Matt Goolsby's Profile

I find Chubb’s response very innovative to the wildfire problem that it is facing. In the essay, it’s mentioned that Chubb is in a unique position to address climate change costs given its role as an insurer. However, I wonder how governments and scientists would respond to their position given that they appear to be making money off of climate change with new services such as in-house fire fighting. I think this raises a very interesting question – Is Chubb actually doing something to address climate change and alleviate its effect or is it just responding with new products to commercialize its effect?

Nike is an interesting company in the context of isolationism. Nike has never had a factory in the United States and seems to never intend to have one. Often, we have seen Trump take on company’s that are moving factories from the US abroad. Phil Knight’s original strategy in the business was to use the arbitrage of offshore manufacturing in the US shoe market. Given that Nike is a brand that is part of the American way of life, I wonder if that position would insulate it from any large imposed tariffs and the fact that it has never had a US factory.

I enjoyed the “Doomsday” comment in this essay as I think it highlights the key consideration in regards to combating isolationism for companies. In a world of free trade agreements and no threats of isolationism, companies would only need to consider cost efficiencies of producing in certain countries versus shipping cost and customer locations. With the isolationist issue today, companies must ensure that they have a back-up plan for each new international plant – not only an ability to switch production to other plants but have other nearby customers and markets to dump cars if tariffs prevent a company from selling into an intended market. What’s interesting about this phenomenon is if tariffs push production and supply to other markets does that result in excess capacity. For example, if all Mexican car plants now sell cars intended for the US in Latin America – increasing supply and capacity in this region.

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/04/health/planned-parenthood-by-the-numbers/index.html

I echo my peers above that this is such a relevant topic in today’s healthcare space. I think telehealth applications and programs is a no-brainer for Planned Parenthood because of Isabel’s three points on the ability to reach a broader population, to allow women to make more educated decisions about their body, and to reduce the stigma around sexual/reproductive health.

However, I think there is one issue that must be overcome for telehealth to be successful for Planned Parenthood. Given that 80% of Planned Parenthood’s patient population has incomes at or below 150% of the federal poverty line, I question whether these patients have the means and access to smartphones to be able to use telehealth. My question would be how does Planned Parenthood resolve this issue and ensure that its patients have the infrastructure to access telehealth programs.

Interesting and worrisome topic! This paper reminded me a lot of the IKEA case. In the section, “What More can Nestle Do,” I completely agree that Nestle needs to invest in R&D projects to increase coffee bean yields. Similar to IKEA, I would pose the question if Nestle should try R&D projects to recycle coffee beans. I think the final piece of the IKEA case that relates to this paper is the question of whether Nestle should consider vertical integration, buying coffee farms not only to implement sustainability initiatives but also to test new R&D projects.

Thinking in the context of a cement business, I would think that digitization would be more relevant for its role in supplying its customers and how it stores cement, which relates to the second point you made in regards to why Argos would want to digitize.

Cement production is a continuous flow process and its raw material inputs (limestone, coal, etc.) can be stored at the plant for long periods of time. Also, cement companies often store cement at the plant and terminals which serve as a network to service customers and increase the service area of the cement plant. Sensors could be immensely in value in tracking customer demand and levels of cement in the terminals. This data could then be used to influence production and transportation costs to terminals.

I think your question about changes to the organizational structure and culture are critical in the context of sensors and a cement plant. In an industry where it is key to run the plant as much as possible to keep capacity high and with an ability to store so much material and finished product, how do you change the culture to focus more on data and not just producing cement to store it in a terminal?