Libra ite domum

I recently attended the OECS’s Virtual Island Summit. I’m currently ploughing my way through the sessions and will be writing about that in the short term. There were a lot of fascinating presentations over the few days, and much is of direct use to us in the Caribbean.

On to the update.

Buses, Data and the Value of Data

The 1st of October witnessed the introduction of a structured and timetabled bus service in the north of the Island of Martinique. The project had been long discussed but had had plenty of difficulties along the way due to structural and operational challenges - read, people!

The North Caribbean coastal and inland towns served by the coastal road had until that point been serviced by taxicos, operating with few restrictions. As a daily user, you were either unconcerned or had no choice but to wait and pay. The taxicos were always late, disorganised and too expensive for the service offered. Safety was secondary; no seat belts, doors that had long past their usable life span, as examples.

I’ve written previously about the state of public transport in the Caribbean and how users are often in a “suck it up” or nothing situation:

When we look at the end users and their relative power in the value chain of the public transportation business, and I'm specifically talking about the Caribbean as I know its not the same in London or New York, we see that they are relatively powerless — essentially they are in a take it or leave it situation. With no powerful central public transportation organisation with a solid offer, users are powerless to exercise pressure upon that organisation in order to obtain better service. With no organisation of users as lobby, they relinquish the right to exercise pressure on abusive pricing of poor to bad services. Yes, they can just choose not to use the buses and Taxicos, but what alternative do they have?

The news of this new service piqued my interest obviously, and particularly as I hoped the service would have digital technologies natively integrated from the get-go.

Remember, Digital Transformation is hard and much harder for companies that have years and sometimes decades of culture built up in the business. Culture is hard to modify and align with new objectives which is why we see Thomas Cook happening.

Thomas Cook is additionally the victim of its decision not to transform into an agile, Internet-savvy business with consequences that run into thousands of job losses around the world and an estimates 150000 British holiday makes stranded unless the UK government can step into charter planes for the rescue, an estimated cost of £100m.

Founded 178 years ago, Thomas Cook is a giant in the tourism industry, with a breakdown of its sales as 67.8% for flights, holidays, accommodation and insurance and 32.2% in airline services. At the end of September 2018, they owned 186 hotels and had a fleet of 100 aircraft. Its sales breakdown is split between the UK at 24% and the rest of Europe at 66% with Germany alone counting for 37.8%.

As you are no doubt acutely aware, the Caribbean is one of the group's leading destinations and many companies in the region are exposed to the risk of Thomas Cook's impending failure.

Thomas Cook failed to seriously take its business in the direction of digital, instead strategically opting to open and run 563 high-street sales shops, financing much of the expansion in debt that was in-part attractive due to historically low-interest rates in Europe, but servicing that debt, now at around £1.7bn, is expensive, even if it is relatively low, running at around £150m/year.

While the world was transforming digitally, Thomas Cook took the opposite route and is now paying the price with an impending doom unless they can finance their way out of the current hole.

When you are a nascent enterprise, you have a responsibility to build in digital services as a default, not an afterthought. Why? Because it is going to be harder, more expensive and take a lot longer to retrofit digital into your operations if you don’t do from the outset.

I’m disappointed to learn that Martinique Transport (the body set up to operate public transport in Martinique) have no such digital technologies in view.

A pdf timetable exists on the website, but some of the most basic technologies that are available on the market for over 20 years are not present. You can’t see when the next bus is arriving (there’s no indication of time to the next bus), there’s no app you can use to look up the routes, timetables and bus times. You go to the stop, and you wait. When the bus arrives, you get on comforted by the fact that at least it’s a regular schedule compared to the previous service.

Anecdotally, I’ve noticed more people at bus stops that ever before, so the service is having an impact on mobility, and as I mentioned in my interview with Greggar Deterville of RIDE Caribbean:

One thing is for sure, mobility provides fuel for growth in an economy, the more we can do to make that easier, more efficient and cheaper, the better it is for the country.

