Nothing delivers a rush of business adrenaline like the appearance of a new competitor. When Google bought Nest a few months ago, for example, every CEO with a stake in “smart home” products or the residential energy business took immediate notice.
When FedEx CEO Fred Smith was quizzed about the possibility of Amazon.com competing with his enormous transportation network by using drones to deliver packages, he dismissed the idea as “almost amusing.”
Yet as Managing Editor Kim S. Nash points out in her cover story (” Battle of the Archrivals”), some of the most effective competitive moves happening today in social, mobile, analytics and cloud technologies weren’t on anyone’s threat horizon until recently.
Given that reality, we wondered how and where IT was making a difference in three of the fiercest corporate rivalries: Home Depot vs. Lowe’s, Ford vs. General Motors, FedEx vs. UPS. “Technology boasts permeate the marketing and investment strategies for these companies,” Nash writes.
