Creating a Seamless Shopping Experience with Tom Ward
This week on the podcast Matt sits down with Tom Ward, EVP and Chief eCommerce Officer of Walmart U.S. They discuss a variety of topics starting with what Tom does in his current role and his past experience in customer product management. They then delve deeper into product management with the idea that product management is really problem solving at the deepest level. Tom touches on how Walmart is solving a variety of problems for customers to create a seamless, personalized shopping experience whether they are shopping in-store or online. They finish the discussion with Tom sharing what he looks for in future associates who would like to join his team.
Transcript
When we say no, the nearest Walmart to our customers
Tom Ward:is the is the one in their pocket. It's the app. And
Tom Ward:everyone always says, huh, okay, so when you think about that app
Tom Ward:as a store is the closest store, it's also the biggest store.
Matt Waller:Excellence, professionalism, innovation and
Matt Waller:collegiality. These are the values the Sam M. Walton College
Matt Waller:of Business explores in education, business and the
Matt Waller:lives of people we meet every day. I'm Matt Waller, Dean of
Matt Waller:the Walton College and welcome to the Be Epic Podcast. I have
Matt Waller:with me today, Tom Ward, who's EVP, and Chief Ecommerce Officer
Matt Waller:of Walmart US. Thank you so much, Tom, for joining me today.
Matt Waller:I really appreciate it.
Tom Ward:Ya know, you bet. Thanks for having us on.
Matt Waller:Tom, you're Chief Ecommerce Officer at Walmart US,
Matt Waller:that sounds like a really interesting title. What do you
Matt Waller:do in that role?
Tom Ward:Well, it's a great question, Matt, we we have a
Tom Ward:really simple task, which is how do we bring together physical
Tom Ward:and digital assets in a way that helps customers save time and
Tom Ward:money. And ultimately, you know, live better so so my role really
Tom Ward:is to make sure that all the omnichannel capabilities that
Tom Ward:we've built over the last few years, connect really well to
Tom Ward:our digital store, and can be fulfilled through our physical
Tom Ward:footprint in a way that makes sense for customers.
Matt Waller:Tom, you've had an amazing career, you've been SVP
Matt Waller:of Last Mile, In Home, AV, EV, and Drones. And you've been SVP
Matt Waller:of Customer Product. And before I go further on your experience,
Matt Waller:when people hear customer product, many of them think that
Matt Waller:that's talking about just products like that are on the
Matt Waller:shelves, what does product mean, at Walmart?
Tom Ward:Yeah, no, it's a great question. And I think it's, it's
Tom Ward:really common. In fact, I remember getting that role,
Tom Ward:Matt, and it was kind of interesting people like, oh,
Tom Ward:products, like buying things right to your point and, and
Tom Ward:selection. But in reality product and product management
Tom Ward:is is it's kind of a skill and a way of working in business. And
Tom Ward:it's about solving problems. I think if I boiled it down to its
Tom Ward:simplest terms, you know, product management is problem
Tom Ward:solving. And you can't do anything on your own in Walmart.
Tom Ward:And I think that's probably true of everywhere. And so we use a
Tom Ward:four in the box framework for product management, that
Tom Ward:includes a business leader that brings a problem, a product
Tom Ward:manager that helps the business understand what that problem is
Tom Ward:and how they might solve it. A technology leader that might
Tom Ward:build that solution and a designer that helps bring the
Tom Ward:solution to life in a way that makes sense for the end user.
Tom Ward:And that might be an internal or an external customer. And so
Tom Ward:when you use the four in the box and use product management,
Tom Ward:there's a really cool saying that we like to share at
Tom Ward:Walmart, which is to fall in love with the problem, and not
Tom Ward:the solution. And what that does is it opens up the mind to say,
Tom Ward:if you're trying to solve somebody's problem, everything's
Tom Ward:on the table. If you went to a solution, you tend to start
Tom Ward:reinforcing that same solution and you you iterate on the same
Tom Ward:solution or you defend the same solution. And that might not be
Tom Ward:right. It might have been right once, but it might not be right,
Tom Ward:you know, going forward. And so fall in love with problems, not
Tom Ward:solutions and working with a four in the box are kind of the
Tom Ward:key tenants to product management.
