TechCrunch is reporting that New York City has made it abundantly clear autonomous delivery robots are not welcome.
FedEx, like Amazon and Postmates, has been experimenting with autonomous delivery robots, some of which were in NYC over the weekend to be previewed at the company’s Small Business Saturday event. After some of the bots—called Roxo—were spotted, Mayor Bill de Blasio and transportation officials wasted no time making their position known—again, despite the fact the bots were only there for a presentation and not actually delivering anything.
According to TechCrunch, “the mayor tweeted that FedEx didn’t receive permission to deploy the robots; he also criticized the company for using a bot to perform a task that a New Yorker could do. The New York Department of Transportation has sent FedEx a cease-and-desist order to stop operations the bots, which TechCrunch has viewed.
“The letter informs FedEx that its bots violate several vehicle and traffic laws, including that motor vehicles are prohibited on sidewalks. Vehicles that receive approval to operate on sidewalks must receive a special exemption and be registered.”
The bots use machine learning, in combination with an array of sensing technology and cameras to plot a safe route, while at the same time avoiding obstacles and obeying traffic or sidewalk rules.
While FedEx has been testing “the bots in Memphis, Tennessee as well as Plano and Frisco, Texas and Manchester, New Hampshire,” it’s a safe bet NYC won’t be seeing them anytime soon.
“Over 50% of everything that gets sold on Amazon actually comes from small and medium-sized businesses.,” says Amazon’s VP of Small Business, Nick Denissen. “Their success is our success so we’re definitely focused on doubling down on that. We have over 1.9 million small and medium-sized businesses in the US who work together with Amazon to conduct their business. Those include our sellers, authors, and skilled developers. They’re just a very important part of the customer experience we serve up.”
Nick Denissen, vice president of small business at Amazon, discusses the huge impact that small businesses have on Amazon sales in an interview on CNBC:
Over 50% of Everything Sold On Amazon Is From Small Businesses
Over 50% of everything that gets sold on Amazon actually comes from small and medium-sized businesses. Their success is our success so we’re definitely focused on doubling down on that. We have over 1.9 million small and medium-sized businesses in the US who work together with Amazon to conduct their business. Those include our sellers, authors, and skilled developers. They’re just a very important part of the customer experience we serve up.
The 58 percent I just culled out they are actually the part of the business that is growing faster than our first-party business. We definitely have our interests aligned with small businesses on all fronts. As I pointed out, 58 percent of everything that gets bought is from small and medium-sized businesses. Many customers don’t realize that.
Amazon Storefronts Shed a Little Bit More Light On Small Businesses
Last year, we launched Amazon Storefronts to shed a little bit more of a light on small businesses. Amazon Storefronts is essentially a curated shopping experience where customers can dedicatedly shop from local small businesses. They’re all US-based small businesses. When we opened that Storefront last year a little bit over a year ago we had 20,000 sellers. To date, we’re excited to announce that we actually have 30,000 sellers.
We’ve also developed special technology for them to share more content. They can actually share their story. Those sellers have reached 70 million customers in the last year and sold over 250 million products. I think those numbers speak for themselves that we really are helping and that small businesses can get discovered on Amazon.
Amazon Announces Small Business Spotlight Awards
Today, we’re super excited to announce our Small Business Spotlight Awards. We’re continuing to shine a spotlight on many of these exciting small businesses where they can share their stories. We’re announcing 18 finalists across three categories. There’s Small Business Woman of the Year Award, Entrepreneur Under 30, and Small Business of the Year Award. When we asked our sellers to nominate themselves for this process we actually had over 1300 nominations. Since it’s the first time we did it we really didn’t know what to expect.
Starting today our customers can vote until November 8th for their favorite small business in this category. One thing that we’ve learned is that customers do like to learn more about these small businesses, about their stories, and also other small businesses get a lot of inspiration from small businesses. We’re pretty excited to have these sellers on this journey with us.
Small Business Winner Will Get $80,000
We’re also conducting two live seller events in the US today where we’re enabling small businesses to meet customers and to actually conduct a sale. I just want to call out that one of the nominees, one of the finalists in the Small Business of the Year award, is Damhorst Toys and Puzzles. They are a multi-generational company. They’ve been in business for 48 years. They hand manufacture their wooden toys in Missouri and now they found their way online with Amazon. They’re growing and it’s great to see those types of companies.
The winner will get an $80,000 award so we’re pretty excited to have them continue to grow and prosper on Amazon. One of the things we hear from small businesses is it’s not easy to find the skill sets to help them drive an online business, in particular businesses who have started offline. That’s one of the areas we’re also looking at. How can we help small businesses on that front? So stay tuned on that.
Amazon VP Nick Denissen Says 58% of Sales Come From Small Businesses
In a press release issued today, the National Retail Federation (NRF) announced that Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is scheduled to deliver the opening keynote at the federation’s 109th annual convention.
Microsoft has supported the NRF’s annual convention for over 20 years, leveraging their IoT, cloud, data, AI, modern workplace and mixed reality solutions to help retailers digitally transform and embrace intelligent retail.
“At NRF 2020, we’re bringing together the brightest and most influential leaders from around the world who have a clear vision for the retail industry’s future,” NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay said. “Satya Nadella will kick us off with an inspiring session on how Microsoft’s success is built around a purpose-led culture and business model.”
Former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives (2015-2019) Paul Ryan
Additional details for sessions and speakers at NRF 2020 Vision: Retail’s Big Show can be accessed here.
Complimentary registration is available to editorial members of the news media and discounted registration is available to accredited retail analysts. For more information, visit the NRF 2020: Retail’s Big Show media registration page.
About NRF
The National Retail Federation, the world’s largest retail trade association, passionately advocates for the people, brands, policies and ideas that help retail thrive. From its headquarters in Washington, D.C., NRF empowers the industry that powers the economy. Retail is the nation’s largest private-sector employer, contributing $2.6 trillion to annual GDP and supporting one in four U.S. jobs — 42 million working Americans. For over a century, NRF has been a voice for every retailer and every retail job, educating, inspiring and communicating the powerful impact retail has on local communities and global economies.
