Tech Talk: Inside Walmart’s Tech Revolution

Walmart’s David Glick Talks Tech Scale and Innovation

So, I had a chat with David Glick, the big boss at Walmart’s enterprise business services, and let me tell you, it’s all about tech at Walmart. With a whopping 25,000-strong IT team, they’re not messing around. Glick heads up the department that takes care of all things IT at the retail giant. He calls it the ‘enterprise business services’, but basically, it’s the IT crew.

According to Glick, they’re all about supporting the employees, or as Walmart likes to call them, ‘associates’. From turning on your laptop to closing the books every quarter, it’s all part of what they do. They even handle the payroll. Glick says, ‘We’re involved in our associates’ lives every day. We lead all the tech that takes care of our associates.’

Glick’s been in the game for 25 years, starting out at Amazon. Back then, setting up fulfilment centres wasn’t the cool thing to do, but he did it anyway. He made the move from infrastructure to software when Amazon Web Services and the public cloud started to take off. His boss at the time told him, ‘I need people who can get things done’, and that’s been his motto ever since.

When it comes to tech talent, Glick reckons Walmart is the place to be. He says, ‘For people who love tech, operations, and taking care of customers, you can’t beat Walmart. We’re the biggest retailer and we’re big in tech. Walmart is like one of the biggest tech firms – our tech is used by millions of associates every day.’

As for hiring, Glick uses recruiters for lower-level positions and relies on his network for senior hires. He’s all about building software in-house under the leadership of CTO Suresh Kumar. They’ve moved away from using off-the-shelf products and are all about customising their own software to meet their needs.

And let’s talk about AI. Glick says they’re not just talking about it – they’re actually using it. They’ve developed an app to help the employee benefits helpdesk, using AI to provide answers to employee questions. They’re also crowdsourcing ideas for AI and have introduced an AI assistant in an app to try things out.

But here’s the kicker – Walmart is all about protecting their data and IP. They use both public cloud providers and their own in-house AI tech stack to keep their data safe and secure. Glick believes that public cloud providers will have to step up their game to protect IP, and Walmart is right at the cutting edge of it all.

So, there you have it. Walmart’s not just a retail giant – they’re a tech powerhouse, and they’re doing it their way. No off-the-shelf stuff for them. They’re building their own systems and AI infrastructure, and they’re not afraid to take on the big guns like Amazon. It’s a whole new world at Walmart, and they’re leading the charge in tech innovation.