E-commerce and organizational learning
The accumulation of knowedlge and insight within the context of any online strategy is beneficial to the long-term learning of an enterprise. The breadth and depth of learning that is achievable from the accumulated experiences of initiating, maintaining and continually improving e-commerce strategies is significant both from a financial and operational standpoint (Abrahams, Singh, 2010). Individual and organizational learning is enhanced and strengthened by the accumulated investment of time and resources to improve transaction workflows, increase the level of pricing accuracy, and fine-tune catalog management and merchandising innovation (Fomin, King, Lyytinen, McGann, 2005).
Learning benefits from a personal standpoint accrue rapidly for those involved in the daily management of these initiatives internally, as e-commerce platforms often require an intensive level of cognitive, financial, marketing and Web-based knowledge to succeed. These four areas are where individuals involved in e-commerce discover their innate strengths over time and master specific aspects of e-commerce strategy and system execution. Individual learning is also accelerated from the standpoint of defining which specific strategies generate the highest and lowest levels of trust with potential and existing customers as well (Ratnasingam, 2005). All of these factors contribute to the learning experiences of individuals, and are accelerated and clarified by the role of information technologies used in e-commerce. Over time, organizations move rapidly down the experience curve of their specific e-commerce strategies and gain a core competency in them. Organizational learning is more long-term in scope as the intelligence, insight and knowledge needs to permeate the culture and processes of an organization to make a significant impact on institutional and corporate learning in aggregate (Ratnasingam, 2005).
A secondary aspect of this learning process is the development of core competency and expertise in specific process areas as well. An effective e-commerce strategy is actually comprised of a series of highly complex, integrated and often IT-constrained business processes that must work together for the online strategies to function correctly. The need for process-based expertise at the individual level and corporate-wide is also a very strong catalyst of organizational learning. The integration of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems into e-commerce processes and strategies is critical to their success, and presents many opportunities for individual and corporate learning due to the critical and complex nature of these systems (Tsai, Hung, 2008). Individual and organizational learning is therefore achieved by the continual need to translate lessons learned in using these systems to the actual functioning of the e-commerce sites themselves (Gunasekaran, McGaughey, McNeil, 2004). Translating lessons learned into knowledge a company can use also forces a level of discipline and focus on both individuals and organizations to ensure learning is translated into competitive advantage through knowledge transfer at the enterprise system level (Tsai, Hung, 2008).
Wal-Mart Corporation Mission and Vision Statement Analysis
The foundations of the Wal-Mart value chain and its global success is predicated on how well this company aligns every internal system and strategy to their unique value proposition of Low Price Everyday (LPED) leadership. This unique value proposition galvanizes the mission and vision statement of Wal-Mart and is one of the foundations of their success and continued growth. Their competitors give lip-service to price competition yet only Wal-Mart has engrained the LPED value proposition deep into their logistics, supply chain management (SCM), supply chain planning and optimization, advanced pricing, real-time logistics and most of all, in-store retail operations. Wal-Mart also is a very analytics, and metrics-driven company, measuring every aspect of their operations with a focus on continual process performance improvement. Wal-Mart sees the LPED value proposition as critical to their functioning as a continually improving business, continually striving for greater efficiency and performance gains over time. Wal-Mart evaluates each product line, retail location, distribution center and supplier with a strict series of analytics and metrics to ensure performance meets standards while also looking for opportunities for improving the area itself (Wal-Mart Investor Relations, 2012). Wal-Mart believes passionately that all of these factors must be captured in analytics and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to support their mission statement which is "to help people save money so they can live better" (Mcginn, 2009) (Wal-Mart Investor Relations, 2012).