You’ve seen the Amazon logo, but have you really looked at it? We’re sitting in the living room waiting for the weather forecast when there is a commercial break on TV. An advert comes on for Amazon. “Clever logo,” my wife says. I ask what she means. She explains: “The line under the text starts at the A and ends with the Z. It looks like a smile, but it’s an arrow that means they sell everything from A to Z.
Wondering why I missed the obvious, the conversation changes to Amazon’s influence on financial services. Their main business today is AWS followed by Amazon online shopping. However, Alexa is on the rise, and they are continuing to push into other direct to consumer models. You might see these moves as an extension to their online shop, but I see them as new divisions.
The Amazon model; Test and evaluate, iterate.
In August, they finalized the acquisition of Whole Foods for $13.7 billion. In September they opened a new brick-and-mortar concept store in Soho and a “four-star” store in New York stocking their highest rated products from the Amazon website. And let’s not forget their Prime Air drone delivery service. They are continually testing the waters.
There’s an obvious pattern here. First, Amazon selects a product and a market. Then they test, evaluate, test, evaluate, pilot and roll out. Seem familiar? It’s the same approach we take in IT, but we call it POC and Pilot. They test how the market reacts to a product and often how the regulator responds to a new player or model. If you haven’t read the books aboutMcDonald’ss, and how they tried the waters, I highly recommend it.
Looking at Amazon’s activities, I can see a strategy with a long list of products, each with an execution plan. What’s even more interesting is that their execution is very good. This is bad news waiting to happen for any industries on Amazon’s list.
What does LinkedIn reveal about their plans?
When I estimate the value of a company or their products, I begin with some basic investigation. A quick look at their career site usually tells me their thoughts about technology and whether they are hype driven or not. There are also clues about their strategy for the architecture or the product. In other words, between LinkedIn and their website, I have background information and access to their corporate thinking.
- General Manager Lending
- KYC Investigation Specialist
- General Manager B2B Lending
- Senior AML
- International Payments Products
Recognize these roles? You could be looking at a bank. If you have any doubt about Amazon’s intention, the clue is in the logo. Between the letters A and the Z, we have both B and F. I’m convinced that at some point we’ll see the B as Banking and the F turning into Financial Services. You get the point – and we haven’t even started talking about Tencent and Baidu.
The banks are in a less good position: Do banks need to simplify to avoid dying? The state of the banks vs the FATBAG’s
Back in the room
Mid-thought, I’m brought back to my present environment as the commercial break comes to an end. The weather forecast comes on. “Dry,” my wife says, with a great smile. “They have changed the forecast and the tarmac will be dry.” So be it; roller skiing up Boxhill tomorrow morning.
PS. if you are interested in the story about Amazons logo http://www.vmastoryboard.com/case-stories/2648/turner_duckworth_amazon_smile_logo/#sthash.H64xcULy.gFSIZYPq.dpbs
