Robotic Bees? I Don't Get It!

Walmart has just patented autonomous robot bees. I don't know about you, but I personally find this disturbing. It's an example of how disconnected corporations are from nature. It's an evidence that greed still runs the boardrooms. And its a very bad precedent to other corporations.

To some people, this may seem like a great achievement in science. But when you peel the onion, you may find a sinister plan with a profit motive disregarding the environmental impact.

In business schools, Walmart is a star among MBA students who are learning how corporate decisions are made through case studies. Before Amazon, Walmart was the king, the talk of the town. Walmart was killing competition from every corner of the country including Mexico and Canada. Its business strategy is to deliver same quality (than competition) at low costs. It was able to achieve this primarily by reducing logistics costs and warehousing.

Walmart designed a very intricate web of logistical operations. It has its own fleet of trucks to move goods around and across its networks at a cost far cheaper than competitors. Owning its trucks allowed the company to eliminate warehousing costs. Not that it stores inventory in its trucks. It achieved logistical efficiency that made warehouses obsolete. The amount of its inventory it carries in its stores was also reduced freeing more capital to invest in process efficiency.

Like other large companies, Walmart was able to negotiate a lower price from its suppliers. What differentiates Walmart is its turnover. If you were a supplier, which customer would you sell your products to - company A that orders 100,000 toilet papers 3 times a year or company B that orders 50,000 10 times a year?

This cycle of process efficiency, low price, and invest freed capital to further improve the process is what made Walmart unique and beat out competition... Until of course Amazon came along and challenged the foundation from which Walmart built its empire.

Amazon and Waltmart are now in direct competition not just in the goods that they sell but more importantly which business model prevails. The huge competitive advantage of Amazon is that it has lower inventory costs due to its centralized store approach. On the contrary, Walmart has multiple stores strategically located in the country which gives Walmart a "faster delivery" competitive advantage. If Amazon delivers in 3 days, Walmart will do it in just 1 day. The last time I heard, Walmart is asking its employees to hand deliver goods close to where they live.

Its too early to tell which business model is superior but you can see the vestiges of corporate maneuvering in the news. An example is Amazon's acquisition of Whole Foods - not because the grocery business is profitable but to complete with Walmart footprint.

So what is Walmart doing with the bees? Its not very clear at this point but let me speculate.

Walmart for sure has invested millions of its "freed capital" into robotic research. I heard that Walmart is already using many robots to manage its inventories. Robotization of its workforce could be a play here to further drive down costs. The more robots there are, the lesser the costs due to economies of scale.

Another play is not to be left behind by Amazon. We know that Amazon is heavily investing in drone technology and guess what - artificial bee technology is not that different. It could even beat drone technology in terms of rate of adoption - bees pollinate while drones are public hazard. You the get the gist?

A third chess play is something to do with vertical integration. Monsanto is a big supplier of Walmart and we all know what Monsanto is doing with the bees to dominate the agriculture industry. Once bees are gone, guess where farmers will go to to pollinate their plants? Sharing the cost of research on artificial bees with its supplier gives Walmart an advantage over Amazon. After all, Amazon has 10 times more funds than Walmart invested on research and development.

Sadly, these corporate moves are not "seen" by the human eye and the only thing that we care about when we go to a store is the price. Sadly, people who run corporations are blind to nature's call. Sadly, consumers are blind to what corporations are doing behind the scene. This "blindness" or limited consciousness has been and will continue to be the root cause of all the problems we have and will have in this world.

Link to: Walmart has patented autonomous robot bees