Enterprise hits and misses - retail storefronts and AI optimists fight back
- Summary:
- This week - a retail pulse check shows storefronts are fighting back by re-inventing. AI and jobs optimists bolster their case while Elon Musk fires flares. And: some very whiffy awards.
Lead story - Retail pulse check - the storefront fights back - by Stuart Lauchlan and Barb Mosher Zinck
MyPOV: It was a retail blowout week at diginomica, with Stuart doing the heavy shelf stocking with Barb at the express check out. One big theme? The beleaguered-but-plucky storefront:
- The retail challenge - getting over Amazon envy and learning to love the stores again - In the midst of continued "soggy" quarterly numbers, Stuart says retail executives are brandishing an omni-channel twist: "They’re no longer seemingly embarrassed by having a legacy network of offline stores and outlets." If retailers can redefine the role of offline stores "as fulfillment centers that represent the final stage of a retail transaction," then maybe those quarterly numbers won't need to drip dry.
- For best omni-channel results, don't forget the physical - Barb adds context with the consumer angle, and why consumers are apt to judge companies by that last physical mile. She puts omni-channel marketers on notice: "Consumers don’t think in terms of digital or physical when they interact with a brand. They think about their needs and if the brand can meet them."
And there's more. Stuart's got analysis from Walmart to Estée Lauder:
- Walmart shores up e-commerce grocery defences as Amazon threat grows - Fortunately for Walmart, a big chunk of America doesn't know what whole foods are.
- GAP's Rodney Dangerfield moment - just can't get no digital respect! - Old Navy is still doing the heavy lifting, but the GAP's CEO makes his case.
- A 20 year online foundation adds to Estée Lauder’s digital make-up - One way to get good at digital is to do it for twenty years. Now there's 700 employees serving e-commerce needs in 39 countries. Not shabby.
- Elon Musk v the killer robots - less rhetoric, more reason please - Musk has found a
flogging ground hype cycle surfboardpulpit on the dark side of robotics. But he hasn't automated our Stuart Lauchlan yet, and Stuart knows how to punch with a keyboard, albeit in a valiant quest for enlightened discourse, which Musk, Stuart suggests, might want to take a breather from: "The problem with technological advances is that no-one’s ever worked out a way to uninvent something." - A new Aera for ERP in the search for productivity gains - Brian takes us into a brave new ERP world, courtesy a different breed of productivity solutions that will enhance - not replace - ERP systems. That includes Aera (thus the punnage). These tools are built to fire up massive data sets: "They’re not limited to the constrained, highly structured accounting and other internal transactions that ERP solutions use. They use giant social sentiment, sensor, weather, email, graphic image and other data stores to get more of the ‘picture’ than an ERP solution gets within the four walls of a typical enterprise."
Vendor analysis, diginomica style. Here's my three top choices from our vendor coverage:
- Vishal Sikka, out as CEO and MD Infosys - 'sickening' distractions - Den on one of the fastest-moving stories of the summer, as the plot thickened until it became a noxious and unsavory stew (next day: Infosys board at war with founders, attacks claims as false). Sikka was hardly perfect in his first CEO gig, but I thought his detractors in our comment threads took too much delight in his exit. None of these detractors seem to have any idea where Infosys goes from here, aside from the laudable bromide "clean governance." As Vinnie Mirchandani, robotics optimist,
occasional Jon Reed future of work foiland enterprise provocateur pointed out in devastating fashion in this comment thread, the Infosys glory days of outsourcing dominance are gone, and neither Sikka nor Bruce Springsteen was going to bring them back. - IBM's Agile approach to working - exemplar or warning to others? - Cath's piece on IBM's flexible workplace initiatives struck a viral chord, and provoked two of the most polar opposite comments you will ever see on a blog post.
- How fintech giant FIS gets results from B2B marketing automation - Phil swoops in amidst a well-earned break from the diginomica
email circussausage factory for this nifty Marketo use case. Keeper quote from FIS: "The company that has the most data isn’t going to be the one that wins. It’s the one that’s able to interpret it and make rational business decisions off the back of it."
