ACastellanos's Profile

Very interesting Jodie!! I am a huge huge fan of Disney -not just because of my son- and I think that it is great that they are trying to find new ways to engage younger audiences. I was not very familiar with MNC so it was been very interesting and helpful and also after reading some of the comments and Bad Hombre sharing the figures of the business, I am really concerned if Disney went on the right direction with this acquisition, setting aside the fact that the merger did not go as planned. My real concern here is, given the business model that disney has and their creative development thus far, how exactly is this going to translate and they move into these new platform and will this really be a sustainable bet for the future if they want to preserve the Disney magic?

great post and very very interesting Priya! I started using Instacart and although it was a big big struggle for me at first but I must agree that it requires the least change in customer behaviour. But there is one aspect that I feel requires a change in perception (a little like what we were discussing in the marketing pricing module as to what people perceive as fair) and that I feel it is a big challenge for the company. Their rise in delivery prices has already made the headlines ( https://www.cnet.com/news/instacart-grocery-delivery-service-raises-prices/ ) and although I think what they are doing with the $150 year free delivery plan is much like what Amazon Prime does, there is still that tip part of the cost that does not sound right for the grocery shopping model. Any thoughts on how the company is or should be addressing this ?

very interesting Alan! And your posts rises some really interesting questions, much of what we were discussing in the Cynthia Carroll case in Lead. You really have to try to balance the revenue driven decisions with the vulnerabilities of not taken the proper time to test your products. I agree with you the risks of having someone hack into your car are tremendous but a few examples came to my mind in which it would actually be helpful, for example if the driver is having an emergency? I agree with you that they need to be cautions about how they handle their product launch vs testing products but I don’t think there is a way – as mentioned earlier – to be completely certain that your security cannot be breached. Would you say there are other ways in which Tesla could add value to their customers and still use these networked services?

Great post !! I have been a user of the platform myself and I can definitely see how they are pushing frontiers in the education industry. I do not think, however, that they have taken the best approach to digital learning as there is, as mentioned in an earlier comment, that the interaction between students and professors may be challenging. If our HBS professor Clayton Christensen in right, and we are at the verge of innovation disruption in higher education, would you say they are leading the way in how the future of learning is going to look like? are they really doing a better job at educating just by posting their courses and having interactive testing online?

Great Post Christian and really interesting!! many of the question I had in my mind while I was reading your article regarding the quality of the data collected from our every day interaction devices have been brought up in previous posts. I do agree that there is tremendous value to the initiative and that the upside of it could bring great benefits for a large portion of the population. As you were doing your research did you come across any information on how apple was intending to address all the incumbent in the healthcare industry, for example small hospitals that -as you stated- are hostile to this initiative?

thank you Majken, this is a very interesting article! It makes sense that giant corporations such as Nestle would be trying to mitigate the effect of climate change when it directly affects their source of revenue. If there is only enough water for 7 billion people and it is unevenly distributed, what is your sense of things when you add the aggravating reality that it is privatised ? I guess my real concern here is how does this company integrate the fact that they intend to own most of the water supply int he world with the social responsibility of providing -specially in fragile communities- this basic human need? I get the feeling this company is concerned on finding better ways to access this natural recourse without being too disruptive and not so much on the conservation of it.

http://www.bottledlifefilm.com/index.php/the-story.html

Interesting post Fabian! It is impressive the extend to which Facebook has gone in order to reduce their carbon footprint. I would agree that there are other fronts where they can implement sustainable practices and a few others have brought them up already. I think my main question after reading your posts is what are the drawbacks from this initiative of moving their data centres to different locations? Are there any operational or economic challenges that you could identify?

Interesting article Arthur! It is actually refreshing to see that there are certain industries that are, not only making significant advancements to address climate change, but are partnering up understanding the magnitude of this issue. Do you think their current strategy, as you mention, of taking advantage of ingenuity and being the underdog will bring the most benefit to Embraer or from your experience and insight you feel that they should be taking a different approach? One last thing… just out of curiosity. Is this model replicable in other latin american countries? ie. 92% of cars produced in Brazil running both on gasoline and ethanol is impressive.

