NEW YORK — Wal-Mart Stores would rather develop its own e-commerce technology than use existing systems so it can do a better job keeping up with changing customer needs, the company’s top e-commerce executive said in a presentation here.
According to Neil Ashe, executive vice president of Wal-Mart and president and chief executive officer of its global e-commerce operation, “Like most non-technology companies, we previously bought many of the systems that are available for sale. But we have made the strategic decision to in-source our technology around e-commerce because we believe it’s a necessary competitive advantage for us to do what we want to do. We can’t do what we want and need to do with off-the-shelf solutions.“
Speaking at the annual Retail and Consumer Discretionary Conference sponsored by Barclays Capital here, Ashe said the goal of each e-commerce program Wal-Mart develops is “to go faster and faster and faster to meet changing customer expectations. Change is a choice, and the innovators are those who are almost as fast as the customer [in getting] to where the customer wants us to be. And our global technology platform empowers us to change almost as fast as, and certainly faster than, anyone else and almost as fast as the customer.”
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