The Insider’s View: A Look at How Product Fits Within the World’s Largest Retailer
The?#retail environment?is constantly?changing,?and our?customers'?expectations are?changing?right?along?with it.?Customers expect quick and convenient access to the items they?want, when?they want them.?Our response is?to?build?elegant, yet?simple experiences?to?give our customers access to Walmart’s merchandise,?stores?and services – anytime, anywhere.?Just as important are our internal tools and organizations -?designed to empower associates and simplify their work.?
The Product?team?plays an integral role in informing and executing?Walmart’s?strategy by delivering innovative and purpose-driven experiences that help people in communities across America save money and live better.?We?are responsible?for?the products, platforms and services that serve 150?million customers?every week?and 1.5 million associates across more than 4,700?U.S.?stores, Walmart.com and the Walmart app.?
Product professionals have?ample?opportunity?to make a?tremendous?difference at Walmart. Product management is becoming?our company’s?force multiplier, and?it’s?far greater than the sum of its parts.?Over the next couple?of weeks,?I’ll?share?a few?stories and examples of how Product?is?leading the way. Today,?I’ll?kick?it?off by sharing?how we revamped our organizational structure.??
Revamping Walmart’s Silo Structure?
When I joined Walmart, product teams were nested throughout the company across various?divisions.?For example, the baby registry team reported?up through eCommerce, while the associate product team reported up through operations. This structure produced roadmaps that supported the?strategic?needs of the vertical, rather than putting the customer at the center of our work.??
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The challenge: Siloed product structures?slowed us down, made for a broken customer experience and?produced?a complex work environment for our associates.??
The solution: Omnichannel – creating one product organization to oversee all products, platforms and services for our customers and associates.?
The result: Now product governs intake, prioritizes requirements?based on strategic and financial criteria,?and manages roadmaps and backlogs to deliver the most effective products.?Our level of backing and trust from Walmart’s leadership is rewarding. Plus,?the work is massively complex, which makes it thrilling?to solve.?
The takeaway:?There is a straight line from organizational?structure?to?user experience. Product development is never a one-and-done proposition. All our products are linked to one another and the product team?is responsible for?connecting?the?dots. Companies must get their internal structures right if they want to effectively deliver products for their end users.?
Director Executive Search - Founding Member, Genome Quest | Ex Walmart Global Tech, Egon Zehnder | Alumni: XLRI, University of Glasgow, GLA University | MBA, B.Tech
3 年Insightful to learn more about the synergy generated through customer experience driven org structure. Definitely a force multiplier !
Product Leader (Omni Digital Experience) @ Walmart | Cleartrip | Snapdeal
3 年An empowered, customer-centric org should be like a network of N-nodes of people and resources. Best to have adjacencies of N for each node with a max degree of separation of 2 with the customer. The more fragmented the graph is, the more inefficiency and politics it breeds. Thanks for creating a great product culture at Walmart!
Product @ Target | CPG | Retail
3 年This last sentence reminds me of Conway’s Law, “Companies must get their internal structures right if they want to effectively deliver products for their end users.” Products will only be as good as the teams who build them.
Simple yet powerful observation. From business perspective Org is a series of verticals. From Customer perspective it's one single horizontal with connected dots,
John Seely Brown Thomas Kehler Amanda Reed Toby Eduardo Redshaw