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☆ Here are Wednesday's biggest analyst calls: Apple, Micron, Tesla, Instacart, Spotify, Netflix, Cava, Target and more
▼ + stars: | 2024-11-13 | by ( Michael Bloom | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

Evercore ISI downgrades Caterpillar to in line from outperform The firm said it sees earnings per share risk for Caterpillar. Barclays reiterates Instacart as overweight The firm said it is sticking with its overweight rating following earnings. " Telsey reiterates Target as outperform Telsey says it is sticking with its outperform rating on Target ahead of earnings next week. Jefferies reiterates Netflix as buy The firm said the latest report of monthly active users for Netflix weakens the bear case. " TD Cowen reiterates Cava as buy The firm said Cava had a "flawless" third quarter.

Persons: Oppenheimer, William M, Brown, reallocating, Wells, Morgan Stanley, Telsey, Salesforce, verticals, Jefferies, Piper Sandler, Wedbush, Tesla, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, TD Cowen, Cava Organizations: Caterpillar, CAT, UBS, DTC, Bank United, Bank, Solutions Holdings, C Insurance, Barclays, CART, Starbucks, Bank of America, Netflix, MAUs, Micron, Apple, ISI, Services, Department of Government, White, Trump Locations: 3Q24, FCF

☆ As AI innovation takes hold, business leaders need to think cross-functionally and keep learning, says Maggie Hulce, Indeed's chief revenue officer
▼ + stars: | 2024-10-09 | by ( Julia Hood | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

Maggie Hulce is Indeed's chief revenue officer and a member of BI's Workforce Innovation board. Cross-functional understanding, Hulce said, is an essential skill for today's C-suite as executives navigate the innovation juggernaut of artificial intelligence. How are you and other business leaders driving AI adoption in companies? You can have lots of different functional leaders who grew up in and have expertise in their function — but when you're solving customer problems, you're solving operational problems. These are customer problems, end to end.

Persons: Maggie Hulce, —, Hulce, Chris Hyams, it's Organizations: Service, Business, Pathfinder, Companies, Technology

☆ How Group Black's $500 million promise to Black-owned media unraveled
▼ + stars: | 2024-07-24 | by ( Lucia Moses | Lara O'Reilly | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +16 min

Montaque cofounded Group Black in 2021 with the goal of directing $500 million in advertising money to Black-owned media in its first 18 months. With the pledge, Group Black laid out a plan to steer money to Black media owners and acquire media companies. Bough, Group Black's chief strategy officer, was a former Mondelēz and PepsiCo marketer who presented the CNBC reality show "Cleveland Hustles." Various outlets reported that Group Black mounted bids for media companies including the Sports Illustrated publisher Arena Group, the Paramount-owned BET, Vice Media, and Vox Media. Seven former employees described Montaque as an energetic leader but said he was ultimately ineffective in executing Group Black's mission.

Persons: Travis Montaque, Weeks, Montaque, Bonin, Black, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Richelieu Dennis, Dennis, Ursula M, Burns, Randy Brooke, Ursula Burns, Seth Kaufman, Moët Hennessy, Gamble, Ziff Davis, offsites, Gamble —, Spokespeople, Derrick Johnson, Lionel Hahn, Todd Brown, It's, Christopher Kenna, I'm, Samantha Skey, Black's Travis Montaque, Arturo Holmes, Vivek Shah, Bough, Sheila Marmon, Media's Refinery29, Erika Goldring, Richelieu Dennis who's, Kirk McDonald, GroupM Organizations: Black, Cannes Lions, Business, Black's, SHE, Cola, Walmart, PepsiCo, CNBC, Xerox, Getty, Moët Hennessy North America, Procter, Gamble, NAACP, Urban Edge Network, Corporate America, Association of National Advertisers's Alliance, Inclusive, Multicultural, Diversity Media, Penske Media Corp, Zeta, Fox, Everyday Health, Sports, Arena Group, Paramount, BET, Vice Media, Vox Media, Galore Media, Mirror, Marmon, Media Locations: GroupM, America, Soho, Manhattan, Santa Monica, Cannes

