Wal-Mart's strategy is to be the low cost seller in the market, but how does a company sell at a lower price that the competition all the time? The answer lies in Wal-Mart's supply chain. While many rightfully point out that Wal-Mart's buying power is better anybody else's (Lu, 2014) , because it is the biggest retailer in the world, technology also plays a huge role in how Wal-Mart is able to sell at prices below all the other companies (Fishman, 2003).Wal-Mart has long recognized that the only way to offer the lowest prices is by sourcing its goods at the lowest price. This does not necessarily mean buying power – Costco, Target, Amazon and others can more or less match Wal-Mart's buying power – but it means getting goods to the store shelves as cheaply as humanly possible. Purchasing is only one part of that, and Wal-Mart has long been a leader at total supply chain management as a means of extracting competitive advantage.

As an example, a few years ago Wal-Mart was an early adopter of RFID technology, which allows for tracking of goods in real time. By tracking in real time, using radio frequencies, Wal-Mart was...

The company has a track record of early adoption of promising technologies, and of being a leader in supply chain automation. Part of Wal-Mart's strategy is to tie different information systems together so that its stores report back sales to a system that does the ordering – identifying need in real time, then relying on a the automated supply chain to trigger orders, and suppliers to respond immediately to those trigger (ASA, 2011). In fact, if a supplier does not agree to accept Wal-Mart's technology, it will be removed as a supplier, such is how seriously Wal-Mart takes having not only the most modern technology but utilizing a streamlined stack in its supply chain.
Wal-Mart continues to be a leader in exploring the potential of new technology. The company…