A.J. Steinlage's Profile

I didn’t realize MS was pursuing digitization so strongly. Two questions I though of: (1) What edge does MS have in this space? and (2) How does MS’ investment in cyber security factor into its overall plan? Thanks for sharing!

I wonder what other innovations FEDEX is pursuing with its annual R&D investments of $348-$403 million? The SenseAware technology is definitely a point of differentiation as you highlighted, but as Ryan An asked: can FEDEX charge higher prices with this technology? As you also pointed out, SenseAware adds packages to the IoTs and creates a great source of data for FEDEX, but what is the overall problem they are trying to address? Sorry for all of the questions, but this is a very interesting topic! Thanks for sharing.

The IRCTC’s adoption of a digital platform to address significant customer problems appears to be very effective, but I can imagine this change was very disruptive to both the rail service company as well as its customers. Looking through the LEAD and Marketing lenses, I wonder how the IRCTC went about implementing and increasing dispersion of this change. Thanks for sharing and great article.

Though I do not believe HourlyNerd and some of the major consulting firms (McKinsey, BCG, Bain, etc) will be in direct competition, I do think some of the smaller boutique firms could be at risk. Ross Galloway’s recommendation for creating a BCG-Digital consulting platform is a very interesting one. Any one of the top firms would have stronger credibility and customer trust compared to HourlyNerd and this site could serve as a platform to upsell new customers or to develop smaller clients into bigger ones someday. Great article and thanks for sharing!

Jaydn, your identification of Samsung’s product diversification and pursuit of cross-product synergies was very insightful and gave me some good take aways. I am curious how well Samsung is able to use innovations developed for its smart phones and TVs in its home and auto products. As we saw in the IBM case, Watson’s innovation S-curve eventually stalled out because it was too specific to be used easily in other applications. I am very interested to see how Samsung uses data analytics in its IoT products and what Samsung will innovate next. Thanks for sharing!

Thanks for exploring this small but very interesting product. There is so much emphasis on renewable energy these days, but it is important to remember that government regulation, credits, and penalties only go so far to incentivize investment in and the sale of such environmentally friendly products. The more companies can see and reap the economic benefits of such technologies, the faster they will proliferate throughout every industry. I think your article also does a great job exploring the regulation aspect and the incentives companies have to work with governments to forecast future regulations which will accelerate the spread of renewable technologies.

UPS is a very interesting case with respect to climate change. I found it interesting that UPS was so forward thinking in fueling its ground transportation with renewable energy sources, but I would like to know more from them. What percentage of their fleet is using less harmful fuel types and what is their projected timeline to transition their fleet to a renewable energy source. This article also made me think about the use of drones and whether UPS has considered exploring their use. I wonder how drones compare to UPS trucks in terms of energy efficiency.

This is a tough topic to tackle and I appreciate the thoroughness of your article; the charts and graphs were great. I was most intrigued by your observation that the world’s energy needs will continue to grow and renewable energy sources will not be able to keep pace at the current trajectory. Given Exxon’s scale and available assets, I agree that they are well positioned to became a major player in the renewable energies space. It would be great to investigate which type of renewable energy they should invest in. Did you see any research or hear of anything while you worked at Exxon as to the likelihood of your recommendations.

This is a great article! I had never considered the energy implications of something so seemingly simple as a Google search. Looking beyond Google, with the advent of cloud computing, the number of servers will continue to grow and place a heavier burden on energy demand. It would be interesting to explore if there could be any uses for the heat produced by the server stacks since it is currently expended as waste when cooled by gray water.

Thanks for tackling this interesting and super pertinent issue. As you mentioned in your piece, the United States has identified climate change as the greatest threat to national security, but this emphasis has not been addressed at the tactical level. In terms of operations, some other areas worth exploring are the writing of OPLANs (operational plans) for contingencies that may arise in this area, the size and composition of the U.S. Navy’s fleet (do we have enough ice breakers?), and training considerations (to prepare crews for operations in such an environment).