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  • Walmart is the Roman Empire of Retail

    Walmart is the Roman Empire of Retail

    Walmart is the Roman Empire of retail, says Burt Flickinger, Managing Director of SRG. Walmart announced an impressive earnings and revenue beat that told the story investors want to hear. Walmart is winning the retail wars, especially against arch-rival Amazon. “Like Hannibal and the Carthaginians, Amazon is starting to go the wrong way.” says Flickinger. “Big win for Walmart today and they will accelerate that in the next two to seven years.”

    Burt Flickinger, Managing Director of SRG, a consumer industry business consulting firm, discussed how Walmart is winning the retail wars in an interview on Fox Business:

    Walmart is the Roman Empire of Retail

    This earnings report just reinforces its winning. Amazon is going sideways. This is a reenactment of the Punic Wars, Rome versus Carthage. Walmart is the Roman empire of retail. Like Hannibal and the Carthaginians, Amazon is starting to go the wrong way. Big win for Walmart today and they will accelerate that in the next two to seven years.

    What’s doubly impressive, we talk to a lot of vendors and shoppers around the world, what the vendors are saying is Walmart is reinvesting all the PPA (price and promotional allowances) in lower prices. Lower prices normally mean lower margins and lower revenue. But in this case, the shopper is shifting to Walmart.

    Walmart strategically saw all the land-based businesses like Payless and all the retailers from toys to sporting goods going out of business. They had great sales on land and not so good online. Walmart is winning both ways. Amazon, with all the trouble they’re having with Whole Foods, can’t capitalize. Walmart is running the table.

    This Says it All for US Retail

    This says it all for US retail. The well capitalized highly capable retailers are winning and if it’s a one man show, like Bezos running the show, you could be Alexander the Great, you could be Hannibal out of Carthage, but one general isn’t going to win a war. Recent (lower) retail sales numbers were a combination of a couple things. One is Jerome Powell scared the market, especially high to mid-end, didn’t spend as much. Also, consumers were a little bit scared toward the end of the year. Walmart, off price, low price, did very well, but full price full service struggled and that’s why the numbers were bad.

    Walmart comp sales increased 4.2 percent, just like Steve Jobs and Apple with their great campaign Think Different with Muhammad Ali, Walmart is thinking different with Doug McMillon. It’s evolved from a company of family management to professional management. Walmart had 40 percent growth online.

    Walmart Ads Are Really Connecting

    Before, Walmart looked at advertising as an expense. But as Jerry Della Femina said, most of the Super Bowl ads were pretty pathetic. Walmart was one that stood out because it advertised Walmart online and Walmart in-store. The Walmart ads are really connecting with consumers, a United Nations of consumers.

    They’re reaching everybody around the world with better prices and better service. Doug McMillon has invested in inventory and has invested in store staffing, first to raise wages with some push from the UFCW. They are hitting on all cylinders. The biggest problem now is they can’t handle all of the volume they are seeing on the weekends.


  • Amazon SEO is Now More Important than Google SEO for Brands

    Amazon SEO is Now More Important than Google SEO for Brands

    Amazon has dethroned Google in product searches with over 54 percent of all product searches now happening on Amazon instead of Google. What this means is that brands must make Amazon SEO their priority in order to show up near the top of product searches for their related keywords.

    It’s predicted that an entire industry is in the midst of emerging to help companies adjust their strategies similar to what happened when Google first started to dominate search a couple decades ago.

    Walled garden research company Jumpshot released The Competitive State of eCommerce Marketplaces Data Report earlier this month which shows Amazon’s amazing eight-point rise in product searches in the last year alone.

    Recently, Deren Baker, Jumpshot CEO, revealed the latest results from their report in a Bloomberg Technology interview with Emily Chang:

    Amazon Leading Google with Product Searches

    We have seen a shift from Google to Amazon. Today over 54 percent of all the product searches that occur on the entire internet now occur on Amazon. Once you get into Amazon we’ve seen a strong growth in the number of sponsored placements that they put on their site. The product views that emanated from a sponsored click has increased from 3 percent to 7 percent in the last 18 months.

    We think that Amazon and Google are converging. We did some additional analysis at Jumpshot that shows that from the time a consumer searches on either Google or Amazon to the time that they buy was actually much shorter on Google. On Google, 35 percent of those purchases were made within 5 days, only 20 percent on Amazon.

    Amazon Becoming a Place for Product Discovery

    What you are seeing is that Amazon is becoming a place for product discovery for customers more and Google is shifting from pure product discovery to more of that considered purchase. When people are interested in understanding the price or the quality or the brand name they’re going away from Amazon back to Google now.

    Once you get to Amazon, 90 percent of the product views are actually the result of a search. So people aren’t messing around with merchandising placements or banner ads, they are typing a search for a product into Amazon and getting a search result. Once they get that search result we found that over two-thirds of the clicks are on the first page.

    Amazon SEO is Now More Important than Google SEO for Brands

    Imagine if you are a brand, you know that the majority of your customers are now searching for your product on Amazon. You know that once people get to Amazon what they are doing really doing is typing in a product search. Then once you get that search result you’ve got your competitors products, Amazon’s private label products, and you have to decide whether you are going to try and increase your organic results or pay for a sponsored placement. It’s a very confusing world for a brand today.

    I would not want to be a brand manager at a CPG company right now because I think you are between a rock and a hard place. I think what you will see in the future is the same way that an ecosystem of companies sprung up around Google search when it started to dominate peoples online behavior, you are going to see the same thing for Amazon search. What people are going to need is a non-Amazon source of information to help them understand what they are supposed to do and how they are supposed to spend their advertising dollars.

  • Sezzle Is the Creditization Of a Debit Card, Says CEO

    Sezzle Is the Creditization Of a Debit Card, Says CEO

    “Consumers love our product because it represents purchasing power but also budgeting for them,” says Sezzle co-founder and CEO Charlie Youakim. “They feel safe with it just like they do with the debit card. We’re driving a new wedge into payments between credit and debit. I call it the creditization of a debit card. I think it’s here to say because of that safety element that we give to the consumer.”

    Charlie Youakim, CEO and co-founder of Sezzle, discusses the massive growth of the Buy Now, Pay Later industry and how that is reshaping ecommerce and retail in general:

    Focused Uniquely On Credit Building

    Sezzle is generally focused on the ecomm space, that’s where we do most of our work. We are present on over 44,000 merchant websites. The Buy Now, Pay Later industry, in general, is typically focused on ecommerce. So as that push back into ecomm occurs (potentially due to increases in COVID causing more people to shop from home) we generally benefit from that.

    We compete in this space by really focusing on our stakeholders, focusing on the merchants, focusing on the consumers, and doing the right thing by both of them. We really stand on the high road for the consumer. We are the only player in the space that focuses on credit building which is totally unique. We love it, our consumers love it and our merchant partners love it. By focusing on their needs, these consumers’ needs, and doing right by them and right by the merchants, you have a chance to do a really strong job within the sector.

    Sezzle Pushing Into the Enterprise

    With SMB’s we’ve been growing like wildfire. It just continues for us. That’s how we have that big count of merchants and we expect that to continue. We’re doing a great job there and the merchants love us. It’s viral in that space. For us now the push is into enterprise and in Target, Bass Pro Shops, those are two great examples of that for us. The reason we’re doing that is that our consumer wants to shop with us everywhere so we have to be everywhere. That means we have to be with SMB, we’ve got to be with mid-market, and we’ve got to be with enterprise.