Walmart and Nuro have partnered to bring driverless grocery delivery to Houston, Texas, according to an announcement Nuro posted on Medium.
Nuro is a robotics company specializing in electric, self-driving vehicles. The company already operates a delivery service in Houston for Kroger. In their blog post, Nuro emphasized the benefits of working with Walmart, a company that revolutionized the supply chain and retail experience.
The service will be available to a select group of pilot customers at first.
“Nuro’s self-driving technology and fleet will power this pilot with Walmart to provide customers in Houston with another innovative, accessible option for getting the groceries they need day-to-day.
“To start, self-driving deliveries will be available to a pilot group of participants who have opted in to try the service, teaching us more about how to best serve those customers. Through the pilot, we’ll gain insights that will enable us to further develop and refine our service, while helping Walmart create the best end-to-end customer experiences.
“At Nuro, we believe in the power for self-driving technology to support and improve local commerce, and see this technology as a key part of our future. We’re working to expand our footprint in Houston, to maximize the impact of our delivery platform for the community at city-scale. Throughout 2019, we’ve been building toward this objective, and this partnership represents another step forward.”
Should the Nuro/Walmart venture prove successful, it’s a safe bet communities around the country may start getting their groceries delivered this way.
Google has used the National Retail Federation’s annual conference as a platform to unveil its latest efforts to gain retail cloud customers.
Amazon may be the dominant cloud player, but Microsoft and Google are both working to chip away at that lead. One area, in particular, that Amazon is vulnerable is in the retail market. Many retailers are reluctant to rely on the cloud giant, with whom they often compete with for online sales. Microsoft has made headlines lately with a focus on the retail market, emphasizing partnership with retail customers, rather than competing with them.
Google appears to be taking the same approach, improving their retail-oriented features in the hopes of continuing to be an appealing alternative to Amazon. According to a post on the company’s blog, Google has expanded its Retail Acceleration Program (RAP).
“That’s why we’re excited to expand our Retail Acceleration Program (RAP) to a broader set of customers in 2020. RAP is a services offering that helps retailers optimize their websites, build a unified view of customer data, and drive increased foot traffic. Today, we’re also expanding the availability of Customer Reliability Engineering, a white-glove service that helps retailers plan and execute flawlessly during their peak shopping seasons. Customers such as Kohl’s, Wayfair, and Shopify have already turned to Google Cloud to help them stay worry-free during Black Friday and Cyber Monday.”
Google is also using its position to help retailers provided a unified experience for customers.
“Retail customers are becoming more and more “channel-less” in their shopping. It’s imperative, then, to provide a consistent experience for customers as they move between channels in their shopping journeys. Our Google Cloud API Management for Retail solution, powered by Apigee, allows retailers to easily integrate the systems that power different sales channels, providing a more unified shopping experience for customers.
“Retailers struggle with the real estate that bulky computer servers take up in their stock rooms, and also face challenges in centrally managing all of their server applications. Today, we’re piloting Google Cloud Anthos for Retail, which helps retailers streamline and modernize their store operations. Rolling out more broadly in 2020, Anthos for Retail enables retailers to consistently deploy, configure, and manage applications across their fleet of stores at scale—without sacrificing performance or reliability.”
With Google a distant third among U.S. cloud providers, behind Amazon and Microsoft, it will be interesting to see if the company’s retail efforts yield results.
“We really took a strategic imperative about two and a half to three years ago to step up our enterprise game,” says SurveyMonkey CEO Zander Lurie. “This has been a company that has thrived in going direct to end-users. We’ve built up a user base, a paid customer base, today of almost 700,000 people. But over the last three years, we’ve elevated our game. Today, enterprise represents 20 percent of our business. It helped us deliver our best quarter in history. We’re now growing 20 percent year-over-year.”
Zander Lurie, CEO of SurveyMonkey, discusses how the company is driving its massive growth by focusing on enterprise solutions that are sold by the seat, in an interview on CNBC:
The Category For Experience Management Is Massive
The category for experience management is massive. Companies today are differentiating their products and services by their ability to be customer-centric. Everybody has access to off-the-shelf software and you can buy keywords on Google and you can target folks on Facebook but the ability to really be sensitive to what your customers care about and want is critical. Usabilla is the solution that we acquired earlier this year. They have a customer in KLM Dutch Airlines who was able to improve their app experience by a 2.8 to a 4.2 rating using our product. It really is about, can your managers and can your marketers listen to that feedback, understand the bugs, and then deliver and take action. That’s what survey software can do.
We don’t compete with Adobe and Salesforce at all. Frankly, there are hundreds of thousands of Salesforce customers who need to be buying enterprise survey software. We exist in the Salesforce ecosystem and really try and help Salesforce customers get better data and get sentiment data from what their customers really care about. Salesforce, Microsoft, Adobe, those are big systems of record. They provide you a lot of operational data. Where SurveyMonkey competes and thrives is delivering for customers that sentiment data. How am I really doing? What can we improve upon? That’s where we’re selling a solution into the Salesforce ecosystem and we partner with Salesforce in a really productive way. It’s part of the reason they bought into our IPO last year.
Selling To the Enterprise Has Been Wildly Successful
We really took a strategic imperative about two and a half to three years ago to step up our enterprise game. This has been a company that has thrived in going direct to end-users. We’ve built up a user base, a paid customer base, today of almost 700,000 people. But over the last three years, we’ve elevated our game. Today, enterprise represents 20 percent of our business. It helped us deliver our best quarter in history. We’re now growing 20 percent year-over-year.
We set about on our IPO last year and told investors our plan to make this business a lot more valuable. The two key driving factors first is to elevate our sales motion to sell directly to the enterprise. That has been wildly successful. We doubled year-over-year a hundred percent growth in revenue in the sales channel. We now have almost 5,000 customers, up 60 percent year over year. We now compete in that ecosystem and we have a really disruptive product. Consumers love our product. We’re now selling into the organization with a really talented sales team.
