alee's Profile

I think you’re spot on. There’s going to be a transition period for Krispy Kreme as they figure out their business and operating model alignment. I believe they’re pursuing the right changes, but they need to move faster and shut down some of their traditional storefronts.

Great insights, Rina! Not sure how economically feasible it would be for the entire KK chain to re-position as “high end”, but I wonder if they could launch a sub-brand. Also, you’ll have to show me what these new fancy doughnuts look like sometime! They sound so good!

Thanks for your comments Will! I completely agree with you that Dunkin Donuts has done a great job diversifying their product offerings at retail. Krispy Kreme has been attempting to do that with coffee, but it’s been a slow uphill battle to get consumers to associate the chain with good coffee. If they can replace their wholesale revenues with these doughnut complimentary products, they might just hit their stride!

I agree that they should separate their retail vs. wholesale production. One of the problems is that they’ve trained their customers so well on expecting fresh doughnuts that I think their wholesale approach needs to be re-imagined for it to survive the higher customer scrutiny that comes with retail expansion.

I love Pixar films too, despite being a non-target consumer of Pixar. 🙂 I really appreciated reading about all the steps they take to ensure a high quality film is produced. Hopefully their quality won’t decline given their decision to release two films per year (http://pixartimes.com/2013/06/04/the-pixar-perspective-on-making-two-films-a-year/).

Great read! Palantir has found a great way to bring talent to innovation-lacking industries. On the business side, I think it’s ingenious that they are able to lock themselves in as critical partners in their clients’ businesses, and there probably is a lot of opportunity to upsell to their clients throughout the deployment period. On labor capital, another benefit that I see working at Palantir would be its diverse clientele, which allows employees to stay challenged by working on different projects over time. If that engineer had joined to work for the government, I assume the likelihood of them getting bored and moving on would be higher.

Fascinating post, Saumya! I never imagined such a low tech system could be so efficient. It really highlights the opportunity for process excellence and innovation in any system. As I was reading through, I wonder if and how the Dabbawalas are able to address errors when they do come up. Do they recognize a total loss on that lunch, or can the system auto correct? Also, this seems like a pretty low barrier to entry business. What’s stopping another group from entering and disrupting their business?

I love the pictures too! The stick figures are not weird; they’re brilliant! 🙂