Besides this, implementing these services could have benefits for Martinique Transport as well. I’m talking about Martinique Transport specifically, but the same argument can be applied across the Caribbean, so I hope you don’t feel I’m targeting them intentionally.

In implementing digital services, each bus would need a device that reports back in near-realtime their location. At the datacenter, that report would then be integrated into the database and rationalised as required. Data rationalisation is the process by which the data collected is audited for inconsistencies, duplicates and potential errors, treated and committed to the database in its final form. This data is then exploitable by anyone wishing to use it for other purposes. And a few seconds delay on the location of a bus is not particularly significant.

The database then becomes the basis for the development of simple tools that are valuable to Martinique Transport and possibly open up the potential for monetisation.

An app for Android and iOS wouldn’t necessarily have to be developed by Martinique Transport; it could be independent with Martinique Transport charging a reasonable annual fee for access to the database via simple APIs. That would promote third parties to develop apps, a few rivals competing to provide a unique take on presentation and usability would be a healthy thing, and Martinique Transport would benefit from simultaneous revenue from the developers.

The devices required on the buses have a cost, it is non-neglige, but a simple prototype solution would be very cheap to implement. What do we all carry that has GPS builtin and an always-on data connection? The Smartphone!

Give a couple of drivers a cheap android smartphone with a data plan, lock the phone down to prevent abuse and ensure that the GPS application is fired up and reporting back through the APIs. This quick and dirty solution would, in a short period, prove the value of collecting that data, because not only would that data be valuable for users of the services, but Martinique Transport itself could benefit.

Data, as I’ve written before, is crucial for business in Digital Transformation and that we’re often data-rich but usage sparse:

Data is the new oil in the digital economy

Although there is some dispute in the reality of the phrase, with some reasoning that it’s not, the phrase holds true for many businesses looking towards digital transformation. Businesses produce data all the time, but it is mostly lost, stored but not accessed or downright under-exploited. We are data-rich but analysis-poor, and it’s to our detriment.

Once collected and aggregated the data would provide insights for Martinique Transport about the efficacy of the timetable, provide information to help tweak the schedule. Adding user numbers would afford a more meticulous analysis of the appropriate bus types to use on the various lines (peaks and troughs in usage, for example). A plethora of value is available if the data is there.

I hope I’m wrong and that this is in progress already throughout the Caribbean.

Libra eunt domus(1)

In an ever-crumbling house of cards that it Facebook’s Libra project, not only has LINKPaypal publicly pulled out, but yesterday saw the announcements from eBay, Stripe, Mastercard and Visa that they will no longer be part of the project.

Remember, Marc Zuckerberg is set to testify on the 23rd of October to the House Financial Services Committee in a hearing set up to investigate the project and its implications to financial stability.

It is looking increasingly likely that Libra is to become a cryptocurrency just like Bitcoin and the others, albeit famous and very popular.

The Future is Digital Newsletter is intended for anyone interesting in learning about Digital Transformation and how it affects their business. I strongly encourage you to forward it to people you feel may be interested. If this email was forwarded to you, I’d love to see you onboard. You can sign up here:

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1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romani_ite_domum

Why we’re unlikely to see it in the Caribbean anytime soon

I’ve had a bit of eye strain recently, and decided to rest my eyes a little which is why this email comes out only now. Appointment with eye doctor duly booked!

On to the article.

As the victim of a pretty violent road traffic accident earlier this year — one that could easily have killed us — I am very attentive to road security and the way that technology improves it. The world of autonomous vehicles fits squarely with that and the theme of this newsletter: digital technologies and their impact on lives and business.

Today’s title gives the conclusion away far too early, but I thought it worth writing an issue on the subject.

What is vehicle autonomy? It’s complicated

When we talk about humans, often related to the subject of children or those with handicaps, autonomy is a relatively simple concept to assess; can my son wake up and then go for a shower without any other intervention (I’ll not talk about the teenage years that seem to affect autonomous capacity severely 🤷‍♂️), or can a physically impaired person live and work autonomously such that it affords them freedom to control meaningful outcomes.

