Patrick's Profile

Until we know what Venmo’s future plans are with the huge customer base they are creating it is hard to gauge how big the threat might be to the banks. Are they planning to become more like a bank? Will they start offering additional products/services to their customers?

It seems to me like they are still not sure what to do and are plainly focusing on acquiring a huge customer base and figuring out what to do later on.

Online courses tend to have a lower propensity of attendance than in-person cases. Only 50% of the people who sign up for a MOOC class actually show up to the first case, and about 5% actually complete the class http://er.educause.edu/articles/2013/6/retention-and-intention-in-massive-open-online-courses-in-depth

While payment for the class tends to increase attendance and engagement it does not yet achieve the levels of in-person classes. For this new technology to be actually successful there needs to be some change in they way they are administered to actually pose a threat to in-person classes.

Wow, this competition for the online business in sports goods between Nike and Under Armour is very interesting.
However, it seems like they are taking different approaches.
At first sight, it seems like Under Armour is acquiring companies already established in both software and hardware to gain market share.
Then, on the other hand, Nike is either developing the technology in-house or making partnerships for products like the Apple watch.

It seems that it will be a race of who can achieve the largest market share and can connect these technologies to their core products.
Soon we might be seeing as you mention in your post, suggestions for products given our weight/height/BMI and exercise activities.

This means that Under Armour will have to invest in merging these applications together (MyFitnessPal, Endomondo, etc.).
Or, finding synergies between all the applications and how they can better suit their business.
Right now, Under Armour should focus on acquiring the largest number of customers in their applications and look for a revenue model later.
Once they have achieved a large customer base they can look for strategies to monetize by maybe offering bundled products.
Next, they should use their better data from the apps to better develop products that match their customer base.
This will be very interesting to follow in the future, as we also need to consider additional competitors (Adidas, New Balance, etc.)
One would expect this will lead to better products and better apps as they better match physical products with technology.

Do you see the future of baseball as all teams using data analytics to improve their teams? Will the next edge be who has the best analytics team and is able to then translate this data analysis to better talent acquisition or even a complete re-definition of what “talent” is in the baseball industry?

In the end, baseball as all other sports is both a competitive sport just as much as it is a performance. Will the performance expected change in the future of baseball? As we saw in Moneyball they were switching from players who hit a lot of home runs (which is something exciting to watch as a spectator) vs. batters who would get on base more frequently. If we see more teams heading this direction we could see a completely different baseball game in the future (not to judge if it is something better or something worse). This is in line with better strategic plays coming from the managers. Sometimes when a player should bunt the manager lets them bat because “they could hit a home run” even though it is highly unlikely and the smartest play was to bunt.

There is a reason why Rent the Runway exclusively caters to women clothing and not men. Women tend to wear a dress 1-2 times even if they buy them. This is mainly because it is badly seen to wear the same dress to several events so even if you like the dress it has a very short life.

Rent the runway bring a solution by allowing women to rent high-end dresses for accessible prices, you can now wear a large diversity of dresses that might cost $1K+ and just sit on your closet if you purchase them.

Although I agree with you that the move to brick and mortar sound a bit counter-intuitive for their business model and incurs in a much greater cost than they used to have with the pure online play. I think they need to better understand who their core customer is and how exactly a brick and mortar store is giving them additional value.

It would be interesting to know how the dialogue between insurance companies and reinsurance companies has evolved around climate change.
Who in general should be responsible for taking on this additional risk? Should reinsurance companies like Munich Re increase the premiums they charge insurance companies to take into account this additional risk posed by climate change? and, should insurance companies then in return pass on this surcharge on the premium to the insured?

Very interesting article!

It would be interesting to do an analysis of the impact this sustainable campaign has had on Nike’s sales and bottom line. It would be amazing if the results show that it actually helped Nike improve their market share or lower their costs. If this would be true, this paper could be used to encourage other companies to take similar procedures in their business and have a larger impact on sustainability.

With millennials and newer generations being more interested in taking care of the environment it would be very interesting for a large company such as Nike to be successful at increasing sales through sustainable promotion of their products rather than improving the style or functionality of their products.

Do you think the solution is for Coca-Cola to impose certain requirements from its suppliers and this would fix the problem?
It would be interesting to know currently what percentage of their suppliers are developing similar sustainable policies and if this is a feasible thing to do. Coca-Cola should publicly share their replenishing methodologies and strategies so the rest of the industry could apply similar policies.

On the other hand, another option Coca-Cola could do would be to vertically integrate and that way they would be responsible for taking care of this action. Would this not be part of their core business?

Given that airplane travel demand is elastic, especially for leisure travel, would you consider passing on increased cost to the consumer as a potential risk for Delta? With the rapid growth of online websites like Kayak and Expedia customers are able to find quick comparisons between airlines and as we can see in this report (http://www.fin.gc.ca/consultresp/airtravel/airtravstdy_1-eng.asp) both long-haul international leisure and short-haul leisure are highly elastic. Is this a segment Delta would be willing to lose by increasing their prices or is this something that would happen to all airlines, and all airlines will have to increase their prices?

As CK mentioned in Delta’s recent purchase of 717s with a lower fuel efficiency than other options they might just be focused on staying alive in a low margin industry, disregarding the potential impact of climate change in their business.

It seems to me like Tyson is trying to mitigate the bad publicity they have received in several articles and documentaries regarding the GHG emissions generated by beef production by claiming to be working on sustainable goals.

I find it curious that they are moving towards plant proteins which are direct substitutes for their main products, is this an attempt at diversification? It will be interesting to see how they would market these plant-based protein products. Will it be as a superior product to their core product or as something completely unrelated? Since getting attention towards this plant based product might cannibalize their beef demand.