The Battle Is For The Customer Interface

Think about these four companies and discuss

the questions in groups.

    Airbnb      Uber      blablaCar      Couchsurfing

1. Which of these companies have you heard of?

2. What do you think they all have in common?

3. Why do you think people use them?

4. Have you used any of them? If so, what was your experience of them?

Introductory reading:

Uber, the world’s largest taxi company, owns no vehicles. Facebook, the world’s most popular media owner, creates no content. Alibaba, the most valuable retailer, has no inventory. And Airbnb, the world’s largest accommodation provider, owns no real estate. Something interesting is happening. 

   

Reading 1

In this age, the customer interface is everything. There are two approaches. 

Full Stack Companies  

Full stack companies like Tesla, Warby Parker, BuzzFeed, Nest or Harry’s seek to    SURE    control by owning all layers. From R&D to marketing, from distribution to sales, these companies do it all. It’s a great way to keep profit in the family, yet it’s harder to scale and build. 

The Interface Owners 

The new breed of companies are the fastest-growing in history. Uber, Instacart, Alibaba, Airbnb, Seamless, Twitter, WhatsApp, Facebook, Google: These companies are    DESCRIBE      thin layers that sit on top of vast supply systems (where the costs are) and interface with a huge number of people (where the money is). There is no better business to be in. The New York Times needs to write, fact check, buy paper, print and distribute newspapers to get their ad money. Facebook provides a platform for us to write our own content, and Twitter    MONEY     the front page of newspapers, which happens to now be the Twitter feed. 

Discuss:

Which are "full stack" companies and which are "interface owners"?

The New York Times
EF
WeChat
E-bay
Tesla
Google
Amazon

Reading 2

The Interface Is Where the Profit Is 

The value is in the software interface, not the products. Uber provides average cars in a premium way; iTunes for many years took    VIRTUAL      all the profit made in the entire music industry by being just the thin software between the hard work making tunes and the money selling them. 

Big Battles For the Customer Interface 

In the modern age, having icons on the homepage is the most valuable real estate in the world, and trust is the most important asset. If you have that, you’ve a license to print money until someone pushes you out of the way.

Discuss:  

1. Read the last paragraph again. What will make one company succeed against others in this age? 

2. Is it a good thing if the world’s fastest growing companies don’t actually produce anything? 

Think of ways to continue these sentences. 

1. There are two reasons I didn’t finish the assignment, namely ...

2. Cars not only cause air pollution but they also ...

3. Most teenagers are strongly influenced by their peers, that is to say ...

4. Uber costs half as much as normal city taxis, in other words ...

5. His whole salary goes on rent and health insurance, so in effect ...

6. Average property prices aren’t showing any sign of decreasing. In fact,