Introduction
The expansion of global markets has compelled supply chain firms to spend more on development and manufacturing to fulfill their customers’ demands. As a result, businesses are becoming deemed responsible for the ecological, economic, and social repercussions of their activities and vendors. Sustainable supply chain management, which is focused on incorporating resilient and sustainable objectives throughout a company’s supply chain activities, has evolved as a strategy for companies to enhance the durability of their supply chain (Koberg & Longoni, 2019). Nevertheless, sustainability remains challenging in achieving seamless Global Supply Chains (GSCs). In this regard, Walmart is involved in wholesale and retail commerce and maintains stores and warehouses across the globe. The organization offers a variety of low-cost items and services daily. The Wal-Mart division in the United States purchases consumer goods, and its supply chain-related sustainability scandals are recurrent for firms with global supply chains (GSCs).
Multiple variables contribute to the sophistication of the supply chain, which is often the consequence of rising consumer expectations for quicker delivery times, personalized experiences, and larger product offerings. GSCs are comprised of several entities scattered across various layers and locations. In GSCs, the proximity between customers and suppliers causes difficulties in maintaining sustainability. Occasionally, social and environmental consequences must be assessed at the manufacturing location, and societal issues may lead to differing sustainable standards between consumers and suppliers. This research will focus on various articles to expound on achieving a feasible and resilient GSC for Walmart. Therefore, a company’s robust global supply chain is the ultimate reason for such organizations’ sustainable and resilient success in the market.
Resilient and Sustainable GSC of Walmart in America
Recently, the COVID-19 pandemic shook and fundamentally altered most organizations’ supply management due to its frightening spread and intensity. Specifically, Walmart felt its adverse effects on its global supply chain. This experience helped corporate leaders observe, direct, and comprehend the complexities of supply chain management when consumer requirements grew chaotic and production capability became limited. Additionally, its negative impacts could be observed in its unprecedented influence on supply chains from Walmart’s operational and data trenches. For instance, people began panic-buying at Walmart stores, placing individuals in precisely the kind of close-quarters mass-gathering they were instructed to avoid in order to reduce the danger of contracting the COVID-19 virus while also needlessly jeopardizing the transfer of the burden back to suppliers of raw materials in this vital logistics.
As a consequence, the US government intervened to re-establish order to ensure the shortage of products is litigated in Walmart’s GSC in the United States. As such, the Administration’s COVID-19 Emergency Team significantly increased the production of vaccinations and other vital supplies, allowing over 137 million Americans to be adequately immunized (The White House, 2021). In addition, the government collaborated with enterprises that make and use semiconductor chips to establish supply chain management strategies that, over time, may enhance the semiconductor supply chain.
Walmart’s organizational resilience to GSCis boosted Latin America by aspiring to hasten goods supply by acquiring transport firms. Particularly, with over 25 years of expertise, Cargex S.A. specializes in the exporting of Walmart’s perishable commodities. According to FedEx Expands (2019), Nivel 2 of the Agencias de Aduanas Aduanamos S.A. subsidiary organization will focus on the firm’s customs brokerage services. Similarly, FedEx Logistics will offer specialized shipping, supply-chain solutions, e-commerce technical support, customs clearance, and commerce control software and data of Walmart commodities.
On the same note, the Canadian government has engaged in trading activities with other states or countries to ensure their retail firms, such as Walmart, have robust logistics. For example, Canada’s agreement with Louisiana has unearthed initiatives aimed at promoting efforts of increasing foreign direct investment (FDI), boosting trade volumes, and growing industrial activity within the state. As a result, Canada has drawn more direct investment from abroad per capita than any other state due to its business-friendly regulations, a wealth of talent, distinctive culture, and outstanding facilities. This has impacts on Walmart entities in the region as the foreign direct investments provide an overall capacity of the global supply chain that is resilient to withstand any economic uncertainities.
Moreover, the development of a one-stop shop has offered comprehensive cross-border solutions to Walmart customers. In international logistics, inefficiency and bottlenecks are often the norms. This is mostly due to the deficiency in their supply networks. Normally, Enger (2022) insinuates that cargo passes through more than a dozen organizations before reaching its ultimate destination, using several means of land, air, and sea delivery. In this way, any glitch might cause a chain reaction of delays. Enter Nuvocargo, a digital service that facilitates U.S.-Mexico cross-border trading. As such, it has ensured a seamless transfer of Walmart products to Mexico from the United States, ensuring a sustainable GSC.
Sustainable and Resilient GSC of Walmarts In EAME
Walmart firms in Europe have succumbed to economic atrocities that have ravaged its investment potential. Precisely, the 2008 economic downturn and the subsequent eurozone turmoil led to increased financial collaboration among European nations. The epidemic of COVID-19 subsequently sparked a stronger degree of budgetary cooperation through the Next Generation EU fund. Based on Smit et al. (2022), the current Russian incursion on Ukraine is a humanitarian disaster and has also shown a variety of vulnerabilities, ranging from food security and energy to defense. The conflict has highlighted that Walmart’s resilience relies on a vibrant economy with tactical flexibility in these crucial sectors, which the organization’s executives have long overlooked. Therefore, Walmart should establish ambitious long-term objectives and modify its benefits. In the present context of upheavals, Walmart must aspire outside their existing business, build a goal for effective dominance, and take risks and invest in capital and R&D proportional to this objective.
