Enterprise hits and misses - Walmart vs Amazon, 5G vs hyperbole, "Cloudbleed" vs your data
- Summary:
- In this edition: Uber has a culture problem; retailers still have Amazon problems - but Walmart is getting a clue. Also: get ready for a sonic blast of 5G tech hyperbole. Which passwords does "cloudbleed" impact most? Which collaboration tools are enterprise-ready? Your whiffs include airline tomfoolery, love letters to Facebook, and yeah, the Oscar gaffe that keeps on giving.
diginomica hit: Retail disruption update: Walmart and Macy's versus Amazon, The Gap versus itself - articles by Stuart Lauchlan
quotage: "There’s still a long way to go – Walmart’s online sales only account for 3% of its global sales, or about $14 billion in cash compared with $94 billion over at Amazon. But the progress made can’t be denied. Walmart now offers 35 million items online – again, a fraction of Amazon’s inventory – but four times as many as this time last year." - Mixed fortunes for Walmart and Macy's in the retail war against Amazon.
myPOV: Stuart issued retail updates of note, including Walmart and Macy's versus Amazon. Walmart's e-commerce numbers versus Amazon are the first that actually feel like a real dent. Amazon isn't sweating, but it's a bone Walmart's shareholders will happily gnaw on. Macy's - still in the midst of a store closing binge - can't point to the same.
Stuart sheds more light on clicks-and-mortar in The retail disruption mistakes are in the past, according to GAP's CEO. I'm still not clear if The GAP truly named their mistakes. Their argument that scale matters in modern retail seems sensible, though I doubt Stuart would be wholly satisfied given the UK closures of Banana Republic stores which would imply a shrinking of scale (and more long-haul fashion lugging for poor Stuart).
In Getting digital and physical to balance - Lloyds Banking Group claims success, Stuart assesses another self-proclaimed clicks-and-more success story, this time from the banking side. I spot one big theme from these pieces: retailers are still befuddled by the omni-channel, but they ARE making strides in understanding customer behavior.
Stuart quotes Macy's CEO Terry Lundgren as saying, "We’re convinced that the consumer is entering the store with their mobile device and making their decision where they’re going to shop before they leave their home or their car." If retailers can pinpoint how modern customers shop, and what really pulls their multi-channel trigger, we might hear success stories more often.
diginomica four - my top three stories on diginomica this week- A 5G primer - separating Mobile World Congress hype from reality - We're about to get a sonicl blast of tech hype from Barcelona as the monster Mobile World Congress event kicks off. Kurt warns us to have our BS filters set on high for anything pertaining to so-called 5G - a next-gen network that is years away from reality. But as Kurt explains, the push to 5G ties to cloud, IoT, and infrastructure trends worth watching.
- Tone at the top - Uber's sexual harassment problem that neuters HR - Coverage of Uber's sexual harassment problem has focused on the women stepping forward. Den probes into the culture rot that causes such problems: "It is HR that ultimately loses credibility. It does so by failing to robustly stand behind employees who are under attack. But then how can HR prove effective when the tone at the top is so poor?" This sets up a fascinating clash between Uber's development chops and its
persistent determination to act like a fraternity with the despicable enabling of most of Silicon Valleyculture problem. Den isn't optimistic; neither am I. Anybody need a Lyft? - In enterprise collaboration, content bests messaging - Phil continues his fruitful collaboration series with a rundown of vendor moves from Slack, Egnyte, Microsoft, Dropbox Box and Google. His take on which vendor has the enterprise edge may surprise you.
- Technology for social good - Disrupt Disability - Cath filed a tech-for-good series, a lovely reminder that while the Ubers might hog headlines, plenty of folks are getting new things done. I picked this one about Disrupt Disability, which has open-sourced wheelchair design with eyes on the developing world.
Vendor analysis, diginomica style. Here's my top two choices from our vendor coverage:
- Infor - ‘Manufacturing is in crisis, digital is about survival - Derek scores a look into Infor's next-gen manufacturing strategy: "One example is Infor customer Nike, which Pope said would traditionally be thought of as a fashion apparel manufacturer, making running shoes, and with some retail stores. However, she said that the company was spending too much money on branding with celebrities in an attempt to boost sales, which wasn’t working. Nike needed to rethink about what business they were actually in, according to Pope, which isn’t manufacturing, but health and fitness."