    That will be the push for Sezzle to continue to push in those spaces. If you look at the enterprise players in those spaces, what they want is they want a brand that they can believe in. That’s where you have Sezzle and our halo around doing right by the consumer helping them build their credit score up and being a partnerships player. That’s what really sets us apart.

    Sezzle: The Creditization Of a Debit Card

    The average order value per customer has been relatively stable. We’re around $100 per order. The only reason it’s been tracking a bit up for us is we’ve been expanding our services. We started with a pure ‘pay in four’ for over six weeks interest-free and so that’s where we tracked right around $100. But as we add long-term into the mix we’ve been starting to track upwards. The order values on a 12-month order or 12-month installment plan, tend to track towards $1,000. We feel it’s probably going to stay stable, it’s just going to be a mixed shift that creates any change for Sezzle.

    We see from our consumers that they love our product because it represents purchasing power but also budgeting for them. They feel safe with it just like they do with the debit card. We’re driving a new wedge into payments between credit and debit. I call it the creditization of a debit card. I think it’s here to say because of that safety element that we give to the consumer.

    Sezzle Is the Creditization Of a Debit Card, Says CEO Charlie Youakim
  • Fiserve CEO: From Large To Small There’s a Comeback In Payments

    Fiserve CEO: From Large To Small There’s a Comeback In Payments

    “It’s a great space a great and a great opportunity,” says Fiserv CEO Frank Bisignano. “You have to love the clients and you have to love the payment space. The opportunity to build things and grow is always a lot of fun. From large to small there’s a comeback in payments and we see growth going forward.”

    Fiserv, a major fintech player worldwide, had a strong earnings report in the second quarter with 129 percent growth in revenue.

    Frank Bisignano, CEO of Fiserv, discusses how their Clover acquisition will help the company power their growth going forward. Fiserv announced that they completed their $22 billion purchase First Data which included Clover on July 29:

    From Large To Small There’s a Comeback In Payments

    Clover is an unbelievable platform. It continues to grow. It serves small businesses. We think it’s integral. Our bank partners love it since we announced the deal. We have 160 new banks that want to be Clover partners with us. It is growing. We talked about a 32 percent growth rate in July in the heat of a pandemic. It’s a tool that we help businesses manage their business through. It’s a great asset to help small businesses. We see it as an integrated solution for our company.

    We’ve seen growth with Clover. We talked about seeing what we call internal revenue growth which is driven by transaction volume. We see transaction volume up and there is obviously a large move to e-com. If you look at our Clover platform which has order ahead capabilities and virtual terminal that’s driving that growth. From large to small there’s a comeback in payments and we see growth going forward. There are still businesses coming back in the recovery. Lots of businesses are still working their way back. We’re here to help small businesses grow.

    Fiserve CEO Frank Bisignano: From Large To Small There’s a Comeback In Payments
  • Ecommerce Nearing $1 Trillion

    Ecommerce Nearing $1 Trillion

    “We’re forecasting that ecommerce spending this year will be somewhere between $850 billion and $930 billion,” says John Copeland, Vice President of Marketing Science and Customer Insights at Adobe. This would be a 14 percent increase over last year. That would be more typical of what we see year over year in the ecommerce channel.”

    John Copeland of Adobe, predicts that ecommerce spending could be $930 billion, or just under $1 trillion, in 2021:

    COVID was a catalyst to the ecommerce channel last year. What we saw when you look at the full calendar year of 2020 was $813 billion dollars in ecommerce spending, 42 percent growth over 2019. That’s like combining two years’ worth of growth into a single year. Consumers have really embraced the online channel to meet their needs during these challenging times.

    We’re all kind of wondering what (the vaccine rollout) is going to do in terms of ecommerce. We’re forecasting this year somewhere between $850 billion, only a 5 percent over last year, and up to $930 billion, which would be a 14 percent increase over last year. The 5 percent increase would be if everybody gets vaccinated and rushes out and we see kind of a slowdown. The $930 billion, 14 percent increase, would be more typical of what we see year over year in the ecommerce channel.

    Buy Now Pay Later Up 215 Percent Over Last Year

    Buy Now Pay Later is very much good for retailers. In fact, what we’ve seen in February this year relative to February 2020, which is kind of on the cusp of the pandemic, is a 215 percent increase year over year in buy now pay later orders. In terms of retailers, it comes along with larger average order values. What we’re seeing is 18 percent larger orders when customers are using that service. Unlike layaway, with buy now pay later you actually get the goods upfront, you don’t have to wait until the payment’s done.

    Another trend is Buy Online, Pick Up In-Store, also known as BOPUS. In February of this year, we’re already seeing it growing 67 percent year on year. It’s always been huge and growing during the holiday season but now people are clearly working it in as part of their fulfillment options. Picking up in the store gives consumers the ability to schedule it according to their availability and knowing that stock will be there for them when they want to pick it up.

    Ecommerce Nearing $1 Trillion, Says John Copeland of Adobe
  • Uber Built A Very Anti-Fragile Business, Says Jason Calacanis

    Uber Built A Very Anti-Fragile Business, Says Jason Calacanis

    “Uber built a very anti-fragile business in regards to having the Eats business and having the Rides business,” says early Uber investor Jason Calacanis. “When the Ride’s business went down that kind of indicates people are staying home. When they stay home they use Uber Eats and increasingly Drizly, Cornershop, and Postmates. Watching the Uber team take on this challenge of the pandemic year has been really impressive.”

    Early Uber investor Jason Calacanis says that unlike Lyft, Uber built a very anti-fragile business with the combination of Eats and Rides and has become relentlessly focused:

    Uber Built A Very Anti-Fragile Business

    What we’re really going to see here is that Uber built a very anti-fragile business in regards to having the Eats business and having the Rides business. When the Ride’s business went down that kind of indicates people are staying home. When they stay home they use Uber Eats and increasingly Drizly, Cornershop, and Postmates. People are ordering groceries. Watching the Uber team take on this challenge of the pandemic year has been really impressive.

    It reminds me a lot of Disney and how they got focused around Disney+ as the center of the organization. They looked at what was happening in the pandemic and said parks are great, merch is great, movies are great, let’s just put everything into Disney+ and accelerate that. Look what happened to that company. I’ve got to give Dara Khosrowshahi a lot of credit. He got rid of a lot of the noise like self-driving cars which are a multi-decade kind of vision. He sold off the places where they weren’t going to be in first, second, or even third place. He did JVs and sold off those businesses like Russia and China, etc. That’s well documented.

    The Space Can’t Have 50 Players Losing Money

    They found a new really inspiring footing which is if Amazon is two-day delivery going to one-day, Uber’s is one-hour delivery going to 10-minute delivery. That is Travis Kalanick’s original vision for Uber. When I met with him when he was building the company and I was the third or fourth investor his vision was this is a logistic company. We took atoms in the world made them bits on the internet. Now we’re going to take bits on your phone, an app, and we’re going to move atoms in the real world. That was his original pitch. Here we are in decade two where I’m still own the same shares I’ve had since I bought them for a penny or whatever back in 2008 or 2009. I remain super bullish. I have a huge position in Uber and I’m going to hold it for the next decade.

