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Tech Giants: Facebook 2019
Facebook is getting a bad rap but it’s crucial to note that despite bad press revenue continues to wildly outpace growth, and analysts see up-and-to-the right odds for the foreseeable future. On the downside, costs are going up as Facebook attempts to reign in the bad actors, and their alternative business models have never flourished. Advertising is the dominant species, and payments and hardware have failed to expand in comparison.
Read MoreTech Giants: Apple 2019
Apple Results. Tech Giant Earnings for Very Busy People. Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Alphabet (Google) all report within a quick week their 2019 yearly results. The headline: overall media sentiment does not align with actual results. First up: Apple: Apple’s big business model pivot to software and services taking longer than expected – it was surprising to see iPhone sales up. But the blue and purple dot of services and Read More
Facebook AntiTrust – Easier in Hindsight, Harder to Know What to do in the Future
It’s easy to look back and say “we should have put a stop to Instagram before they bought their biggest competitor.” but the question of competitive strategy and acquisitions also involves looking into the future. FB’s strategy is shifting to payments, AR/VR, and Facebook coin – how will regulators decide which acquisitions are anti-competitive before Facebook even makes headway in a new market? The strategy question is now two fold: Read More
Spotlight on Data: Data as an Asset
Beyond the Exhaust: Friederike Schüürand I will be talking about Data Strategy on May 20 – O’Reilly Spotlight Our online lives have long left data traces, and the adoption of smartphones, wearables, smart speakers, smart doorbells, and smart everything else has expanded the range of data-collection devices. The early practice of data science on exhaust data—data generated as the by-product of operations—primed the operational use of data. But we can Read More
Apple’s Services Pivot: From Hardware to Attention
Tim Cook announced a new era for Apple on Monday unveiling a streaming video service, news subscriptions, game subscriptions, and an apple credit card. Cook is trying to change the story we tell about Apple. Notice the event announced no new actual things that you can hold in your hand. This is a major pivot for apple: a product company transforming into a services company Wall Street responded with a Read More
How Does Amazon Make Money? A Look at FY 2018
Hi I’m Jen van der Meer. And forgive me. I’m a bit obsessed with Amazon. Amazon just reported 2018 financials. They crushed it. As you know, Amazon is a juggernaut. We often lump Apple, Amazon, and Alphabet together with even Facebook or Netflix. But nothing is like Amazon. Amazon is complexity. And the most ingenious. Evil genius? Customer-pleasing genius? The company you would most likely refer to a friend? Let’s Read More
Sears: Blame the Spreadsheets?
Is the Sears bankruptcy the fault of financiers, looking at the world through spreadsheets? Don’t blame the spreadsheets. Logic is in the eye of the logician. There is a core belief that is shared among financiers and MBAs: companies have natural cycles of Startup, growth, maturity, and death. I was always sort of sad when we covered this in B-School. I guess it’s why I like the innovation side of Read More
Corporate Innovation an Oxymoron?
Two words that don’t fit well together. Corporate. Innovation. Said inside of startup circles, you’d hear a bit of a cynical chuckle. Heh. Innovation doesn’t happen in corporates. The story we’ve been telling for years: Corporate, large, giant, public companies are hampered by: Investor expectations to deliver the short term Large hierarchical organizational structures of management that limit autonomy and speed The law of large numbers: expectations for innovations that meet Read More
Pitching for Value
Telling your narrative + growth story to attract the people, resources, and everything else you need. Impressed by the Female Entrepreneur contingent – women entrepreneurs from Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Denmark, Finland, Germany at this Nordic Innovation House event.
Read MoreTransform or Enable? The Business Model Innovation Choice
The Business Model Innovation Choice 20 years ago, I was a 20-something digital punk strategist. The internet was going to change the WORLD. I would ply my trade telling established Fortune 1000 clients that they had to move swiftly. Radically transform your companies into a digital businesses. Fast. Or risk annihilation. What followed was one of the most rapid rise and fall in company bets and valuations ever seen in Read More