☆ Here are Monday's biggest analyst calls: Nvidia, Apple, Tesla, Microsoft, Amazon, Advanced Micro Devices and more
▼ + stars: | 2024-07-15 | by ( Michael Bloom | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +7 min

Morgan Stanley reiterates Apple as overweight Morgan Stanley raised its price target on the iPhone maker to $273 per share from $216. Morgan Stanley downgrades BP to equal weight from overweight Morgan Stanley downgraded the oil major due to "weak earnings." Morgan Stanley reiterates Microsoft as overweight Morgan Stanley said it has "increased clarity" on AI monetization. Citi names KLA Corp. a top pick Citi raised its price target on the semiconductor equipment maker to $980 from $760. Morgan Stanley downgrades Rocket Lab to equal weight from overweight Morgan Stanley said it sees a "limited catalyst path" for the space company.

Persons: Morgan Stanley, Apple, Morgan Stanley downgrades, TD Cowen, Teck, Baird, CARR, Zeta, John Donovan, AAPL, Wells, Tesla, underperform Wells, it's, Evercore, it's bullish, DDOG Organizations: Netflix, Nvidia, Devices, AMD, Citi, Electronic Arts, College Football, BMO, Teck Resources, JPMorgan, Biosciences, Zeta Global, Citi downgrades Bank of New York Mellon, Bank, New York Mellon, Apple, IOL, Amazon, UW, CIO, Susquehanna, Caesars, MGM, PENN, Bank of America, KLA Corp, OW, Department of Defense Locations: 2H24, Dell, Teck, TSLA, Las Vegas

☆ How a new adtech firm aims to help Amazon steal TV budgets
▼ + stars: | 2024-06-27 | by ( Lauren Johnson | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Gigi is a startup that aims to make it easier for brands to buy and measure streaming video ads with Amazon. The firm also provides advertisers with granular metrics like the incremental reach of a TV ad campaign, Epstein said. AdvertisementAs third-party cookies go away, Gigi's pitch plays up brands' first-party data to create more effective Amazon ads. For example, a Shopify merchant can analyze data from their Shopify website with Amazon data to find audiences to target with ads. Gigi wants to work with agenciesThe bulk of Amazon ads are bought using traditional shopper marketing dollars, but Epstein said that his firm is squarely focusing on TV ad budgets.

Persons: —, Gigi, Adam Epstein, Epstein, Gigi Gigi Gigi, Omnicom, Capital, adtech execs, Mike Baker, Rosco Hill Organizations: Service, Amazon, Business, Amazon's, Wall, Amazon Marketing, AMC, Ascential, Ascential's, Golden Ventures, AperiamVentures Locations: Rosco

☆ Salesforce CEO explains why his company's Einstein Copilot product is unique
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-28 | by ( Julie Coleman | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff told CNBC's Jim Cramer on Wednesday that his company's Einstein Copilot product is different from other artificial intelligence programs because of the way it uses customer data to make decisions. "We already have tremendous user interfaces at Salesforce," Benioff said. "Our Sales Cloud, our Service Cloud, our Marketing Cloud, even Tableau, even Slack, these are amazing ways to talk to that data. He elaborated, saying Salesforce is built "on a rich fabric of data and metadata," and it serves companies including Amazon , IHG and Schneider Electric . Salesforce reported earnings Wednesday, and while earnings surpassed Wall Street's expectations, revenue guidance came in weak.

