In 1999 WalMart sued then fledgling Amazon for hiring several of its technology and logistics executives.
Now, in a turnaround, Venky Harinarayan and Anand Rajaraman (in photo) who founded Junglee that Amazon acquired in 1998 and were influential in those formative days at Amazon are running @Walmartlabs "to speed with innovations such as smartphone payment technology, mobile shopping applications, and Twitter-influenced product selection for stores"
Their biggest challenge may be change management.
"Wal-Mart’s lackluster online history has deep cultural roots. The organization has long been dominated by store managers who feared e-commerce could cannibalize in-store sales, and thus their bonuses, according to a former Walmart.com senior executive. In Walmart.com’s first few years, store managers fought against putting the site’s Web address on shopping bags."
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