WHY IT MATTERS: Digital Transformation

WHY IT MATTERS: integrating different systems, especially in the context of cloud-based SaaS solutions, has become the biggest requirement of large system developments in recent digital transformation. For example, it is now common to connect eCommerce systems with CRM, ERP, web and marketing automation solutions. Some come already pre-integrated via extensive marketplaces like that of Shopify. Other solutions and platforms merely expose their API and let others do the connexion. This is where API management becomes essential. Other use case exist.

As with most Gartner MQ, skip the reviews and jump to the market overview and criterias to find out what should be considered in your API tool selection.

WHY IT MATTERS: McKinsey is right to highlight the importance of enterprise architecture in the digital world.

Where they miss the boat in their analysis is that EA is not a ROLE but rather a PRACTICE that many people in the organization should master.

EA provides the tools and methodologies to analyze complex options and determine the most appropriate one. EA looks at business plan, capabilities, data, systems, infrastructure, security and governance required to determine the people, process and technologies needed to deliver value.

They say it best in the article when they suggest to 'Build an architecture mindset across the company" and demand that Enterprise Architects - if such role & title remains relevant - need to work on their soft skills and get their hands dirty.

WHY IT MATTERS: always good to know from those who've been there before. Remember this is an infomercial from Mirakl so sprinkle with lots of salt before reading and making decisions based on this report ;-)

WHY IT MATTERS: marketplaces are the new way to eCommerce. They are the same but yet so different. This is a good starting place to know why.

WHY IT MATTERS: nice one pager summary of key AI concepts, in particular everything around devOps for AI. Warning: this is circa 2017, so key areas are a bit dated.

WHY IT MATTERS: technical debt is an important concept to understand and this guide provides a clear overview of the source and solutions for managing technical debt.

WHY IT MATTERS: always good to know these things.

WHY IT MATTERS: this short example shows how far we've come with serverless and event-drive architectures in the cloud, enabling complex processing as a pipeline of small operations. For old dudes like me this is a throwback to the command line pipelines we used to make in Un*x way back when. It makes for very resilient solutions, once you debug the flow. Should be used more often.

WHY IT MATTERS: July 13 and already we are being pushed back to school specials. That should not happen before August. something like no christmas decorations before December. Arrgghh.

WHY IT MATTERS: as marketplaces become popular, finding a specific product in a catalog of millions of products will become harder and harder. The holy grail is visual search: snap a picture of something and get some AI to help you find something similar, or that matches well with that. eBay has made tests, Google lens has returned amazing results in my recent experience. Not sure what Amazon is doing but I assume it is top of their list.

Facebook is a major player in this game as it wants to make marketplace the shopping destination (don't forget it owns instagram as well). So the investment in grokNet is critical and recent results appear promising, though not yet perfect. 

So if you build a marketplace, as we are for panier bleu, then this is an area of innovation we cannot afford to bypass.

WHY IT MATTERS: I don't do news but this one strikes me as interesting and I expect many other changes related to covid that will make their way into our daily lives. Here, indicating you'll be on site or remote for a meeting will become essential (happened to me yesterday - "oups I thought you'd be on site"...)

WHY IT MATTERS: warning! this article is not about your typical "robots will rule retail" or "everything has to be AI driven unless you die". Well, in some parts it is.

The reality check that retailers - and their technology vendors - must make is: retail is difficult, focused on the bottom line, with no appetite for innovation with short term results. Retail innovators must find a way to experiment while staying focussed on the bottom line.

Best quote: "‘I think the majority of the problems come from the unwillingness, perhaps the fear, of investing in something that
doesn’t automatically bring a load of cash onto your balance sheet."

WHY IT MATTERS: free delivery appears to be a myth based on this analysis from parcelLabs. And in-store pickup is the most popular option. Is this because customers really prefer to pay for delivery or go to the store? - or because the pick-pack-delivery-return costs are too high and as they come down with economies of scale, customers will naturally pick the free delivery option, as they do with Amazon?

WHY IT MATTERS: the subject on everybody's lips is how to manage the return to work in a mixed mode setting. Love to hear from actual experiences of actuals businesses, not just some theoretical construction.

WHY IT MATTERS: interesting to read the report associated with this infoQ talk to understand the level of complexity that large software solution have and the methods and tools devised to reduce technology debt that creeps over time.

WHY IT MATTERS: delivery is expensive and contributes to pollution. Last mile delivery alternatives are essential to make eCommerce efficient and eco-friendly. This project in Montreal is a great way to start in that direction.

WHY IT MATTERS: Martin Rousseau highlighted this pattern recently. It represents what we've been doing for years in our practice. Case in point. You need a new eCommerce solution but there is an existing one, integrated with the ERP for years. Full of limitations, yet it works. Impossible to support the new use cases without huge investments and delays. Rip-n-replace is expensive and dangerous, plus you have to keep operating during the 9 to 18 months you build the new one.

This pattern suggests you should build a new solution quickly that leverages extensively the old one and the ERP and the systems in place. Then over time replace parts so that over the course of 3-4 years the old systems can be taken out without pain.

It takes an *exceptional* manager to put this solution forward and corry its execution over time though. Biggest challenge IMHO.

WHY IT MATTERS: yes, Nike made bold moves because when it comes to implementing the people+process+tech of a DTC plan, manufacturers and distributors have to step up their game and learn to become retailers, which IMHO is their greatest challenge. Easy to say you want to own the customer relationship but when your whole organization and systems are geared to making distribution efficiency, you have to build new skills, which often is minimized by the management in their DTC business plan...

Side note: I love QZ articles - short, with impactful metrics and links at the end. A model to follow. 

WHY IT MATTERS: almost half of all clothes sold in the US are sold online, and more than one third of those are sold on Amazon. The impact of eCommerce and marketplace on retail is real and mainstream.

WHY IT MATTERS: because it rains and this is fun.

WHY IT MATTERS: technology is the last frontier for retail as the sector has failed to make investments in recent years, staying with more traditional store design. Now this is not possible anymore and this article from McKinsey highlights key elements with more info links.

WHY IT MATTERS: the future of ecommerce lies in marketplaces it seems - I know as we are knee deep in this for Le Panier Bleu. Retailers face the challenging task of creating their eCommerce presence by being present where customers are. This means your product catalog has to be visible on *multiple* marketplaces, from your ecom store to Panier bleu, to Amazon to Google shopping, etc. Thus you need to manage your product information - descriptions, prices, inventory, etc. - in a central location. This is what a PIM is all about.

WHY IT MATTERS: my master and first jobs where building ASICs in the 1980s-1990s. So articles like these resonate as they show with numbers the very high cost of creating your own silicon. And if I understand it, 2B$ is the cost of silicon *production*, not the cost of building the foundry - which I assume is an order of magnitude or more expensive. But when companies like Apple sell billions of phones or Tesla sells millions of cars, the economics of build-vs-buy can tip in the favor buidling. Beware: the article is back of the envelope / educated guesses. Nevertheless fascinating!

WHY IT MATTERS: not sure many senior executives, with backgrounds in Finance or Law, have the knowledge or interest to raise those topics and show their limited understanding of the whole thing. Then again, maybe it's just me...

WHY IT MATTERS: interesting to see the challenges that people find with their eCommerce solutions. As with all surveys, take with grain of salt.