There’s Been So Much Account Sharing On SurveyMonkey
Our team’s product is the collaborative self-serve product. We have a unique opportunity here. There’s been so much account sharing on SurveyMonkey over the years and in the current security environment, we’re asking people to pay for their own seat. That has driven a really healthy paid user growth. We see continued growth in those two areas. As I said, growth for us we’ve accelerated growth now twenty percent year-over-year, but we do it a disciplined way. We’re still able to deliver over $13 million dollars of unleveraged free cash flow in the quarter. We’re just not a company that’s going to grow at all cost. We want to have both healthy growth and disciplined cash flow.
We use politics in a fun way to help get a beat on what’s going on out in the world. Just like we ask questions about if you are potentially interested in buying an electric car or what do you think of Impossible Burger or Beyond Meat, we also ask questions of the two and a half to three million people on our platform every day of who might you vote for and what issues are important to you. That really does give us a particular read on what American consumers are thinking.
Selling To the Enterprise Has Been Wildly Successful, Says SurveyMonkey CEO Zander Lurie
“The mall is more or less dead except in 279 great cases where we’ve got fabulous malls out there,” says legendary retail analyst Jan Kniffen. “But the 1,100 malls they’re struggling. It’s the levered retailers and the mall-based retailers that are struggling. We’re going to have 26 retail bankruptcies this year. But in a downturn, we could see 100 and we’re going to see 12,000 stores closed this year. It will be the highest number that’s ever closed in history. But we could see 50,000 close in a downturn. It’s because we don’t really need those retailers and we don’t need those stores because the business is moving online at a fierce pace.”
We’ve had really good retail reports. Think about it. Walmart was fabulous. Target was fabulous. Home Depot was good. Lowe’s was good. Just run down through the group that has already reported and, in general, if you weren’t mall-based full price you did great. Off-mall did great, online did great, and discount did great. The retail market and the consumer couldn’t be better. Levered mall-based retailers are dead. The mall is more or less dead except in 279 great cases where we’ve got fabulous malls out there. But the 1,100 malls they’re struggling. They’re running down comps. The mall is not the place to hang out anymore. Now you hang out in front of your computer and then you go with your friends to do something like go to restaurants and you don’t care about hanging in the mall.
But the people hanging in the mall were never the people that bought the stuff in them. All the people who bought the stuff in the mall were all the women in America who went to work for the first time in the 1980s and blasted them all to the ceiling. We pulled everything out of the mall except for women’s apparel for all practical purposes and that has now settled into this nice slow roll. People don’t dress for work anymore and the malls not any fun and there’s plenty of other alternatives. Just 20 years ago when the mall was really booming we didn’t have a strong T.J. Maxx and Ross stores and Burlington stores. The stuff across the street from the mall was very boring in those days. Those are really good retailers today.
Business Is Moving Online At a Fierce Pace
The two best retailers in the world right now are Costco and Walmart. They are big, strong, have super supply chains, and can handle the tariffs no problem. They’ll gain market share under tariffs. They can even handle a downturn in the economy because they’re both super well-capitalized. Even people like Macy’s that have been struggling, they can handle a downturn in the economy because they’re not levered. They’ve got plenty of cash flow. They pay a 10 percent dividend and they buy back stock.
It’s the levered retailers and the mall-based retailers that are struggling. I keep saying we’re going to have 26 retail bankruptcies this year. We just got two more to talk about. But in a downturn, we could see a hundred and we’re going to see 12,000 stores closed this year. It will be the highest number that’s ever closed in history. But we could see 50,000 close in a downturn. It’s because we don’t really need those retailers and we don’t need those stores because the business is moving online at a fierce pace.
We Know That Everybody’s Getting Out of China
We know that everybody’s getting out of China. They were getting out of China before the tariffs started. Now they’re just getting out of China faster. Yeah, the shoe guys are still getting 60 percent of their stuff out of China but it used to be 90 percent. The apparel guys are still getting 15 percent of their stuff out of China but it used to be 50 percent. So that’s already happening.
The tariffs have not been that big a deal. Tier four, the new tariffs that are about to kick in, if they kick in, would be a big deal for my world. But maybe they’re not going to kick in, which is the other thing that’s going on. We’re not really sure it’s going to happen but it’s still causing everybody to move faster out of China. So Trump has accomplished what he wanted to accomplish. He’s getting American business out of China.
The Mall Is More or Less Dead, Says Legendary Retail Analyst Jan Kniffen
“Mobile is coming to the enterprise, finally,” says ServiceNow CEO John Donahoe. “It’s been a long time coming. Our release in Q3 will have native out of the box consumer-grade mobile capability. So now any ServiceNow customer can have a brilliant mobile onboarding app so that their new employees can get up to speed quickly and seamlessly. We are very excited about the mobile capabilities coming in Q3, native out of the box so every one of our customers can build them in a low-code or no-code way.”
Our customers are very excited about mobile coming to the enterprise. It’s been a long time coming. Our release in Q3 will have native out of the box consumer-grade mobile capability. So now any ServiceNow customer can have a brilliant mobile onboarding app so that their new employees can get up to speed quickly and seamlessly. You can show a young new employee, a millennial, that you are in fact a modern company that helps get them onboard and productive quickly.
Also, the Now Mobile app which will allow employees to get their questions answered, problems reported and then dealt with, and get information. All my approvals are now in one place where I can check them. We are very excited about the mobile capabilities coming in Q3, native out of the box so every one of our customers can build them in a low-code or no-code way. Mobile is coming to the enterprise, finally.
We feel very good about our growth. We feel very good about our customer and very good about our prospects. We are just focusing and executing so our customers get those great experiences.
We Feel Very Good About the Relations We Are Building
We now have 766 customers that are a million dollars and greater. We signed 14 customers that are a million dollars and greater in the quarter. That’s just symptomatic of the fact that we now work with 75 percent of the global 500. We are increasingly a strategic partner with those customers. Of our top 20 deals, 17 had three or more products. We feel very good about the relationships that we are building with our largest customers, which are the world’s largest companies and governments.
Our relationship with Microsoft is a very good one. We are initially focusing on US federal business where Microsoft has a strong presence as do we. We have a huge federal business and our datacenters have a certain security clearance. Microsoft Azure has the highest security clearance. Rather than us trying to replicate that, we are going to partner with them to take advantage of that Azure capability and jointly call on US federal customers.
