Edward Jones, a wealth management advisory from that prided itself on its interpersonal connections and face-to-face interactions, was eager to augment their services with AI capabilities. Built on 1-to-1 close-knit relationships, the firm had more than 15,000 offices conveniently located across the U.S. and Canada. Following the Covid-19 pandemic, Edward Jones' Managing Partner, Penny Pennington, believed their human-centric approach could be enhanced to better serve their clients by leveraging historical client and calling data to improve the client experience and the customization of advice. In particular, AI's ability to integrate all records of past advisor experiences could deliver hyper-personalized insights and financial solutions. Still, Pennington wondered if Edward Jones was deviating too far from its differentiated approached of person-to-person connections. Considering Edward Jones' original business approach, how might digitization and AI transform their competitive advantage? Was there a proper balance between the use of AI and human connection? How would Pennington ensure that the AI-generated expertise would properly represent and attest to each client's specific needs?
At Investor Day 2022, Block announced a new vision for its businesses: creating an ecosystem of ecosystems. Outside the norm for many public growth companies, Block had recently acquired a variety of new business streams in the creator economy and Bitcoin despite a volatile macroeconomic outlook. At the same time Wall Street was growing concerned about slowing payment volume growth in Block's core business streams and the new initiatives' added expenses. Would an 'ecosystem of ecosystems' strategy again build upon the company's strong track record and enhance its business model as promised? How could the company balance reluctant investors and Wall Street skeptics while investing in its new initiatives?
Anthony Scaramucci, Managing Director of SkyBridge Capital, considered whether he should officially greenlight the launch of SkyBridge's own NFT platform - Flatter NFT. He had led the investment firm to push first into Bitcoin and then Ethereum to make SkyBridge a central node in the crypto industry. He further believed SkyBridge could differentiate itself from OpenSea and other platforms by tying non-fungible tokens with fungible experiences. The technology behind the platform was solidly proven. However, in his head he weighed the tradeoff between launching a full platform versus other ways of investing in the space. With a potential announcement of the platform pending for the September 2021 SALT NYC conference, Scaramucci believed now was the time to make a decision. The NFT space swelled in users and value by the day. Should SkyBridge jump in or move on to another venture?
In 2015, Union Square Hospitality Group (USHG), helmed by famous restauranteur Danny Meyer, sent shockwaves through the restaurant industry by announcing the end of tipping in its restaurants. Under its new policy, Hospitality Included (HI), USHG would charge higher menu prices and pay higher base wages to its employees, replacing tipping with a system of revenue sharing. The change sought to reduce inequality between front and back-of-house staff and to provide more stability and fairness for servers, whose tip-based compensation depended heavily on the whims of sometimes-biased patrons. However, five years later, the organization was still struggling to implement HI, and evidence was suggesting that employees, customers, and owners were losing out under the policy in unanticipated ways. Chip Wade, the President of USHG and Patti Simpson, Chief People officer of USHG, had to determine a better path forward.