Eunji Chung's Profile

Who knew plain old vanilla elevators could be at forefront of IoT?! It turns out there are 12+ million elevators transporting 1 billion people every day worldwide, so market opportunity is massive… especially for predictive maintenance, as you noted. Otis’s competitor thyssenkrupp entered the market with similar platform called MAX, which captures key metrics such as motor temperature, shaft alignment, cab speed and door functioning to predict maintenance needs. They’ve taken digitization one step further, by leveraging Microsoft HoloLens and Skype technologies to give their technicians remote assistance – they can see what on-site technicians are seeing and give real-time advice on complex matters and cut the average length of their service calls. By reducing frequency and shortening service visits, reducing maintenance costs and improving elevator uptime, early movers like Otis and thyssenkrupp are nicely positioned to ride up a larger share of this $44B revenue market.
https://blogs.microsoft.com/iot/2016/09/15/microsoft-azue-iot-suite-and-hololens-enable-revolutionary-solutions-for-thyssenkrupp-elevator/

Great read, Victoria! Digitization of video content has simply been amazing – I still remember Saturday AM Blockbuster visits for my family’s weekly movie nights… never again! I do worry about competition, as Amazon rolls out Prime Video service to 200 countries, versus Netflix’s 130 country presence. Talk about raining on Netflix’s parade, just celebrating 60% outperformance vs. budget in international subscriber growth in last quarter. Is Amazon out to snatch the developing market opportunity? As they compete on price (with Amazon slashing Prime pricing for the holidays), streaming speed (does Netflix regret spending last 7 years shutting down datacenters and migrating to Amazon Web Services… letting their content and customer data sit in enemy camp) and race to acquire and generate new content, how can Netflix differentiate?

As daughter of ex journalist, I’m so excited to read your post! In addition to the data points you laid out, another key issue is concentration of news source, i.e. only 25% of people get news for 2+ sites, and only 10% from 3+ platforms. Against this backdrop, accuracy and balance of news as propagated via Facebook are even more paramount. If Zuckerberg is right that “99% of content is authentic,” I do believe Facebook should leverage AI and social listening software (e.g. Hootsuite, Sysomos, Zoho Social) to better filter and clean-up the other 1% in fake news. It could further revert Newsfeed algorithm to a chronology-based (versus what is trending) platform to minimize the ripple effect of sensationalism media.

https://techcrunch.com/2016/05/26/most-people-get-their-news-from-social-media-says-report/

Great article! In today’s world of one-stop-shop (and pay) apps, QSRs are in such an interesting race against themselves to digitize customer-facing and back-end platforms. I was blown away by the Visa Checkout / Pizza Hut partnership announcement at a mobile tradeshow last spring – you can now pull up Pizza Hut menu on your car dashboard, put in an order (while keeping both hands on the steering wheel), pay using your Visa card, and get a notification when your order’s ready for pick-up. Crazy! I’d be curious how quickly QSRs develop APIs and integrate with various layers of digitization like artificial intelligence and voice recognition (e.g. Echo Alexa, Siri) or even connected cars.

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20150302006046/en/Visa-Pizza-Hut-Accenture-Develop-Connected-Car

Fascinating – thanks for a great read! This type of innovation is key for elite athletes already benefiting from digitization (e.g. performance tracking via FitBit and Whoop, used by Lebron James), even at a high cost. As you noted, I’m somewhat skeptical of mass adoption, beyond extreme hobbyists and enthusiasts – at what prices can Under Armor offer personalized, 3D-designed and printed items for the mass market? Traditional input pricing and labor in developing countries may be on the rise, but high-margin consummables (I’ve seen 60%+ net profit when looking at 3DP investments on last job) and skilled U.S. local labor easily surpass that. Furthermore, can this job-shop model be sustainable to address an increasing customer demand?

