Plus: DHL eCommerce and USPS sign multi-year deal. And Uber continues to grow its stake in German food-delivery company Delivery Hero. Julie Chang hosts.
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[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_02] Many companies are struggling to scale their AI deployments or even move them past the pilot stage. Often the problem isn't technology, but organizational misalignment around goals, processes and incentives. At the break, join Caroline Roach, Senior Partner IBM Consulting to learn why.
[00:00:16] [SPEAKER_00] Here's your afternoon TNB Tech Minute for Thursday, May 28th. I'm Julie Chang for The Wall Street Journal. Best Buy notched a higher profit and rising sales in the first quarter. The electronics retailer today reported a profit of $276 million, up from $202 million a year earlier. Revenue rose to nearly $9 billion, slightly above analyst expectations per fact set.
[00:00:42] [SPEAKER_00] According to Best Buy, the strongest drivers of domestic sales growth were gaming consoles, computing, mobile phones and services. That was partially offset by a decline in appliance sales. Sales of emerging categories, including 3D printers and AI glasses also doubled year-over-year. DHL Group's e-commerce unit said it signed a multi-year deal with the U.S. Postal Service for last-mile parcel deliveries. The two parties previously signed single-year contracts, but the
[00:01:11] [SPEAKER_00] postal service has been looking to be more accommodating to its large customers, in part by signing multi-year deals. USPS said DHL e-commerce is one of its top three customers, and that the latest deal will bring in more than $10 billion in revenue. Amazon remains USPS's biggest customer. There had been some hurdles leading up to their latest contract with the tech giant. Finally, Uber is continuing to increase its stake in German food delivery company Delivery Hero.
[00:01:39] [SPEAKER_00] According to a regulatory disclosure, Uber now holds over 36% of Delivery Hero's voting rights, just under 25% directly and about 11% through financial contracts. Delivery Hero said over the weekend that Uber had made an indicative takeover proposal to all its shareholders valued at €33 a share. In response to Uber's offer, Delivery Hero said it
[00:02:05] [SPEAKER_00] was fully focused on executing its strategic review. Uber didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. The U.S. company, which has been building a stake in Delivery Hero in recent weeks, said last week that it didn't intend to acquire 30% or more of the company's voting rights. For a deeper dive into what's happening in tech, check out Friday's Tech News Briefing podcast.
[00:02:26] [SPEAKER_02] Scaling AI successfully requires more than the right technology. Here again is Caroline Roach,
[00:02:32] [SPEAKER_01] senior partner, IBM Consulting. The biggest thing that we were talking about a year ago is what model to use. And the biggest thing that I'm talking about with my clients now is how do I drive change within my organization. Companies able to identify, correct, and then
[00:02:47] [SPEAKER_02] avoid misalignment will be best positioned to deliver meaningful business value from AI.
[00:02:51] [SPEAKER_01] The organizations that are the most successful set very clear targets and have several priorities that are very clear across the enterprise. The technology is really good, but if you're not changing your organizational alignment, not incentivizing your people correctly, not looking at workflows,
[00:03:11] [SPEAKER_02] you're not going to see real value with it. Visit ibm.com slash think slash leadership to learn how building organizational alignment can help deliver AI deployments that scale and drive growth.
[00:03:21] [SPEAKER_00] This content was created by custom content from WSJ, a unit of the Wall Street Journal Advertising Department.