Individual Reading Critique

Information Sharing in a Supply Chain

Half a Century of Supply Chain Management at Walmart
Desi Yuliana | IMBA | 107077427

One Major Takeaway:

These two articles show the dilemma of maximizing data to improve the effectiveness
and the efficiency of business. While the data acquisition, storing and analyzing, is a
complex management system but, as shown in these two papers, is possible to be imitated
by competitors. Walmart up and down shows that their competitive advantage is not
merely on information technology adoption, but in their way of improving their systems
over time. I noticed a constant trend in the second paper; how the competitors keep
copying Walmart’s management systems, as its success is being published widely, make
it easier to be imitated by others. For example, competitors copying their distribution-
lead store expansion strategy or as they called it “hub-and-spoke” design.

As highlighted by the first paper, there are four information being shared in a supply
chain; the information, process, decision, and resources. In more- details, the data that is
being shared could be about inventory levels, sales data, order status for tracking or
tracing, self-forecast, production and delivery schedules, and other data (i.e. quality data,
lead times, queuing delay at work station, and services performance). Lee and Wang
(2000)1 categorized model of information sharing into three; information transfer model,
third party model, and information hub model. These three models are being used by
many big companies around the world to handle their need for information sharing
internally for their management to work flawlessly or externally for their suppliers and
vendors allowing them to adjust themselves with their needs. In the case of Walmart, I
see they utilized the first and the third model of information sharing model.

Question:
Mark (2012)2 remarked on the first paragraph of his work that Walmart’s competitors
has been gaining performance gap, such as Amazon.com. Morgan (2019)3, said that
Amazon dominates online retails, while Walmart lead the offline competition, what is the
best strategy for Walmart to compete in the online competition? Considering Amazon
also has the same ability with Walmart in the efficiency gain strategy.

Answer:
Online and offline retail business seem to have different rules of the game, but, in my
opinion, the competitive advantage of a company, as shown by Walmart, lies within its
innovativeness (willing to adapt), and its ability to drive their human resources to its
maximum potential.

1
Lee, Hu L., Wang,Seungjin. (2000). Information Sharing in a Supply Chain. Int. J. Manufacturing Technology and Management, Vol. 1,
No. 1
2 Mark, Ken., Johnson, P. Fraser. (2012). Half a Century of Supply Chain Management at Walmart. Richard Ivey School of Business

Foundation
3 Morgan, Blake. (2019). 7 Ways Amazon and Walmart Compete -A Look At The Numbers. Retrieved from Forbes:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/blakemorgan/2019/08/21/amazon-versus-walmart-goliath-versus-goliath