From WPP to S4 Capital

The Record Label Business Model

Shopify: Creativity at Scale

Amazon: Scaling the Logistics Network

Transforming Sealed Air Corporation 

The Ferrari Philosophy

Google Travel & Hotel Distribution

Aldi & Lidl: Discounter Business Models

Airbnb: Scaling a Marketplace

Outlook on Travel Demand

Auto Procurement Challenges in China

Hotels.com versus Booking.com 

Airline Fleet Management 

Spirit Airlines: Managing a Crisis

Luxury Watches: IWC vs Rolex & Cartier

Building Luxury Brands

Cultivating Mindfulness

Uber & Setting the Take Rate

Access Group: Enterprise Software Roll-up Strategies 

Distributing Luxury Products 

Netflix Culture and Scale Advantage 

N26: Disrupting the Banking System

Amazon Leadership Principles

Bacardi: Brand Building

Leadership and Culture

Young Leaders: Managing a Team

Belmond: Creating Extraordinary Experiences

LVMH Moët Hennessy – Louis Vuitton SE

Robert Koren: __Disclaimer__: This interview is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions. In Practise is an independent publisher and all opinions expressed by guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of In Practise.

Robert Koren 

Senior Vice President at Belmond, LVMH

Apparel, Accessories & Luxury Goods

Interview

From WPP to S4 Capital: Rewriting the Advertising Industry

S4 Capital 

Sir Martin Sorrell: I wouldn’t say it’s a challenge; it’s an opportunity. It’s the conversion at scale. We have to demonstrate that this model works at scale. We’ve already won business at scale. Now we have to not just show that it works in those cases, but go well beyond.

Sir Martin Sorrell

Founder of WPP and Founder, Executive Chairman S4 Capital

Advertising

EVI Industries: Running 28 Dryclean USA Stores

EVI Industries

Joon Noh: It is. All these casual clothes and so on and so forth is really killing our industry. Some people are used to being serviced. For example, you English guys like to drink beer. If you’re used to drinking beer at a pub or a bar, you’re still going to go there but there is no reason why you couldn’t just buy the beer and drink it at home. If you are used to having your clothes cleaned and pressed, being able to just throw them in a bag and pick up a nice bag full of individually wrapped and pressed clothes and you really like that, it’s worth it. But now, look at all the equipment they are coming out with for residential. They haven’t got dry cleaning machines for residential but they have dryers that you have to connect to water that have an extra cycle with a little steam, so that it doesn’t come out wrinkled, and they charge you more money for it.

Joon Noh

Former Owner and Operator of 28 Dryclean USA Stores

Trading Companies & Distributors

Diversified Support Services

EVI Industries & Commercial Laundry Equipment

OnStar & In-Vehicle Telematics

General Motors

Nick Pudar: You are welcome – thank you and I appreciate the opportunity.

Nick Pudar

Former Director of Corporate Strategy at General Motors

Automobile Manufacturers

Ocado & Online Grocery Economics

Ocado

Walmart

walmart

Tesco

Instacart

Marc de Speville: There are two risks; the stock market or the valuation risk and I guess the two are linked. Simply, there was very little competition a year or two ago and now there is a whole bunch of new competitors coming on with either existing hardware, being scaled down to MFC level or totally new technology which, on paper, should be superior in terms of scalability, both at the big and small level. There are far more new competitors and also, in the next year or two, I think you will start to see the cost impact of those who have partnered with Ocado who have a big store base. More competition, more options and maybe an awareness that the CFC model is fundamentally cannibalistic and can undermine your store-based model. The two don’t really fit together, strategically.

Marc de Speville

Founder of Strategic Food Retail and Partner at The Partnering Group

IT Services

Food Retail

Systems Software

CarMax: Competing with Carvana

Carvana

CarMax

KAR Auction Services

George McGhee: Online made things easier but also opened up the market. If you do not have a world-class experience you will shop on another dealership's website and do business with them. Call centers consistently touch the most people. After that, I would continuously ensure we consistently have our ear to the streets as to what clients want. If I were the CEO, I would surround myself with people who are able to do that.

George McGhee

Former Sales Manager at CarMax

Automotive Retail

Pricing Auto Insurance Policies

Progressive Insurance

Root Insurance

Copart

Assicurazioni Generali SpA

Allianz SE

Monika Sebold-Bender: It’s changing so much; it’s so disruptive. I have now been in the industry for 25 years and, to be honest, it hasn’t changed that much. The processes were digitalized; we are listening more to the customer. But frankly, the customer is not interested in insurance and we have refined our pricing mechanism but it is always this kind of risk that we have taken. In the future, I think it will really be very different because of these three trends: digitalization, technological progress regarding cars and the third one is climate change and the impact of that on our daily lives. Mobility will change. There will be new mobility concepts and ecosystems that, perhaps, we cannot imagine today. That can happen very fast, if the governments make a decision.

Monika Sebold-Bender

Former Chief Underwriting Officer, P&C, Generali Germany 

Multi-line Insurance

Property & Casualty Insurance

Auto Parts & Equipment

The Auto Insurance Claims Process

Lemonade, Inc

Todd McGrath: It does, because what you’re insuring, especially in property and casualty, on an auto, is people purchase something. At least in America, people love their cars, and even though it’s a five-year-old Ford 150 pickup, it’s my pickup and I put my love and care into it. I polish it, I wax it, etc. These people don’t want to be treated like, whatever, it’s just a truck, I’ll give you this. But a home, they invest in their home, they keep it up, they’ve improved it, they paint it and garden. If you’re going to treat them like it doesn’t matter, it’s just a roof, it’s just a house, who cares, they’re going to say, wait a minute, I’m paying you all this money for a premium and you’re treating me like you couldn’t care less. I’m just a number, not a real person, not a real profit.