Matt Waller:Very succinct. Thank you. For students
Matt Waller:listening. We have something called the McMillon Innovation
Matt Waller:Studio, where companies bring problems to the students and
Matt Waller:they work in cross functional teams to solve the problems and
Matt Waller:they focus a lot on problems. They interview lots of
Matt Waller:customers. They do something called empathy mapping, customer
Matt Waller:empathy mapping, they learn how to use Agile and other
Matt Waller:techniques. I, but the students that have come out of there, I
Tom Ward:I mean, I think I think it's a framework for
Tom Ward:know you all have hired a number of students that have come
Tom Ward:through that that program but we're always trying to improve
Tom Ward:the degree to which we're incorporating product. I
Tom Ward:remember Doug McMillon several years ago, before we started the
Tom Ward:McMillon Innovation Studio, asked us to ramp that capability
Tom Ward:up and we've been trying to ramp it further and further every
Tom Ward:year. It is interesting this idea of falling in love with the
Tom Ward:problem I think about some of the greatest inventors and
Tom Ward:scientists in history, they clearly had fallen in love with
Tom Ward:the problem. Because they tried so many empirical methods of and
Tom Ward:they had lots of failures and trying to find the solution.
Tom Ward:When you look at that four in the box, I've not heard that
Tom Ward:before. Maybe our studio has I mean, I don't teach in the
Tom Ward:studio. But which of those do you feel is the most challenging
Tom Ward:to incorporate in the in the group in solving the problem?
Tom Ward:approaching, approaching the product way of working. And the
Tom Ward:hardest part I often see Matt is is getting a really good problem
Tom Ward:statement, and tends to be the problem statement is owned by
Tom Ward:the business. Because they're the ones obviously running the
Tom Ward:the function or the the area that's, that's under question.
Tom Ward:And so business leaders tend to say, here's the thing that I
Tom Ward:need you to go build me. And that's a solution, not a
Tom Ward:problem. And it sounds really simple to say, well just tell us
Tom Ward:what you're trying to solve. And folks will say, well, I'm trying
Tom Ward:to do this one thing, and it's going to connect to this, and I
Tom Ward:needed to do that. And it's really hard for business leaders
Tom Ward:to zoom out and stand back to say, what's the actual problem
Tom Ward:that you're trying to solve the problem statement's, the most
Tom Ward:important part. And then once you've got that problem
Tom Ward:statement clarified, let the product team then the technology
Tom Ward:team and the engineering partners and designers bring the
Tom Ward:business working alongside the business different solutions
Tom Ward:that they might not have arrived that had they just gone down a
Tom Ward:path that was more specific. So it sounds really simple. But the
Tom Ward:hardest part is defining the problem statement. And once
Tom Ward:you've defined it, we tend to find that the solutions can come
Tom Ward:in all different shapes and sizes, and might be much more
Tom Ward:involved than than was once thought.
Matt Waller:Yeah because some solutions may technically be
Matt Waller:feasible. But when it comes to, for example, getting store
Matt Waller:associates to roll it out, it might be challenging because of
Matt Waller:the tenure of store associates or the experience. Do you have
Matt Waller:to take those kinds of things into account when evaluating
Matt Waller:solutions?
Tom Ward:Yeah, I think I think the way that I would think about
Tom Ward:it is, you know, the best solutions, you mentioned
Tom Ward:different innovators and different technologies across
Tom Ward:the the industry in the landscape. Matt, the best
Tom Ward:solutions to problems don't need any training. They're intuitive,
Tom Ward:right? They the heuristics of the solution is so clear, and so
Tom Ward:obvious that the user can't help but succeed. And so if you
Tom Ward:remove friction from people's lives, whether they're customers
Tom Ward:or whether their associates, you're going to make their lives
Tom Ward:better, you're going to improve the task, you're going to help
Tom Ward:them solve the problem. That was part of your statement. But
Tom Ward:doing so means that it should be intuitive, it should make sense.
