Critical.
Authoritative.
Strategic.
Subscribe to CIO Magazine »

Blog: IT and Wal-Mart's Meta-Story

I just finished working with my colleague Tom Wailgum on our package of articles about how Wal-Mart lost its technology edge. There's a big lesson there about IT strategy, and not just for big companies.

Wal-Mart placed the right bets on supply chain technology at a time when it could provide them with competitive advantage. I think the reason that Wal-Mart's management recognized the bang they would get from their supply chain had mostly to do with it's meta-story--the overarching story the company told about itself as a low-cost retailer. Supply-chain dominance became a logical chapter in that story.

It certainly worked in their favor to be first with a lot of the technology. But if you look at the technology timeline that accompanies Tom's article, it's pretty clear that almost every major breakthrough Wal-Mart made with IT supported who they believed they were. I think you can trace its recent problems to the persistence of that vision despite massive changes in the retail industry in the past 10 years.

Nick Carr writes in his blog that Wal-Mart's decline, and its recent decisions to choose packaged software from SAP, HP and Oracle, is a triumph of commodity software over homegrown legacy systems. But I think the significance of Wal-Mart's decision isn't only, or even primarily, to do with packaged software being as good or better than what they build themselves. They need new IT, and fast, to tell a new story about themselves. Whether they'll figure out what that story is, and whether they are able to use it to put themselves back on the map as innovators remains to be seen, of course.

But getting the story - the strategy - right is the big key here. I interviewed Gary Hamel recently and his argument, that managing for efficiency won't get you competitive advantage anymore, seems apropos to me here. If efficiency is the price of entry into the marketplace now, then IT departments, like the rest of management, have to start looking elsewhere to put their companies on the map, whether or not they invent the technology that fulfills their vision.

Join the CIO Australia group on LinkedIn. The group is open to CIOs, IT Directors, COOs, CTOs and senior IT managers.

More about: Hewlett-Packard, HIS Limited, HP, Logical, Oracle, SAP, Wal-Mart

Comments

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
Users posting comments agree to the CIO comments policy.
Login or register to link comments to your user profile, or you may also post a comment without being logged in.
Related Whitepapers
Latest Stories
Community Comments
Latest Blog Posts
Whitepapers
  • How will CIOs meet growing Security Threats?
    The growing complexity and prevalence of security threats, enabled by consumer IT and mobility, sets the stage for ever more sophisticated attacks. Security must be proactively front and center in all IT deliverables, but CIOs and CSOs must work in concert to succeed in these efforts. In this interactive white paper from CIO Magazine and EMC, learn how tightening the relationship between CIOs and CSOs will help create trust, the foundation of business relationships today. Embedded videos feature Art Coviello, Sanjay Mirchandani, and Dave Martin, and a quick survey provides benchmarking between CIO peers.
    Learn more »
  • CISO Guide to Next Generation Threats - Combating Advanced Malware, Zero-Day and Targeted APT Attacks
    Over 95% of businesses unknowingly host compromised endpoints, despite their use of firewalls, intrusion prevention systems (IPS), antivirus and Web gateways.1 Today’s attacks look new and unknown to signature-based tools because the attacks employ advanced malware and zero-day vulnerabilities. To regain the upper hand against next-generation attacks, enterprises must turn to true next-generation protection: signature-less, proactive and real time. Read on.
    Learn more »
  • Oracle Database 11g for Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence
    Oracle Database 11g is a comprehensive database platform for data warehousing and business intelligence that combines industry-leading scalability and performance, deeply integrated analytics, and embedded integration and data-quality -- all in a single platform running on a reliable, low-cost grid infrastructure. Read on.
    Learn more »
All whitepapers
rhs_login_lockGet exclusive access to Invitation only events CIO, reports & analysis.