WebProNews

Category: Retail & eCommerce

eCommerce, Online Retail & Retail News

  • Microsoft Unlocks Power Of 5G For Telecommunications

    Microsoft Unlocks Power Of 5G For Telecommunications

    “Today starts a new chapter in our close collaboration with the telecommunications industry to unlock the power of 5G and bring cloud and edge closer than ever,” said Microsoft Azure Executive Vice President Jason Zander in a blog announcement. “We’re building a carrier-grade cloud and bringing more Microsoft technology to the operator’s edge. This, in combination with our developer ecosystem, will help operators to future proof their networks, drive down costs, and create new services and business models.”

    Jason Zander, Executive Vice President, Microsoft Azure, announces new collaborations with the telecommunications industry that will unlock the power of 5G and bring cloud and edge closer than ever:

    The increasing demand for always-on connectivity, immersive experiences, secure collaboration, and remote human relationships is pushing networks to their limits, while the market is driving down price. The network infrastructure must ensure operators are able to optimize costs and gain efficiencies, while enabling the development of personalized and differentiated services. To address the requirements of rolling out 5G, operators will face strong challenges, including high capital expenditure (CapEx) investments, an increased need for scale, automation, and secure management of the massive volume of data it will generate.

    Today starts a new chapter in our close collaboration with the telecommunications industry to unlock the power of 5G and bring cloud and edge closer than ever. We’re building a carrier-grade cloud and bringing more Microsoft technology to the operator’s edge. This, in combination with our developer ecosystem, will help operators to future proof their networks, drive down costs, and create new services and business models.

    In Microsoft, operators get a trusted partner who will empower them to unlock the potential of 5G. Enabling them to offer a range of new services such as ultra-reliable low-latency connectivity, mixed reality communications services, network slicing, and highly scalable IoT applications to transform entire industries and communities.

    By harnessing the power of Microsoft Azure, on their edge, or in the cloud, operators can transition to a more flexible and scalable model, drive down infrastructure cost, use AI and machine learning (ML) to automate operations and create service differentiation. Furthermore, a hybrid and hyper-scale infrastructure will provide operators with the agility they need to rapidly innovate and experiment with new 5G services on a programmable network.

    More specifically, we will further support operators as they evolve their infrastructure and operations using technologies such as software-defined networking, network function virtualization, and service-based architectures. We are bringing to market a carrier-grade platform for edge and cloud to support the operator’s goals to future proof their infrastructure with disaggregated, and containerized network architectures. Recognizing that not everything will move to the public cloud, we will meet operators where they are—whether at the enterprise edge, the network edge, or in the cloud.

    Our approach is built on the acquisitions of industry leaders in cloud-native network functions—Affirmed Networks and Metaswitch and on the development of Azure Edge Zones. By bringing together hundreds of engineers with deep experience in the telecommunications space, we are ensuring that our product development process is catering to the most relevant networking needs of the operators. We will leverage the strengths of Microsoft to extend and enhance the current capabilities of industry-leading products such as Affirmed’s 5G core and Metaswitch’s UC portfolio. These capabilities, combined with Microsoft’s broad developer ecosystem and deep business to business partnership programs, provide Microsoft with a unique ability to support the operators as they seek to monetize the capabilities of their networks.

    Your customer, your service, powered by our technology

    As we build out our partnerships with different operators, it is clear to us that there will be different approaches to technology adoption based on business needs. Some operators may choose to adopt the Azure platform and select a varied mix of virtualized or containerized network function providers. We also have operators that have requested complete end-to-end services as components for their offers. As a part of these discussions, many operators have identified points of control that are important to them, for example:

    • Control over where a slice, network API, or function is presented to the customer.
    • Definition of where and how traffic enters and exits their network.
    • Visibility and control over where key functions are executed for a given customer scenario.
    • Configuration and performance parameters of core network functions.

    As we build out Azure for Operators, we recognize the importance of ensuring operators have the control and visibility they require to manage their unique industry requirements. To that end, here is how our assets come together to provide operators with the platform they need.

    Communication Service Providers

    Interconnect

    It starts with the ability to interconnect deeply with the operator’s network around the globe. We have one of the largest networks that connect with operators at more than 170 points of presence and over 20,000 peering connections around the globe, putting direct connectivity within 25 miles of 85 percent of the world’s GDP. More than 200 operators have already chosen to integrate with the Azure network through our ExpressRoute service, enabling enterprises and partners to link their corporate networks privately and securely to Azure services. We also provide additional routes to connect to the service through options as varied as satellite connectivity and TV White Space spectrum.

    Edge platform

    This reach helps us to supply operators with cloud computing options that meet the customer wherever those capabilities are needed: at the enterprise edge, the network edge, the network core, or in the cloud. The various form factors, optimized to support the location in which they are deployed, are supported by the Azure platform—providing virtual machine and container services with a common management framework, DevOps support, and security control.

    Network functions

    We believe in an open platform that leverages the strengths of our partners. Our solutions are a combination of virtualized and containerized services as composable functions, developed by us and by our Network Equipment Provider partners, to support operators’ services such as the Radio Access Network, Mobile Packet Core, Voice and Interconnect services, and other network functions.

    Technology from Affirmed and Metaswitch Networks will provide services for Mobile Packet Core, Voice, and Interconnect services.

