To Beat Amazon, Walmart Is Treating Its Stores Like Apps

This reminds me of a Warren Buffett comment from a recent interview:

“The pace of change in terms of what customers are doing, how they pay us, how they come to us – it’s breathtaking,” said Buffett. “Any company that interacts with consumers and thinks that last week’s technology and approach is going to work five years from now is probably making a mistake.

Walmart is a technology company. Let’s just put that out there right now. The company has crushed all competitors through its mastery of supply-chain logistics and inventory management, which above all are engineering problems.

But until recently, most of Walmart’s tech has lived behind the scenes. That’s changed because of smartphones. As Walmart pushes mobile as an integral part of shopping at its stores, the company has started to treat changes at those stores much like app makers handle the rollout of new features.