Lidl owner launching its own rival to Amazon Web Services - Lidl’s parent company Schwarz Group is taking on Amazon by launching its own cloud computing service for third party retailers

Ahriman

Ahriman

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Lidl owner launching its own rival to Amazon Web Services - Latest Retail Technology News From Across The Globe - Charged

Lidl’s parent company Schwarz Group is taking on Amazon by launching its own cloud computing service for third party retailers. Schwarz Group, which owns both Lidl and Kaufland, is launching its own rival to Amazon Web Services (AWS) following the recent acquisition of software specialist Camao...
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Lidl’s parent company Schwarz Group is taking on Amazon by launching its own cloud computing service for third party retailers.

Schwarz Group, which owns both Lidl and Kaufland, is launching its own rival to Amazon Web Services (AWS) following the recent acquisition of software specialist Camao IDC, according to Lebensmittel Zeitung.

The acquisition, which completed on May 1, brings 70 cloud specialists into the wider group representing key “resources in an important area of digitalisation”.

Its head of strategy and business management Stefan Herold, who took on the role in March, will head up the new cloud service, which is understood to have been accelerated due to the coronavirus crisis.

While Schwarz IT intends to use Europe’s enhanced data protection laws as a key differentiator to Amazon’s dominant service, many have expressed concerns that AWS cash reserves and low prices could be major obstacles in securing clients.

In January, reports emerged that Lidl could launch an online delivery service here in the UK by the middle of the year.

In October that Lidl was advertising for digital managers for “exciting new ecommerce projects”, while its UK digital director Alex Murray alluded to online plans at an industry conference in March 2018.

That same year Lidl launched Lidl Digital Logistics Great Britain Ltd, adding further weight to speculation a UK launch could be close by.

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Looks like a pretty big deal. I don't think they are nowhere near the same league as AWS but who knows, they could prove quite efficient. I am not familiar with Schwarz Group, I had to look 'em up a bit:
Schwarz Gruppe is a private family-owned German retail group that owns and operates the Lidl and Kaufland brands. It is the sixth-largest retailer in the world by revenue.
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Competition is good.
 
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A former Schwarz employee comments on the Hacker News thread:

Former Schwarz employee here:
The company made SO much money in the past 4 decades with big box / discount retailing, you won't believe it. Salaries are off the charts (it would make senior software engineers in SV look pale). Hubris is as well. The only thing that drives reasoning are statements like 'we're not just some random company, we're Schwarz Group'. It's the poster child Corp described by Andy Gorves statement: Success breeds complacency, complacency breeds failure. Only the paranoid survive.

At the same time, skill level did not take off so much. Just to give you some insight: The Lidl online store team is not even aware of KPIs like CAC or LTV or even how many new customers were acquired in a given year. And it's a 10-year-old unit (still burning millions per year) .

The whole corporation is basically a 2-person-empire (the only two people that own shares and have taken the thing from 1 store to ~13k stores globally). They make every major call, and even random minor calls. It should be mentioned that they are 72 and 80 years old, respectively.

The Cloud idea very likely was acquired together with a former SAP cloud sales VP. Here is the difference: Core Schwarz DNA is selling packed soup to end customers at crazy scale, without even intervening in the whole process. Core DNA SAP is large scale enterprise sales. Go read the Stratechery posting about why Google failed with GCP to understand why Schwarz should not do this. When I once mentioned this in a LinkedIn thread, I was urged by colleagues to delete the comment because 'management did not like it'.

They are getting into the car sales and recycle business as well. Just to give you an impression.

Interesting times though :)
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This is going to fail miserably as not only are you competing with AWS you are competing with Microsoft which is a solid #2. GCP, Rackspace, etc are all number 30 and farther with micro% points of market share. Some ancient company thinks they are going to swoop into the market and buy their way into Cloud Computing? How many TENS of billions do they want to lose on this?
 
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Reverend said:
This is going to fail miserably as not only are you competing with AWS you are competing with Microsoft which is a solid #2. GCP, Rackspace, etc are all number 30 and farther with micro% points of market share. Some ancient company thinks they are going to swoop into the market and buy their way into Cloud Computing? How many TENS of billions do they want to lose on this?
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If they are clever enough to poach key talent from their competition, they could have a good chance.
 
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Ahriman said:
If they are clever enough to poach key talent from their competition, they could have a good chance.
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It takes more than stealing a handful of 'good' employees. You have to build the infrastructure, sign the deals for the global crossing connections. utilities(backups for those utilites), etc etc etc. millions of details that you need a dozens of people to manage even the most minute detail.

Amazon, Microsfoft, Google, Apple, and Facebook are STILL building , hiring, and growing and they've had decade+ head start.
 
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Reverend said:
It takes more than stealing a handful of 'good' employees. You have to build the infrastructure, sign the deals for the global crossing connections. utilities(backups for those utilites), etc etc etc. millions of details that you need a dozens of people to manage even the most minute detail.

Amazon, Microsfoft, Google, Apple, and Facebook are STILL building , hiring, and growing and they've had decade+ head start.
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Yea that's true, but my point is, they have to start somewhere.
 
Ahriman said:
Yea that's true, but my point is, they have to start somewhere.
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They have the money and they dont care about politics.

Reverend said:
Amazon, Microsfoft, Google, Apple, and Facebook are STILL building , hiring, and growing and they've had decade+ head start.
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They have the key talent of SAP, that combined with money is enough to get going.
 
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