Change Quotes
The changing of Bodies into Light, and Light into Bodies, is very conformable to the Course of Nature, which seems delighted with Transmutations.
It's very clear that AI is going to change literally every job. Maybe there's a job in the world that AI won't change, but I haven't thought of it.
As I look across our company, we have everything from store associates to supply chain associates. Of the 2.1 million people (globally), something less than 75,000 of them are home office jobs. All the other ones are working in a store, a club, a distribution center. And I think those jobs change more gradually. We are still going to want to serve customers and members with people. The change as it relates to the home office jobs probably happens faster.
One of the biggest areas of change in the last decade is related to associates that work in our stores, picking orders for delivery and pickup for our customers. And we have something north of 200,000 people doing that job, and yet we have about the same (total) number of people working in Walmart U.S.
The change that's happening in the world is going to happen. Our choice is to lean in, learn (and) help lead so there are better outcomes for everybody involved.
I really love retail history. We started our first Supercenter in 1988, prior to that we were operating general merchandise discount stores, and we tried some big hypermarkets copied from Europe and they had failed miserably, but we tried to downsize it and make it a Supercenter and it started working.
I think we've seen it all. The e-commerce store is the interesting one.
As it relates to brick-and-mortar, we've seen it all and done it all. We operate around the world in different formats, different brands. We've got large stores, small stores, all these different formats. So we know that space pretty well, but the e-commerce business was different.
If you fast-forward through the years, there was a period of time when there was too much debate inside the company about the significance of e-commerce, there were leaders who believed it would never be any bigger than the catalog business, there were leaders that believed it would never be profitable.
Always thinking about the customer value proposition is including price, assortment, experience, and trust, and all of those have been changed by technology and been changed by e-commerce, and so leading up to the moment when I took this role, there was an understanding that we needed to invest in e-commerce, grow e-commerce, but we didn't take it seriously enough.
The stores are an asset, and they have a great assortment in them and they're close to people. Being within 10 miles of 90% of America is a huge advantage, especially with fresh food at a good price. But we must also, if you think long-term and you think about what the company wants to accomplish, you must have a big and important first-party e-commerce business, and you must have a marketplace, and the things that go along with the marketplace.
The sales floor probably gets more people. And what we're seeing in supply chain is that it's basically the same number of people with just a whole lot more productivity, but their jobs change.
If we were with a bunch of Walmart associates right now, we could say, 'The only thing that's constant in our company other than our purpose and values is..,' and they would respond, 'Change.'"
You've got to be able to manage change. You've got to be able to learn new tasks.
Look around at things that just aren't getting done. Maybe there's a project you could tackle. Maybe there's an issue that always gets back-burnered for other priorities. Challenge yourself to take on those difficult assignments. They're learning opportunities, and you have a chance to change something for the better.
Businesses grow and they don't change enough and they decline over time. Retailers do that on a bit of a faster cycle.
Customer satisfaction has always been the number one goal for retailers, and in the future, customers will be more empowered than ever to drive the change they want, as they get more control over their shopping experience.
One of the things that can keep you from going away is an openness to change. That's the point.
The truth is we have a consistent purpose that we got from our founder, some values that we share - those are persistent, too. It's not just change. But that's the thing that people underestimate about Walmart right now, that it has an ability to change.
The purpose is the purpose, the values are the values. Everything else is open to debate and may change.
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