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sets—that the folks working on the DC
floor have to be more adept at a keyboard
than with the handle of a hand truck?
A Yes. It is a shift in education level. It’s unlikely that you’ll get to a point
where systems and computers and material
handling equipment do everything for you.
In fact, the more these systems do for you,
the more sophisticated the people who
work with those systems have to be.
Q One of the other topics addressed in the roadmap is the issue of
e-commerce. Although you are five years
removed from your career at Walmart, do
you see anything changing in the company’s logistics operations due to the differing
demands of e-commerce fulfillment?
A Oh, yes. It changes everything for everyone ultimately. For instance,
Walmart has announced additional distribution centers for handling online orders.
I think the expectation for speed will take
hold across the board—the concept of
service will simply reach a new standard. It
is going to be about delivering everything
faster and faster and faster.
Here we are now, thinking that next
day is phenomenal. But at some point,
somebody is going to say, “I can’t believe
that people were satisfied with next-day
delivery.”
Q What advice would you offer a young person about to begin his or her
career journey?
A The most important thing is to build your career on a foundation of integrity. And regardless of the short-term cost,
there’s no substitute for that. You can’t justify anything other than having integrity.
I think when you have that, it makes you
comfortable with yourself and it makes it
so much easier both to do the right thing
and to develop a sense of direction that
guides your career. You will know which
company is right for you and which company is wrong, which boss you want to follow and which boss you want to stay away
from. That sense of self and that sense of
integrity are the most critical things.
Editor’s note: This is an edited version of
the interview. To read a longer version, go to
www.dcvelocity.com/LeeScott.
and as a CEO, what do you see
as some of the key challenges for
the years ahead, especially as they
relate to human resources and talent development?
A I’ve seen the report, and while I am generally not
a fan of this kind of
thing, it was extremely well done and very
thought provoking.
It is educational and
interesting at the same
time, which is not
always easy to do.
To me, one of the
greatest challenges is
about the systems—
you think about the
speed, you think about the require-
ments of near perfection. Then you
think about what has happened
with education levels in the United
States. You have to ask yourself:
Who is going to be running a dis-
tribution center in 2025 that’s sig-
nificantly more sophisticated than
today’s operations? How are you
going to staff that with people who
are able to handle that level of
sophistication? What are you going
to do about creating
the educational pro-
grams in your own
DC so that these peo-
ple are prepared to do
these things? To me,
that is going to be
the greatest challenge
of all. The world is
becoming much more
sophisticated. And
the educational level
and reading level and
those kinds of things are really suf-
fering across many public schools in
America. It is a horrible challenge.
Q Are you saying there’s going to be a shift in the needed skill
