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Oil shocks, financial market crashes, localised wars and even medical emergencies like SARS pale when compared to the speed and the scale of the mayhem created by SARS-CoV-2. In recent decades the world has become far more interconnected through travel and trade, so the viral disease – medical and economic – now spreads faster than ever. Airlines carrying business and leisure-travellers have also quickly carried the virus. Businesses benefitting from lower costs and global scale are today infected deeply due to the concentration of manufacturing and trade.
A common defensive action worldwide is the lock-down of cities to slow community transmission (something that, ironically, the World Health Organization was denying as late as mid-January). The Indian government implemented a full-scale 3-week national lockdown from March 25. The suddenness of this decision took most businesses by surprise, but quick action to ensure physical distancing was critical.
Clearly consumer businesses are hit hard. If we stay home, many “needs” disappear; among them entertainment, eating out, and buying products related to socializing. Even grocery shopping drops; when you’re not strolling through the supermarket, the attention is focussed on “needs”, not “wants”. A travel ban means no sales at airport and railway kiosks, but also no commute to the airport and station which, in turn means that the businesses that support taxi drivers’ daily needs are hit.
Responses vary, but cash is king! US retailers have wrangled aid and tax breaks of potentially hundreds of billions of dollars, as part of a US$2 trillion stimulus. A British retailer is filing for administration to avoid threats of legal action, and has asked landlords for a 5-month retail holiday. Several western apparel retailers are cancelling orders, even with plaintive appeals from supplier countries such as Bangladesh and India. In India, large corporate retailers are negotiating rental waivers for the lockdown period or longer. Many retailers are bloated with excess inventory and, with lost weeks of sales, have started cancelling orders with their suppliers citing “force majeure”. Marketing spends have been hit. (As an aside, will “viral marketing” ever be the same?)
On the upside are interesting collaborations and shifts emerging. In the USA, Jo-Ann Stores is supplying fabric and materials to be made up into masks and hospital gowns at retailer Nieman Marcus’ alteration facilities. LVMH is converting its French cosmetics factories into hand sanitizer production units for hospitals, and American distilleries are giving away their alcohol-based solutions. In India, hospitality groups are providing quarantine facilities at their empty hotels. Zomato and Swiggy are partnering to deliver orders booked by both online and offline retailers, who are also partnering between themselves, in an unprecedented wave of coopetition. Ecommerce and home delivery models are getting a totally unexpected boost due to quarantine conditions.
Life-after-lockdown won’t go back to “normal”. People will remain concerned about physical exposure and are unlikely to want to spend long periods of time in crowds, so entertainment venues and restaurants will suffer for several weeks or months even after restrictions are lifted, as will malls and large-format stores where families can spend long periods of time.
The second major concern will be income-insecurity for a large portion of the consuming population. The frequency and value of discretionary purchases – offline and online – will remain subdued for months including entertainment, eating-out and ordering-in, fashion, home and lifestyle products, electronics and durables.
The saving grace is that for a large portion of India, the Dusshera-Deepavali season and weddings provide a huge boost, and that could still float some boats in the second half of this year. Health and wellness related products and services would also benefit, at least in the short term. So 2020 may not be a complete washout.
So, what now?
Retailers and suppliers both need to start seriously questioning whether they are valuable to their customer or a replaceable commodity, and crystallise the value proposition: what is it that the customer values, and why? Business expansion, rationalised in 2009-10, had also started going haywire recently. It is again time to focus on product line viability and store productivity, and be clear-minded about the units to be retained.
Someone once said, never let a good crisis be wasted.
This is a historical turning point. It should be a time of reflection, reinvention, rejuvenation. It would be a shame if we fail to use it to create new life-patterns, social constructs, business models and economic paradigms.
(This article was published in the Financial Express under the headline “As Consumer businesses take a hard hit, time for retailers to reflect and reinvent”.
Remember the year 2000? After Y2K passed safely, that year some optimistic analysts predicted that India’s modern retail chains would reach 20 per cent market share by 2015. Two years after that supposed watershed, another firm declared that modern retail will be at around that level in 2020 – but wait! – only in the top 9 cities in the country. Don’t hold your breath: India surprises; constantly. As many have noted, “predictions are tough, especially about the future!” What we can do is reflect on some of this year’s developments that could play out over the coming year.
In many minds 2019 may be the Year of the Recession, plagued by discounting, but that demand slowdown has brewing for some time now. However, there’s another under-appreciated factor that has been playing out: while small, independent retailers can flex their business investments with variations in demand, modern retail chains need to spread the business throughout the year in order to meet fixed expenses and to manage margins more consistently.
To reduce dependence on festive demand, retailers like Big Bazaar and Reliance have been inventing shopping events like Sabse Sasta Din (Cheapest Day), Sabse Sachi Sale (Most Authentic Sale), Republic Day / 3-Day sale, Independence Day shopping and more for the last few years. In ecommerce, there’s the Amazon’s Freedom Sale, Prime Day, and Great India Festival, and Flipkart’s Big Billion Day Sale. This year retailers and brands went overboard with Black Friday sale, a shopping-event concept from the 1950s in the USA linked to a harvest celebration marked by European colonisers of North America. (The fact that Black Friday has a totally different connotation in India since the terrorist bombings in Bombay in 1993 seems to have completely escaped the attention of brands, retailers and advertising agencies.) Be that as it may, we can only expect more such invented and imported events to pepper the retail calendar, to drive footfall and sales. The consumer has been successfully converted to a value-seeking man-eater fed on a diet of deals and discounts. With no big-bang economic stimuli domestically and a sputtering global economy, we should just get used to the idea of not fireworks but slow-burning oil lamps and sprinklings of flowers and colour through the year. Retailers will just have to work that much harder to keep the lamps from sputtering.
Ecommerce companies have been in operating for 20 years now, but the Indian consumer still mostly prefers a hands-on experience. The lack of trust is a huge factor, built on the back of inconsistency of products and services. The one segment that has been receiving a lot of love, attention and money this year (and will grow in 2020) is food and grocery, since it is the largest chunk of the consumption basket. Beyond the incumbents – Grofers, Big Basket, MilkBasket and the likes – now Walmart-Flipkart and Amazon are going hard at it, and Reliance has also jumped in. Remember, though, that selling groceries online is as old as the first dot-com boom in India. E-grocers still struggle to create a habit among their customers that would give them regular and remunerative transactions, and they also need to tackle supply-side challenges. Average transactions remain small, demand remains fragmented, and supply chain issues continue to be troublesome. Most e-grocers are ending up depending on a relatively narrow band of consumers in a handful of cities. The generation that is comfortable with an ever-present screen is not yet large enough to tilt the scales towards non-store shopping and convenience isn’t the biggest driver for the rest, so, for a while it’ll remain a bumpy, painful, unprofitable road.
Where we will see rapid pick-up is social commerce, both in terms of referral networks as well as using social networks to create niche entrepreneurial businesses – 2020 should be a good year for social commerce, including a mix of online platforms, social media apps as well as offline community markets. However, western or East Asia models won’t be replicated as the Indian market is significantly lower in average incomes, and way more fragmented.
As a closing thought, I’ll mention a sector that I’ve been involved with (for far too long): fashion. In the last 8-10 decades, globally fashion has become an industry living off artificially-generated expiry dates. A challenge that I have extended to many in the industry, and this year publicly at a conference: if consumption falls to half in the next five years, and you still have to run a profitable business (obviously!), how would you do it? Plenty of clues lie in India – we epitomise the future consumers; frugal, value-seeking, wanting the latest and the best but not fearful about missing out the newest design, because it will just be there a few weeks later at a discount. If you can crack that customer base and turn a profit, you would be well set for the next decade or so.
(Published as a year-end perspective in the Financial Express.)
Do you have this feeling that 2018 went by a little too quickly? Well, however quick it seemed, it was certainly momentous for retail in India.
If 2016 was marked by the shock of demonetization, and 2017 by the pains of GST implementation, 2018 highlighted two threads – the obvious convergence of the online and offline world that had been ignored for far too long, and the interest of foreign capital in India’s consumer world.
Walmart bought India’s loss-making ecommerce leader for an eye-popping US$ 20.8 billion valuation, while ecommerce giant Amazon injecting equity into Shoppers Stop, bought Aditya Birla’s More grocery chain (49 per cent through a back-end entity), and held discussions with Future Group to acquire 9.5 per cent in Future Retail. There were rumours of a mega joint venture between Reliance Retail and China’s Alibaba, and media also reported Japan’s Softbank looking at ploughing US$200 million into Firstcry. Both rivals Amazon and Alibaba were reported to be looking at Spencer’s, one of India’s oldest retail chains currently owned by the RP-Sanjiv Goenka group.
Videos of the crush of curious crowds at India’s first, much anticipated Ikea went viral, and the company said it planned to open 40 locations over the next few years, upping its earlier projection of 25. Chinese retailer Miniso basically came out of nowhere and claimed to have clocked sales of ?700 crores in the very first year in the country.
But along with these cross-border “big bangs” we saw domestic confidence also quietly resurging. Indian retailers are not cowering before large foreign retailers and expensive ecommerce advertising splashes; today they are less defensive about their own prospects than they were two years ago. There is also a growing interest among entrepreneurs and corporates to create new retail businesses, which augers well for the diversity of competition and freshness of offerings in the market.
Going into 2019, one thing I can say with certainty is that the weather, economic and political – both in India and elsewhere – will be unpredictable, and might even turn stormy. Externally, retailers should “expect the unexpected”. To ensure that the business remains on track, however rough the track becomes, retailers must centre all major strategies and decisions on the customer. A theme that has been around for centuries, it is surprising how much it gets ignored in this most customer-facing business.
Retailers tend to divide customers into rigid segments. My suggestion would be to look at customers through the behaviour and experience lens and also recognise that the same customer behaves differently at different times and in different contexts – in effect there are no hard boundaries between “segments”.
It is often emphasised is that Indian consumers are “deal-seeking”. I don’t think we should treat this as a uniquely Indian thing: all consumers look for value-reassurance in unpredictable times and in uncertain conditions. Also remember that even in value-seeking, experience still rules. Retailers and brands that are solely focussing on price or price+feature comparisons are turning their business into a commodity. They are missing the long game: of defining the customer’s experience from the first moment of brand contact to the purchase and beyond.
In 2019, if you want to focus on a single competitive strategy, it would be this: for stickiness and sustainability, think about the customer’s experience, and actively design it, in every environment where the customer connects with you.
Lastly, technology is transformative, but tends to get restricted to being the contrast between ecommerce and physical retail. Indian retailers need to embrace technology in all forms, from using the zillions of transactions within the business and with the customer for developing actionable knowledge, to automating processes where unnecessary cost or time makes the business inefficient.
Having said that, keep the previous rule in mind when deploying at customer-facing technology – make customer-interfacing technology as invisible or intuitive as possible. When in doubt, learn from one of the leaders in the sector, Amazon: its 1-click ordering patent 20 years ago gave it a huge advantage over competitors, and it is now aiming to replicate the same seamless, friction-free behaviour physically with its Dash button. Or pick cues even from younger fashion businesses like Rebecca Minkoff, whose focus is on ease and convenience. The key reason for adopting technology is to remove friction for the customer and for processes that serve the customer.
I have no doubt that 2019 will be eventful – let the customer experience be the guiding light to keep our businesses off the rocks and afloat.
(Published in the Financial Express on 4 January 2019, under the title “Retail in 2019: Need for stronger brand-customer connections that go beyond purchase“)
A seminar was organised on the 12th of May in Zeist (the Netherlands) on “the Opportunities & Challenges for Dutch (Semi-) Processed Food Companies in India”. Highlights of a report and other insights were presented by Devangshu Dutta, chief executive of Third Eyesight. Other entrepreneurs who also shared their experiences in India, and the Dutch agricultural counsellor, Wouter Verhey, was present at the event.
The sessions included:
You can download a summary of the report via this link: India – Opportunities Challenges for Dutch Processed Food Companies
The apparel retail sector worldwide thrives on change, on account of fashion as well as season.
In India, for most of the country, weather changes are less extreme, so seasonal change is not a major driver of changeover of wardrobe. Also, more modest incomes reduce the customer’s willingness to buy new clothes frequently.
We believe pricing remains a critical challenge and a barrier to growth. About 5 years ago, Third Eyesight had evaluated the pricing of various brands in the context of the average incomes of their stated target customer group. For a like-to-like comparison with average pricing in Europe, we came to the conclusion that branded merchandise in India should be priced 30-50% lower than it was currently. And this is true not just of international brands that are present in India, but Indian-based companies as well. (In fact, most international brands end up targeting a customer segment in India that is more premium than they would in their home markets.)
Of course, with growing incomes and increasing exposure to fashion trends promoted through various media, larger numbers of Indian consumers are opting to buy more, and more frequently as well. But one only has to look at the share of marked-down product, promotions and end-of-season sales to know that the Indian consumer, by and large, believes that the in-season product is overpriced.
Brands that overestimate the growth possibilities add to the problem by over-ordering – these unjustified expectations are littered across the stores at the end of each season, with big red “Sale” and “Discounted” signs. When it comes to a game of nerves, the Indian consumer has a far stronger ability to hold on to her wallet, than a brand’s ability to hold on to the price line. Most consumers are quite prepared to wait a few extra weeks, rather than buying the product as soon as it hits the shelf.
Part of the problem, at the brands’ end, could be some inflexible costs. The three big productivity issues, in my mind, are: real estate, people and advertising.
Indian retail real estate is definitely among the most expensive in the world, when viewed in the context of sales that can be expected per square foot. Similarly, sales per employee rupee could also be vastly better than they are currently. And lastly, many Indian apparel brands could possibly do better to reallocate at least part of their advertising budget to developing better product and training their sales staff; no amount of loud celebrity endorsement can compensate for disinterested automatons showing bad products at the store.
Technology can certainly be leveraged better at every step of the operation, from design through supply chain, from planogram and merchandise planning to post-sale analytics.
Also, some of the more “modern” operations are, unfortunately, modelled on business processes and merchandise calendars that are more suited to the western retail environment of the 1980s than on best-practice as needed in the Indian retail environment of 2011! The “organised” apparel brands are weighed down by too many reviews, too many batch processes, too little merchant entrepreneurship. There is far too much time and resource wasted at each stage. Decisions are deliberately bottle-necked, under the label of “organisation” and “process-orientation”. The excitement is taken out of fashion; products become “normalised”, safe, boring which the consumer doesn’t really want! Shipments get delayed, missing the peaks of the season. And added cost ends in a price which the customer doesn’t want to pay.
The Indian apparel industry certainly needs a transformation.
Whether this will happen through a rapid shakedown or a more gradual process over the next 10-15 years, whether it will be driven by large international multi-brand retailers when they are allowed to invest directly in the country or by domestic companies, I do believe the industry will see significant shifts in the coming years.
Retailwire hosted an interesting discussion on ethical consumerism, based on Andrew Benett’s description of the decline of hyper-consumerism, and the emergence of a more conscious, frugal consumer in his new book, “Consumed: Rethinking Business in an Era of Mindful Spending”.
In a recent article Benett identified 10 public figures who also act as beacons for mindful consumption. The list includes people as diverse as US first lady Michelle Obama, talk show host & actress Ellen Degeneres, investor Warren Buffet, PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi and rapper Ludacris.
Of course, Ellen, Ludacris or Oprah have a communication reach that most marketers would kill for. Walmart pushing sustainable technologies in its supply chain could possibly achieve more than many governments around the world would hope to, because its powerful carrot of buying budgets is far stronger for many vendors in Asia, than the sticks of legislation. Many of these are genuine, praiseworthy attempts.
However, much as I would like to believe that all celebrities and high profile businesses are evolving into mindful, careful consumers, that would be a gullible step too far. In the current economic climate, consuming too conspicuously is just “not done.” But that may change as markets improve, jobs expand and incomes rise again.
Having said that, if the current fashionable rash of mindfulness raises the profile of concerns around over-consumption and waste, if it actually drives us towards more sustainable behavior and be more gentle to the planet and our future generations then, well, the end justifies the means.
Andrew Benett’s list is here: Top 10 Public Figures Who Are Also Mindful Consumers.
And this is the discussion on Retailwire on this subject.
(Contributed to the BusinessWorld cover story – “What 2 Expect in 2010”, issue of January 4, 2010)
Everything that can be said and assumed about the Indian market is true at some level of granularity. Very simply, in India there is a segment for every product, an opportunity for every service, be it ever so small. But when bubbles are bursting all over, as the Noughties Decade comes to a close, the puzzle that is Indian consumer market also warrants a fresh look.
For most of the Noughties Decade India has seen Generation-C, the “Choice” generation, coming of age. They have moved over from being “secondary customers” consuming off their parents’ incomes, to entering the work-force and becoming customers in their own right.
It may sound trite, but Gen-C customers have grown up with many models of 2-wheelers and 4-wheelers and colour television with multiple channels. They have many more career options and many more opportunities in each career. Not only have they grown up on a diet of choice, they have also grown up with much higher confidence about the future, about their place in the world and what they can expect. And they have infected the outlook of generations older than them as well with a similar confidence.
Therefore, for most of the decade, it has been a distinctly rosy picture for consumer goods marketers and retailers. Business plans routinely expected 20-50% annualised growth, and businesses even delivered those figures on some basis or the other. Organizations as diverse as retailers and management consultants were inspired by India’s age-old image as the Bird of Gold. Supermarket chains mushroomed like never before, department stores and speciality retailers grew their footprints, quick-service and casual dining expanded covers, while electronics, durables, leisure companies, and car brands all counted India among their hottest markets.
Product off-take reflected this outlook. Amongst the FMCG sector, while basic items such as the bath and shower segment demonstrated a steady annualised growth of about 7%, premium cosmetics galloped at almost 20% a year. While the relatively mature 2-wheeler market grew at just over 7.5% annually between 2002-03 and 2008-09, the 4-wheeler passenger vehicle market demonstrated growth of almost 14% a year in the same period.
All this was before the recent rude interruption.
A speed-breaker began showing up in the consumer market in late-2007 and grew larger through 2008. Once the global financial markets melted down in late-2008, media sentiment turned acutely negative about the Indian market as well. And, eventually, with uncertainty prevailing around the world, consumer spending in India did take a hit. Consumers cut back on the frequency of purchases or traded down.
On the trade side, retail businesses began acknowledging that stores were performing below plan and went into rationalisation mode. For branded suppliers, where some of the growth had come from stuffing the pipeline and filling new shelves, wholesale order books became thinner.
Yet, as painful as the economic scenario might have appeared, the Indian consumer market has shown remarkable resilience. Demand in smaller cities and towns has remained robust. Regional brands, especially, found plenty of opportunity to grow in markets and geographical regions where they were under-penetrated or absent.
And as the mood lifted through the latter half of 2009, consumer demand clearly moved back up. The speed at which the demand rebounded would suggest that the Indian market was relatively sheltered from the global economic storm.
However, there are some critical differences to understand.
On the one hand, Gen-C’s confidence shook for the first time – a generation that has only seen upward mobility, witnessed job cuts and salary freezes or declines even if only second-hand. Comparisons with the Great Depression may be exaggerated but it is a scenario they can now imagine as a possibility. At least three new professional academic batches have or will have moved into the job market under these sober conditions. On the other hand, tremendous inflation in basic costs supports some amount of uncertainty about the future. The fact that many of the Gen-C would have just begun or would be about to begin families serves to only heighten such anxiety.
So, let’s recognise two immutable facts about the Indian consumer market in the current environment.
First: that the ancestral “steel safes” are back, at least figuratively if not literally. Customers do want to save more for now. And if they are spending, they want to feel that they are extracting far more value than the price they are exchanging across the counter, value that will last long after the transaction at the store. In recent years, this inherent ‘value orientation’ of the Indian consumer was neglected by many. Now every product, service or brand must aim to deliver this sustainable value, and demonstrate the value repeatedly.
Secondly, each business needs to look at the lifetime value of a customer if it can. Rather than cutting the golden bird open and trying to extract all the golden eggs at once, one needs need to keep the bird well-fed, happy and healthy, and enjoy its rewards over several years. Rather than creaming the market, pricing, branding and distribution need to be structured for a sustainable relationship with the customer.
Some businesses will work better than others in this market, and strategies will need to be adapted. A lifecycle approach may handy in identifying the business segments which might meet the steel safe criterion, or the golden goose criterion, or both.
The first segment that comes to mind is weddings. Wedding expenditure is seen as a “social investment” for both the families, and the actual items bought are an investment into the couple’s future together. So, bridal trousseaux and wedding wardrobes, wedding arrangers and catering, and household goods provide significantly more tangible and intangible value than the money spent.
Similarly, “first child” isn’t usually a segment in any marketing handbook, but should be. The couple’s first born, especially if the baby is the first in its generation will usually get a disproportionate amount of attention and spending on clothing and utilities. A baby’s growth into a child, of course, can provide a relationship and marketing opportunity that can last for years, but the first 2-3 years are specifically valuable. What’s more, given India’s demographic dividend in the form of a sustained under-30 age group, baby products have a sustained and growing value as a market.
As the child grows, there are clear indicators of current and future value that can drive purchases. While base schooling is an essential expenditure, extra-classes and tuitions are a high-value discretionary investment that parents are choosing to make. Sports, on the other hand, however essential they may be to a child’s development are often seen as a distraction. That is, unless the child is attending sports coaching and the parents have an eye on helping the child create a career from it – in which case, a coach who is apparently good, branded equipment and kit are definitely worth investing in. So a cricket coaching franchise might just be the ticket to fortune, while a toy company may struggle. Some may decry the decline in art, craft, philosophy and fundamental sciences, but these are not on the list of priority of most parents. In the short to medium term, parents would continue to disproportionately push their wards into academic disciplines that are seen to develop marketable skills and pay well. Expect continued growth in the engineering, medical and management education market, but also in other vocational disciplines.
On the other hand, everything is not an investment for the future. Present comforts may also provide extra value, through convenience.
Some of these comforts may be as small as enjoying out-of-home exotic meals (pizza and pasta still qualify as exotic for the bulk of the population). Or if eating out looks out of budget, ready-to-eat and ready-to-cook meals are an easy substitute. Jubilant, Yum, McDonald’s, Haldiram, Sarvana’s, Nirula’s and the thousands of other casual dining and snack food chains have a long clear highway of growth ahead, as do snacks and packaged food companies such as Nestle, Britannia and ITC.
Brown goods and white goods that offer comfort and convenience – coolers, water heaters, convectors, air-conditioners and kitchen gadgets – continue their onward march, despite the huge shortfall in electricity. Even if the big brands struggle with their price points and overheads, regional brands and private labels will continue growing strongly in these segments.
Health is another area for significant investment. With prevalence of lifestyle-ailments, from stiff necks to high blood pressure, basic pharmacists to cardiovascular specialists are all in demand. Anticipate significant growth to continue in over-the-counter medication, medical devices, as well as clinical and hospital care.
At the other end of the scale, with decent and adequate public transport lacking in most cities, we can expect personal vehicles to increase multi-fold, despite the small blip in 2008-09. About 60 million 2-wheelers and over 10 million passenger vehicles have already been added during the decade, and the growth trend looks set to resume from 2010, unless there are significant oil price or vehicle taxation shocks delivered by the government.
And as consumer confidence resurges, more overt displays or personal spends will return as well, including apparel, footwear, home products, accessories, vacations, fitness and recreation, but we would expect them to follow behind the higher priority “safe” or “geese” segments.
Finally, the one thing that marketers in any product need not be really concerned about whether there is a future in this market. Even, Hindustan Unilever, a mature FMCG company with very high distribution penetration built over decades, still counts less than 60% Indians as its customers.
Surely most companies have a much longer road ahead before they need to be worried about their markets becoming saturated.
Wal-Mart has just opened a new store Supermercado de Walmart in Houston (Texas). The Houston Chronicle reports that the Supermercado aims to reach out to the Hispanic population, tailoring the foods more to Hispanic tastes and needs and adding signs in Spanish. Wal-Mart is also reportedly planning to open a Mas Club this summer, based on its Sam’s Club warehouse outlet, but focussed again on Hispanic customers. (The original article is here: Wal-Mart gives its Supermercado concept a tryout).
Going by some of the negative comments attracted by the article, it is legitimate to ask: what will Wal-Mart’s existing customers think, and how will they behave?
I guess the answer is clearly not black or white (or beige, red, yellow or brown for that matter).
Wal-Mart is segmenting and localizing its offer as a smart information-rich retailer should.
Some customers who hold a tightly parochial view may feel alienated when they read about this development and may stop shopping at Wal-Mart, but most probably won’t bother as long as their local Wal-Mart continues to deliver what they want at prices they like.
Vibrant societies and economies are true melting pots; rather than exclude, filter and ensure conformity, they imbibe and blend newness. The fact is that real assimilation causes both to change – the ones coming in and the society / geography taking them in – and we have to accept that change often brings some pain with it, as expressed by the reader commenting on Houston Chronicle’s website.
The first waves of European settlers created a change when they started landing in North America 500-odd years ago, and so has every wave of immigrants since – Chinese, Japanese, German, Irish, Italian, Eastern European, Korean, Indian, Caribbean and so on. The first settlers will always be suspicious and exclusive in their approach towards the second set, the second lot of the next and so on.
The wave of economic homogenization driven by the post-war baby boom and infrastructure expansion was possibly one of the largest in recent history (other than the Soviet Union and the Chinese Cultural Revolution, which were more political than economic). However, we’ve seen the US market grow in diversity in the last 2-3 decades – not only because of differences due to race or country of origin, but also due to geographic, economic and otherwise cultural differences.
Today many of the diverse segments today in the US are large enough to express their unique needs, and expect them to be fulfilled. While the cookie-cutter approach served well during the years of national expansion across homogenized markets, that approach is counter-productive today. A retailer like Wal-Mart can’t be expected to ignore that fact.
Advertising Age recently carried an article titled “The Death of Customer Segmentation”, by Michael Fassnacht.
He questions the traditional marketing hypothesis that the better we segment consumers, the better we know what is relevant and the better we can market to them.
Fassnacht argument is that:
This last point is of particular importance, since electronic media – especially websites that customize themselves based on analysis of the users behaviour and history – are becoming more prevalent communication platforms. In fact, for the last few years “mass customization” and “a consumer segment of one” have been fashionable phrases thrown about in marketing circles.
Fassnacht quotes Amazon, Apple and social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace to support his well-structured argument.
However, it may be a challenge for traditional retailers and brands to apply the learnings from these brands in their physical stores.
Going further and on a lighter note – or perhaps not 🙂 – if we are to believe the philosophy of the Vedas, the Universe has a head start on “self-segmentation” and “customization of consumer experience” technology. According to it, the world and our experience of it is “Maya,” an illusion product of our mind, and we are free to create and mold it, and experience it as long as we hold the illusion.
If that’s the case, our modern techies and marketers have a long time to go before they climb that technology curve.
The original article is available here: The Death of Consumer Segmentation?
New American Dimensions and Asian-American advertising agency interTrend Communications has just put out a report titled “Asian Indians in the US”.
It is amusing to come across the term “Asian Indians”…only in the USA! :-))
That aside, the executive summary has some interesting insights including:
Retailers in the US might draw a leaf out of British retailers that have significantly tailored their product mix to suit specific immigrant populations. Sure, the UK has a higher proportion of Indians (and other South Asians), but there are enough areas in the US where the South Asian population is high enough to warrant more specific merchandising and marketing.
When I think of the “Indian stores” owned by someone of Indian or South Asian origin in concentrated catchments of high-income South Asians (LA, Houston, Boston etc.), I can’t help thinking of the opportunities missed by the chain stores.
On a separate note, the study says that some respondents “felt that the Asian classification was negative, an attempt to lump Asian Indians in with the rest of Asia when they have a distinct, rich culture that should stand by itself.”
I’m sure other communities would also take exception to such “lumping”.
It is indeed interesting that marketers tend to use the term “Asian”, throwing together diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds from Turkey in the West all the way East to Japan, and throwing segmentation disciplines out of the window.
(The executive summary is available here.)


