Tag Archives: Lou Shipley

The battle over the driving experience is heating up and will be won in software – Lou Shipley

MIT Sloan Lecturer Lou Shipley

MIT Sloan Lecturer Lou Shipley

From TechCrunch 

Sirius XM’s recent all-stock $3.5-billion purchase of the music-streaming service Pandora  raised a lot of eyebrows. A big question was why Sirius paid so much. Is Pandora’s music library and customer base really worth that amount? The answer is that this was a strategic move by Sirius in a battle that is far bigger than radio. The real battle, which will become much more visible in the coming years, is over the driving experience.

People spend a lot of time commuting in their cars. That time is fixed and won’t likely change. However, what is changing is the way we drive. We’re already seeing many new cars with driver-assist features, and automakers (and tech companies) are working hard to bring fully autonomous cars to the market as quickly as possible. New cars today already contain an average of 100 million lines of code that can be updated to increase driver-assist options, and some automakers like Tesla already offer an “autonomous” mode on highways.

According to the Brookings Institute, one-quarter of all cars will be autonomous by 2040, and IHS predicts all cars will be autonomous after 2050. Those are conservative estimates, as we are likely to see major changes in the next 10 years.

These changes will impact the driving experience. As cars become more autonomous, we can do more than simply listen to music or podcasts. We may be able to watch videos, surf the web and more. The value of car real estate is already valuable, but it’s going to skyrocket as we change the way people consume media while driving.

The Pandora acquisition was a strategic move by Sirius to gain the necessary assets so that it won’t fall behind in this space — and to get into the fast-growing music-streaming business, where users consume music at home, work and play. While Pandora’s music library is arguably second-tier, it’s also good enough that it can provide pretty much every artist most people want. This is often how high-priced mergers happen — one party is concerned about falling behind and pays a premium to purchase the other company’s assets. It’s also a bet by Sirius about the driving experience of the future.

Read the full post at TechCrunch.

Lou Shipley is a Lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management. 

Apple expansion moves show how Silicon Valley is losing its grip on tech jobs – Lou Shipley

MIT Sloan Lecturer Lou Shipley

MIT Sloan Lecturer Lou Shipley

From MarketWatch 

Apple’s recent announcement that it’s building a new $1 billion campus in Austin, Tex. adds momentum to the trend among tech startups and investors to look beyond Silicon Valley to incubate and grow the next generation of innovative companies.

Moreover, in what amounts to doubling down on its satellite strategy, AppleAAPL, -1.06%  also said it will establish new sites in Seattle, San Diego, and Culver City, Calif., as well as expand in cities across the U.S., including Pittsburgh, New York, and Boulder, Colo. over the next three years — welcome economic boosts for those areas.

I’m not sounding the death knell for Silicon Valley. To be sure, this remarkable region south of San Francisco is still the brightest star in the global tech universe. Silicon Valley will remain Apple’s home base, as well as that of GoogleGOOGL, -1.23%  , Facebook FB, -0.01%  , Cisco Systems CSCO, +0.09%  , OracleORCL, -0.37%  , Intel INTC, -1.35%  and many others. Its position of dominance is not in jeopardy — yet.

Nonetheless, many of the tech startups planting their flag in Silicon Valley to be near angel investors, venture capitalists, investment banks, and tech talent are keeping only small teams there. They are increasingly utilizing less-costly satellite offices, remote co-working spaces, or other remote-work options for the majority of their employees.

Read More »

Retailers need to get real about security – Lou Shipley

MIT Sloan Lecturer Lou Shipley

MIT Sloan Lecturer Lou Shipley

From Xconomy

It seems a distant memory now. In December 2013 – light years ago in technology time – the retail giant Target disclosed a massive software security breach of its point of sale systems. The bad guys fled the virtual premises with the credit card information of 40 million customers. This astounding number would later rise to 70 million customers.

Target’s embarrassment, its loss of market share, its brand erosion, and its legal costs to settle claims collectively should have served as a nerve-jangling wakeup call for retailers large and small nationwide.

It would be hopeful to believe that retailers learned from Target’s data breach, but in fact the opposite has happened. In 2016, retail software security breaches were up 40 percent over the prior year and in 2017 the following familiar brand names suffered breaches – Sonic, Whole Foods Market, Arby’s, Saks Fifth Avenue, Chipotle, Brooks Brothers, Kmart, and Verizon. Retail software security is getting worse, not better, and the dismal trend seems likely to continue in the near term. Why? Read More »

“Taken for granted” is not the new customer service norm – Lou Shipley

MIT Sloan Lecturer Lou Shipley

MIT Sloan Lecturer Lou Shipley

It’s been an extremely rough 30 days for three of the US airline industry’s largest carriers – United, American and Delta – whose rude and brutish treatment of customers was captured in smart phone videos that not surprisingly went viral.

In United’s case, the damage control was anything but as CEO Oscar Munoz immediately delivered a tone deaf, blame-the-victim response. His belated apology for United’s execrable behavior was of little help.

Friendly skies? Not so much.

The three high-profile airline debacles are stark examples of ham-fisted customer disregard and have given rise to the question: In an increasingly automated and technology-driven world, is being taken for granted the new customer-service norm?

Emphatically, no.  In fact, there’s ample evidence that it’s quite the opposite.

Savvy companies – global industry brands around the world – are investing in, listening to, and learning from customers because they realize that a relentless focus on their customers drives success and growth.

There are many excellent examples of companies that are putting a premium on delivering a consistently great customer experience to increase both revenue and customer loyalty.

Good examples of businesses that are both highly successful and customer-experience focused include Amazon, Netflix, UPS, Trader Joe’s, and the giant insurance provider USAA.

These thriving enterprises are in highly competitive markets and all of them are using customer service as a differentiator.

Read More »

With “Go,” Amazon identifies another job it can do better–Lou Shipley

MIT Sloan Lecturer Lou Shipley

MIT Sloan Lecturer Lou Shipley

From Xconomy

Early last year, I “fired” talk radio along with NPR’s morning and evening editions. That same day, I “hired” Amazon Audible as my commute companion.

It wasn’t a difficult decision. Audible is far better than its predecessors at doing the job I need done as I travel to and from my office – provide on-demand access to an array of rich, custom content.

I got to thinking about that firing-hiring recently when reading an article about Amazon’s new “Go” concept: a quick-stop grocery and convenience-meal venture that will allow consumers to grab what they need off the shelves (Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology tracks what’s added to the shopping cart), confirm the purchase, and leave without ever standing in a checkout line.

Read More »