Tom Ward:It shouldn't need an instruction manual. And it should flow and
Tom Ward:it should be easier to get the solution right and wrong. These
Tom Ward:are the kinds of things that as you're working through a design
Tom Ward:in a four in a box as a product leader, that you that you think
Tom Ward:about, because they're what you see in your everyday lives. If
Tom Ward:you start solutioning, then you tend to start to explain how to
Tom Ward:use the solution that you propose in and then you run up
Tom Ward:against this opportunity, which is, how do you do that on a
Tom Ward:grand scale? How do you do it quickly? And how do you make it
Tom Ward:sustainable? Whether you're first day in Walmart, or whether
Tom Ward:you've been here for 20 or 30 years, we want these things to
Tom Ward:be just as intuitive and just as straightforward for everyone.
Matt Waller:When did you first start getting interested in
Matt Waller:product management product?
Tom Ward:I mean, I think we sort of shifted our ways of
Tom Ward:working. So we might have thought it through a project
Tom Ward:lens once upon a time. But product management is about
Tom Ward:customer and associate solutions. And so as we're
Tom Ward:building an omni channel business, it involves bringing
Tom Ward:together lots of different things. You know, we have an
Tom Ward:E-commerce business that ships things to home. We have a store
Tom Ward:business, obviously in a Neighborhood Markets and our
Tom Ward:Supercenters, but we have lots of solutions that connect those
Tom Ward:two things together. And that requires an understanding of the
Tom Ward:mission of customers on and that leads you to a product mindset
Tom Ward:in order to meet those challenges.
Matt Waller:This reminds me as you've been talking, I'm a bit
Matt Waller:older than you and I I came out of the Quality Management area a
Matt Waller:long time ago and And it reminds me, there's a concept called
Matt Waller:Poka Yoke, that is a Japanese concept. And it means idiot
Matt Waller:proof. And basically, it's like in manufacturing, you know, a
Matt Waller:jig, there may be a million ways to put a jig on but if you could
Matt Waller:make it only one way to go on, then you don't have to worry
Matt Waller:about it being done improperly. There's the seven why's where
Matt Waller:you say, the problem is this. Why does this problem why why
Matt Waller:why? Why? Why? You know, they say if you get down to the
Matt Waller:seventh why you're starting to understand the problem a little
Matt Waller:bit better. But it forces you to think through it.
Tom Ward:Yeah, and I think that's that's that point. And
Tom Ward:maybe it's seven why's or other reasons, but that's why the you
Tom Ward:know, it's definitely the hardest thing in product
Tom Ward:management is defining a clear problem statement.
Matt Waller:So, Tom, you're on the board of Walmex. Which is
Matt Waller:Walmart, Mexico, is that correct?
Tom Ward:Yes, it's publicly traded in Mexico. Yes. So I'm a
Tom Ward:board member, I get to, you know, take part in those those
Tom Ward:meetings and help that team think through what will make
Tom Ward:sense for their business.
Matt Waller:I'm on some boards, and many boards don't have
Matt Waller:people with product experience, like you do, I can just see how
Matt Waller:having you on a board might be really helpful, in part because
Matt Waller:of your product expertise. Are you able to use that in the
Matt Waller:board setting?
Tom Ward:Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, product product
Tom Ward:mindset is probably the best way of thinking about it, Matt. You
Tom Ward:know, it's helpful to have a product mindset. But really,
Tom Ward:when you say that what you're talking about is a, you're
Tom Ward:looking to solve problems. So I like to, I like to simplify it a
Tom Ward:little bit. And I think if we if we help grow and develop talent,
Tom Ward:you know, in our teams that are looking at where are the pain
Tom Ward:points for customers, and where the pain points for associates,
Tom Ward:and often in retail, those things tend to be very common.
Tom Ward:There's obviously lots of nuances, but there's generally
Tom Ward:speaking, folks that are trying to, you know, feed themselves or
Tom Ward:trying to get access to items that they need, and they want
Tom Ward:services alongside those items. And, you know, they want to
Tom Ward:access them seamlessly, depending on what kind of day
Tom Ward:they're having and where they are, you know, in that
Tom Ward:lifecycle, those things are pretty common. And so if you
Tom Ward:focus on problem solving, that tends to lead you to a, you
Tom Ward:know, a product ways of working, that you can help build really
Tom Ward:effective solutions.
Matt Waller:Tom, I'd like to switch gears just a little bit
Matt Waller:here. It would be great if you could talk a little bit about
Matt Waller:the third party marketplace. And you know, if you wouldn't mind
Matt Waller:explaining it a little bit to to the audience. That'd be great.
