Amazon has rapidly grown from an online book store to a purveyor of nearly every sort of product made, as well as a technology behemoth offering cloud services and Kindles. Behind the web façade is a sprawling network of distribution centers where temp workers scramble like rats in a maze, pulling boxes off shelves, directed by handheld devices that not only show where the goods are stored but the most efficient path to walk. These devices also monitor each worker’s performance, coaxing them to move faster, move faster, move faster.
Farid Mheir's insight:
Interesting insight into the impacts of digital transformation of retail. And as we shy away from stores for more than the necessary showrroming, warehouse fulfillment centers will become more and more the norm. Amazon is leading the digital improvements but it looks like work in Amazon warehouses is very close of its pre-digital days, as far as human tasks are concerned.
I spent few summers in the early 1980s working in such a warehouse and the work was very similar, except for the amount of digital technology involved. Not a great place to work but a great incentive to stay in school and study. I'd rather be a microserf than an "amazon-serf"...
That being saidd, all the warehouse fulfillment workers will get similar pressure to deliver and work under the watchful eye of computer systems that track every moves. It reminds me a of a short 5 minute video on the work of warehouse workers at online grocery chain Ocado in the UK. Although it is a corporate video, the work pace and environment feels eerily similar to that presented in this Amazon blog post.
When Eric Dishman was in college, doctors told him he had 2 to 3 years to live. That was a long time ago.
Farid Mheir's insight:
Interesting way to look at how digital technologies can help transform hospitals and remove the wait in emergency rooms. Also great demo of a portable ultrasound device that plugs into a cell phone. Impressive!
"This card and pen holder was created to illustrate the range of possibilities using Stratasys' different 3D printing technologies. One half of the model is created using FDM technology in ABSi material - strong, light, durable and suitable for real production requirements. The second part is created using Inkjet multi-material jetting technology which deposits 2 photopolymer-based materials at the same time and mimics the precise look and feel of more complex end products. This part features extremely smooth surfaces, fine details and embedded writing in a separate material. Together, using both FDM and Inkjet technology, designers and manufacturers can cover the entire gamut of Fit, Form and Functional Prototyping and Rapid Manufacturing requirements!"
Remember when the decision to go to Amazon Web Services was all about saving dough? Smart consumers now know that’s not the real reason to move workloads to the cloud.
Simple chart that explains the chasm that exists between technology and business users. The biggest value that users of technology see lies in their ability to better compete. If you get out of their way and provide them with tools that accelerate their ability to put technology in use, they will pat for it.
You can be up-and-running with Salesforce.com in hours when it usually takes months just to get attention from an IT department. You can exchange large files via dropbox when most corporate inboxes are file-size limited and shared folders hidden deep behind firewalls and other protections. Give users simple means to do this, in self-serve mode, and they will be able to pay for it.
We can make the parallel with user-focussed technology and the Apple-way of doing things. Make it simple, and efficient and people will pay a premium for it.
Much as we might want to hype the cloud, CIOs just want it to be boring. Finally they have their wish, as recent announcements from OpenStack and Microsoft suggest.
Farid Mheir's insight:
Within the same article, an interesting chart on 2013 driver of IT spending, with big data and cloud on top.
The barriers to entry in your market just vanished. Unexpected competitors are swarming in. Are you ready?
McQuivey will show you how Dr. Hugh Reinhoff of Ferrokin BioSciences disrupted the pharmaceutical industry, streamlining connections with doctors and regulators to bring molecules to market far faster—and then sold out for $100 million. How Charles Teague and his team of four people created Lose It!, a weight loss application that millions have adopted, achieving rapid success and undermining titans like Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig in the process.
Regardless of your background and industry, you can learn how to be a digital disruptor too. First, adopt the right mindset: Take risks, invest as cheaply as possible, and build on existing platforms to find the fastest path to solving a customer’s problem.
Second, seek the “adjacent possible”—the space just next to yours where new technology creates opportunity. That’s how Benjamin Rubin and Paolo DePetrillo of Zeo created a $100 sleep monitor that does much of what you’d get from a $3,000 sleep lab visit.