    It’s fairly obvious that there are acquisitions and consolidation that need to happen in the space in order for it to be profitable. The space can’t have 50 players losing money. We’ve watched Lyft, Postmates, Doordash, and everybody, say that we’re going to have to charge what this product is worth. We’re going to have to stop burning money. There’s no free VC money. The public markets are not down with lose money forever and grow. I think we found a happy medium here between what public market investors want, profits, and what private market investors want, growth.

    Uber Has Become Relentlessly Focused

    I think Dara has done an exceptional job. Some things will come from acquisitions but most of it has to be just relentless execution and focus. That is the inspiring part of what happened here. Uber has become relentlessly focused. Things that were coming in 10 or 20 years like self-driving in all likelihood will be a commodity business. In 10 or 20 years there’ll be five companies who have that technology. VTOLs are very fascinating and very interesting, but again that’s probably seven, eight, nine, or ten years off as a very niche product.

    Uber Built A Very Anti-Fragile Business, Says Jason Calacanis
  • Target CEO Says Digital Performance Up 50%

    Target CEO Says Digital Performance Up 50%

    “Our digital performance was up 50 percent,” says Target CEO Brian Cornell. “As we gain greater clarity around the consumer, the economy, the state of the vaccine, we feel that the consumer continues to respond to our in-store experience and the ease and convenience of shopping with some of our same-day services like pickup, drive-up, and ship. Same-day fulfillment services now represent over half of our digital channel.”

    Brian Cornell, CEO of Target, discusses their massive Q1 results in an interview on CNBC:

    Digital Performance Up 50 Percent

    We’ve had a string of really solid results going back to 2017 but this quarter may be one of the highlights. Our team executed throughout the quarter. We had a great performance from our store teams with a store comp of 18%. Our digital performance was up 50%. It was really a team effort. We had great supply chain support with our merchants and marketers all coming together to support the results which speak for themselves.

    We are benefitting from investments we’ve been making for years now. Our investment in our store experience, our curated Home Brand and national brand mix, and then the fulfillment services that we offer. That combined with the investment in our team, I think we are seeing continued strength. We feel really good sitting here right now about our outlook, not just for the second quarter but for the full year.

    We’ve Connected With The Consumer

    As we gain greater clarity around the consumer, the economy, the state of the vaccine, we feel that the consumer continues to respond to our in-store experience and the ease and convenience of shopping with some of our same-day services like pickup, drive-up, and ship. They really connect with our curation of Great Home Brand, national brands, and the service our team provides each and every day.

    We are feeling very confident about our position today. I look at the proof point from Q1, we picked up another billion dollars in market share on top of the $9 billion of share last year. That’s just a sign that we’ve connected with the consumer, we’re building relevance, and we’re providing what they need and what they want throughout the year.

    Newness Is A Huge Trend In Our Business

    When you see the combination of stores comping up at 18%, which to me is just a highlight number, and categories like apparel growing again by over 60%, that combination of store traffic and category mix really benefited us throughout the quarter. We are seeing a resilient consumer. They’re clearly shopping our stores and when they’re there they are attracted to anything that’s new.

    Newness has certainly been a trend throughout our business in the first quarter and I think that’s going to continue. That great combination of store traffic and store comps and the continued movement of same-day fulfillment services which now represent over half of our digital channel. We really like that transaction. It looks and feels more like a store transaction which from a profitability standpoint certainly is beneficial for us.

    Target CEO Brian Cornell Says Digital Performance Up 50%
  • Video: Amazon’s New Electric Vans Quietly Delivering

    Video: Amazon’s New Electric Vans Quietly Delivering

    Amazon has just launched their first electric Rivian delivery vans on the road in Los Angeles. Customers will begin seeing the custom electric delivery vehicles in up to 15 additional cities in 2021. The company plans to have a 10,000 electric delivery fleet operating on the road in the United States and Europe by 2022.

    “We’re loving the enthusiasm from customers so far—from the photos we see online to the car fans who stop our drivers for a first-hand look at the vehicle,” said Ross Rachey, Director of Amazon’s Global Fleet and Products. “From what we’ve seen, this is one of the fastest modern commercial electrification programs, and we’re incredibly proud of that.”

    Ross Rachey, Director of Amazon’s Global Fleet, outlines the company’s electric delivery plans:

    “We are reimagining sustainable delivery,” says Ross Rachey, Director of Amazon’s Global Fleet. “Climate change doesn’t allow us to sit back and be passive. We can’t wait. This vehicle went from sketch, to design, to on-road testing with customer deliveries in just over a year. And we’ll build on that momentum heading into full-scale production.”

    “Amazon made a commitment to be net-zero carbon by 2040,” notes Rachey. “Electrifying our fleet is going to help us get there. We’ve relied on Rivian’s automotive expertise. We’ve listened to our drivers. We’ve created something that’s at the leading edge of safety technology, that’s better for our drivers, better for the planet, and unlike anything that’s out on the road today. We’ve reset expectations for electric delivery vehicles. And we’re just getting started.”

    Amazon partnered with Rivian, leveraging its customizable skateboard platform to create a first-of-its-kind all-electric delivery vehicle. “Rivian’s purpose is to deliver products that the world didn’t already have, to redefine expectations through the application of technology and innovation,” said RJ Scaringe, Rivian Founder and CEO. “This milestone is one example of how Rivian and Amazon are working toward the world of 2040, and we hope it inspires other companies to fundamentally change the way that they operate.”

    The current fleet of vehicles was built at Rivian’s studio in Plymouth, Michigan, and can drive up to 150 miles on a single charge according to the company. Amazon has installed thousands of electric vehicle charging stations at its delivery stations across North America and Europe.

    Amazon explains it’s ambitious goals:

    Along with custom electric delivery vehicles, Amazon is exploring new technologies, alternative fuels, and delivery methods that deliver packages to customers in a more sustainable way. Amazon currently operates thousands of electric vehicles worldwide and is redesigning its delivery stations to service electric vehicles—ranging from the electrical design to the physical layout. Last year, Amazon delivered more than 20 million packages to customers in electric delivery vehicles across North America and Europe and will continue building on that momentum in 2021.

  • Luxury Online Retailer Farfetch Focusing on Technology to Improve the Consumer Experience

    Luxury Online Retailer Farfetch Focusing on Technology to Improve the Consumer Experience

    Luxury online retailer Farfetch, where product prices start at around a thousand dollars, had a breakout IPO on Thursday, raising $885 million while setting a valuation of $6.2 billion for the company. Then on Friday the stock surged 53 percent above their initial offering price and it’s up again this morning valuing the enterprise at $7.4 billion.

    Farfetch plans to use their IPO windfall to dramatically improve their technology which they see as the best way to improve the consumer experience.

    Farfetch Founder and CEO José Manuel Ferreira Neves recently discussed Farfetch and the online luxury brand industry on Bloomberg:

    Online Luxury is Growing 25 Percent a Year

    It’s a very unique opportunity. You have this amazing global industry. It’s $300 billion, the personal luxury goods industry and only 9 percent is online. There are two opportunities here really. One is the growth of online luxury which is going to grow to 25 percent a year for the next seven years. This is a $100 billion opportunity shift in online luxury.

    The big question is how is technology going to help brands and retailers really improve the consumer experience in the physical store. This is something at Farfetch that we are very passionate about.

