Big Tobacco has been walking around with a whacking great target on its back ever since the medical fraternity first suggested that puffing away on 40 gaspers a day may not be the best possible thing for your health.
While litigation has failed to kill it off — and it has continued to print money in the intervening period — it is looking increasingly nervous at the approach of the disrupters, who have created a product that dishes up the nicotine fix without, they say, the downside of early and painful death.
The big players have been investing heavily in next-generation products, but they have been roundly outplayed by the arrival of Juul, which has captured 70% of the US vaping market since it launched in 2015. It has now started to roll out into other markets, including the UK and Israel.
Juul’s success is based on a combination of sleek design, a strong social media presence, celebrity endorsers and the fact that at 5% nicotine concentration, its pods deliver a kick like a particularly ornery mule.
The disrupters have a product that dishes up the nicotine fix without, they say, the downside of early and painful death
The firm has got the classic start-up backstory: two Stanford graduates scratching around with no loot while designing the prototypes; it’s now got backing from the likes of Tiger Capital, which led the latest fund-raising round that valued the company at $15bn.
Sales have multiplied eight times in the past year, and it may not be a complete coincidence that British American Tobacco’s share price has dropped 21% since the start of the year. There are concerns that its marketing is attracting hordes of under-age smokers, but it’s certainly not slowing down.
A person’s attitude to personal data and the way it is used by corporations may well be largely a generational thing.
Coming in at the more advanced end of the age spectrum, the primary question is: "What is data?" Then you have a cohort raised on George Orwell, who are innately suspicious of Big Brother and any possibility of a faceless corporation harvesting information for nefarious purposes. Finally there are the digital natives who have never known a world pre-Google, and who react to invasions of their personal privacy with a "Whatevs, Grandpa."
The good news for companies operating in the broad field of data analysis is that there is still a whole world of possibility opening up, with ever more sophisticated tools and applications to deliver a business edge in ways that continue to develop at speed.
PBT Group has about 25 years of experience in assisting companies to transform their data into business intelligence solutions. But while it’s in a tasty niche, it has proven to be less than reliable in churning out profits.
In its latest results the company stumbled to a total loss after tax from continuing operations of R139.4m, with a particularly poor performance from its Middle East and Africa segment, where it lost R46.4m and beat a hasty retreat from the region.
Performance in SA was more promising, with sustained demand for its services in data and application development, despite the constraints of a worldwide shortage of skills. PBT is looking to expand into the UK and Europe, but it needs to get the basics right if it is to continue growing.
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