World's Biggest IT Spender: Walmart

[HardOCP News]

Walmart is the world's biggest IT spender? Holy cow, I didn't see that coming.

According to a new IDC report, the world's largest companies spent $895 billion on technology in 2014 -- with discount retail giant Walmart taking the spending crown. Bank of America Corp. came in second, followed by Citigroup, AT&T and JPMorgan Chase.

 

[B00nie]

Since Walmart is not actually too visible online they probably spend so much due to being suckered by a large IT company to be their cash cow.

Companies pay millions regularly for absolute crap that causes more trouble than fixes.

 

[DocSavage]

With Bank of America coming in at second place, you'd think they could put in some ATMs to replace all of the drive-up tellers they fired over here.

 

[pavementeater]

Since Walmart is not actually too visible online they probably spend so much due to being suckered by a large IT company to be their cash cow.

Companies pay millions regularly for absolute crap that causes more trouble than fixes.

Actually Walmart does have other businesses outside of their normal brick and mortar retail stores ... they have a few New data centers through out the US .They have a sub company that sales their knowledge on shipping receiving , logistics and they have been doing the Big Data stuff pretty heavily the last 3-4 years\
Besides there is a lot of back end IT stuff that has to be setup and done to keep their Stores fully stocked world wide.

What I am surprised is AT&T being on the list... if you've ever set foot in an AT&T office you see that their internal back bone and systems are subpar. 70% of their IT is all outsources , which I guess maybe they root of their $$$ spending because it isn't hardware related

 

[iamwhoiamtoday]

Since Walmart is not actually too visible online they probably spend so much due to being suckered by a large IT company to be their cash cow.

Companies pay millions regularly for absolute crap that causes more trouble than fixes.

This. Seriously. In the process of watching this unfold at work now. The phrase "this is no way to support a Fortune 500" comes to mind daily.

 

[CaptNumbNutz]

It doesn't surprise me that the world's biggest company has the world's largest IT budget.

What does surprise me is that every Wal-Mart I have ever been to still has ancient cash registers that look like they were made in 1980's. Then again, supporting all the old shit might be why their IT budget is so high.

 

[rivertown_rat]

They probably saw the Target debacle and thought if they spent a whole lot of money they could avoid something similar.

 

[NoOther]

Since Walmart is not actually too visible online they probably spend so much due to being suckered by a large IT company to be their cash cow.

Companies pay millions regularly for absolute crap that causes more trouble than fixes.

Walmart is in direct competition with Amazon for internet sales. They actually were beating Amazon out causing Amazon to rethink a lot of their strategies. Plus Walmart has many different services they offer outside of their super stores. For instance, the streaming service Vudu is owned by Walmart. They also invest in technology to drive more business to their stores, like mobile apps. Here are just a few links pointing out where some of the cost of their IT is going:

http://www.fastcompany.com/most-innovative-companies/2014/industry/retail
http://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoc...ommerce-battle-could-boil-down-to-vegetables/
http://netonomy.net/2013/01/30/top-5-largest-online-retailers-who-companies-how-did-they-make-it/

So they aren't just shelling money out to IT because they don't know what they are doing, they waited, did research and then applied that research to the areas they felt would help them the most. Walmart may not be the best company out there, but they certainly are one of the smarter companies out there.

 

[cyclone3d]

It doesn't surprise me that the world's biggest company has the world's largest IT budget.

What does surprise me is that every Wal-Mart I have ever been to still has ancient cash registers that look like they were made in 1980's. Then again, supporting all the old shit might be why their IT budget is so high.

A cash register is a cash register. Sure you can get all fancy touch screen stuff, but there is no point in spending extra for that at Walmart. That kind of stuff is good for fast food places, but not really much else.

The main thing that bugs me at Walmart is the fact that they have like 30 lanes but only ever have 3-4 open and you end up waiting in line for 20-30 minutes on busy days because they skimp on staffing.

 

[cyclone3d]

Walmart is in direct competition with Amazon for internet sales. They actually were beating Amazon out causing Amazon to rethink a lot of their strategies. Plus Walmart has many different services they offer outside of their super stores. For instance, the streaming service Vudu is owned by Walmart. They also invest in technology to drive more business to their stores, like mobile apps. Here are just a few links pointing out where some of the cost of their IT is going:

http://www.fastcompany.com/most-innovative-companies/2014/industry/retail
http://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoc...ommerce-battle-could-boil-down-to-vegetables/
http://netonomy.net/2013/01/30/top-5-largest-online-retailers-who-companies-how-did-they-make-it/

So they aren't just shelling money out to IT because they don't know what they are doing, they waited, did research and then applied that research to the areas they felt would help them the most. Walmart may not be the best company out there, but they certainly are one of the smarter companies out there.

