Toiling in the shadows of Google (Nasdaq: GOOG), Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) and many other tech stars in California’s Silicon Valley, a team of 1,500 technologists are hard at work on behalf of an unlikely employer: Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT). #-ad_banner-#The retail giant has belatedly understood that simply having website for e-commerce won’t cut it in the era of social media and mobile surfing. In response, the company is now committing serious resources to its digital efforts. Will those 1,500 Wal-Mart staffers help turn the company into a leading-edge tech firm? Probably not. But they can identify hundreds of small ways to… Read More
Toiling in the shadows of Google (Nasdaq: GOOG), Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) and many other tech stars in California’s Silicon Valley, a team of 1,500 technologists are hard at work on behalf of an unlikely employer: Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT). #-ad_banner-#The retail giant has belatedly understood that simply having website for e-commerce won’t cut it in the era of social media and mobile surfing. In response, the company is now committing serious resources to its digital efforts. Will those 1,500 Wal-Mart staffers help turn the company into a leading-edge tech firm? Probably not. But they can identify hundreds of small ways to improve the online shopping experience. After all, consumers now carry the Internet in their pocket, thanks to the proliferation of smartphones. As Gibu Thomas, Wal-Mart’s senior vice president of mobile and digital, recently told The Atlantic magazine, “IBM published some data about what retail traffic comes from mobile devices, as a kind of benchmark, and Wal-Mart’s numbers are a lot higher than the industry norm.” He adding that with the use of technology, “we can combine the breadth of online and the immediacy of offline to create an experience that means we can be a one-stop… Read More