Molly's Profile

Thank you very much for bringing a non-US-focused issue to the spotlight. I really enjoyed reading the paper.

I agree with you that companies should prepare very actively to this significant change to come, and I think all your action items are great ideas. I am just wondering whether it is fair to expect companies to plan and act on something that is completely opaque. Coming from the consulting industry, I am part of the people whose work is strongly impacted by the fact that companies stopped investing, developing and are in a waiting mode. But putting myself into the shoes of these companies, I would also find it hard to put money in large supply chain disrupting projects when the future is less certain than ever.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this dividing topic. I believe it would be interesting to think about this problem from a CSR perspective. We always talk about how doing the right thing creates additional value to the companies on the long term (e.g., environmentally friendly production processes in factories, stronger workforce safety in mines). Maybe the companies can consider hiring US workforce as a way to support a local community and educate the local people. The additional costs due to higher salary would be considered as CSR expense, which ideally would make the workforce more attached to the company and result in higher performance and loyalty.

I found your piece very interesting, especially because it covers a space that we hear little about – subscription box retail. Whenever I read about e-commerce, the first question I think about is how is this differentiated from Amazon, how quickly will Amazon be able to take over this space? Based on your analysis of the company and the industry, I see little competitive advantage Birchbox has. Customer knowledge, supplier relations, delivery infrastructure are all better managed by Amazon due to its scale. I believe that the only differentiating factor Birchbox can have on the long-term is if they try to position themselves as the experts of the space. If they become the beauty blog and newspaper where people go to learn about new products, and on the side sell boxes / full products to customers who already trust them, they could build a stronger relationship then Amazon has now.

Thank you for bringing data and research to a topic that is frequently one of the most dividing discussion in my friend group. I believe no one can challenge the facts you put down about the impact of meat production on our environment. However, I the final question you posed, on whether substituting meat with other solution is even possible, is very real. There are two main threats that are playing against Memphis Meats and the companies alike. First, the strong meat, dairy, and egg industry that would try to block market share gain through press, marketing, and strong lobby. Second, the general attitude of the population towards artificial food and non-meat based diet. I believe these two major hurdles can be resolved slowly, with strong education of the regulator and the general public.

I found the writing both entertaining (clear structure, catchy title) and highly data-driven, analytical. It is very disturbing how climate change has a strong and increasing impact on our everyday life, such as coffee drinking.

My takeaway from this writing is that Nestle itself is not enough not make significant impact, due to the very low concentration of the market. Based on this, I started thinking about what would be the actions Nestle can take to make a difference. I believe that teaming with other major manufacturing companies could have faster impact that trying to influence regulation through government lobby. This is driven by the fact that there is significantly higher concentration on the manufacturing side than the farmer side, that give strong negotiation power to Nestle and the companies alike. Furthermore, the majority of coffee plants are located in countries where lobby and the involvement of for profit companies into the regulatory process has limited or no history, making it difficult for Nestle to contribute.

I really like your summary on the potential implication of the usage of Google Glass, and the independent opinion listing both its advantages and disadvantages.

Reading your summary on the potential drawbacks of using Google Glass, I thought about the significant development effort currently going into robotizing complete warehouse systems. I was wondering whether the improvement of Google Glass to fit the logistics environment will be faster than the time when robots will take over most of the activities within a warehouse system. I believe that Google can focus its efforts on improving the Google Glass exclusively on metrics that are essential to be able to integrate into a more automatized, robotics-lead logistics system.