Cloud vs corporate IT: Insights into how the share-economy will play out?

When thinking about disruption we often attempt to look to the past for how it will affect our future. However, we can also explore how disruptive tech is impacting our world today.

Consider a recent WSJ article that gave us insights in to how cloud and mobile is disrupting "classic tech":

• EMC, Intel and IBM are being disrupted. The move to cloud and mobile is impacting the ability of these companies to meet earnings expectations. For example, EMC's sales of storage products declined by 10%, while Intel has seen an overall decline in PC Market sales.
• Companies are slashing their workforce in response to such trends. The shift to cloud & mobile is resulting has resulted in the hemorrhaging of 12,000 jobs, or 11% of the workforce, at Intel alone. 
• Overall decline in revenues/profits despite strategic shifts in product mix. IBM's cloud computing business grew 34%, while Intel's data centre business, serving cloud providers grew 9% (for more on this "corporatification trend" see here). However, IBM's total revenue fell almost 5%. Intel had a tough time keeping up with rivals like ARM who posted revenue gains of 22%. This compares to 7% of which the WSJ attributes a chunk of that rise to an acquisition Intel made. 

Reflecting on these trends, is it fair to think of cloud as the original use case for the share economy? 

When we think of Uber, Airbnb, etc., we see how users can use these platforms to monetize their excess or underutilized asset by renting it to others.

However, isn't that also the story of the cloud?

Amazon, Intuit, and other cloud computing companies decided to "share" their excess computing capacity to others. In a sense, we are talking about servers instead of houses, but the concept is really the same.

And this goes to my initial point. We are living through the disruptive impacts of cloud and mobile on legacy-tech and we can quantify, analyze and understand its impact.

Given this premise what does this above tell us about the share-economy?

Firstly, better utilization of assets leads to the sale of less assets.  This should be expected as there is a more efficient use of assets leads to  (servers, car, house, etc) less market size as demand remains constant. As I had noted in the post a few months ago, Uberization of the taxicab industry would ultimately lead to a fleet of cars that are owned by a company like Google - leading to a net reduction of cars used by society. GM probably understands this concept as they have invested $500 million into Lyft; a competitor to Uber.

Secondly, it illustrates how the share-economy is subject to concentration of wealth: the cloud computing landscape is dominated by large players, including Amazon, Google and Microsoft. As noted by Douglas Rushkoff in the following video, since these innovations emerge out of the "operating system of capitalism", they inevitably result in the formation of a handful of platforms dominate the industry and capture the lion's share of the profits.


(Also check out his book that discusses this in more depth)

Thirdly, its difficult for behemoths to adjust to these types of shifts. Despite Intel and IBM investing in the disruptive technologies, it's hard for them to adjust to the dynamics of the new economy. This illustrates how much more challenging it will be for those disrupted by such platforms to re-tool and compete in the landscape.

For accountants and auditors, one such platform to watch out for is Gigwalk. As per their website, their value proposition is that by leveraging the 350,000 “professional services” workers (see graphic below) the manufacturer or other upstream supplier can get visibility into the actual retail outlet. For example, Whirlpool wanted to “Audit the presence of its Swash product on showroom floors, communicating back to corporate compliance gaps in real-time”.

And the "starter Store Audit Package" begins at $10.

Creative destruction is not inevitable, but we should learn from the lessons of these tech giants and plan prudently to meet such challenges head on.

Will Accountants be Uberized? Part 2: Crowdsourcing and the rise of Pro-Ams

This is part 2 of a series of blogposts that I will write (aiming for 3 parts, but let's see) on how CPAs can be uberized. In this exciting installment, we explore how crowdsourcing and the rise of ProAms (professional amateurs) has altered other professionals, such as photography.

In the last installment, we explored how Uber was actually not a 1:1 replacement of the taxicab profession. Cab drivers fill a social function that ensures that people can from point A to point B safely, accommodates their disabilities and at a regulated rate. However, taxi cab still actively cash out now as we can expect Google to fill in the societal gaps that Uber appears to be unable to. Google could actually revolutionize car ownership by make their driverless cars they sell "ready-to-share" thereby enabling people to benefit from the share economy (imagine your car running around town earning money while work, sleep, play, engage in activism, etc!). Alternatively, they could go own a fleet of cars that people effectively rent in a way that's cheaper than owning a car altogether.

