Wal-Mart and the Information Age
Since it was founded in the early 1960s, Wal-Mart has been committed to being a successful retailer in the United States. Throughout the years, Wal-Mart has changed its business practices to take advantage of the ever-changing global digital economy. By introducing several uses of information technology and information systems, the company started a track which would lead them into becoming one of the nation's largest and most profitable companies. Wal-Mart's past, present, and future have all been affected by the deployment and integration of information technology.
During Wal-Mart's early years, the use of technology was very limited, which restricted growth and profit. In 1962, Wal-Mart was founded by Sam Walton in the small town of Rogers, Arkansas, and by 1970 thirty stores were in operation (13). Wal-Mart was built upon the philosophy of providing value for the customer and empowering employees (4). By implementing this belief, by 1979, Wal-Mart reached the level of one billion dollars in annual sales faster than any other company (13). Throughout the 1970s, David Glass, who would succeed Sam Walton, insisted that the company invest in more advanced merchandise-tracking and distribution systems in order to handle the increase in sales as the number of stores increased (7). These systems would be needed for Wal-Mart to go beyond its localized stores in the South and Midwest. By 1988, ninety percent of Wal-Mart stores had barcode scanning capability, which aided in tracking of merchandise (13). While this new system reduced costs, employees who used to stamp items by hand were displaced, and there were several occasions in which the bar code scanners did ...