- ServiceNow appoints ex-eBay chief as new CEO - Derek on a leadership transition at a key enterprise player: "Donahoe’s appointment marks a turning point for ServiceNow. Donahoe’s tenure will be decided by the rate at which he can scale the company and further embed the platform into the enterprise. Will Donahoe pursue an exit strategy for ServiceNow? Will we see further consolidation in the cloud market? I’m not convinced. I get the impression ServiceNow is gearing up to go at it alone and attempt to become the new cloud core for service-orientated enterprises."
Best of the rest
Not sure one piece deserves special enterprise accolades this week - get busy blogging people! Highlights include:- Cloudflare Bug "Cloudbleed" May Have Leaked Data From Millions of Sites - This was a strange and nasty little bug that resulted in incriminating data being spewed onto weird places. Wired's "change all your passwords immediately" mantra is tiresome; Buzzfeed came through with a better starting point: Here Are The Passwords You Should Change Immediately. (Fitbit, Uber, OkCupid, Medium, and Yelp - in other words, if you posted a blog, then took Uber to the gym, then met your date and took them to a Yelp-located restaurant, you may have real exposure problems).
- Azure’s rise instills doubts in AWS shops - This headline reads like exaggeration. I found no quotes of any AWS shops questioning their decision - but it's certainly evidence of Azure's enterprise tentacles. (Azure enterprise adoption up from 26 percent to 43 percent as per InfoWorld's survey).
- Uber Women To CEO Travis Kalanick: We Have A Systemic Problem - The original blog was not just the rantings of a disgruntled employee - you could sense that from the get-go. Now, the big ol' shoe drops. And as per Den Howlett, one prominent investor breaks rank: An Open Letter to The Uber Board and Investors. A terrific lesson in how to expose a problem and explain why the proposed solutions are bandaids. For myself, I won't remove my Uber app as many have (Uber might genuinely be worried that #DeleteUber is working). But I'll be using other services whenever I can while this plays out.
Honorable mention
Google Cloud Spanner Enters With a Splash - another take on an intriguing database that was unfurled with the expected splashy "disruptiveness."
Tech and the Fake Market tactic - smartest piece I read this week, and it's not close.
'Robot Tamer' Reprograms Industrial Robots to Be Curious about Living Creatures - curiosity killed the cat, but can it humanize the robot?
Presentation Problems - Ending with A Whimper - "Take a look at your presentations–do you end with a whimper? or a bang?" A concise antidote to the yawn-inducing enterprise presentations we are all subjected to.
Whiffs
Everyone's talking Oscar whiffs but the airlines keep on giving, too. How can a team manage to leave two sleeping players behind? (USF Forgot, Left Behind Two Players Who Fell Asleep At The Airport). Never nap at the gate folks!
Then there is Extra passengers 'stood in aisles' during overloaded Pakistan International Airlines flight - yeah, that sounds safe. Oh, and here's why you never want to talk to those Windows tech scumbags (We talked to Windows tech support scammers. Here's why you shouldn't).
As for the Oscars, there is a bigger whiff trapped inside the original:
#BoneheadAlert to PwC's Brian Cullinan for tweeting backstage instead of doing his one job https://t.co/sUnzyNio6d @jonERP
— Frank Scavo (@fscavo) February 27, 2017
This may go down as one of the more expensive tweets. Hey, at least he wasn't texting Anthony Wiener.
Thought y'all might enjoy another peek into my one-sided collaboration ongoing love affair with Facebook:
Awaiting reply... :)
Coolest thing I saw this week
Hands-down it was this Ted talk from the founder of the Jolly Roger bot that talks to telemarketers for you. I queued up the bot examples at the 9:00 mark:
Over to you, Clive.
Which #ensw pieces of merit did I miss? Let us know in the comments.
Most Enterprise hits and misses articles are selected from my curated @jonerpnewsfeed. 'myPOV' is borrowed with reluctant permission from the ubiquitous Ray Wang.