From the Financial Times

Ever since it was revealed that Apple would venture into the automotive industry alongside the likes of other tech giants such Baidu and Alphabet Inc’s Google, much speculation has incessantly surrounded the rumoured iCar, codenamed “Titan”. Is it an electric car that will go head-to-head with Tesla? Will it be fully autonomous? How will Apple even go about developing a car given that it has absolutely zero prior experience in auto?

While Apple has unsurprisingly remained firmly tight-lipped over the details of its secret project thus far,  there certainly hasn’t been any shortage of signs pointing towards the company seeking to revolutionize the automotive industry. First, there was the strategic $1 billion investment in the ride-hailing company, Didi Chuxing, and now Apple is reportedly seeking to acquire the British supercar maker, McLaren Technology Group.  The rumoured $2 billion takeover would no doubt substantially bolster any ambitions that Apple has in store for its iCar.

According to the article, the move would make “perfect sense” for Apple because McLaren – a world-renowned car manufacturer with arguably the most advanced technological expertise – would provide it with “instant credibility” in the auto sector. Similar to its acquisition of Beats in 2014, Apple is likely seeking to tap into McLaren’s top notch engineering team that has previously been responsible for developing industry-leading “lightweight electric motors” and “on-board computer systems”. Such kind of experience would likely take years for Apple to accumulate internally.

From the Verge

However, aside from McLaren’s  extensive patent portfolio and R&D that Apple can integrate, is it really correct to label the potential acquisition as making “perfect sense”? In fact, I personally think its the very opposite. Considering how just a week before Apple’s rumoured interest in McLaren surfaced, it was being reported that Apple was shifting the focus of its car project, the move for McLaren can even be argued to be absurd. Instead of producing its own car, Apple now wants to focus only on providing self-driving technology for existing car makers.

Unless Apple is planning to only serve 1500 – 1600 consumers a year for cars that cost at least $200, 000, there is little reason for Apple to acquire or even purchase a majority stake in McLaren. A much more sensible option for Apple would be to partner with an automaker that will allow its self-driving technology to reach the mass market. For example, Uber has partnered with Volvo to collaborate on autonomous car technology and Microsoft has inked a similar partnership with Toyota.  That way, Apple will be able to take advantage of an already mature mass production supply chain rather than establishing one itself from scratch as it would have to if it acquired McLaren.

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In response to the proliferating influence of big data on reshaping the marketing industry in the 21st century, Dr. Geoffrey Moore – a world-renowned organizational theorist and management consultant – once famously proclaimed that “without big data, you are blind and deaf in the middle of the freeway.” Thus far, this striking forecast has indeed proven to be accurate as big data has been widely adopted in virtually every industry, ranging from healthcare to manufacturing.

From Jeremy Waite via Linkedin

However, despite all the anticipation surrounding the potential wide-ranging benefits of big data in an era which possesses the necessary computing technology to collect and process information on a scale never seen before , it does not appear that everyone is on board with the idea of their personal data being tracked by third-parties.

The recent controversy surrounding WhatsApp’s decision to finally allow its parent company, Facebook, to access its user data for ad-targeting purposes has reinvigorated a long-standing debate on whether the widespread mining of big data in today’s marketing ecosystem should be allowed to encroach on user’s personal privacy. If you’ve ever paid attention to the ads on search engines such as Google and Facebook, then you might have already noticed how they all eerily seem to have been placed there specifically for you. These “custom ads” are the result of information giants (Facebook, Google, etc) tracking and analyzing your searches so that they can generate ads that will more likely cause you to convert a final purchase .

From Dado Ruvic/Reuters via Telegraph.co

Therefore, it is very easy to understand exactly why there has been so much backlash over WhatsApp’s reversal of a once core company value to protect user privacy. By gaining access to WhatsApp’s one billion active users’ phone numbers, address books, operating systems, carriers codes, and device identities, Facebook will now allow its advertising partners potentially another channel to target consumers.

While from a ethical perspective there are many criticisms to be made for the fact big data has caused our privacy to be compromised, from an economical perspective, however, the emergence of big data has been nothing short of a boon. For this reason, I believe that despite the opposition, the adoption of big data will only continue to surge because the myriad of monetary incentives involved is simply too great for the industry to resist. According to BARC’s 2015 report, firms that utilized big data reported an average increase of 8% in revenues and decrease of 10% in costs.

No matter how unscrupulous it may seem for our personal data to be tracked for the purpose of ad-targeting, this is likely a new norm in an era where big data is considered a marketing essential.

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