Crowdsourcing as Jeff Howe, who authored the original 2006 Wired article that brought notoriety to the concept, where he was trying to describe the phenomenon of using the Internet to outsource work to individuals, defines it as: “is the act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agent (usually an employee) and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people in the form of an open call.”
 In his book he highlights the following uses to illustrate the impact of crowdsourcing on how companies do business:

• Threadless: Is a great example of how the crowdsourcing brought life into the commodity business of selling t-shirts. In a nutshell, the crowd submits t-shirts designs, then the crowd votes on what designs are best and the designs that win are sold to the same crowd who already voted on them being the best! (For more details see the wiki article on Threadless)   

• P&G hires scientists via Innocentive to solve problems that they can’t. As noted in the Wired article, Colgate-Palmolive "needed a way to inject fluoride powder into a toothpaste tube without it dispersing into the surrounding air". So the posted the challenge on Innocentive and Ed Melcarek, who has Master degree that is related to particle physics, "knew he had a solution by the time he’d finished reading the challenge: Impart an electric charge to the powder while grounding the tube. The positively charged fluoride particles would be attracted to the tube without any significant dispersion".  

• iStock Photo: Instead of hiring professional photographers to make stock photos, iStock solicits photos from the crowd. The Wired article explains how the Claudia Menashe, director at the National Health Museum, was about to buy $600 worth of stock photos from a professional photographer Mark Harmel. However, she bought the photos from iStockPhoto for a fraction of the price at $1 a piece. iStockPhoto was snatched up by GettyImages “the largest agency by far with more than 30 percent of the global market, purchased iStockphoto for $50 million”. 

• Howe's book (see pages 61-63) also discusses how NASA relied on the crowd to classify the age of craters. A professional had taken 2 years to complete a similar study that was done by these “clickworkers” over a month with results yielding a “comparable degree of accuracy”.

Can accountants/auditors be crowdsourced like the way professional photographers were? 

It seems were crowdsourcing works best is an arena where you find hobbyists who do such things out of passion instead of obligation. My dad was a hobby photographer and although I am no way near talented as he was, I love trying to capture those unique moments. For example, I was able to capture this unique division sunset with my Samsung Note 4

In other words, if I decided to put my mind to it, I could be potentially competing with Mark Harmel. 

However, are there hobby auditors or accountants out there that would compete with CPAs? 

I have yet to find one!

There's a case that can be made for the impact of David Weinberger's "networked knowledge" (book, YouTube video below) on the dilution of expert knowledge in general (law, medicine, accounting). What he proposes is that the ability to share, link and debate information on the Internet transforms knowledge into a more fluid state in contrast to the static nature of books. 

With respect to accounting, non-professional accountants can network with each other to get an understanding on how to account for stock provisions, but would management or the SEC find it acceptable that a company determining its accounting position by looking it up on Google Groups?

And that takes us back to the issue we discussed in the last blogpost: when disrupting a profession it's not just about the production of a good or service but also the social function that the profession was fulfilling. Public accountants have a fiduciary responsibility to the users of financial statements to ensure that they are free of material misstatements. Failure to fulfill this responsibility can result in fines, disciplinary measures or even loss of one's designation.

However, as Google's driverless cars could step in where Uber can't, could IBM's Watson step in and fulfill that societal function that accountants currently do?

To be concluded next time...

Will Accountants be Uberized? Part 1: Examining the Google-Uberization of the Taxi Profession

This is part 1 of a series of blogposts that I will write (aiming for 2 parts, but let's see) on how CPAs need to take lessons from the Uberization of taxi cab drivers and see whether CPAs can themselves be uberized.

A recent article in the Toronto Star highlighted the latest turn of events in the battle between taxi industry and those that want to bring Uber to Toronto

What is Uber? 
Uber enables the "sharing economy" by bringing together people who need a ride with those who have spare time and a spare ride via a mobile application. In other words, Uber does for car owners what Airbnb did for homeowners.

Who's resisting? 
Taxi cab owners have fiercely resisted the arrival of Uber into their cities as it can dramatically impact their ability to make a livelihood. The article attacks the position of the cab drivers as follows; "For decades, Toronto idled as taxi permits were traded among owners for obscene prices, pushing up meter rates while service declined". Taking the argument to the logical conclusion: Uber breaks the monopoly by enabling non-traditional competitors to enter into the marker.

The argument from the cab drivers side of things is that they are a profession: they have to pass examination standards that enables them to be qualified by the public to fulfill their duties. Furthermore, as noted in this article on the Walrus, taxis have a public duty in terms of assisting the handicap whereas Uber appears to be shirking this responsibility:

"Then there are disabled passengers, who don’t fare well at all with the Uber model of transportation. Indeed, nothing demonstrates the fundamental gulf between market-driven and civic-minded car services as much as the issue of accessibility. From a purely commercial point of view, passengers in wheelchairs represent a niche market. And unless compelled to by regulation or personal circumstance, most drivers are not going to invest the $60,000 needed to buy an accessible van.
For the most part, Uber pretends that the issue doesn’t even exist: In California, where a 2013 law requires ride-sharing services to report data about disabled passengers, the company has stonewalled the government. In July, a state judge recommended that Uber operations be suspended statewide and the company fined $7.3 million (US) for violating reporting requirements."

