Karenann Terrell, EVP and Chief Information Officer at Walmart, sat for an interview with the Diplomatic Courier at "Talent Mobility & the Future of Jobs: The World in 2050".
[Diplomatic Courier:] What do you view as the most difficult aspect of developing new IT infrastructure in the U.S., and how—if at all does—this differ in international markets?
[Karenann Terrell:] The most difficult challenge that we face in any part of technology, but especially in infrastructure, is scale. Walmart is approaching a half a trillion dollars worth of sales, and we see 250 million customers every week across all of our banners. And that is unlike any other scale problem that any company on earth sees, even online companies, because we manage just a huge diversity of technology. So when you look at an infrastructure that will scale to meet the needs of that broad an audience, and yet deliver in personalized capabilities which are becoming more and more necessary today, that is the essential challenge: how do we design at scale in a way that will actually allow us to deliver a more focused set of technology and capability to Mexico’s small format, or to Japan’s Wakana easy food delivery service, or to the huge Walmart U.S. Supercenter audience? That’s where the challenge really comes.
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Karenann Terrell of Walmart: The Most Difficult Aspect of Developing New IT Infrastructure
February 26, 2014
Karenann Terrell, EVP and Chief Information Officer at Walmart, sat for an interview with the Diplomatic Courier at "Talent Mobility & the Future of Jobs: The World in 2050".
[Diplomatic Courier:] What do you view as the most difficult aspect of developing new IT infrastructure in the U.S., and how—if at all does—this differ in international markets?
[Karenann Terrell:] The most difficult challenge that we face in any part of technology, but especially in infrastructure, is scale. Walmart is approaching a half a trillion dollars worth of sales, and we see 250 million customers every week across all of our banners. And that is unlike any other scale problem that any company on earth sees, even online companies, because we manage just a huge diversity of technology. So when you look at an infrastructure that will scale to meet the needs of that broad an audience, and yet deliver in personalized capabilities which are becoming more and more necessary today, that is the essential challenge: how do we design at scale in a way that will actually allow us to deliver a more focused set of technology and capability to Mexico’s small format, or to Japan’s Wakana easy food delivery service, or to the huge Walmart U.S. Supercenter audience? That’s where the challenge really comes.
