Walmart is Switching to a Cloud-native Point of Sale. Should You?

You may have noticed recently that Walmart announced they have re-deployed their point of sale capabilities on a proprietary cloud-native, microservices technology platform. Here at Manhattan Associates, we just want to say, “Welcome to the club, Walmart! It is about time you joined us!”

It is little wonder why Walmart would undertake this initiative, as cloud-native architectures are significantly more flexible, scalable and future-proof than traditional portfolio architecture solutions. However, despite their many benefits, true cloud-native omnichannel retail solutions are exceedingly rare in today’s market.

Walmart has the development staff and the financial means to build their own cloud-native omnichannel retail system, but most retailers do not have the resources of the world’s largest company. But that does not mean that most retailers would not benefit from upgrading their store systems to “simplify, stay nimble and deliver a positive customer experience” that Walmart says was their goal. That is the reason we developed our cloud-native Manhattan Active® technology platform four years ago.

Manhattan Active Omni gives retailers access to a cloud-native SaaS solution right now. It is a single omnichannel system comprised of order management, customer service, point of sale, store inventory and store fulfilment functionality that has been battle-tested by some of the top retailers in the world.

Manhattan Active Omni is built entirely from microservices, composable components that are containerised to make it easier to update, replace and scale each independently from the others. In fact, since its release in 2017, Manhattan Active Omni has been updated every 90 days with hundreds of new features and capabilities to ensure retailers stay in lockstep with their customers.

Another benefit of this cloud-native approach is that these solutions never have to be upgraded. That’s right, never, because the underlying architecture allows them to be enhanced continuously. Also, Manhattan Active Point of Sale works on any hardware or device form factor.

Walmart calls this new approach “the future of retail” and we could not agree more. And with Manhattan Active Omni you do not have to be Walmart to experience the future! For more information on how you can move your point of sale system to the cloud, CLICK HERE.