Walmart's Supply Chain and Procurement: A Detailed Analysis

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Walmart's supply chain management and procurement strategies. It begins by outlining Walmart's mission, vision, and strategic goals, followed by an examination of supply chain findings. The report delves into operational analysis, highlighting inventory management techniques and challenges. It also explores information analysis, including the bullwhip effect and the use of various tools. Integration and sustainability analyses are conducted, emphasizing the importance of aligning objectives and implementing sustainable practices. The report further examines Walmart's supply chain and procurement, discussing key factors like inventory management, technology integration, and efficient logistics. Programs for improvement, such as employee and supply chain initiatives, are also discussed. The report concludes by summarizing the key findings and emphasizing the importance of effective supply chain management for Walmart's success.

Running head: SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT AND PROCUREMENT
Supply Chain Management and Procurement
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Executive Summary:
Through this report various aspect of supply chain and procurement process has been discussed
for the Walmart organization. In the initial stage of this report mission, vision and strategic goal
of the organization is discussed. A brief analysis of the supply has been discussed within this
report. The integration analysis also has been done in this case. The Walmart is one of the major
retailer in this context as it is operational in 15 countries. Due to this reason supply chain
management is one of the most important aspect for the organization. Through better supply
chain management Walmart will be able to provide better service to the customers.

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Table of Contents
Mission, Vision and Strategic Goals of the Walmart:.....................................................................3
Supply Chain Findings:...................................................................................................................3
Verdicts from the Operational Analysis:.........................................................................................4
Analysis of Information:..................................................................................................................5
Integration Analysis:........................................................................................................................5
Sustainability Analysis:...................................................................................................................6
Supply Chain and Procurement Analysis of Walmart:....................................................................7
Programs for Improvement:.............................................................................................................8
Improvement Program Importance:.................................................................................................9
Conclusion:....................................................................................................................................10
References:....................................................................................................................................12

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Mission, Vision and Strategic Goals of the Walmart:
The mission statement of Walmart defines that organization is providing some
opportunity for saving a significant amount of money so that they can help the peoples for a
proper living support. As per the vision of the Walmart they must be the only preference for their
customers so that a significant amount can be saved irrespective of shopping styles of the
customers (Christopher 2016). The strategic goal of the organization is offering more better and
enhanced products to the customers for providing better business environment.
Supply Chain Findings:
The important products for the Walmart which needs to be managed by the department of
procurement are the movies, music and books. With that, the procure department of the Walmart
is also responsible for management of the photo and personalized department. The Walmart is
also gaining a huge profit by creating an important relationship with some giant global retail
organization. The Walmart is looking for increasing their current operations. For increasing the
amount of current operation this organization is trying to introduce themselves in new markets.
Introduction to the new markets is not only the solution in this case. With that the Walmart also
need to introduce some enhanced processes and with that product related improvements also
need to be provided to the customers. The most important suppliers for the Walmart are the CCA
industries, Funai Electric Co and the Green Dot Corporation. These organizations are currently
providing the best products in the market to the Walmart and this is helping the Walmart to
provide best products to their customers (Kotloff et al. 2015). Thus it has been assessed that
perfect sourcing is important for most of the organization. Sourcing is very much important in

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this context as this allow the opportunity of developing a stable and consolidated supplier base
with a long term cost. Through this delivery related benefit can also be gained. It has been also
assessed that there are also many constant enhancement factors which helps the organization to
take the advantages of purchasing power. Strong procurement planning is also provided in this
case. Currently the significant problem that is faced by the Walmart is improper supply chain
management and ineffective management of the inventory and the suppliers. Also, there is a
problem regarding quality and safety management.
Verdicts from the Operational Analysis:
In the current situation most of the markets are full of customers who are looking for the
best products with minimum price tag. Recently a survey was conducted and from that survey it
has been assessed that on average Walmart serves approximately 4000 customers and half of the
customers are the children and women. In the current context the major requirement of
businesses is the online shopping facility. Proper inventory management is also important in this
context as it is very much important for controlling and tracking the inventory orders. Also,
storage usage can also be tracked in this case (Monczka et al. 2015). Economic order quantity
model and the material requirement planning method is used for the management of the
inventory. This technique of inventory management system is capable of optimizing the
inventory of the organization. From various of assessment it has been assessed that improper
type of inventory management system can lead the to the fact of increased storage cost and the
labor resource wastages (Pettit, Croxton and Fiksel 2019). The main challenges regarding the
inventory management are low product turnover, improper tracking of the stock, excess

