Emily Korby's Profile

I am very intrigued by the idea of a food made from the by-product of beer brewing. Your post really highlights the impact of Brexit on smaller day-to-day things that I think many would not have realized.

To answer your first question, in addition to the solutions you mentioned, large super markets can begin to develop their own branded products or stock more off-branded products to provide a lower priced alternative to the more expensive branded products. That way they can still keep their shelves stocked with branded products and pass on the increased prices to the consumers, while also offering low price options. They can also continue to be aggressive in their negotiations with suppliers, similar to what Tesco did with Unilever. While the results of the agreement were not publicized, one can assume that the results were at least better for Tesco than where they started. If the large supermarkets can play hard ball and, while not ideal, refuse to stock the suppliers’ products until better terms are met, then they can potentially improve prices.

Amazon and other digital and global actors will benefit from the economic consequences of Brexit by enticing customers with lower prices. Amazon’s scale provides them with the purchasing power to negotiate cheaper prices with suppliers and, therefore, pass on the savings to customers. To compete with these players, retailers will need to merge to strengthen their own purchasing power. I worry that soon mom-and-pop shops will struggle to compete and survive in a world dominated by retail powerhouses.

Very interesting! As someone who has seen first-hand the complexities of a global OEM supply chain, this really resonated with me. I worked with an OEM that was having communication and recall process issues for their vehicles that were manufactured with parts from different countries. This post laid out well the complexities that will arise working cross-boarders.

Many of the US OEMs quickly expanded internationally with focus on the short-term cost savings. However, many of them did not fully grasp the different political climates and the collaboration required to operate effectively. To answer your first and second questions – I think it will ultimately depend on how well Ford can proactively work with the different governments to influence regulations in their favor and, in parallel, identify contingency plans for if they cannot. I think that events like Brexit, will potentially slow the global expansion of OEMs or at least force them to be more diligent when considering global expansion.

Really interesting post, it is great to see a company being so socially active. Though I am now craving some ice-cream.

First off, I must disagree with you on liking mint chocolate chip ice-cream. I am a chocolate with peanut butter person, myself.

To address your first question, Ben & Jerry’s should continue to invest in mitigating climate change, not only because it will improve their brand and sales, but also because if climate change is not addressed, the impact to cocoa will likely increase the price to acquire the ingredient. Cocoa plays such a huge role in Ben & Jerry’s flavor offerings, and they should, therefore, be proactive in fighting climate change. However, I do agree with you that they should pursue an adaption strategy in parallel.

To address your second question, if less-used-ingredients like mint (used for mint chocolate chip ice-cream) were being impacted, then they may want to focus their social impact efforts elsewhere and benefit from the sales increases that are correlated with temperature increases.

Very interesting article! I had no idea medical exports are such a big part of Puerto Rico’s economy.

To your address your question about whether drug manufacturers should continue to operate on the Caribbean island at all, I believe they should not. The future storm risk is too high. In response your point about whether the FDA should require secondary manufacturing locations be approved for single source drugs, and the issue of should bear the cost burden, I think another potential option is for the FDA to develop a list of requirements for manufacturing locations (such as low risk of being impacted by natural disasters, low risk of conflict, stable economy, etc).

I slightly disagree with you in that I think the FDA should focus on adapting to climate change and not necessarily to mitigating it. While I agree with your points about climate change having a significant impact on manufacturing locations that are at high risk for being impacted by climate change, I believe this can be addressed more easily than mitigating climate change. The FDA should instead focus on adapting to it by putting policies in place to prevent disturbance from climate change – such as where manufacturing for single source drugs can be located.

That being said, if climate change begins to significantly impact the raw materials used to produce pharmaceutical and medical devices, the FDA should take a more active role in mitigating climate change.

We are in the future! It is hard to believe technology is so advanced and AR/VR and 3D printing are already making such a big impact in retail. With the combination of AR/VR, IKEA will be able to redesign their supply chain to decrease inventory, decrease retail and warehouse space, and reach new geographic markets. The use of AR/VR additionally addresses two key issues that can prevent a customer from buying products: (1) in-store shoppers cannot visualize what the product will look like in their home setting, and (2) online shoppers cannot get a good enough idea of what the product looks like in person.

One of the main concerns I identified for why IKEA management has delayed the roll out of online AR/VR shopping is customers purchasing through the app will not need to physically go into an IKEA store. IKEA’s stores are laid out to increase the amount of time shoppers spend in the store and to entice shoppers to purchase items that they originally did not intend to buy. Once shoppers start purchasing items through the app, then they will no longer visit the store and find additional items that they want to buy, which will in-turn decrease the average number of items per purchase.

As someone with a 6-year-old sister, this post really resonated with me. I have seen my sister evolve from being content playing with Legos and Playdough to preferring to play with an iPad. It worries me that with the increasing availability of technology, children are being overstimulated and are no longer finding joy in simpler non-tech-enabled toys that require imagination instead of microchips.

To answer your first question about whether Mattel will be able to recruit and sustain the talent required to develop a tech-enabled product portfolio, I believe that they have no option. They will need to develop this talent in order to compete and survive in a world where children prefer tech-enabled toys over simple Legos or Playdough.

To address your second question, I do believe that the introduction of more technology into toy offerings will require Mattel to shorten the product lifecycle for three reasons: (1) the overstimulation of children is shortening their attention span, which will in turn leave them bored of older toys and wanting new toys more frequently, (2) technological advancements will make toys outdated much more frequently than in the past, and (3) an increase in technology and resulting advertising will make children more aware of new toys quicker than ever before, increasing competition and competitive response.