Chris H's Profile

Thank you for the interesting article on A24! I did not realise how significant an impact Covid-19 was having on the film industry and interesting to hear how independent film is responding. I wonder if Independent film makers can leverage the disruption to the film industry to position itself in a more competitive position? If film festivals are being cancelled, are there other mediums, especially digital, that Independent film can promote, which will give them a better footing against the big studios?

Great article DA! Amazing that they have been able to adapt and leverage their strengths so quickly! I am curious to hear how they can incorporate these new found approaches to serving their customers once the social distancing rules ease, and leverage them for the business long term?

Thanks for the great article “I’m not a robot!”. I thought your recommendation for the VR headsets was a very unique and creative solution I hadn’t heard of before. I would be curious to know if you think these measures are just a substitute for the normal HBS experience while social distancing rules are in place, or whether you think HBS can incorporate more of these tools and experience into the normal MBA experience?

Great article trishim11! I agree with your recommendation that Vodafone should double down on this strategy and invest in AI/ML tools and partner with other technology companies. I also think that applying their expertise outside of their immediate customers (like helping AWS) will expand Vodafones addressable market and the scale over which Vodafone can leverage its technology – more value through greater network effects!

Very interesting article iBot! You touched on some interesting topics and challenges for John Deere, especially attracting talent and innovation to an older and “less sexy” industry. I wonder if there is also a challenge with educating customers on all of this new technology? Smaller farmers are often less technological savvy than large industrial farmers, and are missing out on significant improvements. Could John Deere increase adoption of their technology by focussing on user needs and helping with easy to use and implement farming control systems?

Very interesting article student! Having carried out patent searches an Aerospace engineer I have experienced first hand the pain of current text searches for patents! You raise a very valid point around the scalability given the other competition in the space. I wonder whether the product can add even more value by helping inventors submit and defend their IP? Patent writing/submission is a legal science for large companies: maximising the “creative space” around the concept that the patent monopolises. Smaller companies and individuals do not have easy access to this top IP lawyer talent and their patents often capture less of the “creative space” than they could. This could drive significant value for users of their product.

Excellent article Marius! I can’t wait to start engaging with this course – I wonder if it can compete with our new online classes haha!

I agree that the key network benefits are in cross-side. Elaborating on your point further, I wonder if the platform can be further strengthened through building functionality to increase same-side benefits? As you said – super teaches showing and sharing other teachers how to improve their courses, super students helping one another out. Maybe it can become a mini-social media platform for people interesting in learning 🙂

Great article on Opentable – thank you! You made a strong argument that the table reservation market is winner-take-all. I wonder though if network clustering and multi-homing offers opportunities for other apps to compete? I have found that Resy and OpenTable have different restaurant adoption rates in different areas.

Also – given the ease at which I can cancel or change a reservation, and that I can make bookings on Resy and OpenTable for the same time and place, I have made bookings at different places but same time to preserve optionality. Multi-homing would reduce this (cost to the restaurant) and improve the scalability of their platform.

This is a fascinating company – thank you for sharing! Interesting to hear that Corona virus has been a big opportunity to acquire new customers. I wonder how the network effects will change over time, and whether its digital competitors will be able to use network-bridge to overcome a lack of scale?

Thanks Marius for sharing this article on Pandora. Moving to the US last year I first came across pandora (It’s not a thing in the UK, so I had never encountered the product before). I checked out the product back then and agree with your observations that the consumer features that it offers are not very strong.

I also like that you pointed out the need for being close to consumer demands and consumer preferences and iterate quickly. It is very evident from your article that Pandora waited way too long in order to reply to consumer demands and take action in order to meet consumer requirements.

It looks, however, that their user stats have been pretty static over the last years and they still seen round 70-80m MAU’s – despite the inferior product. I wonder what is it about the product that keeps users in the system?

Very well researched article Sneha – thank you! I think this is a fascinating story of a company experimenting with technology and how it can adapt to it. Burberry’s position in the market affords it a certain amount of power, but it is also much smaller than some of the other super luxury brands. I would be fascinated to hear more on how Burberry is using this new stream of customer data to inform its strategy and product development!

Thank you RLT! A very interesting look at a market being disrupted by a number of trends. I very much agree that investing in UAM platforms is a critical step to gaining insight into the consumer trends that will drive the OEM’s design considerations. I would be fascinated to learn more about how Airbus sees it business model developing in the future. Will the market move in the direction forecast by many automotive analysts: a world in which OEMs may shift towards owning the hardware and selling journeys directly to consumers? Or will Airbus remain focussed on design, manufacture and servicing?

Thank you for the article Xu! You identified several key areas where Flexport is differentiating itself from the incumbents and is able to add value. The incumbents are going to have a hard time keeping up, especially as Flexport scales! I would love to hear your thoughts on how Flexport adapts to the nuances of freight forwarding in different global regions. The US logistics network is predominately trucking by small family owned businesses. How does Flexport “flex” its business model to a more mixed logistics network like Europe (a mixture of sea / truck / rail and more consolidated market)?