Walmart’s Indian Tech Team Playing Essential Role In Building Innovation: Walmart CEO

Walmart’s tech team in India is playing an essential role in building innovations including automating warehouses and enhancing customer experience, among others for the global retailing sector, said Doug McMillon, CEO and president of Walmart. 

Addressing the Converge@Walmart event, McMillon said that Element, which gives access to all AI and ML-enabled initiatives within Walmart, is one of the innovations of the company’s tech team.

“Element is invisible to our customers but works 24X7 to help improve the experience. It is giving our engineers access to problem-solving tools,” McMillon added. 

Speaking about Element’s use cases, McMillon said that Element will help Walmart’s team in improving aisle assortment, decreasing customers’ waiting time, and resolving various other problems for the ecommerce retailing giant.

Highlighting the impact of the COVID pandemic, he stated that the pandemic-led challenges helped Walmart ascertain a new purpose of helping customers save money as well as improve their lives. “We bring that purpose to life every day for about 230 million customers and members every week around the world,” he added. 

Speaking about the Indian market, Judith McKenna, president and CEO of Walmart International said, “With Walmart Global Tech, we’re building on what we’ve learned here in India — creating opportunities and access for customers and businesses that they never had before.”

McKenna also stated that Walmart is presently offering new opportunities to Indian businesses thereby, helping them grow and making them a part of its international supply chain. With this initiative, Walmart will achieve its made-in-India exports commitment of $10 Bn each year by 2027.

Emphasising the significance of the Indian economy, she said India plays a crucial role in the world economy owing to its rich talent, ability to revamp existing technologies, and enriched knowledge of the manufacturing sector.

The comments have been made following Walmart’s proclamation that its international advertising business grew in the second quarter of 2022, primarily on the back of strong performances by ecommerce giant Flipkart and its American advertising division.

“Global advertising business grew nearly 30%, led by Walmart Connect in the US and Flipkart advertising,” Walmart said in its Q2 report.

It has to be noted that Walmart currently leads the ecommerce giant Flipkart in India after acquiring it for $16 Bn in 2018. Besides this, it also backs the Indian digital payment app PhonePe.

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