Amazon's site sucks for finding stuff unless you either like spending hours on there or know exactly what to type in the search.
It is so stupidly disorganized it angers me.

Most other huge online stores are almost as bad.

The absolute best I have ever seen in term of layout and ease of use is Newegg.

 

[dandirk]

The absolute best I have ever seen in term of layout and ease of use is Newegg.

+1 While I stopped using their site once they start the "marketplace" stuff, I still will use their awesome tools to search and drill down to the type of products I want and shop from there.

 

[Parmenides]

Didn't Steve once post a link showing the pay of IT or programmers by highest paying companies with walmart near the top? If they don't pay their store workers, they sure know to pay their IT employees.

 

[Verge]

Since Walmart is not actually too visible online they probably spend so much due to being suckered by a large IT company to be their cash cow.

Companies pay millions regularly for absolute crap that causes more trouble than fixes.

Largest retailer in the world by far.


They have rows and rows of san cabinets in their data centers. The amount of data they have is mind boggling.

 

[dbu8554]

Didn't Steve once post a link showing the pay of IT or programmers by highest paying companies with walmart near the top? If they don't pay their store workers, they sure know to pay their IT employees.

I know their mechanics make good money as well.

 

[fuzzylogik]

Actually Walmart does have other businesses outside of their normal brick and mortar retail stores ... they have a few New data centers through out the US .They have a sub company that sales their knowledge on shipping receiving , logistics and they have been doing the Big Data stuff pretty heavily the last 3-4 years\
Besides there is a lot of back end IT stuff that has to be setup and done to keep their Stores fully stocked world wide.

What I am surprised is AT&T being on the list... if you've ever set foot in an AT&T office you see that their internal back bone and systems are subpar. 70% of their IT is all outsources , which I guess maybe they root of their $$$ spending because it isn't hardware related

Yup, it was a while ago... but I believe the US Military was working with Wal-Mart because Wal-Mart was just that good at logistics.

 

[heatlesssun]

Yup, it was a while ago... but I believe the US Military was working with Wal-Mart because Wal-Mart was just that good at logistics.

My first good IT job was with Bausch & Lomb in the early 90s and the main thing I was working on was a inventory/shipping management system that was pretty much a demand coming from Walmart to business with them. Pretty bleeding edge at the time, barcode labels, file transmissions to Walmart's systems. They knew everything that was coming to them, when it was shipped, weight, pallet layouts, etc. Nothing special now but again this was almost 25 years ago.

For all of the stuff that ships through Walmart they have to be great at logistics.

 

[Grimlaking]

Yea, lets take that same spend on IT that Walmart does and break it down per corporate user, or per user over all. I'm betting their per employee spend is FAR LESS than one would expect it to be. Even if you scaled it into IT and other arenas I guarantee they are not spending on IT to head what every other company is.

I've dealt with them from two different vendor companies. They are completely incorrigible and you have people that work with them that regularly loose their jobs or rotate out of the position.

Getting stuck working with Walmart as a IT vendor is the equivalent to spending your time in the barrel. You're going to get it. You know you are. It is inevitable. And it is literally your job to grin and take it to preserve that large prestigious contract.

Unless you work for Oracle. Larry Ellison and Oracle got so tired of the abusive relationship that Walmart has with it's IT vendors that they simply packed up their toys and walked away from the table. Refused to renew support contracts with them and said simply. "We would rather not have your business."

I still cheer for Oracle because of that.

I know people who go into Walmart stores and intentionally screw with the stock in the store (moving it around and such.) simply to get back for having to support this vendor.

So if you have dreams of working for Walmart IT I would quickly dissuade you. And if you are offered a position to be a support lead to Walmart by a company. I would DOUBLY dissuade you from doing that. Seriously if it was between my kids eating dog food for a month or taking that particular job I would have to think about it.

 

[Ryokurin]

What does surprise me is that every Wal-Mart I have ever been to still has ancient cash registers that look like they were made in 1980's. Then again, supporting all the old shit might be why their IT budget is so high.

You don't need a lot of power to run a cash register. But you do need a lot of big iron in the back end to handle thousands of transactions a second securely. You don't wan't a lot of power in the end user's hands just in case it can be used as leverage. Look at Target.

 

[Kaitian]

So I wanted to look at the report yesterday. The cost to read the report? $3500! HAHAHAHAHA fuck you!

 

[TwistedAegis]

Honestly, don't know if it's their online presence. They have to do a huge amount of data analysis around pricing, sales, margins, supply costs, etc, to squeeze every penny out of their margins. To track all that, as I'm sure they do? Has to be a pretty massive and sophisticated set of systems.

 

[tazeat]

Considering they're the only local retailer I know of that requires the use of the EMV Chip on my Visa (on cards that have them) that does not surprise me. Lots of retailers have the new readers, but nobody else allows their use that I know of.