Tag: BigTech

Apple-Goldman Sachs Partnership Could Steal Credit Card Market Share from Consumer Banks | Blog

Apple’s March 25, 2019, announcement of a physical credit card, called Apple Card, might initially seem like a strange step away from its highly entrenched Apple Pay digital wallet. That Apple and Goldman Sachs partnered on this initiative might also seem odd, as neither operate in the consumer banking space. But when you take a closer look, you realize this is actually a very well-crafted go-to-market strategy for both Apple and Goldman Sachs.

What’s in it for Goldman Sachs?

Goldman Sachs wanted to enter the retail banking space with a credit card. But the U.S. cards market is already crowded and growing at 6-7 percent, payments is a volumes business, and it would have taken a long time to gather significant market share if it went solo. And while the wallet market is growing fast, a standalone wallet is unlikely to make a near-term impact. Goldman Sachs chose the best of both worlds; a card in partnership with a wallet service provider. This helps it enter the cards market while getting easy access to Apple’s wallet user base and future proofing the business.

What’s in it for Apple?

For Apple, this physical credit card partnership opens the path to new customer segments, particularly baby boomers who are still more comfortable with a card and have been slow to adopt digital wallets like Apple Pay. It will also help Apple expand more quickly into geographical markets beyond the U.S., where it doesn’t dominate the mobile devices market. And because Apple sells the synergy of its ecosystem and ease of use, and is promoting the card’s intuitive design, simplicity, and transparency, Apple might also boost its device sales.

Apple Card comes with an EMV chip but there is no number on the card, which means that users will have to use Apple Pay to use the card online or for NFC transactions. The physical card can only be used at point-of-sale (PoS) terminals. This may translate into a higher fee for Apple Pay and explains why Apple chose Goldman Sachs over other banks.

Further, Apple lags a bit behind some of the other BigTechs in the war for data. For example, Facebook has massive amounts of social data, and Google has enormous quantities of location and search data. Goldman Sachs can help Apple with financial analytics, an area in which it’s not particularly strong, and having access to financial data surely gives Apple an edge in its marketing efforts.

All in all, we firmly believe that Apple Card is a sound and strong market entry and growth strategy for both Goldman Sachs and Apple. Indeed, this move could prove to be a strategic masterpiece in the dynamic payments industry.

What does it mean for BigTechs and banks?

We can expect to see BigTechs like Facebook and Google make similar partnering moves to enter the cards market and tap into the larger PoS network to attract new users with their marketing power and brand name cachet.

Banks need to move faster on their journey towards digital payments or risk losing market share to other more nimble companies or partnerships like Apple/Goldman Sachs. To accelerate their move into the digital payments space, increase customer satisfaction, and avoid making huge investments on their own, banks should strongly consider partnering with FinTechs, which can be more agile and respond faster to the changing market with the right infrastructure and technology capabilities.

What’s your reaction to the Apple/Goldman Sachs partnership? Please share your thoughts with me at: [email protected].

Apple Pay Timeline

Apple Pay timeline

The Rise of BigTech in Healthcare | Blog

A couple of weeks ago, my colleague and partner-in-crime, Abhishek Singh recapped his experience at HIMSS 2019, healthcare IT’s annual jamboree.

Now, I want to expand on one of them – how BigTech firms are homing in on healthcare (got to love almost-alliteration). Here are my key observations on how different BigTech firms are approaching the business of healthcare, based on what I saw and heard at HIMSS.

Google

The focus for the Mountain View-based company has been to develop a secure and compliant cloud platform, which has tools unique to the healthcare industry. It claims that the Google Cloud Healthcare API has significant momentum in the industry to really bring silos of data together. It has enabled FHIR integration as well. The general release of the platform is still sometime away though. On a lighter note, while Google is using AI to solve complex and messy problems in a range of industries, its HIMSS booth had a demo to help address the much dreaded fax plague in healthcare, allowing users to fax medical information to Google Drive, the company’s cloud storage service (as someone on Twitter pointed out), following Eric Schmidt’s observation that healthcare is still in the “stone age.”

Microsoft

The company, reinvigorated under Nadella’s leadership, is taking a smart approach to healthcare across two levers:

  • Utilizing broader technology bets with healthcare-specific use cases. It launched a service to help healthcare firms move large sets of patient data to its cloud (Azure) and connect with other systems. This is one of several attempts to connect patient health records in the cloud. It announced the availability of its healthcare chatbot in the Azure marketplace, as well as the launch of an API for FHIR in Azure
  • Leveraging a partner ecosystem. Microsoft is taking an ecosystem-based approach to accelerate healthcare adoption, using partners such as CitiusTech, DXC Technology, and Philips, to develop more cases on its technology offerings.

Oracle Health Sciences

Oracle is taking a dual approach – doubling down on a focused play in healthcare data and analytics, as well connecting with its life sciences focus – as the ecosystem converges. It announced integration between Quorum’s institutional review board (IRB) and goBalto, its recent acquisition focused on clinical trial site selection and activation. And it introduced Connected Care, a telehealth and remote patient monitoring tool initially aimed at improving stroke outcomes. Its other big focus was on Oracle ERP Cloud as the single stop solution to help unify a health system’s enterprise systems (HR, financial, supply chain) on an integrated platform.

Salesforce

Salesforce has bet big on verticalizing its CRM strengths to help deliver personalized patient experiences (CRM as the gateway to digital transformation.) It already has a bunch of use cases across the care lifecycle. Its focus is now on leveraging a partner network and adding more healthcare-centric functionality to its core set of products. For instance, it launched a feature to add social determinants of health information to patient profiles to improve outcomes. It also announced Fairview Health Services as a client deploying Health Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Heroku, and MuleSoft to centralize and manage patient touchpoints. Building from its progress at HIMSS18, where it collaborated with Cerner, Salesforce also announced new healthcare solutions using Health Cloud, built by consulting partners such as Accenture, Deloitte Consulting LLP’s Deloitte Digital, Huron, IQVIA, Silverline, Simplus and Torrent Consulting.

Uber and Lyft

Both ride sharing companies had a presence on the exhibition floor, and Lyft made a major splash and co-sponsored the opening reception as well. The common use cases they’re both addressing are around social determinants of health. An example is Lyft’s partnership with Allscripts (Lyft Concierge) to help patients get to appointments and lead healthier lives.

Ever since Amazon formally announced its move to shake things up in healthcare, the industry has been abuzz with an equal mix of anticipation and trepidation. While many are fixated on the idea that Amazon will take a Customer Experience (CX) route to healthcare, similar to its ecommerce disruption, I think this belief is misplaced. Why?

As we noted in our earlier analysis, Amazon is best placed to solve more messy problems in healthcare. Not many people realize how Amazon is already playing a role in reshaping healthcare’s supply issues. For instance, more than half of the products available on the Amazon Business platform are medical commodities such as syringes, IV bags, forceps, etc. It is targeting healthcare organization’s tail spend (typically 20 percent), which is focused on purchasing, pricing, suppliers, etc. This plays into its deep strengths in warehousing, distribution, and logistics.

At the end of the day, Amazon is just one of the growing number of technology companies looking to tap into the $3.4 trillion U.S. healthcare market. If HIMSS19 was any indication, BigTech is only going to accelerate its focus on solving key issues, with an ecosystem-driven approach. My bet for HIMSS20 is for someone showcasing curated Netflix content for improving mental health. One can always dream!

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