Phil Mickelson's Profile

I think the main consideration of a potential new US factory comes down to two points. First, would the new US factory be more profitable than a factory elsewhere in the world both under the current Trump administration and under for example the 2014 administration. Second, how likely is it that the current administration’s view and support for “Made in America” will continue in the long-term. If Goodyear believes that the protectionist “Made in America” is a long-term view within both political parties in the US, Goodyear should seriously consider building the US plant. However, if Goodyear believes that the current government sentiment is only due to Trump and that Trump will be out by the next election, then I would advice Goodyear to think more seriously about a plant in e.g. Mexico, with lower labor rates.

Indeed a tricky problem for the wine producers. I see three outcomes for this problem from a supply chain point of view: 1. Place, 2. Raw material and 3. Process. Starting with place, the first solution for wine producers would be to slowly start shifting / adding production in new areas with better climate suitable for producing wine of a particular grape. Second (for raw material), the wine producers could stay at their current locations but over time introduce grapes more suitable for the changing climate in their current region. Third (for process), the wine producers could stay in their current locations and use their current grapes, but introduce processes / machines that better adjust the grapes and the soil for the changing climate.

Very interesting read. The main concern I see with arctic shipping are the environmental impacts mentioned in the article. In order to tackle these, Sovcomflot should push for an agreement on common playing rules among the arctic countries. The main forum for agreeing on this in my opinion would be the Arctic Council including Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and United States. Before making long-term investments in their ships, I would advice Sovcomflot to lobby for the Russian government to agree with the other arctic nations on what the boundaries for arctic shipping in the future should be. By doing this, they would be more sure to not make investments that would need to be reversed in the future.

From a Unilever perspective this presents two interesting thoughts for me. First of all, how trustworthy is the standpoint of the Nigerian government? If the Nigerian government truly wants to develop an own food supply chain in Nigeria in the long-term, I think Unilever would be interested in helping developing this (Nigeria will be a massive growth market in the future due to population growth and supply chain presence might have a positive impact on consumer perception), however if Unilever thinks that the opinion of the government will change every few years, Unilever might think that the risk of investing in the supply chain is too high (i.e. if Nigeria after a few years is willing to go back to importing). Second, as the European Union sanctions on Russia have shown, building up an own food supply chain in a country is not an easy task at all. Sanctions on Russia were imposed in 2014 and Russian counter-sanctions stopped the import of many food products. One of the thoughts behind the counter-sanctions was that this would provide Russia an opportunity to develop their own food supply chain within many food product areas. However until today, this development has been very modest. [1] Unilever should keep case Russia in mind, when thinking about building up their supply chain presence in Nigeria.

[1] “The embargo has transformed the Russian food market”, Jakub Olipra, Central European Financial Observer, January 24, 2017. https://financialobserver.eu/cse-and-cis/russia/the-embargo-has-transformed-the-russian-food-market/ Accessed November 2017.

You raise a very interesting and important point for the airline industry. I think big data is the way forward for achieving transparency in demand forecasting, however there are a few things that the airlines must keep in mind in order to succeed. First, finding and hiring big data analytics talent will become key and should be on the priority list of any airline CEO. Second, not all flight / tourism / business travel data is relevant and the crux is in filtering out the relevant data for the demand forecasting. Third, gaining access to the relevant data is not always straight forward and the airline companies might face privacy issues here. Finally, drawing the right conclusion from the sea of data will determine whether the airlines will be successful or not in predicting the future demand.

I think you raise a very interesting point of how customers can better perceive the supply situation of clothing at American Eagle and how that leads to more selection and shorter deliver times. However I would approach the digitization of the supply chain also from the demand perspective. In order to cut waste in inventory and better adjust production in line with consumer demand, American Eagle should think about introducing RFID tags in the safety alarms of their clothes in their stores. For example Inditex (parent company of e.g. Zara and Massimo Dutti) has been doing this for a few years now and this has allowed them to adjust production and inventory based on the latest demand from consumers.