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Fintech firm Finastra has partnered with Canada’s Buckzy Payments to facilitate cross border payments for its clients.
The collaboration will involve integration of Finastra’s Fusion Global PAYplus with Buckzy’s real-time cross border payments network through the FusionFabric.cloud platform.
The integration will allow Finastra’s Global PAYplus customers adopt a real-time international payments network. The network can be white-labelled and modified to suit individual client requirements.
Finastra Payments GM Sagive Greenspan said: “Buckzy’s innovative technology is exactly the kind we need to help our financial institution clients facilitate real-time cross border payments for their customers.
“This is an issue that so many banks have been struggling to solve on their own and if we can help them fast-track a cross border real-time payments offering to their clients it will be extremely beneficial.
“Through our collaboration and FusionFabric.cloud platform we will be able to integrate all of our customers into Buckzy quickly and efficiently.”
The Buckzy’s cross border payment ecosystem is designed to enable instant money transfers between bank accounts. The technology can be integrated with existing banks and financial institutions systems.
Commenting on the Finastra partnership, Buckzy chief business development officer CK Semlani said: “Joining forces with Finastra allows us to work with a world class company to rapidly expand our financial institution customer base through a single, seamless, integrated platform.
“Ultimately, this will mean faster, more convenient service for customers all over the world.”

