I write a lot about internet operations on this blog. In the Wharton core Operations class, we teach a catalog business case, where I make the point that catalog business is a good way to understand the advantages and disadvantages of Amazon’s internet retail model. So, it is an amazing reaffirmation to hear that Amazon has released a print catalog — their first one! — in 2018 December. See the picture on the right. It is interesting to note that Internet shipping Operations have come a full circle. Of course, there are new tweaks. Like all things that Amazon does, it is based on data. Depending on your purchases, you may or may not have received it. It is as…
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Leave a CommentHighlighting some books that I loved reading in 2018. These are not necessarily books that were published in 2018. (Before I get into the list, I loved three wonderful books by my colleagues this year: The Customer Centricity Playbook by Peter Fader and Sarah Toms, Never Stop Learning by Brad Staats, and The Blockchain and the New Architecture of Trust by Kevin Werbach. I am finishing the last one now). Business and Society: Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou is the most unputdownable book of the year. Here is my Review. The Great A&P and Struggle for Small Business in America by Marc Levinson is an excellent way to understand Amazon and its challenges. Automation and Artificial…
Leave a CommentTsundoku / Anti-Library of 2018 This is the year in which the exquisitely fine word Tsundoku entered our lexicon. So, the end of the year is a good time to evaluate the dreams for future reading. I don’t buy books impulsively much, but there is always a running list I would like to buy. In some sense, my tsundoku is my anti-library. It appears that I will fall short of my 2018 reading goal (here is my reading list for 2018), but this is only a good thing in Umberto Eco’s view of the Library of life. Life is short, there are always miles to go and promises to keep. Here are the recent books that are hovering on my radar and beckoning…
Leave a CommentBad Blood by John Carreyrou was the most unputdownable book that I read in 2018. The book reveals that the truth is sometimes stranger than fiction. Reading the astounding details on Theranos, once a revered Silicon valley unicorn and a health care startup, I had to constantly remind myself that many narrated incidents did take place, and the names are real people that walk among us in flesh and blood today. The indelicate machinations of the principal actors in the book are comparable to the over-the-top villainy that we read in airport thrillers and potboilers. Some of them are composites of miscreants in Robin Cook’s medical thrillers and John Grisham’s legal thrillers.1 The victims carry the quiet fatalism of the…
Leave a CommentPalantir is one of the most fascinating companies in the Valley because the core purpose of the company is data-analysis based intelligence products and services — a setup so close to the nature of operations research. Palantir occupies a weird service space between Tool-kit Developers like Matlab and Mathematica, Consulting firms like ZS and Booz, and IT service companies like Wipro. Evidently, Palantir does a lot of data-analysis for the government agencies reportedly on terrorism, and hence is under constant scrutiny by journalists and civil liberties organizations, and it is famously opaque. So, it is always interesting when some light is shed on its business. The article in WSJ is informative in some ways. The authors are skeptical on Palantir:…
Leave a CommentHere is an interesting article from the Wall Street Journal about the struggles of scaling Automation at UPS. (An interesting tidbit: UPS says about half its packages are processed through automated facilities today. At FedEx, 96% of ground packages move through automated sites. ) The article seems to blame the problems of UPS on the lack of automation and having unionized employees. I think the main problem may be that the automation at UPS has grown organically in a slapdash fashion. In fact, the relevant quote is: As online-shopping volume grew, UPS relied on what a former UPS executive calls “a Band-Aid” approach to upgrading its network, patching it up by adding extra shifts or extending hours, or retrofitting parts of older…
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