    Cloud solutions and Azure IoT for operators

    By exposing these services through the Azure platform, we can combine them with other Azure capabilities such as Azure Cognitive Services (used by more than 1 million developers processing more than 10 billion transaction per day), Azure Machine Learning, and Azure IoT, to bring the power of AI and automation to the delivery of network services. These capabilities, in concert with our partnerships with OSS and BSS providers, enables us to help operators streamline and simplify operations, create new services to monetize the network, and gain greater insights into customer behavior.

    In IoT our primary focus is simplifying our solutions to accelerate what we can do together from the edge to the cloud. We’ve done so by creating a platform that provides simple and secure provisioning of applications and devices to Azure cloud solutions through Azure IoT Central, which is the fastest and easiest way to build IoT solutions at scale. IoT Central enables customers to provision an IoT app in seconds, customize it in hours, and go to production the same day. IoT Plug and Play dramatically simplifies all aspects of IoT device support and provides devices that “just work” with any solution and is the perfect complement to achieve speed and simplicity through IoT Central. Azure IoT Central also gives the Mobile Operator the opportunity to monetize more of the IoT solution and puts them in a position to be a re-seller of the IoT Central application platform through their own solutions. Learn more about using Azure IoT for operators here.

    Cellular connectivity is increasingly important for IoT solutions and represents a vast and generational shift for mobile operators as the share of devices in market shifts towards the enterprise. We will continue our deep partnership with operators to enable fast and efficient app development and deployment, which is critical to success at the edge. This will help support scenarios such as asset tracking across industries, manufacturing and distribution of smart products, and responsive supply chains. It will also help support scenarios where things are geographically dispersed, such as smart city automation, utility monitoring, and precision agriculture.

    Where we go next

    Our early engagement with partners such as Telstra and Etisalat helped us shape this path. We joined the 5G Open Innovation Lab as the founding public cloud partner to accelerate enterprise startups and launch new innovations to foster new 5G use cases with even greater access to leading-edge networks. The Lab will create long-term, sustainable developer and commercial ecosystems that will accelerate the delivery of exciting new capabilities at the edge, including pervasive IoT intelligence and immersive mixed reality. And this is just the beginning. I invite you to learn more about our solutions and watch the series of videos we have curated for you.

  • Google Will Start Enforcing Google Play Store Fees

    Google Will Start Enforcing Google Play Store Fees

    Google is looking to stop companies from circumventing its normal 30% Google Play Store fees.

    Like the Apple App Store, the Google Play store imposes a 30% fee on all sales through the store. Until now, however, companies could circumvent Google’s fees, a practice Google is now looking to end.

    One key area where Google differs from Apple, however, is that Google plans to make it easier to use third-party app stores. Sameer Samat, Vice President, Product Management, highlights what Google is planning:

    We will be making changes in Android 12 (next year’s Android release) to make it even easier for people to use other app stores on their devices while being careful not to compromise the safety measures Android has in place. We are designing all this now and look forward to sharing more in the future!

    At the same time, Google is giving companies one year to make the necessary changes to be compliant with Google’s policies:

    Again, this isn’t new. This has always been the intention of this long standing policy and this clarification will not affect the vast majority of developers with apps on Google Play. Less than 3% of developers with apps on Play sold digital goods over the last 12 months, and of this 3%, the vast majority (nearly 97%) already use Google Play’s billing. But for those who already have an app on Google Play that requires technical work to integrate our billing system, we do not want to unduly disrupt their roadmaps and are giving a year (until September 30, 2021) to complete any needed updates. And of course we will require Google’s apps that do not already use Google Play’s billing system to make the necessary updates as well.

    Google’s plans raise the stakes even more for the legal case Epic has brought against both Apple and Google, claiming their fees are unfair and anticompetitive.

  • Twitter Will Deploy ‘Read Before You Retweet’ Prompt to All Users

    Twitter Will Deploy ‘Read Before You Retweet’ Prompt to All Users

    Twitter is planning on bringing its ‘Read Before You Retweet’ prompt to all users, following several months of testing.

    Twitter began testing the feature in June in an effort to help stop the spread of disinformation that social media platforms have increasingly been called to task for. The results of the tests have been positive, with significant upticks in the percentage of people actually looking at the articles they retweet.

    https://twitter.com/TwitterComms/status/1309178716988354561?s=20

    Social media companies are looking at multiple ways of reigning in disinformation and radical content. Time will tell if Twitter’s new feature has a long-lasting impact.

  • Facebook’s First Director of Monetization Likens Company to Big Tobacco

    Facebook’s First Director of Monetization Likens Company to Big Tobacco

    Tim Kendall, Facebook’s first Director of Monetization, said the company had taken a page from Big Tobacco’s playbook.

    The Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Commerce of the Committee on Energy and Commerce is looking at the role of social media in “Mainstreaming Extremism: Social Media’s Role in Radicalizing America.” Kendall is testifying based on his role as Director of Monetization from 2006 through 2010, giving him a unique insight into the inner workings of the company.

    The social media services that I and others have built over the past 15 years have served to tear people apart with alarming speed and intensity,” said Kendall. “At the very least, we have eroded our collective understanding—at worst, I fear we are pushing ourselves to the brink of a civil war.

    He then goes on to highlight the methods Facebook used, essentially taking a page out of Big Tobacco’s playbook in an effort to make their product more addictive.

    Tobacco companies initially just sought to make nicotine more potent. But eventually that wasn’t enough to grow the business as fast as they wanted. And so they added sugar and menthol to cigarettes so you could hold the smoke in your lungs for longer periods. At Facebook, we added status updates, photo tagging, and likes, which made status and reputation primary and laid the groundwork for a teenage mental health crisis.

