It would be accurate to state that the entire revenue of Walmart comes from supply chain management (SCM) shrewdness. This is because Walmart is not a manufacturer of goods but rather a retailer who acts as an agent between the manufacturer and the end consumer, which is the hallmark of SCM (Byrnes, 2015) . The fact that Walmart currently stands and the company with the highest revenues globally means that they are doing their SCM right. Among the keys to this success are advanced innovations into SCM. These innovations have had the combined effect of enabling a smooth supply of goods and services within the thousands of Walmart outlets, yet at an exponentially low cost.
Innovative Big Data Usage
One of the most complex problems kindred to SCM is the determination of how much of each commodity to book, order, purchase and/or transport. This is because when one has too little of a product, it is easy to lose market once the demand exceeds available supply. Further, contingency demand will result in emergency logistic operations that exponentially increase costs (Byrnes, 2015) . On the other hand, when supply is higher than demand, too much of a product will be available. This will result in wastage for perishable goods and high warehousing costs for non-perishable good. Walmart has come up with innovative use of big data to accurately predict consumer needs and consumption patterns (Byrnes, 2015) . This enables Walmart to accurately program SCM to make available approximately just the exact amount that shall be needed in a certain location at certain times .
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Vendor-Managed Inventory
Walmart, being one of the largest retailers has been able to establish close relationships with manufacturers of the goods it sells. Vendor-Managed Inventory (VMI) is among the key innovative ways that Walmart is making good use of this relationships to ease its SCM (Bonacich, 2014) . Under VMI, Walmart does not make express orders for good but rather supplies manufacturers and other members of the supply chain with information about Walmart centers. It is then incumbent upon this vendors to use the information provided so as to figure out how much of the product is to be supplied and when. In this regard, therefore, Walmart passes on most of the logistics planning and kindred costs on to the vendors themselves. Among the popular examples of this arrangement is the Wal-Mart/Procter & Gamble alliance (Bonacich, 2014) .
Demand Planning
Walmart as a chain of stores has most of its planning premised on the demand for goods and services that it provides. This demand can emanate from the customers themselves based on consumer behavior or time of the year. However, demand can also be created by a vendor through advertisement and promotions. Walmart does not allow demand to catch it unawares but carefully studies and manipulates it (CeMAT, 2016) . The corporation has perfected the art of understanding seasons, studying the completion as well as influencing the consumers themselves. This makes planning easier and also eliminates contingencies.
Centralization of Performance Data
Walmart was among the first companies to understand the take advantage of the benefits of proper usage of internal data. Indeed, as early as 1989, Walmart had already centralized all its internal data and started working on how to use it (Byrnes, 2015) . Almost three decades later, Walmart continues to be a trailblazer in using the past to understand the future as far as internal operations of the company are concerned. Yesterday’s mistakes are corrected in this way while successes are replicated and augmented.
Conclusion
The foregoing represents but a few of the major innovations that have been employed by Walmart within its SCM in an effort to perfect the same. Granted, not all innovative efforts of the company have been met with success. However, the fact that the company has risen to have the highest revenues globally is evidence that its innovation in SCM has been met with monumental success.
References
Bonacich, E. (2014). Inside the world's largest company . Retrieved September 07, 2017, from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/walmart/secrets/inside.html
Byrnes, A. (2015). Supply chain management in a Wal-Mart world. Retrieved September 07, 2017, from http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/3616.html
CeMAT. (2016, October). CeMAT Insider . Retrieved September 07, 2017, from http://blog.cemat.com.au/walmarts-supply-chain
