Kimberly's Profile

Hi Michelle,

I really enjoyed reading your article but at the same time – couldn’t help but feel guilty as well. A lot of the pressure to find alternative ways to produce cacao seems to falling on the farmers and producers of the product when in fact, they are not the issue. We as consumers are the issue. The only true solution I see to the issue’s facing the world chocolate market is for consumer tastes to shift away from such heavy consumption of the good. I find it interesting that when natural shifts start to impact or agricultural industry – our first reaction is to solve for the supply instead the demand element of the issue.

I myself am a chocolate lover a consume at least one piece of chocolate a day (x5 most days). After reading your article, however, I feel a moral obligation to cut back on frequently consuming a growingly scare commodity. Similar to the way consumer tastes are shifting away from consuming meat and instead to consuming more vegetarian options, I think that we should look for more sustainable sweets to consume.

Here is interesting article I read about try to shift consumer chocolate tastes in the wake of it’s scarcity phenomena:
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/nov/21/cocoa-crisis-world-chocolate-stash-melting-away

Hi Miguel,

Thanks for you article. My response to your final question is that morality and corporate responsibility needs to be woven into the cloth of how our world’s management makes business decisions, period. I understand that often times industries like coal mining that have had established infrastructures and processes in place for quite some time require capital intensive investments in order to improve – but I personally consider this an easy decision to make for the long term sustainability of an organization. I would like for industries such as these to shift their focus from short term profit gains/losses to the long-term viability of their business model as well as their impact on local communities. This shift would provide a greater sense of clarity when it comes to making tough investment and strategy decisions.

Hi Annie!

Really insightful article. As a Sephora customer, I was very invested in reading your article and learning more about the views of a brand that on sustainability. I had two reactions to your article that I consider to be equally interesting:

1. I had no idea that Sephora focused so much on sustainability as a company. As I was reading your article, I was both shocked and pleased to learn that Sephora had made so many active steps towards being a business that is lowering their global footprint.

2. I wonder how much Sephora being sustainable will effect my customer behavior with them. As an American consumer, I do not feel as though sustainability is an as commonly discussed topic as it should be. This in return supports a customer sentiment that does not take into consideration the sustainability of a company prior to making a decision as whether or not buy a product from that particular vendor. For those reasons, if the recommendations that you made towards to end of your article do not come to fruition for Sephora, I truly do not think that it will have any effect on the top line of the company’s revenue. I would really like to see the US government take a more active role in boosting their sustainability awareness efforts across multiple industries to be more competitive with our competitors in Asia and beyond.

Hi Ketty!

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this. I found it really interesting that you think that supply chain is at the core of Adidas current competitive issues against Nike and Under Armor. Even though Adidas and other athletic shoe brands are technically “fashion brands” I do not think that most consumers typically make this association or consider the high expectation they have for these brands to meet current fashion trends. To this degree, decreasing the time it takes to ideate, produce, and get a new shoe design to market is definitely going to serve as a competitive advantage in the future. With this short production cycle, my main concern is how the company is going to able to accurately forecast demand. Especially when considering a highly customized shoe like the AM4 designs – I am doubtful that the quick production of these shoes will produce a supply that accurately meets demand in a shorter lifecycle shoe market that it’s driving.

Hi Sahael!

Thanks for your insightful article. I used to be a frequent user the Starbucks app to pre-order drinks but stopped using the service in response to some of the issues you noted. It was nice to see some statistics around the topic as I had begun to wonder if I was the only Starbucks customer having repeat issues with the efficiency and accuracy of their online ordering service. As more customers become active within the mobile app ordering space within the food & beverage industry, I believe that the new convenience metric mentioned in your article is going to become a competitive differentiator as well as deterrents from use of a particular service or vendor. Hopefully Starbucks will be able to adapt to better meet customer expectations sooner rather than later.

Hi Nicki!

Loved your article. It’s really interesting to see how companies are viewing digitalization as a lever they can pull to drive greater customer loyalty through transparency efforts. The part of your article that referenced 3M putting barcodes on the bark of trees in order the track the sustainability of their products and provide transparency to customers reminded me of the TOM in your world article I mentioned in class the other day regarding the fashion industry and their installation of QR codes on clothing. I find it interesting that across multiple industries sustainability is going to be a key differentiator in not only securing the long term success of an organization from a production standpoint – but also in terms of building deeper customer relationships. I am excited to see what new technological advancements are made in the coming years to better support transparency and sustainability within the supply chain.

Here is a link to the article I shared in class about how QR codes are being used in the production process of clothing to track the blockchain process: http://techwireasia.com/2017/11/blockchain-enable-transparency-fashion-supply-chain/