Expanding locker services
Morrisons and Amazon are yet again forming a partnership, this time involving lockers. Customers will be able to collect their Amazon order at a Morrisons’ store, with hundreds of lockers being installed all over the UK. This will in fact be the UK’s largest collection of pick up points, showing Amazon’s drive toward offering of a variety of delivery service outlets. It helps customers who find it hard to obtain home deliveries, due to daily working commitments for example. By having lockers at their local Morrisons, customers can pick up deliveries while doing their daily shopping.
Morrisons believes the partnership will help them obtain more potential customers and impulse buys from these extra visitors. They hope it will help boost revenue and improve the company’s ability to better compete against other supermarket chains in the UK. For Amazon, it minimizes costs by eliminating the need to open physical stores; they have stated that Morrisons’ stores are in ‘ideal locations’. For now the partnership has potential and is beneficial to both parties, however things are open to change in the future with Amazon’s growing grocery platform.
Read more on the story here.
Creating commuter convenience
The future of the commute is being improved through Ford’s efforts to introduce shuttle and bike services in major cities. Last Friday, Ford announced it will be acquiring Chariot, a shuttle service company in San Francisco. The aim is to become not only an automotive but also a mobility company. Through this deal, Ford will be able to expand into five additional markets in the coming 18 months.
Ford’s vision is to eliminate the ever-growing congestion issues, solving the commute through fast, reliable and affordable travel. It is said that due to a growing population, congestion will become a problem, therefore the shuttle buses can counter this by taking approximately 25 vehicles off of the roads. The shuttle service will be tailored to the commuter and with the hope of adapting to their ‘real-time’ needs through data algorithms.
Ford also announced their partnership with bike sharing company Motivate. Their goal is to increase the number of bikes in the San Francisco area to 7,000 by 2018. The initial project of Ford GoBike will launch next year and will work alongside the FordPass platform. There will be further development to deliver real-time data to optimize the commute, with options such as weather conditions and bike availability.
Check out more on Ford’s mobility developments here.
Printing progress
It has been announced this week that HP Inc. will acquire Samsung Electronics Co.’s printer business for $1.05 billion. When the agreement is finalized, sometime in the coming months, Samsung has stated it will purchase up to $300 million worth of HP shares, forming a merger between the two companies. HP sees this as an opportunity to expand its portfolio and offer new printing opportunities in markets such as smartphones and tablets. The company will receive more than 6,500 patents from Samsung, guiding it in the development of such products as key laser technology. At the moment, HP receives this technology from Canon Inc. However, after the acquisition, HP will be able to use Samsung’s research to develop its own key laser technology, once again expanding its portfolio and becoming more independent.
With regard to revenue, HP’s has fallen 14% in the recent quarter, showing the need for more investments to be made in order to improve sales and product range. In reaction to this decline, HP is letting up to 3,000 workers go. The acquisition will help to improve business through new knowledge gained, and further expansion into the printer and copier industry.
Find more information about the acquisition here.
Have a nice weekend!
1 comment
Always a good read.
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