Amazon destroyed profit expectations for its first quarter, with profits more than doubling from last year. The profit boom is thanks to increasing online sales (sales were up 43% in the quarter to $51 billion), advertising and Amazon Web Services (which saw a 49% rise in sales from last year). Amazon announced last week that the annual membership fee for Prime members will increase by $20 to $119 a year, which also posted an increase in revenue for the quarter of 60%. According to eMarketer, Amazon accounts for close to 43 cents of every dollar spent online. 

Amazon's subscription revenue was also up for the quarter by 60% at $3.1 billion. The rise in the annual membership fee is expected to add a windfall this business unit's revenue. Chief Financial Officer Brian Olsavsky said "We do feel it's still the best deal in retail."  Prime customers are eligible to receive free two day shipping on selective items, as well as access Amazon's music and video streaming services. Items eligible for two day shipping have grown by 5x since the previous price increase to the prime membership service four years ago. 


There was good news across almost all of Amazon's business units in this first quarter of 2018. AWS, Amazon Web Services, saw an expansion in profit margin and posted sales of $5.44 billion in the first quarter. In revenue, it remains the largest company in sector. Due to the acquisition of Whole Foods Market, Amazon's employee global headcount is 60% higher than it was a year earlier with 563,000 part-time and full-time employees. 


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The European Commission wants investment in artificial intelligence from private and public sources across Europe to total 20 billion euros by 2020 and has promised to increase its own investment over that time period by 70% to 1.5 billion euros. Artificial intelligence promises to revolutionize almost all sectors and the EU is seeking to ensure it retains competitiveness with Asia and The United States who both invested at least 3x more than Europe did last year. 

The Vice President of the European Union, Andrus Ansip, said on Wednesday that "Just as the steam engine and electricity did in the past, AI is transforming our world. Today, we are giving a boost to researchers so that they can develop the next generation of AI technologies and applications, and to companies, so that they can embrace and incorporate them." 

France and Britain have also recently made public their intentions to make investments in artificial intelligence a priority. Emmanuel Macron, President of France, promised last month to increase  the allocation of public money towards AI investment to 1.5 billion euros. Last year, private investments in AI across Europe totaled 2.4-3.2 billion euros, drastically lower than America's 18 billion euros and Asia's 10 billion euros. The bloc will have to continue to ramp up investment in the revolutionary technology or likely face a brain drain, where their top industry professionals are attracted elsewhere. 


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Gmail, the world's most popular email service,  received its first major redesign since 2013. With 1.4 billion users a month, the redesign for Google's flagship product is focused on making users more productive and safe and began its roll out to customers yesterday. The redesign will bring some highly demanded features such as two factor authentication, email snoozing, nudging, and native offline mode. Analysts have estimated that the G suite brings in close to $2 billion a year to Google, close to 10x less than Office does for Microsoft, and this overhaul looks to close that gap.

The redesign focuses on security and usability, bringing features common to many third party applications. Google shifted to their own Tensor chips to allow certain smart-assistant like features for users. Here is a rundown of some of the most critical upgrades:

Security- many new features are built around a newly developed 'confidentiality mode'

• Two Factor Authentication- on a per-message basis, users can request that recipients provide authentication before being able to open an email. This authentication can be sent via text message.
• Integrated Rights Management - this feature allows users to block the downloading, printing, copying, or forwarding on a per-message basis. This feature is intended to prevent the unintentional sharing of information. 

Usability:

• Nudging- Gmail will selectively push emails the system has determined still require a response or are time-sensitive to the top of the inbox. This nudging feature will resurface emails very frequently and will use signals like the email content and sender to make its determination to nudge or not. 
• Email Snoozing- allows users to selectively snooze an email for a later time. 
• Offline Mode - Gmail has now added a native offline mode that enables users to access up to 90 days of emails.

Other improvements include being able to select your display density of your inbox and one tap access to attachments from your inbox screen. Google has not provided cost figures for the redesign, but Google CFO Ruth Porat did explain that 50% of parent company Alphabet's capital expenditures in the first quarter were the result of hardware purchases to aid in the expansion of machine learning.