Todd McGrath

Former Claims Manager at State Farm 

The Auto Insurance Claims Process 

Naked Wines: A Unique Subscription Model

Naked Wines

Luke Jecks: Yes; and showing them what a good idea really looks like. A good idea isn’t somewhere where everybody says, what a good idea. A good idea is something that actually gets implemented and hits a set of metrics and knows what those metrics are. Showing people that is critical.

Luke Jecks

Former CEO at Naked Wines, International 

Internet & Direct Marketing Retail

Naked Wine & Customer Lifetime Value

Neil Campbell: It’s partly that and partly a view on the type of product, of what’s reasonable. It really depends on looking at your own product and saying, what does it look like. If I was Hello Fresh, I wouldn’t be looking at 20 years; I would probably be thinking about 10. What is Hello Fresh great for? It’s a great way to get interesting meals for your family. You would only start it when your kids would eat that kind of food and you would stop it when they leave home. That’s probably eight to 18. If I was Hello Fresh, looking at lifetime values, I would probably be looking at 10 years, not 20, for that sort of reason.

Neil Campbell 

Group Director of Strategy and Performance at Majestic Wine

Naked Wines & Customer Lifetime Value

Domino's Pizza Enterprises: Running a Franchisee Store 

Domino's Pizza Enterprises

Domino's Pizza, Inc

Domino's Pizza Group

Paul van Eck: The franchisee has to be able to just grin and bear it for the period that it takes, whether it's six months or 12 months but once you're out, you're away again and you're in the next growth curve and those franchisees do pretty well. Let's not kid ourselves. There are plenty of Domino's franchisees that have made multi, multi-millions out of being a Domino's franchisee and there are some franchisees that have eight, 10, 15, 20 stores that are worth $700,000 or $800,000 per store and they're running 300, 400 employees. They're big businesses and it's the same with McDonald's, same with KFC and if you've got a stomach for that type of business, you’ll probably do pretty well.

Paul van Eck 

Former Domino's Pizza Franchisee

Restaurants

Domino's Pizza Enterprises: Running a Domino's Store

Watsco: A Customer for 40 Years

Watsco

Christopher Graff

Owner and CEO at Florida Heat & Air, Inc

Carvana, KAR Auction, & The Used Car Ecosystem

In Practise: Joe, this has been great – thank you very much.

Joseph Bannon

Former Vice President of Strategy & Marketing at KAR Global

Illumina: Grail Acquisition & Early Cancer Detection 

GRAIL

Illumina

Shilpen Patel: That’s the million-dollar question. We want to get this out to as many people as quickly as possible, but of course, you don't want to do that before you have good safety and efficacy data. There will be ongoing conversations with the health authorities to make sure that whatever comes forward will be both safe and effective for patients.

Shilpen Patel

Former Medical Director at GRAIL

Life Sciences Tools & Services

Biotechnology 

Illumina: Grail Acquisition & Early Cancer Detection

Domino's Pizza: 5,000+ Store Opportunity in China

Yum China

Steven Pizziol: Absolutely. We get all kinds of exception reports that say, okay, we’ve been late consistently. The other success story, I think, for Domino’s is that it has a global point of sale system. It is the same point of sale system that is in all of the stores. Everyone is being measured the same way and that’s important. It has taken 60 years for Domino’s to get to where it is. That is not to say that there may be challenge to the brand, one day in the future. But in the future, Domino’s will continue to be successful; they will continue to grow. They will continue to fortress. They will gain market share. I think it’s highly unlikely – unless the company is not managed properly – that they will diverge from the trajectory that they are currently on.

Steven Pizziol

Former Vice President at Domino's

Illumina & The Evolution of Next-Generation Sequencing 

Thermo Fisher Scientific

Pacific Biosciences

Dale Yuzuki: It could be. In the book, From Chaos to Cure, I have a cartoon with a streetlight effect, where a drunk is looking for his keys, underneath a streetlight, with a police officer saying, what are you doing? He says, I lost my keys. Where did you lose them? In the dark, over there. Why are you looking here? The light is a lot better here. That’s the problem. We look where the light is really good.

Dale Yuzuki

Former Director at Illumina, Thermo Fisher Scientific and Pillar Biosciences

Illumina & The Evolution of Next-Generation Sequencing

Copart Germany: A New Salvage Auction Model

In Practise: It’s going to be fascinating to watch.

Andreas Zeh

Former Director at Copart Germany

Pizza Hut & The Indian Pizza Market

Jubilant Foodworks

Yum! Brands

Merrill Pereyra: Having the principles of the three-legged stool in mind and the share of your pie makes what I call a successful brand in a country.

Merrill Pereyra 

Managing Director Pizza Hut India & Former CEO Domino's, Indonesia 

Pinterest: Middle of the Funnel

Pinterest

Facebook

Google

GOOG

Snapchat

Dutta Satadip

Former Global Head of Customer Success and Operations at Pinterest

Interactive Media & Services

POOLCORP: US Swimming Pool Distribution

POOLCORP

Joel Borzotta: It’s so easy to just get lost in the minutiae of pricing because it does play such a role in any business’s commerce, but particularly for a small business. It’s usually a husband and wife or two brothers or a father/son type deal, where they are trying to make as much money as they can for them and their family. If you can imagine being in that position, naturally, they gravitate to their cost position. I get it, but they also have to be willing to raise their pricing, over time. I couldn’t begin to tell you how much cost went up, over that portion of time. A scooper pump was probably $100, $150 and, by the time I left the industry, it was $250. Things went up dramatically, just in that time period. If you are the people we are selling to and you are not raising your pricing accordingly, then you are constantly losing money, hence the pressure on the price.

Joel Borzotta 

Former Business Development Representative at POOLCORP

Distributors