This week on the podcast Matt sits down with President and CEO of Walmart U.S., John Furner as part of the CEO Series. They begin with an intriguing conversation what has most prepared John for his current position, including doing challenging things like taking on a role in China with Walmart. He encourages the audience to do the same because doing hard things can often help you to learn the most. He also touches on the importance of servant leadership and trust that leads to innovation. Matt and John then discuss the idea of change and John shares advice about how to prepare for it especially as a student who is entering the work environment. The discussion then leads into the changes Walmart has experienced and the way that they approach changes in the industry and experimenting with new opportunities. The conversation finishes out by discussing how Walmart has shifted their merchandising strategy as a result of the omni-channel transformation and how Walmart is driving future efficiencies in their business to save customers money so they can live better.
Episode Transcript
John Furner 0:00
The world is going to move on with or without us at its pace, so you have to stay
at least at its pace or ahead of it. And then the third thing to think about is be
willing to disrupt the thing that you already did.
Matt Waller 0:13
Excellence, professionalism, innovation, and collegiality. These are the values of
the Sam M. Walton College of Business explores in education, business and the lives
of people we meet every day, I'm Matt Waller, Dean of the Walton College and welcome
to the Be Epic podcast. For the next few episodes, I will share conversations with
top CEOs about the future of the workplace. The pandemic has transformed the way that
we work, and we discuss their predictions for the future. I have with me today, John
Furner, President and CEO of Walmart, U.S. John has an extensive background. He has
been president and CEO of Walmart U.S. now for three years. He was president and CEO
of Sam's Club prior to this for about three years. He also has experienced being Senior
Vice President and ch-chief marketing and chief merchandising, merchandising Officer
of Walmart, China, for two years in Shenzen. He has lots of experience at Sam's Club,
and Walmart prior to this, and he graduated from the Walton College in 1996. Thank
you, John, for joining me today. I really appreciate it.
John Furner 1:33
Yea Matt, thanks for having me. And I think when I graduated, it was still just the
College of Business at the University of Arkansas. So great to hear the name in there
every time we refer to the college now.
Matt Waller 1:45
Yes, well, you're right, two years after you graduated, the largest gift at the time
ever given to a public business school was given and it just changed our trajectory,
we were able to go out and get amazing faculty members. I'm just thankful I was here
before that happened. But we got great faculty, and were able to provide scholarships
to keep wonderful students from Arkansas in Arkansas. But, but John, you know, your
career is with Walmart, which is very impressive. And now being the CEO of Walmart
U.S.. You know, just to think, you know, over a 25 year period, roughly, you all of
a sudden are not all of a sudden, I mean, three years ago, you were and you've you've
you've been in lots of different positions. I'd like to know, which can you pick out
a few positions that you've had, or experiences in your career that have most prepared
you for this position as president and CEO of Walmart U.S.?
John Furner 3:01
Sure. Yeah. Matt there probably a few we could talk about, I think you know most recently
had the opportunity that I had to go to China for three years and and work in Asia,
you've done that as well. It was one of those experiences where you just see and experience
so much more than you can when you're in the same town, state that you've been in
for a while. And in my case, I had been running global sourcing at Sam's, Sam's Club
for a few years. And so I've always enjoyed really love traveling and experiencing
other cultures. I like doing things that are that are different. And I honestly really
like things that are that are hard. And when the experience was was offered to move
to China with my family, it was, it wasn't no it was how quickly can we get to yes.
And how do we make it work? And we did. And that the changes that were going on in
Asia at that time, it was really becoming digital from a paper based society in many
ways, all happening right when I was there, so I got to experience and be a part of
a pace of change that I hadn't seen before, which really reset my expectations regarding
how fast things can move. And I think that made the transition into the leadership
roles in Sam's Club when I came back from Asia much much easier for me personally,
just because of the breadth of the assignment. So what I've always tried to tell people
in their career, those expat assignments in some cases, it may feel like a smaller
role because perhaps you have less people or the dollar revenue or smaller, but the
breadth of experience you get you just never get in something as large as Walmart
U.S. until you're at the very top so you know what a way to expand your horizons and
go see the world?
