It’s unclear from the article exactly what happened, but the general implication/allegation one takes away is that Walmart tech operations looks more like waste management contracting from the Sopranos.
>Technology executives with authority over contractor requisitions and interview processes can direct substantial volume toward "preferred" staffing shops. In exchange, these vendors provide kickbacks that, in Walmart's case, generated what sources estimate as millions in illicit payments over multiple years.
Broadly and imprecisely speaking, kickbacks are illicit payments by a vendor or contractor to a specific member of the customer company for maintaining the relationship regardless of value or worth. It’s a type of bribery.
The Sopranos was a TV show about the Mafia. The Mafia is a criminal syndicate whose operations consist primarily of providing illegal drugs, prostitution, and charging companies in their territory for “protection” often from other groups, but also often from themselves. The show had the mafia use a waste management company’s services as a superficially legal reason to be paying these protection payments.
The Mafia does actually provide real waste-management services, also in Italy at large scale as far as I know.
They do engage in racketeering to ensure that they own all the contracts in a certain region, and compete for territory, but they do often actually go and collect the waste, it's not just a front. And I think they did in the Sopranos too, although it was not explicitly depicted as far as I remember, just off-hand references.
The illegal part is in how they get rid of it. Often they take on high-value contracts for toxic waste products that are complex to handle in a compliant manner, and they just dump it wherever.
A kickback is money you take for a favor that isn't legal or allowed or for being in charge of a project, organization etc. Waste management contracting from the sopranos refers to a TV show about new jersey mobsters entitled the sopranos. In the show, they use a garbage disposal corporation to launder the money they make from their racketeering schemes. Whenever the boss is asked about what job he does, he just replies with 'waste management'.
Kickback: usually refers to a company (or sales rep) giving a large "gift" to the individual at a company responsible for making a purchase decision (influencing that person to make a decision not in their company's best interest).
The Sopranos was a HBO show about a mob family. Historically, waste management in some cities has been controlled by the mob.
A kickback is a bribe; specifically, a bribe to someone on one side of a larger financial transaction, for facilitating it. As in, vendors A, B, and C are competing for a ten million dollar contract with Walmart to provide some service, so vendor A pays someone at Walmart in a decision making role ten thousand dollars to ensure that they are selected. A small portion of the money that vendor A receives is "kicked back" to the person who facilitated that transaction.
Obviously, this is quite corrupt; that person is supposed to be paid by Walmart to best represent their interests, not select the vendor based on who will best financially compensate them personally.
The Sopranos part is a reference to a TV show about the Mafia, in which (presumably, I haven't seen it), bribery schemes like this are common.
If you’re selecting a contractor or vendor, they give you either money or some special payment to do so.
Mostly illegal.
The biggest kickback exceptions are airline mileage programs and hotel points where employees become incentivized to pick higher cost routes or stays to earn points.