Great article Talia! I believe this is a huge concern worldwide and even more to emerging markets such our own. I am ver interested in your thoughts of farmed fish as an alternative for the Austral Group SAA and being that you mention that this is the largest industrial fishing company in Peru, what is the economic reality for smaller fisherman ?

I was very impressed with the dollar figure invested on technological innovation, amazing! I would love to hear more about what kind of research they are conducting and technological advancements made within the company or in the Fishing industry in Peru. Do you think in any way this investments will be affected given the latest agreements of the Peruvian government to limit the quotas on ton catch per year?

Interesting article Adam. I actually remember reading about the floods in Malawi early last year and how they affected over a million people, I few hundred died if I remember correctly. We experienced a very similar story in Colombia a couple years ago. I can see the company you are discussing here, Toleza Agricultural Enterprises, can thrive despite the recent challenges in Agriculture because they have the economic strength to shift to other practices as you mention… but what are your thoughts on how the small/middle size farmer could succeed under this changing climate conditions? In some countries, such us the US, agriculture is heavily subsidised and therefore more reactive to this issues and given the economic reality in Malawi I would say it is not the case, but please correct me if I’m wrong. How is the government responding to this issue?

Thank you Andrés! I’m actually 100% with you on every concern you have. Technological advances in farmed fishing have gained more strength in the past two decades and they come from many fronts.. anything from controlling and understanding the interaction of bacteria, nutrients and cultured species to improved thermodynamics applied to the pond and tank design. In Colombia, I was part of a project held by private companies and the government to farm a species called Cobia which was not natural to our EZZ but natural to similar tropical areas. Not even with every tool in terms of technology out there was the project able to succeed, one of the critical reasons being the varying temperature in the water. That being said, plus your concerns on health, quality and the variety of species,.. if farming is the answer, we are not quite there yet to supply the growing demand for fish in the world.

Here is the thing though. Two months ago this made the US headlines:

“Will Obama fence off more of the ocean? US fishermen are fearful ”
American fishermen are deeply fearful that the Obama White House could cut them off as early as this week from major fishing areas of the U.S. continental shelf on both coasts, further restricting one of the most highly regulated fishing industries in the world.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/09/13/will-obama-fence-off-more-ocean-us-fishermen-are-fearful.html

Further more on Sept. 15 the OUR OCEAN ONE FUTURE conference took place in Washington, DC where world leaders came together to discuss among many other things… closing the high seas for fishing. So my concern really is not if it is happening or not -because it looks like we are slowly headed that way- but how on earth are we going to cope with the economic, political and social consequences of such initiative.

Here’s the website with the agreements for 2016
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2016/09/262042.htm

What the fishermen fear most is the kind of unilateral action by the White House that they have already seen elsewhere. As part of their ongoing environmental ambitions, the Obama administration’s Council on Environmental Quality, and the president himself, are aggressively interested in creating preservation zones that would ban fishing and other activities within large portions of the 200-mile U.S. “exclusive economic zone” of maritime influence, and just as interested in getting other nations to do so, in their own as well as international waters.

http://ourocean2016.org/#event
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/09/13/will-obama-fence-off-more-ocean-us-fishermen-are-fearful.html

Thank you Alan, I don’t think this could be done. I was extremely surprised that companies such as Nissui would be even contemplating such strategy to reduce the impact on ocean warming, but again they are one of the few companies with the infrastructure to shift to 100% farmed fish. As it is right now I feel this iniciative has the structure of the Kyoto protocol and such level of commitment I find hard to comply with- as you have mentioned anyone not enforcing it would have a massive competitive advantage- specially with a 140 billion dollar industry that affects a significant portion of global population -specially emerging markets- where people are not just economically but socially affected. There must be a better idea, but I understand the pressure to do something is high so I feel governments and NGOs are going with the best they have in hand right now.