Matt Waller 4:45
Well, you know, you you mentioned something that really caught my attention that and
I know this about you in many different ways, but you like doing hard things-
John Furner 4:57
I do.
Matt Waller 4:59
And I know I've seen you, you've, you've been that way, not only in your work, but
even in some of your hobbies, I'm aware of some of the things you've done. But, you
know, I think this idea of doing hard things is something students need to hear. It
is good to do to take on things that stretch you, could be a course that's more difficult.
While you're a student, it could be a leadership position that you don't think you
can do. There's just so many things that can I've even heard students say they were
a camp counselor at a camp for a summer for several summers. And it was a real stretching
experience, you know, leading a bunch of young people and in hot weather and being
hungry, a lot, and not having very good food or good sleeping conditions, those kinds
of things.
John Furner 5:58
Yeah, I, I really, Matt, just look for people that it take on things that they didn't
have to. And some, in some ways, maybe they're hard, maybe they came easy to them.
But you know, people that learn another language or study abroad, or, you know, like
you just said, spend three months of your life basically giving back to others. They're
just signs that that people are curious, and they're willing to work through obstacles.
And they're, you know, you put a combination together really working on behalf of
others. One of the key principles that we talked about here at Walmart a lot is servant
leadership. And with teams the size of of all of our teams, if you're here for them,
and you're here to serve, then you'll love it, if you're not here for them, and you're
here for yourself, I think you'll find it to be very difficult and it was it was when
I was living in Asia in that experience, when I had is the first time in my career
that I had a start date and an end date on a job. And so it was an easy way to know,
been- and understand this is not about me, this is about doing something in a limited
amount of time that's going to make a difference for the long term. And just was a
great way to figure out this organization, it needs us to do the things that we can
we can do to help it. And it will, it will always it will always move on ahead.
Matt Waller 7:14
So doing hard things, being other focused. Being other focused is powerful. There's
no question about it, when, when you're other focused, you can empathize better with
other people understand how they're feeling, feel it with them even. And it helps
you gain alignment with people. You know, one of the most important functions of a
leader is gaining the alignment of other people. And especially when you're trying
to drive change. And if you're not other focused, I think it's very difficult to drive
change, people don't even you can tell when someone isn't other focused. And they're
if they're not other focused, it's hard to trust them.
John Furner 8:04
Yeah it is, and one of the things that we talk about occasionally but I heard a while
back is that innovation happens at the speed of trust. And without trust, you can't
innovate, you can't really do much other than maintain where things are. And so in
a time of change, which this is definitely in retail a time of change, at least at
a pace I've never seen before. This kind of change has to be led in many ways from
the top down. But if the top down leadership team is not aligned, it it just won't
happen. They're just too much second guessing another thing, we run the organization
from the bottom up, and then we have to change it from the side and the top down.
But we think of ourselves as leaders as part of an inverted pyramid with me at the
bottom and the customers on the top. And just below the top are all the frontline
associates. And then you work your way back across the organization with with me and
my team on the bottom.
Matt Waller 8:59
You mentioned that you can't, you know, remember a time where changes occurred so
quickly. And that's absolutely true. We see this in medical discoveries, we see it
in technological breakthroughs. We see it in even innovations around funding, business
processes. There's just so much going on right now in the world. And when you think
about taking care of consumers, and of course Walmart's mantra, save money, live better.
That there's all kinds of technologies being developed to help companies figure out
how to save money more efficiently, and, and save time and so forth. But there's also
and I know Walmart's experimenting with all kinds of things like drone delivery and-
I mean just experiment you're doing it, a friend of mine in Bentonville for my birthday,
ordered something using the drone delivery, and he videoed it and put it on LinkedIn.
And I thought, wow, this is so crazy that this is really happening today. But I remember,
zipline is another one that's so it's such an interesting technology. And I know those
are sort of on the fringes. But even inside the four walls of a distribution center,
there's innovations in terms of picking innovation and put away innovation, etc, etc.
What, what should people you know, so John, for people graduating from whatever university,
it may be whatever major it may be, and they want to work for Walmart? How should
they be preparing themselves to deal with all of this change?
