Walmart and…Robots?

Walmart has been in the news a few times over the past week or so regarding their investment in robotics and innovation. I think it’s really easy to get caught up in the “sexy” innovation coming from firms like Tesla and miss out on some real, impactful innovation coming from a retailer like Walmart. So, I’ll provide a quick walkthrough in this post of the couple robots that caught my eye.

I’ll lead with the innovation that is currently operational today: robots roaming the aisles in 50 stores around the US. Walmart has new, robotic employees that roam the aisles of the store three times per day to identify the stock of items, items placed in the wrong spot, incorrect prices, and missing labels. As the robot identifies issues, it sends alerts to the store personnel to address.

Episode 6: Facebook, Cambridge Analytica, and the Path Forward

Facebook had yet another PR nightmare this past week involving Cambridge Analytica and the data of roughly 50 million Facebook users. In this week’s episode of Analytics Neat, we explore what happened, what this means for Facebook, and what we can expect going forward in the marketplace. Walled gardens and trust don’t necessarily go hand-in-hand, but what will that translate into for Facebook as they try to move past this? Find out all of this and more in this week’s episode. Thanks for listening!

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Episode 5: Domopalooza 2018 and the Future of Business Intelligence Platforms

I had the pleasure of attending the Domo user conference, Domopalooza, in Salt Lake City last week. This week’s episode of Analytics Neat outlines some of the key product updates and innovations coming to the Domo platform in 2018. We also look at how their product development aligns against the larger trends in the Business Intelligence (BI) industry. This is an interesting sector to keep up with, and one where we are seeing similar parallels to the trends in the virtual assistant world (i.e. Siri and Alexa).

Diverse Thinking Drives Better Decisions

I had the pleasure of attending Domo’s annual conference, Domopalooza, out in Salt Lake City this week. It was a great show, and Domo is doing amazing things with their product in the coming year which I’ll delve into more on the Analytics Neat podcast on Monday, March 19. From a content perspective, a Keynote with Omar Johnson, the former CMO of Beats by Dre and current Founder of Opus, really stood out to me.

During his discussion, Omar said: “When you have a diverse team you get different points of view. When you get different points of view you make better decisions.” Whether you are a 5-person company or a 500-person company, this is some of the best advice you can ever adhere to.

Episode 4: Your Customer Experience Is Costing You

The amount of patience consumers have for a bad customer experience is dwindling. Not only are consumers feeling less inclined to pick up a phone and call customer service, but they are also expecting resolution in real-time. It’s a confounding challenge for marketers to solve for and ultimately further enforces that you only have one chance to make a first impression. Learn about this and what you can do about it in this week’s episode of Analytics Neat.

Alexa Is Laughing…All the Way to the Bank

Amazon’s Alexa was in the news again this week, but this time for creepily laughing at its owners without any provocation. Imagine being home alone, after watching a scary movie, and hearing that laugh out of nowhere.

The “always listening” feature of these smart speakers does bring a variety of privacy concerns to mind, and as more homes become voice-enabled it inevitably will lead to the beginning of Skynet. However, that has not stopped the rapid adoption of the virtual assistant in the US (including by me!). In fact, Juniper Research predicts that by 2022 over 55% of US Households will have a smart speaker.

Episode 3: Google – Salesforce Partnership

Google and Salesforce announced a partnership and integration in Q4 of 2017. The initial features rolled out in Q1 of 2018. What can you do with it and what is coming in the future? How does this compare to the Adobe – Microsoft partnership? How can you integrate an Analytics and CRM platform regardless of the technology you use? All of this and more in this week’s episode!

Procter & Gamble Reduces Digital Spend – Emphasizes Measurement

For those of you currently attending the ANA Media Conference in Florida, you probably had a chance to catch the presentation on Thursday, March 1st. For those that didn’t, there was a fantastic article in the WSJ by Suzanne Vranica published on Thursday that outlined the most recent stance taken by Marc Pritchard of Procter & Gamble.

Marc has been very vocal about cleaning up the digital landscape and has continued to provide amazing insights and detail into the approach he and his team have taken thus far. Some of the highlights from this most recent headline include:

Analytics Neat by Bill Bruno

Analytics, Technology, Marketing, Media, and Strategy

Month: March 2018