    Allowing for misinformation, conspiracy theories, and fake news to flourish were like Big Tobacco’s bronchodilators, which allowed the cigarette smoke to cover more surface area of the lungs. But that incendiary content alone wasn’t enough. To continue to grow the user base and in particular, the amount of time and attention users would surrender to Facebook, they needed more.

    Tobacco companies added ammonia to cigarettes to increase the speed with which nicotine traveled to the brain. Extreme, incendiary content—think shocking images, graphic videos, and headlines that incite outrage—sowed tribalism and division. And this result has been unprecedented engagement — and profits.

    Needless to say, Kendall’s testimony is likely to give weight to officials concerns about the role the platform has played in societal problems. Explaining Kendal’s testimony may become the biggest challenge for Facebook executives.

  • Amazon Announces ‘Climate Pledge Friendly’ to Aid Sustainable Shopping

    Amazon Announces ‘Climate Pledge Friendly’ to Aid Sustainable Shopping

    Amazon has announced a new initiative, Climate Pledge Friendly, to help customers shop for sustainable products.

    Amazon has increasingly been under fire from its own employees for a perceived lack of effort toward addressing climate change. This included a “climate strike” in 2019, when hundreds of employees walked out. The efforts appear to have made an impact, as Jeff Bezos pledged $10 billion to fight climate change in early 2020, and now Amazon has unveiled its new initiative.

    Climate Pledge Friendly labels will appear on some 25,000 different products across a host of categories, including grocery, household, personal electronics, fashion and beauty, to name just a few. In order to receive the label, a product will need to have at least one of 19 sustainability certifications. A number of brands have gotten onboard, including Seventh Generation, Burt’s Bees Baby, Mrs. Meyer’s and HP.

    “Climate Pledge Friendly is a simple way for customers to discover more sustainable products that help preserve the natural world,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO. “With 18 external certification programs and our own Compact by Design certification, we’re incentivizing selling partners to create sustainable products that help protect the planet for future generations.”

  • Revolve CFO: Laser-focused on the Largest Buying Power in the World, the Millennial

    Revolve CFO: Laser-focused on the Largest Buying Power in the World, the Millennial

    “Revolve is a whole new species of fashion retail,” says Jesse Timmermans, the CFO at Revolve, in an interview with Entrepreneur Network partner Business Rockstars. “We’ve taken the traditional retail model and evolved that experience to be laser-focused on the largest buying power in the world, the millennial.” (View video below)

    Timmermans says that the biggest challenge of being a CFO for him is balancing risk, cost, opportunities and reaching the right decision for the long-term. “There is a vast amount of data available out there, so how do you take all of that data, translate it, find the right indicators, and make the right decision for the long term,” he said.

    On Competition: You Have to Offer More

    Customer behavior is changing fast and customer expectations are increasing all the time with the larger more transactional based digital retailers making it harder and harder to compete, so you have to go beyond that and offer more. Beyond free shipping, it has to be fast shipping. Beyond free returns, it has to be easy returns.

    We at Revolve treat the home as a dressing room, so we allow the customer to return, we encourage the customer to try new things. We offer a lot of emerging brands, so it’s important for that customer to try something on in their home and to be able to return free and easy.

    Constantly Monitoring Data to Read Brand Performance

    At Revolve we carry a lot of emerging brands, so we need to continually read and react to the performance of these brands. After launching on the site we read within 24 hours how that brand is performing, how that style is performing. We read many many attributes on each piece of clothing and then we make a quick call on do we go deeper or do we cut the brand and the style?

    About Revolve

    Revolve is an ecommerce startup that was founded in 2003 and is headquartered in Cerritos, California. The company describes itself as the virtual home for an unrivaled collection of over 700 of the world’s most-coveted established and emerging brands in women’s and men’s designer apparel, shoes, and accessories. Based in the Los Angeles area, Revolve’s is deeply rooted in the Southern California lifestyle from which it was founded, where a savvy view of fashion and fun-loving attitude are infused into the entire customer experience.

  • Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade For TV Only, Says CEO

    Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade For TV Only, Says CEO

    “The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is not going to be a live event but it’s all going to be filmed live,” says Macy’s CEO Jeff Gennette. “It’s going to be filmed over a two-day window. It’s got the floats, it’s got the balloons, but the talent is different. We are really excited about having a great Thanksgiving Day Parade for America this year. It’s just going to be different but it will be going without a hitch.”

    Jeff Gennette, Chairman and CEO of Macy’s, says that the iconic 2020 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade will be happening over two days but without a live audience:

    Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade Is Happening

    When you think about Macy’s you think about we’re pillars of the communities that we are a part of. We take great pride in that. That’s in our DNA. When you look at what we do to give back and what we’re doing with all of our donations, what we’re doing for meals on wheels with food instability right now, those are things that we’re really proud of. We’re in that with our customers raising millions of dollars for communities in need. If there ever was a time where we need to give thanks it is right now.

    For Thanksgiving, we had kind of a dress rehearsal where we did the fireworks. We did the fireworks and we did it in a way that was safe for people who are living in New York City. Expect the same thing with the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. It’s not going to be a live event but it’s all going to be filmed live. It’s going to be filmed over a two-day window. It’s got the floats, it’s got the balloons, but the talent is different. All the people that were ready to come, the marching bands, the cheer squads that were coming in for 2020, we’ve given them a pass and they’re coming back for 2021. We’re backfilling with other entertainment.

    We are really excited about having a great Thanksgiving Day Parade for America this year. It’s just going to be different but it will be going without a hitch.