When we discuss autonomous vehicles, we’re talking about a much simpler autonomy. Tell the car where we’d like to go then start the engine. Very simple, nothing at all like the scale of processing required for a human to be autonomous, yet it seems like science fiction currently.

At the start of the year, CES in Las Vegas has become an institution for technology enthusiasts to glimpse “the future”. Much of what is on-show is pure fantasy and at best, half-baked prototypes putting on the glams to get funded into reality. Notwithstanding, one such demo that was highly entertaining, if still a little too scripted for my liking, was the Yandex autonomous car driving on real roads, in real traffic. It shuttled real passengers around the Strip expertly. This video shows it better than I could explain.

You’ve no doubt noticed the safety driver in the passenger seat and the big red panic button, but it was, nonetheless very impressive.

The 5 Levels of Autonomy

You’ve no doubt noticed the safety driver in the passenger seat and the big red panic button near the hand, but it was nonetheless quite impressive.

The 5 Levels of Autonomy

In 2013, the US Department of Transportation's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) defined what has subsequently become accepted as the definitive list of vehicle autonomy levels. It ranges from 0 (none) to 5 (full autonomy).

Level 0: This one is simple, and it is virtually every vehicle produced and sold since Henry Ford’s Model T first rolled off his now infamous production line. The car controls nothing, nothing! The engine, brakes, steering, gears and all the accessories like lights and indicators are all human-driven, decided and executed.

Level 1: Level 1 is described best as driver-assistance. Some functions, such as breaking, speed regulation, are controlled under supervision by the bag of meat in the driver's seat: nothing fancy, just a few helpful gadgets to make life on the highway a little more bearable.

Level 2: At this level, at least one driver-assist system controls the experience. It could be acceleration or breaking. However, the critical aspect is that the car makes the decision based upon its understanding and awareness of its environment. The driver is “disengaged” from operating the vehicle, using the NHTSA terminology. If you’ve used lane-assist in a car, this is what Level 2 autonomy is.

Level 3: This is the level at which responsibility for safety rests in the hands of the vehicle and not the human, but only under certain circumstances. The driver must remain aware and capable of capturing full control at a moments notice. This level is what the latest Tesla cars can do on major highways in the US. Many people believe we are likely to skip this step, precisely because this blurring of responsibility between human and machine is already creating more problems than it solves, and judging by the YouTube videos I saw researching this article, that’s not unreasonable!

Level 4: Level 4 is, for all intents and purposes, fully autonomous, in that the vehicle can fully control the trip from start to finish with no human intervention. Under the level 4 definition, however, it is limited to full autonomy under the ODD, the Operational Design Domain. It refers to the fact that in some situations, the vehicle fails in autonomy when operated outside those parameters — for example, driving in a massive snowstorm or rain deluge. This issue becomes important when we look at the situation in the Caribbean.

Level 5: If the vehicle is indistinguishable from, or better than, human drivers, then Level 5 is attained. The vehicle becomes Driverless. Note that Autonomous is now Driverless!

What are the problems for the Caribbean?

Sadly for us here in the Caribbean, the reality is that too many issues exist on our roads for autonomy to be a significant prospect for the foreseeable future. A few examples serve to highlight this.

Take, for example, the weather. Blessed as we are with all-year-round sunshine and warmth, we are bathed with heavy rain (seemingly from nowhere at times), that often floods roads within minutes. For you, the human, much information is inputted and processed; you intrinsically understand the flooding of the road and slowing down is necessary to avert an accident. You see the rain, you know it’s raining. You know the road, you can no longer see the tarmac or concrete, you see lots of water.

LIDAR and other technologies currently in autonomous vehicles are sadly lacking in this perception and intelligence.

