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> As the chain began to take off, [Sam] Walton made major adjustments to manage the growth - again always seeming to see ahead. As early as 1966, when he had 20

> As the chain began to take off, [Sam] Walton made major adjustments to manage the growth - again always seeming to see ahead. As early as 1966, when he had 20 stores, he attended an IBM school in upstate New York. His goal: to hire the smartest guy in the class to come down to Bentonville, Ark., and computerize his operations. He realized that he could not grow at the pace he desired without computerizing merchandise controls. http://www.time.com/time/time100/builder/profile/walton2.html http://www.time.com/time/time100/builder/profile/walton2.htm...

tptacek 17y ago
Neat! Here's a question. When Wal-mart started "computerizing", the technology was in its infancy. The modern Walmart supply chain/fulfillment operation is ultra complex, and every advance has to be retrofitted onto their existing systems. If you were Sam Walton today, starting afresh, do you think the technology required to reach Walmart levels of efficiency would be nearly as complex as what they have now? You get to design your whole operation around the software, instead of the other way around, right?
- RyanMcGreal 17y ago
  It's an intriguing question, encompassing complex issues around the linearity of application development, the constraints of path dependency, and so on. Frankly I don't know enough about the internal workings of WalMart's operations to answer helpfully. The question is: would they really start from scratch or would they try to shoehorn their processes into some existing application that kinda, sorta does what they need and then hack-and-patch the rest of the way?
  - tptacek 17y ago
    It's more like, if you were starting a retail business of any sort, are there tech decisions you could make very early on to drastically reduce the eventual cost of operating a nationwide chain?
    - RyanMcGreal 17y ago
      It's a tough call. You don't want to optimize too prematurely for scaling, because the kind of system that would work effectively for a nationwide chain would likely be a very poor fit for a single store or small regional chain. My guess is that a more valuable trait would be an aggressive willingness for the business to 'kill its darlings' and break from processes that can't scale, rather than falling prey to the psychology of previous investment and chasing its losses.

tptacek 17y ago

Neat! Here's a question. When Wal-mart started "computerizing", the technology was in its infancy. The modern Walmart supply chain/fulfillment operation is ultra complex, and every advance has to be retrofitted onto their existing systems. If you were Sam Walton today, starting afresh, do you think the technology required to reach Walmart levels of efficiency would be nearly as complex as what they have now? You get to design your whole operation around the software, instead of the other way around, right?

RyanMcGreal 17y ago
It's an intriguing question, encompassing complex issues around the linearity of application development, the constraints of path dependency, and so on. Frankly I don't know enough about the internal workings of WalMart's operations to answer helpfully. The question is: would they really start from scratch or would they try to shoehorn their processes into some existing application that kinda, sorta does what they need and then hack-and-patch the rest of the way?
- tptacek 17y ago
  It's more like, if you were starting a retail business of any sort, are there tech decisions you could make very early on to drastically reduce the eventual cost of operating a nationwide chain?
  - RyanMcGreal 17y ago
    It's a tough call. You don't want to optimize too prematurely for scaling, because the kind of system that would work effectively for a nationwide chain would likely be a very poor fit for a single store or small regional chain. My guess is that a more valuable trait would be an aggressive willingness for the business to 'kill its darlings' and break from processes that can't scale, rather than falling prey to the psychology of previous investment and chasing its losses.