Aimmy Asavatevavith's Profile

Thank you Rob, it is a very interesting article. As I thought about trade isolationism, I always took a view on how import tariff affects on company’s competitive advantage in a host who imposed such barriers. Brexit is such a unique situation and posed very challenging questions to the economy and companies operating in the UK and Europe. In addition to raw material sourcing and supplier location, I wonder the implication on labor sources as well? Are there EU nationality workers in the Sunderland plant? If so, Nissan has benefited from the free flow of labor but with Brexit, it may face a new challenge of finding and training new employees.

Moreover, I do not agree to the increase in plant capacity in an attempt to reduce per unit cost. If there is not sufficient demand within the UK or if the cost after tariffs is too high to remain competitive, Nissan could end up with significant inventory holding cost or potential write-off from obsolete car models.

Thank you for this interesting article, Alberto! This reminds me of Fuyao case as it is crucially important to take into account not only cheap production and wage cost in a market but also the political influence, in this case the impose of tariff on imported cars. One potential solution that I have seen some manufacturers do in Asia would be to pre-manufacture all the parts and assemble into a near finished good before importing into the country to avoid such tariff. This way, Ford can limit its labor cost incurred in the US to the minimum while take advantage of lower wages in other markets like Mexico and China.

As for your question around the US capability building to succeed in networked economy, I do agree that Ford should double down on its innovation and disruptive technology in transportation. For example, they announce to offer the new Advanced Driver Assist Technology in which Ford cars can back itself into a parking space [1]. Or even explore the investment in other mode of transportation like drone.

[1] Mearian, Lucas. “Your next Ford will be able to back itself into a parking space.” Computer World. https://www.computerworld.com/article/3138506/car-tech/your-next-ford-will-be-able-to-back-itself-into-a-parking-space-steer-around-traffic.html. Accessed on December 1, 2017.

Thank you for sharing this article. I think it would be interesting to see which route Nestle along with other bottled water producers take in the light of this situation. Looking at initiatives Nestle put forward, I agreed with you that it has done nothing to solve the issue of depleting underground water sources. As you recommended several course of actions, one particular suggestion stood out to me – use technology to recycle wastewater into bottled water. Although this makes a lot of sense rationally, I feel that consumers would not react positively to it. Consumers’ perception on recycled water would definitely be a challenge to Nestle or to any producers that choose to go down this route.

In addition, I do believe that higher fee should be imposed on water resources permit to reflect the scarcity just like other products with limited supply. The government must be responsible for protecting and limiting the exploitation of natural resources by for-profit corporations.

Thank you for this great article, Joana. I do think that Adidas must move toward ‘fashion brand’ to stay competitive in the market as key competitor, Nike already established strong image on sport fashion brand [1]. With Adidas’s operating model of outsourcing to third-party manufacturers, it is extremely difficult to significantly reduce lead time from design to shelf. Compared to the model adopt by Zara, in order to deliver new design collection to their stores quickly, the whole design to factory is being done in-house [2]. Their designers are working with pre-selected set of fabrics, although eliminating all the procurement lead time, limiting the innovation and creativity. Therefore, I think Adidas would face difficulties on various fronts in order to successfully sustain ‘fast-fashion’ unless it completely changes the operating model like you suggested.

[1] Sergran, Elizabeth. “How Nike became a fashion powerhouse.” The Fast Company. https://www.fastcompany.com/3068182/how-nike-became-a-fashion-powerhouse. Accessed December 1, 2017.
[2] O’Marah, Kevin. “Zara uses supply chain to win again.” Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinomarah/2016/03/09/zara-uses-supply-chain-to-win-again/#46e91a721256. Accessed December 1, 2017.

Thank you for your article. I really think it is eyeopening and at the same time made me frightened. Climate change is always a discussion topic at large international organizations and we hear about it all the time. However, we feel that the impact is so far into the future or it might not affect me significantly. Your article gave me a perspective that climate change is real and there are people whose lives are on the line.

I think it is the responsibility of the humanity as a whole to take action on climate change and to support low lying island nations like the Maldives. Intergovernmental organizations like the United Nations should take the lead to address this issue as soon as possible. To your question, these small islands nation and their relatively small GDPs would put a constraint on investment necessary to survive through such big problem. Personally, I agreed with Nasheed’s proposal on relocation the people as possibly the nation onto a more secure land i.e. India, Sri Lanka, Australia. Though the important question here is how the nation will hold its sovereignty and co-exist on others’ territory.

Larger countries like Saudi Arabia already took a creative way to help the Maldivians. Saudi King agreed to lease Faafu islands, injecting investment into the Maldives to fight with rising sea level[1].

[1] Vidal, John. “Maldives plan to embrace mass tourism sparks criticism and outrage,” The Guardian.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/mar/03/maldives-plan-to-embrace-mass-tourism-sparks-criticism-and-outrage. Accessed December 1, 2017

Thank you Shoko for this insightful article about P&G and its supply chain. I think you brought up a very interesting point around ‘Direct to Consumer’ and the possibility that some part of supply chain would be cut out. It is applicable to both how the physical goods get from manufacturing plant to consumer and how the information feedback loop goes back from customer to manufacturers.

I totally agreed with ‘Distributor Connect’ and its benefits to all the parties ‘from factory to shelf’. In addition, we could already see that digitalization has disrupted the industry even further as manufacturers bypassed the ‘shelf’ and went directly to consumers through online platform. Traditional retailers have changed the way they operate as well as their role in the whole supply chain from being the ‘shelf’ to being the ‘logistic guy’ as they moved to online channel. The joint business plan will have to be more rigorous as customers become omni-channel.

One way P&G could do to stay up-to-date with digital transformation is to form strategic partnership with cutting-edge parties in the supply chain. For example, it joined with Amazon to introduce P&G’s brand dash button where consumers have the button at home and place their orders when they are running low on specific consumable products. This is extremely convenient for customers and also gives a real-time order transparency right from the consumers – one step beyond the transparency at retailers.