    China is an Incredible Opportunity for Online Luxury

    China is a very exciting opportunity. Chinese citizens are at the onset of the luxury industry, whether they shop at home or when they’re shopping abroad. Online penetration is very low in China so this means that there is an incredible growth runway for Farfetch in the territory.

    That led to our partnership with JD.com where we have our own team. We have the Farfetch China app and website, we have local customer service, local payment systems, and local marketing. It’s a truly localized service. That is what’s driving incredible growth to the Farfetch brand in that region.

    WeChat is an amazing app with over 900 million users. It is the Instagram, plus WeChat, plus PayPal, etc. of China in one app. That is very powerful and very interesting. Now with our acquisition CuriosityChina we are powering the retail presence of 80 luxury brands. We think that is very interesting for the industry and we think that is probably something that we will see for the western world.

    Brands Now Using Social and Digital Marketing Extensively

    I think brands move cautiously and they choose their marketing channels very carefully. As these newer channels have developed the brands have adapted to them and their now using social media and digital media extensively to create desire, to drive discovery of new products obviously transactions as well.

    It’s a gradual pace but it’s really exciting that were at that inflection point where the brands see this as a tremendous opportunity.

  • Alibaba Buys Top China Hypermarket In War With Walmart

    Alibaba Buys Top China Hypermarket In War With Walmart

    Alibaba today announced it will invest $3.6 billion in Sun Art Retail Group, a huge hypermarket and supermarket operator in China. Sun Art is the largest retailer in China and competes head to head with Walmart. The transaction will give Alibaba a 72% controlling interest in the China-based brick and mortar retailer. Alibaba says that this purchase furthers its ‘New Retail’ strategy of integrating online and offline retail in China.

    “Alibaba’s strategic investment in Sun Art in 2017 was an important step in our New Retail strategy,” says Alibaba CEO Daniel Zhang. “The alliance we formed with Auchan Retail and Ruentex was instrumental in building a robust infrastructure to create opportunities and value in China’s retail sector. Led by Chief Executive Officer Peter Huang, Sun Art has achieved impressive results in its digitalization and pursued promising synergies with businesses across the Alibaba digital economy. As the COVID-19 pandemic is accelerating the digitalization of consumer lifestyles and enterprise operations, this commitment to Sun Art serves to strengthen our New Retail vision and serve more consumers with a fully integrated experience.”

    In 2017 Alibaba entered into a strategic alliance to digitalize and introduce New Retail solutions at Sun Art stores. The company says that since then “Sun Art has made significant progress in the digital transformation under a fast-changing market environment by leveraging resources and technology from the Alibaba ecosystem, to capitalize on the growth opportunities in China’s hypermarket and supermarket space.”

    This acquisition reflects a growing retail trend in China. Euromonitor International said in a report earlier this year that merger and acquisition activities are expected to continue in the forecast period. As China’s retailing industry modernizes it is undergoing a drastic digital transformation. The forecasting firm also said that sun Art held a 14.1% share of the country’s hypermarket sales last year. That compares to Walmart’s 10.3% market share in that category.

    As of June 30, 2020, Sun Art operates 481 hypermarkets and 3 mid-size supermarkets in China, with a focus on strengthening its position through small and offline community stores.

    Here is the official joint announcement of the acquisition.

  • Businesses Being Reimagined In A World That Is Now Entirely Digital

    Businesses Being Reimagined In A World That Is Now Entirely Digital

    “There’s a real recognition that digitization and transformation are not doing what you used to do in the physical world,” says Publicis Sapient CEO Nigel Vaz. “Digitizing that and translating that is essentially the journey of going from being a caterpillar to a butterfly. Real transformation. How do you reimagine yourself in the context of a world that now is entirely digital? Customers are thinking very actively about how they actually create products and services that essentially create value for customers entirely digitally.”

    Nigel Vaz, CEO of Publicis Sapient, discusses how the current pandemic has forced organizations to reimagine their businesses digitally. Nigel works closely with clients such as McDonald’s, Nationwide, and Unilever to deliver transformative experiences and business models:

    https://youtu.be/VOKcTLcxHXw
    Businesses Being Reimagined In A World That Is Now Entirely Digital

    Digitization Has Become Existential For Business

    I think Digital has always been important for business. Now more than ever what’s becoming very clear is this has gone from being something that’s important to something that’s existential. How do you support customers to make orders entirely online when your stores are closed? How do you create mashups with other partners to be able to facilitate deliveries when your own deliveries don’t suffice? How do you try to create experiences online through self-service that minimize the impact of people calling your call centers? 

    All of these things are things clients are facing on a regular basis. Most CEOs I’m in conversation with are acknowledging the fact that this has now got to be a priority, that they have to be ready more so than they’ve ever thought before.

    3 Key Things Happening With the Transformation

    There are three things happening here in terms of transformation. The first is the change in human behavior where I think there’s a recognizable shift now. We’re seeing significant accounts of over-70s, for example, ordering from retail and ramping that up. We’re seeing a big shift in institutions like schools and educational institutions, which historically had not thought about transformation as particularly applicable to them. 

    We’re also seeing a shift in industries like leisure looking at creating virtual experiences since physical experiences are essentially restricted and people can’t use them. The human behavior shift is translating to big investments in technology and technology platforms that enable this. 

    Businesses Being Reimagined In A World That Is Now Entirely Digital

    Then lastly, new business models. There’s a real recognition that digitization and transformation are not doing what you used to do in the physical world. Digitizing that and translating that is essentially the journey of going from being a caterpillar to a butterfly. Real transformation. How do you reimagine yourself in the context of a world that now is entirely digital?

    Customers are thinking very actively about how they actually create products and services that essentially create value for customers entirely digitally. There are plenty of examples in this from telemedicine and from the educational space with new courses coming online which can scale faster than traditional courses limited by a classroom and a professor.

    COVID-19 Is Forcing Businesses To Change
  • Walmart+ Goes Head To Head With Amazon

    Walmart+ Goes Head To Head With Amazon

    Walmart launches Walmart+ a subscription service that competes directly with Amazon Prime and costs only $98 a year or optionally $12.95 a month. Walmart’s membership option is now available to customers across the country. Membership includes free 15-day trial period.

    “We can’t wait for customers to use Walmart+ as a way to keep more time on their calendars and money in their pockets,” said Janey Whiteside, chief customer officer, Walmart. “We designed Walmart+ to be the ultimate life hack for customers, pulling together benefits they told us would be most helpful to them today and in the future. Its usefulness will only grow from here.”

    The initial list of Walmart+ benefits is below. The company says that the list of benefits will continue to grow over time:

    • Unlimited free delivery: In-store prices as fast as same-day on more than 160,000 items from fresh produce, to milk, eggs and bread to tech and toys to household essentials. This service was previously known as Delivery Unlimited – a subscription service that allows customers to place an unlimited number of grocery deliveries for a low, flat yearly or monthly fee. Current subscribers will automatically become Walmart+ members.
    • Scan & Go: Unlock Scan & Go in the Walmart app – a fast way to shop in-store. Using the Walmart app, customers can scan their items as they shop and pay using Walmart Pay for a quick, easy, touch-free payment experience.
    • Fuel discounts: Fill up and save up to 5 cents a gallon at nearly 2,000 Walmart, Murphy USA and Murphy Express fuel stations. Sam’s Club fuel stations will soon be added to this lineup.