I was lucky enough to have a VW Golf for a couple of years that featured lane-assist, but our islands are small, and our roads are even smaller. The technology just wasn’t built for those scenarios. Few are the multi-lane straight-lined highways that allow this technology to work well. Our roads twist and turn, undulating more like the opening sequence to Ridge Racer than the perfect Autobahnen of Germany, forcing operation outside the ODD, resulting in the disabling of the feature after a few hundred metres or so, of poorly lined tarmac.

The technology is coming, but it takes a long time before becoming useful in the Caribbean and universally. Getting the technology to Level 4 in Los Angeles is a very different prospect than getting it to Level 4 in Dominica!

Paypal is no longer pals with Libra

Paypal, one of the 28 founding members of the association pledging $10 million in investment, have announced they are walking away from the project after much backlash had been felt around the globe. In France and Germany, governments have openly stated that Libra would be forbidden in those territories as it is seen as a threat to sovereignty.

I’ll keep beating the drum, it’s annoying I know, but Cryptocurrencies are condemned to remain as a reasonably anonymous (although not 100%) way for you buying your drugs and other illicit goods. Unless they legitimise themselves and are governed and regulated, and most importantly, protected by laws in each state in which they operate, they will remain marginal in both senses of the word. From Blockchain ≠ Cryptocurrency:

I’m an on-the-record sceptic of Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies, and so far, nothing I’ve seen has led me to believe differently. They are almost all, a waste of money. They are all, without exception, a huge waste of energy in a time when economising energy should be a priority not just for governments but individuals alike, and at the very worst end of the scale, some are downright fraudulent. That being said, the underlying technology of these currencies is actually quite interesting and has place for use in Digital Transformation

Visa, MasterCard and Stripe are all said to be getting cold feet and are feeling the adverse effects of being associated with Facebook, and it is only a matter of time before they pull the plug too. However, Paypal’s decision also has business strategy wrapped up in it.

Paypal is the owner of Venmo, a digital wallet-type app and a whole ecosystem of payment tools that would, it seems, compete with Calibra, the Libra-based wallet. I’m guessing Paypal took stock of the risk (being linked to Facebook’s negativity) and the potential for being squeezed (see Stories, a shameful ripoff from Snapchat, designed to elevate Instagram at the expense of Snap that worked incredibly well) and said that it just isn’t worth it.

The Future is Digital Newsletter is intended for anyone interesting in learning about Digital Technologies and how they affect business. I strongly encourage you to forward it to people you feel may be interested. If this email was forwarded to you, I’d love to see you onboard. You can sign up here:

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What is a Digital-Native Company and Netflix & Canal+ Follow-up

In a rare and record-breaking event, Hurricane Lorenzo is the first Hurricane in recorded history to be as strong at such a Northern Latitude. Threatening parts of Ireland, the UK and possibly even mainland Europe, Lorenzo is not likely to remain a hurricane, but it is to bring much disruption to those areas in the next few days. Think The Great Storm of 1987. Stay safe.

Lorenzo is almost certainly one of the many side effects of global warming and is a subject I’m currently researching, especially the link between digital technologies, power and CO2 output. I’ve not finished… but it ain’t looking too good for Cryptocurrencies! 🏭

On to the news.

What is a Digital-Native Company?

I asked myself a fundamental question:

Can digital-native organisations do Digital Transformation?

I ask this question as it seems that the ultimate aim of Digital Transformation is to drive organisations to become digitally native.

In answering that question, I need to define what a digital-native organisation is. My attempt is the following:

A digital-native company is an organisation that extensively uses digital technologies throughout the entire value chain, from supply, design and development, innovation to distribution and marketing to the ultimate end of life of its products and services.

Looking at one extreme, a trader in a local market, we can reasonably conclude that the trader is unlikely to be digitally native. Sourcing and the supply chain are handled manually, often by getting into the van and driving around the various suppliers to purchase and collect goods. Stock handling too is a manual exercise when a storeroom/warehouse is involved; zero stock is not always possible at the end of trading. 

Marketing, if any, is additionally more of a human to human communication process, most often done in the form of handwriting today’s prices on a chalkboard propped up by a fruit box somewhere visible for passers-by. Selling too is unlikely digital as so many cash-based businesses are.