We are doing the same with federal customers in Australia and increasingly we will look at other government markets. We have 20 different product integrations with Microsoft and a long history with them. We think there is a lot of shared opportunity together.
RPO Is the Best Forward-Looking Indication of Our Business
We do think RPO is a very good indication and probably the best forward-looking indication of our business because it demonstrates what kind of revenue you can expect going forward. Our current RPO grew 35 percent in the quarter. We feel very good about the outlook and future of our business. We raised guidance for the full year, both on revenue and billings. We see a lot of opportunity and we have a lot of strong momentum. We are focused on building those customer relationships that drive that growth.
Mobile Is Finally Coming To the Enterprise, Says ServiceNow CEO John Donahoe
“I think this world is coming down to winners and losers,” says Levi’s CEO Charles Bergh. “The Levi’s brand is incredibly strong and so we’re in a position with all of our customers to be asking for more, to be asking for more floor space and more open-to-buy budget. They need us. They need strong brands today and Levi’s is a brand that can drive traffic for them. We’ve got some really strong collaborations happening and that brings a lot of heat to the business.”
Chip Bergh, CEO of Levi’s, discusses the strength of the Levi’s brand and how they are appealing to millennials through innovation, personalization, and collaborations with Netflix, in an interview with Jim Cramer on CNBC:
Charles Bergh, President and CEO, Levi Strauss & Co
Levi’s Is a Brand That Can Drive Traffic
I am a big believer in winners and losers. I think this world is coming down to winners and losers. The Levi’s brand is incredibly strong and so we’re in a position with all of our customers to be asking for more, to be asking for more floor space and more open-to-buy budget. They need us. They need strong brands today and Levi’s is a brand that can drive traffic for them. Our fall-winter season just took the stores, literally this week. We’ve got some really strong collaborations happening and that brings a lot of heat to the business.
We’ve got a collaboration with Hello Kitty. We’ve got a very successful collaboration right now with Stranger Things, the hit Netflix show. All that’s on floor now. We’ve also introduced this laser technology where consumers can customize their own jeans online. A consumer can go online and literally design their own jeans finished by a laser. We can finish a pair of jeans for the consumer and ship it to them in less than a week.
Customization and personalization are a huge part of what we’re doing. In fact, in all of our mainline doors around the world, we’ve got tailor shops. We are really catering to the consumer. We’re letting consumers personalize and customize their own t-shirts. Our t-shirt business is on fire. I’m very optimistic about the future here in the US and also globally.
Levi’s laser-powered personalization technology lets you customize denim with rips, fades, patterns to patches.
Sustainability Is Really Important To Us
Sustainability is really important. We’re a company that really is all about our values. We talk about value and values. One of the things when we did the IPO I said we’re not going to change how we run the company. We’re going to continue to stand for things that are important. This company has a track record of not being afraid to take a stand on important issues of the day. Sustainability is really important to us. We use it as a constraint and innovation. In fact, this laser technology is just one example.
We developed this technology primarily to eliminate a lot of the chemicals that are in the supply chain. Finishing a pair of jeans requires dozens and dozens of chemicals and we’ve eliminated over a thousand chemicals by being able to finish our jeans with a laser. This shirt that I’m wearing is a combination of cotton and hemp. Now hemp historically has been like burlap. It’s a very tough fiber. We’ve worked with a supplier that creates cottonized hemp. This product feels as if it’s cotton but it’s also woven with hemp. Hemp is a lot more sustainable. It takes less water to grow than cotton and you can grow a lot more per acre of land. It’s a lot more sustainable as a fiber and it’s cheaper as a fiber too.
Levi’s Is a Brand That Can Drive Traffic, Says Levi’s CEO Charles Bergh
The UK decided Tuesday to allow Huawei to have a limited role in building the country’s 5G network. The decision has strained relations with the U.S. and sparked a rebellion within Boris Johnson’s own party, according to CNBC and The Guardian.
The U.S. has been playing full-court press in its efforts to pressure the UK to ban Huawei from involvement in building out the country’s network. U.S. officials have even gone so far as to consider measures that would limit intel sharing with countries that use Huawei, something that would have profound implications for the relationship the two countries enjoy.
In the wake of the UK’s decision, according to CNBC, Senator Ben Sasse said: “Here’s the sad truth: our special relationship is less special now that the U.K. has embraced the surveillance state commies at Huawei.”
Meanwhile, according to The Guardian, it’s not just American politicians who are upset with the decision. Members of Boris Johnson’s own party are pushing for the government to commit to a three year window, by the end of which Huawei will be pushed out of British networks.
“A group of anti-Huawei Tories want an assurance that the government will work towards reducing the Chinese company’s influence in UK infrastructure to zero, ultimately stripping it out of the 4G network as well,” says The Guardian.
“Their argument is that any provider deemed high-risk by the intelligence services should be phased out of the supply chain, although Britain’s spy agencies say that any security risk from Huawei can be managed.”
The ongoing saga demonstrates what’s at stake—far beyond wireless speeds and cell subscribers—as 5G rolls out around the world.
“Every company is going through a massive digital customer transformation,” says SalesforceCEO Marc Benioff. “When you see this transformation happening it’s just incredible to watch. I mean this is as big as Y2K was for the tech industry. Every company is going through it. Every one of these major transformations is exactly that, it begins and ends with the customer.”
Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, discusses their blowout earnings quarter and how the massive digital customer transformation is driving their growth in an interview with Jim Cramer on CNBC:
Massive Digital Customer Transformation
Every customer is going through a massive digital customer transformation. When you see this transformation happening it’s just incredible to watch. I mean this is as big as Y2K was for the tech industry. Every company is going through it. Every one of these major transformations is exactly that, it begins and ends with the customer.
The federal government was one of the most exciting things that happened in the quarter. It wasn’t just the USDA. It was also the Department of Education and the Department of Interior. It was many departments actually. They’re going through a huge digital transformation in the U.S. federal government and Salesforce has been able to offer many of those agencies is the rapid successful digital transformation that they need. We even had a 10,000 person event in Washington, D.C. during the quarter. That continues to be a fantastic growth area for us.
