The Dark Side of E-commerce

As I mentioned in arecent post, Amazon has focused on the convenience of the customer instead of the convenience of their business.  Yesterday ’sNew York Times highlighted the trend for the hotel industry to do the same.In my post, I lamented that some industries including old school industrial companies and healthcare have not widely adopted customer focused technologies.  To their credit, Marvin Windows followed up with me and promised to accelerate their automation efforts.  I was impressed.However, all is not completely rosy in the transformation from brick and mortar to e-commerce.In an effort to reduce costs and presumably increase the value of an Amazon Prime membership, Amazon has moved away from traditional delivery carriers - UPS, Fedex, USPS etc. deploying its own delivery service.  The Amazon cargo vans seem to be scheduled such that there is no consistent driver who knows the neighborhood, the people, and property specific delivery details.Many of these drivers have no experience delivering to rural areas.   Many are terrified by the chickens, guinea fowl, and ducks wandering around Unity Farm.  I can tell you that poultry are not a threat to delivery people. Maybe they ’ve been watching too muchMonty Python.The drivers have decided that throwing packages out the window and speeding away is the best way to avoid contact with the animals.  We ’ve had packages thrown at the barn, tosse...
Source: Life as a Healthcare CIO - Category: Information Technology Source Type: blogs