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Walmart Will Use Blockchain To Track Food Supply Chain

9/26/2018

Source: REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo

Walmart and Sam's Club (owned by Walmart) announced this week that their lettuce suppliers will be required to use blockchain technology to implement farm to store tracking in real time. Walmart will use blockchain technology to address food-safety issues, and joins other giant retail companies such as Tyson Foods Inc and Nestle who are trying to leverage blockchain technology to track food supply. Blockchain technology will allow Walmart to determine the source of the leafy green vegetable in a Walmart store in a matter of seconds instead of the days it could take currently. Blockchain technology uses a shared record of data on a distributed computer network to provide faster and more secure record keeping.

This year, an outbreak of E.coli in the United States that was linked to lettuce led to the deaths of at least five people according the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Walmart has previously worked with the IBM to utilize blockchain technology to track food products.

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Spending On Digital Marketing Grew By 44%

9/24/2018

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Source: Reuters/Mike Segar/File Photo

A new study has found that expenditure on digital marketing increased to $52 billion in the United States and Britain last year. Estimates for total global spending on digital marketing approach $100 billion. Digital marketing, also known as "martech" (short for marketing technology), lets brands target the consumers they want directly through search engine optimization, voice-activated assistants, or social media and gives them more control when compared to using intermediaries to place ads. The study also found that brands in North America and Britain allocated 23% of their budget on martech, a large increase from the 16% reported the previous year. It is a clear indication that brands are choosing to take more and more control over their own digital marketing efforts.

The issue of brand safety has grown in recent time as concerns over what content your ads appear next to has sky rocketed. As a result, brands have become frustrated with online advertising and have responded by taking more control over how their audiences are targeted by beginning to bring many of these functions in house. The percentage of technology budgets spent in-house, for example, reached 63% versus 44 % the year before in the United States. The impact that this shift in budgeting will have on the value of media agencies will be resounding.

The study found that spending on digital marketing in the United States and Britain grew by 44% last year.

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Amazon Launches 15 Alexa Enabled Devices

9/21/2018

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Source: Reuters/Jeffrey Dastin

Yesterday, Amazon launched 15 new Alexa enabled devices showing how serious the world's largest online retailer is about the voice-controlled device market. In addition to releasing new versions of its Echo Plus, Echo Dot and Echo Show devices, Amazon also announced new products such as a voice-controlled wall clock and microwave. The flurry of new devices with different purposes highlights a difference in Amazon's approach when compared to Apple or Google, who have released far fewer voice-controlled devices. eMarketer estimates that Echo owners will represent two-thirds of smart speaker users in the United States this year.

Here are the devices that Amazon released yesterday:

Echo Dot- Amazon launched an update to the best-selling speaker, making it louder (70% louder) and clearer.
Echo Plus- Amazon's update to the Echo Plus will bring better bass and clearer sound as well as an internal sensor to measure temperature.
Echo Show- The update to the Echo Show will bring better sound, an improved screen and better microphone array. The Echo Show will also have better integration features, and will be able to integrate with Hulu, Vevo and Skype.
Microwave- The microwave will be able to work with a Echo nearby.
Echo Auto- This dash mount will be able to provide navigation through third party apps like Google Maps, Apple Maps, and Waze.
Smart Plug- This new device allows customers to plug devices into a wall mounted unit that syncs automatically with Echo.
Wall Clock-This device can accomplish Alexa tasks such as setting up timers and alarms.
Alexa Guard- This device will sync your smart lights, Echo, and security service allowing customers to use voice commands to notify the synced devices to you are leaving the house for example.
Security Cameras- Amazon announced new security cameras under their Ring brand that will be available in wired and wireless versions.
Fire TV Recast- This device will allow customers to get TV channels over the air on their other Amazon devices, iOS, Android and on-the-go.
Audio equipment- Amazon released an Echo Link, Echo Link Amp, and Echo Sub.

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Walmart Relaunches Jet

9/14/2018

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Source: TechCrunch

Walmart relaunched the Jet.com site yesterday after acquiring the online retail site for $3 billion in 2016. The relaunched Jet.com will focus on metro cities and offer same day deliveries ( Jet.com will even offer 3 hour grocery deliveries). The shopping experience will be hyper personalized, offering localized messaging and images. Walmart also announced the acquisition of an on-demand delivery service called Cornershop today for $225 million. The retail giant continues to make moves into the tech space as it continues its transition from being a traditional brick-and-mortar retailer.

It is clear that the website has decided to differentiate itself from other online retailers through personalization efforts. The website will tailor the shopping experience by person and as well as product type. President of Jet.com, Simon Belsham explained to TechCrunch that “the way consumers are inspired by and shop for fashion is very different than food." Jet.com will also seek to expedite the reorder process, aiming to make it easier to reorder items by carefully timing reorder reminders and product recommendations.

Jet.com's localized approach will begin in New York but will eventually be available in other cities over time. Although it is prioritizing urban shoppers, the site will be available to customers nationwide.

Belsham, in a statement about the relaunch of the Jet.com site said “As a retailer, we must build experiences that customers love and trust, backed by strong values. For Jet, this means offering a more tailored shopping experience combined with a unique assortment of great brands in a way that brings empathy back into e-commerce. This is only the beginning for Jet."