    Being An Omnichannel Retailer Gives Us An Advantage

    Is back to school shopping a prequel to how holiday shopping will be? We’re all looking at how’s the traffic going to be between Thanksgiving and Christmas or Hanukkah? How should we expect that? We’re all looking for whatever comes our way. We’ve all got A-B-C. alternatives. We call it the 2020 options because whatever comes our way we have to have flexibility. What I’m expecting is that holiday traffic is going to start much earlier. More than ever, customers want to have a great gift that they either put under the tree or they give in a treasured box.

    To make sure that we have that ready for customers no matter when they want to shop we’re pulling the calendar to start addressing those great values at the beginning of November. We’re going to be ready for the customer, for those that want to shop after Thanksgiving. Being an omnichannel retailer, we’re going to have a great advantage to be able to deliver it the day before Christmas by same-day delivery or them coming to a store and through the safety of curbside being able to pick up that great value.

    Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade For TV Only, Says CEO Jeff Gennette
  • Facebook May Pull Out of Europe

    Facebook May Pull Out of Europe

    Facebook is warning it may pull out of Europe over a decision by Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC).

    The DPC issued a preliminary order to stop Facebook from transferring the data of European citizens to servers in the US. The EU has become increasingly wary of its citizens’ data being held in the US, given the US government’s penchant for digital surveillance.

    According to Vice, however, Facebook has warned that the DPC’s decision may cause it to pull out of the EU altogether. This would leave some 410 million users without access to Facebook and Instagram.

    Yvonne Cunnane, Facebook Ireland’s Head of Data Protection and Privacy, said “it is not clear to [Facebook] how, in those circumstances, it could continue to provide the Facebook and Instagram services in the EU.”

    What is even more unclear is if Facebook is serious about its threat, or if this is a game of legal chicken. It seems unlikely Facebook would be willing to abandon an entire continent worth of users, opening the door for a home-grown competitor to take its place.

  • Harnessing The Power Of Mobile Communication For Your Business

    Harnessing The Power Of Mobile Communication For Your Business

    As technology changes so does the way we interact with each other. Before smartphones and ordering online, popping into a shop to search for a particular item or calling around to find it before heading out were both common things to do. The internet and later smartphones changed all that. Now we have access to whatever information we need right at our fingertips at all times. If we are searching for something hard to find we can simply order it online. If we are planning to go purchase something in person or we want more information about an item before we buy it, we often consult our smartphones for further information rather than asking a store employee for help. In fact, even before the COVID-19 pandemic, 69% of people would rather search for information on their phones instead of asking for help from a store employee, and the pandemic has just made this practice all the more practical.

    All the information and technology we carry around in our pockets has changed the way we interact with the world. We send text messages and emails more frequently than calling now and if we don’t know something it’s just a matter of knowing how to find it. With the spread of the pandemic accessing information has become even more crucial. We can look up mask policies and procedures before we go to a business, find out if a business has special hours for those with disabilities and the elderly, and look up every-changing hours and services.

    Consumers And Mobile Communication

    Before the pandemic, 81% of consumers used mobile to manage finances, while 79% used mobile to make online purchases. Any why wouldn’t they? The days of getting up and going to the computer every time you wanted to look something up, pay a bill online, or buy something are long over.

    Increasingly, stores are giving information to consumers that they have never given out before. One of the things customers can look for online with many businesses is not only where an item is located in a store, but also how many of that item are in stock at any given time. Customers want accurate information and they want it now, as their time is becoming more valuable than ever. What’s more, knowing you will find what you are looking for before you leave the house is actually pretty critical during the age of social distancing.

    Mobile Communication In Retail

    Communicating with customers is changing thanks to the mobile revolution. Answering phone calls from customers is no longer the main interaction with them. In fact, 85% of those who own smartphones prefer text messages to calls or even emails, which means that businesses that aren’t responsive to this type of communication are likely missing out on customers.

    55% of people ignore marketing emails because they get too many emails, and 29% never listen to voicemail. On the other hand, 90% of people open a text message within minutes. In fact, there is a:

    Before the COVID-19 pandemic 68% of businesses were already using some form of messaging to connect with their customers. This placed them in a considerably better position when the pandemic hit because they already had the infrastructure in place to meet the changing needs of customers in response to social distancing.

    Now customers need information before they show up to a business, and mobile messaging is the way they often prefer to receive it. Curbside pickup has doubled since last year and 59% of customers plan to continue using it after the pandemic passes, and this service is made possible through the use of mobile messaging.

    Mobile Communication In Foodservice

    Mobile ordering and messaging has also been a boon to restaurants since the start of the pandemic. In many places restaurants have only been open for takeout orders, so having apps and messaging abilities for taking orders and telling customers when their orders are ready has helped them to run on a skeleton crew while making the changes necessary to function as a takeout only business.

    In March of this year pizza deliveries went up 44% in a single week, and many companies used online ordering and mobile communication to ensure contactless deliveries.

    As restaurants begin to reopen with new social distancing guidelines in place, mobile messaging helps to keep communication going for reservations, when tables are ready, and more.

    Mobile Communication In Medicine

    Accessing medical services has been challenging because of the pandemic, and early on laws were relaxed to allow people to access telehealth services. In order to make the transition easier for medical providers and patients alike, all messaging and video call services were allowed so that doctors could get care to those who needed it via whatever means they were able to use. Teladoc saw a 50% increase in use in the first week alone.

    Mobile messaging can be used for appointment reminders, prescription refill verifications, and more, and 72% of organizations plan to implement more and better digital customer experiences throughout the rest of 2020.

