Business as Unusual: Partner ecosystems for new markets and channels
Business as Unusual: Partner ecosystems for new markets and channels

In this instalment, we explore Apple’s and Square’s ecosystems. In the case of Apple, financial terms and business practices are balanced in Apple’s favor, perhaps too much so for partners and customers. In healthier ecosystems, a platform player supports customers and business partners without subjugating them. The platform provider creates a hub of value, typically with a compelling anchor tenant offering to the ecosystem at its core. Rather than vertical integration, speculative add-on businesses or features, the platform seeks best-in-breed partners to enhance the core offering via rapid technological integration. The differences are subtle, but the best platforms cultivate rather than dominate their ecosystems.

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Eric Dorre
Business as Unusual Survival Traits: Operational excellence, low cost and transparency
Business as Unusual Survival Traits: Operational excellence, low cost and transparency

The most common trait of companies that are prepared for “business as unusual” is that they are a low cost provider. Their core competency is end-to-end efficiency, enabled by not rooting out cost for its own end, but by focusing on activities that fulfill customers’ expectations whilst continuously eliminating inefficiencies that compromise that delivery. While there may be a relatively low margin business at the core, front-to-back efficiency enables scale and/or scope via massive customer bases or broad capabilities. Operational excellence builds moats that make it difficult for competitors to out-deliver on behalf of customers, and are quite costly to replicate.

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Eric Dorreinnovation, operationalexcellence, strategy, transparency
Business As Unusual: Immediate Innovators, Stallers and Washouts
Business As Unusual: Immediate Innovators, Stallers and Washouts

Innovating through a crisis is critical. It’s well known that innovation is required to stay relevant amidst ongoing technology disruption and through up-and-down economic cycles. But it’s even more critical in response to exogenous political or public health crises that can upend entire industries and ripple through the whole economy in a matter of weeks, not months or quarters.

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Eric Dorrebusinessasunusual, innovation
Enough to matter: UK workplace pension-savers overcharged, let’s put FBAs into perspective, Part IV
Enough to matter: UK workplace pension-savers overcharged, let’s put FBAs into perspective, Part IV

UK workplace pension-savers are getting robbed. In the UK, if you stay in your job, you can’t move your pension, and it costs you £30-40k over 20 years. If you live in the UK, compared to the American worker-saver, you are “royally screwed.”

If the FCA is willing to draw attention to 0.42 bps related to complex microstructure issues, it would do well to turn its focus on lower hanging fruit that is 150-220x greater in impact, and less debatable in substance.

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Eric Dorre
Trade offs and potential impact on market stability - Frequent Batch Auctions, Part III
Eric Dorre#fca, #financialmarkets, # #financialconductauthority, #fcainsight, #regulation, #frequentbatchauctions, #hft, #highfrequencytrading, #fba, #budish, #latencyarbitragetax, #equities, #trading, #marketstructure, #mifidII, #mifid2, #exchanges, #fxtrading, #futurestrading, #optionstrading, #institutionalinvestors, #derivatives, #forextrading, #markets, #clob, #continuouslimitorderbook, #continuoustrading, #discretetimetrading
The $5 billion heist that doesn’t exist - Frequent Batch Auctions, Part II
Eric Dorre#latencyarbitragetax, #equities, #financialconductauthority, #fca, #financialmarkets, # #financialconductauthority, #fcainsight, #regulation, #frequentbatchauctions, #hft, #highfrequencytrading, #trading, #marketstructure, #mifidII, #mifid2, #exchanges, #fxtrading, #futurestrading, #optionstrading, #institutionalinvestors, #derivatives, #forextrading, #markets, #fba, #budish, #clob, #continuouslimitorderbook, #continuoustrading, #discretetimetrading
Hold on… this doesn’t make sense - Frequent Batch Auctions, Part I
Eric Dorrefba, market structure, frequent batch auctions, equities, trading, fx, CLOB, continuous limit order book, budish, ESMA, FCA, Financial Conduct Authority, FCA Insight Occasional Paper, MiFID II, latency arbitrage tax, small beer, #fca, #financialmarkets, # #financialconductauthority, #fcainsight, #regulation, #frequentbatchauctions, #hft, #highfrequencytrading, #fba, #budish, #latencyarbitragetax, #equities, #trading, #marketstructure, #mifidII, #mifid2, #exchanges, #fxtrading, #futurestrading, #optionstrading, #institutionalinvestors, #derivatives, #forextrading, #markets