Enterprise hits and misses - AI and cybersecurity needs flummox managers, and the retail transformation blues play on
- Summary:
- This week - retail transformation runs into obstacles at JC Penney and Kohl's. AI and cybersecurity skills demand puts pressure on IT managers. The diginomica team files event analysis and use cases, and I've got your whiffs as usual.
Lead story - JC Penney and Kohl's get the retail transformation blues - stories by Stuart Lauchlan
MyPOV: Lately, we've posted some upbeat (or semi-upbeat) retail transformation updates. But this latest batch brings the kind of cold shower only a cruddy earnings report can bring. As in Stuart's JC Penney losses double as digital transformation remains at the "thoughtful" stage after nearly 5 years.
JC Penney just reported a quarterly loss of almost $154 million, nearly doubling the $78 million loss from last year. Stuart:
So when CEO Soltau talks about "acting swiftly, but thoughtfully", those are wish fulfillment words that are increasingly difficult to take seriously or at least without a sense of frustration that the thoughtfulness is slowing things down.
Stuart hears the right "customer-centricity" talk, and yes, the Chief Customer Office appointment, but like Macy's and Walmart, tariff-related setbacks loom. Stuart warns that "aspirational exec speak" will only take us so far. Which brings us to Kohl's ( Kohl's digital transformation has more to worry about than bad weather). Stuart is unimpressed with stormy excuses:
Blaming the weather was one of the excuses rolled out by US retailer Kohl's this week to explain away some pretty dismal first quarter numbers... Even digital sales growth was decidedly 'meh' at an unspecified "high single digit". Compare and contrast with 42% year-on-year growth at Target!
Err, maybe not. Stuart sees a few positives in Kohl's story: Mobile commerce is now 75 percent of digital traffic and 50 percent of digital sales, and Buy Online, Pick Up in Store adoption is growing. The most interesting gambit? An Amazon co-optition play, via a program allowing Amazon returns at Kohl's locations, now to be rolled out nationally. The only problem? Any of Kohl's brick-and-mortar competitors could easily duplicate this. Leading Stuart to end on a prickly note:
What’s happening that’s exciting, innovative and transformational that doesn’t involved riding on Amazon’s coat-tails?
Diginomica picks - my top stories on diginomica this week
- Don’t like your future? Make up a new one yourself - CIO careers advice from the frontline - We're in dire need of mid-career digital re-invention stories. Here's a keeper from Gary, about an exec who hit the books - and eventually scored a nifty CIO job with an RPA vendor.
- Basic security hygiene works wonders for protecting user accounts - Kurt reminds us that we would never inflict the
the pungent aroma of sloppy hygienecareless personal appearance on our workplace, but we do it with our security practices all the time. I was genuinely surprised with the stats on the overall effectiveness of two factor authentication - with some caveats (e.g. text-based code options are flawed).
Vendor analysis, diginomica style. Another vigorous week of planes, trains, and AI promises Powerpoints for the diginomica gang. Let's start with the Salesforce World Tour London:
- Skills gaps, funding innovation and asking digital transformation questions - Salesforce UK head Paul Smith tours key topics - Yep, Stuart again. Perhaps too idealistic for some, but I like this kind of talk from Salesforce's Paul Smith: " It's insane that on one hand we have a skills gap and on the other hand we have people crying out for these opportunities. So we've just got to break that."
- Salesforce gives AppExchange partners a helping of its own dog food - Phil on the addition of new analytics, AI and community features for the AppExchange ecosystem.
Derek got the latest from Datastax at their user conference in D.C., where a big shift was underway: "Cassandra needs to be built with multi-cloud and developers front of mind."
- DataStax launches Constellation, new cloud platform for Cassandra - here’s why...
