Uber Needs Driverless Cars

For the past eight years, Uber’s chief executive officer and cofounder Travis Kalanick played the role of disruptive entrepreneur with wild abandon—and to great effect. The company has revolutionized ground transportation in many of the world’s cities, often ignoring existing regulations, the concerns of entrenched taxi companies and many of its own drivers, and commonly accepted levels of decency in the workplace.

Now Kalanick has been ousted, and his successor will be forced to stick to a much more predictable script. Uber’s next CEO will have his or her hands full with important blocking and tackling, such as repairing relations with drivers, filling key executive positions, and leading a wholesale makeover of the company’s hard-edged culture.

“Travis has forced the board’s hand,” says longtime technology consultant and author Geoffrey Moore. “For now, the only thing they can do is become a kinder, safer, more predictable Uber.”

That’s fine for the current shareholders, mostly Silicon Valley venture capitalists, who pushed out Kalanick. But Uber has plenty of disrupting to do if the company is going to be a great stock for public investors, says Arun Sundararajan, a professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business and author of The Sharing Economy.

If the privately held company were to go public in the future at anything approaching its current valuation of around $60 billion, taking a bite out of the $40 billion a year global taxi business would be table stakes. To provide much upside, Uber would need to achieve Kalanick’s real goal: to create a service so ubiquitous and convenient that consumers would not bother buying their own cars. By tapping into the $10 trillion that people spend on new and used cars each year, Uber could become more valuable than Google or Facebook, which have become two of the world's 10 most valuable companies by disrupting the much smaller, $500-billion-a-year advertising business.

"Yes, Uber's priorities need to shift in the short term to address threats to its human-driven car business," says Sundararajan. "But they also need to keep their eye on the big prize. It's not hard to imagine Uber becoming the world's first trillion-dollar company, if Apple doesn't get there first."

Trouble is, creating this post-ownership ground transportation economy can only happen with self-driving cars. Uber lost more than $700 million last year, in large part because of the payments it makes to drivers. If the company’s business model is challenged while serving almost exclusively urban markets where there’s plenty of demand, Sundararajan doesn’t see how the company could afford to maintain an anytime, anywhere fleet of cars for consumers in rural and other underserved areas.

“To get the scale they’ll need to satisfy public investors, they’ll need to expand beyond the cities. But that can only happen after we get to totally autonomous cars.” Needless to say, that’s a long way off, he says (see “What You Need to Know Before You Get in a Self-Driving Car”).

For now, playing it safe is undoubtedly the smart move. By improving its brand and improving relations with drivers, Uber can reverse recent declines in its share of the ride-hailing market, and generate tens of billions in annual revenue by taking share from the $40 billion global taxi industry.

The company is already starting down this path, as part of a 180 Days of Change initiative that resulted from the sweeping internal investigation that led to the short-lived leave of absence that preceded Kalanick’s ouster. The company has won praise for announcing that Uber riders will soon be able to give tips to drivers. But there’s much farther to go.

Virgin Mobile Goes All Apple

Apple will soon start selling wireless plans from Virgin Mobile USA, the first new carrier offered by the iPhone maker's since 2013, the companies said on Wednesday.

Virgin Mobile USA, a subsidiary of Sprint (S.N) that licenses its name from the Virgin Group co-founded by Richard Branson, struck the deal as part of a broader revamp of its business that will see it ditch Android phones in the coming years and become what it claims is the first iPhone-only network.

Virgin Mobile USA will first be offered in Apple's stores then online. Apple currently offers AT&T , Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile, the last of which was added in 2013.

Branson, wearing an Apple Watch on his left wrist and traditional watch on the other, told Reuters in an interview he sees similarities between the Apple and Virgin brands because both advocate for human rights and other social causes.

Apple retail chief Angela Ahrendts "has been tremendously supportive of this and loves the proposition," Branson told Reuters before a launch event in San Francisco. "We were knocking on (an) open door."

Samsung Galaxy Note 8

Tech giant Samsung Electronics plans to hold a launch event in New York City for its next Galaxy Note smartphone in the second half of August.

The person, who was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter and so declined to be identified, said the Galaxy Note 8 will sport a curved screen that is marginally larger than the 6.2-inch version of the Galaxy S8 smartphone and feature two rear cameras. The Note 7 was equipped with a 5.7-inch curved screen and one rear camera.

The person did not elaborate further on the phone including pricing. A Samsung Electronics spokesman declined to comment.

Samsung is intent on continuing the premium Note series despite the costly collapse of the Galaxy Note 7, which it was forced to scrap roughly two months from launch in October due to fire-prone batteries. The incident, one of the biggest product safety failures in tech history, cost the firm 6.1 trillion won ($5.4 billion) in operating profit and hurt its credibility.

