John Simley, director of media relations at Wal-Mart, says that "there are an awful lot of moving parts to produce the financial results, and it's well-established that the company's IT efforts in many ways make it all possible." He notes that IT systems help Wal-Mart ensure that "we have the right product, in the right place, at the right time for the customer, and that's absolutely data-dependent," he says. The use of accurate and timely data "allows us to take cost of out of the system, and anything that we can do to reduce our costs allows us to lower our prices and that provides a compelling value for customers."

When asked if the Oracle price-optimization tool had played a specific role in enabling Wal-Mart to markdown merchandise more accurately and at the right time during the last quarter (which included the holiday season), Simley says that he "can't detail anything specifically, but it's fair to say that all of these applications work in concert to help us do our jobs as well as we do them."

As to the fortuitous timing, or "luck," as Rosenblum terms it, "the company went 'back to basics' at the right time—the down economy," she says. "Wal-Mart is in a very good position right now because of the economy."

Can IT Really Help with Wal-Mart's Customer Service?

In the conference call, CEO Scott also noted the improved customer service in the stores that were a result of fewer out-of-stock products and faster checkout lanes.

Scott's assertion that Wal-Mart improved its customer service stands in stark contrast to the most recent data from The University of Michigan's quarterly American Customer Satisfaction index. Wal-Mart was the worst-rated retailer in terms of customer satisfaction, according to the ACSI. Its most recent score plummeted 6 percent to 68, which is well below the industry average and is at an all-time low for the retailer.

In the October 2007 CIO article, AberdeenGroup analyst Sahir Anand noted that "technology and customer service go hand in hand," and IT had a role to play to improve the customer shopping experience: POS systems needed to be continually updated, checkout experiences should be speedy, price checkers and interactive kiosks should be up and running at all times, and that associates were ready, willing and able to guide and motivate customers to use all these tools.

Rosenblum, however, doesn't think ISD played much of a part in the rejuvenated customer service initiatives that Anand cited in the article and CEO Scott mentioned. Most of those tasks, she says, are roughly equivalent to saying that IT played a role in "ensuring the lights are on. In fact, if the POS systems are not continually updated, something is horribly wrong."