Still think Walmart won’t move Home Office out of Bentonville?

Well, they just got rid of all Financial Shared Services. Genpact will move those jobs to India. Don’t believe me? Go to the Indian job site Naukri.com. Search Genpact Walmart. The jobs are already posted.

I’ve been told they plan to outsource the Real Estate group in the next couple of years. How many people is that?

I believe they will outsource logistics soon. Read about the head logistics guy, Greg Smith, and you’ll see why I believe that.

Allegedly they’re trying to sell Sam’s Club. People believe that because of the implementation of Madrid.

So what’s left? Call center? That can be done cheaper in India. HR? What’s left of that can be outsourced.

So that leaves Walmart US merchandising. And you have to ask yourself two things:

Do you really believe Walmart will continue to maintain seperate teams for dotcom and the stores?

Do you think they will try to move the dotcom talent to Bentonville?

Or is it easier to get the folks doing dotcom to manage the store business after they automate more of merchandising?

I think they are executing a plan to move most or all of their Home Office jobs out of Bentonville. They’re just trying to do it in a way that people don’t quit/leave before they are ready for that to happen.

This is what I think is happening based on what I can observe going on.

Oh. And I will be shocked if that new home office campus ever gets built.

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I think almost certainly real estate gets outsourced based on what Walmart is telling Wall Street. If they’re not building new stores, why keep those people?

Walmart already changed their name. It used to be Walmart stores inc. I think they changed it to use Walmart, yes?

Wouldn’t be surprised if they changed it to Walmart Technologies, though. I don’t know that Walmart leadership sees retail as Walmart’s prime revenue source going forward. I believe they are trying to manage that down as they get into other sources of income.

Regarding outsourcing, yes it is coming. I think they want to wring more out of their labor without the negative headlines and reputational damage. If they hire another company for these functions that can either automate functions or force people to work more for less money, Walmart comes out ahead.

I mean, if you had a professional position with health insurance, 401k, and a 25% bonus, and now you’re working more hours for $20k less, no bonus, worse insurance, and no 401k match, that’s a big savings. And that’s the best case scenario on outsourcing I think. Imagine if you work in IT or a call center or accounts payable? I have to believe those jobs are almost certainly going to India.

Again, outsourcing means cutting labor costs without all the negative headlines. The only thing that slows this down is legislation or negative press that affects sales.

If you wanna see what the campus looks like you can go to the Bentonville planning commission and they have architectural drawings and renditions.

My take on what’s happening

The plan is to outsource all home-office activities including legal. The new headquarters will be for the executives and those managers responsible for managing the third parties . There will no longer be transportation, logistics, real estate, finance, legal. corporate affairs etc. A small amount of HR will remain to manage necessities. There is even a rumor that the trucking will be a new subsidiary of JB Hunt.

What will remain are stores the turn a profit and DC‘s. There are growing concerns regarding pharmacies, vision Center’s and clinics NOT being profitable. So, the space can be leased out to other entities, to generate more prophets and reduce risk.

I worked in a legal department, Walmart is changing their name and separating themselves from Sam’s club

I think that if they build the new home office, it will be more of a branch going forward as they decentralize everything.

My 2 cents.....any finceyuon that can be handled by a 3rd party will. Payroll/HR/Real Estate/ISD - name it. These pieces can be moved “sold” to someone to manage headcount & benefits who then is responsible to staff for the workload. The only viable group who remains would be buyers & those positions related to supporting. That’s what seems a plausible. And there will be a new HO - that’s a fine deal & will look very modern. It has to to compete in the HO wars.

Well that’s the real question. As jobs become automated, what will people do for jobs?

I heard a statistic that said that the amount of people participating in the labor force in the USA is only around 62%. That puts us on par with El Salvador.

So the USA may only have a 3% unemployment rate. But lots of folks have either retired or given up making a living wage because there are no good paying jobs to be had.

Right. But where will you work if that happens?

Amazon will do to Walmart what Walmart did to sears! Thirty years ago sears was top dog! Look at them now!

No way does Walmart outsource realty. Who would do the remodels? Stop being so scared.

And logistics? We have the best logistics. Why outsource?

They can outsource anything know it all!

@W4cLKbO-3caq - Well...lets see - Maintenance can be taken care of by a 3rd party, The department that monitors the HVAC, Electrical, Refrigeration, etc. can be taken care of by a 3rd party. Walmart doesn't actually build their own buildings, they contract that out - Real Estate can be handled by a broker, there are plenty of those out there - Contracts and such for remodels and permits can be handled by a property management company.....So there - it is possible for real estate to be outsourced.

Walmart cannot outsource real estate. How would that even be possible?

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Still think Walmart won’t move Home Office out of Bentonville?

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