    Mobile Communication In Customer Service

    When it comes to customer complaints, nothing makes customers angrier than sitting on hold for hours waiting for their call to be answered, which makes it not the best way to solve customer complaints to begin with.

    Chats and mobile messaging give customers the ability to initiate contact and then do other things while they await a response. It’s a much less stressful way to deal with contacting customer service, and it’s a lot more effective than airing out grievances on social media, which can come back around with undesirable consequences later on.

    But text messaging has to go both ways. It’s not enough to send marketing messages via SMS, businesses also need to be able to respond to messages they receive. One in three customers report sending a message to a company and never hearing back from them, and in many cases it is simply because the company has not enabled two way messaging.

    65% of customers have positive feelings toward businesses that offer messaging as a means of communication, likely because it shows the company respects the customer’s communication style and choices.

    Harnessing The Power Of Mobile Communications

    Customers say that businesses that offer messaging respect their time, which makes them more likely to choose to do business with that company. It also means those happy customers are more likely to recommend that business to friends and family.

    As technology changes, the ways that businesses interact with customers have to keep up with the times. The first rule of customer service is to meet customers where they are, and if that means hanging up the phone and sending out a text message that’s how it has to be.

    Mobile communication is likely to hinge on SMS messages for some time to come, and businesses that aren’t already using this method are missing out on business. Is your business ready to harness the power of mobile communication?

  • Slice CEO Leading Digital Transformation Of Pizzerias

    Slice CEO Leading Digital Transformation Of Pizzerias

    “We want to make sure that 70 to 80 percent of the volume for pizzerias is digital., says Slice CEO Ilir Sela. “This is very comparable to Domino’s and Papa John’s and other big chains. We’ve got to lead the digital transformation of these small businesses. We bring technology and marketing and we enable the existing operation of the pizzeria. We make them more efficient and we make these Pizzerias really powerful and valuable.”

    Ilir Sela, CEO of Slice, discusses how the Slice app is driving the digital transformation of small pizzerias so that they can compete effectively with the national pizza chains:

    Leading Digital Transformation Of Pizzerias

    We take a merchant friendly approach because we really believe in the power of small business and the American dream. I am third generation in the pizza industry. My family consists of a ton of entrepreneurs who mostly opened up small business pizzerias. The goal for us was to make sure that as digital becomes an important component of their business that it doesn’t cannibalize the physical location.

    So we take a digital-first approach in a way that means we want to make sure that 70 to 80 percent of the volume for these pizzerias is digital. This is very comparable to Domino’s and Papa John’s and other big chains. In order to do that you have to take a long-term view and you’ve got to take a merchant friendly view around loyalty and online ordering. Obviously, in order to do that we’ve got to run the playbook. We’ve got to lead the digital transformation of these small businesses.

    All Pizzerias Need To Digitize Their Platforms

    We are actually an all-in-one platform where we partner with a small business in order to digitize their operation. We are not a logistics company ourselves. We empower small businesses to have what we call first-party delivery. In a way, that’s been done forever. Small business pizzerias have delivered across the entire country for decades and they’ve made it work incredibly well.

    The reality is that in the world of COVID and as we go further into the 2020s, all these pizzerias really need to digitize their platforms in order to become more efficient. What we do is we bring technology and marketing and we enable the existing operation of the pizzeria. We make it more efficient and we make it really powerful and valuable.

    Slice CEO Ilir Sela Leading Digital Transformation Of Pizzerias
  • 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
  • Splunk CEO: Every Company Needs A Data Czar

    Splunk CEO: Every Company Needs A Data Czar

    “Every company is going to need a Data Czar, a data leader, a Chief Data Officer, over time,” says Splunk CEO Doug Merritt. “One of the big points of digitization is you now get a bunch of data that you didn’t have before so that you can actually begin to act in real-time on these different signals. That needs somebody that understands data and guides data across an organization.”

    Doug Merritt, CEO of Splunk, discusses how big data has spurred the need for every enterprise company is ultimately going to need a Data Czar:

    Big Data Drives Society Forward

    Almost everything in the world has got some type of WiFi or network connection so there is a ton of data that is flying around the stratosphere at this moment. The difficulty is being able to capture that data and begin to make sense of it so you can serve customers more effectively, reduce costs, optimize your supply chain, and hear signals from your employee base.

    All the different capabilities that if you understand big data, and cloud certainly helps dramatically there, you can actually drive society forward. It’s what we call turning data into action, bringing data to every question, every decision, and ultimately into every action, so that we can keep our organizations and our society moving forward.

    Every Company Needs A Data Czar

    Every company is going to need a data Czar, a data leader, a Chief Data Officer, over time. One of the big points of digitization is you now get a bunch of data that you didn’t have before so that you can actually begin to act in real-time on these different signals. That needs somebody that understands data and guides data across an organization.

    That pull from corporations is what pulls companies like Splunk and others forward to help the technical population within those organizations to actually make sense of data. We also help the sales, marketing, and finance departments, and any people in organizations that are leaning more heavily on data gathering and data science in making sense there.

    Splunk CEO Doug Merritt: Every Company Needs A Data Czar
  • 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
  • What We’re Really Seeing Is the Integration of Bricks and Clicks

    What We’re Really Seeing Is the Integration of Bricks and Clicks

    “What we’re really seeing here is the integration of bricks and clicks,” says Cohen retail analyst Oliver Chen. “Target really hit the bull’s eye on their numbers. What stood out really was 195 percent ecommerce growth and using stores as hubs or fulfillment centers, particularly drive-up curbside pickup and reinventing the purpose of the store to integrate the whole shopping journey. As retail continues to evolve this whole fulfillment and stores plus digital will continue to be a huge theme.”