    Bill Simon, former CEO of Walmart, discusses the launch of Walmart+ designed to take on Amazon by combining free delivery of groceries and general merchandise within a paid subscription service:

    Walmart+ Goes Head To Head With Amazon

    Walmart has long coveted a subscription service to go head to head with Amazon. They tried three or four times but this one is different. Walmart+ combines both their grocery and their general merchandise strength which is really trying to recreate the supercenter online through a subscription service. If they can use the frequency of their food business to also help sell their general merchandise line they can mix it out better and hopefully get to profitability sooner.

    Retail has actually been better (this last quarter) than most people have expected. It’s not been even. There have been categories and retailers who have struggled. By and large, its help up pretty well. The pandemic accelerated digital ecommerce development by five to ten years. If you were not up to speed on that or didn’t get up to speed very quickly you would be behind. As we head into the fall it will be really interesting to see how it goes.

    Holiday Selling Season Uncertain

    Typically, Black Friday and Cyber Monday, that weekend has been really critical to the selling season. If you missed that it would be very difficult to have a really good holiday selling season. With the delayed openings now and Thanksgiving not on the line, the focus is going to be online and there won’t be as many in-person Black Friday deals. It’s going to be difficult for retailers to make up all that volume online. The holiday selling season is going to be a bit uncertain.

    I’m really speaking from the consumer perspective when I say that digital ecommerce accelerated by five to ten years in the last six months. It accelerated at that pace and people had to head in that direction. That is likely where retail is going to head but it is going to still be a mix. The vast majority of retail will remain brick and mortar but ecommerce will take a larger role in the facilitation by online pickup in store. Customers are now completely blending the omnichannel retail experience.

    The Amazon Effect: Digital Sales Rule!

    There’s also been really a change from an investment standpoint. This has been really more the Amazon effect than anything I can think of. Five years ago, it used to be, grow your profit faster than your sales and your share price would move forward. Now, if you’re not growing digital sales at a hyperactive rate it’s really hard to get a good valuation on your company. Walmart is a great example of a retailer employing this strategy.

    They’ve invested a ton of money, almost a third of their operating income they’ve given up in order to build an ecommerce business. Yet, investors have rewarded them by buying their stock. It’s near historic highs.

    Walmart+ Goes Head To Head With Amazon
  • Target CEO: Digital Growth Is Industry Leading – Up 200%

    Target CEO: Digital Growth Is Industry Leading – Up 200%

    “In the most challenging operating environment I’ve ever seen for this team to deliver the strongest comps in our 50 year history is pretty incredible,” says Target CEO Brian Cornell. “This is in an environment where so many Americans are avoiding shopping in physical stores, our store comps were still up almost 11 percent. The investments we made in our team and in creating a safe shopping environment has built trust with the consumer. Certainly, our digital growth is industry leading at almost 200 percent.”

    “Our second quarter comparable sales growth of 24.3 percent is the strongest we have ever reported, which is a true testament to the resilience of our team and the durability of our business model,” said Cornell. “Our stores were the key to this unprecedented growth, with in-store comp sales growing 10.9 percent and stores enabling more than three-quarters of Target’s digital sales, which rose nearly 200 percent.”

    “We also generated outstanding profitability in the quarter, even as we made significant investments in pay and benefits for our team,” noted Target’s CEO. “We remain steadfast in our focus on investing in a safe and convenient shopping experience for our guests, and their trust has resulted in market share gains of $5 billion in the first six months of the year.”

    The Company had comparable stores sales growth of 10.9 percent and digital sales growth of 195 percent. Total revenue of $23.0 billion grew 24.7 percent compared with last year, reflecting sales growth of 24.8 percent and a 16.6 percent increase in other revenue. Operating income was $2.3 billion in second quarter 2020, up 73.8 percent from $1.3 billion in 2019.

    Brian Cornell, CEO of Target, discusses their second quarter earnings report which saw the largest growth in the company’s history:

    Target Delivers Strongest Comps In 50 Year History

    I’ve been with Target now going on seven years. Obviously, this is a special moment for the team. It is a beautiful morning here in Minnesota. I’ve got to start by really recognizing our team. In the most challenging operating environment I’ve ever seen for this team to deliver the strongest comps in our 50 year history is pretty incredible. Our EPS was also a record high up over 80 percent. So to the 350,000 team members in the U.S. and in offices around the world these results were all about you.

    We continue to see strength across our entire portfolio. The strength that we saw in the second quarter, which we will break down in our earnings call later today, the fact that we saw really consistent strength from May into June and July. May was the strongest month with comps over 30 percent. But in both June and July we saw comps over 20 percent. That strength has continued in August and we are seeing low to mid-teen growth.

    Being Agile and Flexible Is Key To Our Success

    The biggest adjustment is probably the consumer who is still waiting for a signal around back to school. As you might imagine uniforms, backpacks, and school supplies are a little slower than last year. But the overall momentum and growth in market share continues as we go into the third quarter. The key to our success when I think about the second quarter is one, we’ve been true to our strategy, but our team has really focused on being agile and flexible and adjusting to the current operating environment. We’ve been changing the playbook every week.

    As we think about back to school as I’m sitting here today there are 56 million K-12 students that are waiting for direction. As of this week 66 percent of students will start remotely. They don’t know if they are going back into a classroom in September, October or if it’s going to happen in January. So we are going to have to extend the back to school season and make sure that we’ve got the items they need throughout the fall. We can adjust by market. We’ve got to be flexible and adaptable. That’s really been the key to our success so far this year in both the first and the second quarter.

    Digital Growth Is Industry Leading – Up 200%

    If you look at our results in the second quarter overall comps were up 24.3 percent. These are some of the strongest in retail. Our store performance is really for me a standout and probably one of the biggest surprises. This is in an environment where so many Americans are avoiding shopping in physical stores, our store comps were still up almost 11 percent. The investments we made in our team and in creating a safe shopping environment has built trust with the consumer. Certainly, our digital growth is industry leading at almost 200 percent.

    We’ve been taking share on a broad based basis from both specialty and department stores but also some of our traditional competitors including club. Category by category we’re gaining share. In categories like food and beverage and household essentials we were up 20 percent during the quarter. As Americans have been working and learning from home we’ve seen categories like electronics grow by 70 percent in the quarter. We’ve picked up significant market share from our electronic competitors. Our business and home categories were up over 30 percent.

    We Are Seeing Significant Market Share Gains

    Categories like decor, categories like domestics, what we are seeing with kitchen ware, we are continuing to build momentum and market share. We also saw a big rebound in apparel which was down almost 20 percent in the first quarter. It grew in the low teens in the second quarter. We are seeing significant market share gains. Across our business we are picking up share from our competitors whether they are specialty players, department stores, or our traditional retail competitors.

    The market share number of $5 billion is the most important number on the print. It just shows the relevance of our brand, the momentum, and the trust we are building with American consumers.

    Target CEO Brian Cornell: Digital Growth Is Industry Leading – Up 200%
  • Autonomous Driving for Trucks Will Happen First, Says Full Truck Alliance CFO

    Autonomous Driving for Trucks Will Happen First, Says Full Truck Alliance CFO

    “Our view is that the commercialization of autonomous driving for passenger vehicles will probably take a bit longer than people would think,” says Richard Zhang, CFO of Full Truck Alliance. “We think the commercialization of autonomous driving for trucks will probably take place a lot sooner than it will take place in the passenger car vehicle sector.”

