Financials

Omni Bridgeway: Leading Litigation Finance

Tech & Entertainment

From WPP to S4 Capital

Consumer 

Naked Wines  

The Record Label Business Model

Shopify: Creativity at Scale

Amazon: Scaling the Logistics Network

Leadership & Culture

Transforming Sealed Air Corporation 

The Ferrari Philosophy

Travel

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

Just Eat Takeaway.com NV

Deliveroo

Uber

Jesús Rebollo & Jaume Bauda: JB: Thanks William, bye.

Jesús Rebollo & Jaume Bauda  

Former Head of Enterprise Sales, EMEA, Uber Eats

Online Food Delivery: Spain Labor Law & Market Structure Changes

Restaurant Brands International

Alisdair Murdoch: Everyone is in a race to sort out their digital platforms. Many have already sorted their digital platforms out and will use that digital capability to do that. First, you need a platform which can do click and collect, delivery and loyalty and once that is installed and robust, you can bolt on parts which work for your brand. You cannot afford to do everything and nor can your team cope with doing everything. Ultimately, if you are a reasonably simple operation, you will retain that simplicity yet balance that against customers wanting to reach you in different ways.

Alisdair Murdoch

Current CEO of Burger King UK

Burger King UK: Offline to Online Food Delivery

Ocado

Kroger Co

In Practise: It’s going to be interesting to watch. I guess we’ll both be following Ocado for the foreseeable future.

Matthew Walker

Former Commercial Director of Micro-Fulfillment at Dematic

Dematic, Ocado, & Centralised vs Decentralised Online Grocery Fulfilment 

Motorpoint

Vertu Motors

Andy Goss: But eventually, it will. You can sell the sizzle for a period of time but, eventually, investors want to see dividends and you only get dividends if you make profit. That’s a key part of this and that’s not going to go away any time soon. I think one of the reasons why the market caps have been kept down on some of the retail businesses is that we’ve gone through a period now where you’ve not been able to pay dividends. You can’t have furlough money from the government and then pay dividends. I think that will change more in 12 months’ time.

Andy Goss

Former Global Sales Director at Jaguar Land Rover

Vertu Motors & UK Franchise Auto Dealers

XPO Logistics

Amazon

Kuehne und Nagel International AG

Jean-Marc Francois: I don’t feel that, in 10 years, Amazon will see the need to enter B2B logistics for very big industrial companies, simply because they have many other things to do before that, which have much more profit potential than going into this market where the 3PLs are making 2% or 3% net. With the PER ratio that Amazon has, they need high growth and high margin to sustain its value. This B2B business, frankly, is a very mature industry, with strong players and it would be very costly for Amazon to enter this market, to become as big and as good as companies like GEODIS, Kuehne+Nagel and DHL, for a 2% or 3% net margin result. I’m not sure that Amazon will see it as a priority. But that is only my view; I’m no longer at Amazon.

Jean-Marc Francois

Former Director European External Fulfilment at Amazon 

Amazon's Outsourced Fulfilment Strategy: 3PL Customer Perspective

Cazoo

Carvana

Vroom

Neil Smith: UK dealers just need to do what they do well, adopt some of those new strategies, adopt some of those new processes and find their own level and what works for them, across those three buying channels which are traditional, click and collect and full online.

Neil Smith 

Former Operations Director at Imperial Car Supermarket, Cazoo 

Motorpoint, Cazoo, & Imperial Car Supermarkets

Burford Capital

Omni Bridgeway

Adrian Chopin: Where's the case regulation strongest on the asset class? I suppose you can make an argument for regulating where finance is being provided to a true retail claimant and he or she does not have legal advice from someone who's experienced at funding. But I'm a bit of a red-blooded capitalist at heart. I generally have the view that more regulation, more laws are not always the answer which may be surprising coming from someone of a legal background. I'm not sure that more law is always the answer.

Adrian Chopin

Current Managing Director at Bench Walk Advisors

Litigation Finance: Portfolio Construction, Case Due Diligence & Future IRR’s 

Flutter Entertainment PLC

Playtech PLC

Evolution Gaming

Stefano Busè: Both Evolution and NetEnt have been very successful and will continue on trend and it will be interesting to see how that evolves.

Stefano Busè

Current Commercial Director at Paddy Power Betfair

Building an Online Live Casino Offering 

Salvatore Ferragamo

LVMH Moët Hennessy – Louis Vuitton SE

Compagnie Financière Richemont SA

Kerring

Ugo Giorcelli: To not be relevant anymore, in the mind of the consumer. Losing momentum, being seen as a me-too product and getting to the spiral of pricing rather than coolness, which is where Benetton went and where we are trying to take it out of. This is potentially, but not to that extent, the risk that Ferragamo could have run if actions were not taken to revamp, for example, with Paul Andrews, a new stylist and a new management team moving away from there. Brand dilution and brand irrelevance, that’s the biggest risk.