The firm disclosed its preliminary findings in January that different battery problems from two suppliers caused the fires, which was corroborated by two other independent probes. The firm implemented several steps including a new set of battery safety checks to avoid repeat incidents, which analysts said is helping it win back consumer trust.

Strong initial response for the Galaxy S8 smartphones that began selling in April indicate the firm is recovering quickly, with some analysts forecasting the device to set Samsung's internal sales records and push the firm towards what is widely expected to be its best-ever profit for April-June. There have been no battery fire incidents reported for the S8.

The Customer is Always Right

Customer-Centered Culture Could Eliminate Reputation-Ruining Fiascos

By Robin L. Lawton

Whatever happened to the attitude that “the customer is always right”?

The airline industry has been taking its hits lately, thanks to several mishandled passenger interactions: pulling a doctor off an overbooked flight in Chicago, a dispute over a carried-on stroller in San Francisco, a couple booted off a flight in Maui when they put their baby in a seat purchased for his brother. But we’ve also heard call center employees go off on customers, read about store employees using racial slurs and seen deliverymen literally drop packages on front porches.

Any time an employee behaves badly, the scene is likely to be captured by at least one smart phone – and it will go viral. And yet, it happens again and again.

Why?

It could be that company policies are unclear about priorities, says customer strategist and executive coach Robin Lawton, author of Mastering Excellence: A Leader’s Guide to Aligning, Strategy, Culture, Customer Experience & Measures of Success (www.C3Excellence.com).

Employees are then left to decide, sometimes on the spot, if it’s OK to go against guidelines to satisfy the person in front of them, and whether that will lead to disciplinary action – perhaps even dismissal – later.

“Take that decision-making into the real world, with stressful deadlines, cranky consumers and other frustrations, and there’s no telling which way it could go,” Lawton says.

It’s up to company leaders to set the standard for excellence with an unambiguous customer-first goal, Lawton says. And he offers these tips:

• Know what your customers want. Ask a dozen people what they want from their grocery store, their cable provider or their airline, and you’ll probably get a dozen different answers. And those answers often are counter to what the business thinks should take precedence. “No matter what bias the organization has, the customers’ priorities are what counts,” Lawton says. “Figure it out and build a robust product that makes the most people happy.”
• Don’t overlook the needs of the casual consumer. Businesses often focus on pleasing the people they think are their most valuable customers – those with power that comes from their position, personality, purse strings or proximity, Lawton says. But those viral videos and Yelp reviews aren’t coming from the folks in first class with the warm towels and free cocktails. “These four ‘power p’s’ can inadvertently lead us to satisfy the wrong customers,” he says.
• A new slogan or updated mission statement only goes so far. When management identifies issues like quality, leadership, productivity and competitiveness, training often is used to initiate the change. The problem is that only a fraction of those trained actually use what they’ve been given. “There seems to be an assumption that providing people with hammers and saws will enable them to build a house,” Lawton says. “Without changed thinking, clear purpose and sufficient support, we cannot expect knowledge or tools to create desired outcomes.”

There’s both an art and a science to creating a customer-centered culture, Lawton says.

“Of course, the customer isn’t always right,” he says. “But if you treat them well, in the end they won’t care about that. They’ll only care that they were heard and satisfied.”

Robin L. Lawton is an author, customer strategist, motivational speaker, consultant and executive coach (www.C3Excellence.com). He coined the term “customer-centered culture,” and his “C3” methodology has enabled numerous organizations to achieve significant growth. He is a popular speaker at management conferences, and his work has been referenced by authors and experts in areas such as business excellence, leadership, customer experience and innovation. Lawton is the author of Mastering Excellence: A Leader’s Guide to Aligning Strategy, Culture, Customer Experience & Measures of Success and Creating a Customer-Centered Culture: Leadership in Quality Innovation, and Speed.

Smart Speakers

If you'd never heard of a "smart speaker" before last week, it's understandable. So far, smart speakers have mostly been the domain of early adopters, who aren't afraid to risk a little cash on a new gadget.

But now that Apple has unveiled its smart speaker offering, the HomePod, mainstream consumers are much more likely to pay attention.

Smart speakers are home digital assistants, using voice-recognition technology to deliver internet content in an interactive, hands-free way.

Users might ask their smart speaker for a weather report while doing the dishes, or tell it to stream kids' music while trying to wrangle a toddler.

Of course, most new smartphones can already do those things, since they have built-in voice-recognition software like Apple's Siri or Google Assistant.