We’re number one in CRM which is the fastest growing part of enterprise software. Every company in every industry and every government is recreating themselves with their customer. This is what’s driving our growth. It’s pure and simple.
Mark Benioff added these comments during the earnings call:
Every Digital Transformation Begins and Ends With the Customer
Just last month, IDC Worldwide Software Tracker ranked Salesforce the number one CRM for the sixth year in a row. And I’ll tell you that is more important than ever, especially so many of our customers are going through these tremendous digital transformations. We all know every digital transformation begins and ends with the customer. And when I’m with these CEOs all over the world, this is really front and center in their mind. It’s probably as exciting to them and it’s important to them as it was to CIOs, who are buying for Y2K, which is almost 20 years ago. I think the digital transformation remains just a huge growth opportunity for our entire industry.
Still In the Early Days of the Digital Transformation
Well, there are many, many companies in the very early days. In fact, if you talk to one of our largest consulting partners, they’ll tell you less than 20% of their strategic customers have been engaged in the digital transformation, but there’s a lot of room for them in the marketplace.
So, we have an opportunity here again around this digital transformation and one of the beauties of a product like Trailhead and My Trailhead is helping these companies through their transformation and scale them up with modern technology because the modern worker has to have modern skills. And that’s what Trailhead and My Trailhead really provide the customers. So we really are coming out with an amazing innovation at the right time to satisfy the needs of these customers
Every Digital Transformation Begins and Ends With the Customer, Says Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff
When discussing Apple’s Q1 2020 results, CEO Tim Cook told CNBC the coronavirus is impacting the company’s operations in China.
According to Cook, the company is restricting employee travel in China and has already closed one store. Apple is also cutting back retail store hours as a precaution.
“We’re restricting travel to business critical travel,” Cook told CNBC’s Josh Lipton. “For employees that are in the Wuhan area, we are providing care kits and supplying them across our employee population in China as well.”
One of Apple’s main manufacturers, Foxconn, earlier stated it foresaw no impact to its manufacturing timetables as a result of the coronavirus. While that may have been some good news for Apple, it appears the overall effects of the outbreak will still impact the company.
In fact, in their quarterly earnings report, Apple issued a wider-than-normal guidance for Q2 largely because of the virus.
“The situation is, is emerging and we’re still gathering lots of data points and monitoring it very closely,” said Apple CFO Luca Maestri, according to Digital Trends. “We have a wider than usual revenue range for the second quarter, due to the greater uncertainty. We’re closely following the development of the coronavirus.”
Wuhan may be known as the first place the new coronavirus was identified, but it’s also a center of transport and manufacturing. Now experts are concerned the former may have significant impacts on the latter, according to Bloomberg.
As of the time of writing, there have been nearly 2,800 cases of the virus across China and 15 cities have been put in lockdown. As the epicenter of the outbreak, “Wuhan itself has been effectively quarantined, with all routes in and out of the city closed or highly regulated,” according to CNN.
As Bloomberg points out, as “the capital of Hubei province, Wuhan is the biggest water, land and air transportation hub in inland China, according to the Ministry of Commerce. It’s also a major rail hub with multiple lines linking it to major cities, and a renowned education center.” The city has also been moving into high-tech industries, including chip-making and biomedicine.
With the city quarantined, experts fear it could have far reaching implications.
“Complicated supply chains and just-in-time production could mean that production outages in Wuhan factories have broader spillover effects,” Shaun Roache, Asia-Pacific chief economist at S&P Global Ratings, told Bloomberg.
With a world economy that is ever more connected, it’s too early to predict just how much impact the virus could have as more cities are quarantined or put in lockdown. But it’s a safe bet that the longer it goes on, the more the effects will be felt across industries.
“We’ve got 4,700 stores within ten miles of 90 percent of the US population,” says Walmart Ecommerce CEO Marc Lore. “In those locations, we’ve got about 100,000 products including fresh and frozen. We’ve started doing pickup a couple of years back and now same-day delivery to the door. We decided to take it a step further and actually deliver it directly into customers fridges and so far so good.”
Marc Lore, CEO of Walmart Ecommerce U.S., discusses In-Home Delivery and Next Day Delivery in an interview on Bloomberg Technology:
Walmart Now Delivering Groceries Directly Into The Fridge
This (delivery to a customer’s fridge) is a great opportunity for Walmart to leverage this unique asset to do things that only Walmart can do. We’ve got 4,700 stores within ten miles of 90 percent of the US population. In those locations, we’ve got about 100,000 products including fresh and frozen. We’ve started doing pickup a couple of years back and now same-day delivery to the door. We decided to take it a step further and actually deliver it directly into customers fridges and so far so good.
I do think this is a great step change in the value proposition. Imagine going to work and coming home and having all the groceries stocked in your fridge. We just saw (in a previous trial using a third party) a really big opportunity to use our own Walmart associates to do the delivery. Their W-2 employees. They’ve been with Walmart for at least a year. We feel like that’s a big advantage.
Can Deliver All Purchases Into Your Home Without Packaging
We don’t actually need to have cameras in the home. The actual associate will have a camera on their vest. You could actually as a customer track on your app the associate going into your home, putting groceries into the fridge, and then leaving. You can look at it in real time or you can go back and look at it anytime you want. It’s very safe for customers as well.
There are lots of possibilities (that will stem from in-home deliver). For example, being able to do a return. Imagine just leaving something on your kitchen table. That’s it, going to work and coming home and we’ll just take it away from you. Also, being able to deliver general merchandise into your home without any packaging. I think there’re lots of opportunities for services and health and wellness and all sorts of opportunities. We’re thinking them through now. We have some ideas.
One Day Delivery Actually Costs Us Less Than Two Day
Next Day Delivery has been great so far. It’s down in the LA region right now. By the end of the year, we’ll have about 75 percent of the population will have access to Next Day Delivery. Typically, the cutoff time is around 3 p.m. If you order by 3 p.m. you will get it the next day in a single box. That’s the other great thing too. A lot of times now you might receive it in multiple packages. It’ll be overnight in one box. We are really excited about that.
