How Ant Financial / Alipay is Building an AI Factory in Financial Services (pt 2 of 2)

In Part 1 (From Big, Dumb Bureaucracies to Zero-Human Operations (pt 1 of 2), I made the following argument: In the industrial age, enterprises were built on the advantages of scale. Companies went from workshops and small factories to big factories capable of mass production. Superior scale gave companies multiple advantages, including cost efficiencies and […]

Alibaba and Cainiao’s Next Really Big Move: An Intelligent IoT Logistics Network (Pt 2 of 2)

In Part 1 (Why the #1 Business Solution to Coronavirus in China Is Live Streaming, Especially Taobao Live), I argued three big things are happening in digital China right now. Covid19 is radically altering the behavior of hundreds of millions of consumers (and businesses), resulting in what is being called the quarantine economy. Everyone is […]

From Big, Dumb Bureaucracies to Zero-Human Operations: The Holy Grail of the Digital Age (pt 1 of 2)

There was a good paper recently published by Martin Reeves and Raj Varadajaran of the Boston Consulting Group. The paper (When Resilience Is More Important Than Efficiency) touched on a lot of issues related to digital competition – but there was one chart that I thought really hit at the center of a lot of […]

4 Things Everyone Is Getting Wrong About Huawei’s 2019 Annual Report

Huawei released their 2019 financial results last week. And I had the opportunity to interview Karl Song, the VP of Corporate Communications, prior so I knew what was coming (but I got embargoed). You can see that interview here. And it was fascinating. Step back and consider what a truly crazy year Huawei had. Has […]