James Shaw's Profile

As Industry 4.0 becomes more prevalent and more retailers develop their own “Speedfactory” in order to reap the many benefits, cybersecurity will be top of mind. In this sense, a retailer’s future competitive edge may be that it has the most robust cybersecurity technology and its production process is never interrupted. A retailer who is susceptible to cyber attacks will have higher operational costs and longer time lapses between design and product in store, and therefore will be unable to react quickly to changes in trends and demand. Given that Adidas’ competition will also likely be moving in the direction of Industry 4.0, I would suggest Adidas acquire a top cybersecurity company to provide it with exclusive technology and in-house service.

Very well written! I agree with LEGO’s approach of waiting to see what happens before acting. Trump’s tweets are not legislation and it is worth being sure the transition is necessary before undergoing a very expensive switch that is also likely to increase cost of production due to more expensive labor. This is especially important given that LEGO is currently going through a difficult period, failing to report growth in revenue in the US for the first time in many years. [1]

[1] Christine Weinberg, “Made-in-Mexico Lego Ignores Trump Trade Threat for Now, CEO Says,” Industry Week, March 13, 2017

In the long-term, autonomous trucks will push truck drivers to find employment elsewhere. However, it seems that we are still decades away from full autonomy and diffusion throughout the country, meaning that people may stop becoming truckers, but not an enormous number of truckers are likely to lose jobs as a result of the technology implementation. In the meantime, the rise in autonomous trucks will help the trucking industry as The American Trucking Association reports turnover as high as 90% for large truckload carriers and estimates a driver shortage of 50,000 by the end of 2017.[1]

[1] Aarian Marhsall “What Does Tesla’s Automated Truck Mean For Truckers,” Wired, Nov 17, 2017

Great post! In my opinion, the lobbying effort by Goldman Sachs and the other large banks will be a very difficult battle. The EU is reluctant to let the UK come out of Brexit with favorable economic terms, in fear that other countries will follow suit. In other words, the EU has an incentive to make an example out of the UK, and since banking is such a significant portion of UK GVA, I find it unlikely that Goldman and other banks will be able to remain in London with access to the rest of the EU. As you write, I see the preemptively securing banking licenses in and moving certain employees to Frankfurt as the safest option for the banks to survive this shift.

Really interesting! As you mention, the “always on” mode makes cost of ownership higher and also increases electricity waste. I see an opportunity for Hewlett Packard to educate the end users of its hardware to better manage their devices in order to both decrease the cost of usage as well as decrease their own environmental footprint. HP could work with the software providers that operate on its devices to enforce certain settings or prompt users to shut down/take other actions that would lead to more sustainable usage.

I agree with you that it is not clear how significant of an impact Levi’s can have on climate change; however, as you mention, the company can do a few things to decrease its dependence on cotton or increase cotton’s resilience to climate change. For example, it could look into one of the new technologies being developed as synthetic substitutes for cotton and it can focus on BCI approved cotton that requires less water and therefore is less affected by drought.