Matt Waller:But also talk about progress you've made term in terms of
Matt Waller:maybe assortment, onboarding sellers, advertising, order
Matt Waller:fulfillment, with Walmart Connect, Walmart Fulfillment
Matt Waller:Services, etc. That'd be great.
Tom Ward:Yeah, sure. So so maybe we talk about, you know,
Tom Ward:our assortment and E-commerce. So we like to have fun with
Tom Ward:people when we say where's the nearest Walmart? Customers
Tom Ward:always say, especially around here, you know, my Northwest
Tom Ward:Arkansas, people will say, oh, I know where it is. It's right
Tom Ward:down here. It's on the left here. And then you, you know,
Tom Ward:you turn right, and it's there. And we say no, nearest Walmart
Tom Ward:to our customers is the is the one in their pocket. It's the
Tom Ward:app. And everyone always says, huh, okay, so when you think
Tom Ward:about that app, as a store as the closest store, it's also the
Tom Ward:biggest store. And I don't have the same physical constraints
Tom Ward:that I had when I was a store manager, where there's a limit
Tom Ward:to how many things you can put on the shelves, because you
Tom Ward:know, the shelves have a have a physical end, whereas online,
Tom Ward:they don't, you know, you can house all the items that the
Tom Ward:customer could could want to find in a shelf that that's
Tom Ward:never ending. And that's really where the distinction between
Tom Ward:owned inventory owned merchandise that we you know, we
Tom Ward:buy we have merchant teams buying for our shelves and for
Tom Ward:our fulfillment centers. And then we have a marketplace,
Tom Ward:which is an open space that we can bring sellers that want to
Tom Ward:put their item in front of customers. And they can use the
Tom Ward:traffic that we have come in through Walmart to help grow
Tom Ward:that business. And it's great for customers because it means
Tom Ward:they get access to 10s of millions of items that they need
Tom Ward:when when they search for them. But it comes with a couple of
Tom Ward:really important points, which is when you open the search bar
Tom Ward:in the Walmart Experience, the search bar is working on behalf
Tom Ward:of the customer. So the search bar wants to do the best job of
Tom Ward:returning the most relevant item to the customer, depending on
Tom Ward:what it is they look for, sometimes that's a really
Tom Ward:generic term. And sometimes it's really specific. So as we grow
Tom Ward:our marketplace, and we have these millions of items in these
Tom Ward:endless aisles, the likelihood that we can solve a customer's
Tom Ward:problem, when they challenge us in that search bar grows and
Tom Ward:grows, and that builds trust with our customers. And it means
Tom Ward:that, you know, when they're looking to solve something,
Tom Ward:whether it's a, you know, perishable grocery order in 60
Tom Ward:minutes through express, whether it's, you know, a Christmas item
Tom Ward:that they need to pick up curbside at a store, or maybe
Tom Ward:it's a really specific item for a car, or, you know, a crafting
Tom Ward:request that we carry in our marketplace, and we can deliver
Tom Ward:that to them. You know, a couple of days later, the Walmart app,
Tom Ward:the closest store starts to become this, all in one solution
Tom Ward:for our customers in the marketplace plays a really big
Tom Ward:role in that.
Matt Waller:Tom, this is a relatively I mean, Walmart has
Matt Waller:been ecommerce for a long time, but still, it's a big
Matt Waller:philosophical shift, you know, from focusing just on brick and
Matt Waller:mortar stores. And of course, I know, I know, Walmart's made a
Matt Waller:huge amount of progress. But I would think that change
Matt Waller:management is a key part of your job as well, to drive these
Matt Waller:changes, is that right?
Tom Ward:Yeah, I think, look, the yo u know, we've got this
Tom Ward:incredible legacy, haven't we of the, you know, 60 years plus of
Tom Ward:being this solution for customers, and I think the, the
Tom Ward:way our assets come together, is evolving. And, and the
Tom Ward:expectations that customers have are evolving even faster.
