Walmart

General Motors’ director of information technology, Kim Clower, and Walmart vp of strategy for innovation, governanance and communications are keynote speakers for the 9th annual Women in IT Conference.

The event, presented by the Information Technology Research Institute at the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas, will focus on celebrating innovation and developing opportunities for women in technology. It will be held at the Donald W. Reynolds Center for Enterprise Development on the University of Arkansas campus in Fayetteville, Ar.

Car Charging Group, an electric vehicle charging company, has named William Fields, former president and CEO of Wal-Mart Stores to its board of directors.  

During his 25-year career with Wal-Mart, Fields was responsible for over 2,000 stores and 600,000 employees, and directed strategic planning in operations, merchandising, marketing, and logistics.

Nashville -- A federal judge in Nashville said Wednesday that Wal-Mart Stores’ female employees in Tennessee and four other southern states cannot pursue sex-discrimination claims against Wal-Mart through a class action lawsuit. The class action is denied because it was filed too late.

According to U.S. District Judge Aleta Trauger, the class claims are “time-barred,” citing a 1988 decision by the federal appeals court in Cincinnati in a separate case, known as Andrews v. Orr, which blocks the women from joining a new class action.

PORT WASHINGTON — Despite a plethora of constantly changing products, the consumer technology industry saw its sales decline 2% in 2012, according to The NPD Group. This is on top of the less than 1% drop in 2011. Since 2010, consumer technology sales have declined by $4 billion.

While I enjoy reading the annual sales predictions and yearly retail real estate outlook columns published each year, they often have a tendency to get bogged down in the details. When forecasting in the medium- to long-term, it’s often best to focus on the big-picture trends — an approach that not only avoids the all-too-common problem of missing the forest for the trees, but provides important insights about where the industry may be headed, not just in six or 12 months, but in six or 12 years.

New York -- Analysts had already suggested that Wal-Mart Stores Inc. would report weakened sales in February, as its primary customer base felt the pinch of newly increased payroll taxes. But internal emails leaked to the press confirmed the impending bad news.
 
Bloomberg on Friday quoted an email generated by a Wal-Mart mid-level executive as saying that the retailer had the worst sales start to any month in seven years in February. Wal-Mart blames the slow start to the 2% payroll increase as well as on delayed tax returns.

Thought leaders from the supply chain world are scheduled to participate in a forward-looking event scheduled for April 11 in Northwest Arkansas.

The event is organized by the Supply Chain Management Research Center at the University of Arkansas and this year’s theme is, "Supply chains 2020: collaborating to win in an omni-channel world."

Brett Biggs, Walmart U.S. CFO, will share his views on the company’s performance during an upcoming Doing Business in Bentonville meeting.

Bigg’s is slated to speak at the event scheduled for 7 a.m., March 13 in Rogers, Ar., and could have some interesting things to say given the timing of the event. Walmart is due to report fourth quarter and full year results next week on February 21 and then on March 7 the company hosts a two day event in Orlando for store managers and suppliers where new initiatives tend to be unveiled.