It actually costs us less than Two Day Delivery. The big reason is that we’re able to get it in a single box. All this inventory is now mirrored or replicated close to the customer. If it’s close to the customer and it costs us less to ship it. If it’s one box it costs us less to ship as well. So yes It’s actually cheaper. We’re just being very measured in how we roll it out. By the end of the year, three-quarters of the country will have it. It’s gonna be moving pretty fast. About 40 of the top 50 metro areas will have access to it. So it’s about four or five areas a month that we’re adding.
Dramatically Improved Contributed Profit Margins
Right now, we’re in a really good position (regarding online profitability). Over the last year, we’ve dramatically improved our contributed profit margins. We’re starting to drive more mix into the higher margin categories like fashion and home. So feeling really good about the momentum we have. We have some dates in mind that we’re not obviously sharing. But we feel good about where we are right now. We feel really good about where we are and where we’re going.
Walmart Now Delivering Groceries Directly Into The Fridge – Walmart Ecommerce CEO Marc Lore
FedEx has announced “that FedEx Ground has officially started delivering FedEx Home Delivery packages on Sunday for the majority of the U.S. population.”
The moves comes as FedEx strives to “better serve the fast-growing e-commerce market.” Over the holiday season, Amazon banned its third-party sellers form using FedEx Ground over concerns the service was too slow and that packages would not arrive in time for Christmas. The news should go a long way toward dispelling those concerns moving forward.
“Now that FedEx Ground delivers FedEx Home Delivery packages on Sundays to most U.S. residences, we have increased our speed advantage significantly to kick off the new year,” said Raj Subramaniam, president and chief operating officer of FedEx. Corp. “This provides added value to e-commerce shippers throughout the U.S. and the 188 million online shoppers in 7,700 cities and towns where FedEx Home Delivery packages are delivered on Sundays. As more customers expect weekend delivery, this enhancement to our network means that every day is now a delivery day at FedEx.”
The change is another example of the increasing importance of e-commerce to the U.S. economy and the changes companies are willing to make to keep pace with it.
Gizmodo is warning of a new scam involving text messages posing as FedEx tracking notifications.
Android and iOS users (including this writer) have received text messages including what purports to be a FedEx tracking number and a link to set delivery preferences. Clicking on the link, however, goes to a fake Amazon listing and survey.
As Gizmodo highlights, this is where the scam takes a turn. “If you proceed any further, the survey will then ask users for a range of personal information including their credit card information, which for anyone who hadn’t already started feeling suspicious, should set off serious alarms.
“Apparently, by entering in your address and credit card number and agreeing to pay a shipping fee for your “prize,” you are also signing up for 14-day trial that turns into a $100 recurring subscription for a range of products, which you will continue to get billed for every month until you figure out how to cancel the payment.”
One way to spot the scam is the alphanumeric nature of the supposed tracking numbers. FedEx tracking numbers are almost always exclusively numbers, whereas the fake ones include letters as well. Similarly, FedEx tracking numbers are 12 or 15 digits long, as opposed to the 10-digit fake ones.
Police departments are warning citizens of the scam and encouraging individuals to check any tracking numbers they receive directly on FedEx’s website, rather than following a link in a text message.
“I don’t know about social commerce overall but I definitely know that our users often want to buy the things they find on Pinterest,” said Pinterest CEO Ben Silbermann while discussing going public on the NYSE. “A lot of people say they discovered a product or service while browsing Pinterest,” says Silbermann. “We just want to make it easier for them to go from that inspiration all the way to reality, which in this case would be a purchase.”
Pinterest was initially priced at $19 per share, which gave it a value of $10 billion on Wednesday morning. The company closed Friday up 28% at $24.40, which vaulted Pinterest to a value of just under $13 billion.
Pinterest Goes Public on the NYSE!
Ben Silbermann, co-founder and CEO of Pinterest, discusses on Bloomberg how Pinterest is unique both in how consumers use the product and how advertisements have simply become part of the experience:
The Ads On Pinterest Can Actually Be Really Additive
We really talked with investors about how regular people use the product every day. People use it to get inspiration for a whole range of things, everything from the food they cook to the clothes they wear to their homes. It’s really more about your personal inspiration and it’s less about your friends. It’s not really about following celebrities in the news. We wanted to make sure that everyone understood that because that’s how our users see the product every day.
The thing that makes it really special is that the reason people are on Pinterest is to get inspiration and do things with their life. It’s really lined up with what advertisers want which is to inspire new customers and get them to buy products and services they really love. What that means is that the ads on Pinterest can actually be really additive as long as we do a good job of making sure they’re highly relevant. I think that’s just really different from a lot of media companies where ads are candidly a little bit of a tax. That difference in alignment I think is the biggest difference between us and some other media properties.
My Eye Is On What’s Going to Make Pinterest Great 10 Years From Now
I still think there’s a real opportunity to grow over time and increase engagement. A lot of people might use Pinterest for one thing or two things but they don’t know the wide range of different ways people all over the world use the product. I also got to say that we’re super proud that we’re growing globally. If it (IPO) was just a few years ago the story would have been primarily a US-based service. It’s just really fulfilling for the company to know that the product works all over the world.
We’re in the very first chapter of that story (selling internationally) so we’re just hiring our first local sales teams in places like Canada, Western Europe, Germany, and France. We’re just at the beginning of the journey but I think there’s going to be a real opportunity to show the same great results we’ve seen in the United States to advertisers all over the world. We’re going to continue to invest for the long term. We’ve shown really good margin improvement over the last few years but my eye is always on what’s going to make Pinterest great three years, five years, and even ten years from now. That’s going to be how we continue to run the business and we’re really excited to see it keep growing.
We Want To Make It Easier For People To Go From Inspiration To Purchase
We’re always working to make sure people can bridge that gap between seeing something inspiring and doing it. One area that we’re investing in is making sure that we match inspirational images with more and more products that are at a price point that matters for people and for retailers they really trust. We just enabled people who are retailers to upload all of their catalogs into Pinterest. We’re investing a lot into computer vision technology to match those products with images and we’re not just doing it with shopping, we’re also doing it with all the different use cases. If you have a recipe on Pinterest now you’ll see the ingredients and people can write reviews. If you have a DIY project you can see other people’s experiences, whether it was easy or whether it was a little harder than they expected.