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inventory and poor service levels. The above identified issues are the most significant issue in
the inventory management of the organization.
Analysis of Information:
From the analysis it has been assessed that most of the organization are facing bullwhip
effect in the context of supply chain management. While the product is being formed from a raw
material to a complete product it may need to move across through various of partner channels.
In the current context the of the supply chain of the organization the product first goes through
various of stages which includes supplier, manufacturers, wholesaler, selling organization and
the customer, which is the last stage (Fleming 2019). This bullwhip effect occurs in such of the
events when the channel provides some incorrect assumptions and false information. Due to this
effect access to the stock reduces significantly and wrong signals are provided to the
organizational supply chain. In such of the cases it is very much important to provide reliable
information to the suppliers who are supplying the products in this case (Simpson and Power
2016). Some important tools are also utilized by the organization in case which are lean
inventory tools, order processing tools and the warehouse management tools (Touboulic and
Walker 2015). All of these tools are capable of managing the supply chain of the organization
with having some improved methodology. The warehouse management tool is the most
intensively used tools in this case which helps to manage the warehouse of the organization very
efficiently. Some important collaborative process is also utilized by the organization which is
information integration of the customers and the suppliers under a same platform. Through this
information can be provided efficiently to customers and the suppliers in real time.

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Integration Analysis:
Integration analysis is also crucial for the organization as it helps the organization
improve some of the specific processes which are which is important for the organization to
properly aligning the objective of the processes. Some of the important benefits which is gained
by the organization in this case are the minimization of the competitive disadvantages, keeping
flow with the environmental changes and clear focus on the objective and goals of the
organization. It has been also assessed that as currently the business is executing through some
technological developed environment there are several of major requirement of keeping the pace
of the organization with the present day environment (Gattorna 2017). Through these
competitive disadvantages is also decreased in this case. Proper alignment with various of
strategic functions can help the organization in this case to get various of benefits.
Sustainability Analysis:
Organizations has also implemented sustainability related practices to manage the supply
chain and the activities of procurement in a proper way. By managing and improving the
economic, environmental and the social performance in a proper way through the supply chains,
it has been assessed that organizations can reserve the resources, can optimize the processes and
resources and will be capable of saving a large amount cost. It can actually increase the
organizational productivity and can promote the organizational values. Currently the
organization believes that by including the sustainability of the supply chain the whole process
will become complex (Genovese et al. 2017). The important aspects which need to be satisfied in
this case for the sustainable supply chain are the supply chain mapping and the baseline
performance of the suppliers. With that proper training is also important in this aspect. In this

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case, the organization has introduced practices of sustainable procurement by utilizing supplier
collaboration and with collaboration among various departments of the organization. Innovation
can be used by the organization for integrating sustainable type of practices within the
organization. With that there are also various of other aspects which are important for a
sustainable business process. One of the major aspect for creation of the sustainable business is
creating smart and integrated policies for public. In the other aspects value chain members need
to be engaged so that a sustainable business process can be achieved for the Walmart. If the
organization is not capable to support the sustainability this it is meaningless to implementing
other measures of the sustainability of business (Mangla et al. 2019). Due to this reason first of
all an organizational structure need to be created which will be capable of supporting the
sustainability. With this it is also very much important to creating an embedded sustainability
within the organization. Innovation is quite important in the businesses. For this reason it is very
much important to create specific conditions that will be able to create sustainability related
innovation in the organization. Climate changing is very much important concept in this context.
Thus in this context it is very much important to preparing the organization so that they will be
able to adapt the changes in climate.
Supply Chain and Procurement Analysis of Walmart:
Currently the Walmart organization is one of the most successful organization in the
retailing business by utilizing the modern technologies of the market and through this effective
integration businesses and processes under the technological platform can be gained. The
strategy of procurement and the supply chain has brought success to the organization as it is
capable of adapting all the changes demand of the current market. The organization is currently