    Oliver Chen, Retail and Luxury Analyst at Cohen, and Michael Baker, Managing Director & Senior Retail Analyst at D.A. Davidson Companies discuss how ecommerce and physical stores are integrating:

    What We’re Seeing Is the Integration of Bricks and Clicks

    What we’re really seeing here is the integration of bricks and clicks. Target really hit the bull’s eye on their numbers. What stood out really was 195 percent ecommerce growth and using stores as hubs or fulfillment centers, particularly drive-up curbside pickup and reinventing the purpose of the store to integrate the whole shopping journey. What’s happening is that America really values convenience and Target’s done a great job being America’s easiest place to shop.

    Thinking about physical, mix with digital and instant gratification, same-day fulfillment has been a big deal. Customers want it all. They want physical, they want digital, they want groceries and hard lines. We’re also seeing this at-home revolution with home electronics doing really well too. These are all key themes. As retail continues to evolve this whole fulfillment and stores plus digital will continue to be a huge theme.

    Ecommerce Is No Longer a Bad Word

    The key is that ecommerce is no longer a bad word. If you think back a couple of years ago if you mentioned ecommerce the idea was to short all retail. It took some of these retailers a while to understand the investments in technology that needed to be made. But they’ve done it using the stores as assets instead of liabilities.

    Again, if you go back maybe five years ago the idea was if you had a store you’re in trouble. These companies through their technology investments have really proven that’s not the case. I do believe that investing in technology to drive your sales and your earnings is certainly the right thing to do for these companies.

    What We’re Really Seeing Is the Integration of Bricks and Clicks
  • 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%
  • Yelp: 61% Of Restaurant Closures Permanent

    Yelp: 61% Of Restaurant Closures Permanent

    By far, the hardest hit segment of the economy impacted by the forced government closures mandated by various state governor executive orders over the last six months has been restaurants. According to a Yelp COVID Impact Report, 61 percent of restaurants closed during the pandemic will never reopen. Remember, these are businesses that never should have closed in the first place considering that Walmart, Target, Kroger, and hundreds of so-called ‘essential’ businesses remained open.

    The obvious question that the media seems oblivious to is if social distancing and preventive measures could be implemented in the busiest of all retail establishments like Walmart, then why on earth couldn’t they have been implemented at restaurants, small businesses, and other chain stores also? In fact, they are being implemented now, months later, which proves that just like Walmart they could have been implemented six months earlier and saved thousands of businesses and jobs.

    “The restaurant industry continues to be among the most impacted with an increasing number of closures – totaling 32,109 closures as of August 31, with 19,590 of these business closures indicated to be permanent (61%). Breakfast and brunch restaurants, burger joints, sandwich shops, dessert places and Mexican restaurants are among the types of restaurants with the highest rate of business closures. Foods that work well for delivery and takeout have been able to keep their closure rates lower than others, including pizza places, delis, food trucks, bakeries and coffee shops.

    Yelp: Local Economic Impact Report – September 2020

    Yelp says that a total of 163, 735 business on Yelp have closed since the pandemic closure mandates and reopening restrictions started. Yelp focuses on restaurants, services businesses, and retail, many of which are locally owned and family-owned establishments. As one would expect, the mandates hurt these businesses very badly. In fact, according to the study, over 60 percent of all businesses that closed will never reopen. That equates to 97,966 businesses closed for good.

    The last Yelp Economic Average showed a decreasing number of overall closures, 132,580 in total. As of August 31, 163,735 total U.S. businesses on Yelp have closed since the beginning of the pandemic (observed as March 1), a 23% increase since July 10. In the wake of COVID-19 cases increasing and local restrictions continuing to change in many states we’re seeing both permanent and temporary closures rise across the nation, with 60% of those closed businesses not reopening (97,966 permanently closed).

    Yelp: Local Economic Impact Report – September 2020
    Yelp: Local Economic Impact Report – September 2020

    According to the Yelp report, Hawaii, California, and Nevada have the highest rate of total closures and permanent closures. They are also the three states with the highest unemployment rates. The states with the least business restrictions, West Virginia and the Dakotas, not so coincidentally, also have the lowest closure rates. The cities with the highest number of permanent business closures also tend to be in areas where the government has been the harshest on businesses imposing full closures for the longest periods and only allowing partial reopenings. The top five states with the most businesses closed are Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Chicago, and Dallas.

    Yelp: Local Economic Impact Report – September 2020
  • 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.


  • AT&T Exploring Ads On Your Cell Phone For a Price Discount

    AT&T Exploring Ads On Your Cell Phone For a Price Discount

    In case anyone thought they didn’t see enough ads, AT&T wants to put ads on your phone in exchange for a whopping $5 off your bill.

    Ad-supported services have become one of the most popular business models, with everything from streaming entertainment to mobile apps relying on ad revenue to provide free or discounted services. The proliferation of ad-based business models have created a slew of privacy concerns, as consumers and lawmakers are finally pushing back against being continually tracked, analyzed and profiled.

    It appears that AT&T wants to keep going down the privacy-threatening, ad-based rabbit hole, however, by introducing ad-supported telephone plans. The goal would be to use mobile phones to serve up ads, in exchange for a $5 or $10 price break.