Distribution and delivery are also a manual process handed off to the buyer; it is his or her responsibility and charge to receive, check and transport the goods to their ultimate destination.

On the other extreme, if we look at a company like Microsoft, we could conclude that the fact that Microsoft was and is primarily a software development business selling digital goods that are distributed almost entirely by digital methods, it is therefore by definition a digital-native organisation. Microsoft’s products are by nature almost all digital, with some hardware mixed in, Xbox, Surface amongst others.

Most structures fit somewhere in between these two extremes. They have mostly implemented some digital tools to help in productivity, or for the financial management of the company, however consideration about the entire value chain and where digitising is helpful is not something that systematically performed.

What we all see is that there is much scope for non-digital native organisations to introduce digital transformation as a process to improve outcomes.

If we look at the previously cited local market trader, the opportunity to develop digitally is there — many potentialities to improve results to his or her bottom line. For example, the deployment of an internet-connected payment terminal linked to a cloud-based accounting SaaS app would allow the trader to spend less time in data-entry in the accounts system, which would likely be a significant gain in productivity. Not only are the gains visible in the prominent areas, but access to detailed data about sales might reveal, with some simple statistical analysis, facts about the buying patterns of clients’. Possibilities such as allowing the trader to manage stock levels and stock age may allow adjusting for seasonal or event-based peaks and troughs in sales. Waste management can be better accounted for and hence, healthily managed. We should all strive for that!

Microsoft itself is not immune to this tendency either. Since Satya Nadella took the helm of the company, he has implemented sweeping changes in the internal organisation emphasising the importance of Digital Transformation in what is mostly a digital organisation already. 

However, as I’ve highlighted before, Digital Transformation is not just about installing a new accounting system and saying you’re now digital. It’s about changing the culture of the entire organisation to think about productivity and the value chain from a perspective that allows the use of digital technologies in more innovative ways, solving for the jobs to be done, if you will.

Canal+ and Netflix follow-up

Following on from an agreement between Netflix and Canal+ to allow the latter to distribute the former’s content digitally, Canal+ is going all out with a massive over-the-air publicity campaign cycling many times per hour on its properties.

It is a tacit admission that the Netflix model is the one that is winning in the battle for eyes in France and Europe, Canal+’s new advertising campaign quite literally says:

“Canal+. Ca se regard comme <BLEEP>.”

Alternatively, in English:

“Canal+. You can watch it like <BLEEP>.”

If you hadn’t guessed, BLEEP is substituted to avoid saying “Netflix”. No attempt is made to hide the lips, so lipreading such a renowned brand name is child's play.

To me, the strategy is likely to ultimately devalue the Canal+ brand and possibly even contribute to a substantial demise forcing Canal+ into a content-production-only firm — it is very good at that too. Moreover, to make matters more complicated, presumably, the contract allows Netflix to stream Canal+ content!

Why would you pay (more) for Canal+ over an antiquated system that is only just getting to grips with the job to be done, whereas directly through Netflix you’ll be able to get the same content, assuming the bilateral agreement is accurate.

Remember, Canal+ is only offering a Netflix Standard Subscription bundled, which is limited to 2 devices simultaneously and HD streaming. Netflix offers more screens but also higher definitions for those cinephiles amongst us.

Microsoft’s October Hardware Event

At 10 am ET, Microsoft is set to announce a slew of updates to its hardware line mostly offered under the Surface branding. We already know a lot of what is going to be announced — with an unsurprising leap to CPU designs other than Intel’s — but there are still some unknowns. I am especially looking forward to their Digital Transformation story and how the new generation of devices helps businesses and individuals develop digitally. I may comment on what happened in a future newsletter, we’ll see.

In circling back to the initial question, — can a digital-native do Digital Transformation? — if it is not apparent to you now, the most critical part of Digital Transformation is not “Digital”; it’s Transformation…

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For now at least.