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Santander is the first international bank to offer a transfer application based on blockchain with the launch of Santander One Pay FX. The payment application lets users make transfers across country borders considerably quicker, with transfer times of two days or less. The application also allows you to view the amount that will be received, in the currency of the destination, immediately. Santander's One Pay FX is available today for customers in Spain, Brazil, UK and Poland and is expected to be expanded to other countries and currencies in the coming months. Santander Executive Chairman Ana Botín stated that the bank also intends to eventually make the application available to customers of other banks.

Santander One Pay FX is based on xCurrent, an enterprise software solution technology developed by North American Ripple that allows banks to settle cross-border transfers with end-to-end tracking. It is the first use of blockchain by a major bank globally and Santander has already stated that the transfer application is the "first of many" to use the blockchain technology. By storing data in a secure, anonymous, distributed ledger, blockchain data is not validated or stored by one entity but rather a network of computers. "Blockchain technology offers great opportunities to improve the services we provide to our customers" said Ana Botín.

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​The PHARahead Summit, held at the LX Factory, brought together industry experts to sensitize Portuguese Pharmacies to the growing importance of digital transformation in the Pharma industry. Close to 200 pharmacy representatives were present to learn how Portuguese pharmacies of the future need to familiarize themselves with topics such as e-commerce, social CRM (customer relationship management), the importance of online visibility in Google's search engines, and social network management. The Portuguese consumer is already online and wants to purchase whenever and wherever they want. With 49% of pharmacies in attendance lacking a website, it is a clear that most Pharmacies will have to renew their relationship with digital. 

The pharmacy industry is a traditional industry and most pharmacies in Portugal just do not have the tools and capabilities needed to communicate and engage with the consumers of today. It is clear that the Portuguese e-commerce channel is growing and the potential for growth in the beauty sector is just as evident: 34% of Portuguese people have bought at least one beauty product online within the last year and 55% are buying on foreign websites. If Portuguese pharmacies are not present in this space, ready to communicate, engage, advise, and sell to these consumers- they will lose them. Portuguese consumers today are multi-channel, digital natives who  are not only more informed than ever but also have more purchase options than ever. The Portuguese pharmacy must invest in and develop innovative and effective digital services to create new lines of communication and business with their increasingly digital customers. 



Click here to read the full article on the PHARahead Summit by The Obersvador. 

More and more airlines are looking to provide wifi aboard their aircrafts, causing a gold-rush feeling for suppliers in the market. Availability of wifi on all available seats worldwide is up 10% from the beginning of 2017 to 43%. Accessibility to "best wifi," which provides wifi capable of streaming media and offers speeds closer to those available to homes, has doubled from 2016 to 16% of all available seats worldwide. Airlines can make money from providing onboard broadband services through sponsorships or through ancillary revenues driven aboard the airlines (passengers booking taxis or engaging in onboard retail). 

Cost sensitivity among airlines has led to caution as they waited for the technology to mature to ensure they do not have to replace the systems after two years. The market is now at a point where airlines feel more comfortable adopting this next generation technology. Options for providers include connectivity providers, software/hardware providers, and satellite firms. Jan-Peter Gaense, head of passenger experience products and solutions at Lufthansa Systems, predicts a wave of mergers among the 17 or so connectivity  companies as competition in the market intensifies. 

A study by the London School of Economics predicts that onboard broadband could generate close to $30 billion in ancillary revenue, doubling profits for airlines by 2035. Additional benefits to onboard wifi include the airlines themselves using broadband connectivity to increase maintenance efficiencies, such as spending less time grounded due to the ability to request parts en route. 


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Over the next two years, Adidas will increase its investment in digital in an effort to more than double its Ecommerce sales. CEO Kasper Rorsted, who took over the reigns in 2016, has increased Adidas' capital expenditure by close to 40% and has budgeted most of this year's €900m towards digital operations. Online sales last year rose to €1.4bn (up 57%) and revenue lifted by 16% to €21.2bn. Adidas has revealed that they will begin to close some of its physical stores as its continues to shift its focus online with Mr Rorsted explaining that the Adidas "online store is the most important store we have in the world."

Its efforts to lift digital sales have been boosted by connections with fellow German group Zalando and the limited release of a mobile app that offered users a high degree of personalization. Going forward, Adidas will continue to roll out the smartphone app to other international markets and aims to hire around 200 employees focused specifically on digital by 2020. 

