WHY IT MATTERS: Digital Transformation

WHY IT MATTERS: I like this approach of assigning "scores" to different tasks in thee value chain - here for risk levels - so as to evaluate where to prioritize efforts, and possible compare different restaurants.

WHY IT MATTERS: it IS possible to launch eCommerce fast and it delivers value and results. What is not said in there: setup an ecommerce requires all hands on deck from procurement to fulfillment, hard decisions must be made fast often breaking established rules, and do not expect project to be complete after 13 weeks - actually pan for it to last another 9 to 18 months!

Follow the link for more: https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/mckinsey-digital/our-insights/building-an-e-commerce-business-lessons-on-moving-fast

WHY IT MATTERS: one of the best webinar on eCommerce fulfillment out there - in french!

WHY IT MATTERS: one chart from many from the Adobe summit shows how Adobe plans to position itself in the eCommerce. Moreover, the visualization is clear: most of the revenue online is in the top tiers.

WHY IT MATTERS: tragedies often inspire innovation. I assume the autonomous vehicle will get a shot in the arm in the new normal of limited contacts. Watch the videos in the article to get a feeling on how the vans drive themselves - it is sometimes scary. Lots of improvements are required.

WHY IT MATTERS: this guide provides a good summary of the headless commerce solution and when it is useful.

WHY IT MATTERS: recent survey provides good insights into priorities that retailers have. Spoiler: AR-VR not high on the list. Surprisingly facial recognition is not top priority: privacy concerns?

WHY IT MATTERS: once we get over the health crisis, we will need to address the economic crisis. Key supply chain technologies will offer retailers and manufacturers solutions to reduce cost and their dependency on global trade fluctuations.

WHY IT MATTERS: marketplaces are all the rage these days. This report highlights key considerations for retailers that wish to go down that path.

WHY IT MATTERS: since the launch of amazon GO convenience store in 2016, the concept of walk-in, grab stuff, leave, felt perfect for small orders (sandwich, drinks and cookies for lunch anyone). They just opened a grocery store now, which has the potential to disrupt the retail market more profoundly (Amazon bought WholeFood a while back). This article explains how the store works but also uncovers a flaw in the camera system: if you change your appearance during a visit the system can loose track of you. Interesting use case... 

WHY IT MATTERS: the use of natural language processing is bound to impact retail. But how? Better mobile assistants to help find and buy products? Improved customer service? In store employee augmentation via kiosks or sounds analysis of shoppers? Looking forward to find more at CES and NRF...

WHY IT MATTERS: order fulfillment and delivery is the last remaining hurdle to eCommerce. Loblaws in Canada will pilot a micro-fulfillment solution from TakeOff that impressed me last year at Shoptalk. In short, they create an automated back-store where eCommerce orders are prepared with a huge amount of automation. The question remains whether the economics is better for micro-fulfillment or if centralized warehouse fulfillment with hub-and-spoke delivery is better suited for high volume / low margin eCommerce that grocery is about. Thus this "test" by Loblaws. Note that Sobeys has decided in favor of more centralized ocado-driven automated warehouse and Metro remains with the more traditional decentralized (and manual) store-based pick-pack-deliver process. Given the low volume of orders for online grocery in Canada I remain partisan of a store-based manual approach but the economics I got from TakeOff was promising. Below additional links if you want to read more about takeoff and ocado.

- http://fmcs.digital/blog/a-new-store-experience-windowless-automated-micro-warehouse-with-hyperlocal-presence-may-be-the-future-of-grocery-shopping-takeoff-solution-suggests-this-may-be-the-case-robots-ai/

- http://fmcs.digital/blog/video-of-the-inside-of-ocados-robotic-warehouse-where-thousands-of-robots-pack-groceries-retail-robots/

- https://www.takeoff.com/why-takeoff

WHY IT MATTERS: very interesting read that shows how much there is to consider for one small component of eCommerce, drop shipping. The larger point behind this post is that every feature of eCommerce solutions, from catalog, carts, payment, shipping, fulfillment, etc. are being unbundled into dedicated products. Here avasam provides services for dropshipping. This follows a larger trend of solutions as they mature: you start to see enough volume / complexity to warrant dedicated solutions.

On the other end of the spectrum, there are platforms that try to integrate as many of these components into a single, integrated solution.

Some interesting posts on bundling/unbundling:

- craigslist uunbundling: https://thegongshow.tumblr.com/post/345941486/the-spawn-of-craigslist-like-most-vcs-that-focus

- search bundling in china: https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2014/8/1/app-unbundling-search-and-discovery

- productivity / excel unbundling: https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2019/9/27/new-productivity

WHY IT MATTERS: this is a very good review of top small & medium business eCommerce solution, which can actually be a great reference for departments or BUs of large organization. IT lacks in one major area which is key for large organization: customization, data and integration to corporate systems. This is where those small SaaS solutions often fail as they deliver all-in-one solutions but fail to live well in large corporate IT environments where ERP, WMS, OMS PIM and other solutions exist and where master data often resides. 

WHY IT MATTERS this report presents and categorizes the retail trends in 2019. Some are technology-based (AR, VR, QR codes, ...) but all are technology-driven, even those that improve product or distribution (small stores, popup stores, store as fulfillment centers, localization, ...)

WHY IT MATTERS: Amazon marketplace is seen as a possible competitor to retailers. AWS cloud infrastructure however does provide all the same tools to let retailers "roll their own"...!

WHY IT MATTERS: microservice is a core architecture pattern in today's eCommerce and cloud environments. This overview provides some insights into the most well known companies that have deployed their microservice architecture at scale.

WHY IT MATTERS: the management of product, client and order data is central to delivering a unified ecommerce experience in an omni channel world. This paper sheds light into the reasons why a PIM is so important.

WHY IT MATTERS: marketplaces are all the rage in the eCommerce world. I find this walkthrough interesting because it features digital goods (code, themes, etc.), something we don't think about enough - they are easy to ship! ;-)

WHY IT MATTERS: this is the obvious killer app for facial recognition - it uses AI technology and similar hardware that iPhone uses to unlock your screen. You can now spend without any friction, not event the need to take your phone out of your pocket. Of course this raises obvious privacy and security concerns - but in China the concept of privacy appears different than in the West. But the most important factor is that Asia is deploying this *at scale* first, waaaaaaayyyy before the USA where you still have to sign paper slips for credit card transactions... Who is leading the techno war these days?

WHY IT MATTERS: this white paper explains the key elements to look for in a marketplace solution, whether you need to join one or create one of your own.

WHY IT MATTERS: a key component of digital transformation is moving to cloud infrastructure and services like AWS, Azure, Google, Salesforce, etc. The growth is the reflection that digital transformation is a reality for many organizations. Yet most organizations still have most of their IT servers and infrastructure in house, leaving a lot of room for growth in the future.

WHY IT MATTERS: personalization is often difficult to implement but when done right it delivers real value for retailers and their clients.

WHY IT MATTERS: so true, simple is better!

WHY IT MATTERS: 3 key data domains should be top of any company's EA priority list: client, orders and products. This ebook sheds some light onto key processes and technologies required to manage product data centrally.