Archives for October 17, 2018

Domino’s laser-sharp focus on improving online ordering is paying off, thanks to the company’s investment in in-house technology.

The pizza giant reported a global retail sales growth of 8.3 percent in its third-quarter earnings Tuesday, as well as $786 million in revenue for the quarter. The company’s use of proprietary technology to provide a consistent experience for customers, regardless of how they order, has contributed to that growth, as pointed out by CEO Richard Allison. During the call, Allison, who took up the post in June, played up encouraging results of Domino’s latest tech roll out, a “HotSpots” capability that lets the customer get their pizza delivered to the closest designated delivery pickup point to the location pegged by a mobile phone. Domino’s has added 200,000 pickup points since the feature was added this spring.

It’s the latest iteration of an approach to pizza ordering and delivery that’s the most convenient for the customer. Other features like customer profiles, payment systems and platform integrations have been added over the past several years to make it easier for customers to order. These features stem from technology Domino’s builds in-house, which lets it make the best use of first-party customer data. According to a rep, Domino’s technology team is the largest department at the company’s headquarters, making up half of its total staff.

By focusing on building out the core technology on its own (the company works with partners on some initiatives), Domino’s can own the customer experience, optimize customer data and iterate quickly. The company has employed an agile, collaborative approach to innovation. Dennis Maloney, the company’s chief digital officer, noted in a recent blog post: “That’s meant getting rid of the silo mentality and establishing cross-functional groups so online, offline, research, and IT are all working closely together.”

Six years ago, the company revamped its online order strategy as part of a larger digital transformation. It realized that customers had to take 25 steps to order online, which led to a drop off in interest. It has since revamped that experience to focus on mobile ordering. For Domino’s, it has been an ongoing effort to design products that make the ordering process easier.

It invested in data-driven personalization, a move that began with bringing point-of-sales systems in-house and developing customers’ “Pizza Profiles,” which put customer preferences and payment information behind the mobile app. By 2012, its online ordering app was available on 80 percent of smartphones; a figure that’s up to 95 percent today, according to restaurant consultancy Aaron Allen & Associates. By 2016, Domino’s had reached what it calls “zero-click ordering,” letting customers order through Domino’s platform or platform of their choice, including voice assistants, Facebook Messenger, Slack, text and Twitter. Customers now have 15 different ways they can order pizza. Today, 60 percent of its orders happen online; the company doesn’t break out mobile sales.

“They have a vision that they settled on when they said their pizza wasn’t that great, and they revamped everything about the product,” said Ben Gaddis, president of digital agency T3, which builds customer service tech platforms for retailers and financial services companies, including Capital One and Pizza Hut. Domino’s revamped its pizza recipe in 2009. “Everything else they build is complementary to that [vision] — a lot of brands are not delivering on that.”

Gaddis explained that unlike some other consumer-focused brands, Domino’s took a customer problem — in this case, how customers could order and get their food delivered in the most efficient way possible — and built technology solutions on top of that. Many in the industry tend to build a technology solution around one issue area (for example, payments or loyalty) and then try to build experiences around that. Domino’s started with the idea for its experience first.

“Domino’s Pizza is not only simplifying the pizza-ordering process, but they’re making the process fun for the consumer,” said North 6th Agency chief operating officer Daniela Mancinelli. “Domino’s is paying close attention to customers who are adapting to digital to get what they want, when they want it, and wherever they are.”

Ryan Gilbert, a partner at Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm Propel Venture Partners, said Domino’s and Starbucks are both leaders among consumer-facing businesses because of the consistency and efficiency of the customer experience built off of a seamless payments system that happens in the background, much like Uber or Lyft.

“They’re making the payments element totally transparent and invisible — you don’t even know you’re paying; they happen in the background, which is where many successful retailers are trying to go.”

The Kx platform will analyse data generated by ‘smart factory’ sensors

Technology firm First Derivatives has signed a deal with South Korea’s Bistel that will see the Newry-based firm’s Kx technology used in Bistel’s products.

The company said it the first “Kx Inside” products would begin to hit the market in the first half of 2019.

Bistel supplies adaptive intelligence applications that combine human knowledge and advanced engineered to help factories detect, analyse, predict, and prescribe solutions to manufacturing. Kx will store and analyse huge volumes of data generated from sensors within these applications.

FD chief executive Brian Conlon said it was another important contract for the company’s technology in the industrial internet of things market.

“Kx provides higher performance, greater scalability and lower total cost of ownership than competing solutions and we are engaged in multiple conversations across manufacturing, and other industries, with potential customers attracted by these benefits,” he said.

This deal is expected to spark direct discussions with other manufacturers over the technology.

Chief executive of Bistel WK Choiv welcomed the deal.“[FD’S] highly innovative Kx technology will integrate seamlessly with our solutions to help factories to make quicker, better and more informed decisions on the factory floor, which in turn will lead to increased engineering effectiveness, improvements in quality and greatly reduced costs.”

Company is first Chinese member of Partnership on AI, following, Google, Apple, Facebook and others

The AI ethics body formed by five of the largest US corporations has expanded to include its first Chinese member, the search firm Baidu.

The Partnership on Artificial Intelligence to Benefit People and Society – known as the Partnership on AI (PAI) – was formed in 2016 by Google, Facebook, Amazon, IBM and Microsoft to act as an umbrella organisation for the five companies to conduct research, recommend best practices and publish briefings on areas including ethics, privacy and trustworthiness of AI.

