Neil Ashe, a CEO of global e-commerce of the biggest retailer in the world, is tasked with a challenging mission to create a defensive line against the world's biggest online retailer, Amazon, by making e-commerce central to the company and "lead Wal-Mart into a more digital future".
WM has many cards up its sleeves.
The biggest one is its sheer size that ability to generate revenue. The company reported $446b of top line performance in 2013. It has deep pockets and is capable to finance pretty much any kind of strategic initiative.
For many years the company has been at the forefront of supply chain management/logistics innovations and a leader in retail technologies. It currently has 11,000 stores worldwide.
However, being nimble enough to weave together physical and digital retailing - the quality that consumers now have come to expect from the retailers - is a major challenge for the behemoth.
WalMart's Black Friday one-hour guarantee is an example of how the company "takes the assets we have and make them contemporary" in attempt to respond to "shoppers' shifting expectations".
The company bought several start-ups that developed expertise in social gifting, subscription boxes and other online retailing trends.
In 2014 WalMart expects to reach $13b in sales from Walmart.com - mere 3% of overall sale in 2012.
WalMart has long way to go...will it succeed?
- "At Wal-Mart, moving the needle on e-commerce", Fortune Tech: Technology blog
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