Subject: Walmart's headaches from competing with Amazon

$3.3 billion...

It's well-known that was Jet.com's price tag when Walmart went looking for its last shot at digital transformation and competing with Amazon.

Not only did Walmart acquire a different company, it acquired a completely different working culture.
Doesn't look like a typical Walmart office, does it?

Unfortunately for the retail giant, it was dissatisfied with the volume of drinking and swearing at the 3-year-old startup, so it went about changing the rules for Jet employees.

Turns out you can't simply make a successful startup do a 180 overnight. The employee backlash was so strong that the company happy hour is back on the calendar and the language at Jet is as coarse as ever.

Just another headache for a large company that failed to innovate quickly enough and was forced to accept buying a startup to survive.
Walmart's begging its partners to nix using AWS

When you're fighting a battle with a very crafty foe, you need to be as secretive and misleading as possible. At least, that's what Sun Tzu teaches and Walmart appears to be listening.

The massive retail machine is politely requesting that its technology vendors skirt using Amazon Web Services to when working with its proprietary data.

A spokesman said: "Our vendors have the choice of using any cloud provider that meets their needs and their customers' needs. It shouldn't be a big surprise that there are cases in which we'd prefer our most sensitive data isn't sitting on a competitor's platform."

B2Bs that start taking on Amazon will need to examine the same risks and finding alternatives (think Google, Microsoft, or Box). No need to give the enemy more ammunition, right?
Pricing discrepancy of the week:

In the unfortunate event that there's a fire, everyone needs the right tool to put it out. Enter the fire extinguisher, a fine invention that saves lives and works pretty much the same as long as it's maintained properly.

So, who's offering this essential safety piece for the best price?

This week's winner: Amazon, as always.

Perhaps Grainger's leadership team might need a 6-pack of these for the next board meeting.

Click here or the image below to get more insightful data!
Have a great week,
Alex
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