of the organisation significantly (Tichenor, Beasley and

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Subramanian 2018). As per the John Gattorna's Dynamic Alignment Framework, it could be
analysed that the company is significantly fluent in the identification of the new attractive
international suppliers, the sourcing of new products as it is required, and the maintaining of
the enhanced relationships with the suppliers who are providing the supplies to the company
on regular basis (Gattorna 2016). It helps the company to obtain the products that are
presently demanded by the customers of the company and provide the supplies to the clients
of this particular company. Additionally, with the analysis of the procurement functions of
the company, it has been discovered that the procurement division effectively manages the
universal supply chain of straight imports of Walmart. With implementation of the global
procurement division, the company significantly gained the improved insights into the
international supplies (Pålsson and Hellström 2016).
Improvement programs
The improvement agendas that are implemented in the organisation are employee
improvement programs as well as supply chain improvement programs which aids in
providing the essential knowledge about the functioning of the various process and the
required knowledge about the functions of the organisation to the employees. The quality
improvement programs that are implemented in the organisation comprises of continuous and
the systematic actions that leads to the significant improvement in the processes and the
functions of the company. when the quality is considered from the perspective of the
Walmart, then the present systems of the company is defined as the methods by which the
various functions are executed by the business. the quality is directly associated with the
services of the organisation and the delivery approach for the services of the organisation or
the underlying systems. it is claimed by the company that for executing the significant
improvements within the functions and the processes of the organisation, it is required to
understand the delivery system as well as the crucial processes. the main concept behind the

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quality improvement programs in recognises both the processes and the inputs are efficiently
combined for conveying and ensuring that the quality merchandises are delivered to clients.
Importance of improvement programs
It could be considered that the improvement programs within the business of the
organisation could help in effectual growth of the numerous functions and the processes of
the organisation and also lead to the effective development of the organisation. The employee
improvement programs that has been designed for providing the required information
regarding the developments in the market and the organisation could help the employees
significantly and effectively. The quality improvement programs that has been implemented
within the organisation could help the company to deliver the optimised products within
minimal time and increased efficiency. It could be considered that, with the extensive study
of the improvement programs, the company could achieve the mission of the organisation
more efficiently and effectively. The strategic goals of the company could be easily achieved
that could help in effective development of the company.
Conclusion
Therefore, it could be concluded that the supply chain and the procurement functions
of the Walmart Company is growing to be successful with proper management of the various
functions of the supply chain within the organisation. The key product categories that are
required to be managed by the procurement department are the grocery section, the furniture
and the home appliances, the product category of sports, and the electronics. The
procurement department is also tasked with the management of the health products like the
medicines and the pharmacy. The improvement agendas that are implemented in the
organisation are employee improvement programs as well as supply chain improvement
programs which aids in providing the essential knowledge about the functioning of the

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various process and the required knowledge about the functions of the organisation to the
employees. The inventory management is considered as the exercise of the tracking as well as
controlling of the catalogue orders, the usage as well as the storage with proper management
of the completed goods that could be sold to the customers.