We want to lead next retail disruption, says Walmart Labs India head

NEW DELHI: The covid-19 pandemic disrupted supply chains around the world and highlighted the need to transform traditional supply chain models. Walmart Labs, the technology arm of the US retail giant helped its retail stores in India, and globally, maintain operations with limited disruption. In an interview, Walmart Labs country head and senior vice-president – technology Hari Vasudev tells Mint how technology is helping the nearly 60-year-old company pivot in the post-covid world. Edited excerpts:

1. How are you adapting to the new normal aat Walmart?

Walmart has remained resilient to the impact of covid-19 in the last few months. Our technology teams here in India are moving our agenda forward on ‘future of work’. Our focus now is on building and deploying technology to bend the cost curve for the company while ensuring speed, quality and simplicity. The current transformation in customer segments and purchase preferences due to the pandemic has shown us the need for rapid digitization in the retail industry.

Emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) will become an eminent part of retail to understand dynamic demand signals, to realign supply chains, to redefine the need of essential workforces and strategy to adapt to the new normal. Our centre in India, for example, has developed a technology where the system can help in forecasting the stock needed in a store in a particular location depending on the demand for the same, based on previous customer purchase and stocking patterns.

AI powers customer experience, supply chain, operations, query management, catalogue management, and more to make the processes efficient and cut costs.

2. How challenging will the next one year be for business?

Retailers will have to continuously innovate to address the changing external environment. There is a need to implement technologies that will disrupt retail. Increasing digital penetration has provided customers with easy access to e-commerce and we can witness a shift to online retail. Additional factors such as convenience and the concern for health are also enabling this growth. For the retailers, the focus will be on using technology effectively to better manage inventory and reduce costs through efficiency in logistics.

3. What steps have Walmart Labs taken to maintain business continuity?

We have a two-pronged approach to maintain business continuity. One is technology-led and the other is people-led. Our focus for the coming year is to power Walmart to lead the next retail disruption. For this, our key priorities will be to improve our ways of working, putting emphasis on the fundamentals and our guiding principles. Technology will play a huge role in establishing speed in our processes, enable innovation and sustain business value. And while we continue adopting the new normal, the wellbeing of our people remains our top priority.

Walmart has been providing its employees with a slew of benefits. These include IT support, physical infrastructure at home, healthcare support like on-call doctor consultations and virtual wellness sessions by experts. From a long-term perspective, our approach is to involve our employees in the conversation and crowdsource solutions. Through surveys, focus groups and workplace pages, associates are sharing their sentiments and ideas in a collaborative effort with the leadership to set up the virtual workplace of the future.

4. How will technology help supply chain in new market realities?

There is a need to have a robust supply chain mechanism powered by technologies such as AI and Machine Learning to predict demand and ensure in-time sourcing. This needs to be dynamic, responsive and interconnected to an organization’s ecosystem, coupled with processes which provides end-to-end visibility and real-time insights for decisive actions. Also, there is a push towards online platforms where the connected supply chain is much more extensive.

5. How are consumer behaviour patterns changing?

The onset of this pandemic has caused a change in customer behaviour faster than what most brands could foresee. A few trends which we expect to develop in the near future are a shift to online platforms as well as increase to contactless methods of interaction, medical safety and physical distancing measures and more focus on purchasing essential products and daily staples.