We have built the supply chain that is supporting the business of the future. Efforts in previous years to reinforce our omnichannel capabilities have enabled us to successfully overcome the difficulties caused by the health emergency, leveraging the infrastructure built in a better way.

We have risen to the challenge of providing merchandise to our stores, thus improving productivity. We reinvented the last mile by processing merchandise in less than 24 hours. We managed a 50% reduction in the time that supplier transportation remains at the DCs. We are also reducing the time the transportation is at the store, making the merchandise flow more efficient.

We have adopted digitalization in our way of working. For operations visits, a traditional plan with which we personally tour the DC, this year we made virtual tours for the first time. This allows for more detailed overseeing of DC operations, and the possibility of involving more company areas so they can join the initiatives being implemented and strengthen operations through collective expertise.

To continue maintaining high service levels, we invested in enhanced collection terminals and tracking systems to obtain information on real time location and delivery of merchandise.

We continued developing future leaders in logistics; in Mexico, we promoted 1,497 associates and trained more than 19,000. In Central America, we offered the Business Project Management course for training in process management methodologies. In addition, we established a strategic alliance with Franklin Covey, who provided training in Six Critical Leadership Practices for, logistics manager development.

Despite having solid logistics operations, we continue working on being the spearhead in supply chains. Solutions have been developed through innovative technological platforms like Blockchain and the Internet-of-Things, both of which are important concepts being developed to operate the DCs of the future and, in this way, increase our business potential in the following years.

Our customers are at the center of our decisions and our efforts are aimed at offering an innovative shopping experience to keep their preference and our leadership position

We make use of technological tools and processes to convert data into information, based on which we have made the decisions that guided several aspects of our business this year.

Our data and customer intelligence office has created an impact on our operation and led to creating solutions to continue building the Walmart of the future.

This year, seeking to adapt to the situation caused by COVID-19, we rely increasingly more on data to understand the changes in our customers’ habits and the new national and international norms; the change in customer spending; the impact it has on the average ticket; and the purchasing dynamic by geographic region, commercial division, and format.

These contributions allowed us to assess our present, providing us with a useful tool and information to act in consequence, and execute models that allow for reacting and planning the short and mid-terms.

This is why we developed our own predictive model based on available information, projecting possible scenarios of the epidemiological stages for the second, third, and fourth quarter in 2020, and the possible impact on the business and our commercial campaigns.

The results were a guide during the first months of the pandemic. This data was employed by the commercial offerings team to update their third and fourth quarter planning, being ahead of the Holiday season, of toy sales, and of the Fin Irresistible (Irresistible Weekend).

Moreover, this implied that logistics and merchandising decisions would be made in line with having sufficient inventory to meet eCommercebased shopping levels.