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Enterprise hits and misses - Domino's vs McDonald's in digital, Google vs Microsoft in the cloud

Jon Reed Profile picture for user jreed May 2, 2018
Summary:
This week: Domino's is winning in digital, McDonald's not so much. Google wants Microsoft's enterprise cloud business, and blockchain's supply chain limitations are assessed. And: ridiculous whiffs, including premature project celebrations.

Cheerful Chubby Man
Lead story - Domino's hits digital highs while McDonald's tries the long game - stories by Stuart Lauchlan

Stuart revisits digital stomping grounds with a contrast of two giants. As Domino's CEO departs, he leaves with a 60 percent digital order rate and ambitious anchovies plans in the oven.

As Stuart notes in Domino's CEO's parting shot - we're going to be 100% digital, that includes the new Hotspots delivery program, which is pretty cool for pizza-craving beachcombers without a conventional address. Then there's automating over-the-phone orders via "DOM," Domino's ordering AI:

We’ve had it in a couple of stores for a while now. But Artificial Intelligence allows you to learn faster and faster, the more iterations, the more reps you can get on it. Moving it into more stores, and that number is going to continue to increase, is going to increase the pace of learning and the pace of improvement.

We are warned that DOM won't be able to do all the things Siri and Alexa can do, but DOM just has to do one thing well. McDonalds is in a different predicament: everyone hates their assembly line food, their bleak restaurants, and their app. Whoops, I mean they are playing the digital long game in an industry where burgers still rule takeout.

As Stuart assesses in McDonald's digital delivery is a long game, not a fast food fix, the app-to-store pickup isn't going so swell, but delivery via partners like Uber Eats is picking up. That leads Stuart to conclude:

Too many digital transformation projects are launched with the flawed expectation of jam tomorrow. McDonald’s is chasing the digital secret sauce over a far more pragmatic time frame.

Happy children eating apple
Diginomica picks - my top two stories on diginomica this week
  • DBS Bank invests in analytics to get to know its customers - Angelica posted this use case about a Singaporean giant using digital to drive expansion. Results are starting to come in, such as a boost in DBS’s market share on mortgage lending from 24 to 32 percent after the launch of their Home Connect mortgage app.
  • Why the productivity promised land is still somewhere over the rainbow - In the second of her two part interview with Josh Bersin, Janine explores why all the amazing tools and tech haven't led to workplace productivity gains. As Bersin says, "If you’re not getting productivity out of your digital transformation, then you didn’t transform yourselves in the right direction."

Vendor analysis, diginomica style. Here's my three top choices from our vendor coverage:

  • Marketing Nation 2018 - Marketo gets fearless alongside Google Cloud and SAP - Jess issues her take on Marketing Nation, with CEO Steve Lucas now 18 months in, and seeking to make his case against CRM behemoths: "It quickly became clear that Lucas’s intention was to draw a sharp distinction between customer relationship management (CRM) software and what the marketing automation company feels it offers its customers: an engagement platform."
  • A changed Ceridian returns to the public markets - the backstory - Brian provides the context for a surprising/successful public offering: "I suspected this offering would go well as the Ceridian turnaround story is something I’ve been covering for some time. But, it was the fact that I was blown off by Ceridian’s lead underwriter that led me to suspect this was an oversubscribed – that is, very high demand – IPO offering. So, the run up on the day 1 pricing was not a surprise."
  • SuiteWorld 2018 - NetSuite brings machine intelligence to midmarket ERP - Phil hones in on NetSuite's AI play: "Rather than personifying its machine learning ambitions with a cute name, NetSuite has gone directly to showing off no-name capabilities with real-world relevance. That’s good news for NetSuite’s midmarket customer base, because these businesses are only interested in the latest technology if they can see it solving pain points and delivering value for them."

A few more vendor picks, without the quips:

Jon's grab bag - Add Twitter to the list of companies distancing themselves from Facebook's scummy pseudo opt-in personalization antics: Jack Dorsey on why Twitter's no Facebook when it comes to data. Assessing Twitter's pro-active approach to a GDPR reckoning, Stuart offers the following remark, which in these data sludge times, qualifies as praise:

[Dorsey] certainly didn’t make the situation any worse.