I don’t know about social commerce overall but I definitely know that our users often want to buy the things they find on Pinterest. A lot of people say they discovered a product or service while browsing Pinterest. We just want to make it easier for them to go from that inspiration all the way to reality, which in this case would be a purchase.
Making It Easier For People To Go From Inspiration To Purchase – Pinterest CEO
“When people look at what’s happening with Amazon trying to get into their businesses, the need to transform is also front and center for every c-level executive,” says Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen. “Given that Adobe’s been through our own transformation and has software they want to hear from us and they want to experience that same benefit that we have been able to see.”
When we talk about helping businesses transform we do every aspect of it. We help them create that experience and help them understand how to attract customers. That last mile of transacting with customers is so critical. Adobe was a company that actually innovated tremendously but we had a two-tier distribution channel. We have two businesses. We have the creative business and we have the enterprise business. If you look at what we’ve been able to accomplish in the long run and the two tailwinds that we have, we continue to be really optimistic about Adobe’s prospects.
When we completely moved to the cloud we recognized that every other company would go through what we did. Namely, how do you engage with your customers digitally? Do you understand how to acquire them and how do they use your software? I think sharing our learnings with other people gives us incredible credibility in the enterprise and we learn from these customers.
Creating a Real-Time Customer Profile is So Critical
In enterprise software, this third generation, which is all about customer experience management, I think it’s the companies who recognize that you have to partner with an entire ecosystem to create this real-time customer profile that’s absolutely so critical. That’s why our partnerships, whether they be with ServiceNow or Microsoft or the other cloud kings is so critical in enabling our customers to completely transform themselves.
What we have been able to do is create this real-time customer profile. People are really within an enterprise saying how do I create native applications? ServiceNow is clearly the leader in IT Service Management. What John (Donahoe) has done is truly special. I think partnering with them to enable IT professionals within an enterprise to use Adobe’s Customer Experience Management with ServiceNow’s IT Service Management, that was a natural.
The Need to Transform is Front and Center for Every C-Level Executive
Design and creativity have never been more important. Everything has a screen. So people are creating content, whether that’s a car, whether that’s a retail experience, whether it’s a basketball stadium. Adobe is the content provider that enables all of these screens to be delivered with incredible content. Given design is more important and given mobile devices are in every single place, that’s a tremendous tailwind.
Secondly, when people look at what’s happening with Amazon trying to get into their businesses, the need to transform is also front and center for every c-level executive. Given that Adobe’s been through our own transformation and has software they want to hear from us and they want to experience that same benefit that we have been able to see.
I’ve talked about how video is explosive. II think what Disney is doing both with their own service as well as with more control of Hulu is really saying people are consuming more and more content digitally. So providing the analytics for that, providing the digital rights management for that, the right ability to audience segment in terms of who you are attracting, a lot of that is what Adobe powers. This is not just for Disney but for frankly all the major media companies in the world.
Adobe Powering Big CPG Companies Through a Digital Transformation
The big CPG companies are going through the following question. They have sometimes hundreds of millions or billions of people using their products and they just don’t necessarily know who they are. Giving them that insight into how they create this incredible customer database, how they understand usage patterns, and how they understand what these people want. If we can provide that insight to companies then all the CPG companies can recognize that this direct relationship will enable them to innovate at a faster pace.
For example, what Unilever is trying to do is really say we have this tremendous distribution network but what they’ve tried to do even with Dollar Shave Club is really say, “How do we create an incredible customer database?” But the same thing is happening across Colgate or Procter & Gamble. We are partnering very heavily with Unilever as they embark on this digital transformation and understanding customer patterns and customer sentiments across the world.
The Need to Transform is Front and Center for Every C-Level Executive, Says Adobe CEO
Following reports of connected security cameras, such as Ring and Nest, being targeted by hackers, scammers are preying on people’s fears with a “sextortion” scheme, according to CNBC.
The scam relies on “social engineering,” or the ability to convince an unsuspecting victim do something they wouldn’t normally do, through the use of charm, guilt, shame or authority. The scammer has usually done enough research and has enough information and half-truths to make the scam seem credible.
According to CNBC, IT security firm Mimecast saw “a huge spike in the new tactic, with more than 1,600 scam emails intercepted in just a two-day period from Jan. 2 to Jan. 3.”
When describing this particular scam Kiri Addison, head of data science, said “this one is a bit different. It stood out, because it’s really convoluted in a way. It starts out with a single email saying ‘we’ve got some nude photos of you.’”
The email will include a link to a website showing Nest footage from an innocent area the person could have visited, such as a bar or restaurant. The idea is to make the person believe they’ve been monitored and recorded over a long period of time, in any number of situations, making it more believable they may have been recorded in a compromising position.
Ultimately, the victim is walked through the process of establishing a bitcoin wallet and paying the scammers $500 to keep their photos and videos from being released on porn sites. It’s important to understand there aren’t actually any photos or videos.
As CNBC points out, “if you receive a sextortion email, the best thing you can do is ignore it.
“Although internet-connected cameras and smartphones can be hacked, this is a very rare event. It’s practically non-existent for such a hack to be combined with an extortion demand.”
“Innovation is the key,” says Honeywell CEO Darius Adamczyk. “Anything we do in Honeywell, innovation is always the key. Whether it’s expanding into Europe, driving more robotics, a connected warehouse offering which we are bringing to customers and having a broader play, are the key technology levers for that business.”
Darius Adamczyk, CEO and Chairman at Honeywell, discusses how the company is using innovation and technology to drive growth in an interview on Bloomberg:
Honeywell Digital Makes Us a More Contemporary Digital Company
As we always said my number one priority as CEO was to drive organic growth, but we never say we’re going to give up on our margin expansion. We do it through a combination, both commercial levers, which is managing our mix, and always introducing new products, which bring more value to customers. But also not forgetting our roots, which is driving productivity. With the number of ERPs we have and the kind of complexity we have in our supply chain, Honeywell Digital, which is going to make us a much more contemporary digital company, we have plenty of levers for productivity as well.