Finally, disrupt yourself. Use these tools to make parts of your business obsolete before your competitors do. That’s what Tim FitzRandolph did at Disney, creating a game that shot to the top of the app store charts.
With the tools in this book you can assess your readiness, learn the disruptive mindset, and innovate rapidly, starting right within your own business.
Farid Mheir's insight:
The title is just right, the trailer interesting. Let's see if this delivers!
Digital disruption requires rethinking the entire business, not just one’s technology portfolio. It requires first thinking and then behaving like a digital disruptor. Digital disruptors depend on very specific tendencies and patterns, each of which I painstakingly describe in my upcoming book (available February 26th). Briefly summarized, these are:
A tendency to use and create free or nearly free digital tools.
Aggressive exploitation of digital platforms provided by companies like Apple, Amazon, and Google.
Happy surrender to the bold idea that the customer is ultimately in charge of your strategy.
The preference to innovate through rapid, focused pursuit of adjacent consumer benefits (rather than overengineering products or services to fulfill a long-term vision cooked up at a brainstorming offsite).
A habit of partnering promiscuously to deliver these benefits quickly and at low cost.
Farid Mheir's insight:
Digital disruptions = Digital transformation? I will read the book and find out!
Cutting-edge sourcing and IT departments can lead transformation, bringing a larger perspective on enterprise architecture and governance.
Farid Mheir's insight:
Sheds an interesting light onto the digital transformation that should occur in the Sourcing world, specifically around the produrement of software applications. In the old days it was easy to make an inventory of the software applications in an organization: simply report what software is installed on all the computers and you have an exact count.
Nowadays, business users rely more and more on cloud-based software, applications and solutions - Google apps, salesforce.com, dropbox, evernote, basecamp, etc. - the software is either in the cloud or on a user's personal laptop or tablet. No simple way to make an inventory.
More often than not, companies pay the bill without knowing exactly what they get for it, as the products are bought using personal credit cards and expensed by employees.
How are these software application tracked by the IT or the finance department in order to get a big picture view of the company software spend? How can sourcing negotiate volume discount rates for dropbox if it is not aware that hundreds or thousands of employees have purchased it? How can IT ensure corporate security and privacy guidelines are respected when users place confidential documents on external document sharing solutions?
Everyone wants to know what Google Glass is good for. I've figured it out: It's the killer app for your car.
Farid Mheir's insight:
I think of delivery services but also of sales reps, and how glass could transform their daily lives. All the technologies have been there for a while - GPS, cell phone, live traffic feeds, detailed maps - but what glass does is change the proximity, from something that you have - in-car garmin GPS - or that you carry - Android cell phone - to something that you constantly wear and have in front of your eyes - litterally.
Chief executives increasingly plan to increase their information technology spending in 2013 and 2014 as they ponder digital strategies, according to a Gartner survey.
Gartner's survey, based on 390 senior business leaders at companies with $250 million or more, found that CEOs by a four-to-one ratio plan to boost IT spending in 2013. Indeed, 78 percent of CEOs said they can plan their 2013 and 2014 IT investments and business growth.
What's driving the IT spending bullishness? Gartner argues that companies are forming digital strategies. Fifty two percent of business leaders said they have a digital strategy to fuel e-commerce, mobile, cloud and social plans.
The return for these digital strategies may rhyme with Starbucks' master plan, which revolves around using its own brand to spend less on marketing.
Other key items from the Gartner survey:
19 percent of CEOs said they expected to employ a chief digital officer by 2014.
17 percent of CEOs expected to hire a chief data officer.
The upshot is that CEOs appear to understand that existing IT budgets won't fuel growth. What's unclear is where the technology spending budgets will head. Chief marketing officers and line of business executives are expected to increasingly have their own IT budgets.
Farid Mheir's insight:
Digital transformations won't happen without money and IT budgets are not sufficient to fuel the growth. CMOs will spend more than CIOs by 2017 said Gartner last year. This gives rise to new concepts, from chief digital officers to chief marketing technologists. This is a very good thing as it will speed deployment of digital technologies. However, without a major transformation in the roles and responsibilities of CIOs - where they should play a bigger in architecture and data governance and less on server hugging - , this may lead to technology chaos. Interesting times ahead...