Persons: Marc Benioff, CNBC's Jim Cramer, Einstein, Benioff, Slack Organizations: Amazon, Schneider

☆ The Super Bowl menu has changed. Here's what people are buying and how much they're spending.
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-09 | by ( Juliana Kaplan | Cork Gaines | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

In total, American households are expected to spend a total of around $86 on average for their Super Bowl necessities. The National Restaurant Association said that Super Bowl food habits are shifting a little this year. For example, Kennedy said that women, by a sprawling margin, view chips and salsa as Super Bowl must-haves and feel similarly about nachos. While Super Bowl ticket prices have fallen a bit heading up to the Super Bowl, they opened on the day after the AFC and NFC Championship games at some of the highest levels in history. They are predicting a record TV audience for this year's Super Bowl because of her impact.

Persons: —, “, ” Sean Kennedy, Taylor Swift, Kennedy, it’s, Swift, David Steinberg, Clark Hunt Organizations: Service, Super, National Retail Federation, Business, National Restaurant Association, Super Bowl, of Commerce, Seton Hall, Poll, AFC, NFC, Zeta Global, CNBC, Chiefs, Bowl LIV, 49ers

☆ Stagwell's Mark Penn says companies should use AI to connect holistically with consumers
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-11 | by ( Julia Hood | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

BI spoke to Stagwell CEO, Mark Penn, in December about the potential of AI, its applications at Stagwell, and why b-to-c companies need to focus use AI to connect with customers. Unlike the metaverse or some other trends, the power of AI, what it can do, and what companies need to do to harness it is real. If you look at advertising itself and what it takes to really generate tier-one [premium] content, I always say AI is having an entire group of C students. Say you're an office supply company. I don't think companies put as much time into that.

Persons: —, Mark Penn, PRophet, there's, you'll Organizations: Service, CES, Locaria, Stagwell, Business, Google

☆ After Salesforce hiked its product prices by an average of 9%, some unhappy customers are considering switching to Microsoft or HubSpot
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-30 | by ( Ellen Thomas | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Already, consultants see Salesforce customers scrambling to address these price hikes. Jon Winsett, CEO and managing partner at Atlanta-based IT spending advisory NPI Financial, said his firm immediately alerted all its clients to the price increase news. "We were working with one of our accounts right as the price increase was announced, and they were gobsmacked," Winsett said. Customer relationship management software company HubSpot uses customer self-service to sell its software — a stark contrast from Salesforce's sales-driven culture. You don't need a full-time Salesforce admin when you're a HubSpot customer.

Persons: Salesforce, Marc Benioff, Adam Mansfield, — they're, HubSpot, Bernstein, Mark Moerdler, Moerdler, Jon Winsett, Winsett, Microsoft Mansfield, Mansfield, Satya Nadella Justin Sullivan, OpenAI, I've, we're, you've, that's, Yamini Rangan, HubSpot Matt Winkelmeyer, Rishi Jaluria, he'd, Jaluria Organizations: Wall Street, Microsoft, Cloud, Industries, Management, RBC Capital, Salesforce Locations: Salesforce, Atlanta, ChatGPT

☆ How 5 companies are using pricing power to protect profits during high inflation
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-24 | by ( Paulina Likos | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +10 min

A select group of our Club holdings have recently demonstrated durable pricing power to protect profits during what continues to be a high inflation environment. For companies, elevated inflation means higher input costs — higher costs on the goods and services required to run their businesses. In a recent note, UBS acknowledged, "Inflation may trend back toward the Fed's target sooner than expected reducing the relative advantage of companies with pricing power." In fact, UBS believes that "companies with pricing power have the potential to outperform the broader market in the months ahead." Microsoft's pricing power comes down to the simple fact that they have positioned themselves as a core backbone of global productivity.