    Full Truck Alliance is a multi-billion dollar valued company that is becoming the Uber of trucks throughout China. The fragmentation of the trucking industry in China between independent truckers and shippers has resulted in an empty load rate of over 40 percent, about four times higher than in the United States. The Full Truck Alliance app and online platform connects shippers to truckers in real-time enabling huge reductions in empty loads.

    Richard Zhang, CFO of Full Truck Alliance based in China, discussed the company’s future in an interview on CNBC International TV this morning:

    Full Truck Alliance in China is the Uber for Trucks

    The problem we’re trying to solve is very simple because there are high inefficiencies between matching with the truck drivers and also matching with the shippers. The empty load rate in the US is only ten percent while the empty load rate in China is 40 percent. The empty load rate is very similar to the vacancy rate in the hotel business. The reason is that the market here is highly fragmented. You have highly fragmented truck drivers and highly fragmented shippers, lots of SMEs.

    Before we came into existence the matching between the truck drivers and shippers were taking place across a thousand offline marketplaces in China. What we have been trying to do is bring that offline marketplace online and use our algorithms in the back office to match automatically the truck drivers and the shippers. We are trying to reduce that empty load rate to well below 40 percent.

    Monetization Via Membership and Uber-Like Fees

    Our monetization strategy for Full Truck Alliance is as a product of a merger between two companies, Truck Alliance and also Yunmanman a little over a year ago. Post-merger we started monetization and the monetization takes place in two ways. Number one is we are charging a membership fee for the shippers and also very similar to Uber or DiDi we’re charging a take rate on the transactions themselves.

    We were very close to achieving our 2018 profit objective. We are actually very marginally close to break-even at the current moment and we have no doubt that we’re going be making earnings in 2019.

    Autonomous Driving for Trucks Will Happen First

    Our view is that the commercialization of autonomous driving for passenger vehicles will probably take a bit longer than people would think. We think the commercialization of autonomous driving for trucks will probably take place a lot sooner than it will take place in the passenger car vehicle sector. Therefore we are deploying a certain amount of resources into that sector in the form of investment.

    We have decided to be a strategic investor in an autonomous driving truck company for them to actually develop that technology and for us to actually use. The mandate for the partner is to actually put a fleet on the road in China to start working with our shippers in the next 12 to 24 months. That’s our mandate and so it depends on how successful they’re going to be at executing our strategy.


  • Walmart CEO: We Had To Become More Digital

    Walmart CEO: We Had To Become More Digital

    “We had to learn to work in different ways to become more digital and to put data to work in different ways,” says Walmart CEO Doug McMillon as he reflected on the release of their blowout financial results. “Basically, to create a seamless experience for customers. We don’t want them to sense any difference as it relates to our brand whether they are shopping inside a store, picking it up, or having it delivered. All of those differences and channels that we might have thought about in the past need to be erased and taken away.”

    Doug McMillon, CEO of Walmart, discusses how the company has changed to become more digital over the last couple of quarters in response to the pandemic:

    Ecommerce Was Very Strong

    I would like to say thank you to all of our associates around the world and here in the US. They did a great job. You can imagine how challenging it is in this environment to go to work everyday and serve customers and keep the supply chain moving. Whether it’s in our stores, our Sam’s Club’s, or our distribution centers they have done a great job.

    Customers have been responding in waves as we’ve gone through the first and second quarters. Not surprisingly, they got really focused on things they needed to stock up to be at home for a long time at first. Over time, as we got through the second quarter and stimulus checks came in to play and people were at home, we certainly saw them buy things like laptops and tablets and fishing equipment and bicycles. Things that were related to home decor as they were at home thinking about their environment inside and outside the house we certainly saw them respond with what they were buying. Ecommerce, in particular, was very strong.

    Technology Phenomena Happening Around the World

    I’ve been in retail for almost 30 years and it’s really exciting when so many things can be done using technology. We can save customers time and expose them to so much more choice than we could previously. Our ecommerce assortments are broader as retailers and that’s certainly true at Walmart. We sell first-party owned inventory as well as through our marketplace. Now they can pick up their phone or be at home and open up their laptop and shop in so many different ways and have access to so many different things. It’s a lot of fun to be able to try and serve them in that way. That phenomena is happening around the world.

    You can use your app to do pickup and our stores. You can use your app to have the product brought straight to your house. Obviously, you can come in the store and we are learning how to use technology inside the stores in different ways to save you time. It boils down to access to assortment and an ease of shopping here in the US and around the world that people haven’t experienced before. That’s happening in Mexico, Canada, China, India, and all over the world.

    We Had To Become More Digital

    There have been a lot of changes inside the company. We had to learn to work in different ways to become more digital and to put data to work in different ways. Basically, to create a seamless experience for customers. We don’t want them to sense any difference as it relates to our brand whether they are shopping inside a store, picking it up, or having it delivered. All of those differences and channels that we might have thought about in the past need to be erased and taken away. Our teams have been doing a great job doing that.

    The outcome of that is this ease of shopping that’s unique and different. In our case, we’ve got so many stores so close to customers around the country it gives us a big advantage especially in being able to deliver quickly. We’ve got an express delivery system here in the United States that commits to delivering orders from our stores in less than two hours. That’s now in more than 2,000 stores and coming to stores all over the country. We are actually delivering a lot faster than two hours so far. That’s a great experience.

    We believe that this is something that we can build on along with having great stores where you want to come in from time to time, stock up, and experience what’s new. Really, we think that this omni world of retail is what will end up being the winning strategy over time.

    Scale Can Sometimes Be A Disadvantage

    Scale can sometimes be an advantage and sometimes it’s a disadvantage. Speed also matters a lot. Creativity matters a lot. What I’m proud of is how our team is responding to create new solutions for customers. Ultimately, whether Walmart grows or not is all up to them. We are serving families, moms and dads, and customers that have a lot of different choices. Even during the pandemic period with ecommerce and all the chains that were open there was still a lot of choice.

    We’ve got to compete to earn their business everyday and that’s the approach we take. Our team has really stepped up during this period and even before the pandemic to drive change and to create more solutions for customers.

    Walmart CEO Doug McMillon: We Had To Become More Digital
  • Cloud Is The Big Winner Of Work From Home Trend

    Cloud Is The Big Winner Of Work From Home Trend

    “Cloud, in general, has been a big winner as a result of the work-from-home trend,” says Five9 CEO Rowan Trollope. “We’re one of those companies that have done well. AT&T was last quarter and then another big partner this quarter with CDW. This is a very exciting growth opportunity for us to build on the acceleration. We can build on that now with this extended reach with AT&T and CDW.”

    Rowan Trollope, CEO of Five9, discusses how cloud businesses have benefited from the accelerated work from home trend and Five9 is no exception:

    Cloud Is The Big Winner Of Work From Home Trend

    Cloud, in general, has been a big winner as a result of the work-from-home trend. We’re one of those companies that have done well. CDW was a great announcement for us in this quarter. It should be a really big partnership. Probably the biggest partnership that we have announced frankly is actually AT&T which we announced last quarter. That was actually an exclusive deal. CDW is not exclusive.