A couple more vendor picks, without the quips:
- Workplace by Facebook - the Rx for healthcare providers? - Jerry
- Microsoft Azure Event Grid - first to tackle the event management morass in serverless programming - Kurt
Best of the rest
Lead story - Chill: Robots Won’t Take All Our Jobs by James SurowieckimyPOV: A cheeseball title, but a sensible piece on why robots are not the job killer that alarmist studies have hinted. Suroweiki cites instructive data points, arguing that the impact of automation really hasn't been felt in U.S. unemployment rates, with employers in some states complaining about labor shortages.
Suroweicki also cites historical examples, such as the ATM, which was a feared bank teller killer that has slogged along for years, and is now itself under threat from mobile banking. Ergo:
None of this is to say that automation and AI aren’t having an important impact on the economy. But that impact is far more nuanced and limited than the doomsday forecasts suggest. A rigorous study of the impact of robots in manufacturing, agriculture, and utilities across 17 countries, for instance, found that robots did reduce the hours of lower-skilled workers—but they didn’t decrease the total hours worked by humans, and they actually boosted wages. In other words, automation may affect the kind of work humans do, but at the moment, it’s hard to see that it’s leading to a world without work.
Perhaps, as Suroweicki argues, this throws the brakes on an immediate push towards a universal basic income. Mirchandani points out in Automation and Jobs: the tide turns that several new studies have bolstered his similarly upbeat view. I would only hope that these optimistic views don't lead to complacency, as I still believe urgency is in order.
Companies have work to do if they want talent that will thrive amidst the algorithms. And: our educational system is poorly aligned with the jobs ahead. I worry about those caught in that disconnect. History is a teacher, not a comfort blanket.
Honorable mention
- Top 10 Excuses to Not Implement Best Practices and 5 Things to do About it - UpperEdge is on a roll with another meaty piece, though more cynicism about so-called "best practices" is in order methinks.
- My Origin Story - RedMonk's Stephen O'Grady with a really thoughtful piece about how he became who he is - which is one of the smartest dudes in our biz. Kudos for humility over rockstarism.
- Digital Disruption Demands Demystification (Hype Cycle Season) - Usually we poke a bit of fun at Gartner; this time Gartner pokes a little fun at itself, with some context on hype cycles to boot. Give me the hype cycles over the quadrants anyday...
- Ford Motor Company: Data and the future of autonomous vehicles - In-depth Q/A from some smart vehicle experts.
- Ignore The Bullshit: iPhones Are Not Destroying Teenagers - In case I don't get to this topic in the whiffs, here's a full-on deconstruction: "Today's teens also have a lower suicide rate than teens in the 1990s, and self-reported happiness levels among teens have held relatively steady since 1997."
Whiffs
Shall we do some whiffy awards again?- Darwin theory in crisis award - Here's What Flat Earthers Think About The Eclipse
- Money and fame doesn't cure soulrot award - Steven Mnuchin's wife makes fun of Instagram followers for not being as rich as she is.
- Update your LinkedIn profile immediately/soulless marketing hack award - to whoever proposed this Lexus sponsorship, now cancelled - Calgary airport to return accessible parking spots after botched marketing campaign.
- Atlantic linkbaiter headline award, won by - the Atlantic - Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?
- "This is your audacious idea about monetization award?" - Please clap: it's how Medium writers are going to be paid.
- Live TV for the win award - NFLN's Jane Slater is the latest to accidentally say "bulging dick"
Finally, a more disconcerting whiff comes by way of reader Frank Scavo: One Statistics Professor Was Just Banned By Google: Here Is His Story. This professor's account was reinstated. The whiff by Google is indicative of a toxic mixture of institutional power and algorithmic decisions (combined with impenetrable, automated customer "service" from hell, where even finding a form to fill out is a post-modern miracle).
We still don't know why Google discontinued this professor's account. What we do know is his immense readership and personal contacts were key to getting it re-activated quickly. I doubt the rest of us pleebs would warrant anything more than a flyswatter. See you next time...
If you read an #ensw piece that qualifies for hits and misses, let me know in the comments as Clive always usually does.
Most Enterprise hits and misses articles are selected from my curated @jonerpnewsfeed. 'myPOV' is borrowed with reluctant permission from the ubiquitous Ray Wang.