Contemporary management techniques: Walmart case

Introduction

Walmart is one of the top retail corporations in the world. Since its inception, the company has largely operated under a brick-and-motor model. Still, in the recent past, it has adopted an online retail model largely because of the increased penetration of the internet, connectivity, and the ability to reach each potential buyer at an individual level (Our Business, 2021). Despite the success that the corporation has had to date, several critical success factors (CSF) have been selected for Walmart.

For this paper, Business Process Improvement (BPI) is selected as the contemporary management technique that is not presently being implemented that could help the organization in achieving its CSFs. This paper, therefore, is a discussion of the BPI contemporary management technique starting with a rationale for the selection of the technique than an in-depth analysis of the technique, which describes the technique, its implementation process, its application from other organizations, its applicability to Walmart, and lastly, plan for implementation.

The rationale for the selection of the BPI technique

BPI is selected as one of the contemporary management techniques that Walmart has not yet implemented. This technique is selected based on its potential to aid Walmart in the realization of its CSFs. In addition, the adoption of BPI bears the potential to improve the quality of Walmarts products that are on offer for purchase by their customers. Therefore, it is obvious that BPI that Walmart can use to improve its customers experiences, internal business processes, and increment of revenue, as well as potentially improve their staff satisfaction with the corporation as a place to work improve employee retention.

Walmart will improve its competitiveness in the retail sector if it improves its existing processes. BPI is a technique that allows managers to identify business processes and procedures that are falling short (Blocher & Hicks, 2019). BPI is used by businesses to audit and eradicate wastage and reduce the time it takes to provide products and services. BPI can also be used to identify whether the corporation is complying with established quality control and operational standards.

BPI technique is useful as it would enable the corporation to meet its business goals and demands by customers effectively. To meet its CSFs, the corporation will need to enhance the efficiency of business processes. The primary goal of BPI is to transform the performance of the corporation (McIvor, 2016). Through BPI, Walmart will be able to improve its sales and profitability levels.

BPI is also a management technique that is important for the elimination of inefficiencies in the business processes. With a focus on staff, BPI has the potential to improve employee productivity. A business can streamline its processes through BPI application, thus cut down on unnecessary costs (Nickerson, 2014). For example, the adoption of new technology can help streamline processes.

In the case of Walmart Inc., its industry has become increasingly competitive, especially in the context of COVID-19 related lockdowns that necessitate online shopping. Therefore, it only makes that sense that Walmart should seek to reduce significantly the time the delivery time of an order. As a result of the increased online traffic, companies have been forced to review their processes and embrace new innovative production technologies.

This requires updating the existing processes to catch up with the ever-changing technology and meet financial targets. In addition, the need to remain competitive in the market necessitates the adoption of new, more efficient processes, procedures, and technological systems. The decision to or not adopt new systems and processes bears the potential to affect an organizations future stability and profitability.

Various factors drive the need to change old systems and processes. The first and probably the most powerful is customer service concerns. Customers will normally raise concerns in case the quality of products and services is low. If the company fails to address these concerns, these customers will opt for alternative substitutes, leading to reduced sales and profitability for the company.

Adoption of new business processes and systems bears the potential to addressing concerns raised by customers. The second factor is the costs of production. An increase in production costs to unsustainable levels is sure to drive a firm to adopt new systems and processes that will help in the reduction of production costs. The third factor is employee productivity. In case there is a reduction in employee productivity or employees do not meet the required targets. The company would be required to embrace innovative human resource techniques and strategies (Nickerson, 2014).

The fourth factor is competitive challenges. A firm can only be competitive if it adopts lean, efficient, and effective production systems and processes. The presence of competition in the market will require a firm to differentiate its products, which would mean first understanding the products offered by the competitors (Yousfi, Batoulis & Weske, 2019). Attributes that directly influence the competitiveness of the companys products are cost, productivity, customer satisfaction, and customer needs. Lastly, firms will be driven to adopt new technology if there is new and advanced technology available. Adopting new and advanced tech is sure to improve sales and profitability, e.g., through automation of particular business processes that improve operational efficiency.

Description of business process improvement

BPI is essentially a technique used by managers to re-design operations and procedures within an organization. Firms use BPI for the realization of high quality in target function areas. Moreover, as Griesberger, Leist and Zellner (2011) argued, firms use BPI to bring about flexibility in production processes.

The adoption of BPI generates positive results in the critical areas of customer focus and operational fficiency. In some organizations, implementation of BPI results in cost reduction and improvement in organizational performance. Once BPI is adopted, a firm can evaluate performance indicators or CSFs to determine BPI implementation. Some CSFs that can be used to measure the change include customer satisfaction, product quality, time, and costs.

