Information Systems
This textbook explores the fundamental concepts of information systems, demonstrating their structure, purpose, and importance in the modern business landscape, offering expert guidance on the topic, and giving real-world context to tie in with specific learning objectives.
Sidebar: Walmart Uses Information Systems to Become the World's Leading Retailer
Walmart is the world's largest retailer, earning 8.1 billion for the fiscal year that ended on January 31, 2018. Walmart currently serves over 260 million customers every week worldwide through its 11,700 stores in 28 countries. In 2018 Fortune magazine for the sixth straight year ranked Walmart the number one company for annual revenue as they again exceeded $500 billion in annual sales. The next closest company, Exxon, had less than half of Walmart's total revenue. Walmart's rise to prominence is due in large part to making information systems a high priority, especially in their Supply Chain Management (SCM) system known as Retail Linking $14.3 billion on sales of $30.
This system, unique when initially implemented in the mid-1980s, allowed Walmart's suppliers to directly access the inventory levels and sales information of their products at any of Walmart's more than eleven thousand stores. Using Retail Link, suppliers can analyze how well their products are selling at one or more Walmart stores with a range of reporting options. Further, Walmart requires the suppliers to use Retail Link to manage their own inventory levels. If a supplier feels that their products are selling out too quickly, they can use Retail Link to petition Walmart to raise the inventory levels for their products. This has essentially allowed Walmart to "hire" thousands of product managers, all of whom have a vested interest in the products they are managing. This revolutionary approach to managing inventory has allowed Walmart to continue to drive prices down and respond to market forces quickly.
Today Walmart continues to innovate with information technology. Using its tremendous market presence, any technology that Walmart requires its suppliers to implement immediately becomes a business standard. For example, in 1983 Walmart became the first large retailer to require suppliers to the use Uniform Product Code (UPC) labels on all products. Clearly, Walmart has learned how to use I.T. to gain a competitive advantage.