Walmart's Advanced AI Strategy in Vendor Negotiations

The Challenge:

As a leader in the retail sector, Walmart faced the critical task of streamlining its vendor negotiation processes. Traditional methods, were cumbersome and lacked the scalability required for managing negotiations across Walmart's extensive network of suppliers. The company sought a technologically advanced solution that could autonomously manage these negotiations more efficiently.

Solution:

Walmart turned to Pactum, an AI-driven platform specialising in automated negotiations. Pactum’s intelligent chatbot is capable of handling negotiations with thousands of suppliers simultaneously - a feat unattainable by human negotiators. 

​

Impact and Benefits:

• Pactum's AI chatbot successfully managed negotiations with up to 2,000 suppliers at once

• A significant majority of suppliers preferred AI negotiations over traditional human interactions, indicating a paradigm shift in business negotiations.

• Walmart achieved an average of 3% savings in negotiations

• Initially, Walmart employed Pactum for negotiations with suppliers of non-strategic goods like store equipment and office supplies, a strategic approach to test and validate the technology in low-risk categories.

​

https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2023/may/04/walmart-now-using-ai-for-some-vendor-deals/