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The Central bank of Nigeria has revealed that the eNaira wallet has registered over 3 billion transactions since it was launched.
The apex bank commended the popularity of the app stating that more Nigerians are becoming aware of the eNaira app, although the large majority of downloads are inactive.
The eNaira is a Central bank digital currency issued and regulated by the Central Bank of Nigeria. Denominated in naira, the eNaira serves as both a medium of exchange and a store of value and claims to offer better payment prospects in retail transactions when compared to cash.
The CBN Governor Godwin Emefiele, was ecstatic praising the eNaira application that has so far recorded close to a million downloads (905,588 downloads, out of which only 282,600 are active).
Furthermore, Emefiele revealed that about 13,136 wallets had been downloaded via the unstructured supplementary service data (USSD) route, which was introduced less than a month ago.
“So far, 905,588 people have downloaded the app, with 282,600 of them currently active. So far, transactions have exceeded 1.49 million worth over N3.484 billion, with the breakdown as follows: 78,115 consumer-to-bank transactions worth about N1 billion, 90,760 bank-to-customer transactions worth N945 million, 35,800 consumer-to-consumer transactions worth about N480 million, and 171,000 consumers to merchant transactions worth over N387 million.”
“13,136 wallets have so far been created via the USSD channel – that was the channel we introduced about three-four weeks ago, and we are happy that progress has since been made’’.
He concluded by saying that Nigerians have increased their use of eNaira for online transactions.


