Responding to e-commerce disruption: Should medical supplier Owens & Minor fight or embrace Amazon’s threat?

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Amazon has its eye on the healthcare industry. Medical suppliers, such as Owens & Minor, have the option of embracing and partnering with the e-commerce giant, or fighting back and developing their own marketplace. Owens & Minor seems to have chosen the first option. But did it make the right decision on the long term? What are the benefits and drawbacks to Amazon’s pressure? How can we predict the future dynamics of healthcare logistics?

Walmart x Google: The Customer Intimacy Challenge for Walmart

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Walmart recently announced a partnership with Google to enable voice-activated shopping for Walmart products via Google Assistant and Easy Re-order via Google Express. The data this partnership provides should allow Walmart to create a more customized shopping experience for its customers at scale; in other words, deliver on the "mass customization" model Amazon has taught consumers to demand. The question remains whether Walmart can effectively integrate real time, end-consumer data into its existing supply chain infrastructure to deliver on these goals.

JD.com: Pioneer of “Last-mile” Autonomous Delivery in China

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With the recent debut of a driverless robot delivering packages on campus of Renmin University of China, JD.com, China’s second largest e-commerce company has reveiled its ambitions of developing a large autonomous delivery networks in China. Will JD.com be able to handle all the challenges ahead in order to implement its driverless programs?