Persons: Andrew Bonfield, Jim Umpleby, we'll, Gamble, Gillette, Jon Moeller, Linde, Matthew White, White, Salesforce, Jim Cramer's, Jim Cramer, Jim, Procter & Gamble, Justin Sullivan Organizations: Federal Reserve, UBS, Caterpillar, Procter, Gamble, Linde, LIN, Microsoft, Construction Industries, Resource Industries, Energy, Transportation, Procter & Gamble, Health, Care, Investment, Management, Services Cloud, Cloud, Industries, CNBC, Procter & Locations: U.S, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Greenbrae , California

☆ A former executive says he was fired by Salesforce after raising concerns about software said to process and organize customer data in milliseconds: 'It was all a lie.'
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-12 | by ( Lloyd Lee | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

In 2022, Salesforce unveiled software that processes and organize customer data in "real-time." Salesforce promoted that its CDP can process large amounts of customer data in "real-time," meaning in "milliseconds," the lawsuit says. One benefit to real-time data processing that Salesforce advertises, for example, is when a hospital may need the most up-to-date information on a patient regarding urgent healthcare needs. Salesforce unveiled its CDP software, Genie, to the public on September 20, 2022. According to the court documents, Salesforce said it was the "biggest announcement" it had made since the founders started the company.

Persons: Salesforce, Karl Wirth, Wirth, Lidiane Jones, Jones, Parker Harris, Harris, Slack, Salesforces Organizations: Morning, Genie, Plaintiff, Securities and Exchange Commission, Slack Technologies

☆ Microsoft is touting the size and growth rate of its Salesforce rival Dynamics
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-03 | by ( Jordan Novet | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

Microsoft still isn't disclosing the size of its Azure business, providing only the growth rate for the cloud business and leaving investors guessing how its revenue compares to Amazon and Google . But in its much smaller Dynamics business, which includes software for salespeople, marketers and customer-service agents, Microsoft has suddenly opted for greater transparency. In its annual report to investors last week, Microsoft disclosed Dynamics revenue in a table alongside other products for the first time. He also noted that Microsoft Sales Copilot, a tool capable of writing business-oriented email drafts, integrates with Dynamics as well as Salesforce's software. Partly motivated by Microsoft's AI capabilities, some companies are switching to Dynamics from Salesforce, said Manny Medina, CEO of sales software startup Outreach.

Persons: Satya Nadella, Flipkart, Nadella, Manny Medina, Medina, Salesforce, Bret Taylor, Marc Benioff, they're, Doug Burgum, Adam Mansfield, Mansfield Organizations: Microsoft Corp, Microsoft, Google, Dynamics, Products, Cloud Services, Technology, IDC, Oracle, SAP, CNBC, Industry, Marketing, Commerce Cloud, Plains Software, North, Republican Locations: Mumbai, India, MSFT, Marketing Cloud, Commerce, North Dakota, Great Plains

☆ Top Wall Street analysts see solid potential in these five stocks
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-23 | by ( Tipranks.Com Staff | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

Bachman reiterated a buy rating on Salesforce and raised his price target to $255 from $245. DellPersonal computer makers, including Dell (DELL), have been facing significant headwinds, as the demand for desktops and laptops plunged following a pandemic-driven rush. Ho raised the price target on DELL to $60 from $48 and reiterated a buy rating. In line with his bullish stance, Rakesh increased his price target for RIVN to $30 from $27 and maintained a buy rating. Rakesh raised his price target for MBLY to $48 from $43 and reiterated a buy rating on the stock.

Persons: Mike Blake, Keith Bachman, Salesforce, Bachman, Sidney Ho, Ho, Rivian, Vijay Rakesh, Rakesh, Mobileye, bode Organizations: Reuters, BMO Capital, Service, Dell, Deutsche Bank, Solutions, Gartner, DELL, Mobileye, EV, Geely Automobile, Porsche, Volkswagen Locations: San Diego , U.S, 2H23E, Israel

☆ Salesforce raises prices for the first time in 7 years. What it means for the stock
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-11 | by ( Kevin Stankiewicz | In Kevinstankiewicz | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

Salesforce (CRM) on Tuesday took another step to deliver profitable growth — a welcome development for investors, like us, which sent its stock price higher. Investors appeared upbeat around the list price increases, which Salesforce said are the first in seven years. "I don't expect it to impact churn much," said Berg, who has a buy rating and $230-per-share price target on Salesforce stock. It's worth noting, large customers will usually negotiate with Salesforce to secure a discount to a product's list price. Previously, a customer who bought 100 licenses at a 20% discount to the old list price would've generated $24,000.