Mr Rorsted expects the that over the course of the next year, the "absolute spread [between offline and online sales] will increase," and that although the number of stores they operate will contract, Adidas will focus on making the remaining stores better. These increases in online revenue are expected to also lift profit margins as online is a higher-margin distribution channel than traditional offline retail. Mr Rorsted intends to boost sales 10-12 % per year by 2020 and the company has forecasted net profits to increase 20-24 percent per year until 2020. The Adidas chief also expects the full effects of their increased investment in digital to only be felt post 2020 as expenditure levels rise in the short term.

Adidas currently has around 2,500 stores located around the world and 13,000 mono-branded, franchise locations.


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Analysis conducted on 40 years of innovation research contained in over 1,070 articles revealed that the two topics most linked to the  published papers are disruptive and radical innovation. Disruptive and radical innovation describe very different processes and require entirely different responses from incumbents. Mistaking the two can cause organizations to focus on the wrong initiatives and may result in an inability to cope with the changes they face.

Research enables us to break down the source of disruptive innovation to being a combination between business model innovation and technology. This can be caused by new entrants exploiting over-looked market segments or their creation of a new market that was previously untapped. Research demonstrates that disruptive innovation often commences with new entrants using variations on current industry business models to gain a foothold in the low end of the market. Disruptive innovation also commonly stems from companies with inferior resources to industry incumbents.

Radical innovation on the other hand is caused by entirely new products or ideas, where a business successfully commercializes a break through idea. Radical innovation is heavily reliant on the organizational capabilities and human capital that enable organizations to create products that cause long-term impact. 

To appropriately cope with either disruptive or radical innovations, its is critical for organizations to first understand which type of innovation they are facing. Responses to radical innovation must focus on organizational and dynamic capabilities and should also include initiatives that empower your organization's human capital. Responding to disruptive innovation must focus on adjusting organizational strategies to meet changing customer needs. One thing is for certain, the role of digital in both in undeniable. 



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MIT researchers unveiled AlterEgo, a head mounted wearable that is capable of reading the "words in your head." After being calibrated, the device was able to correctly read commands with an accuracy of 92 %. The device measures subvocalization through neuromuscular signals, and sends them to a computer that runs them through neural networks to turn those signals into words. Its potential future uses include enabling voice and hands free communicating with computers, mobile devices, and AI assistants. 

AlterEgo also has bone conduction capabilities which allows the device to deliver audio without external noise ensuring a fully silent system (input and output). The system was created with the intention of building an "intelligence augmentation device" that would meld human and machine more closely allowing technology to feel like a more personal extension of our cognition.

The system has been used to ask for the time, navigate a Roku and report chess moves made by an opponent in order to get the correct counter move from a computer. 


Click here to watch a video about the device and  here to read the full article. 

The mobile phone has become a productivity boosting tool to all in idle moments. According to Google, 60% of smartphone users say their phones help them feel more "confident and prepared" and 79% are more likely to revisit a mobile site if it's easy to use. Mobile phones provide sparks of inspiration, help solve urgent needs, enable moments of micro-productivity, assist in planning ahead, offer in-store assistance at all times, and give users a feeling of accomplishment.  Is your brand effectively catering your mobile experiences to fit your customer's needs? 

According to Google, 54% of smartphone users report that their mobiles reduce stress/anxiety in their lives. Google researchers identified five "mind states" that cause users to reach out to their mobile phones:

• A Spark: A trigger causes something to pop into people's head that results in them searching for information on that something. This triggered topic can be anything from services and products to experiences. 
• Urgent Need: The individual turns to their phones to find directions, food, clothing etc... quickly. 
• In-Store Assistance: Shoppers use their phones inside a store to find coupons, prices, reviews or general information on the products they are looking at. Although many businesses worry about showrooming (shoppers using their phones to look for better prices while in a store) - focus instead on finding a way to leverage the opportunities mobiles provide your customers.
• Micro-Productivity: People can now use their mobile phones to take care of tasks during times where they used to be idle (in a taxi, or waiting room).
• Planning Ahead: The mobile phone is enabling people to plan everything and anything in advance  (experiences, meals, hotels, car rentals). 

Find the mind states or micro moments that send your customer reaching for their phones and match your mobile experience to them. Doing so will help your company become more receptive to your customers and their needs. 


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