Javier Pasquín's Profile

This is an interesting topic Matt! There are many positive things related to telemedicine, specially in low-income areas. In places where the supply (doctors) cannot meet the demand requirements (patients) the ability to let doctors in developed countries examine patients in underdeveloped countries will help reduce the existing gap.
My biggest concern is how to make this viable/profitable. Assuming people in underdeveloped countries cannot afford the price that doctors from developed countries demand, which mechanisms can be established to make this happen? Another concern I have regarding telemedicine with underdeveloped countries is the delivery of medicines. One thing is to connect doctors and patients, and another more complicated issue is how to take the medicine to the patient.

In order to evaluate the feasibility of this digitization it is essential to look first at the customer promise. I believe that one of the aspects would be “confidence” and “reliability” in bank. One of the main factors that make people trust a bank is the establishment of interpersonal relationships with the employees working in the branches. My point is that branches play a key role in building this trust, so it seems difficult for me that Wells Fargo could get rid of its branches so it will be difficult to reduce costs in this way.

I can see people applying for a mortgage via internet, but that does not mean that Wells Fargo can eliminate its branches and optimize its personnel, so the efficiencies will not be substantial.

I believe that, in the end, this is same question we have with other first class HBS and in Ikea´s Case. Is it possible to make a positive difference at the same time you are making a lot of money? I am a strong supporter that both objectives can (and must be) be pursued simultaneously. In this sense, Zara is making a lot of money and the fact that they are also looking for mechanisms to be sustanaible does not nothing ut help to the brand.
As discussed in IKEA, Zara is trying to be sustainable and the fact that they earn a lot of money does not discredit their efforts with the environment. At the end of the day, people will still need to buy clothes. I prefer a company that takes care of the environment to earn a lot of money than a company that does not do it.

It is surprising that there some drugs that are exclusively produced in Puerto Rico! Thank you for bringing up this topic

From the actions you propose the geographic diversification is the one that makes more sense to me. I believe that the emergency readiness and the inventory stockpiles will help to REDUCE/MITIGATE the risks you mention. However, reduction or mitigation is not enough when we are speaking about health issues.
I believe that geographic diversification ELIMANATES the risks of running out of drugs. This is probably the most expensive option, but mainly because of taxes reasons. In this sense, they could try to lobby the government to reduce taxes.

After reading your article and the some of the bibliography you mention, I believe that an outside-of-the-box idea that could be great for them would be to have their own warehouses and their own relationships with manufacturers in certain areas. I do think that they should have enough data right now to observe which products are being sold and where. For example, if the data shows that shampoo H&S is sold a lot in a residential area, it could be a great idea to negotiate directly with H&S and to store them.I know this is another business but I am sure that for very demanding products in certain regions it will help to become more profitable.

Really interesting! At my previous job, I did a consulting project for an NGO whose purpose was to improve the education of more than 10 million children in Africa. Exactly as you mentioned, since the NGO was funded by a telecommunications company, they were only focused on providing technology to the children rather than in the way how to teach them. The digitalisation of the economy is the future because it allows to customise the education for every children, even within the same classroom. The same way as in a game, the more intelligent students could advance to the more difficult lessons faster than the students who required more help. In this sense, teachers (a lack resource in Africa) could concrentate on the latter students.