Persons: Salesforce, Needham, Scott Berg, Berg, Mizuho, Marc Benioff's, Benioff, He's, Jim Cramer's, Jim Cramer, Jim, Marc Benioff, Salesforce.com, David Paul Morris Organizations: Service, Industries, Nasdaq, Nvidia, Palo Alto Networks, Devices, CNBC, Salesforce, Mizuho Securities, Bloomberg, Getty Locations: Palo, San Francisco

☆ Salesforce to raise prices of some cloud products from August
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-11 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

July 11 (Reuters) - Salesforce (CRM.N) will raise prices for some of its cloud and marketing tools by an average 9% from August, the maker of software for customer relations management said, sending its shares up nearly 4% in early trading on Tuesday. Its first price hike in seven years comes at a time when Salesforce and several other technology companies are increasing their spending to include generative artificial intelligence (AI) to their products and services. The price hike also comes as revenues from cloud services that grew at a scorching pace during the pandemic lockdown have started to slow. Growth at big cloud players such as Microsoft (MSFT.O), Amazon.com (AMZN.O) and Alphabet (GOOGL.O) has come under pressure as enterprise clients look to optimize their cloud spending amid rising cost of borrowing. The new prices for Tableau, Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud and Industries will cover new and existing customers, Salesforce said.

Persons: Salesforce, Akash Sriram, Shweta Agarwal Organizations: Microsoft, Marketing Cloud, Industries, Thomson Locations: Bengaluru

☆ Salesforce is developing a ton of new AI products that could lead to 'a massive new buying cycle' Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley analysts believe
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-09 | by ( Julie Bort | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Salesforce could be leading it, with a giant list of new AI products in the works. And he told tale after tale of planned AI products. Morgan Stanley's Keith Weiss believes Salesforce's claims that AI has the potential to "spark a massive new buying cycle." Rangan tallied up 15 pending AI products from Salesforce. There will be five new AI products incorporated into the Marketing cloud to automate tasks ranging from personalized emails to analyzing engagement.

Persons: Salesforce, Marc Benioff, Claude, Goldman Sachs, Kash Rangan, Salesforce's, Einstein, Rangan, Morgan Stanley's Keith Weiss, Weiss Organizations: OpenAI, Salesforce Ventures, Google, Salesforce's, Slack, Products, Next

☆ Amazon CEO Andy Jassy says he's confident he can get costs under control in shareholder letter
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-13 | by ( Annie Palmer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +38 min

Further, as machine learning adoption has continued to accelerate, customers have yearned for lower-cost GPUs (the chips most commonly used for machine learning). While some areas of the economy have struggled over the past few years, Amazon Business has thrived. Some people have never heard of Amazon Business, but, our business customers love it. For years, Amazon customers had asked us when we'd offer them an online pharmacy as their frustrations mounted with current providers. More recently, a newer form of machine learning, called Generative AI, has burst onto the scene and promises to significantly accelerate machine learning adoption.

☆ Amazon CEO Andy Jassy says his letter to shareholders follows one of the toughest economic years in recent memory. Read it in full.
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-13 | by ( Sam Tabahriti | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +38 min

☆ Retail media is upending the business relationship between brands and ad sellers like Amazon and Walmart
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-16 | by ( Lauren Johnson | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

In order for retail media to continue its surge, retailers are rethinking their pitches so they can continue to attract ad spend. Masters said Amazon is trying to entice sellers to buy ads by bundling a cloud-based ad product called Amazon Marketing Cloud into JBPs to smooth over some of sellers' frustrations. Walmart said it offers benefits to brands that buy ads as part of their JBPs, but declined to comment on specific details. Also, retail media has significant benefits and can lead to non-advertising perks, said Dieringer. For instance, brands that buy ads from retailers may have first access to unique data and insights about shoppers.