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10 minutes estimated reading time
Why Protest Tactics Spread Like Memes – The New York Times – often, she noted, the images’ similarity was unwitting. In their spread, their simultaneity and their indirect influence on each other, the protest videos had all the characteristics of memes, those units of culture and behavior that spread rapidly online. The same cultural transfer that gives us uncanny cake-slicing memes and viral challenges also advances the language of protest. “We live in this world of attention dynamics so it makes sense that tactics start to converge,” Ms. Mina said. She called the images’ tendency to build on each other “memetic piggybacking,” and noted that everyday items that are subverted into objects of protest are “inherently charismatic.” – protest groups tactics as memes. Memes are a transmissible idea; whether its knowledge, humour or even cat gifs. Memes are something learnable and easily repeatable. The Hunger Games three finger salute or the LIHKG are deliberately chosen memes. Reciting lines from films or TV programmes like The Office are memes. Similarly protest slogans like “Liberate Hong Kong, Revolution Of Our Time’, ‘Five Demands, Not One Less’ (FDNOL) are memes. Other memes evolve due to pragmatism, such as the use of umbrellas during the 2014 protests. More meme related content here.
German oil refinery to build 30 MW hydrogen electrolysis plant – Reuters – great news. I think hydrogen fuel cells should be a more important part of the energy mix
Apple Faces $1.4 Billion Lawsuit by Chinese AI Firm in Siri Patent Fight – WSJ – Conflicts over intellectual property, technology and trade are driving bilateral relations between the U.S. and China to their lowest point in decades. Last Friday, President Trump threatened to ban Chinese short-video app TikTok on national-security grounds. U.S. officials have been involved in talks over a potential sale of TikTok’s American business to Microsoft Corp.
Google to invest $450M in smart home security solutions provider ADT | TechCrunch – tech eats the old economy due to obscenely high share prices
7-Eleven owner is buying Marathon Petroleum’s Speedway gas stations for $21 billion – CNN – it’s a good deal for Marathon; but looks expensive for Seven and I (7-Eleven’s owner). 7-Eleven would need to get $175,000 net profit a year out of each gas station to make it worthwhile at the current purchase price
Op-Ed: Never Trust Mark Zuckerberg Again- PingWest – a few things in this. 1/ Facebook probably didn’t get anything out of its reprochment with China. Yes China could stop advertising on Facebook, but A/ Chinese state owned companies not advertising on Facebook would be immaterial and probably benefit Facebook politically B/ Chinese private sector companies don’t have a lot of choice, so China would see a good deal of SME job destruction. 2/ The US government have more leverage. In this respect its like the embarrassing HSBC kowtowing in reverse. The Chinese author now realises how lame it looks when you’re on the other side of it
Pompeo the Maoist – SettimanaNews – Borrowing from the logic used by Mao Zedong in his On Contradiction, Pompeo tried to prove that CCP didn’t represent the Chinese people, and that actually the party is the enemy of the Chinese people. This point is fundamental because, as Mao put it, the crucial political element is to know who is with us and who is the enemy, and the party should always represent the people. Pompeo stated: “We must start by changing how our people and our partners perceive the Chinese Communist Party. We have to tell the truth.” What is the truth, according to the US secretary of state? It is that: “We know … that doing business with a CCP-backed company is not the same as doing business with, say, a Canadian company. They don’t answer to independent boards, and many of them are state-sponsored and so have no need to pursue profits… We know too that if our companies invest in China, they may wittingly or unwittingly support the Communist Party’s gross human rights violations… We know too too that not all Chinese students and employees are just normal students and workers that are coming here to make a little bit of money and to garner themselves some knowledge. Too many of them come here to steal our intellectual property and to take this back to their country.” Therefore, he argues that the US should de facto work as a new revolutionary party: “We must also engage and empower the Chinese people—a dynamic, freedom-loving people who are completely distinct from the Chinese Communist Party.”
Breaking Off TikTok Will Be Hard to Do — The Information – basically China still has control despite the window dressing. Given the structural, development, infrastructure and control aspects on this; how can Microsoft negotiate and engineer a clean break in the limited time that they have for TikTok versus Douyin? Some interesting analysis at the FT: The challenges Microsoft faces in buying TikTok’s US arm
ARM China Asks Beijing to Intervene in Row With U.K. Parent – Caixin Global – It is interesting that the ARM CEO thinks he has the political juice to go against Hopu and its head Fang Fenglei. Is there more than meets the eye going on here? More from Sina.com’s tech channel (via Google Translate): Sina.com Technology Channel ARM China debacle – the intention of Hopu Investment , which represents 36% of the investors of the central state-owned enterprise financial institution in the joint venture, to join hands with foreign shareholders this time? Hopu and Arm recently appointed Hopu Investment’s Teck Sien Lau (Singaporean) as Chairman of Amou China, and Arm President Graham Budd (British) as Vice Chairman. In addition, Arm and Hopu previously appointed two co-CEOs (one Singaporean and one Chinese) on the disputed board of directors, and the board dispute is currently being resolved in legal proceedings. It seems that Hopu hopes to help Arm replace the existing management team and actually control the operation of the joint venture company through this operation. However, under the premise that HOPU violated the Chinese party’s agreement to act in concert and joined hands with Arm, such an organizational structure obviously did not represent China’s national interests. In addition, can they lead the technical team to realize the original intention of the joint venture company and truly realize the vision of autonomous and controllable core technology that China needs? More on ARM here.
Facebook Employee Leaks Show Betrayal By Company Leadership – “hurting people at scale” is a brutal header on the article
Upfield targets block butters with vegan Flora Plant range | News | The Grocer – repackaging to remove the negative connotations of margarine by creating ‘vegan butter’ in salted and unsalted variants. *Disclosure, I worked with Mullen Lowe and Phd to develop ‘Family Brands’ global digital strategy, prior to Flora et al being sold off to Upfield. My work covered Blue Band, Bonella, Country Crock, Doriana, Dorina, Flora, Imperial, La Perfecta, Maizena, Milda, Mirasol, Planta, Planta Fin, Primavera, Rama, Sana, Stork, Tulipan, and Vitam
Tymbals : Bytedance and the hypergrowth delusion – Nigel Scott explaining the importance of context when there is yet another hyperbolic growth story in the tech sector
Slack Files EU Competition Complaint Against Microsoft | The Official Slack Blog – feels a bit Netscape all over again
Influencer Marketing Panel – some useful primers here from the CIPR, in particular about UK regulations
Imint is the Swedish firm that gives Chinese smartphones an edge in video production | TechCrunch – The hyper-competitive nature of Chinese phone makers means they are easily sold on new technology that can help them stand out. The flipside is the intensity that comes with competition. The Chinese tech industry is both well-respected — and notorious — for its fast pace. Slow movers can be crushed in a matter of a few months. “In some aspects, it’s very U.S.-like. It’s very straight to the point and very opportunistic,” Lifvendahl reflected on his experience with Chinese clients. “You can get an offer even in the first or second meeting, like, ‘Okay, this is interesting, if you can show that this works in our next product launch, which is due in three months. Would you set up a contract now?’” “That’s a good side,” he continued. “The drawback for a Swedish company is the demand they have on suppliers. They want us to go on-site and offer support, and that’s hard for a small Swedish company. So we need to be really efficient, making good tools and have good support systems.” – Ok a few things. 1/ The hyper competition is a very Chinese phenomenon. Like when in someplace like the UK Chinese restaurant opens in a neighbourhood, another will move in next door. In China, you end up with clusters of barber shops, tea shops and restaurants right next to each other in; actively competing. It’s about rapid small iterative steps of innovation, or what Huawei used call ‘customer focus’. It’s not paradigm shifting stuff. 2/ Its interesting that Imint have taken the German middelstadt model to software. Historically, German companies have managed to focus on a niche and do it really well. There is a long-term focus, continuity, independence, flexibility innovation and customer focus. They are nimble by nature and design with lean hierarchies and a family-like corporate structure.
Google in Talks to Take Over More Search Tasks on Samsung Phones – Bloomberg – Samsung would be giving up more user experience control and by implication, becoming more commoditised. To be fair a lot of Android skins and bundled apps haven’t been great. What happens with Google’s Pixel brand devices?
Aaron Toponce : The Physics of Brute Force – Why you should use encryption and why Moore’s Law’s limitations and physics indicate an optimal key size when using it against non-quantum computing.
Europe and AI: Leading, Lagging Behind, or Carving Its Own Way? – Carnegie Endowment for International Peace – Europe, meanwhile, despite having certain advantages such as a strong industrial base and leading AI research and talent, is punching far below its weight. This state of affairs is especially due to the fragmentation of the EU’s digital market, difficulties in attracting human capital and external investment, and the lack of commercial competitiveness. Fortunately, in recent years, European leaders have recognized the importance of not lagging behind on AI and have sought to raise their ambitions. Leaders such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron have stressed the need for Europe to become a leading global player on AI, and the new European Commission has made AI a top priority for the next five years. By declaring AI a major strategic priority, several member states and EU institutions are taking steps to advance the continent’s ambitions for AI leadership
COVID-19 and biopharma in China | McKinsey – fascinating read. In particular the growth of health insurance. Up to now, one of the reasons why Chinese consumption is so low the high amount of savings to cover health costs. (Yes, I know property and parent care are also huge areas for savings). But that is why Chinese people are generally lower in credit use in aggregate and have a large amount of savings. Private health insurance could have a huge impact on future consumption patterns and act as an economic driver
Dundrum Town Centre introduces a ‘Crowd Checker’ | RTE – interesting piece of service design to support opening up of retail. Dundrum shopping centre would be the Irish equivalent of Westfield in London. It is Ireland’s largest shopping centre. RTÉ has a broadcast studio there to capture the opinion of the average Irish person as needed.


