The coronavirus pandemic has revealed new consumer problems that retailers need advanced technologies to solve. At Walmart, that’s meant acceleration of a range of solutions around shopping and fulfillment technologies to enable consumers to get what they need, and for workers to get them those things, in the way they want it, in-stores, at home or in their cars.

Speaking in a virtual interview this week at the Cowen & Co. Broadline & Grocery Executive Summit, Tom Ward, SVP of consumer product for Walmart and a key figure behind its technology boom, told interviewer Oliver Chen that the crisis has provided the retailer “really clear focus” on where it needed to devote its efforts.

“People at the beginning of the pandemic really wanted to get hold of items that they truly needed, whether that was the basics, the food and the consumables and the everyday items that we all need to run our lives, or whether it was more interesting items that help them engage in their work or school behaviors at home. Walmart was there to serve those needs,” Ward said, according to a Sentieo transcript. “And so as we saw those things unfold, solving these problems for the customer became very, very clear. And so that made it actually, really straightforward for us to focus our investment and our intention to solve those problems as they arose.”

What follows are seven areas Ward discussed.