About That Microsoft & FedEx Partnership

Supply Chain
Written By Rick Watson

FedEx and Microsoft recently announced a partnership. Sorry folks, my personal "corporate BS" meter is in overdrive at the announcement.

Filtering through the noise:

  • FedEx was already an Azure customer. They extended their agreement.

  • Microsoft gets FedEx as a long-term partner for MS Dynamics to ensure it plugs in correctly.

  • FedEx committed to developing a new application called FedEx Surround, long on buzzwords but still vaporware. No customer will see it until later this year. Even then, it's about real-time tracking. That is the entire benefit of Year 1.

It's not about revolutionizing FedEx. The notion they are "working on this jointly" is somewhat laughable.

Advantage? Microsoft. Their cloud is not cheap.

Disadvantage? FedEx. Nothing mentioned here that Amazon doesn't already have or can develop easily in-house. Which means FedEx is playing catchup here.

I have worked at big companies for a while. These big corporate announcements are often dreamed up in the C-Suite as a way to generate momentum and good press to jam together two obvious problems (in this case: "we hate Amazon, and we need IT help"). Employees doing work are brought in much later and wonder why the CEO chose their vendor for them rather than letting the team do it.

Rick Watson

Rick Watson founded RMW Commerce Consulting after spending 20+ years as a technology entrepreneur and operator exclusively in the eCommerce industry with companies like ChannelAdvisor, BarnesandNoble.com, Merchantry, and Pitney Bowes.

Watson’s work today is centered on supporting investors and management teams incubating and growing direct-to-consumer businesses. Most recently, in partnership with WHP Global, Rick was a critical resource in architecting the WHP+ platform, a new turnkey direct to consumer digital e-commerce platform that powers AnneKlein.com and JosephAbboud.com.

Watson also hosts a weekly podcast, Watson Weekly, where he shares an unbiased, unfiltered expert take on the retail sector’s biggest players.

In the past year alone, Rick has spoken at many in-person and virtual events as well as podcasts on topics ranging from retail/ecom to supply chain/logistics and even digital grocery including CommerceNext IRL, ASCM Connect, and Retail Innovation Conference.

https://www.rmwcommerce.com/
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