Coke and cannabis

Don’t you know I’m loco?

Hi there,

We’ve often highlighted the increasing pace of dislocation among the world’s largest companies.

So when we surveyed ~700 corporate strategy leaders on a wide variety of questions related to growth, we were surprised by some of the results.

One thing we learned is that corporations still have a very strong preference for building vs. partnering or buying.

More below, but first, some more data goodness.

Private matters

Private-label products used to be targeted at low-budget shoppers, but now they’re winning over consumers across the board.

Growth in sales of private-label products have outpaced the sales of branded products by 3x, and CPG giants have no choice but to respond.

From packaged foods to household products to cosmetics, we examine the six CPG categories that private labels are poised to disrupt.

Help us help you

As of today, we have 498,100+ subscribers on the CB Insights newsletter.

We should reach 500K in the next couple of days.

We’d love your help to get there a smidge quicker.

So if the CB Insights newsletter has ever:

• Taught you something

• Made you look smart in a meeting

• Given you a chuckle

We’d appreciate if you could forward this email to a friend (or enemy) and ask them to subscribe here.

We called it

Coca-Cola is reportedly in talks with Aurora Cannabis to develop CBD-infused drinks. Aurora shares jumped as much as 23% yesterday after the news was announced.

We previously looked into Aurora’s activity in the cannabis market and highlighted how cannabis-based drinks were coming. Check it out here.

Taco Bell is winning

If Michelin gave stars to tacos, then Doritos Locos is 3 stars.

But I gotta admit, I found the below a tad surprising.  

What do you think?

 Listen to your heart

The global medical device industry is expected to hit $59B by 2022. More and more patents for devices are being filed, and cardiovascular devices seem to be of particular interest.

We explore how Microsoft, Samsung, and other tech players are innovating in the cardiovascular device space.

Back to corporate growth

So we learned from corporate strategy leaders that they prefer to build, as highlighted above.

And there is nothing intrinsically wrong with building.

But given the current pace of change, speed is important.  

And corporations are not fast when they build.

In fact, according to the survey, 60% of corporations take more than 1 year to launch a new product.

And today, that might mean an insurgent entrant has lapped you.

Insurgents are not just startups — companies like Amazon are also on the minds of public company execs a lot these days, as evidenced by this analysis of earnings calls.

One example of such an insurgent is Alipay which grew to 250M accounts in just 4 years.

And this is in financial services — not “tech.” And now Ant Financial (the parent company of Alipay) is the 10th most valuable financial services company in the world.

Yes, things happen quickly.

We’ll be discussing how organizations make the build/buy/partner decision at TRANSFORM with leaders from Fidelity, ADP, and Bose, among others.

Scram, middle man

Yesterday, the merger between Cigna and Express Scripts was approved — an example of big companies taking on more roles in the pharma supply chain and trying to fend off threats from startups working to revamp how drugs are bought and sold.

We take a look at how the pharmaceutical supply chain works, the key stakeholders involved, and the startups and technology working to streamline the process. Check it out here.

What is real?

Augmented reality “darling” Magic Leap finally released its first product last month and the reviews were mixed. News coverage about AR has fallen since its 2017 peak.

At the same time, Amazon and Apple patents highlight steady interest in AR from some of tech’s biggest players.

We dug into AR market sizing and where the market is heading in a recent client note. Clients can read it here.

I got money in the bank

We’ll be at this year’s Money 20/20 USA, where the payments, fintech, and fin services spaces meet up to explore the disruptive ways in which consumers and businesses manage and spend money.

I’ll be giving the keynote at the conference, so if you’re in attendance, clap really loudly when I’m done. And laugh at my jokes. Cool?

If that’s not enough, T-Pain will be hosting Industry Night. Know what rhymes with “Wiscanson?” Richard Branson. He’ll be there, too.

Join us in Las Vegas October 21-24 and get $250 off your registration with code CBI250.

The Industry Standard

CB Insights data is the most trusted by those in the industry and the media. A few recent hits.

Entrepreneur. Jitendra Karsan provides tips for finding work-life balance and refers to CB Insights research.

VentureBeat. Kyle Wiggers (@kyle_l_wiggers) reports that AI healthcare startups have raised $4.3B over the last five years and cites CB Insights research.

Axios. Erica Pandey (@erica_pandey) writes about the trends that could be trouble for Amazon’s philosophy of endless choice and quotes CB Insights senior retail analyst Zoe Leavitt (@zoe_leavitt).

I love you.

Anand
@asanwal

P.S. This Thursday, September 20, we’ll be discussing how startups are changing fitness tech. Sign up for the briefing here.