John Furner 11:03
Well, a lot of what you learned in in school and college is you learned to be a lifelong
learner. And go back to the points you made earlier about people that find things
to do that they didn't have to do. So you have a curriculum, you have to take certain
number of hours to get, you know, x degree y degree. But it's really about learning
to be a lifelong learner and, and some of the exciting challenges that come along
with that is, is you never stop adapting and growing. The world is going to move on
with or without us at its pace. So you have to stay at least at its pace or ahead
of it. And then the third thing to think about is be willing to disrupt the thing
that you already did. So I'll give you a couple examples. If, if you're looking at
a supercenter today, I remember when we were trying to figure out how to make the
front end of the super center work back in the 90s. And I was a part of the program
and remember the way that we put the entire system together, and Matt we probably
changed that 10 times since then. So it worked. But just because it works today doesn't
mean that you can't change it and you shouldn't change it. So the question is, will
you be willing to disrupt yourself and if you don't disrupt yourself, then another
competitor or another company, someone's going to disrupt us, it's the way capitals
managed, the way that investments are made, that we're we're in a constant state of
disruption, the speed of those keep coming faster and faster. The interesting thing
about our industry is for years, retailers had to pick two of the three following
things either quality, low prices, or high service. And the innovations that you just
mentioned, a few of those are actually enabling high quality, low price and high service
because of the scale and speed of technology. So some of the paradigms we've operated
under for years and years and years, almost have to be rethought because of the speed
of computation. You know, I never thought growing up as a kid in wherever I was in
Fort Smith, Arkansas, or Russellville that I could I could push a button on a device
in my hand and 15 minutes later, something would fly over my head and drop it out
of the sky. But that's happening. It's not just an experiment.
Matt Waller 13:08
So, so John, you know, these changes are occurring, and how for you use the example
of how the front end of a supercenter operates, and how you've pivoted many times
over the years, that's really an entrepreneurial mindset, you know, having an entrepreneurial
mindset within the fortune one company, which I believe just in terms of my personal
observations of Walmart over the years that I think it is one of the strengths of
Walmart, the ability ability to make big changes relatively quickly. I mean, it's
not easy. And it's it but if to your point earlier, if you don't do that, someone
else will I remember a long time ago, I think it was before I moved here in 94, I
read a book called by Jack Welch called Create Your Destiny or Someone Else Will.
John Furner 14:07
Mhm
Matt Waller 14:09
And sometimes you may create a piece of the destiny for your company doesn't work.
So you need to shut it down. And sometimes that's hard. Other times you've already
created something, but it needs to pivot. And that can be hard too because people
don't like change. How as the leader, John, do you get people to understand the need
to change?
John Furner 14:35
Well, understanding it, or at least aligning that we need to understand it isn't necessarily
the hardest part. But actually gaining the alignment to where it's going to change
is the hard part. And what happens is people have a view of of the world from the
desks they sit behind or the the role they're in and what can be distracting or sometimes
even causing causing great changes to stop is someone's looking at some kind of information
that may have a negative impact they're responsible for. But they're one part of a
really long chain. So they're a link. So you know from where like where you sit in
the business college, you can see the entire thing and see how it operates, I can,
I can somewhat do that here along with my team. But some very smart energetic person
sees a number that looks like it, it may be negative, and so it stops the entire thing
from going through to the organization. And you can easily get to the point of sub
optimization. So the important thing is, is to do experiment, it's easy now with technology
to have beta test going on with I think our team in e Commerce has done something
like 1200 beta tests so far this year, certainly, we have not rolled out 1200 things.
Therefore a lot of them didn't work. But the ones that do work, they really changed
the game because of the scale. And as you as you decide that you want to try to innovate,
you have to be willing to experiment have to be willing to fail. But during the experiment
phase, you have to make sure you have a really broad set of data. We were talking
just before we started about behavioral economics, now having a view of what the positives
and the negatives, and when you add them all together, does the data tell you if it's
going to be successful or not. And at that point, it's time to go. But you still have
the opportunity with someone in the organization may be shaking their head, yes, they've
got it. But in their heart, they're thinking this is a bad idea. And then can push
back on things and slow it down. So we pick a few. And the short answer is we pick
a few innovations that look really promising from the experiments. And then every
month we're back together, going through that same list again, to get progress updates
on not only is it is the change being implemented, but what have we learned along
the way. And the lesson is important. And if you if you have one, and it doesn't work,
the decision to let it go and stop, it may be the most important thing, don't don't
push something through and just go no matter what because it was your idea.