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committed to improve the operations and is capable to lower the current cost factor and with that
it is also capable of creating a good relationship with the customers (Mangan, Lalwani and
Lalwani 2016). In this aspect the supply chain management is capable of providing adequate
concentration to the distribution and procurement of the products, in this aspect the products and
the services are capable of retail the segmentation which are aligned to a specific single unit. The
strategy of supply chain and the procurement is getting its strength from the organization for four
important factors which are the effective inventory management, integration of the technology,
efficient logistics components and procurement and distribution. Also, in this case a major factor
which provides strengths to the supply chain management is the increased force. In this case it
has been assessed that the supply chain for the Walmart is quite successful due to the
implementation of the cross docking. With that it has been also assessed that globalization has a
major impact on the supply chain and procurement strategy in both the way of positive and
negative. Also, it has been claimed by the organization that the supply chain is very much
beneficial due to the fact of globalization. Various of framework including John Gattorna's
Dynamic Alignment Framework has helped them to obtain the crucial products which are in high
demand by the customers and by the retailers. With that procurement function analysis of the
organization has discovered that the division of procurement is capable of managing the global
supply chain of the direct importers of the Walmart. By the implementation of division of global
procurement this organization has significantly improvements insight within the international
supplies.

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Programs for Improvement:
Programs for improvement have been also implemented in this case. This program are the
employee improvement programs and the supply chain improvement programs. This program
helps to gather required knowledge about working procedure of various of processes. In this case
programs for improving the quality have been also implemented within the organization having
some systemic actions which will be improving the system quite significantly. While the quality
is considered of the Walmart it can be stated that organization is currently stated as some
methods which are important for executing various of functions in the organization. In this
aspect the quality is also associated with organizational services and the delivery approach of it
or in the aspects of underlying systems (Heizer et al. 2017). The organization has claimed that
for execution of the improvements within the process and the functions understanding the
delivery system is very much crucial. The main concept through which quality improvements
can be gained are the recognitions of both the processes and the improvements and combination
of addressing and ensuring the quality products which will be delivered to the clients. In this case
it has been also assessed that utilization of the training and development is also important for
improvements in the organization. Most of the organization is consisting a special workforce that
is actually past traditional retirement age (Li et al. 2016). In this aspect it has been assessed that
development of a particular type of workforce is actually very much important for ensuring that
perfect hiring is done for the development of the peoples. Also, for satisfying this factor the
employees need to have a proper training which will be focusing on the present time of the
organization and with that it also need to be focused on the future. In this aspect it is also very
much important to develop the carrier paths for the people which are very much important to for
the future of the employees.

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Improvement Program Importance:
From the discussion it has been assessed that programs of improvement in the business
processes can be very much helpful for efficient growth of various of functions and various of
processes regarding the organization which effectively lead to the growth of the Walmart. In this
case process for improving the employee program has been designed for providing important
information related with the market and organizational development. This factor can help the
employees of the organization in much more effective way (Stadtler 2015). The program of
quality improvements can help in this case by delivering appropriate products which are
optimized in nature. These products will be also delivered with minimal of time and with
maximum of efficiency (Christopher et al. 2018). By a vast study on the improvement program
the current organization can achieve their mission in much more effective and efficient way.
Through this strategic goal of the organization can be achieved easily. It will help the
organization for the development of the organization.
Conclusion:
From the above discussion it can be concluded that supply chain is very much important
for the procurement functions of the Walmart organization. By applying all of these procurement
functions the Walmart will be able to successfully manage various of functions which are
important for effective management of the supply chains for the organization (Liu, Zhu and Hu
2016). In this report key products for the Walmart has been analyzed and categorized in an
effective manner. It has been assessed that this key products of the organization need to be
managed by the procurement department of the organization. From this report it has been
analyzed that Walmart is currently making significant amount of money by the implementation

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of this procurement functions. This functions is currently helping the Walmart to make important
relationship with the global retail giants so that a better experience can be provided to the
custome and the supplier of the organization (De Araújo et al. 2017). Walmart has also
implemented the inventory management system for their organization which is considered as one
of the best practice for controlling and tracking the inventory orders, the current utilization of the
storages and proper management of the inventory and the finished goods which are prepared
with extreme efficiency for the customers.
References:
Christopher, M., 2016. Logistics & supply chain management. Pearson UK.
Christopher, M., Mena, C. and Van Hoek, R., 2018. Leading procurement strategy: driving
value through the supply chain. Kogan Page Publishers.
De Araújo, M.C.B., Alencar, L.H. and de Miranda Mota, C.M., 2017. Project procurement
management: A structured literature review. International Journal of Project
Management, 35(3), pp.353-377.
Gattorna, J., 2017. Strategic supply chain management Creating shareholder value by aligning
supply chain strategy with business strategy. In Strategic Supply Chain Alignment(pp. 32-52).
Routledge.
Fleming, Q.W., 2019, January. Project procurement management: contracting, subcontracting,
teaming. Project Management Institute.