Honeywell Digital really has three primary elements. First is data governance, which is standard across all our various businesses. We’ve done over 80 acquisitions in the last 15 years so we have a lot of disparity. Then there are common processes, which is we want to run our businesses the same way in a very consistent manner. We have some pockets of excellence, but those have some inconsistency. Finally, all integrated into a common IT platform. Just to give an example, we had well over 1,500 different software applications before we started. We had over 150 ERP systems. It’s just very difficult to run a company efficiently and enable us to really make good data-based decisions. Honeywell digital is really all about enabling that.
Anything We Do In Honeywell, Innovation is Always the Key
Warehouse automation, which we started in 2016 with our Intelligrated acquisition. It’s been just a terrific business growing strong double-digit. We also made another acquisition called Transnorm which added to that technology in Europe in Q4 last year. We were planning on growing it organically, but also we’re looking to enhance our offerings, so we’re looking for inorganic opportunities as well. Innovation is the key. Anything we do in Honeywell, innovation is always the key. Whether it’s expanding into Europe, driving more robotics, a connected warehouse offering which we are bringing to customers and having a broader play, are the key technology levers for that business.
Amazon is a big customer but we have a lot of big customers. I wouldn’t say it’s a predominant customer in that business. Just about everybody is looking into ecommerce because with a lot today’s retail you really have basically two options. One option is to enhance the in-store experience which a lot of retailers are doing. The other one is to drive ecommerce. We think that this trend is going to continue. Although I would say it’s in the middle innings in the US, it’s just beginning in Europe. We think we have a huge opportunity in Europe, India, and some of the other overseas markets.
We have a very active venture capital fund and we’ve made about six investments in the last six months which is augmenting our technology plays. So although we haven’t made any big acquisitions, other than Transnorm in Q4, we are continuing to invest through our venture fund and we’re deploying capital that way. It’s been a terrific story for us in 3D printing for instance, particularly for our aerospace business. For a lot of the slow-moving parts we’re trying to basically get a new part certified and three printing per day. That’s our objective. Our aerospace businesses have made tremendous progress in achieving that and it’s really helping both for our inventory and on-time delivery for a lot of our aftermarket customers.
It’s Important For Teachers To Be More Effective in STEM Education
Regarding the workforce, education is the key and particularly STEM education. Honeywell is a big believer in that. Not only do we develop a lot of our young people that we bring into the company but we also spend a lot of money and time on developing teachers. It’s important for teachers to be more effective in STEM education. It’s something that we’re going to be supporting going forward even on a broader scale because that’s the way to differentiate our company.
We’re always going to be differentiated by technology and we want to bring the brightest and the best. We want to make sure that it’s a competitive issue, not just here in the US, but everywhere we hire people, and we hire people just about everywhere. We have engineers in the US, China, India, everywhere around the globe. I would say lately we’ve actually been very much on the hiring string. When you grow 8% that creates a lot of opportunities to hire a lot of people particularly in the area of technology and engineering and software.
At Honeywell Innovation is Always the Key, Says CEO
“I’ve been watching Walmart since 1968, they only came into existence in 62, they’ve done the same thing to the rest of retail,” says Jan Kniffen of J. Rogers Kniffen Worldwide. “They kept making a new step every time and the rest of retail had to follow and they won the game, they got all the market share. They can’t let Amazon out Walmart Walmart (when it comes to free one-day shipping). Walmart will fight this battle to the bitter end.”
Jan Kniffen, CEO of J Rogers Kniffen World Wide, discusses Walmart’s likely reaction to Amazon’s free one-day shipping announcement in an interview on CNBC:
Walmart Tweets One-Day Free Shipping…Without a Membership Fee
Walmart is going to get to same-day delivery and so is Amazon. They’re just making the steps down. I would have come out with that tweet because they can say we’ll give it to you maybe same-day and no membership fee. They’ve been tit for tat for with Amazon right along. I think that Walmart with its 4,500 stores that are many distribution centers can keep up with Amazon on delivery. Can anybody else? Maybe not, but those two certainly can.
One-day free shipping…without a membership fee. Now THAT would be groundbreaking. Stay tuned.
Walmart can do same day and they should do it. The real question is what’s the cost to them to do this and what’s the cost to Amazon? They’ve already told us, it’s hundreds of millions of dollars. But what’s the cost to everyone else? Because market shares are what it costs everyone else. Walmart’s got to do this if Amazon does. They can’t give Amazon market share just because their deliveries are not as fast. But can anyone else keep up and pay the price that it takes to be able to do it? It’s really hard to imagine other people can. Amazon and Walmart both can.
Walmart Can’t Let Amazon Out Walmart Walmart
If you’re the investor I’m sure you’re going I don’t want this to happen. If you’re Walmart you’re saying I don’t really have a choice if Amazon does this I have to be competitive. Amazon caused Walmart or Walmart’s competitive nature caused it to spend a fortune over these last five years to be competitive with Amazon. When Doug (McMillon) came out and talked about it the stock went down a lot. Now it’s all come back and it’s all paid off and Walmart’s winning the game versus all of the other retailers. They’ve got to continue to do that.
I’ve been watching Walmart since 1968, they only came into existence in 62, they’ve done the same thing to the rest of retail. They kept making a new step every time and the rest of retail had to follow and they won the game, they got all the market share. They can’t let Amazon out Walmart Walmart. Walmart will fight this battle to the bitter end. The question is do you still want to own the stock? My answer is yes you do just like you still want to own Amazon stock. These two win the game.
Target is the Third Man Out in This Three-Horse Race
I’m not pushing Target. I think Target is the third man out in this three-horse race. Target has done a great job. They’re a much better retailer than they were three or four years ago. They were the best retailer in the country in 2006. Now we’ve reached the point where it is sort of a three horse race and I just don’t see how they continue to win the game.
I understand the call (by Barclays) and they are doing a much better job in apparel than they’ve done in years. But they’ve still got to fight this battle on things like same-day delivery with Walmart and Amazon. I don’t see how they win.
