J.M.

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Helvetia: a Swiss insurer on time with digitalization
J.M.
Posted on November 15, 2017 at 8:46 pm
While Fintechs (financial technology companies) have been transforming the banking industry for a decade, traditional insurance companies had, until recently, been protected by a heavy regulation and the complex nature of their products. It is now time for them to [...]

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On December 1, 2017, J.M. commented on Here Comes the Sun (Tariffs)- How isolationism and the pending ITC ruling could impact SunPower and the U.S. Solar Industry :

Great article Angela! After reading the comments, I’m wondering whether the other players of the U.S. solar industry, e.g. the competitors of SunPower, won’t actually be more impacted than SunPower itself. It seems that SunPower is a leader in its field and is vertically integrated and therefore might be better positioned to deal with the ITC ruling. As you said, it’s the whole supply chain that will be impacted so SunPower’s competitors might lose suppliers/partners and eventually disappear. So we might witness a market consolidation – certainly not a good thing for the end consumers but it might not be the worse thing for SunPower.

On December 1, 2017, J.M. commented on Why is Trump concerned with laundry? :

Great post John Smith and interesting comments as well! I agree with most of them and I found the debate around Whirlpool particularly interesting, especially since they have their own factories in Mexico that will also be affected by a renegotiation of NAFTA. Since we agree that customers will pay a higher price, that innovation might slow down due to a lack of competition, which basically means that customers will pay more for less, that employment might not improve (see Miguel Frade’s comment) and that even American manufacturers with plants abroad might be worse off, I am left wondering what can justify this renegotiation and who will benefit from it?

On December 1, 2017, J.M. commented on Monsanto Predicting Weather: Crazy or Crazily Smart? :

Great read and very à-propos given the recent decision to postpone the Bayer-Monsanto merger. On top on the big data, this merger would significantly increase the asymmetry you mentioned, between large agribusinesses and their customers. To build on Ketty’s comment, it does seem like Monsanto is currently trying to find ways, through technologies, to limit the impact of climate change on its supply chain but I would like to see them launching initiatives to actually reduce their own impact. I am worried that this merger will shift the focus on financial and synergy matters and postpone/delay any sustainability efforts that they had launched or planned to launch.

On December 1, 2017, J.M. commented on The Effects of Climate Change on Cargill’s Supply Chain :

Hi HBS Rules! Thanks for your article – really interesting! While reading your article, I had the impression that most of Cargill’s efforts were focusing on either diversifying their business (through acquisitions and new projects) or making it more efficient (R&D in stress testing) to reduce the impact of climate change on their supply chain and bottom line but that, despite a few partnerships with NGOs, little had been done to actually limit their own impact on climate change. After a bit of research, it seems Cargill is actually much more active than I thought! Back in 2015, they set new targets to themselves to “reduce greenhouse gas intensity, improve energy efficiency and increase renewables as a part of our portfolio” and it seems that they’re on track [1]. They were also lobbying to convince President Trump to stay in the Paris agreement and are still committed to reaching their goals despite the US exit.
Based on that and your last paragraph, the question I have is: would more incentives from governments actually help or are they already financially benefitting from these sustainability initiatives?

[1] Cargill, “Climate Change”, https://www.cargill.com/sustainability/priorities/climate-change, accessed on December 1, 2017

On December 1, 2017, J.M. commented on Fintech VS Banking – Can banks win this battle and become more efficient using technology? :

Hi Shosha, I really enjoyed your article as I find the reactions of incumbents in financial services to new entrants very interesting. One of the potential issue I see for the Leumi Bank will be to attract the right talents to smoothly switch from a traditional bank to a more technology-driven institution. As mentioned in your article, Leumi’s answer to Fintechs was rather reactive. As new technologies, such as the Blockchain, appear, they will have to constantly evolve and innovate, and will therefore need top engineers and developers. But between the “cool” Fintech startups and the “well-paid” jobs in Big Tech, how do you attract these talents?

On December 1, 2017, J.M. commented on Digitization: Amazon’s competitive advantage? :

Hi Cay, great article! I agree with your 3 additional digitalisation initiatives but I would actually add a 4th one that I think we’re underestimating: through “Amazon Business”, Amazon’s digitalisation efforts have the potential to impact a lot of small and medium businesses, which don’t have the cash/time to invest in that field. By leveraging their digitalisation knowledge, Amazon might be able to extract more value in the supply chains from its business customers (especially on the procurement side) and even attract new customers because of this competitive advantage.