    “I believe there’s a segment of our customer base where given a choice, they would take some load of advertising for a $5 or $10 reduction in their mobile bill,” Chief Executive John Stankey told Reuters in an exclusive interview.

    What’s more, the company plans to use “unified customer identifiers,” that would enable marketers to track users across devices.

    Does anyone else see a problem with this?

    Wireless carriers already have access to a vast amount of data on their customers. In fact, it’s safe to say there are few companies that have as much ability to track their users as wireless providers. Having those companies use that data for targeted marketing, even making it easier for marketers to track users across devices, is quite possibly one of the worst, most consumer-unfriendly ideas put forth by a company in recent years.

    What’s most interesting is that AT&T reported revenue of $41.0 billion in its second quarter results. Its operating expenses were $37.4 billion, leaving it an operating income of $3.5 billion—in a single quarter, a quarter hit hard by a global pandemic, among other things.

    Yet, in spite of making a profit of more than $1 billion per month, AT&T is not happy doing what businesses have done since the beginning of time—charge a fair price for a fair service. Instead, it wants to use its vast amount of data to turn its users into a product it can then sell to advertisers.

    This writer, for one, is thrilled to not be an AT&T customer.

  • Accenture CEO: Once In An Era Replatforming Of Global Business

    Accenture CEO: Once In An Era Replatforming Of Global Business

    Accenture announced the formation of Accenture Cloud First with a $3 billion investment over three years. Accenture’s $3 billion investment will be used to continue advancing — often together with its cloud and broader technology ecosystem partners — industry roadmaps, data models, and solutions; cloud AI data and AI architectures; integrated full-stack infrastructure and applications capabilities; cloud tools, assets, and automation to drive lower unit cost and innovation; and research and development in edge computing and related cloud technologies.

    Accenture Cloud First is a new multi-service group of 70,000 cloud professionals that brings together the full power and breadth of Accenture’s industry and technology capabilities, ecosystem partnerships, and deep commitment to learning and upskilling clients’ employees and to responsible business, with the singular focus of enabling organizations to move to the cloud with greater speed and achieve greater value for all their stakeholders at this critical time.

    “COVID-19 has created a new inflection point that requires every company to dramatically accelerate the move to the cloud as a foundation for digital transformation to build the resilience, new experiences and products, trust, speed, and structural cost reduction that the ongoing health, economic and societal crisis demands — and that a better future for all requires,” said Accenture CEO Julie Sweet. “Accenture Cloud First and our substantial investment demonstrate our commitment to delivering greater value to our clients when they need it most. Digital transformation requires cloud at scale, and post-COVID leadership requires that every business become a ‘cloud-first’ business.”

    The idea is to help clients across all industries rapidly become “cloud-first” businesses and accelerate their digital transformation to realize greater value at speed and scale. Karthik Narain will lead Accenture Cloud First and join the Global Management Committee, effective October 1.

    Julie Sweet, CEO of Accenture, discusses how the company is investing in helping businesses “replatform” in the cloud:

    Once In An Era Replatforming Of Global Business

    There has been this massive acceleration in the cloud. Really what’s happening is a once in an era replatforming of global business. We are 20 percent in the cloud today. We believe we will move to around 80 percent in just five years. What Accenture Cloud First is about is helping companies get there faster by bringing together all of the capabilities with a singular focus of how are we going to replatform at speed.

    Pre-COVID we worked with a ton of the digital leaders who have been out front. What we see is that there are three important components. First of all, with our cloud partners across the spectrum it’s really critical to not just move companies but to move entire industries. That takes the road map, the learning, and the data integration about what problems are specific to the industry. We are going to be investing in those solutions often along with our partners.

    The second area is the speed, investing in better automation and technology that is going to help not just move these companies faster but actually also be able to operate in the cloud with increasingly more productivity. Think about the cloud becoming a platform for their productivity.

    Investing In Making Replatforming Sustainable

    The third place is around talent and sustainability. If you are replatforming entire global businesses in the cloud we have to do so in a sustainable way. This means getting out of the datacenter to the cloud and what it does for climate change. It’s around things like supply chain and making sure that you are building in the ability to have the integrity of the supply chain and that you are reskilling.

    We will be investing in making this replatforming sustainable. This is core as we think about post-COVID our belief as companies across the globe and government that we need to make a better future for all by building in this view of all stakeholders from the planet to our people.

    Accenture CEO Julie Sweet: Once In An Era Replatforming Of Global Business
  • Amazon Now Playing Podcasts

    Amazon Now Playing Podcasts

    Amazon has entered the super hot podcasting arena, adding podcasts to their Amazon Music platform. All podcasts will, of course, be able to be accessed via Alexa, through its voice-activated Echo speakers, and are free to Amazon Prime members. Check the podcasts out here: Amazon Podcasts

    “Our customers’ listening habits are constantly evolving, and we know they’re looking to us to provide them with a rich experience rooted in music and entertainment,” said Steve Boom, VP of Amazon Music. “With this launch, we’re bringing customers even more forms of entertainment to enjoy, while enabling creators to reach new audiences globally, just as we’ve done with music streaming. Podcasts, paired with our recent partnership with Twitch to bring live streaming into the app, makes Amazon Music a premiere destination for creators.”