In the two years since it was founded, it has grown rapidly, with more than 70 members across the private sector and academia, including Apple, which joined in 2017. But until now, it has had no representation from mainland China – although Hong Kong University’s engineering school is a member of the partnership.

The president of Baidu, Ya-Qin Zhang, said in a statement: “As AI technology keeps advancing and the application of AI expands, we recognise the importance of joining the global discussion around the future of AI. Ensuring AI’s safety, fairness and transparency should not be an afterthought but rather highly considered at the onset of every project or system we build.”

Chinese researchers have been stereotyped in the west as being more willing to play fast and loose with the ethics of potential AI advances, making the presence of a Chinese firm in the partnership an important step towards achieving global agreement about how best to use the technology – and what limits to place on it.

“I think it’s important to acknowledge that there are substantial cultural and policy differences between the west and the east,” said the partnership’s executive director, Terah Lyons. “China, in particular has been talked about as having very different ways of doing things with regards to technology development and deployment.

“But differences in culture and jurisdiction, [particularly those] related to the policy ecosystem, are something that PAI is very well-placed to take a lead on.

“I think Baidu is grappling internally with how they want to confront a lot of the challenges of dealing with machine intelligence,” Lyons added. “I feel like involvement in the productive conversations that PAI is facilitating will help.”

Frequently referred to as “China’s Google”, Baidu has been at the forefront of AI research in the country. Its self-driving car project led to the creation of Apollo, an open-source autonomous driving platform, while the company also runs DuerOS, a voice-enabled digital assistant, and Baidu ABC, a “smart cloud” aimed at businesses.

As a new season approaches, solutions such as data analytics, mobile apps, and augmented and virtual reality are proving a slam dunk for basketball.

When Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors takes a pull-up 3-point shot in the team’s season-opening game on October 16, he’ll be unleashing what ESPN writer Kevin Pelton has identified as “the most important shot in the NBA.”

For decades in the past, most attempts taken off the dribble behind the NBA’s 3-point line — at 23 feet, 9 inches — were considered terrible shots. Coaches implored shooters to get closer to the basket and decried long-distance shots off the dribble as reckless. But more comprehensive statistics show that Curry (perhaps the most proficient shooter in NBA history) scores on average 1.09 points every time he shoots a pull-up 3. That’s significantly higher than the leaguewide average of 1.027 points per shot, according to Pelton, and it yields an efficiency that requires defenses to account for Curry more closely than nearly every other player in the NBA.

This attention opens up opportunities for other Warriors to score more easily (leading analysts such as Pelton to extol the shot’s importance). Other great shooters, such as James Harden of the Houston Rockets and Damian Lillard of the Portland Trail Blazers have also made the pull-up 3 a weapon rather than a liability.

Detailed analyses of pull-up 3-pointers (and every other shot) are changing the way observers – everyone from grizzled coaches to couch-bound fans – see the NBA.

The ability to analyze action on the floor for insights (such as the value of a shot that coaches for years thought was a mistake) has been fostered by the emergence of technologies such as SportVU, a camera system (developed by a company named STATS) that shoots 25 frames per second and feeds into data analytics solutions. This and other technologies are having a major impact on every aspect of the sport.

When the NBA regular season begins this week, technology will play a role in how coaches break down the game, how players prepare for competition, how teams do business and even how fans see the action.

Advanced Analytics Enter the Court
The installation of SportVU cameras in every arena in the NBA (the first major sports league in the U.S. to make a major investment in motion tracking technology) has had a major influence on analysis of the action. The cameras track every movement of every player on the court for every game, delivering data such as how fast players move, how many passes they make and what kinds of shots they take.

This has enabled the league to develop statistics that have never been possible before, information that helps teams determine which players perform more effectively and which strategies work better. It also helps the league scrutinize the performance of referees and provides deeper engagement with fans.

“We are a league driven by data, and our expanded partnership with STATS provides our teams and fans with access to uncover groundbreaking statistics,” Steve Hellmuth, NBA executive vice president of media operations and technology, said in a league press release. “In this new era of statistical information, SportVU will be an invaluable resource for basketball executives and our passionate fans.”

Teams Shoot for Better Games with VR and AR
The NBA also is incorporating virtual reality and augmented reality technology into various operations. AR and VR solutions can help players improve their games and help teams improve their relationships with fans.

The Washington Wizards have been at the forefront of player training with VR. The team uses VR headsets to help players work on the mental aspects of the game. For example, reserve center Ian Mahinmi used a VR application to work on his free-throw shooting. A career 61-percent foul shooter, Mahinmi improved to 70 percent last season and has shot at an 87-percent clip from the foul line during this preseason.

The NBA also has used AR to engage fans, launching an NBA AR app in October 2017. The app, which is available for both iPhone and Android devices, includes 360 Portals, a feature that allows fans to experience significant moments from the 2018 NBA Playoffs and Finals.

“360 Portals will bring NBA fans behind the scenes and onto the court, providing a new way to experience the game through augmented reality,” said Melissa Rosenthal Brenner, NBA executive vice president of digital media, in a press release.

As the 2018-2019 season gets under way, technology will play an important role in nearly every facet of the game.