Caue's Profile

Those are some great points on why the NAFTA is so important to the Oil and Gas Industry in the U.S. However, I wonder if not having the NAFTA would actually harm the industry. I say that because trade barriers are usually imposed in a two-way-street, so if the U.S. prefers to negotiate with NAFTA, other countries probably have higher restrictions to negotiate with the U.S. Not being part of the NAFTA would actually provide some competitive advantages to ETP, such as flexibility to freely negotiate with other countries with same conditions (http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/06-043.pdf).
You made a great point about the supply chain. To highlight your question about the real risk of NAFTA renegotiations to ETP, as this report points out (https://www.accenture.com/us-en/service-tomorrow-oil-gas-supply-chain-solutions), the O&G industry already have a globalized supply chain and I believe that ETP should not worry that much.

I am impressed to see that a measure that supposedly leads the UK towards a liberal vision. The Brexit should be a step in the direction of the free market, and the free market should help Tesco supply chain. However, you made great points showing that the practical effect of the Brexit will be the opposite of that.
The Government should take measures to help improve the life of the citizens, but it seems to me that even large companies in the UK will have to rethink how they do business. By doing so, they will force the citizens to change their behaviors. I was surprised that the Brexit would touch the people even on the daily activities. I hope the UK Government finds a better solution for the people.

That is an incredible technology! Plenty is very innovative in the use of resources and certainly can bring down the cost of several agricultural products in places like Israel, where resources such as water are very limited and there is not much space for traditional farms. However, I am curious to understand what mixes of products will be profitable for a vertical farm in a country that does have cheap resources and plenty of space, such as the U.S. or Brazil.
Another great point you made relates to the synergies of Plenty and companies like Amazon. I wonder how much scale Plenty would have to achieve to have a possible synergy in serving Amazon for its Amazon Fresh supply chain. I imagine that it would take a huge investment to grow the company to such a scale and I wonder if Jeff Bezos invested in them just to track Plenty until they have proven their business model and then acquire then to scale inside Amazon.

Thanks for the very thorough analysis of the GE digital strategy, I believe that you captured their biggest challenges. In fact, GE is betting heavily on digitalization of manufacturing and I wonder how they see the future for the next 5 to 10 years. For me, it’s unclear if they will be the ones providing the software to their clients or if they will just be the platform through which their customers purchase and use new software solutions.
There are software companies that specialize in helping established business compete with technology-born businesses.
Cognitive Scale is a good example of this companies. Among their products, they offer SaaS to help analyze Big Data and IoT data. Check this white paper to see how other companies are using that similar to what Navistar is doing: http://www.cognitivescale.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2015/02/Cognitive_Scale_Brochure.pdf.
Another question that puzzles me on this topic was very well thought in your post. Several companies are using GE Predix in heavy machinery with IoT devices and GE is using Cloud Computing to process their data. How is the company thinking of the risks associated with that? There is a clear fear in the market that the threats associated with IoT are far from being dealt with (https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/digital-mckinsey/our-insights/protecting-information-in-the-cloud).

Thanks for the very thought-provoking post! It is incredible to see how a telecom business trying to fulfill its energy needs can suddenly become more dependent on its energy generation that on its revenues from telecom services. I see some similarities between this type of business with other energy-intensive business that have a low margin product, such as the Brazilian sugar-cane industry (https://www.agmrc.org/renewable-energy/ethanol/brazils-ethanol-industry/). The sugar-cane processing facilities produced ethanol as a core product and burned the cane to produce electricity for internal use. At a certain point, the ethanol prices dropped and these companies started selling energy into the grid and created a secondary energy market in Brazil.
Although sometimes it is necessary to vertically integrate the business in order to operate and the profitability of the business can grow with integration, there is evidence showing that CAPEX grows in a greater magnitude (https://hbr.org/1983/01/is-vertical-integration-profitable). Thus, I believe that once Bharti Infratel answers the questions that you posted about them being a telecom or energy company, they can specialize in their core segment and benefit from that specialization. By doing so they gain flexibility in their segment and can become more efficient to pursue opportunities that help them differentiate the essence of their business.

Thanks for sharing this post! I see it is a success story about how a company that doesn’t have technology at its core business can use technology as a differentiator. In fact, it’s common to think that cutting-edge technology such as Artificial Intelligent systems will only help old business models get disrupted. Your post captures the essence that this reality doesn’t have to be true. There are software companies that specialize in helping established business compete with technology-born businesses.
Cognitive Scale is a good example of this companies. Among their products, they offer SaaS to help analyze Big Data and IoT data. Check this white paper to see how other companies are using that similar to what Navistar is doing: http://www.cognitivescale.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2015/02/Cognitive_Scale_Brochure.pdf.
On the other hand, one question that puzzles me on this topic is that all the trucks are traveling IoT and Navistar is using Cloud Computing startups as partners to process their data. How is the company thinking of the risks associated with that? There is a clear fear in the market that the threats associated with IoT are far from being dealt with (https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/digital-mckinsey/our-insights/protecting-information-in-the-cloud).
As to your question about how Navistar should capture the new innovation waves, two common responses that they could do are: i) partnering with a Venture Capital firm to have a pulse on the innovation in the market; ii) launch their internal Venture team to directly invest in new companies.