Matt Waller 17:04
Let that allows us I think right now to transition to strategy a bit- And I was so
thrilled when I found out that you hired John List, as chief economist of Walmart,
I remember seriously over the years, when especially when I was a lot earlier in my
career, thinking, you know, there's so many companies out there that have people that
know how to use optimization in their companies, it could be applied to all these
areas, and they don't do it. You know, I've seen it in lots of companies, whether
it be you know, optimizing routing for trucks, or scheduling of associates, or pricing,
et cetera, et cetera. But I remember early on being involved in some projects at Walmart,
where you did start applying it, one of the first ones I was involved in was with
backhaul. And I was happy that you all were doing that. And you've been doing that
for a long time. But I feel like from a strategic position, what you've done is taking
that to the next level, you mentioned earlier, you want to make sure you have a big
enough data set. And the for those of you listening that may not know, Walmart hired
John List, who was a chair of the Department of Economics at the University of Chicago
and professor there. And just a brilliant economist, he wrote a great book called
The voltage effect you might enjoy if you're listening, but, but at any rate, you
know, the first chapter, I think it's the first or one of the first chapters of the
book talks about false positives, how companies will do a little experiment, so called
experiment, and then they rolled out to the whole company, and it doesn't work. And
it doesn't work because either they didn't you know, they got a false positive. They
didn't set up the experiment, right. And one thing that John List is an expert at
is what are called field experiments where you actually make manipulations and you
test them out and then you implement what works and so in some ways, hiring him is
a natural extension of Walmart's culture because Walmart does have a test type of
a culture, but it's making it more scientific.
John Furner 19:39
More scientific and and more customer facing. It's easy to assume that you know, what
customers or your own associates want based on experience and intuition, but the data
can can tell you something else. And and what I what I mean by that is we we say the
customer is number one, which we believe, but you actually don't know how customers
respond to things until you put things in front of them. And that would include doing
what we already did in isolation versus the test. And so this false positive thing
is really interesting, because you typically do see results in an experiment or test
are more positive than when they hit the operating environment of things called the
Hawthorne effect in engineering where it just doesn't perform in the field the way
it was did in the lab. And a second, a second point in this, I think is really interesting
is you have to do the experiment. So you have to put things in front of real customers
in number, you've got to be able to watch them for some time, see if you want to try
this. But then Matt, if you have more than one thing going on at once, there's a layering
effect, that can become a problem. And what happens is, if you have two different
experiments, they both look positive, then you put them both together in front of
the same customer group, that actually is going to yield a actually a third results,
you had the results of the first and the second, but when you put them together, you
can have something completely different. And sometimes two positives can become a
negative sentiments neutral, and other times, they accelerate each other. And so we
are we're pretty careful about making sure we run experiments. And then everything
that we run as an experiment we think we want to do, we put it in one of two markets,
where all of our technologies and innovations are to see that there is this the same
sort of effect when it's layered on top of other types of change. And I've seen teams
before, that try things in isolation in different parts in different geographies,
or different parts of system architecture. And then when it all gets together, it
doesn't work. And then it's really hard to understand what what about it doesn't work.
I remember, there was a project here about 10 years ago, and it resulted in lots of
layout changes and fixtures moving around. And the whole thing didn't work. But there
were so many things that happened at the same time, the team had a really hard time
peeling it back apart to figure out what it was. And so then the consequence of that
is everything that that happened that time was considered to be a bad thing. But certainly
they weren't all bad. They were just bad when you put them all together. So it's it's
important to have a discipline of as you get to implement the phase of implementation
one thing at a time, so you see how they layer, make sure you have enough data, and
make sure you don't have another negative unintended consequences because of the number
of implementations that are happening at the same time.