Calm, hot, humid days here in the Caribbean. The air seems to have been sucked-out by the recent storms.

Continuing the woes of old-world companies fighting the Goliath of the Internet, I look at the Canal+ ❤️ Netflix bromance and the competition not far behind.

Enjoy this one.

Canal+ bundles Netflix

In a surprise move and not widely reported, Netflix and Canal+ have signed a deal to allow Canal+ to distribute Netflix content through their TV subscription package for an additional cost. I’ll come back to pricing further down.

The offer is an extras package that is added on to a regular Canal+ subscription to supply a Netflix Standard subscription, in essence simplifying access to Netflix from your Canal+ Set-top box. A Netflix Standard subscription allows for 2 simultaneous devices to stream content in HD.

Canal+ is the leading television provider in France; however, it is having difficulties in keeping subscriber numbers since the advent of stiff competition from the likes of Netflix. This deal looks to be a play to strengthen its subscriber numbers by adding all the current and possibly new Netflix Subscribers to its numbers. Netflix is likely to count them as subscribers too. I’ll leave you to make up your ends if that is fair or not. According to some, Netflix currently counts around 6 million subscribers in France with Canal+ already falling behind with 5 million.

Regardless, there are two issues to the pricing model that is worth considering. The first is that Canal+ states that this pricing is unlikely to remain for long, a move that is likely to not go down well with subscribers. Read, prices are going up, it’s just a matter of time and whether or not the service is successful or not.

The second issue is that a Standard Netflix subscription in France currently costs 12€ per month, Canal+ is offering its bundling at an initial price of 15€. On the face of it, you’ll be paying 3€ per month more to have the “convenience” of watching Netflix without opening an app on your Television. There are other perks included that might justify the price, but that’s debatable.

The strategy is a little like Apple’s TV app offering, where the idea is to group your streaming television and movies subscriptions in one interface to reduce friction when you want to watch something. However, Canal+ will have difficulty competing with something that (admittedly only available to Apple users) is free.

There are other issues in this deal that have not surfaced yet; I’m trying to get more information going forward.

Data collection, unmentioned in any of the articles I read researching this topic and, considering it is central the way Netflix operates, I’m surprised no one has talked about it. Netflix collects and uses data on watching habits, which in-turn it monetises by producing original content that is impressively targeted to its audiences. The days of the Hail Mary strategy of producing a show and hoping it sticks are almost over. Today’s shows are highly curated, specifically targeting essential metrics. The general public has absolutely no idea this is happening! Again, judge for yourselves based on your moral compass, I’m not pronouncing either way.

The question is, how much data sharing between Canal+ and Netflix is in the deal?

If it is none, then the deal is virtually worthless to Canal+ unless their goal is to pump subscriber numbers to look good in front of investors. Pig Lipstick. 

If it is some or all, then it needs to be in a position to monetise that data to help it produce shows similarly to Netflix. You see the problem, it becomes a direct competitor once again, and once again, the result is likely to be the same as before, i.e., Netflix wins out.

Again, another example of an old-world organisation struggling with the difficulties in navigating rough and dark seas that is the Internet. And additionally an indicator that other media streaming organisations locally may enter the fray — Flow, Digicel?

OK, Netflix wins for now, but does it keep winning?

What is fascinating with this disruption of the Television industry comes back to a saying I’m fond of: Nothing exists in a vacuum.

While Netflix is growing subscribers and putting pressure on incumbent Television providers, particularly those attempting their forays digital-first subscriptions, Netflix is finding itself in an increasingly challenging environment itself. You may be forgiven for not knowing this, as the pressure Netflix is experiencing is from behind and not from you the subscribers.

Netflix boats 150 million paying subscribers worldwide, which is frankly, astounding for a company founded to mail DVDs to customers across the USA cheaper and more conveniently than going to a Blockbuster store!

Fun fact: They still mail out DVDs to 2.7 million, yes million, customers in the USA, and get this, it is incredibly profitable for Netflix adding nearly $2 billion to its income!