There are three types of primary recruiting content you should focus on.
Why not create SEO optimized video vacancies and use those in place of or in association with a written JD? (According to the statistics presented here, job related web pages with video as opposed to just text are now 53 times more likely to show up on the first page of text results.) Talent will now be able to go directly to your video channel job vacancies making it a clear primary recruitment channel. Interviews with hiring managers make great content for this type of job video.
Create some advice and training videos relating to applying for jobs and interviewing for jobs at your company and for specific positions within your company. By using these company specific or at least position/industry specific videos, you can attract qualified potential talent directly to your YouTube career channel. Consider these “how-to” videos, making it easy for candidates to understand your hiring process and practices.
Include High Profile Content. If you have any high profile products, services, employees or anything which stands out, then build an employer branding video around this and once again this could attract qualified talent directly to your YouTube Channel. Focus on matching content to the audience for which you want to engage. For example, if your company is building a mobile app, have a Product Manager discuss the last mobile app they built and focus on the success and lessons learned.
I zlways look for digital flip opportunities. Here I believe that using YouTube or other video streaming channels are great ways to improve the recruitment process. If combined with other transformations in the recruitment process, this can indeed lead to a real flip. Nevertheless, videos are great way to improve the recruitment process and, if anything, differentiate organizations.
Online retailer Amazon has launched its 50+ Active and Healthy Living Store, which features hundreds of thousands of nutrition, wellness, exercise and fitness, medical, personal care, beauty, entertainment items and more — all in a single destination for customers in the 50+ age range.
Farid Mheir's insight:
Focus on specific age group via microsite and curated commerce is a trend that Amazon again leads.
Les plus jeunes adultes choisissent principalement Internet pour s'informer
L’utilisation d’Internet modifie incontestablement les habitudes des Québécois lorsque vient le temps de s’informer. C’est particulièrement le cas en ce qui a trait à l’actualité et aux nouvelles. L’enquête NETendances révèle que chez les adultes de 18 à 24 ans, c’est Internet qui est la principale source d’information pour consulter l’actualité et les nouvelles dans une proportion de 44 %.
Farid Mheir's insight:
CEFRIO has published new numbers on QC online transactions. B2B number will be published later this year.
Cloud computing is real. It’s here to stay. It’s turning out to be the biggest gift that ever fell into the lap of business. But there’s still a fog of vagueness about the best way to use cloud computing to support the business.
Farid Mheir's insight:
Great 7 step guide to cloud strategy. What I find useful there is that it provides business executives with an easy checklist to prepare before engaging with technology professionals. Baically, it is "know your business". When you do know where you stand and what it costs - whether it is for cloud computing, web, ecommerce, mobile, social, or any other new technology - you are in much better shoes to invest and make the digital transformation happen.
Recently, I interviewed a half dozen top service design agencies to better understand how they work with enterprise architects and business architects inside the client firms they serve. All of the agencies I interviewed focus on helping their clients transform customer experience and introduce new products and services.
Farid Mheir's insight:
I am looking forward to the Forrester reports. It will be interesting to see the recommendations that Forrester will bring to help bridge the "gap" between business and IT.
Ce site a pour but d'expliquer le concept de classe inversée à tous les professeurs qui souhaitent avoir un réel impact auprès de leurs élèves.
Farid Mheir's insight:
French infographics and website that provides information on the classroom flip, first presented by Salman Khan and the Khan academy. They have received huge attention when Bill Gates, Google founders invested in the foundation and then were covered in a 60minutes interview on the future of education.
I believe the flip is an amazing example of the potential transformations that digital technologies offer businesses. I generalize the concept into what I call the Digital Flip. More on this in the future...
Principe pédagogique à promouvoir autant que possible au 21ème siècle : dans les écoles ... comme dans les programme de développement des compétences en entreprise :-)
Hennes & Mauritz AB, looking to shrug off lower earnings and five months of same-store sales declines, outlined plans to expand aggressively this year and get an U.S. online shopping presence running this summer.