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Deloitte has acquired substantially all of the business of Monitor, one of the world’s leading strategy consulting firms. The combination of Monitor’s talent and business with the consulting strategy service lines of Deloitte will result in a new global presence that will redefine the industry.
The new combined practices will operate under the Monitor Deloitte brand, creating a broad-reaching strategy and execution presence with world leading strengths in multiple domains, including innovation and marketing strategy.
Monitor Deloitte, through an integration of core strengths, capabilities, and assets of both networks, is designed to offer a distinctive set of services that fuse intelligent strategic insight and innovation with disciplined execution, enabling organizations on their journey to be leaders and shape the future. The strategy capabilities of Monitor Deloitte will reflect:
- Fresh insights
- Actionable analysis
- Leading-edge methods
- Deep hands-on implementation guidance
These capabilities are all joined with deep industry knowledge, and focus on business impact.
*All content on this website is currently being reviewed for migration to Deloitte.com.
Innovation consultant Robert F Brands gave the Ten Types of Innovation a starring role in a holiday-inspired piece he wrote for the Huffington Post. Riffing off our long-standing theory (which this year also features in a major book coming from Wiley), Brands had some advice for those looking to build a sustainable innovation competency. Now that’s a philosophy we can get behind. He writes:
On the first day of holiday innovations, my true love brought to me — A Profit Model Innovation: An innovation in the way in which you make money. Spotify uses the “freemium” model, where the software is provided free of charge, but a premium is charged for advanced features.
To see the rest of Brands’ holiday innovations, see the full story over at HuffPo.
Our own Helen Walters turns up in this video documentary looking at the current state of interaction design. Connecting was shot and produced by Bassett & Partners and features a whole host of design world luminaries, including Blaise Aguera y Arcas of Microsoft and Andrei Herasimchuk, director of design at Twitter.
Service design is a big deal these days, and our own Melissa Dalrymple is taking part in a panel discussion hosted by the New York chapter of the Service Design Network and DESIS (the Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability program at Parsons). Taking place on Wednesday November 28th and hosted by SDN’s Marshall Sitten, Melissa is set to discuss the theories and challenges of designing services in New York City, particularly important in the wake of Superstorm Sandy.
For more details, see the Service Design Network’s website.
Alex Kinnebrew and David Jensen will chair the second annual Customer Experience Strategies Summit in Toronto, to be held November 13-14. Bringing together senior marketing and customer experience professionals from across Canada and the U.S., the conference will tackle a range of topics in the field of customer experience. The keynote speech will be given by Peter Aceto, President and CEO of ING Direct Canada; other speakers include senior leaders from Dell, Intuit, WestJet, and Microsoft. Alex and David are working hard to weave together major conference themes as well as to share Monitor’s own point of view around “Total Experience.” That’s the firmly held belief that managing experience strategically across all aspects of the business will lead to competitive differentiation and higher returns. For more information on Total Experience or the conference, please email: David_Jensen [at] monitor.com.
On October 29, our own Larry Keeley gave a talk at Digital October, an initiative in Moscow to help professionals share best practices, learn about trends, and try new products. Presenting via webcam, Larry described recent work on Doblin’s Ten Types of Innovation framework and talked about how to make innovations effective in business. Making the case that ”the best gift that we can give each other is the right to build the predictable and dependable future in which we want to live,” Larry outlined a playbook for innovation that everyone can use.
Watch the full webcast here.
This is one of the more left-field validations we’ve had for the Total Innovation theory written by Bansi Nagji and Geoff Tuff and originally published in Harvard Business Review. In a Bloomberg Businessweek story, movie star Matt Damon explains the investment thinking at Water.org, a company he co-founded to provide clean water and sanitation to everyone on earth: “Harvard Business Review just put out an article about this that actually broke it down,” he said. “You want 70 percent to be your core business, 20 percent to be adjacencies to that and 10 percent to be highest risk. Funnily enough, they say it pays off exactly inverse to that.”
[Read the full article here]


