Amazon Steaks and Walmart Doctors
Fridays are steak night at our house.
There are two major grocery stores nearby, so we stop by one or the other to look for the best steaks on Thursdays.
It’s always hit or miss.
Sometimes they’re great, but sometimes they’re too tough or too fatty.
At 6:30 am last Sunday, my Beautiful Bride was on her iPad and stumbled across a new service called Amazon Fresh, which delivers groceries. On a whim, she ordered two steaks.
When we were leaving for church at 9:00 am, we discovered an Amazon bag on our front porch. I thought, “Well Amazon delivers quickly as usual. But I bet the quality won’t be so great.”
I was wrong.
They were better than what we had been getting, and cost about the same.
I doubt they’ll do to grocery stores what Netflix did to Blockbuster Video. But just as we’ve become addicted to Amazon Prime for just about everything else, I suspect we’ll soon be addicted to Amazon Fresh for more of our groceries.
Amazon is a modern example of one of the oldest principles of economic development. It’s something I learned from Mr. Kendrick, my high school history teacher.
The success and wealth of any society will be in proportion to how good its infrastructure is.
He explained how the transcontinental railroad led to a boom in interstate commerce in the 1860’s, and the interstate system did the same thing in the 1950’s and 1960’s.
He predicted that some other major infrastructure improvement would come along in our lifetime and change the way we live as much as railroads and interstates.
He was right.
The monumental change we’re now seeing isn’t a physical infrastructure, it’s the economic and logistical infrastructure of a company with the ability to deliver anything to your door quickly and cheaply.
Whether you love or hate them, Amazon has embraced change faster than any other company. And they’ll keep doing so.
For example, they’ve created thousands of jobs for drivers. But it’s no secret that Amazon is heavily invested in self-driving vehicles and delivery drones. As soon as those technologies are commercially viable, they’ll be laying those drivers off.
Regardless of what comes next, two things are certain:
1. Change is inevitable in business.
2. Those who adapt to change the fastest are usually the most successful.
In Servant Leadership,
Glenn Shepard
P.S. An even bigger change may be happening in healthcare. Walmart is now experimenting with full service clinics in some of their stores. Staffed with RN’s and MD’s, they offer everything from primary care to X-rays, dental, and even psychological counseling, all with upfront fixed pricing.
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