Having learned to ski on the Whistler slopes as a kid, this was a fantastic read – thanks RM. I agree Whistler has pursued multi-pronged approach to protect its operations, most aggressively via artificial snowmaking (a huge perk of hosting the 2010 Olympics, which I believe contributed roughly a third of the $60M investment to date) and off-season, or year-round tourism boost. Karla does raise an interesting point – beyond these “Band-Aid” solutions to sustain ski resorts, how can we address the root cause, i.e. how can we make ski resorts more environmentally-friendly in the first place? Is it a sustainable practice to let individual ski resorts pump hundreds of gallons of water per season through artificial snowmaker machines, and what types of new technologies / new types of slope contours are available to minimize water/snow consumption? Should governments get involved to regulate number/type (i.e. cleared versus graded ski runs) of new ski resort developments that might damage the natural ecosystem?

Thanks Margaret for the great intro to this industry. I agree data collection, analytics and coordination among FMCs is critical – the same technological advancements (i.e. GPS, fish-finding sonar, ocean sensors) that improved fishery efficiency and contributed to the overfishing problem not too long ago may be just what we need to study the effects of global warming on the world’s fish population in the timely manner. Will we need to rely on government agencies, or will FMCs and individual fisheries, whose livelihoods are at stake, offer near-term solutions? As many species tend to be mobile and move quickly toward the poles to stay cool, in light of increasing average ocean temperature), how can we ensure local, state and international bodies collaborate effectively on the necessary scientific research and economic solutions such as quotas and regulated price mechanisms?

Thanks for the interesting read. I hadn’t appreciated climate change is literally heating up global trade via the Artic Northeast Passage – are there additional passages expected to shorten shipping routes and enable faster, cheaper journey in other parts of the world? What regulatory requirements or incentives should be implemented to accelerate appropriate measures, most likely at the expense of corporate profitability (i.e. retrofitting vessels, switching to cleaner fuels or slowing by vessel speed directly hits the bottom line today, vs. waiting 20-25 years to replace retiring vessels with more eco-friendly ones), especially in the difficult macro environment? Based on my research, the EU’s first step in GHG emission reduction is requiring large ships using EU ports to report verified emissions, beginning in 2018 (https://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/transport/shipping/index_en.htm). Is this sufficient – or urgent – enough?

Thanks for the great intro to efforts under way at Disney to reduce its carbon footprint. I was especially intrigued by the Mickey solar power project with Duke Energy in Orlando. It’s a great first step, but as this Forbes article points out, accounts for a “mouse-sized” portion of power used, i.e. roughly $500,000 (10.5M kilowatt-hours per year) in the first year, compared to a whopping $84 million worth of electricity consumed by Disney’s theme parks and 40,000 hotel rooms in the area. As Disney increasingly incorporates sustainability into its business and operational plans, what additional measures will it adopt? Could it leverage its location in sunny California and Florida to expand solar and other renewable energy production initiatives? What types of economic and tax incentives can local and state governments implement in order to facilitate such corporate investments?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2016/02/29/disney-world-taps-solar-power-with-mickey-mouse-pv-project/#771e544851e9

Thanks, Brittany – this was a fascinating read! With respect to economics questions raised above, you might find this Financial Times (2015) article helpful: https://www.ft.com/content/4839da78-b8fa-11e4-a8d0-00144feab7de. It tells us that despite the vast distances, Kenya benefits from low cost of labor, abundant workforce (growing, picking and pruning roses is indeed labor-intensive), equatorial temperatures more conducive to year-round growing (without need for expensive glasshouse heating) and better lighting – thereby contributing more flowers to Europe than one of its own, the Netherlands. Given socioeconomic potential of this industry, I agree we should focus on this debate on ways to reduce carbon footprint and improve the KFC’s forecasting and shipping capacities, rather than meeting demand elsewhere. Can the KFC adopt low-cost cold chain technologies already on the U.S. market to this aim? I’d like to see them work with existing “connected transportation” vendors like Locus Traxx (Emerson), Orbcomm and Numerex that offer cheap ($2-3 per device) hardware/sensors and related software platform enabling real-time location and temperature monitoring of perishable goods, so that they can transition faster to shipping by ocean containers.