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5 Best Online-Magazines For Managing Your Business In The USA
Oct 03, 2023
On 2nd June, most webmasters went into a shock because Google did something that they never do- ‘Announce the new Google June 2019 Core Update’. The last time a Google Core Update happen (March 2019), it shook up the entire digital marketing. To say that the March update created an upheaval of sorts would be an understatement.
Google Search Liaison’s Twitter handle did not give any information about the Google June 2019 Core Update. It just announced that it would be rolling out in the next couple of days to various Google data centers all over the world.
This was a new and novel approach taken by Google, which has previously been accused of not being open to the industry. This might be the reason why the head of Google’s Search Liaison team stated on Twitter, that their purpose was to be more communicative of developments.
Google announced its latest algorithm updates for June 2019, which is categorized as a broad core update. In fact, the full picture is not available yet, and here will have a peep into what is known so far.
In fact, it is a bit strange that Google announced an algorithm update as. Usually, it comes without any warning. We can assume that Google started admiring the SEO community by giving an alert that a broad core update is on the way. The note about the update was released on the official Twitter account of Google on June 2.
The new Google June 2019 Core Update has definitely set the cat amongst the pigeons. There is an absence of any tangible information like the previous updates-
With the new update, Danny Sullivan states that things might not be too unsettled. The central crux of the update will be subtle according to Jan Grundmann from Search Metrics. There is an absence of any clear motive or intention like responses to search queries, backlinks or website characteristics.
According to Search Engine Land, it is too early to determine what effect the update will have on websites. Rather than stoking speculation, SEL asked readers to remain calm and monitor their Search Consoles and Analytics. This is because of the fact that Google announced that the update would take time to roll out in different Google Data Centres over the world.
As per expert opinion from Solution spire, there is nothing so special about this latest update from Google or anything more significant compared to other frequent updates from Google. In their opinion, it is an empathetic approach by Google to be proactive and give the SEOs an advanced notice to avoid any confusion. In fact, this update actually had gone live on June 3 onwards.
In fact, the complete effect of this update is not known as to how it may affect the ranking or which ranking factors may get impacted. Some initial assumptions are:
As seen above, broad core updates come out many times a year. These are actually different from the targeted algorithm updates like Penguin and Panda, which are meant to target certain behavior and can have a major impact on existing search rankings.
For example, Panda targeted low-quality content, and Penguin was targeting to hit the black-hat link building techniques. Broad core updates, on the other hand, focus more on general clean ups. With each broad core update, SEOs need to refresh their ways as to what is SEO, and how does it work.
Broad core usually makes lesser fluctuations in terms of ranking. These updates can be considered as a tweak in the primary search engine itself. For example, it may make slight positive changes in hundreds of factors deciding the quality of site and ranking as page speed, keywords in the title tag, and back-links, etc.
However, the new Google June 2019 Core Update had an immediate impact on some of the biggest websites. The biggest losers- Dailymail.co.uk and Cryptocurrency news website CCN.com.
Crypto Currency news site, CCN stated that it is going to shut down following a rapid decline in organic traffic and revenues.
SEO toolset site Sistrix stated that the worst hit industries from Google’s updates have been gambling sites. Websites in the health and finance sectors were also pretty badly hit by the update.
One crucial industry that had previously seen high metrics traditionally had been News. However, in this round of update, several News sites saw their exposure and reach decreasing ever since the update. However, the biggest beneficiaries of the update were also news websites.
These websites lost traffic, search rankings and experienced fluctuations in search rankings ever since the update started rolling out.
Some experts stated that Google’s core principles of E-A-T or ‘Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness’ does not apply to these updates. They point to the fact that even sites, which fulfilled the E-A-T diktats, had been penalized by Google.
At this point, apart from speculation and guessing games, no one has really narrowed down on what the update intends.
Most people are harking back to Google’s commitments to great content and Google’s Quality Rating Guidelines. There is chatter around the fact that sites, which had a lot of pop-ups and clickbait are the ones that have been penalized.
Google’s commitment to providing its users with the greatest content and information can be taken to be the broad spectrum. However, in the absence of any information coming from Google, all this at best can be termed as mere speculation.
In the global context, this update can be viewed from multiple vantage points. The internet as an unbiased platform of information is no longer with us. This has made search engines like Google and social media giants like Facebook run into many problems with governments and law enforcement agencies.
The role of money power and manipulation in pushing agendas, along with products and services is a reality. All over the world, there is an underlying current of skepticism towards such tech giants. Data breaches and privacy invasions have added fuel to the fire.
For the last year or so, Google has been trying to reinvent itself by trying to go back to its roots. In other words, it wants to be the platform where quality content and credible information is untainted and supreme.
In fact, if your site is affected, there is no instant way to fix it. Google may not release any actionable advice as they don’t want the site owners and SEOs to attempt and change things which aren’t actually issues.
The updates can be frustrating to the site owners who may find some dip in their ranking and with no clues on how to fix it. In most cases, you will never know what Google wants you to do. In other words, Google will never release a best practices program for you to rectify the drop.
Google has contracted about 10000 Quality Raters to review the websites and rate them based on the latest Google updates. You have to note that the Raters have no impact on page ranking and their data is not factored into the Google algorithm. Raters usually conduct searches and evaluate the page quality of returned pages. Good uses their feedback to improve further algorithms.
To analyze the exact nature of the damage, we will have to wait and examine the analytics. This might take time, as the rollout from Google will itself take place over the coming months.
However, the results from the Google June 2019 Core Update has already ruffled established feathers. With huge websites like Dailymail experiencing a massive drop and CCN shutting down, we do not know what we can expect.
Web Forums are rife with rumors and gossips on what might happen next. The digital is not only an empowering and democratic domain; it is also a very uncertain world.
The uncertainties give rise to fear and forces people to do things that they would not otherwise do. As Google sends webmasters, brands and digital agencies an endless cycle of headaches and re-evaluations, we can only hope for the best.
Someone mailed me and asked about what they should do to ride over this update. My answer was that no one could do anything. The Batman is here, and whatever he will do, will be shrouded in secrecy.
However, to enhance your site ranking, you may focus on E – Expertise, A – Authority, T – Trustworthiness of your content. Try collecting a significant amount of positive reviews and try to support the information given by adding proper references to make it authoritative.
We will be updating the article as and when we get more information about Google June 2019 Core Update. If you want to add anything to the news, please comment below.
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The Conscience Of AI: Ethics In Content Gener...Oct 03, 2023
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Google September 2023 Helpful Content Update ...Sep 30, 2023


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Myanmar’s external trade between 1 and 9 October in the current financial year 2020-2021 touched a low of US$473.89 million, a sharp drop of $473 million compared with the corresponding period of the FY2019-2020, according to the Ministry of Commerce. During the same period in the previous FY, trade stood at $947 million, according to data released by the ministry. The decrease in Myanmar’s foreign trade was attributed to the drop in exports and imports in the first nine days of the current FY amid the COVID-19 crisis. Myanmar exports agricultural products, animal products, minerals, forest products, and finished industrial goods, while it imports capital goods, raw industrial materials, and consumer goods.
The country’s export sector relies more on the agricultural and manufacturing sectors. The government is trying to reduce the trade deficit by screening luxury import items and boosting exports. Myanmar external trade between FY2016-2017 and FY2019-2020 (as of 21 August) under the incumbent government period touched a high of US$149.67 billion, comprising exports worth $68.53 billion and imports valued $81.1 billion, according to the statistics released by the Ministry of Commerce. Myanmar foreign trade has shown a 10-per cent increase, year over year, under the incumbent government. Myanmar has already surpassed the total trade value target of $34 billion for the last FY, said an official from the ministry.
The Ministry of Commerce is endeavouring to boost export, enhance value-added production, reduce export barriers and provide trade financing services. Myanmar’s top export countries are China, Thailand, Japan, Singapore, the US, India, Germany, the Republic of Korea, Spain and the UK. In contrast, it primarily imports from China, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Viet Nam, Japan, the Republic of Korea and the US, as per data of the Ministry of Commerce. The Ministry of Commerce is endeavouring to boost export, enhance value-added production, reduce export barriers and provide trade financing services. Under the National Planning Law for the Financial Year 2020-2021, Myanmar intends to reach an export target at US$16 billion and import at $18 billion. —Ko Htet (Translated by Ei Myat Mon)


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Although the security and safety industry maintains focus on redundancy and business continuity, it appears that most were not prepared for something like COVID-19.
A new backend management platform for dealers and a unified experience for users represents a new business model in wireless smart home security.
Mixing traditional values, value-adds and valuable new offerings locked Custom Alarm in as SSI’s 2020 Small to Midsize Installer of the Year.
Leica Geosystems took the top honors in the annual NPS program, which recognizes innovative security products in partnership with ISC West.
This next installment of the SSI Industry Hall of Fame Webcast Series features Jim Henry, executive vice president of corporate development for Securitas Electronic Security.
Discover which residential and commercial devices, systems and services are best lending themselves to the recurring monthly revenue model


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A handful of former Cambridge Analytica employees might be working on Donald Trump's re-election campaign. The Associated Press reports that two of its reporters overheard Matt Oczkowski, Cambridge Analytica's former head of product, say that he and…
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With the third installment in the Avengers series from Marvel ready to hit the big screen later this month, advertisers are preparing to let loose their promotional campaigns tied into the latest Marvel Comics Universe theatrical release. According to sources, the advertising campaign budget for Avengers: Infinity War will be the biggest one ever for […]
Come comment on this article: Samsung, OnePlus to be part of historic ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ promo campaign
A dancer by the name of Lil Buck showcases the “freedom” of the new Apple AirPods in a series of TV spots also viewable on YouTube. Whether you want them or not, the earbuds may not be available immediately for order.
The post Apple AirPod ad campaign begins with limited product availability appeared first on Digital Trends.


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by Samuel Smith, The Christian Post
While Chick-fil-A has blossomed over the last several decades to become America’s third-largest restaurant chain, there was a time during the financial recession in the 1980s when it looked as though the Christian-run business was on the “brink” of closing as mall development stopped.
Steve Robinson, who served as Chick-fil-A’s chief marketing officer from 1981 until his retirement in 2015, detailed in a recent interview with The Christian Post that the most important element of the mall-based chicken sandwich chain’s “miraculous” recovery was the creation of the Chick-fil-A “corporate purpose.”
The corporate purpose, created at an off-site meeting of the Chick-fil-A executive committee in 1982, was the first time that the company’s biblical values were officially put down in one official statement.
“One of the really unique things about that [crisis in] 1982-1983 was it catapulted us to get clear about how we were going to market the business, to get very clear about how we’re going to empower operators to be the primary brand representatives in the community,” said Robinson, who has a new book designed to serve as a “biography of the brand.”
© 2019 The Christian Post, INC


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Entertainment companies including Universal, Paramount, Columbia, Disney and Amazon have come together to fight ‘pirate’ IPTV service Nitro TV.
TorrentFreak first reported that the companies are going after the IPTV service with a lawsuit filed in California, alleging that Nitro TV is offering subscribers thousands of “live and title-curated television channels” which it does not have rights to.
“The channels available on Nitro TV include many of the world’s most popular television programs and motion pictures such as The Office, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Toy Story 3, Star Trek Beyond, Homecoming and Joker, including works whose copyrights Plaintiffs own or exclusively control,” the complaint reads.
“Plaintiffs and/or their affiliates have invested and continue to invest substantial resources and effort each year to develop, produce, distribute, and publicly perform their Copyrighted Works through legitimate market channels that in aggregate create a content ecosystem that is safe and reliable for consumers.
“Defendants’ unlawful conduct in operating Nitro TV directly and willfully subverts that ecosystem through pursuit of illicit profits from massive and blatant infringement of Plaintiffs’ Copyrighted Works,” it continues.
The lawsuit goes on to mention Facebook groups as a means of promoting the service and mentioning specific resellers who have bragged about the number of customers they’ve sold to, claiming that the owners and others linked to the service promote and encourage Nitro TV as a being a source of unauthorized content.
The group is asking for damages up to $150,000 per infringed work. The suit is going after Nitro TV, along with third parties, including Namecheap and Domain.com, the domain registrars of Tekkhosting.com and NitroIPTV.com.
This is far from the first case of entertainment companies taking ‘pirate’ IPTV services to court. Back in December, we reported that DISH was going after Boom Media, a reseller of several well-known IPTV services. DISH sought damages, as well as the information of those who had subscribed to the services. The owner of Boom Media, John Henderson, responded in an expletive-filled statement and by setting up a GoFundMe to pay for legal fees.
TorrentFreak has provided a PDF of the full complaint against Nitro TV here.
Did you know we have a YouTube Channel? Every week we have a live Cord Cutting Q&A, and weekly Cord Cutting recap shows exclusively on our YouTube Channel!