Ugo Giorcelli

Former CFO at Amplifon

Salvatore Ferragamo & Luxury Retail Unit Economics

Diageo

Constellation Brands Inc

Mark Reese: It has been fun for me too and thanks for having me on.

Mark Reese

Former VP at Constellation Brands and William Grant & Sons

Premium Spirits: US On/Off-Premise Distribution

CarMax

America's Car-Mart

Ed McDaniel: As management, I don’t want to beat my chest and say we’re better managers than other folks, but we do a pretty good job of what we do.

Ed McDaniel

CEO of Holmes Motors

Carvana, America's Car-Mart, & Auto Subprime Financing

Doordash

Just Eat

Nimbus Kitchens

Camilla Opperman & Samantha Slager: I think it's interesting from a real estate perspective. Like we said, we're creating a new utility for what was retail space which, obviously, has been very devastated. I think we're coming at it from a different angle and we're providing a new type of use case for landlords too, to activate their spaces.

Camilla Opperman & Samantha Slager

Cofounders of Nimbus Kitchens

Nimbus Kitchens, Roberta's Pizza & Ghost Kitchens

Copart

PENSKE AUTOMOTIVE GROUP

Bill Knight: That’s right, yes. That’s exactly right.

Bill Knight

Owner & Operator of Bill Knight Automotive

US Franchise Auto Dealers: Shifting Omnichannel

The Gym Group

John Treharne: I think there are markets in Europe, generally. There are a number that would make sense. There are some markets that are more saturated than others. Germany, for instance, has many low-cost operators. On the other hand, Germany is a big country with a population of 80 million. Holland is much the same where it is dominated by Basic-Fit. I am not sure it would make sense for The Gym Group to appear in Germany or Holland but aside from those, there is lots of open space.

John Treharne

Founder of The Gym Group

The Gym Group: Low Cost Economies of Scale

B&M Group

Carl Allen: Not so long ago, I read something by someone who said that B&M should fix the roof while the sun shines, alluding to doing internet shopping. Well, no. They will do internet shopping or a transactional website when the time is right. If you are opening 50 stores a year, making a contribution within eight months, why do you want to spend millions on a transactional website for a small percentage of turnover?

Carl Allen

Former Operations Director at B&M and former COO at The Original Factory Shop

B&M Group - Business Model Pillars

EssilorLuxottica SA

Fielmann

Specsavers

Richard Holmes: They still have to employ opticians. They’ve still got to employ nice people to be nice to customers. They’ve still got to rent retail space. Unless they have got some secret that I don’t know about.

Richard Holmes

Former Co-CEO at Specsavers, UK

EssilorLuxottica, Specsavers & The Eyewear Value Chain

Naked Wines

Nick Devlin: 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.

Nick Devlin

CEO of Naked Wines

Naked Wines: Business Model Economics

Grubhub

Annanth Aravinthan: I think what you will see is a bit of rationality in the US, where DoorDash was spending super heavily. Uber has a lot of pressure on them to show a path to profitability, as well. Takeaway, once they have finished their acquisition of Grubhub, you will see Grubhub take a last kick at the can, to try and gain market share, outside of their core markets. That’s a question mark as to whether or not that will work. But I think they are in the high teens, low twenties, in terms of market share and so maybe they will gain 5%; it’s very unlikely that they will unseat Uber for the second place in the market. Largely, market share in the US has stabilized, as well. It’s going to be hard to really materially change those numbers.

Annanth Aravinthan

Head of Business Operations at Uber Eats Canada

Uber Eats, SkipTheDishes & Food Delivery Business Models

YouGov

S4 Capital

Google

Facebook

Julian Newby: Their solution would be, you can use our measurement outside of our channels but no one else will accept them. They hold all that data within their system. I would hope that some of the big measurement companies are able to start putting their pixels through the walled gardens. To be honest, it’s one for the advertisers; it’s one for the large clients to use their weight to talk to Google and Facebook and dictate that this happens. But they haven’t been able to use their weight on anything in the past, really. It will be interesting to see; I think it all depends on what direction Google and Facebook end up taking.

Julian Newby

Former Global Data Strategy Director at MediaCom and Current Director at YouGov

The Media Planning and Buying Process

Stryker Corporation

Intuitive Surgical Inc

Joahn Ginsberg: The challenges for the business would be to ever enter a market or really push hard a procedure that doesn’t have the efficacy it needs. The robot is just a tool; you put your hands in it and you use it as a tool. But it’s a big tool and it’s really daunting to a lot of people. If Intuitive pushes the wrong case and the wrong procedure on it, they don’t have efficacious outcomes or it’s not the right surgeon so they’re not using it the right way, that’s the biggest risk. If you start to have high adverse patient outcomes, you open yourself to litigation and there’s problems with the reputation of the product. People start to back down from it. They think, you know what, I never had this in laparoscopic; I’m going to go back to the old way. I think that’s the biggest risk, trying to push growth in the wrong procedure or the wrong area.

Joahn Ginsberg

Former Area Sales Manager at Intuitive Surgical 

Intuitive Surgical: Selling $2m da Vinci Robots