Retail
Quick tidbits inside from e-bit’s report about the state of the Brazilian e-commerce market in 2009 – Webshoppers, 21st edition (in portuguese and in PDF). We will discuss one company’s specific performance in regards to these numbers in our upcoming Q1 2010 report, but we wanted to highlight a few general data points in advance.
John Mackey, CEO of high-end grocery chain Whole Foods, was recently profiled in the New Yorker mag. Habits and idiosyncrasies aside – he is known for putting his “personal foot in his professional mouth” – the guy is not what one would expect: he’s a libertarian capitalist at heart and digs Ayn Rand. Very importantly, it goes to show that “doing the right thing” as a corporation and earning profits – the more, the better – are far from incompatible.
Netflix is one of the most admirable cases around on corporate strategy AND execution. It shows how you can make billions out of simple things. That said, they have to kill a lion a year to stay ahead. Investment-wise, we never got to the point where we felt we knew enough to invest in them – and don’t regret not doing it.
Read more about Netflix doing the right things at the right time
The Netflix Prize has been awarded and it’s a great example of crowdsourcing. But is such “open collaboration” a tool for every situation? How open do you really want to be? Some are looking at his and saying “hold your horses”. That’s always good advice in our book.