But Apple, Google, Amazon and even Microsoft are still betting on smart speakers, and their motivations go well beyond simply selling more gadgets.

For all four companies, a smart speaker in your home serves as a platform to make money in other ways.

"Apple will want to sell you Apple Music as a service, and other services likely are to come," said Bob O'Donnell, president of consulting company TECHnalysis Research. (Apple is touting its HomePod as a powerful hi-fi speaker above all.)

"Amazon obviously wants to do commerce-based services, and Google wants to do search and other kinds of things, potentially, where they can deliver advertising and other kinds of services," said O'Donnell.

MSFT Xbox One X

Microsoft Corp. announced a worldwide release date of Nov. 7 for what the company said will be its smallest and most powerful video-game console ever, the Xbox One X.

The device, which will be priced at $499, is designed to work with a new generation of 4K television sets that offer greater picture quality as well as games that offer ever-more-realistic scenes of car races and fantasy worlds. Microsoft made the announcement Sunday at an event in Los Angeles before the start of Electronic Entertainment Expo this week. The new console will also be compatible with older Xbox games and accessories.

Microsoft and rival Sony Corp. are trying to update their video-game machines more frequently to phase out the notion of upgrading once every seven years or so -- the rate at which companies traditionally have released a new generation of consoles. Microsoft’s latest machine is designed for the high-end gamer who wants the best features and performance and who owns a TV capable of displaying the most advanced graphics.

“They are trying to attract people who want to be able to use the advanced features of TVs they’ve invested in,” said Brian Blau, an analyst at Gartner Inc. “Not everyone will want that if they can get a good experience on the less-expensive console.”

Microsoft has previously stumbled by pricing an older Xbox too high. Initial sales for the Xbox One when it debuted in 2013 were hurt by the $499 price tag, and only picked up after the cost was cut. Sony faced similar issues in 2006 when it released the PlayStation 3, which cost $500 to $600.

“Price has played an important role in the launch success,” said Mike Vorhaus, president of consulting firm Frank N. Magid Associates. “The guy with the less expensive box has done very well. I expect that will continue, absent some amazing paradigm shift.”

Happy Father's Day

Congratulations to dads everywhere. Father’s Day is your special day to bask in your patriarchal grandeur, secure in the knowledge that your kids, family and friends spent $8 billion more on Mother’s Day than they did on you.

Eight billion dollars. That’ll buy a lot of neckties.

The numbers come from the National Retail Federation, which has projected that U.S. Father’s Day shoppers will spend an average of $134.75 this year, up 7 percent from $125.92 last year.

But that’s a whopping 41.4 percent less than the record-smashing $23.6 billion spent on moms for the most recent Mother Day’s in May, according to the federation’s calculations.

Why the massive difference?

Ana Smith, spokeswoman for the Washington, D.C.-based retail federation, said there are a couple of key reasons: “There are more women in the U.S. than men. Therefore, the chances are higher that more people will celebrate and spend on Mother’s Day compared to Father’s Day.

“If we look at just the numbers, 85 percent of consumers surveyed planned to celebrate Mother’s Day versus Father’s Day (when) only 77 percent are planning to celebrate the occasion.”

But then, Smith said, there’s also this: “If we dig deeper into emotional factors, consumers tend to spoil moms more since mothers tend to guilt their children if they don’t celebrate the holiday with them compared to fathers.”

What?! Sacramento-area fathers, aren’t you offended?

“Well, not really,” said 49-year-old Pete Walker of Carmichael, who last week was patiently waiting for his family to finish shopping at Sunrise Mall in Citrus Heights. “My wife’s work is never done, with the house and the kids and her own job. … I think she deserves at least one day to be spoiled.”

Steve James, 38, a Roseville father of two out with his family at the nearby Westfield Galleria at Roseville mall, was likewise favorable to the idea of mom getting loads of presents and love on Mother’s Day.

“She deserves it … and I mean that for my wife and my own mom,” he said. “I’m not keeping score. … If I can take it easy and enjoy a nice day with my family on Father’s Day, I’m going to be happy.”

Relaxing or attending a special event on Father’s Day is a common gift for dads this year, according to the NRF. Its annual survey found that 27 percent of dads want to receive a “gift of experience,” such as tickets to a sporting event, concert or some other outside-the-home experience.

For fathers who simply want to sit on the couch on Father’s Day, TV networks tout dad’s day in their marketing of major sporting events, including Sunday’s final round of professional golf’s 2017 U.S. Open Championship from Erin, Wis., and Sunday’s running of the FireKeepers Casino 400, part of NASCAR’s 2017 Monster Energy Cup Series, from Michigan International Speedway.