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Pizza giant Dominos is leaving no stone unturned to stay in the fast food market competition. The company has launched its specially designed pizza delivery vehicle on October 21, 2015. The vehicle is known as the Pizza Mobile – The Domino’s DXP (Delivery Expert).
It took about three years to develop the design along with Roush Enterprises, General Motors and Former GM research and Development executive Kenneth R Baker. The new Pizza Mobile was unveiled at Domino’s Farms in Ann Arbor and will allow the drivers to deliver oven-hot pizzas to the customers. The president of Domino’s USA, Russell Weiner said, “We wanted to design a vehicle for our customers to continue to have a positive, fast and easy delivery experience”.
The president added that it is not a gimmick and have actually spent millions of dollars developing this concept. Domino’s has selected Chevrolet Spark as their vehicle of choice for the DXP. The vehicle has a hot oven that can heat up, up to 140 degrees Fahrenheit behind the driver’s door and can fit 80 pizzas.
For now the company is planning to convert and deliver 100 DXPs to 25 of the major cities in the US including San Diego, Houston, Detroit, Seattle and Boston.
Photo Credits: motorbeam


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Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS) has cleared six more companies to start producing non medical face masks.
This has brought the number of companies in the production of non medical masks in the country to a sum of twenty nine (29).
According to the official statement from UNBS released on Thursday , this has been done in line with the organization’s mandate of protect Ugandans from using substandard face masks which could be harmful to their health.
The newly certified manufacturers include Sumaco Enterprises Limited, Sigma Knitting Industries Limited, Uganda Industrial Research Institute and Fresh Fashion collections.
The recently cleared manufacturers include; MMacks Investment Limited, Funding Building Construction Limited, EX Ken Uganda Limited, The Key Murungi Fashions, Najjeru Packaging Industries Limited, Youth Save, The Nature Uganda Limited, Christex Garment Limited , Jayne Collection and events , Prince Orient Uganda Limited, Tenge Collection among others.
UNBS promised that in the due process, the number of certified companies is expected to increase since many have already applied and are undergoing scrutiny.
Most of these companies decided to engage in production of non medical face mask following the Government’s directive that all Ugandans must put on face masks while in public as a measure for mitigating the spread of COVID-19.


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Well, blow me down: Spinach is the new sweet treat of Fleet Week 2019.
Van Leeuwen Ice Cream launched a spinach-flavored ice cream this week in honor of Popeye the Sailor’s 90th birthday — and members of the United States Navy, Coast Guard and Marine Corps, who are currently celebrating Fleet Week in NYC.
In addition to some iron-rich roughage, the limited-edition flavor — “Popeye’s Fleet Treat” — contains cashew milk, coconut cream, coconut oil, cocoa butter, cane sugar, extra virgin olive oil, turmeric and sea salt.
So, is the result a sweet and savory scoop — or something that rhymes with the latter word?
Employees of The Post had mixed reviews for the bright green curiosity — but all are in agreement that the coconut overpowers the spinach flavor.
“We use a vegan base, and that definitely has a more coconut-forward flavor,” Ellie Zitsman, Van Leeuwen’s head of research and development, tells The Post. “The spinach didn’t actually impart that much flavor — it was just a really great color.”
When King Features Syndicate, publisher of the iconic Popeye cartoon, approached Van Leeuwen about a potential collaboration, the healthy veggie’s less-than-beloved flavor concerned Zitsman.
“We initially thought, ‘We have to do spinach, but it might be gross,’ ” she says. “[Instead], it came out really well.”
The new flavor will be available through June 2 at three Van Leeuwen locations in Manhattan only: South Street Seaport (224 Front St.), SoHo (61 West Houston St.) and Hudson Yards (20 Hudson Yards, level 3).
BTW: Spinach is actually quite tame compared to some other wacky ice cream flavors, such as sour pickle, processed pork and Cheetos crumbs. One new Brooklyn shop even featured a sweet roti and ghee flavor in March.


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WASHINGTON, D.C. - In cooperation with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, (CPSC), Murray Inc. of Brentwood, Tenn., is voluntarily recalling about 89,500 rear-engine riding lawn mowers and about 6,200 mid-engine riding mowers. The fuel tank can crack and leak fuel, posing a burn or fire hazard to consumers.
Murray has received 950 reports of fuel tanks leaking. These leaks resulted in six reports of fires including one report of minor burns.
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Samsung is launching new A series devices at a time when the average selling price in the market is increasing with more customers looking for an upgrade. These devices in the fastest-growing segment are being launched at a time when the market is entering the festive season, which typically sees 20-25% higher sales compared with other periods.
“We really want to expand this (A series) further. We expect the A series to create a larger market for ourselves than we had for the J series,” Mohandeep Singh, senior VP of the mobile business at Samsung India, told ET.
Samsung’s J series, costing Rs 10,000 and above, has around 60 million installed base in India. It currently has around 40 running handset models in the market.
Singh though acknowledged that competition was tough in the segment, which is led by Oppo and Vivo, with Xiaomi also making its presence felt. “Competition is going to become intense, but as long as we work closely with consumer, understand their requirement … we will be able to stay ahead of the game.”
He said the company was looking at strong gains in terms of value and volume share, and growing the overall market as well in this Rs20,000-30,000 price bracket through the A series.
“This will be a huge opportunity as we move into the festive season,” Singh said.
The change in focus — from mainly the lower-priced ones which drove volumes to the mid-segment — was articulated recently by Samsung’s CEO for IT and mobile communications, DJ Koh, who told ET that the Korean electronics major would bring premium features in the mid-priced segment to respond to competition from the likes of Xiaomi, OnePlus, Oppo and Vivo. Xiaomi has recently upstaged Samsung to become the top smartphone vendor in India.
Samsung has already started providing premium features in its mid-range smartphones, some of which now have three rear cameras and a side fingerprint.
“We are launching features that we have not even launched in our flagship devices. Essentially, this is an acknowledgment and change in the strategy,” said Singh.
Samsung isn’t seeing very significant growth in the popular segment of smartphones, he said. Strong growth is now happening in the mid- and high-end segments.
Samsung is involved in a tight fight for the top slot among smartphone makers in India. The company, citing Gfk data, claimed that it had 39% of the overall smartphone market, and 50% of the premium smartphone market in the first half, which made it a clear leader.
But data from research agencies portray a different picture. After two straight quarters when Xiaomi was the clear leader, the April-June period threw up a mixed verdict: Counterpoint put Samsung ahead of Xiaomi, with 29% and 28% share, respectively; IDC had Xiaomi at 29.7% to Samsung’s 23.9%; while Canalys had Xiaomi and Samsung neck and neck at 30.4% to 30.2%.


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There's an English-subtitled trailer for the incoming Netflix Shaman King anime.
He was the fiercest member of the yakuza, a man who left countless underworld legends in his wake.
Netflix and Valve's anime project for DOTA has been given a two-minute plus trailer ahead of the show's release on the 25th of March.
Jupiter's Legacy is a comic book series from Mark Millar (Kick-Ass, Kingsman, The Authority) that investigates the connection between superheroes and the American ideal.
A round-up of mini anime-reviews free from spoilers looking at new shows like High-Rise Invasion, smash hits like Jujutsu Kaisen and understated delights like Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!
There was a time when Kaiju rose from the Pacific Rim only to encounter gigantic robots, Jaegers, built to fight them back.
Netflix has confirmed that they, Skydance and Production IG are working on a Terminator anime.
Hasbro has talked about the D&D TV series before and John Wick scribe and mastermind Derek Kolstad had been attached.
Manga UK has issued a product recall for High School DxD season three for DVD and blu-ray.
Irregular Reconnaissance is a collection of mini-reviews and spoiler-free reports on some of the latest and some not-so-classic anime available on-demand today.


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A few ways you can get great food and drinks while also donating to Haiti disaster relief:
FIG Restaurant (Santa Monica): Saturday, Jan 23rd. All wine proceeds will go to "Share Our Strength"
Locali (Hollywood): Sunday, Jan 31st. 11am - 4pm, LA Bake Sale for Haiti.
Isla Cantina (West Hollywood): TONIGHT, Wednesday, Jan 20th. 20% of all food and beverages sales go to the Haiti Relief efforts. The restaurant is also offering a special "Haiti Relief" cocktail where 50% of sales will be donated.
Haven Gastropub (Orange): Monday, Jan 25th. ALL proceeds to go Haiti Earthquake Relief.
Susan Feniger's STREET (Hollywood): 15% of all gift card sales go to Doctor's Without Borders.
Barbrix (Silverlake): Sunday, Jan 24th. 5pm - Closing, 10% of gross sales will go to Doctors Without Borders to benefit the victims of the earthquake in Haiti.
Beach Pit BBQ (Orange County - 3 Locations): Thursday, Jan. 21st. 100% of food sales go to helping Haiti Survivors.
For a list of more restaurants donating proceeds to Haiti Relief check out the list compiled by CitySearch.