Matt Waller 22:28
I think there's a lot of CEOs that don't understand those concepts. And it's wonderful
that you do. And John, you have a lot of experience in merchandising, I'd like to
talk a little bit about that, you know, prior to omni channel, you, you take a category
if you've got a department, and you can divide up the merchandise into different categories,
and then within a category, you can have all different kinds of assortment. And then
you've got to optimize your space allocation, you got to take into account both what
the consumer sees the shopper sees, but also holding capacity on the shelf for some
items, especially items that sell really fast, maybe like say, I don't know, say cinnamon-
for refrigerated cinnamon rolls on Saturday morning, and they can fly off the shelf
really fast. And if you don't have enough of them out there, regardless of how many
facings you want, you know you could stock out before noon. So there's a lot of variables.
But then when you add on top of that now this effect of omni channel where people
are ordering for pickup and for delivery, and in-home. All those create even more
complexities around what should be in the store. What should be on the shelf, how
much capacity you should have, how the business processes work in the store. This
is a complicated puzzle.
John Furner 24:19
It is and you can't see me but I'm smiling because I love challenges like this one.
And the reason it's so interesting is omni channel gives our merchandise team the
best view they've ever had regarding customer demand and customer intent. And, and
what I mean by that is when I was a merchant, and my first job out of college was
merchandising in dry grocery. I knew what I sold yesterday. And I roughly knew what
I sold by hour. And I would use that along with market data to try to triangulate
the best set of curated category management processes I could to get to an assortment
that would go on a shelf. And then once that happened, then you would start looking
at what happened again yesterday and trying to incrementally improve upon it. With
the search bar, we now know what people were looking for. And then when they click
the PDP, the product display page, you know that there was intent, at least at some
level to buy it beyond just putting something in search. And, and you know, that tells
you something as well, if somebody searches a term and they don't click a PDP, it
tells you roughly that the search bar wasn't, search wasn't returning the right result,
once you know intent, and you can quantify intent, it is really changing the way people
are thinking about all those problems you just said. And one of our principles that
we talked about a lot is don't ship your customer your org chart. And, of course,
we use organizational structure to reinforce strategy with the reason that's the reason
we have a chief economist and a chief revenue officer, you know, the positions that
we wouldn't have had here even just a couple years ago, those are important because
they they support and strengthen our ability to execute the strategy. But then when
you get a level below that, it's it's understanding that this complexity that we have,
should never make its way in front of a customer or, or an associate. And of course
it does at times and when we figure that out, then it's our job to try to pull it
back. But even our associates, their consumers of the products we build, so the device
that we've issued them, they've got a handheld device that runs on Android, and it
has an app and called me at Walmart and we we have something like 15 million questions
asked into it every week that tell us what what's on people's mind, what they're worried
about, what they're trying to fix and what they need. But the data that goes into
that is it's important because they are consumers of our products as well, not just
the physical products that customers are, but they are consumers of the virtual product.
So we have an always listening, we're always on in terms of listening to the data
to the questions, what people are saying, because we want this these products to be
so intuitive that when people walk in, they can jump on login and go without without
much training. So it's a couple of things there is just make sure that the structure
reflects the strategy, of course, you have to have the right people in those. But
we don't want to ship our complexity all the way to the customer. So you have to make
it complex to be able to serve customers the way they want to be served with flexibility.
But it's got to feel like one brand from the time they opened the app all the way
until the delivery happens.
Matt Waller 27:25
You know, there's there's been articles out there, data showing that Walmart has had
a huge impact on the efficiency of our economy, in the sense that, you know, Walmart
tries very hard to keep prices down, costs down. So that prices can be down. They've
done that in a lot of ways over the years. Probably the biggest in logistics and supply
chain management, and, and operations and, and other things. But you know, and I think
that, you know, in the future, it makes it, it gives you a competitive advantage to
be able to keep costs down. It did in the past, well, in future. People, a lot of
times lose sight of that, but in the in the real world. And we're seeing it now in
particular with inflation, cost matters.
John Furner 28:22
Sure does.
Matt Waller 28:24
And, you know, sometimes you hear people talking like it isn't as big of a deal, but
it's it when when people are living month to month, it costs matter to them a lot.