Stuart continues his coverage of Mark Zuckerberg's European accountability skirmish in UK legislators to Zuck - get your ass over here, pronto! How's this for a politician polishing daggers?

It is worth noting that, while Mr Zuckerberg does not normally come under the jurisdiction of the UK Parliament, he will do so the next time he enters the country.

To which Stuart adds:

It really is hard to imagine how much more badly Facebook and Zuck could have handled this…

Best of the rest

Waiter suggesting a bottle of wine to a customer
Lead story - Alphabet Q1 FY 2018 Earnings: Google Wants Microsoft’s Enterprise Customers - by Adam Mansfield

myPOV: UpperEdge's Adam Mansfield is a bit more bullish on Google in the enterprise than I am (in my view, the only enterprise Google truly understands is its own). While crunching Alphabet earnings, Mansfield writes:

As companies continue to get over the hurdle of moving to the Cloud, Google’s G Suite has become — and will remain — a serious viable alternative to Microsoft Office 365.

You could read a similar statement in a tech publication like TechCrunch. But here's what I like about Upper Edge's blogs. They usually return to customer advisory, with vendor negotiations in mind. Mansfield adds:

SAP and Salesforce customers that have yet to adopt Microsoft Office 365 should expect these vendors to apply pressure and push conversations regarding switching from Microsoft to Google G Suite rather than going with Microsoft Office 365.
Now that nugget you'll never get from TechCrunch.

And that, friends, is why I try to surface/select the rare bits of online content written by those who get the enterprise.

Other standouts

Honorable mention

  • NetSuite under Oracle: a progress report - Vinnie Mirchandani shares his SuiteWorld views, including his take on NetSuite's micro-vertical plans, and their adherence to the Oracle Cloud party line.
  • How Slack Got Ahead in Diversity - Slack is well ahead of its Silicon Valley peers when it comes to a range of diversity metrics. The more interesting question is: how? The Atlantic hones in on the reasons, which is described as an "all hands" effort, from recruitment to confronting hiring biases.
  • Building the Network of Networks – Lora Cecere shares views from a supply chain work-and-dream-big session. Blockchain was a major theme, leading to this: "We cannot find any use cases that demonstrate the use of blockchain for many-to-many networks. As a result, to build many-to-many capabilities, we are testing the use of blockchain to link Supply Chain Operating Networks (Elemica, E2Open, GtNexus/Infor, SupplyOn and Ariba)."
  • Are you really Facebook’s product? The history of a dangerous idea. - Facebook's detractors often argue that with a "free" social service, the user is the product. Will Oremus issued a deconstruction of that concept in Slate. It's a think piece to debate, with interesting ideas on whether free web services are inherently compromised, the role of advertising, etc.

Whiffs

Overworked businessman
We're seeing a growing trend of self-driving pioneers from hell Tesla showboats, like this road hazard who decided to sit in the passenger's seat while letting his Tesla navigate the MI (he won't be a problem on the freeway for at least 18 months).

Speaking of modern self-destruction, when you pose for a selfie with a rattlesnake, things can go wrong. But the whiff doesn't end there. The guy in question wound up with a $150,000 medical bill, thanks to the monopolization of certain vaccines. Can't say I feel bad for this dude, but for those who get snakebit for less idiotic reasons, that's unethical monetization at its worst.

Switching gears, all hail risk management:

Speaking of risk management, maybe it's a good idea to go-live at scale before having your champagne toast? Especially when you post your technical "success" on LinkedIn, hailing your team's work as “champions”, a “hell of a team,” and picture yourself raising glasses of bubbly to cheers of “TSB transfer done and dusted."

Yes, a LinkedIn post can be deleted. Unfortunately so can your reputation. But on the plus side, amazing resurgences are also possible: like Ralph Macchio and his fictional arch rival reconstituting their Karate Kid personas for a quirky new YouTube Red series. It's never really too late, is it? See you next time...

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.

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