To improve the response time to customer request and speed up times transactions. The company is adapting to internet shopping and has set up a separate subsidiary to handle the internet purchases. This is in addition to the company policy of having more than one register open at a counter so that payments by customers are handled faster.
Reduced transaction time is targeted at increasing the efficiency of the company business operations as indicated in its vision of achieving excellent operational efficiency. The company will rely on the customers’ value for efficient service that will drive them to the Wal-Mart store rather than individual online supply stores.
The company has to ensure that its inventory management and shipment of goods purchased online are synced and backed up to provide a robust system that builds customer’s trust. To this end, the company is includes an order tracking feature and a gift return option (Knowledge@Wharton, 2000).
To enhance its internal control department to be able to control the company’s growth imperative so that they company suffers less from problem associated with its big size. The company can measure its success in controlling the company growth through an audit on its return on investment.
Investments that make business sense and increase Wal-Mart’s overall aim of operational efficiency impact positively on the internal business processes of the company. These investments are impact on the organizational aspect of the business eliminating losses of time or equipment.
For example, technological investments leverage on the overall business strategy of being just in time, like the use of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags to track inventory from suppliers to consumers that eliminated any blockages along the supply-chain management system.
The placement of RFID tags on inventory also reduces the tendency of employees to steal from the company because the technology improves and speeds up tracking (Malhotra, 2005).
Abolish all excesses, through reduction, recycling and reuse of all supplies that moves into the company’s stores, by 2025. To achieve this objective Wal-Mart intends to reduce the level of packaging within its store supply chain by five per cent by 2013.
The company is developing sustainable packaging solutions in conjunction with its suppliers. In addition, the company has implemented a strategy that persuades customers to buy reusable bags for shopping.
The objective has targets customer satisfaction in a green conscious environment and aims at increasing the overall efficiency of the companies operation, which reduces costs in the long term that would otherwise be attributed to waste management. Reusable bags will assist the company to cut its plastic bag excesses by a third by 2013.
The company is incorporating various environmental sustainability efforts such as making dog beds out of tattered plastic bottles. The company runs fifteen supply trucks on biofuel out of the grease collected from its chicken roasters.
In addition, the company seeks to test four new types of fuel-efficient trucks. Other notable actions include the installation of solar power system on its Mexico store and adoption of a new sustainable design of its stores that incorporate recycled chimneys and use of soya beans instead of plastics to create floors (Environmental Leader, 2009).
The objective on reducing waste adds to the financial objective of cutting expenses because it saves on costs on the excess purchases. Recycling also lowers costs for purchase of new material and saves the company of legal requirements on sustainability.
Increasing the company’s presence on the internet and making the online shopping system robust builds customer satisfaction and results to word of mouth advertising that is a boon to the profitability of the company as it increases overall purchases.
References
Environmental Leader. (2009). Wal-Mart Wants to Eliminate All Packaging Waste by 2025. Web.
Knowledge@Wharton. (2000). Walmart.com Round Two: Jeanne Jackson Does Some Remodeling. Knowledge@Wharton. Web.
Malhotra, Y. (2005). Integrating knowledge management technologies in organizational business processes: getting real time enterprises to deliver real business performance. Journal of Knowledge Management, 9(1), 7-28.