    AT&T is white labeling Five9 as their lead offer and they are moving incredibly fast. These partners, and particularly at AT&T, you don’t normally think about a telco as moving fast but there is something else in the water at AT&T at this point. Rich Shaw and the team over there who run AT&T for Business have just been super aggressive.

    Exciting Growth Opportunity To Build On The Acceleration

    There was a long drawn out process and selection process where they look for the best product in the world. They ultimately settled on Five9. AT&T was last quarter and then another big partner this quarter with CDW. They (CDW) have incredible coverage in the US.

    At the end of the day, it’s really simple, we can now knock on that many more doors. There are now hundreds and hundreds of sellers, maybe thousands of sellers in these partners out there knocking on doors selling Five9. This is a very exciting growth opportunity for us to build on the acceleration, we accelerated to 29 percent last quarter. We can build on that now with this extended reach with AT&T and CDW.

    Cloud Is The Big Winner Of Work From Home Trend, says Five9 CEO Rowan Trollope
  • PayPal CEO: Across Every Industry, We’re Seeing a Surge Towards a Digital-First Strategy

    PayPal CEO: Across Every Industry, We’re Seeing a Surge Towards a Digital-First Strategy

    “It was a strong quarter for us certainly across almost every metric,” says PayPal CEO Dan Schulman. “What’s happened is the world has accelerated from physical to digital across almost every industry. If you look at health care it’s all about telemedicine right now. If you look at education it’s about remote learning. If you look at the retail industry it is now about online almost over offline or physical locations in store. If you look at the restaurant business you really can’t be in business.”

    Schulman says that it is imperative for businesses to move toward a digital-first strategy. “If all you’re doing is trying to serve customers at your location given social distancing and the number of people coming out (you won’t survive),” he said. “You have to be about takeout and delivery. Across every industry, we’re seeing this surge towards a digital-first strategy. All of the tools and products and services that we offer are probably more relevant and important across multiple industries than they’ve ever been before.”

    PayPal CEO: Across Every Industry, We’re Seeing a Surge Towards a Digital-First Strategy
  • Ecommerce Is Growing Much More Rapidly Than Before

    Ecommerce Is Growing Much More Rapidly Than Before

    “Demand for space is actually increasing because ecommerce is growing much more rapidly than it was before,” says global logistics real estate company Prologis CEO Hamid Moghadam. “We probably got three, four, or five years of growth in a quarter or two. Ecommerce is a big tailwind for our business. It’s a pretty good business otherwise but ecommerce just supercharges it.”

    Hamid Moghadam, chairman, and CEO of Prologis, the global leader in logistics real estate, while discussing their earnings release says the pandemic has rapidly accelerated the growth of ecommerce worldwide: 

    Ecommerce Is Growing Much More Rapidly Than Before

    We started the year with a very optimistic outlook and of course, all of that was before COVID. When we got to the first-quarter results, they were strong, but we softened our outlook a bit because nobody really knew what we were facing. As the business has progressed in the second quarter we’re finding that demand for space is actually increasing because ecommerce is growing much more rapidly than it was before. 

    We probably got three, four, or five years of growth in a quarter or two. Ecommerce is a big tailwind for our business. It’s a pretty good business otherwise but ecommerce just supercharges it. 

    Our Business Is Vital To The Supply Chain

    We run a global business. If you look at our collections globally, the US is actually stronger than the global numbers. But if you look at the overall numbers they are actually running better than last year which was a record year. You might ask why in an environment like this that collections are running ahead of last year? The reason is pretty simple. Our business is vital to the supply chain. Even people whose businesses are not doing well have to keep their inventory somewhere and that’s usually in one of our buildings. 

    An interesting statistic is that 2.5 percent of global GDP goes through our billion square feet around the world. We’ve got pretty good visibility as to what’s going on in the global economy. Both on the good end and the soft end people need inventory and a place to store their goods.

    Houston Is The Softest Market In The US

    Houston is probably the softest market in the US. Globally, I would have to say France is probably one of the weaker markets. But generally, through this cycle, we’ve held up pretty well around the world. The primary reason is that unlike other cycles supply of space was very tight going into this downturn. Vacancies were under five percent and utilization rates were in the mid-80s. Both of those are records.

    I’ve been doing this for about 37 years and those are numbers that are unprecedented in our business. Unprecedented good.

    Ecommerce Is Growing Much More Rapidly Than Before, Says Prologis CEO Hamid Moghadam
  • How Amperity Uses Machine Learning To Unlock Data and Supercharge Marketing

    How Amperity Uses Machine Learning To Unlock Data and Supercharge Marketing

    “Nobody was using machine learning to point at the underlying consumer data to help make sense of it and bring it together,” says Matthew Biboud-Lubeck of Amperity. “We put together cloud computing that was scalable with better economics alongside a machine learning algorithm that we were pointing at the data to help make sense of it. We realized that what we had was a pretty scalable solution to help brands get to that nirvana of a single view of the customer.”

    Matthew Biboud-Lubeck, VP of Strategic Services at Amperity, discusses how their platform helps brands create a complete view of their customers in an interview on the B2B Growth podcast:

    Helping Brands Create a Single View of Their Customers

    We are a CDP (customer data platform) based in Seattle that is helping brands create a single view of their customers and to unlock personalized experiences from that data. If you look back to the founding of Amperity about three years ago our founders were canvassing the marketplace. What you saw was a marketplace using a lot of buzzwords but having a lot of trouble executing them. You heard about personalization, customer 360, and a 360 view of the customer. Marketers across major consumer brands were super frustrated.

    They spent a fortune trying to cobble some view of their customer. They invested in technology to help them send better emails, to make their media more targeted, and to unveil better analytics. All of those tools that they have invested in talked about the notion of a single view of the customer because they fundamentally needed that to operate. The reality was that nobody was getting to the solution. We came in to say maybe there is a better way.

    Machine Learning Helps Brands Get To Nirvana

    There were two things that changed in the marketplace that we capitalized on. First of all, it was that cloud computing got a lot cheaper. It used to be that if you were a big brand and got hundreds of millions of customer interactions, it’s just a lot of data. Part of the reason that no one was able to create an easy solution to putting that all together was because it was cost prohibitive.

    The second really interesting evolution in the market is that machine learning has become much more mature. What we found was that everyone in the marketplace was using machine learning to make that last mile to the marketer a little bit better. It was used to decide which products to show a customer or to decide which offer to show a customer or to create a customer care solution that’s automated. You go online and type toward a solution and some bot talks back to you. Nobody was using machine learning to point at the underlying consumer data to help make sense of it and bring it together.

    We put together cloud computing that was scalable with better economics alongside a machine learning algorithm that we were pointing at the data to help make sense of it. We realized that what we had was a pretty scalable solution to help brands get to that nirvana of a single view of the customer. That’s how we were born. What’s interesting is that the customer data platform space is a little bit confusing. You have a lot of companies that started as something else that rebranded as a CDP. We were purpose-built from the ground up as a customer data platform designed to bring all of a brands data, reconcile that data to create a notion of identity on it and then to unleash that data back to the brand anywhere that they want to use that data.

    >>> Listen to the full B2B Growth podcast here.