And Walmart's done everything they can but they've also and then Walmart's also promoted
efficient business processes upstream that cause suppliers to want to become more
efficient as well. What are some big opportunities you see on the horizon for efficiencies,
and everything from store processes to logistics and supply chain?
John Furner 29:11
Well, some of the biggest are using technology to accurately know what you own and
where it is. And that would include things like blockchain upstream at the top of
the supply chain. And but then as inventory enters into the distribution centers,
you know, so much of the process is becoming automated that if if the case isn't right
or the labeling isn't right, and that you start with the first we call them defects,
that would be the first level of a defect is when you don't know what's coming into
one of the centers. Now ultimately, we have a we have the opportunity to be able to
deliver palletized inventory to all of our associates that spy aisle inside the store.
And same in the fulfillment centers, using a lot of great technology but if the UPC
code or the label on the outside of the box is torn or not legible or the the core
gets bad, then you've already started the problem. And in that problem, those problems,
then compound themselves through the chain all the way until they get to the very
end of the supply chain. And for us, the way our chief operating officer works is,
is his responsibility starts from the time we pick up a container in another country,
some port of origin somewhere else, all the way to in home and the last mile the last
foot to the refrigerator. And we structured it that way on, you know, intentionally
so that the person who starts at the end is the receiver of the process all the way
end to end. And so working defects out early in the chain helped because they multiply
on the way through all the way to the 5000 locations, and the teams that then consume
what what came through. And probably then the second in terms of just efficiency is
is giving people the digital tools in their hand with them so that they don't spend
all their time running around these giant buildings, we have buildings as large as
3 million square feet. And we have some convenience stores that are, you know, four
or 5000 square feet, but But either way, the most inefficient that you can think you
can have your whole workforce doing is walking around all day trying to get something
to finish a task. So the idea of the devices and the technology is so that when you
come in, you clock in on your device, you get started, and then your workflow is all
right in front of you. So we've made some progress got a lot more to do. Every week,
we we go back through what people are saying what they don't like what didn't work,
what, where we had problems with latency on apps. But the the idea of spending your
whole day walking around trying to find what you need to do your job is pretty frustrating.
So the more we can move to the device, the better off we all are.
Matt Waller 31:50
John, you mentioned one of the first things was this idea of looking at the process
from beginning to end. And that requires a lot of cross functional thinking. It's
not always easy to implement. And I remember back in the mid 90s, when Lee Scott was
the EVP of logistics, he hired this, a guy named Robert Bruce to be I think it was
the first VP of supply chain management in the country. But he titled the guy VP of
supply chain management. Do you know who I'm talking about?
John Furner 32:30
I remember the name. Yeah.
Matt Waller 32:31
Yeah. And I was actually involved in a project with them and Procter and Gamble's
involved too at the time, but it was to this point, you know, right, that there's
all these things that compound when you go through the process, and in, but they cross
so many different functional areas, it's hard to really get them to coordinate and
to identify problems and then solve them and account for them. Really, you know, like
this process works maybe really well here. But the big process doesn't work very well
on and the metrics don't support the end to end process. This is another very complicated
like we were talking about earlier with merchandising, the complexity of that now,
this is also a huge challenge. It sounds like you're really addressing it end to end
right now through your chief operating officer position.
John Furner 33:29
Yeah, that's the idea. And you said something really important there Matt at there's
a saying and business that I've heard a few times that it's something like, show me
the incentives, and I'll tell you the behavior. So stepping back and deciding what
you want the customer experience to be like, if if the organization, if their incentives
and their evaluations are tied to operational metrics that are not attached to that
final customer experience in any way than what you said happens all the time, then
you have a very efficient running part of the business that then hands off something
to the next group. It may be completely wrong. But but but we think we're really happy
with first step. And a couple of things I tried to keep in mind, the team and I've
tried to keep in mind is if you don't know where you're going well, then any road
will work. So you have to determine where we're going so that we stay on course. Because
these long, you know, these long trips can really get you in the wrong place by the
very end of it. And then it lands on the last person, which is typically the person
that's closest to the customer who's trying to sort out the complexity that's that's
come to them through the back door or through some sort of delivery method that creates
a bit of strain for them.