Tom Ward:There's a great saying Matt, which is loyalty and retail is
Tom Ward:the absence of something better. And if you think about that,
Tom Ward:what it means is that the customers last best experience
Tom Ward:is their new expectation. You know, once people came to
Tom Ward:stores, then they pick things up, now they want them
Tom Ward:delivered. The reality is customers want choice. And we
Tom Ward:want to help activate that choice. And so the way you do
Tom Ward:that is you bring the footprint together in a way that hides all
Tom Ward:of the plumbing that hides all of the connection points that
Tom Ward:live behind the scenes and present in a way that is
Tom Ward:seamless to the customer. So customers love shopping in our
Tom Ward:Super Centers, you know, especially at this time of year
Tom Ward:and seasonal times a year mark, there's no way better to walk in
Tom Ward:and you know, see everything that we've got going on. They
Tom Ward:love our neighborhood markets, because they're really
Tom Ward:convenient. They love our pickup business, because if they don't
Tom Ward:have time to go inside, they can swing by and pick things up
Tom Ward:curbside, you know, increasing the especially during the
Tom Ward:pandemic, delivery played a really important role. People
Tom Ward:want speed. So we built propositions like express
Tom Ward:delivery, to help meet those customer needs, you know,
Tom Ward:especially if you've forgotten something, it's a great
Tom Ward:solution. And then we have really cutting edge technologies
Tom Ward:that we're experimenting with to like drone delivery and
Tom Ward:autonomous vehicle delivery that, you know, really start to
Tom Ward:bend people's expectations of what they can get, and in what
Tom Ward:timeframe. But when you add all that, together, you've got this
Tom Ward:seamless connection between our physical store and our digital
Tom Ward:store. And so from a change management perspective, you
Tom Ward:know, the role that our store managers play today is evolved.
Tom Ward:When I was a store manager, all the customers that that we
Tom Ward:served came through our front door and they stood right in
Tom Ward:front, you could see them, you know, the majority of customers
Tom Ward:obviously come to our stores still, but increasingly, they're
Tom Ward:also coming to our digital store and the store managers
Tom Ward:fulfilling that order, you know, online they're dispensing
Tom Ward:through the curbside through the front door, their loading
Tom Ward:packages into drones in this local area, for example. And
Tom Ward:it's really changing the way that people see the role.
Tom Ward:There's really transforming the way customers experience
Tom Ward:Walmart.
Matt Waller:How is Walmart listening to customers and
Matt Waller:responding to improve the shopping experience?
Tom Ward:Yeah, we spend a lot of time looking at customers
Tom Ward:feedback. And you know, the great thing about Walmart is we
Tom Ward:have so many transactions, we see so many customers in so many
Tom Ward:channels, that we can help present the opportunity for
Tom Ward:customers to share what's important to them. You know,
Tom Ward:Matt, maybe I'll point at one example during the pandemic
Tom Ward:because it's a good one, which was, you know, who'd have
Tom Ward:thought that the best way to receive a delivery would be
Tom Ward:contactless, right, leave it on my doorstep. And I'll come and
Tom Ward:get it when I'm when I'm ready. But almost overnight, that
Tom Ward:became an expectation from customers. They told us they
Tom Ward:don't want to interact with people. They didn't want to pull
Tom Ward:up curbside and sign a, you know, an electronic keypad, they
Tom Ward:wanted the associate to do it for them because they didn't
Tom Ward:want to roll the windows down and we wanted to keep our
Tom Ward:associates safe too. And so when you focus on the problem that
Tom Ward:needed to be solved, which was how do you receive items that
Tom Ward:you bought online, whether it's curbside or whether it's on the
Tom Ward:doorstep, contactless, that's a perfect problem statement for a
Tom Ward:team to go away and solve. And we did that really fast. And so
Tom Ward:we'll take cues from customers, we'll understand the way they
Tom Ward:receive and experience. And if customers tell us they like what
Tom Ward:they see, then we're probably going to do a lot more of it,
Tom Ward:then we'll keep iterating on it. And if customers say, hey, this
Tom Ward:makes things challenging for me, then that becomes the problem
Tom Ward:statement that we put back into that four in the box and back
Tom Ward:into that product way of working.
Matt Waller:So Tom, one thing that I've been told that you
Matt Waller:have worked a lot on is simplifying shopping. You know,
Matt Waller:looking at how Walmart is making the shopping experience fast,
Matt Waller:seamless, personalized, no matter who the customers or, no
Matt Waller:matter how the customers or members choose to shop. How have
Matt Waller:you gone about leading this simplification?