  • Without AI, Real-Time Personalization Would Not Be Possible

    Without AI, Real-Time Personalization Would Not Be Possible

    “How do we shorten the space between a signal that we get, say in behavioral data that we see show up either in an app or on a website, and then churn through all of the possibilities of what we could present, apply algorithms to determine what is the next best offer and next best experience?” asks Adam Justis, Director of Marketing at Adobe Experience Cloud. “Then how do we present that in a way that actually feels if not real-time pretty close to it? That would not be possible without artificial intelligence.”

    Adam Justis, Director of Marketing at Adobe Experience Cloud, discusses how AI and machine learning are enabling near real-time shopping personalization in an interview with theCUBE at Adobe Imagine 2019 in Las Vegas:

    Role of AI in Offering a Personalized Shopping Experience is Core

    You definitely have the data piece and then the content piece. I would also add how the complexity of all that has certainly exceeded the capacity to manage this in a singular sort of engagement with a customer, let alone at scale millions of times a day. So the role of artificial intelligence and machine learning now is so core. It’s sort of the gearbox that’s turning at the center of the data on one hand and the content and elements, the assets, the offers, on the other that allows for ultimately the coalescing of those things and then the delivery of an experience worth having.

    That’s the component pieces that we’re seeing at play and Adobe’s motivation in going into that space. At Adobe when we announced our intent to acquire Magento, we were talking about how does Adobe facilitate or help every experience become shoppable and every moment personal? Really that was a claim we couldn’t make without the Magento piece. It is absolutely a hand in glove relationship especially as we’ve all evolved as consumers.

    Advancements in AI Are Going From the Absurd to the Very Real

    To imagine that we would be subscribing to socks or that we could one-click purchase just about anything, you need the technology that can keep pace with the expectations. That’s what it’s all about. So many of those experiences that Adobe is intent on enabling our customers to present culminate in a transaction of some sort. Magento is absolutely not only the icing on the cake but it’s also so integral. It’s becoming a fundamental or elemental part of what we’re trying to accomplish.

    That (personalized experience) is one of the things that I absolutely love about customer experience management or CXM. In a way I kind of love the absurdity of it. When you think of the scale, to say something like we’re going to make every experience shoppable and every moment personal, to imagine that that’s possible is almost absurd. But when you introduce the advancements that we’re seeing in artificial intelligence and machine learning now it’s literally going from the absurd or the realm of science fiction into very real. That’s what Adobe is looking at.

    Without AI Real-Time Personalization Would Not Be Possible

    How can we literally take some sort of statement like we’re going to personalize experiences across the customer journey and we’re going to do it at scale and in real-time? Really, unless you’re considering how we’re going to meet the needs of the customer in the moment that they’re expressing that need then it’s really moot. It is absolutely artificial intelligence and machine learning that we’re seeing expressed now across the Adobe Experience Cloud that is making that happen in multiple ways. One of the ways would be simply by shortening that span between the latent genius that marketers are walking around in their heads and actual execution. How can we take some of the friction out of the workflows that allow them to translate their ideas into offers?

    How do we shorten the space between a signal that we get, say in behavioral data that we see show up either in an app or on a website, and then churn through all of the possibilities of what we could present, apply algorithms to determine what is the next best offer and next best experience? Then how do we present that in a way that actually feels if not real-time pretty close to it? That would not be possible without artificial intelligence. At Adobe we do that through a product called Adobe Sensei.

    Adobe: Without AI Real-Time Personalization Would Not Be Possible
  • You’ve Got To Bail Everyone Out, Says Barry Diller

    You’ve Got To Bail Everyone Out, Says Barry Diller

    “You’ve got to bail everyone out,” says Expedia and IAC Chairman Barry Diller. “This is like when you’re picking losers and winners. Everybody is in the same position which is the world stopped for commerce. You see this when you drive down streets and you see big cities and small cities and you see nothing is open. They’re ghost towns. The damage that is being done every day is enormous. Everybody needs to be bailed out of this one-time thing and we’ll worry about paying the bills later.”

    Barry Diller, media mogul and Chairman of IAC and Expedia, says that every business in the United States must be bailed out in an interview on CNBC:

    You’ve Got To Bail Everyone Out

    What we’re doing at Expedia is using the time to do a lot of the things that we were not able to do when we were running a hundred miles an hour to keep up with our growth. You can think of it as a small business writ large. And then one day the door closes. And if you’ve got a small business with nobody coming in you have no revenue. Well, travel-related companies have no revenue. Expedia, like many large travel companies, has a very very large cost base so we haven’t yet dealt with that specifically. The real planning inside the company is to come out of this stronger than when we went into it.

    The bailouts of the airlines are necessary. Full stop. You’ve got to bail everyone out. This is like when you’re picking losers and winners. Everybody is in the same position which is the world stopped for commerce. You see this when you drive down streets and you see big cities and small cities and you see nothing is open. They’re ghost towns. The damage that is being done every day is enormous. Everybody needs to be bailed out of this one-time thing and we’ll worry about paying the bills later. 

    What has to happen is the fear has to decline

    What has to happen is the fear has to decline. The fear of associating with other people. There are plenty of friends of mine who say I’m not going to go to the theater or I’m not going to do this because I’m afraid. Actually, now people are saying, even though you’ve been isolating for three weeks you can’t come over to my house, which is kind of nuts. Fear is the next thing that’s going to thaw. Until that happens, whether you test people on the way in or whatever you do, at some point everybody’s going to have to be comfortable being a foot away from other people. If that fundamentally changes then a huge amount of our infrastructure disappears, which I don’t think will happen.

    You kind of have to get over it (the fear). You go into a theater and you’re sitting literally within inches of people, you go in thinking that no one is going come in with enormous toxicity. No one is going to come in who has got some terrible communicable disease and sneeze on you. You kind of just trust in that. We’re all too frightened right now. We’re gonna have to get over it or everything will change.

    One Way Or the Other This Is Going To Be Over or We’re Over

    When we see the damage that is being done everywhere we’ll really see in the second quarter (what’s happening). How can you get fair value? I absolutely believe that in a year or two from now this will be over. One way or the other this is going to be over or we’re over. But how can you value that today? I don’t think you can do it? 

    II think the streaming will be impacted by (the crisis) also. You go a few more months and while people say (that Netflix) and other subscriptions to entertainment) will be the last things they’ll cut because people feel they desperately need it to just get through the day but that is eventually going to take its toll. People truly will not have the discretionary income to afford it. 

    Cornoavirus Doesn’t Change the Dynamics of Anything

    But it doesn’t change the dynamics of anything. You’ve got the competitors. Streaming has taken over the world. Hollywood is irrelevant. The only companies that have a true path, an absolute clear business model path forward, have nothing to do with the entertainment business. Amazon and Netflix. Everybody else, good luck to them. They may be able to build subscription services that may be profitable but that world has changed forever. I think this pandemic has nothing to do with it other than earnings that are going to be much less for a while. 

    Of course, there are opportunities (to invest in) you just have to have a very long view or sure-footed look at things as not only they are but as you think they will be. We’re looking at some very large potential acquisitions for IAC. This is the environment where if you are acquisitive you’re going to do the thing that for many years everybody’s asked for. Oh my God, everything’s over-inflated and prices are crazy. You can’t buy things for this or that without these new premiums. Well, you know what, that’s all gone. If you’ve got capital what could be a better time than to exploit what is a terrible downfall for many companies.

    You’ve Got To Bail Everyone Out, Says Barry Diller