The wickedly competitive and high-stakes Cloud Wars are getting even more intense as Walmart joins the fray with a series of SaaS-based retail and commerce solutions that will inevitably compete with offerings from Microsoft, Salesforce, Oracle, and SAP.
And just like that, the red-hot industry-cloud segment of the Cloud Wars could take on a whole new look as Walmart—which every single day generates $1.57 billion in revenue—cannonballs into the industry-cloud end of the pool.
Based within the 20,000-person Walmart Global Tech team that I wrote about yesterday, Walmart Commerce Technologies plans to “bring a billion-dollar portfolio of cutting-edge technology developed and used at Walmart to market.”
The stunning initiative from the world’s largest corporation came to light within a LinkedIn recruiting post from Walmart headlined “Head of Enterprise Sales, Walmart Commerce Technologies.”
While the job description did not offer many specifics about the types of products Walmart Commerce Technologies would be offering, some of the wording in the job profile made the retail giant’s industry-cloud intentions perfectly clear:
- “As a part of Walmart Technology Commercialization, you’ll help bring a billion-dollar portfolio of cutting-edge technology developed and used at Walmart to market.”
- “This opportunity will give you a foothold into the fastest growing technologies on the planet including Omnichannel retail solutions, SAAS platforms, artificial intelligence and computer vision.”
- “This person will lead and build out the Enterprise sales team for Walmart Commerce Technologies group enabling other retailers to leverage technologies developed and used by world’s largest retailer.”
- Leaving no question that Walmart Commercial Technologies will be selling cloud apps and other solutions to very large retailers as well as to small businesses, the job description said the ideal applicant’s experience will include having “developed a commercial plan to penetrate large enterprise retailers as well as SMB retailers through channel sales and direct sales.”
- Plus, the job description very specifically flagged the company’s intentions to go full-bore into commerce and retail cloud apps with this requirement: “At least 5 years of experience in selling SaaS based solutions.”
So what else do we know about the intentions of this massive new entrant into the Cloud Wars? Here’s an excerpt from the “Who We Are” section of the job description: “Walmart Commerce Technologies helps retailers transform how they operate and serve their customers through innovative technologies developed and used by the world’s largest retailer.”
Now, call me silly, but the core of that overview—“helps retailers transform how they operate and serve their customers”—sounds a whole heckuva lot like what Microsoft, Oracle, Salesforce, SAP, and even Google Cloud are already doing in the commerce and retail space.
For example, a quick search on “Dynamics 365 Commerce” revealed this ad near the top of the first page of results:
But wait a minute—isn’t Microsoft already a strategic tech partner for Walmart? Why, yes it is.
So why the heck is Walmart Commerce Technologies building products and hiring enterprise-software sales experts to compete directly with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Commerce and the Microsoft Cloud for Retail? (And the same holds true to varying degrees for Salesforce, Oracle, SAP, and Google Cloud as well.)
The answer is right there in the very first sentence of the job description, which I included above as my first bullet point. It says, “As a part of Walmart Technology Commercialization, you’ll help bring a billion-dollar portfolio of cutting-edge technology developed and used at Walmart to market.”
So: Walmart’s invested massive amounts of time and money into its retail technology and commerce technology and, since it’s very much a for-profit enterprise, the company wants to transform those big investments into revenue.
And Walmart is figuring that in the industry it knows best—retail and commerce—demand for modern and sophisticated industry clouds and related solutions will be massive.
So Walmart is jumping into the industry-cloud sectors of retail and commerce with both feet, and is clearly comfortable in expecting that the traditional incumbents in that field—SAP, Oracle, Salesforce, Google Cloud, Workday, and even its buddy Microsoft—will be able to figure out some way to simultaneously compete with and partner with Walmart.
I believe that’s the way more and more industry giants are going to behave—and not just in retail, but across most vertical markets—as they evolve rapidly from being exclusive consumers of enterprise technology to becoming creators as well.
Welcome to the Cloud Wars, Walmart!
And to all of you incumbents, well, gird your loins—Walmart might be the first mega-customer to get into your business, but I’ve got the feeling it sure as hell won’t be the last.
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