$$$=Culture's Profile

Great article! Well written and researched. You do raise a great point about how accountable distributors are for the impact of the product they are distributing. In my view, given the need for prescriptions, the responsibility truly lies with Doctors who control patient access to these addictive medications. However, as a distributor of a product with the ability to have such a terrible impact on people’s lives, distributors should be investing in management of accounts to avoid incidents where drugs may be shipped to accounts who may be bypassing prescriptions and distributing the drugs illegally. Additionally, as you made clear, it is in their financial interest to invest in avoiding risky distribution tactics that could land them in the media and crash their stock price.

Great article. For me, it seems that the only real strength that Walmart could leverage over Amazon is their store network that essentially provides a huge number of distribution centers closer to customers than Amazon. However, Amazon is already setting up a deep Amazon Now network that will match the customer proximity Walmart has. For me, I wonder if there is any alternative for Walmart other than to replicate Amazon’s operations, acquire similar capabilities (e.g. jet.com) and become an “me too” Amazon competitor in the e-commerce space.

Great post. For me, the real issue appears to be incentives for smaller players in the supply chain to cooperate with large players like Target. For a small player, a data breach is much less serious and the cost and inconvenience of upgrading their protections might not be justified in their minds, especially knowing that Target is heavily investing in cyber security insurance. What is the best way for Target to incentivize better security at its supply chain partners? One potential model could be premiums for players that reach certain levels of protection. Another could be for Target to set hard rules on the security requirements to even be a part of the Target supply chain.

Thanks for writing this article! Super insightful. The most interesting part for me is where you raise the question of how Amazon will choose the suppliers that gives the Dash device buttons to. In my previous life, we spent a lot of time negotiating contracts with suppliers for large retailers (think Walmart, Target etc.) and as a part of this, auctioned off certain store positions to vendors for large amounts of money. Amazon has positioned itself well to leverage Dash buttons as ways to get additional funding from suppliers to even have the right to have a button. This raises the question: will smaller suppliers have similar access to instant ordering like larger manufacturers?

Thanks for writing this piece! As discussed in previous comments, I think the real issue here is trash generation and the need to have people reduce and sort trash before it even makes it into the system. With options such as biodegradable plastics, it is also on players such as restaurants and other retailers to remove heavy plastics from use. As far as the trackers go, I appreciate the concept of providing incentives for people to reduce their waste. As it stands, there is no incentive for waste reduction at all.

I love chocolate so this article is the first I commented on.

My questions is: can a company like Mars actually have enough of an impact to make a significant difference to the impact of global warming?

I believe their efforts are honorable and could encourage other companies to do the same if the market responds well. However, would it not be more profitable to invest this money in genetic engineering to develop a cocoa crop that can adapt to the changing weather conditions? $1B could go a long way invested with a partner like Monsanto.