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GlobeStreet reports that Rancho Cucamonga is in the midst of “retail transformation.” Significant population growth has resulted in both residential and retail development in the city, and further demand is expected—including in the vicinity of the Victoria Gardens Mall.
A local newspaper, The Desert Sun, has reported that downtown Palm Springs is in the midst of an economic revitalization. Locals have noticed an increase in foot traffic with the opening of several new stores (including Starbucks, MAC Cosmetics and H&M), and further development is planned. The city held a “grand opening” for the area in late 2017, and Palm Springs city council member Christy Holstege has even referred to a “Palm Springs renaissance.” Continue Reading Palm Springs Retail Revitalization Potentially at Risk
The Westside Pavilion—the 755,000 square foot, 1970s fortress-style mall located in West Los Angeles—has been put up for sale by its owner, Santa Monica-based REIT Macerich Co. Tom O’Hern, Macerich’s CFO, predicted that the property would likely sell within a year. And although the Westside Pavilion is facing many of the same systemic pressures that other malls are facing nationwide, those are not the only reasons the mall is up for sale. Continue Reading A Unique Situation for a Unique Asset
The Santa Barbara City Council, in an effort to combat the retail malaise on State Street in Downtown Santa Barbara, has approved a pilot program that would streamline the permit and review process for potential commercial tenants. Continue Reading Santa Barbara City Council Strikes Back Against Retail Malaise
The Maui County Liquor Control Commission, which regulates licenses for the importation, manufacture and sale of alcohol within Maui County, has liberalized certain County rules on the sale of alcohol: holders of liquor licenses are now generally permitted to sell alcohol to customers 24 hours per day. Retailers had previously been restricted to selling alcohol during the hours of 6:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m., while hotels were permitted to serve until 4:00 a.m. Under the new rules, both are subject to the same standards. Continue Reading In Maui County, It’s Five O’Clock Around the Clock
Zara USA, Inc. (“Zara”), the popular European-based fashion retailer which boasts several celebrity clientele, has been targeted in a class action complaint filed in federal court, accused of allegedly carrying out a systematic “bait-and-switch” overpricing scheme. Continue Reading Tales from Zara: Exchange Rate Allegations
A world of driverless, or autonomous, cars is much closer than we may think, and it will leave an indelible mark on retail real estate development, according to a GlobeStreet interview with Angelo Carusi, a principal at architecture and design firm Cooper Carry. According to numerous automobile industry experts, driverless cars will be in use and on the roads within the next 10 years. Continue Reading Driverless Cars and Driverless Spaces: The Future of Retail
Prospective buyers of property for retail development face a plethora of issues when negotiating a purchase from a potential seller. Aside from the obvious issues of purchase price, contingencies and financing, prospective Southern California buyers are also confronting issues related to the availability of parking. As developers try to maximize their leasable footprint, there is a growing trend to look to subterranean parking, according to James W. Abbott, Jr., a broker at Realty Advisory Group in Los Angeles, California, who specializes in retail and institutional sales in the hot Venice Beach area.


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- Danielle Wightman-Stone |
Thomas Pink’s chief financial officer Andrew Merriman has stepped down from his role at the shirt retailer to join athletic fashion brand Sweaty Betty.
Merriman, who previously worked at Savile Row tailor Gieves and Hawkes, joined the LVMH-owned shirt maker, Thomas Pink in 2013 and was named finance chief responsible for growing the brand’s overseas presence.
Merriman replaces Mark Smith who left his role as finance and operations director at Sweaty Betty in August 2015 to join casual dining chain Pho.
Thomas Pink will name a new chief financial officer this month, according to The Telegraph.
This is the second addition to senior management at Sweaty Betty in recent weeks, in December the sportswear retailer appointed Erika Serow as its US president and chief executive to the lead the retailer’s American business.


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L'ABUS D'ALCOOL EST DANGEREUX POUR LA SANTÉ. À CONSOMMER AVEC MODÉRATION.
GANT Rugger launch at PHM Concept Store
On March the 16th GANT Rugger has launched its summer-spring 2017 collection at PHM concept store in Paris, 50 Rue … Read more
EDOUARD SCHUMACHER UNVEILS THE NEW LAMBORGHINI FLAGSHIP – AUTOFFICINA PARIGI
On the occasion of the official opening of “AUTOFFICINA PARIGI” flagship, Edouard Shumacher unveiled the latest Lamborghini dream cars. A … Read more
No42 4th Birthday X Modzik 51st Issue
On the occasion of the 4th anniversary of the No42 shop, MODZIK magazine was invited to celebrate the new release … Read more


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Microsoft has announced its new competitor against the popular Ai (artificial intelligence) chatbot ChatGPT. Bing is the name of an AI-powered search engine coupled…
Looks like Chinese internet giant Baidu is making good on its plans to completely dominate the Asian superpower’s mobile space. The company today released an HTML 5 Android browser that it reckons could seriously compete with similar offerings from Opera and Android.
According to The Next Web, the product has been in development since 2010, with Chinese and English versions now available for download.
Baidu is the predominant search power in China and consolidated its position after Google moved its Chinese operations to Hong Kong in 2010, following a disagreement over the country’s online censorship policies.
In fact, Baidu accounts for some 78% of search revenues in China. Being a superpower in the world’s largest online market may not make Baidu an automatic winner in the mobile space, but it will give it something of an advantage.
But it is also looking to expand its international portfolio. It now has operations in Brazil as well as a presence in Egypt through France Telecom’s Orange operator.
The browser reportedly performed well in the HTML5 test, scoring 482 out of 500 as against 371 on Chrome mobile, 349 for Firefox, and 367 from Opera. Those numbers do however come from Baidu itself, so a degree of scepticism should probably be exercised with them.
The browser expands Baidu’s mobile presence which includes Baidu Yi, a Linux-based OS, which is also capable of running Android apps and a mobile search product. The latter is set to be included in Apple’s iOS 6 when it launches.
The company is set on having its products on 80% of Android phones shipped in China by the end of the year. Aiming for Android is a smart move. Although the iOS 6 integration gives it a big bosst in the cool stakes, an influx of cheap Android devices has seen it become the dominant platform in China. And if Baidu wants to achieve the numbers it’s set out to, it has to follow the people.


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Covid pandemic has left travel plans in a tangled mess.
For many of us, the Covid pandemic has left travel plans in a tangled mess with what appears to be a new set of rules on cancellations, refunds and credits. Covering everything from airline reservations to property rentals, Lux Voyage Travel Concierge Virgi Schiffino (who happens to be a former lawyer) offers some excellent insider advice on getting maximum benefit with minimum penalty.
Tap the icon of the podcast platform you use and then tap “Subscribe.” Subscribing is simply a step-saver that allows new episodes to automatically be downloaded when available. Stuck in traffic? Just tap your podcast app. The latest SheSez episode is already downloaded and just a tap away.


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These workers in their 50s and early 60s are struggling to find an employer that will give them a chance.
President Obama told the press that the forced spending cuts, known as the sequester, will increasingly hurt the economy in coming weeks.
Some companies have built successful businesses on government funding. Now, as Washington gets ready to begin automatic budget cuts, these firms are taking stock.
Every summer, a few lucky students and young graduates score internships at companies that offer good pay, sound advice and a chance of getting hired.
When Raymond Wyrick loses his job next week, he will be among the first casualties of the $85 billion federal budget cuts that hit March 1.
Five years on from the crash, property prices have hit new highs. Where are home values rising fastest?
Every organization has its unwritten rules, but there are some generally accepted ways to handle yourself at work, no matter your job. Here are a few major ...
Smart new websites and apps that will change the way you save, shop, pay, bank, invest and more.
These workers clock in when others are celebrating holidays with family... and guess what? They don't mind!
Both the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 have their pros and cons, but there's one that's worth your holiday dollars.
There's one cardinal rule for holiday parties: celebrate in moderation. But why leave it at that? Here's the sage advice we have received so far.
Usually thought of as a budget brand, Kia has delivered a comfortable and engaging large near luxury sedan.
Thick smog in Shanghai has forced flight cancellations and school closures.
Small business owners are able to bring new, innovative products to market faster and cheaper thanks to 3-D printers.
|Overnight Avg Rate||Latest||Change||Last Week|
|30 yr fixed||4.48%||4.52%|
|15 yr fixed||3.50%||3.54%|
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|15 yr refi||3.49%||3.53%|
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The online retailer says his end was totally irrelevant to the association exertion. An Amazon representative who was driving endeavors to unionize laborers in Staten Island is making lawful move against the organization for terminating him a month ago.
Rashad Long, who worked the medium-term move at Amazon’s new stockroom in New York City, was terminated a month ago by one of his chiefs for a wellbeing infringement, as per a protest Long documented Wednesday with the National Labor Relations Board, a government organization that implements reasonable work laws.
In his objection, which was first announced by the New York Times, Long said that ending him for a security infringement was only a spread for the genuine reason: Supervisors were rebuffing him for standing up about working conditions at the distribution center.
Amazon distribution center workers reported in December they were attempting to compose with the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union. Long was the most candid about his disappointment at work. Amid a public interview in December and in media interviews, Long blamed administrators for constraining representatives to work 12-hour shifts five or six days straight. He said the organization treated specialists like robots, and he felt perilous in the stockroom.
After two months, on February 8, Long defied a minor security guideline when he grabbed a thing that had tumbled off a robot and set it back on the machine, a lawyer for the worker’s organization wrote in the protest, which was imparted to Vox.
Long was terminated “for taking part in secured, coordinated movement by standing up about the despicable working conditions at the Amazon satisfaction office situated on Staten Island,” the protest said.
Amazon denies the allegation.
“Mr. Long’s charges are false,” Rachael Lighty, a representative for Amazon, said in an announcement to Vox. “His business was ended for damaging a genuine security approach. All representatives, including Mr. Long, are prepared from the very first moment on the significance of security and their job in keeping up a sheltered work environment.”
The question is the most recent contort to the progressing work standoff between the world’s biggest retailer and representatives at the organization’s satisfaction focuses. Amazon has battled past association drives at its distribution centers in Europe and has subdued past endeavors in the United States. The result of the Staten Island specialists’ push to unionize could have an extensive effect on industrial laborers the nation over, gathering speed for others to pursue their lead in the event that they succeed, or hosing excitement on the off chance that they come up short.