These protests are not limited to Toronto but are worldwide. Take for example the following video posted by Russell Brand actor-turned-activist who brings the issue of cab drivers in UK to light:



Other issues to note:

• Is Uber cheaper? Not always. As noted in this Forbes article and this article on Business Insider, Uber is not always cheaper. Business Insider notes how that Uber you pay for both the distance and the length of ride. Although there are certain times that it's cheaper to use a cab than Uber, the reality is that it's significantly different in price between the two options and you need an app . 
• Taxis have to charge standard pricing, Uber does not. The company engages in what it calls "surge pricing", which means "[a]t times of high demand, the number of drivers we can connect you with becomes limited. As a result, prices increase to encourage more drivers to become available." This is in contrast to taxis which are regulated in terms of how much they can charge.
• Tax implications of Uber: Beyond the licensing fees a cab driver would pay to the municipal and other governments, Uber uses transfer pricing techniques - like any multi-national corporation - to minimize the taxes it pays. As noted in this Fortune article, Uber takes a 20% cut - meaning governments stand to lose the income taxes associated with this revenue that could have been taxed as income as from the local cab driver or the company that owns the plate. 
• "Creative destruction" meets nest eggs, loans and food-beverage cart vendors. The disruption of Uber doesn't just impact taxi industry but also the retirement plans of drivers, financial institutions as well as tertiary industries that are ancillary to cabbies. In Toronto, plates were pricey costing as much as $360,000 (but are now selling for 120K). The logic of paying such an exorbitant amount was that it would provide a nest-egg for the purchaser and his or her family. But they weren't only ones betting on these assets. As noted in the Wall Street Journal, BankUnited Inc. lent $214 million against 577 cab licenses (also known as medallions). Finally, as noted by the cab driver in the video above, there are the food and beverage carts, restaurants, etc. that serve cab drivers who will also face a decline as cab drivers exit the business. 

Uber vs Taxis: What does the taxi-cab profession add to society?

Isn't it essentially trust? 

Prior to Uber, we had relied on municipal governments to license and vet cab drivers to ensure that they would get from us point A to point B in a safe, efficient (e.g. the fastest route possible) and cost-effective manner (e.g. fair pricing). 

Not to feed into the classical techno-phobic mantra of fear-uncertainty-doubt (FUD) but Uber drivers have violated that trust.

What Uber essentially proposes, is that municipal governments can be dis-intermediated in terms of oversight of the taxi profession. 

In terms of trust, what Uber purports is that the rating that drivers assign to passengers and passengers assign to drivers can serve as an effective substitute for the licensing and vetting function. Although this may work for the vast majority of time, it does not help those that have been victimized by Uber drivers. To use auditing-speak, the rules & regulations around cab drivers serve as a more effective control around cab drivers than Ubers rating system. 

The other issue is that Uber does not seem to be able to replace the public service function of the taxi profession: they openly "surge price" customers and are stone-walling the government around how they can serve the disabled community. 

Google's Driver-less Cars: Taking Uber to its logical conclusion 

Although the cab drivers can have a solid argument against Uber in terms of trust and public service, they may not fare so well at the next incarnation Uber: "Google's Uber". This is where we take Google's driverless cars to the concept of and apply it to Uber. I had mentioned the implication of Google's driverless car in a previous post - examining the impact on car insurance and the industry that has grown up around it. But I didn't explore how such a future will evolve. Google can effectively fill the role of cab services as follows:

• Getting us there the fastest: With its Maps offering, we all have come to trust Google to get us to our destination the fastest which incorporates live traffic data. 
• Safety:  Google's driverless cars have proven to be safer than human driven cars. Assuming it is not taken over by homicidal program like Skynet, the issue of assault basically is eliminated from the equation. 
• Cost effective: This perhaps the most important part of the value proposition: Google's advanced algorithms could bring a level of optimization that would take the sharing economy to unparalleled heights. Imagine if Google sold driverless cars that would be earning money while the people are working. In such a scenario, the cost of the service would not only reduced by the amount of by the amount of wages and benefits paid out (regardless if it's a cab driver or an Uber driver), but it would also effectively share the cost of capital with the owner of the car. Alternatively, Google could offer, or supplement such an offering, with its own fleet of cars. Ultimately, would such an offering cannibalize car ownership altogether? If it's cheaper and faster to Google-Uber it, why bother owning a car and being held ransom by some insurance-feudal-corporate overlord? 
• Public service: Given Google's experience with working with municipal government via its high speed internet offering, it is uniquely positioned to see such a service fulfill its public service role. As noted in the previous bullet, Google's own fleet of cars could be special purposed to serve the disabled.  In fact, Google openly advertises its driverless cars as something that will give the blind their independence (see video below as proof)

In the next installment (or set of installments), I will explore the prospects of how the CPA profession can be Uberized and what we can learn from the Uberization, and ultimately Google-Uberization, of the taxi cab profession.