☆ I made $140,000 before getting laid off — now I earn almost $30,000 more than that as a freelancer on Upwork. Here's how.
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-28 | by ( Ella Hopkins | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Marcus Grimm, a 52-year-old marketing freelancer from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. I worked for 20 years in B2B marketing automation, which uses technology to automate marketing content at particular times. When I applied for client jobs, I'd use whichever profile was best suited for the job. My industry expertise was useful for attracting clientsIt took me three weeks to get my first Upwork client. I'd had a client in that industry before when I was working full time, and I'd actually worked in it years ago.

☆ 4 reasons why Amazon's advertising business is still surging while Meta, Google, and Snap are all wrestling with declines
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-06 | by ( Ryan Joe | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Amazon's ad business grew 19% over the past year, while rivals like Meta were managing a decline. Amazon's ad business seems to be the only major ad business that's on the upswing. Part of the reason is that Amazon's ad business is newer than Google's and Meta's so a higher growth rate should be expected. Insider spoke with several ad buyers and industry experts to reveal why Amazon's ad business is growing compared to competitors like Google, Meta, and Snap. Both McKenna and Kern Schireson, CEO of the ad agency Known, believe this is the biggest reason why Amazon's ad business is thriving compared to its competitors.

☆ As Expected, Salesforce's Latest Cuts Impact Sales Teams
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-02 | by ( Ashley Stewart | Ellen Thomas | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Insiders expected sales teams to be cut in February after the end of the fiscal year, they recently told Insider. Like most companies who sell software to businesses, the fourth quarter is traditionally its biggest sales quarter as sales people push their clients to sign contracts to make sales quotas. It's unclear how many employees Salesforce laid off this time. Execs have repeatedly told employees, through emails and all-hands meetings, to expect rounds of layoffs to last for weeks, Insider reported. Salesforce laid off a few hundred salespeople in November, a person familiar with the matter told Insider.

☆ Salesforce Customers Not Swayed by Slack, Analysts Say
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-06 | by ( Angus Loten | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +6 min

Salesforce reported about $402 million in Slack subscription and support revenue in the fiscal third quarter ending Oct. 31. Meanwhile, on Wednesday Salesforce said it would lay off 10% of its workforce as customers take a more cautious approach to spending. “The Slack acquisition by Salesforce has not changed the trajectory of Salesforce up or down,” said Tim Crawford, CIO strategic adviser at Los Angeles-based enterprise IT advisory firm AVOA. “That’s really the struggle for customers, to maintain the pace with a company like Salesforce,” he said. Forrester’s Ms. Herbert said the recent departures of Mr. Taylor and the Slack executives might signal that Salesforce is shifting the focus back to its core products.

☆ Amazon bulked up its advertising behemoth in 2022 — and its becoming an even bigger threat to Meta
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-27 | by ( Lauren Johnson | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

Amazon's digital ad business is only behind Google's and Meta's — and it's already stolen budget from Meta. Today, that advertising business is no longer simply a way to drive product sales on Amazon. Amazon's ad business, which generated $9.5 billion during the third quarter of 2022, dwarfed Microsoft and Snap and ranked third behind Google and Facebook parent, Meta. There are now nearly 600 advertising partners in Amazon's advertising ecosystem, according to Amazon's directory of companies in the space. As part of its ambitions to grow advertising, Amazon also pitches a data clean room called Amazon Marketing Cloud.

☆ Read the memo Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield wrote to staff announcing his departure from Salesforce
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-05 | by ( Ellen Thomas | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield announced Monday that he's leaving Salesforce, Slack's corporate owner. The news comes days after Salesforce announced its CEO Bret Taylor is also stepping down. Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield announced Monday morning that he is leaving Salesforce in January, according to an announcement Butterfield posted to a company Slack channel that was viewed by Insider. Slack will have a new CEO: Lidiane Jones. He's going to keep the bar high, and then keep pushing it higher.

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