    Popular shows such as Crime Junkie, What A Day, Radiolab, Revisionist History, Planet Money, Ear Hustle, Why Won’t You Date Me? with Nicole Byer, and Stuff You Should Know are available now, and millions of episodes from top shows, with more being added all the time. Amazon Music will also soon be the exclusive home of the music-meets-true-crime podcast, Disgraceland, a show exploring the criminal antics and connections of some of the world’s favorite musicians, from the Rolling Stones to Tupac. Disgraceland’s narrative storytelling highlights tales of getting away with murder and behaving badly, chronicling some of the craziest criminal stories surrounding some of the most interesting and infamous pop stars. Disgraceland will arrive exclusively on Amazon Music in February 2021.

    “Partnering with Amazon Music allows me to really give my listeners what they’ve always asked for: more Disgraceland content,” said Jake Brennan, host of Disgraceland and cofounder at Double Elvis Productions. “Through this partnership with Amazon Music, we’re enhancing the future of the show for fans, expanding our output of content by moving to an ‘always on’ weekly schedule, which will translate to more episodes for listeners on a more consistent basis.”

    Amazon Music has also partnered with creators to produce original, exclusive podcasts. Coming soon, customers will be able to listen to “The First One,” a new audio experience hosted by one of the most prolific hit makers of the 21st century, DJ Khaled. Developed by Amazon Music and the Springhill Company, in “The First One” the mogul and superstar will interview his all-time favorite artists about the hits that made them iconic and eventually legendary.

    “I’m recording my podcast with the greatest musicians of all time, and with some of my best friends who also happen to be the most iconic artists on the planet,” said DJ Khaled. “We’ll talk about fame, fortune, life, and success. These stories are here to motivate you because everybody starts from somewhere, from the ordinary to extraordinary. Before you get to another one, you got to get to ‘The First One,’ only on Amazon Music.”

    Also coming to Amazon Music is a brand-new multimedia podcast hosted and curated by superstar Becky G, featuring audio and corresponding video broadcast on Amazon Music’s Twitch Channel. Titled “En la Sala,” every week, you’re invited to join Becky G as she calls on some of the biggest names in music and entertainment, her familia and friends, to discuss Latinx pride, women empowerment, LGBTQ+ rights, relationships, politics and sports, all while unpacking the most important issues facing the Latinx community today. Developed by Amazon Music and Gema Productions, Becky G has also dedicated each episode to a nonprofit organization related to the theme of the week. With a charitable donation attached to each episode to pay it forward to organizations directly impacting the Latinx community in a positive way, Becky sets the standard for her guests and listeners, since En La Sala, you can’t just talk about it – you have to be about it too.

    “To me, my voice has always been about more than just singing, it’s using it for the greater good and creating a destination for change,” said Becky G. “In quarantine, with so much time to consider the world around us, it felt like the perfect opportunity to open a new line of communication and pay it forward, and I’m so thankful that Amazon Music and Gema approached me with the opportunity to create this podcast. I’m excited to be joining forces with Amazon Music so we can start to have conversations about looking within to see how we can all be better.”

    Broadcasting legend Dan Patrick and IMDb will soon give movie fanatics exclusive interviews with top Hollywood stars in his new show, “That Scene with Dan Patrick.” Produced in collaboration with IMDb, this new podcast will dissect memorable scenes from some of the biggest films and television series. And coming soon to Amazon Music and Audible, is a project from Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith’s Westbrook Audio, a co-production with Audible.

    With Amazon Music visual apps on mobile and web, customers will be able to discover new favorites through curated recommendations across top categories, popular podcasts charts, and access to trailers on show pages. Whether listening on mobile, web, or on Echo devices with Alexa, Amazon Music makes it easy for customers to find, start, and continue listening to their favorite podcasts throughout the day. Only with Amazon Music can customers ask for the latest episode of their favorite show on Echo Auto during their morning commute, resume playback on their phone while working out, and seamlessly move to their Echo device when getting home – just by asking Alexa, with no additional sign in or device linking needed.

    “We’re thrilled to offer customers a convenient podcast listening experience that fits their lifestyle,” said Kintan Brahmbhatt, Director of Podcasts for Amazon Music. “Never before has listening to podcasts on the move, in the car, or at home been so simple. Our customers will be able to utilize the voice functionality they know and love with music, to now enjoy a superior podcast experience and uncover a brand-new selection of favorites.”

    Podcasts are now available to stream on all tiers of Amazon Music at no additional cost, including free access on Echo, web, and in the Amazon Music mobile app.

  • Google Sued For $3 Billion in the UK Over YouTube Privacy

    Google Sued For $3 Billion in the UK Over YouTube Privacy

    Google is being sued for $3 billion in the UK over allegations that YouTube tracks children, violating the UK’s privacy laws.

    Google has been facing ongoing scrutiny over privacy and antitrust concerns, but this latest lawsuit could be one of its most expensive. The lawsuit was brought by Duncan McCann, a father of three. The lawsuit is supported by Foxglove, a tech advocacy group in the UK.

    The lawsuit alleges that YouTube and Google are ignoring UK privacy laws designed to protect children. Instead, according to the lawsuit, YouTube is harvesting data from children watching videos and using that data to target the children with ads specifically designed to influence young minds.

    “We think its unlawful because YouTube processes the data of every child who uses the service – including kids under 13,” writes Foxglove. “They profit from this data, as they are paid by advertisers to place targeted advertising on their YouTube website. They do all this without getting explicit consent from the children’s parents. Under the GDPR and UK law, corporations can’t process the data of kids under 13 *at all* without explicit parental consent. Parents haven’t agreed to the many ways YouTube takes kids’ data.”

    The lawsuit comes as Google is facing other lawsuits claiming it continues to track users even after they opt out. Should McCann win his case, the repercussions for Google and YouTube would be profound.