Summary This report explains how Wal-Mart responds to data management requirements by using ICT as a tool to meet the requirements of its organization. I will discuss how Wal-Mart uses a Data Management Warehouse to store data and help make management decisions. Wal-Mart introduced this data warehouse because it was not efficient enough at gathering customer feedback and adapting to their wants and needs. As a result, they were losing millions of dollars in sales. Wal-Mart uses ICT to collect this data, such as point-of-sale systems and an app that customers download on their phones to improve their shopping experience. You will see the benefits of this warehouse, for example by 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 sheer cost of the project 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 Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get Original Essay Wal-Mart is an American retail organization that operates a chain of department stores and grocery stores. As of August 2019, Wal-Mart has 11,389 stores in 27 different countries. According to the Fortune Global 500, it is the largest company in the world by revenue, with $514 billion in 2019. Wal-Mart has taken a huge step forward in improving organizational efficiency by replacing cash registers with POS systems ( Point of Sale). 'A point of sale system is where the customer makes a payment for products or services at your store. Every time a customer makes a purchase in your store, they are completing a transaction at the point of sale." The data collected by the POS system is stored in Wal-Mart's data warehouse. Wal-Mart also has data management processes in its stores to help gather valuable information about their customers. They have barcodes to track inventory and self-checkout counters to improve efficiency in the store. All the information collected from these data processes is then sent to the data warehouse Wal-Mart. A data warehouse is a large repository of data accumulated from a wide range of sources within a company and used to guide management decisions will keep them in check with consumer shopping patterns. Without this information at hand, Wal-Mart would lose millions of dollars in sales and fall behind its competitors like Target as a store and Amazon online. In fact, Wal-Mart has the largest non-military database in the world, at half a petabyte in size. It is the largest data warehouse in the world. 'Wal-Mart tracks 100 million customers who purchase billions of products every week. Using this data allows Wal-Mart to achieve its "consistently low prices." Wal-Mart has become one of the 15 most profitable companies thanks to its data warehouse. However, to collect this large volume of data, Wal-Mart must have effective ICT systems. Main BodyWal-Mart can look at sales of a particular item, store by store, and determine if something didn't sell well because it wasn't on sale on the best day of the week or timed with an advertising campaign. 'Wal-Mart's data warehouse is really a decision support system (DSS). Providing data to support business decisions is the pointcenter 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 wasn't fast enough, and as a result, Wal-Mart would lose millions of dollars in sales. A successful data warehouse implementation is only possible if the entire organization understands the value and need for a data warehouse. If data is not provided, or only partially, because departments are not willing to share their results with other departments, the data warehouse quickly becomes obsolete. Everyone needs to understand why all data is important to the success of the company. The data warehouse should be completely in line with Wal-Mart's goals. Wal-Mart's data warehouse allows them to see the spending patterns of their consumers and allows them to make management decisions based on this data. The main ICT system that I will talk about in this report that Wal-Mart uses to collect information for their warehouse are the Point of Sale (POS) systems that they have in place for their customers. These POS systems collect valuable information about consumers and their purchasing patterns. The data is then sent to Wal-Mart's data warehouse, processed and stored for analysis. Data analysis will determine what decisions management will make about the future of the company. Wal-Mart's POS system is completely customized. 'Everyone knows that Wal-Mart is not just a grocery store. It branches into express stores, super centers and neighborhood markets, to name just a few. With the aim of improving the customer experience, they have developed their own mobile POS system, specifically for their Garden Centers. ConclusionAdvantages of Wal-Mart Point of Sale Systems: When you went to Wal-Mart's garden center, you had to find a way to carry around the heavy products and materials you will purchase. However, with Wal-Mart's new mobile POS system, this concern no longer exists. It's a portable speaker. The new payment system is fast and efficient. The checkout is portable and employees scan items. 'Payment is quick and easy with a quick swipe of your credit card. All of this then connects to their central POS system. Point of sale systems make Wal-Mart's accounting process much easier and give them quick access to their accounting records. POS systems also provide much faster service than older cash registers. This means that queue times at 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. All POS systems can reduce the number of human errors. With the new systems there is less chance of error than with the old cash registers. This ensures that Wal-Mart's stock and accounting records are more precise and accurate. Reduction of paperwork that saves you space, labor and time. All of these are reasons that show how Wal-Mart is saving millions of dollars in the long run by switching to its own POS systems instead of sticking with old cash registers. Disadvantages of Wal-Mart Point of Sale Systems: The initial cost of setting up Wal-Mart's new POS systems was enormous. Wal-Mart has 11,389 stores worldwide, and as you might imagine, installing new systems in every store was a huge expense. The training and updating of staff on the use of the new POS systems was also very extensive. Wal-Mart has more than 2.2 million employees worldwide. They also had to bring people into their stores to help train the 2.2 million. 2019].