Further, technology is another crucial factor in the success of organizations in Europe. Unless Europe keeps pace in other major areas in terms of essential technologies, Walmart entities will be susceptible across all sectors in terms of development and efficiency, threatening the region’s relatively strong track record in terms of sustainability and inclusivity and hampering their long-term robustness (Smit et al., 2022). Walmart European firms lag in comparison to other key areas: they develop more slowly, have worse profits, and spend less on R&D than their American counterparts. This is primarily a result of Europe’s failure to capitalize on the previous technological revolution, falling behind in the value and development of communications and information technology (ICT) and other revolutionary breakthroughs. Therefore, Walmart firms in Europe should refocus speed and simplicity on their legislative strategy for some technological innovations from a cautious consumer rights requirement to one that measures the costs and benefits of fast innovations that ensures a durable GSC.
Establishing an international investment and infrastructure alliance will be fundamental in ensuring firms’ resilience in GSC worldwide. The Biden proposal will deliver transformational initiatives to bridge the existing gaps in developing nations and improve Walmart’s global economy and supply networks. Due to the recent climate crisis, Walmart firms have surrendered with poor supply networks globally. The change has resulted in reduced global product security. As a remedy, President Biden will declare that the United States intends to raise $200 billion for PGII throughout the next five years via grants, Federal funding, and private sector leverage (The White House, 2022). The goal is to generate billions in global infrastructure investments in the next five years, ensuring the easy flow of Walmarts products globally.
Sustainable and Resilient GSC of Walmarts In Asia
The unpredictable nature of Asia’s volatile nature of Asia in terms of economic stability has impacted business. Inflation, scarcity, and volatility have all embraced the new reality in Asia as the epidemic enters its third year amid the background of geopolitical and climatic emergencies. Forecasts may differ on the magnitude and length of this wave, but almost no one believes that the impact will be smooth. Hence, this unprecedented nature has affected Walmart organizations GSC. Therefore, businesses must reassess and modify their GSC frameworks to ensure they succeed in the middle of the 21st century and beyond.
While Asia has a unique strategic potential, its operational challenges are unrivaled. Walmart corporations located in such places are of the most economically varied in the world and are rich in natural resources. Consequently, the firms with their energy-intensive, manufacturing-driven economies must find a method to negotiate the transition to a net-zero global economy. Therefore, they must aim to automate and digitize GSC. Specifically, several organizations’ employees in China, Japan, and India are working to change careers to work at Walmart in the next years due to working remotely, mechanization, and digitalization of its supply chain. Henceforth, such models will revitalize Walmart companies global supply chain to the point where it can withstand challenges due to skilled workers.
International trade between the United States and countries in Asia has ensured resilience in the goods supply of business entities. Representatives of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and five other regional allies ratified the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) in November 2020, perhaps the world’s biggest free trade deal. RCEP and the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), which finished in 2018 and is likewise controlled by East Asian states, are the only significant multinational free trade deals inked under the Trump administration.
As an effect, RCEP will link a significant number of the Walmart world’s population and production and, in the appropriate political environment, will deliver substantial benefits to the firm long-term supply network. According to newly released computer calculations, RCEP may bring Walmart billions yearly to global earnings and more profits to its global commerce by 2030 (Petri & Plummer, 2020). In addition, it is estimated that RCEP and CPTPP would balance Walmarts worldwide damages from the U.S.-China trade war, but not for China and the United States. The new accords will increase the efficiency of the economies of the corporation in North and Southeast Asia by combining their technological, industrial, agricultural, and natural resource advantages (Petri & Plummer, 2020). Ultimately, it will ensure Walmart achieves its sustainable supply goal.
Moreover, the willingness to spend by Asian consumers on Walmarts products will prove to be a sustainable factor in the long run. Typically, increased consumer confidence levels in Asians are matched by increased expenditure levels. As a result, Indian and Indonesian consumers lead the field in terms of their propensity to spend: more than 50 percent of consumers in these countries anticipate raising their spending across all categories either modestly or significantly. During this time, China and Japan had the least desire to expand their levels of expenditure. This will ensure that Walmart can deploy a robust and resilient supply chain that can withstand the Asian clients’ high affinity for their products henceforth.
Sustainable and Resilient GSC of Walmarts In the Digital Technology Sector
Global distribution challenges and more complicated supply chains are compelling businesses to update their demand forecasting and planning systems. In this regard, companies must update their supply networks. This was evident even before clogged labor and component constraints started to disrupt supply chains at the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak two years ago (Destino et al., 2022). The rising globalization of supply chains has increased the difficulty for businesses to anticipate demand and decide how to satisfy it. Nevertheless, supply-chain chiefs at Walmart have clung to manual processes and obsolete software, including a widely-used program whose vendor will shortly cease maintenance. This has hindered their capability to develop a comprehensive supply chain framework that s resilient and sustainable. As a result, Walmart innovators have started to adopt resilient systems for the next generation. For instance, they have unveiled new apps that facilitate logistics, use AI, machine learning, and data analytics to accelerate decision-making, and set the stage for automated management.
