Walmart Change Initiative

Walmart Change Initiative
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Walmart Change Initiative
The United States e-commerce industry has been undergoing rapid growth driven by giants such as Amazon and Walmart. The industry reached its highest ever growth after the onset of the COVID-19 impacts which forced many consumers to rely on online shopping. According to Keyes (2020), Walmart is right at the center of this growth and the company is implementing various changes to ensure it reaps the benefits of this growth in the e-commerce industry. This change initiative is focused on Walmart’s nationwide order fulfillment services. Walmart’s momentum in the e-commerce industry commenced back in 2016. This momentum was jumpstarted by the acquisition of jet.com which was a newcomer in the online retail industry. The jet.com website was only a year old before its acquisition. The acquisition resulted in Walmart’s e-commerce growth by about 35% which outpaced the main competitor Amazon that only enjoyed a growth of approximately 25% in 2016 (Thompson, 2020). With the acquisition strategy working in 2016, Walmart repeated the same in 2017 by further acquiring Moosejaw.com and shoebuy.com which were also popular e-commerce companies. The double acquisitions in 2017 led to a 42.8% Walmart’s e-commerce sales increase. These rapid acquisitions have proved beneficial in Walmart’s sudden rise in the e-commerce industry. By 2020, the company had surpassed eBay to clinch the second position as the second titan in the U.S. e-commerce market. As reported by business insider the company is continuing to gain ground in the industry as its U.S. e-commerce sales were recorded to hit 97% in the company’s second-quarter (Q2) of its 2021 fiscal year (Keyes, 2020). This growth is anticipated to rise as more people continue getting used to the new normal of shopping online due to the pandemic. While the growth is beneficial to the company, it has exposed a challenge in the last mile delivery. The following change initiative is intended at revolutionizing Walmart’s nationwide last-mile delivery services to cater to the continued rapid growth of the company’s e-commerce sales.
As the General Manager of the recently opened Denvenport fulfillment store in Florida, I clearly understand the last mile challenge Walmart is experiencing in delivering products to customers. This change initiative will utilize John Kotter’s eight-step model of change implementation. The initiative will combine change recommendations with Kotter’s stages. The very first step of implementing change as recommended by Kotter’s mode is creating urgency. According to Kotter (2012), creating an environment where people are aware of an existing challenge creates a scenario where individuals are likely to support proposed changes. In other words, it is important to start with creating awareness of an issue before proposing changes. With the segmentation of feedback from customers, Denvenport fulfillment center has received several complaints of late orders. Being the general manager, I have created a store feedback forum where all associates can comment on the existing problems and potential solutions. For this change initiative, the feedback forum needs to be extended to other executives including Regional Vice President and Market Managers who are above me. Extending this feedback forum to top management will be the best way of creating awareness of the issue. Moreover, creating urgency will entail reminding stakeholders about the increasing consumer base of Walmart’s order fulfillment services. The currently increasing volumes of order fulfillment due to COVID-19 and newly launched Walmart Fulfillment Services (WFS) will serve as a reminder of the need to optimize the services (Kohan, 2020). This step will help prepare the company for a change.
The second step of the change initiative is forming strong collaborations with both the executive team and subordinates. I understand that everyone has a role to play in implementing change. This step is conversant with the forming of a powerful coalition as recommended by Kotter’s change model. According to Kotter (2012), it is difficult for any single individual to drive organizational change. Successful change requires a group of individuals with various competencies to be put together to operate as a team that will push for change. The team is important in helping spread messages throughout the organization and to help in task delegation that will facilitate change in an organization. Walmart is a vast organization. The proposed change encouraging customers to be part of the last-mile delivery will not only happen at the Denvenport fulfillment center but will also be encouraged in other fulfillment centers. As such, it is important to form a collaboration with general managers of other fulfillment centers. Moreover, the change will require a go-ahead from the executives in a different capacity. I am just a store general manager whose jurisdiction only runs within the control of store operations. Above me are executives such as market managers, regional vice president, and senior vice president. As a store general manager, it is difficult and almost impossible to implement a change without involving my superiors. Additionally, I have to involve my subordinates who include co-manager, assistant manager, and support manager. All these collaborations will be implemented through a series of meetings discussing the change agenda and collecting additional views on the best way to solve the last-mile challenge.
The third step will be addressing the complexity of making everyone understand the intended change. For people at the top management in Walmart's organizational structure, it would be hard to understand the issue of the last mile. This challenge is best understood by junior associates who closely interact with the consumers. Kotter’s change management model suggests that a clear vision for change should be developed to help everyone associate with the proposed change (Kotter, 2012). Such a vision creates a common ground with which everyone can associate to commit to the change. As such, the vision is required to be simple to understand and also be inspirational enough to have a maximum impact. In the instance of Walmart, the vision created in this step would have to be in line with the company’s mission and vision. For instance, Walmart’s mission revolves around helping individuals around the world to save money and lead better lives (Kohan, 2020). As for the vision, the company aims at making life easy for busy families (Kohan, 2020). Considering the mission and vision of the company, the mission for the change initiative will be “involving customers to ensure swift and cheap deliveries.” This vision captures both the intended process of the change (involving customers) and the end to be achieved (swift deliveries). This vision is simple enough for everybody to understand...