This content was created by GHION.AI . This content was uploaded by GHION.AI . This is a YouTube talk titled "Diego Piacentini: The Myth of Best Practices" (created 2010-11-24) featuring Diego Piacentini presenting on why relying on so‑called "best practices" can be misleading for global companies. He advocates a data-driven rule—"everything is equal unless proven with data to be different"—and uses operational examples (logistics, payment methods, and checkout/delivery UX) to illustrate differences between markets, notably how China required building last‑mile delivery and handling cash payments/POS versus relying on existing carriers in the US and Europe.
Chapters
The myth of best practices. You heard many, many times the word best practices. Many companies, global companies, talk about best practices. The issue with best practices is that oftentimes they're just good intentions. So basically you see what the country does very well and you say, look, this country does this program very well. As a best practice, you need to try to do the same. In our business model, and I emphasize from our business model because there might be other business models where the best practices work, we basically say very draconian, in a very draconian way, everything is equal unless proven with data, and I emphasize unless proven with data, it needs to be different. The good thing is about when I joined the company that the company was so young, there was no legacy. There is very little legacy of every country doing their own thing and so that we're able to build this everything is equal unless proven that needs to be different. It turns out to be that all customers around the world being Chinese or African or European, they like low prices, they like the fact that we ship product fast and we like the fact that we have a lot of products. The basic part, as trivial as it seems, is going to be the same. But there are differences. There are differences in the way that people pay, in the way that people ship— companies ship products. And this is an example of something proven with data. In China, the delivery system is different than in Europe and the US. This is not a Photoshop thing. This is real. So in China, so for example, we have something that is completely different than in the rest of the world, which is we own a big piece of the last mile delivery. Here in the States, when you see an Amazon box, it's probably a UPS truck or a FedEx truck or a USPS truck or whatever local carrier. So we lay our foundation on existing logistic infrastructure. Same thing in Europe. Same thing in Japan. Japan, incredibly developed infrastructure. In China, we had to build our own delivery system. So these are Amazon employees that carry Amazon products and they deliver the products and guess what they get in exchange? Cash. Now they have a POS device for which a customer can slide their bank card or credit card and that's the evolution of that. And I actually did try it and I tried it myself and believe me, it's really, really hard. Especially when you have to carry a TV screen. And this is the way it looks, for example, our new scheduled delivery checkout page. So if you look at the checkout page, that's where the difference is. Here is what you usually decide, you know, what kind of transportation you want. If you want a free super delivery or you want to pay for next day, this is the way it looks like in China. So this is an example of something that looks different, but based on the fact that we had data to prove that it needed to be different.