Moreover, Walmart should enhance its future network and supply chain ecology. The transition to omnichannel is compelling consumer-product Walmart to reconsider its distribution network environment (Graf et al., 2021). Therefore, players must select the optimal mix of distribution facilities, new node varieties, and partnerships to realize their buyer goals across each channel. The ecosystem of the supply chain should be an end-to-end partnership between all participants. Walmart Organizations can only meet ever-evolving customer demands if the information is exchanged throughout the whole value chain and all network resources and abilities are maximized. The increasing need for late customization is an illustration of the significance of cooperation. Walmart delivery team prepares a “blank sample” that is held in inventory and personalized soon before supply. Moreover, the firm should consider collaborating, which is another significant innovation driver.
For instance, Walmart customer expectations have driven consumer-product businesses to use more inventive fulfillment strategies, such as delivering straight from manufacturing facilities or dark stores. Such networks can be opened by advancing Walmarts’ analytics. Irrespective of a company’s position within an ecosystem, analytics skills provide a competitive edge. Any organization without expertise in sophisticated information will battle to stay competitive. Hence, excellence in advanced analytics open, flexible data and technology capabilities.
At the same time, the government should assist organizations in developing models that will streamline their supply chain. Walmart 4.0’s use of modern digital technology in manufacturing and operational procedures transforms how they manufacture, transport, and sell items. In this way, Trade 4.0 is reshaping Walmarts global trade ecosystems at an unprecedented rate and causing substantial market and economic disruptions. All aspects of the firms’ international commerce are responding to this wave of change, from processing commodities at ports of entry to the security of supply chains to developing trade deals. Moreover, the corporation should explore reinventing its responsibilities across the three Trade 4.0 archetypes of enforcer, negotiator, and facilitator to negotiate the rapidly complicated global trade market (Murata et al., 2021). At the junction of digitization and modernization, Walmart leaders should also confront the problems posed by global trade. To do this, they may connect Industry 4.0 and Trade 4.0 revolutions, thus, setting the business entity for a sustainable supply network.
Sustainable and Resilient GSC of Walmarts In Resilience and Sustainability Notion
The ever-increasing demand for goods globally and organizations’ bid to distribute goods effortlessly has geared such firms to neglect their duties of sustainability and resilience of the environment. As such, if Walmart companies want to become more sustainable, they should focus on their internal activities and quickly realize the majority of their effects occur in their supply chains, so they exert pressure on their suppliers to make adjustments. On aggregate, an industry’s supplier chain generates 5.5% more emissions of greenhouse gases than its own activities (Scott, 2019). In this sense, Walmarts suppliers are demanded to act on the environmental pollution. This action will be vital since it will comply with the United Nations legislation on the 17 sustainable goals standards. Specifically, responsible consumption and production emphasize the need of organizations such as Walmart to supply goods without straining the environment.
Furthermore, resilience is the capacity to face obstacles, resist disruptions, and adapt accordingly and speed when disruptions and crises occur throughout time. Since the turn of the century, communities, economics, and the planet have been subjected to more frequent and severe disturbances. Each interruption develops independently from the others, although many have multiple, long-lasting effects that are not fully known at the time of impact. Societies have evolved complex methods for controlling disruptions, utilizing institutions to establish stability against severe catastrophes. Currently, the globe is troubled by several global problems.
Consequently, destabilization management defines sustainable development more than continuity management to address such challenges. For instance, causing crises may be detrimental to institutions and communities, but the act of rebuilding can strengthen the foundations for such future uncertainities. For instance, the financial crisis and recession of the late 2000s led to bank activities and legislative improvements that strengthened the banking sector. The mechanism has remained resilient despite successive economic disturbances. Similarly, innovations initiated during the COVID-19 epidemic may give additional impetus for faster growth: the move toward digitization, the introduction of new mixed working methods for Walmart, the restructuring of supply networks, and the acceleration of governmental investments in global warming.
Equally, Walmart’s supply chain can be rendered practical by a vast array of methodologies from which merchants may select to construct in-store fulfillment capabilities. Alternatives include the compact and manual, in which Walmart shops convert back-of-house or dedicated office space into a compact shipping and packing room. This approach is prevalent among shops with high productivity per square foot that do not want to lose selling area but want to fulfill a fast shipping promise than a major distribution center would provide.
Conclusion
Companies in GSCs are under pressure to deliver beneficial environmental, social, and economic results. However, the establishment of SSCM to manage sustainability in GSCs remains elusive. Walmart is one of the top corporations in the United States due to its phenomenal growth since its founding. It has been at the forefront of the struggle for environmental sustainability and decreased pollution. As a result, the Company has developed policies that help it achieve its objectives; for instance, it has simplified its worldwide supply chain by forming relationships with firms providing renewable energy. In addition, the Company has built reverse logistics methods to prevent pollution and promote recycling and reuse of waste material.
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