Tom Ward:Yeah, but I think for me, simplification involves
Tom Ward:removing friction. So, you know, I think about our journey, Matt,
Tom Ward:we once had two apps. We had an orange app, that was what we
Tom Ward:used to call our online grocery pickup app. And then we had a
Tom Ward:blue app that was the gateway to Walmart.com. Just over a year
Tom Ward:ago, we said, we should bring these experiences together.
Tom Ward:Because what we were doing was we were we were kind of showing
Tom Ward:our organizational structure to our customers, we were saying,
Tom Ward:hey, if you want to shop with this orange team, then you can
Tom Ward:buy groceries and consumables, and you can pull up curbside at
Tom Ward:one of our stores. And we'll bring those out to you. But if
Tom Ward:you wanted to buy something from our marketplace, and have it
Tom Ward:delivered to your home, then you had to go through the blue
Tom Ward:doorway, and you work with this blue app team. And we'd ship
Tom Ward:that to you in a box and it felt disconnected. It didn't feel
Tom Ward:simple to the customer. Because the ultimate convenience for
Tom Ward:Walmart is that you could buy bread, milk, eggs, and a really
Tom Ward:obscure longtail collectible item from our marketplace. And
Tom Ward:you could do it all in one transaction. And we should bring
Tom Ward:it to you either all at once or you know within one series of
Tom Ward:deliveries. And that wasn't the way we were showing up. And so
Tom Ward:we decided to bring those two experiences together. And that's
Tom Ward:a good example of how we're focused on removing friction and
Tom Ward:simplifying the experience. And that reveals lots of other
Tom Ward:things that we then need to go and work on that continues to
Tom Ward:refine that simplification and remove that friction.
Matt Waller:Okay, Tom, what are you looking for? In you know,
Matt Waller:there's, there's probably people out there students and alumni
Matt Waller:and various people that would like to move in this direction
Matt Waller:in their career. What do you and your team look for in people?
Tom Ward:Yeah, it's a great question, Matt, I think first
Tom Ward:thing I'm gonna say is that Walmart is a fantastic place to
Tom Ward:have this kind of career, you know, you listed off a couple of
Tom Ward:roles I've been fortunate to have here. And I started like
Tom Ward:running running stores in the UK and then spent time in
Tom Ward:international and I got to work in different areas there,
Tom Ward:including strategy. And then I got to work on our training
Tom Ward:academies and simplification for stores, and then our online
Tom Ward:pickup business and product organization through to this
Tom Ward:role in overall e-comm, Matt. So, so I'm always going to be a
Tom Ward:huge advocate for the kind of breadth of opportunity that
Tom Ward:Walmart can present to somebody. But I think if you think what's
Tom Ward:consistent across all those roles, and what makes the
Tom Ward:difference for folks that we interview, people are gonna have
Tom Ward:different qualifications and different skills. But the the
Tom Ward:thing that stands out to me is always the curiosity. Because I
Tom Ward:think if you're going to solve problems, not just the problems
Tom Ward:that customers and associates face today, but once they're
Tom Ward:going to face tomorrow, and if you're going to understand that
Tom Ward:you've got to see past solutioning, to find that pure
Tom Ward:problem statement, to remove friction and to, to get on to
Tom Ward:the next thing. You've got to start from a place of curiosity.
Tom Ward:So it's really important for us as we meet people to think
Tom Ward:through the breadth of interest they have the way that they look
Tom Ward:through, you know, different lenses to view the world because
Tom Ward:that tends to land you in a place that you might not have
Tom Ward:expected. And it brings together a really great solution for
Tom Ward:customers and associates. So that for me is a really
Tom Ward:important quality.
Matt Waller:Well, Tom, congratulations on your amazing
Matt Waller:career and the tremendous accomplishments and work you're
Matt Waller:doing at Walmart. It's really impressive and I know you're
Matt Waller:very busy. So it's very generous of you to take time to visit
Matt Waller:with us. Thank you.
Tom Ward:Thank you. Thanks for kind words, Matt, and really
Tom Ward:appreciate the opportunity to talk to you.
Matt Waller:On behalf of the Sam M. Walton College of
Matt Waller:Business, I want to thank everyone for spending time with
Matt Waller:us for another engaging conversation. You can subscribe
Matt Waller:by going to your favorite podcast service and searching Be