H&M continues to refine an online-sales model for the U.S.
"Things are changing very quickly," said H&M's head of investor relations, Nils Vinge. "Especially with the ability to shop on smartphone apps, you have to be online to take part today."
Mr. Vinge said as the September online launch approached last year, the company realized that it had underestimated the complexity of operating in a market where taxes vary by state, shoppers expect free shipping and the return of goods is standard procedure.
"We couldn't just copy and paste the online shops that we operate in Europe," Mr. Vinge said. "Our volumes are so large, and the demands on us are equally large."
Farid Mheir's insight:
Another eCommerce story but behind it a good indication that going online requires special care and there is no way to apply a global model to eCommerce worldwide. Taxes, regulations, and customer expectations vary widely and must be accounted for in the strategy and execution.
Over a surprisingly brief period, the use of social tools and technologies has grown from limited experimentation at the edge of corporate practice to what’s now the mainstream. But after this strong initial uptake, many companies find themselves at a crossroads: if they want to capture a new wave of benefits, they’ll need to change the ways they manage and organize themselves, according to the results from our sixth annual survey on the business use of these technologies.1 A remarkable 83 percent of respondents say their companies are using at least one social technology, and 65 percent say employees at their companies access at least one tool on a mobile device. Ninety percent of executives whose companies use social technologies report measurable benefits from these tools, and what’s more, a small yet growing number of companies—the most skilled and intensive technology users—are racking up outsize benefits.2
Farid Mheir's insight:
I've been tracking this study for the past 4 years and find it extremely useful because it gives actual measure on the benefits of using social within the enterprise - what was called nterprise2.0 in the early days.
Although the survey shows some benefits plateau, it doesdemonstrate that reductions in costs for communication and travel are achieved. In certain cases the savings can be significant. In certain industries, increase in the speed to access information or internal experts can turn into business benefits with measurable value in sales or competitiveness.
Innovators are using big data and analytics to sharpen risk assessment and drive revenue.
...
And they [large US bank] applied the analytical techniques to redo their models and essentially took the Gini coefficient of the models up into the 75-percent range from the 40- to 45-percent range, which is a huge improvement in the discriminatory power of those models.
Farid Mheir's insight:
Big data is being hailed as the next differentiator. It has been leveraged in Marketing quite a bit but this short video gives insight on how it can be applied to more in depth financial processes, in this case underwriting. It gives predictive information, knowledge that can be leveraged before a client calls or walks into a bank. It gives sales reps and financial planners insight into customer behaviour and possibly better targets offers, promotions, and may even give you better - or worse - discounts.
Google Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers have teamed up to form the Glass Collective.
We’re excited by the promise of the Glass platform. Developers are already dreaming up new experiences for Glass, and we want to help bring those ideas to life.
The Glass Collective investment syndicate will provide financing and support to entrepreneurs shaping the future through Glass.
Farid Mheir's insight:
I agree glass has tremendous potential. But after listening to the 1hr SXSW Google glass video demo I find there is even more of a need for such a fund. Developing apps and devices for this is not going to be easy. It will require focus and expertise to make it a superior non intruisive experience.
But lying in its wake are potentials to digitize, optimize or even flip certain business processes as I've stated in earlier posts. Think for example what impact on sales a salesforce.com on glass could be, able to do facial recognition and then match with tons of web data to provide sales teams with tools that could make them more powerful. They could even bring up a video feed into their office, and have sales engineers or even the COO give special instructions live during a sales meeting. It could litterally transform the sales process. But it will take a lot of effort to find and deliver this "glass killer app".
When I ran for Mayor as a performance project back in 2005, part of my platform (as founder and sole member of The Blog Party) was free, citywide, public wifi and in-home broadband Internet as a public utility like water, gas, etc. Neither of those things has happened yet. But I also promised more transparency, accountability and access by increasing mayoral use of the Internet as a communications platform, open data sharing including budget numbers and insight into the workings of government. To give credit where credit is due, between 311, the highly functional and easy-to-use NYC.gov, the NYC Open Data site, My Money NYC and Chief Digital Officer Rachel Sterne Haot‘s twitter feed, Michael Bloomberg has done a hell of a job as the city’s first 21st Century Mayor.