Implementation of BPI essentially starts with an audit of the existing operational processes and procedures. Through the implementation of the full process of BPI, an organization can achieve three goals. The first goal is to reduce the time required for processes. The implementation of BPI is done to analyze the effectiveness of how a firm conducts its business processes. Thus, as early stated, an organization can improve its process efficiency (Griesberger et al., 2011 Yousfi et al., 2019).

Moreover, it allows for the elimination of unnecessary and ineffective processes. The second goal is for the improvement of output quality. The adoption and implementation of BPI should promote better products and services with the same resources. The analysis done before adopting BPI allows for identifying any errors and defects in the production process, errors and defects that can have a negative effect and lower the quality of products and services.

Therefore, once BPI is implemented, it allows for eliminating these errors and defects, then it is possible to improve on the output quality of products and services (Griesberger et al., 2011). The third goal for the implementation of BPI is to reduce waste and wastage. Through the implementation of BPI, an organization can establish wasteful business processes. Once these processes are identified, then they are eliminated from the workflow planning. As a result, the organizations overall productivity improves with the implementation of BPI. Furthermore, BPI bears the potential to enable employees to focus on tasks that add value to the organization.

Implementation of BPI

Implementing BPI begins with setting clear organizational goals that are to be achieved through the particular change being sought. Thus, the implementation...…with the ever-changing consumer trends. For example, it has been observed that consumers like shopping in supermarkets in local businesses (); thus, through BPI, Walmart can introduce Brick-and-mortar stores in neighborhoods.

Walmart can also use BPI to improve the quality of its services further. By adopting new innovative technologies, for example, virtual reality, it would be possible for customers to interact with product Walmart online store, thus improving consumer satisfaction.

Moreover, streamlining their brick-and-mortar stores and increasing payment points would reduce waiting time to checkout, improving customer satisfaction. In addition, automation of some processes in their brick-and-mortar store is sure to cut down on customer wait time. In their online store, eliminating unnecessary contact points in the supply chain and streamlining their delivery system is sure to improve customer satisfaction and profitability.

Walmart can also apply BPI to sharpen and boost its marketing strategies. The current image and perception that many present and potential customers have about Walmart is just another retail store. Still, not many especially those outside the US market see the company as an opportunity to save when shopping. The company must undertake a campaign to improve its perception and create a more visible online presence. Through BPI methodologies, Walmart can create targeted marketing messages that build on the companys brand image that is considered driven and seeks to help customers save money.

Implementation plan

Effective implementation of BPI for Walmart dictates that the process adheres to specific steps. The first step is to carry out a mapping process that audits operational processes. This step allows for understanding how the various business procedures work, and in the process, identify those procedures that are weak and inefficient (Palkina, 2018).

For example, one of the procedures that would be identified as weak is the employee retention processes, which results in high employee turnover. Another weakness identified for Walmart is the few checkout points for their brick-and-mortar stores, which results in the high customer waiting times. This step would be useful as it would allow Walmart to realize the costs for high employee turnover and keep customers in waiting lines for a long.

Once the existing processes are audited and mapped, the next step is for Walmart to analyze for determination of the root cause of the identified weaknesses. For example, the cause for long waiting times is the few checkout points in the brick-and-motor stores. Additionally, the cause for high employee turnover is employee dissatisfaction and lack of effective motivation strategies. Due to high employee turnover, the company has to incur additional expenses in training costs, hiring expenses and related costs, etc., which ultimately eats on profit margins.

The third step is to design or re-design the existing processes. These phases would require Walmart to carry out analysis to determine how it can change the inefficient old processes in the organizations. In addition, Walmart should adopt appropriate measurement metrics to evaluate the new processes and compare them with the old processes. For example, the company would analyze how the adoption of new employee motivation strategies improves employee retention, with employee turnover being the metric. The goal is to reduce it.

The last step in this plan would be to implement the BPI initiative. Being the final step would require the acquisition of the various resources that enable seamless implementation of the change. Some of the changes that would be implemented would include adopting employee motivation strategies, installing more checkout points for their brick-and-mortar stores, extension into new markets, and adopting targeted advertising campaigns to change employee perception of Walmart.

Throughout the process, the company needs to keep Walmart shareholders informed at every step of the process. Once the various strategies are implemented, Walmart should carry out monitoring and evaluation to ensure that the instituted changes deliver the…