SummaryThis report explains how Wal-Mart meets data management requirements by using ICT as a tool to meet its organization's requirements. I will explain how Wal-Mart uses a data management warehouse to store data and help them make management decisions. Wal-Mart introduced this data warehouse because it was not effective enough to collect customer feedback and adapt to their wants and needs. As a result, they missed out on millions of dollars in sales. Wal-Mart uses ICT to collect this data, including its point-of-sale systems and an app that customers download to their phones to enhance their shopping experience. You will see the benefits of this warehouse, such as analyzing consumer reactions to products and making decisions based on those reactions. However, you will also see the disadvantages of this huge warehouse, such as the considerable project cost and long maintenance times. I will also discuss recommendations for this warehouse to make Wal-Mart a more efficient company in the future. IntroductionSay no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essayWal-Mart is an American retail organization that operates a chain of department and grocery stores. “As of August 2019, Wal-Mart had 11,389 stores in 27 different countries. It is the largest company in the world in terms of revenue with $514 billion in 2019 according to the Fortune Global 500. Wal-Mart has taken a big step forward to improve organizational efficiency by replacing its cash registers through point-of-sale (POS) systems. “A point of sale system is where your customer makes payment for products or services in your store. Every time a customer makes a purchase from your store, they are making a point-of-sale transaction. The data collected from the POS system is stored in Wal-Mart's data warehouse. Wal-Mart has also implemented data management processes in its stores to help gather valuable information about its customers. They have barcodes to track inventory and self-checkouts to improve in-store efficiency. All information collected from these data processes is then sent to Wal-Mart's data warehouse. A data warehouse is a large storage of data accumulated from a wide range of sources within an enterprise and used to guide management decisions. It is essential for Wal-Mart to collect this data about its customers because it will allow them to track their purchasing habits. Without this information, Wal-Mart would miss out on millions of dollars in sales and fall behind competitors such as Target as a store and Amazon online. Wal-Mart has the largest non-military database in the world, measuring half a petabyte in size. It is the largest data warehouse in the world. “Wal-Mart tracks 100 million customers who buy billions of products every week. Using this data allows Wal-Mart to achieve its “always low prices.” Wal-Mart became one of the 15 most profitable companies thanks to its data warehouse. However, to collect this large volume of data, Wal-Mart must have efficient ICT systems. Main BodyWal-Mart can look at the sales of a given item, store by store, and determine whether an item did not sell well because it was not on the floor on the best day of the week or because it was not in syncwith an advertising campaign. “Wal-Mart's data warehouse is actually a decision support system (DSS). Providing the data needed for business decisions is the primary goal of a data warehouse. Before the data warehouse opened in 2004, Wal-Mart spent weeks and months trying to gather information about its customers and their spending habits. The process simply wasn't fast enough, and as a result, Wal-Mart would lose millions of dollars in sales. A successful warehouse implementation is only possible if the entire organization understands the value and need for a data warehouse. If the data is missing, or only in part, because departments do not want to share their results with other departments, the data warehouse quickly becomes obsolete. Everyone needs to understand why all data is important to business success. The data warehouse must be perfectly aligned with the objectives of your Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart's data warehouse allows them to learn the spending habits of their consumers and make management decisions based on this data. The main ICT system that I will discuss in this report and that Wal-Mart uses to gather information about its warehouse is the point of sale (POS) system that it has implemented for its customers. These point-of-sale systems collect valuable information about consumers and their purchasing habits. The data is then sent to Wal-Mart's data warehouse, processed and stored for analysis. Data analysis will determine the decisions management makes for the future of the company. Wal-Mart's point-of-sale system is completely custom built. “Everyone knows Wal-Mart is more than just a grocery store. It extends to express stores, supercenters and neighborhood markets, to name a few. In their aim to improve their customer experience, they developed their own mobile point of sale system, specifically for their garden centers. ConclusionAdvantages of Wal-Mart POS Systems: When you went to the Wal-Mart garden center, you used to have to find a way to transport the heavy products and materials you were going to purchase. However, with Wal-Mart's new mobile POS system, this worry no longer exists. It's a portable crate. The new checkout system is fast and efficient. The checkout is portable and employees scan items. “Payment is quick and easy, with just a swipe of your credit card. All of this is then connected to their central point of sale system. Point of sale systems greatly simplify Wal-Mart's accounting process and give them quick access to their accounting documents. POS systems also provide much faster service than old cash registers. This means wait times in stores are much faster and Wal-Mart doesn't lose sales. Repair and maintenance costs are generally much lower on a POS device than on a cash register. Point of sale systems can all reduce the number of human errors. With new systems, there is less chance of error compared to old cash registers. This ensures that Wal-Mart's stock and accounting records are more precise and accurate. Reduced paperwork that saves you space, labor and time. All of these reasons show how Wal-Mart saves millions of dollars in the long run by switching to its point-of-sale systems rather than sticking with its old cash registers. Disadvantages of Wal-Mart POS Systems: Costs. 2019].