In my previous essay I floated a few “blue sky” scenarios that, in this light, may not be as crazy as they sound, to wit:
Rebooting Representation: Imagine a representative democracy that uses big data to create alternate voter sets independent of place? A system that moves beyond the two party binary into either radical individual representation or alternate aggregation structures? Could this include a more complex but transparent system that balances place-based resource allocation and distribution systems with other criteria? What would digital demography and representative democracy actually look like? http://senseable.mit.edu/csa/
Rebooting Education: Imagine a federally funded and strategically developed K-12 MOOC that centralizes core curriculum but decentralizes place-based education. The MOOC offers a curriculum developed through strategic analysis of knowledge and skills required for maximum jobs and growth nationally. The curriculum is predicated on national standards and taught locally by nationally accredited teachers. Additional coursework, tailored to regional variance and cultural settings, can be implemented on the local level. This curriculum can be provided to home schoolers, self-aggregated small schools that would either hire an accredited teacher or become accredited themselves. Subsidy then becomes available for these smaller, independent classrooms and bricks and mortar schoolhouses become an option, not a necessity. Government scales back its involvement in the expensive business of maintaining bricks and mortar facilities and top-heavy, bloated administrative structures while guaranteeing access to education to all and insuring at least a minimum level of preparedness for students in the 21st Century.
Interesting if a bit long and off-topic for this scoop.it log, the article presents a number of transformations, some underway others only possibilities, that I find interesting. Moreover, this covers industries and subject areas that I do not usually cover.
Target and Best Buy have made it clear they are fighting the phenomenon of showrooming, in which customers browse for television sets and other products in stores and then buy them online for less.
A new study of Amazon customers who research products in stores byPlaced, a mobile analytics company, offers some insight into who else could be at the greatest risk of losing business to showrooming.
Farid Mheir's insight:
Showrooming may become a major disruption for established retailers. As customers flip their shopping patterns to go in store first then buy online, retailers should see showrooming as a blessing in disguise. They have the physical presence, the stores, which Amazon does not. It is much easier for them to open price competitive online stores and modify the store merchadising - and maybe size - to offer the best of both worlds. But this has a cost and require a huge change in their processes and people.
After all it may be easier for Amazon to open showrooms...
We need to look beyond what meets the eye and what we are told, for more innovative perspectives both on the problem as well as the solutions born out of detachment to either.
Farid Mheir's insight:
I often find this way of thinking - outside the box yet systematic - very useful in looking for digital flip opportunities.
The health space is always in a state of transformation, but its evolution has accelerated of late, and technology is playing an increasingly vital role in this development. Improvements in sensor technology (and a reduction in the cost of production) have led to a boom in the popularity of health monitoring and tracking devices, which itself is becoming a crowded market.
Farid Mheir's insight:
Look at all these apps, devices and gadgets that are available in 2012. I believe that 2013 will see an Apple iWatch with integrated sensors and other health tracking and measurement tools. It will create a new chapter in Apple's iDisruptions book: digital biofeedback. You wear it all day and it helps you live better, feel better, live longer, be healthier. Would make so much more sense than just a iOS timekeeper or wrist phone, no?
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Interesting insight into the impacts of digital transformation of retail. And as we shy away from stores for more than the necessary showrroming, warehouse fulfillment centers will become more and more the norm. Amazon is leading the digital improvements but it looks like work in Amazon warehouses is very close of its pre-digital days, as far as human tasks are concerned.
I spent few summers in the early 1980s working in such a warehouse and the work was very similar, except for the amount of digital technology involved. Not a great place to work but a great incentive to stay in school and study. I'd rather be a microserf than an "amazon-serf"...
That being saidd, all the warehouse fulfillment workers will get similar pressure to deliver and work under the watchful eye of computer systems that track every moves. It reminds me a of a short 5 minute video on the work of warehouse workers at online grocery chain Ocado in the UK. Although it is a corporate video, the work pace and environment feels eerily similar to that presented in this Amazon blog post.