Matt Waller 34:40
John, you know, living in Northwest Arkansas, I naturally talked to lots of suppliers
and have for almost 30 years now. And it's an amazing community we have but I wanted
to just mention a couple of criticisms that I hear about Walmart. And I know that
you were good at taking criticism, otherwise, I wouldn't share it with you. But I'd
love to hear your response. One criticism of there's two that I'll mention. One is
that the suppliers think they must not know what their strategy is. That's one and
two, sometimes they'll say Walmart's too risk averse. They're not willing to try some
of these new things, or whatever the case may be. I'd love to hear your reaction to
that.
John Furner 35:37
Well, the first let's take strategy first, I think we've been or at least have become
much more consistent the last year or two talking about the Walmart flywheel, how
it works for customers. And I think depending on the way you're looking at it, it
can be really clear, or it can be unclear simply because there is a lot to it. And
so you know, taking the time to see how stores and Omni commerce, e commerce all work
together. The healthcare business we have is is complex. And it takes some time to
understand the investments and fintech also, you know, these are new things that people
are probably looking at saying, how's this fit in context, but when you think about
it this way, think about the life of a Walmart customer who's buying food, they're
buying inventory for things like going back to school, seasonal events and holidays,
they have to pay on every transaction, therefore, the payment makes sense. We already
have a health care business. And we can do more to help people's health, all that
generates a lot of data on the platform. And then the platform is the reason we can
have an advertising business. And it is the reason that we can have a membership business
and data business. So those help suppliers, sellers on the marketplace and customers
connect in ways that are fast and efficient. And then I think the second point is
just for all of us to stay focused on the mid and the long term, we will make choices
along the way. But if our you know, if we were forced to make a choice between the
top line and the bottom line, we'll we'll pick the top line, if it's if it's going
to be a choice that we have to make if it's the long term or the short term, we'll
pick the longer term. And so some of the decisions we make at times you might think
well, that's, that's interesting, I'm not sure how they did that. But it's some of
the decisions, of course, are for the long and the midterm because we have a business
that we want to have in great shape and 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years from now. And as
you know, retailers have have a tendency to come and go each decade, the top 10 move
around pretty frequently. And this is a 60 year old business and we want to make sure
that it's really healthy in 40 more years at 100 years old. Then the second is, you
know, the risk is always a balance between what's right for associates, what's right
for customers, what's right for shareholders, and go back to the longer term objective
here. So the the risks and the investments in things like supply chain and innovation,
commerce in general. Those are big enablers of where the customer was, was going.
So you know, think about the company all the way back to the beginning. There were
discount stores and then there was a food chain, there was a arts and crafts chain
that that is no longer in existence, there were some hardware stores. There were changes
there. Then the the Supercenters obviously work there's the Neighborhood Market format,
international ecommerce. Now we're in we're running a big retail platform that has
stores, ecommerce, fintech, health and wellness, advertising, a data business, and
and all tied together with a membership proposition. And as you said earlier, all
to keep costs low so that we can we can keep changing. So I think if it feels that
way, I would say take a step back and look at where we are today versus a year ago
and two and even three years ago, and then think about the things that are coming
and and I'm I'm quite quite positive that we'll take the right amount of risk on we
won't risk, you know, things that would would hurt the company or the shareholder.
But certainly we will take on the risk we need to to ensure that the business is in
great shape for the long run.
Matt Waller 39:24
John, thank you so much for taking time to visit with me this morning about this.
It's really been a great learning experience. I really appreciate it. Thank you so
much.
John Furner 39:37
You bet, thanks, Matt. Thanks for having me.
Matt Waller 39:40
On behalf of the Sam M Walton College of Business, I want to thank everyone for spending
time with us for another engaging conversation. You can subscribe by going to your
favorite podcast service and searching be epic. B E E P I C.
Matthew A. Waller is dean emeritus of the Sam M. Walton College of Business and professor of supply
chain management. His work as a professor, researcher, and consultant is synergistic,
blending academic research with practical insights from industry experience. This
continuous cycle of learning and application makes his work more effective, relevant,
and impactful.His goals include contributing to academia through high-quality research and publications,
cultivating the next generation of professionals through excellent teaching, and creating
value for the organizations he consults by optimizing their strategy and investments.
