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

Walmart re-deployed its 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 its 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 its 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 its store systems to “simplify, stay nimble and deliver a positive customer experience,” as Walmart states. In fact, those are the same reasons why we developed our cloud-native Manhattan Active® technology platform four years ago.
 

The benefits of being born in the cloud

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 fulfillment 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 containerized to make it easier to update, replace and scale each component independently from the others. 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. Not to mention, Manhattan Active Point of Sale, part of the Manhattan Active Omni suite of solutions, 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 what’s ‘in-store’ for the future.