The new book "Colleague AI - Understanding Artificial Intelligence and Using it Effectively in Business"
by our Top 100 speaker Professor Dr. Stefan Gröner. Feel free to read into the second chapter - it's worth it:
Lessons learned - What Amazon and Alphabet have understood! C
ompanies like Amazon or Alphabet embody central characteristics that distinguish disruptors from other players. Countless books have been written about the mindset of the giants from Silicon Valley. Therefore, we want to focus here only on the three - from our point of view - most important points: 1. The early adoption of new technologies. 2. The consistent willingness for self-disruption. 3. The comprehensive alignment of corporate processes with digital possibilities. Let's start with technology. Both Amazon and Google emerged in the first phase of digitalization (online). They recognized the new possibilities early on and developed forward-looking products accordingly, such as the Google Search search engine or the Amazon.com e-commerce platform. Especially Google, due to the visionary power of founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, set the course towards mobile before the general trend: in 2005, the company acquired the then largely unknown company Android, which developed software for mobile phones. At that time, the exact direction the industry was heading was not clear to market observers, which was understandable at that time. The wake-up call would only come two years later with Apple's launch of the iPhone. In the same year, Google announced the development of the Android operating system as an open-source solution with members of the Open Handset Alliance. This collaboration, due to its open standard, allowed Android to benefit from innovations and optimizations by external developers and achieve significantly greater distribution. At first glance, this approach may not be necessarily logical, especially since the pioneer Apple had chosen a completely different strategy of a closed ecosystem.
However, if you have a bigger vision in mind, this approach is only consistent. Google also recognized AI as a future technology early on, even though market observers followed the first steps with skepticism a few years ago. What does Google want with a company like DeepMind? Amazon, too, correctly interpreted the signs of the times and had been building AWS as a cloud provider since 2006. Critics at that time questioned: What does an online retailer like Amazon want in the cloud? And especially the supposed technological playgrounds have proven to be parts of a long-term puzzle for both companies. This already closely relates to the second point on our list: the willingness for self-disruption. Undermining one's own old, well-functioning core business with a new product is a major fear for many entrepreneurs. This is understandable, but not helpful. If you don't do it yourself, someone else will - and that will hurt even more. Amazon's move into the offline world initially caused head-shaking: first, they destroy the stationary trade, and then they do it themselves?
And could Amazon Go undermine the delivery service Amazon Fresh? Google, too, in the course of digitalization, self-cannibalized on a large scale three times, parallel to the phases of digitalization: since the beginning of the millennium, the search engine business has been running excellently with an absolute monopoly, especially in advertising. When it became foreseeable for Google that markets were moving towards mobile, it did not hesitate to make the Android operating system available as open-source, even though it was clear that a large part of the search would shift from online to mobile as a result. Many critics came forward: Due to the higher costs for generating clicks in the mobile application, Google was endangering the much more efficient business of the online platform. However, despite the opposition from analysts and supposed industry experts, Google remained undeterred and was rewarded, as the anticipated disproportionate increase in mobile search volume significantly compensated for this effect. Would you like to find out how the story continues? "Colleague AI" is now available in bookstores.
