One Clayton Christensen point that I’ve harped on several times before is that as integrated structures within a value chain disaggregate into their modular components, new points of integration emerge to sweep value. In the context of public cloud infrastructure and the range of tools and apps flourishing on top, you might think of solutions […]
[OKTA – Okta] Owning Identity
Posted By scuttleblurb On In [OKTA] Okta Inc. | Comments Disabled[ICE, NDAQ, CME, CBOE] Exchange Operators: Fragmentation and New Points of Differentiation
Posted By scuttleblurb On In [CBOE] CBOE Global Markets,[CME] CME Group,[ICE] Intercontinental Exchange,[NDAQ] Nasdaq | Comments DisabledIntercontinental Exchange (ICE) Intercontinental’s multifaceted data and exchange platform began as an electricity marketplace, founded in 2000 by current CEO Jeffrey Sprecher with the backing of two investment banks and seeded by volume from energy majors Shell, Total, and British Petroleum (the collapse of Enron, the dominant electricity broker at the time, fortuitously diverted a […]
[WDAY, CDAY, PAYC, ULTI, ORCL, SAP] Workday and Competitive Dynamics in HCM
Posted By scuttleblurb On In [PAYC] Paycom,[SAP] SAP SE,[WDAY] Workday | Comments DisabledWorkday’s commanding position in enterprise HCM partly traces back to the design choices it made at the very start. At the time, behind most enterprise software products were long bodies of code interacting with huge relational databases (columns and rows that store customer data) made up of thousands of tables. The complexity of the application […]
[COUP – Coupa Software] Savings-as-a-Service
Posted By scuttleblurb On In [COUP] Coupa | Comments DisabledYou’re a middle manager at the branch office of a vast multinational. And you need an armful of binders for your team. Would it occur to you that a procurement manager at HQ has negotiated discounted rates through Office Max? Even if it did, would you know how to order against that contract? Do you […]
[DWDP – DowDuPont] Rack & Break; Part 2
Posted By scuttleblurb On In [DWDP] DowDuPont | Comments DisabledTwo years after it was announced, the merger between Dow Chemical and DuPont finally close in August 2017, creating the conditions for a three-way spin-off that will take place sometime in the next 2-4 months. This two-step merger/separation process was part of a grand design to drive scale among the businesses that these two companies […]
[DWDP – DowDuPont] Rack & Break; Part 1
Posted By scuttleblurb On In [DWDP] DowDuPont | Comments DisabledPart 1 is about the past. It will give you an overview of what Dow and DuPont were before their 2017 merger. Part 2 is about the future. It gets into the profit potential and valuation of DWDP’s constituent parts. Salient experiences create salient stocks. We zone out to Netflix on our iPhones, order more of […]
[PROTCT – Protector Forsikring] Insider Buying; Reserve Hits; Low Cost vs. Cost Advantage
Posted By scuttleblurb On In [PROTCT] Protector Forsikring | Comments DisabledIn the insurance industry, growth stories are to be treated with caution. When I come across an underwriter, like Protector Fosikring, that is profitably growing premiums by 20%/year when its peer group is growing 1-4%/year, the first flag I raise is colored red, not green. More likely than not, it is underpricing risk or accepting […]
[ADS – Alliance Data Systems] Value Delayed, Value Revealed
Posted By scuttleblurb On In [ADS] Alliance Data | Comments DisabledIn late November 2018, Alliance Data made an announcement long awaited by frustrated investors who, for years, endured missed growth expectations, operational fumbles, and a wilting valuation: “Alliance Data Systems Corporation (NYSE: ADS), a leading provider of data-driven marketing and loyalty solutions, today announced that it is exploring strategic alternatives for its Epsilon business, including its digital […]