- Tackling America’s opioid epidemic with data, Deloitte and DataStax
Meanwhile, I was in the cultural sinkhole, err capital most popular conference destination in the U.S., Vegas baby, getting a close-up look at Host Analytics and their push for cloud-driven finance transformation:
- Host Analytics Perform 2019 - customers push beyond planning into the transformation of finance
- Host Analytics Perform 2019 - CFOs share their cloud technology stack advice, and why it matters
A few more vendor picks, without the quotables:
- Dynatrace Perform - Mitchells and Butlers looks for performance insights on tap - use case by Jessica
- Machine-learning security technology helps Haas F1 stay on track for success - use case by Mark
- Citrix Synergy – Citrix tries to bury its tech beneath what do you want to do and why you want to do it - Martin
Best of the rest
Lead story - AI, cybersecurity, and debating career strategy
MyPOV: Two pieces brought tech skills and career strategy into focus. In Artificial intelligence, cybersecurity talent top list of hard-to-find skills, Joe McKendrick parses the so-called hot tech skills of today.
But what's driving the demand? According to the latest data McKendrick analyzes here, IT is under pressure to deliver more applications than they were a year ago - but with the same amount of developers. But behind those apps needs is a deeper driver:
Fueling the demand is the rising tide of digital transformation, and with it, the reliance of business leaders on technology to amp up the customer experience and compete on data analytics.
To cope with the demand, McKendrick reviews several options, from increased use of "low code" platforms to methodologies like DevOps to APIs and open source resources. And as always: "employers need to step up training and educational opportunities."
Meanwhile, First Round provides best-of advice to graduates who may be the most likely fodder talent to fill these exciting roles (Our Top 6 Pieces of Career Wisdom for New Grads (and Everyone Else Too)). Much of it files into the bloody-obvious-but-still-helpful category, such as how to find the right mentor. But this I didn't expect:
The most powerful form of learning comes when we're desperate. When we have no choice but to learn.
Yes. But I'd add that in today's careers, we run the risk of not realizing when we are in desperate straights until course corrections are tough. That's about becoming an Uber driver blind spots - which First Round covers.
Honorable mention
- The future of work in retail automation - McKinsey makes the case for retail automation, cautioning against internal bottlenecks. Some of the stats are eye-opening, if not concerning: "Available automation technologies show that they can already operate a typical retail grocery store with up to 55 to 65 percent fewer hours."
- Microsoft has grown more than a basket of unicorns since 2015 - Nothing remarkable about this CNBC stock rundown article, but what caught my eye was the relative overperformance of enterprise tech startups over most of the consumer unicorns. Yeah, I like to see Pinterest squirm...
- Head in the Clouds: Week 8 - UpperEdge's Adam Mansfield continues his weekly roundup, this time looking at Microsoft's upselling practices, and also inconsistent cloud messaging across providers.
- Amazon shareholders reject facial recognition sale ban to governments - putting aside grandiose Terminator apocalyptica, pretty much all the dystopian views on what AI/ML can actually do now to (potentially) make our lives an Orwellian mockery comes to a head in the facial recognition debate.
- Sig taught me about Barely Repeatable Processes and how work flows – David Terrar with a terrific piece on Sigurd Rinde's signature concept: the BRP.
Whiffs
So, the owners of a Noah's Ark replica are suing insurers over rain damage - I thought rain was part of the deal? And a British parrot missing for four years returned home speaking Spanish. Hey, it could be worse, he could have returned home from speaking... actually, I won't go there.
Oh, and in theater of the absurd, the U.S. Air Force is investigating a cyber attack from the Navy. For sheer whiffery, it's hard to top this dude:
Man arrested after mistakenly parking car with marijuana at K-9 Unit lot https://t.co/EdKehENRMg
"It probably isn’t the best idea to park your car that has marijuana in it near a drug dog detection training center."
Sensible advice. #boneheadalert cc: @fscavo
— Jon Reed (@jonerp) May 24, 2019
Unless we're talking about the mucus membranes management over at First American Financial Corp, whose ability to design for web security could use an insurance policy of its own.
Finally, the Ad Contrarian uncorked a bottle of vintage whoopass on the marketing event circuit in I Go To Conferenceland, short-selling every bogus bromide. One standout:
The future is going to be amazing. No one's going to have to do anything. Everything will be done for us by AI, or robots, or Jeff Bezos. We won't have to work, rotate our tires, or chew our food.
I'm looking forward to it. See you then...
If you find an #ensw piece that qualifies for hits and misses - in a good or bad way - let me know in the comments as Clive (almost) always does. Most Enterprise hits and misses articles are selected from my curated @jonerpnewsfeed. 'myPOV' is borrowed with reluctant permission from the ubiquitous Ray Wang.