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United States Pentagon Plans To Spend $2 billion In AI

9/10/2018

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Source: TechCrunch

On Friday, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced that it would be making a $2 billion investment in artificial intelligence (AI) systems over the next five years. The investment will look to inject AI into U.S weaponry and DARPA Director, Dr. Steven Walker, explained that they "want to explore how machines can acquire human-like communication and reasoning capabilities, with the ability to recognize new situations and environments and adapt to them.” Although the investment amount is not large compared to other program funding, the investment is the largest the Pentagon has ever approved for an AI program and is similar to the amount the US invested in the Manhattan Project in the 1940s that resulted in nuclear weapons (not accounting for inflation).

DARPA also described the program as an effort to enhance "the security and resiliency of machine learning and AI technologies, reducing power, data, performance inefficiencies and [exploring] ‘explainability'." DARPA is not the only Pentagon program receiving funding for AI, and the administration of Donald Trump is creating a new Joint Artificial Intelligence Center to assist in the coordination of AI-related programs occurring within the Defense Department.

China announced earlier this year that it intends to become the global leader in AI by 2030.

Click here and here to read the articles discussion the investment.

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Amazon Hits $1,000,000,000

9/5/2018

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Source: The New York Times/David Ryder/Getty Images

On Tuesday, Amazon became the second company (following Apple) from the United States to cross the $1,000,000,000 threshold in market valuation. Amazon started the year with a market evaluation of just $580 billion, making its growth to $1 trillion a remarkable statement of the confidence investors have in the company. Amazon at its core has an amazing combination of entrepreneurial spirit and scale and although it receives 49 cents of every $1 spent on e-commerce in the United States, most of this investor confidence stems from the excitement Amazon sells to its customers, investors and the media. Amazon seems to have the ability to enter and compete in any industry it enters and its future ambitions include an aerial fulfillment center and a drone delivery program. It's these programs and futuristic visions that have helped it keep its allure with investors.

Amazon first began as an online retailer for books. It then began releasing remarkably exciting products one after another - the Kindle (e-reader), CreateSpace (a self-publishing service), Amazon Web Services (cloud computing service), Amazon Prime (delivery service), and Alexa (virtual assistant). Amazon currently employs more than 550,000 people and brings in $178 billion in revenue every year. It now also sells almost anything you can think of, from appointments with plumbers, to peanut butter, to cloud computing. Behind it all is a relentless ambition for growth that stems from Amazon's Founder and CEO Jeff Bezos.

When Amazon went public in 1997, Mr. Bezos established that he would not work for Wall Street. As a result, Amazon has become a company that is unafraid of being wrong or losing money. "We like to go down unexplored alleys and see what’s at the end. Sometimes they’re dead ends,” Mr. Bezos said in 2009. “Sometimes they open up into broad avenues and we find something really exciting." At just 24 years old, Amazon has had a remarkable growth trajectory already but its future seems even brighter. Amazon's ambitions for the future appear to be endless and even when some of their ambitions don't go according to plan, investors remain confident in Amazon's approach.

Apple was the first American company to cross the $1 trillion line just last month. The next question on everyone's mind is: Will Amazon or Apple be the first to hit $2 trillion?

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How 20th Century Fox Film Uses Data To Drive Growth

9/3/2018

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Source: Fox Films

20th Century Fox Film has spent the last couple years transforming itself from a traditional entertainment organization into a audience-first, data-driven company. This new approach allows the company to make smarter decisions about the experiences it delivers, the people it reaches, and the movies it ultimately invests in. To blaze its new company trail with data, 20th Century Fox Film needed to have a vision, data buy-in from the top, and data mapped to the language of its industry. Becoming data driven helped them understand the multidimensional nature of their customer better, which in turn helped them appeal to their customers more effectively.

Have a Vision
In order for data to be useful to your organization, it is critical that a vision exists for how data will be used. Data on its own will not help you change the trajectory of your business or help your business solve any problems. 20th Century Fox Film's vision centered around understanding its customers better. With its vision established, the company then went about making the technology investments it needed to help them do realize their vision. Julie Rieger, President, Chief Data Strategist and Head of Media at 20th Century Fox Film warns that companies should "be wary of letting technology decisions masquerade as strategy. Find a vision everyone can rally around — and use data to help you get there."

Get Data Buy-in From The Top
For an idea, vision, or direction to be truly meaningful for the future of an organization, there must be buy-in from the top of the organization. Julie Rieger explains that without the buy-in and support of 20th Century Fox Film CEO, Stacey Snider, becoming data-driven would never have become a company-wide priority.

Map The Data To The Language Of Your Industry
For 20th Century Fox Film, their currency and industry language all revolves around the comparison of films. Where previously the language of the movie industry was gut feeling and experience, now the company uses data to support these gut instincts with evidence. Institutional knowledge is then used to provide an understanding about what the combination of gut instinct and data is conveying.

By better understanding their customer, 20th Century Fox Film has become better at making their customers happier, selling more movie tickets, and generating company growth. Ultimately, becoming data driven has helped them become better at show business.

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STAY INFORMED ON ISSUES RELATED TO DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

Walmart Will Use Blockchain To Track Food Supply Chain

Spending On Digital Marketing Grew By 44%

Amazon Launches 15 Alexa Enabled Devices

Walmart Relaunches Jet

United States Pentagon Plans To Spend $2 billion In AI

Amazon Hits $1,000,000,000

How 20th Century Fox Film Uses Data To Drive Growth

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