However, competition from others is starting to come online. Two notable announcements from Disney, with their Disney+ subscription at $6.99 per month in the US launching on the 12th November, and Apple’s AppleTV+ subscription at the same price and available in 150 countries. Disney and Apple together, provide rude competition for Netflix, not because of the content library or subscriber numbers, but because of the Cost of Goods Sold or COGS.

Disney is also the owner of franchises like StarWars, Pixar, Marvel, National Geographic and 80% of ESPN 

When Netflix started streaming, it inked deals with distributors and studios to digitise and pump bits down a broadband line with the realised promise of gaining viewer numbers for the shows on the service. That worked well for several years and catapulted Netflix into public perception as being a TV service.

As it gained subscribers, profit and consequently competition, Netflix had to find a differentiation stagey to stay ahead of the curve. It chose to produce its content in what is marketed as Netflix Originals, leaning heavily on the respected Netflix brand. Again, not existing in a vacuum only meant it was a matter of time before others would produce proprietary content, or as in Disney’s case, pivoted to a streaming service using its arguably more respected brand. Disney’s advantage is that it is already a great content producer, with a back catalogue that is the envy of just about any organisation in media. Perhaps the BBC is an exception, but that’s a different story.

So what is the real problem for Netflix going forward?

Content is not cheap to produce, and it is not getting any cheaper thanks to the competitive forces from Apple & Co. Netflix is currently running costs of Originals creation and acquiring other content at $7 in every $10, according to the Technology Business Editor in the The Times. Apple has pledged $6 billion in content creation. Studios, distributors and all makers of TV and Film are noticing and putting up prices on one hand, and production quality and complexity are expanding — increasing costs — as a strategy to stand out from the crowd.

Disney and Apple are not ‘just’ moving picture purveyors either. Disney’s empire is vast and diverse, allowing Disney to finance Disney+ from the profits of Disneyland, rights, trinkets and other merchandise. Apple similarly doesn’t rely on AppleTV+ subscribers to exist, which explains the offer for all new Apple hardware purchases to include a year of AppleTV+ for free. Your iPhone, iPad and Mac purchase essentially subsidises the new venture, until it can live independently off its earnings.

Classic disruption!

The Future is Digital Newsletter is intended for anyone interesting in learning about Digital Transformation and how it affects their business. I strongly encourage you to forward it to people you feel may be interested. If this email was forwarded to you, I’d love to see you onboard. You can sign up here:

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Visit the website to read all my articles and discuss in the Slack channel, I’d love to hear from you.

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Disruption Theory is not just theory

The Atlantic Hurricane Season is in full swing, with the African tropical wave generator running at full power firing off potential hurricane storms every couple of days. Stay vigilant and stay informed.

Today, a tale of missed opportunity through short-sightedness and a story of a late starter on the digital journey which is most likely too little too late.

Read on.

Thomas Cook and the impact of not transforming

From the Sunday Times:

“Thomas Cook bosses will hold a crunch meeting today as the fate of the world’s oldest travel company hangs in the balance.

The board, led by chief executive Peter Fankhauser, has been battling to secure an extra £200m of rescue funding to keep the tour operator flying. It made a last-ditch appeal for a state bailout this weekend after its lenders threatened to pull out of a proposed rescue deal, but ministers are believed to be wary of propping it up.”

The outcome of that meeting I guess you already know is that Thomas Cook has is in administration, the worlds' first travel company being the victim of pressure from competitors with very low to no marginal costs.

Thomas Cook is additionally the victim of its decision not to transform into an agile, Internet-savvy business with consequences that run into thousands of job losses around the world and an estimates 150000 British holiday makes stranded unless the UK government can step into charter planes for the rescue, at an estimated cost of £100m.

Founded 178 years ago, Thomas Cook is a giant in the tourism industry, with a breakdown of its sales as 67.8% for flights, holidays, accommodation and insurance and 32.2% in airline services. At the end of September 2018, they owned 186 hotels and had a fleet of 100 aircraft. Its sales breakdown is split between the UK at 24% and the rest of Europe at 66% with Germany alone counting for 37.8%.

