Business: One Man's Opinion

Forbes published this online article:  Walmart's Alphabot Robot Is The Beautiful First Letter Of A New Retail Language I disagreed with the article and had a comment exchange with the author: What WalMart is doing isn't the 'end of the world' but it is a very bad decision that will NOT work in the long term.  It will waste resources and be a distraction that delays what really needs to be done. Building a 20,000 sq ft extension to an existing store and stuffing it with equipment and inventory is the worst possible implementation of 'OmniChannel'.  The goal should be to have one platform that can serve instore sales, delivery and outside pickup.  In a business where margins are single digits, two side by side stores duplicating each other is not going to beat the merchant who gets it right.  And getting it right is a single integrated store front. Walmart's investment in this approach is doomed and the experience gained will not serve as a base for t...

Forbes published this online article:  walmarts-latest-initiative-to-fend-off-amazon-is-a-total-gas I disagreed with the article and had a comment exchange with the author: Bob Reisner JULY 18, 2018 AT 2:30 AM You might want to reconsider the long term effectiveness of this strategy. I think this entire segment will suffer significant distress in 5 to 7 years and will likely collapse by 2030. Fully automated Self Drive Vehicles (“faSDVs”) are going to happen as evidenced by Googles purchase of around 100,000 faSDVs for near term USA only delivery. By mid 2020s, faSDVs might be half of new vehicles sold and by 2030 most will be faSDVs. By the early 2020s, the trend concerning faSDV adoption will be clear. The refueling of an faSDV will likely occur when the faSDV is unoccupied (like overnight) and the purchase location will likely be determined by an app that identifies the low cost supplier. Gas sales at convenience stores will drop and inside sales as well (no pass...

Putting Google aside for a moment, the motivation of every other company is simple.   Survival . It’s a long answer but hang in, there is really a very simple reason why the tech is the same and why they are all working independently on it. Before Google started putting in real money and real talent, fully automated Self Drive Vehicles (“faSDVs”) were something that would exist in the far distant future. A time far past the retirement of any executive in the automotive, taxi or rent a car business. Google understood technology improvement curves and the first mover advantage. Technology improves exponentially, tech costs decline exponentially and the company that makes a particular subset of tech work first becomes number one in the space. After about 5 years of active work, all the non Google watchers realized that faSDVs were going to be real sooner than they thought. Probably 2035 instead of 2080+. So individually and collectively, they made some modest investments...

GE lacks the courage to take risks. GE could be great again. It has cash, borrowing power and large numbers of highly skilled people. It knows how to run massive manufacturing empires. GE simply lost the ability to take responsible risks that create opportunities potentially large enough to grow profits in the size necessary to be meaningful for a large company. Rather than make this a large answer, I’ll describe two different but similar examples that show opportunities exist for a bolder GE. TESLA Tesla wants to manufacture electric vehicles in the millions. It’s having a very difficult time ramping up production. GE could partner with Tesla and fix the production issue. GE could buy Chrysler Fiat (“FCAU”) for $20 to $25 billion. An army of GE Finance, HR and other disciplines could takeover FCAU and convert part and later all of the company to Tesla manufacture. GE also has a near hundred year history of working with unions and a far longer history in managing ...