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The Walmart Global Tech (WGT), the technology arm of the $572 billion retail giant Walmart, in India has seen a 10 times growth in employee headcount in the last seven years as the retailer leverages technology to drive customer experience for over 230 million global customers.
The launch of the Chennai center in 2020 helped in quick employee ramp-up with an addition of 2,000 employees in the city alone, said a senior company official.
From just 900 employees in 2015, the WGT in India has today over 10,000 and continues to grow, said Prashanti Bodugum, Chennai Center Head of WGT. India is the largest tech center of Walmart, which has stores in the US, international and Sam’s Club.
“Every new technology that was introduced at Walmart was due to the Indian talent who could be quickly onboarded,” she told businessline.
Walmart operates over 10,500 stores and clubs under 46 banners in 24 countries and e-commerce websites. As of the end of FY2022, it employed around 2.3 million associates worldwide, with around 1.7 million in the US.
Chennai center
Out of the 10,000 plus employees, 8,000 are in Bengaluru; 2,000 in Chennai around 250 in Gurugram. Chennai is the youngest center working on the latest technologies, and also financial services like Gurugram.
WGT recruits freshers from tier-I and tier-II colleges, and also experienced people from the industry, she added.
The WGT in India has been in existence since 2008 with a center in Bengaluru, followed by a small center at Gurugram. However, in the midst of the pandemic, it chose Chennai as the second major center.
“All the technology work is done at both Chennai and Bengaluru. We don’t differentiate between the two,” she said.
“We believe in a four-in-a-box model and it is all about product development by setting up the product, architecture, user experience and engineering teams at the same location. This helps in having an end-to-end work, and creates a collaborative effort for the teams to churn out products quickly,” she added.
Pandemic accelerates digitisation
The pandemic accelerated Walmart’s digital journey, and in turn, led to the growth of the India tech center. Consumers were able to do a lot of different things that they could not do earlier.
For example, Walmart rolled out the kerbside pick-up solution to ensure there are fewer less footfalls in the store and to make order delivery easier and safer during the pandemic. Consumers place orders online and go to the Walmart store to pick up the order. This became popular during the pandemic as customers avoided visiting stores, she said.
The latest is Be Your Own Model (BYOM), an Augmented Reality-powered online shopping experience that enables customers to virtually try on clothing. The experience helps address one of the biggest problems with shopping – not knowing how an apparel item will look in real life.
The BYOM leverages Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms and intricate machine learning (ML) models — techniques originally utilised in developing highly accurate topographic maps. India-based WGT associates played a large role in this experience’s development, she said.
The Global Integrated Fulfilment app virtually queues up customers and enables store associates to prep orders ahead of time. With real-time notifications, store associates stay connected with customers right from their arrival at the store kerbside till they deliver the order, without even stepping out of their car, she said.
The second thing is scan-and-go as one can just scan the barcode in the store and get the billing done, and walk out without any waiting in the long queue.
The latest is be-your-own-model which enables you to see for yourself in a picture what fits you the best. It could be a dress or a spectacle, and make decisions to buy accordingly. This is quite popular in the US right now.
Tech innovation
AI powering product assortment: AI and connected intelligence have transformed the way Walmart and Sam’s Club operate, helping us get the right assortment in the right clubs at the right time.
“With accurate AI forecasting and connected intelligence, last year we sold enough pies to cover the length of 450 football fields while staying ahead of customer demand and reducing food waste,” she said.
It all started with the ML forecasting model which considers things like weather, trends, events, holidays, shelf life and proper substitutions down to the hour.
Using this data, suppliers replenished pumpkin pies into distribution centers, where ML helped plan the most efficient way to ship all to the 600 clubs. Sam’s Club plans to build on its AI efforts and will continue to double down on ML, she added.
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