As you are no doubt acutely aware, the Caribbean is one of the group's leading destinations and many companies in the region are exposed to the risk of Thomas Cook's impending failure.

Thomas Cook failed to seriously take its business in the direction of digital, instead strategically opting to open and run 563 high-street sales shops, financing much of the expansion in debt that was in-part attractive due to historically low-interest rates in Europe, but servicing that debt, now at around £1.7bn, is expensive, even if it is relatively low, running at around £150m/year.

While the world was transforming digitally, Thomas Cook took the opposite route and is now paying the price with an impending doom unless they can finance their way out of the current hole.

Unfortunately, not not the first time for the group, in 2011, they found themselves in £1bn of debt with a restructuring plan and strategic plan was drawn up to transform and save the group. Fast-forward to 2019, and they are still having difficulties with their transformation.

The fault lies at the very top of the organisation, as is always the case in Digital Transformation. If the top of the tree doesn't get it or doesn't put in place the structure and culture to transform, no amount of effort will allow an organisation to implement and profit from digital technology.

Peter Fankhauser was brought on board in 2001 as CEO promising to use his experience in transforming companies:

"The reality was I knew a lot about transformation, a lot about restoring brands and transforming to the web."

Those words look like puff today, and a look at the board structure reveals not a single manager specialised or experienced in digital.

A failed merger and the digital opportunity

Sainsbury's, the UK supermarket giant, was unable to obtain regulators' accord for a merger with Asda, owned by the US mega-giant Walmart, and as a consequence has decided that now is the time to transform digitally.

Like most Supermarket companies, the pressure to sustain growth in the originally non-digital world has forced them to seek out multiple revenue streams. As such, most of today's supermarkets are no longer distribution and retail businesses, they are that of course, but they are also providers of fuel, insurance, banking and luckily for them, collectors of data.

Since the dot-com era, supermarkets were one of the first businesses to understand the value of data collection and deriving value from it. They quickly implemented loyalty cards and tied offers to the sustained use of them when purchasing groceries. Loyalty cards worked exceptionally well in the beginning, and it is hard to find a supermarket today that doesn't have some form of loyalty scheme.

Like most successful ideas, there are usually many people that have the same idea at around the same time, and as a result, multiple loyalty schemes appeared around that period. Again, like always, various differing implementations lead to a consolidation opportunity, which is precisely what happened when Nectar was founded in 2002 with a value proposition of centralisation of loyalty schemes and hence increased value to users by saving on multiple purchases in many locations simultaneously.

Nectar currently boasts 14 partner companies and over 400 online retailers amongst its offer and was initially conceived to replace four loyalty schemes, of which Sainsbury's was one. In 2018 Sainsbury's purchased Nectar seeing an opportunity to capitalise on the detailed data collection loyalty systems afford.

The problem for Sainsbury's is two-fold; the debt is crippling their opportunity to invest in digital transformation in a meaningful way that stymies reduced margins from its food distribution business. Bear in mind that food counts for 98.2% of its earnings, and like Thomas Cook also stuck in a bricks-and-mortar mindset, owns around 1400 retail locations with high fixed costs.

It is rumoured to sell off its banking arm to help finance digital initiatives, but that only counts for less than 2% of sales and is unlikely to fund a wholesale and profound transformation required to turn the ship around. Most suggest the strategy will be to transform slowly; however, it is unclear how much time is left.

Epilogue

These once giants of the retail industry, have found themselves in deep trouble in a digital world that they are finding challenging to navigate. With one falling in to administration today, with real-world consequences for its employees and customers, the other being pinched on both sides (from more nimble and digital competition and from users increasingly using digital-first services) it's hard to wonder why they didn't understand the inevitability of digital technology and disruption theory on their businesses.

Unfortunately, Thomas Cook and Sainsbury's are not the first, and they won't be the last.

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