Philip Sorensen's Profile

Very interesting read! I find it particularly interesting that Airbus does not see Bombardier’s C-series program entrance as a threat. As you write, given their 50.1% stake on the C-Series program, Airbus is essentially handed a tested aircraft blueprint for free. However, what happens if Delta finds Bombardier’s aircrafts superior to those of Airbus? Could Bombardier then potentially start to steal market share from Airbus in its home market, Europe, outside of the production licensing agreement between Bombardier and Airbus? I guess Airbus must be very confident in their aircraft’s superiority to Bombardier or be extremely eager to enter the US market.

Very cool article. A question that comes to mind is whether the top-down efforts by the Chinese state could inspire bottom up carbon emission initiatives from the population? The country that I’m from, Denmark, boast the lowest Co2 emission per capita. The way this has been achieved has been through aggressive goal setting (similar to that of the Chinese state) and by inspiring citizens to do their individual efforts to reduce Co2 footprint. For example, 36 percent of trips to work or school in Copenhagen are made by bike, and more than 20,000 cyclists enter the city center at peak hours, filling its 249 miles of cycle tracks. In addition, half of the turbines in the harbor wind farm, known as Middelgrunden, were funded by individual Copenhagen shareholders. Copenhagen also aspires to become the world’s first carbon-neutral capital by 2025 though a replacement of coal with biomass, adding more wind and solar electricity to the grid, upgrading energy-guzzling buildings, and by luring even more residents onto bikes and public transit. Denmark now generates almost 50% of its energy through wind energy and the population feel like they have a stake in this achievement. I hope China can do the same. 4

Cool article! At first, I was a little bit skeptical as to whether Patagonia would actually be able to communicate this additional value proposition (apart form its high quality standards) to its consumers. However, after browsing trough Patagonia’s online catalogue, it is quite clear to me that they have done a tremendous job in highlighting the relatively positive climate impact of its products under the description of the product features. My only concern is whether all of Patagonia’s consumers are willing to pay a premium towards climate change combat. Considering the amount of good causes out there, an alternative model could perhaps be to allow the consumer to choose which causes Patagonia should support upon payment- e.g. climate change, breast cancer, poverty, etc.

Brilliant essay, Hedy! Really enjoyed reading it. In terms of whether WB should have a vested interest in sustaining the movie theater-going experience, or shift its focus completely to digital, your essay inspired me to think about how WB could potentially differentiate the movie theater-going experience further from sitting in ones’ living room and watching a movie. In other words, could the movie theater somehow deliver an experience that is significantly different from that of sitting at home? I guess one way to think about this would be to try to distill what makes people go to the movie theater in the first place. My hypothesis would be that 3 things can be attributed to why people go to the movie theater:
1) Ability to watch blockbusters as soon as they are released
2) Experiencing the superior technology quality (i.e. visuals and audios)
3) Engaging in social activity (e.g. first dates)
Assuming that 1) is rather stable, I’d try to hone in on how levers 2) and 3) can be adjusted to differentiate the movie theater-going experience further. For example, for 2), could movie theaters start showing movies using VR-technology? And for 3), could movie theaters be set up to cater for couples through paired snuggle-seats? If these levers can be adjusted to differentiate the movie theater-going experience further, then I think keeping the movie theaters is the right thing to do strategically. If not, then I’d be a proponent of getting rid of them.

I love it, Eric! Your definition of a football club’s supply chain is spot on. Certainly, Brexit posses challenges for Arsenal given the high proportion of foreign players/products in its roster, but I also believe that the premier league in itself has an interest in ensuring lax labor restriction under Brexit. Aside from Sheffield United, whose roster is composed entirely of English and Irish players, all the football clubs in the top two divisions in England are reliant on foreign players. (1) Moreover, a recent study by the International Centre for Sports Studies’ (CIES) Football Observatory, assessing percentage of minutes played by foreign footballers at 466 clubs in the top divisions of 31 different European leagues so far this season, found that the Premier League is third-most reliant league on foreign players in all of Europe. (2) Thus, since cultivating national talent will entail a long lead time and might potentially be fruitless (given the English national team’s performance during recent major cups), the premier league relative skill level is prone to decrease unless labor restrictions on football players are eased under Brexit. This will have severe consequences for the top clubs in the premier league (e.g. Manchester United), who are used to leave an impression on the international football stage through Champions League. I hope your country can make an exemption here!

(1) https://talksport.com/football/premier-league-clubs-highest-number-foreign-players-revealed-170824251725
(2) http://www.espnfc.com/english-premier-league/story/3224746/premier-league-third-most-reliant-on-foreign-players-in-europe-study

Cool article! I wrote about LEGO’s similar efforts to reduce its supply chain’s Co2 footprint and found it inspiring to read that Patagonia actually contributes a significant amount of money towards environmental non-profit groups. At first, I was a little bit skeptical as to whether Patagonia would actually be able to communicate this additional value proposition (apart form its high quality standards) to its consumers. However, after browsing trough Patagonia’s online catalogue, it is quite clear to me that they have done a tremendous job in highlighting the relatively positive climate impact of its products under the description of the product features. My only concern is whether all of Patagonia’s consumers are willing to pay a premium towards climate change combat. Considering the amount of good causes out there, an alternative model could perhaps be to allow the consumer to choose which causes Patagonia should support upon payment- e.g. climate change, breast cancer, poverty, etc.

Super cool! A question that comes to mind is whether the efforts by the city of Dallas could inspire nationwide climate change combat goals? The country that I’m from, Denmark, boast the lowest Co2 emission per capita. The way this has been achieved has been through aggressive goal setting (similar to your recommendations for Dallas Ccity) and by inspiring citizens to do their individual efforts to reduce Co2 footprint. For example, 36 percent of trips to work or school in Copenhagen are made by bike, and more than 20,000 cyclists enter the city center at peak hours, filling its 249 miles of cycle tracks. In addition, half of the turbines in the harbor wind farm, known as Middelgrunden, were funded by individual Copenhagen shareholders. Copenhagen also aspires to become the world’s first carbon-neutral capital by 2025 though a replacement of coal with biomass, adding more wind and solar electricity to the grid, upgrading energy-guzzling buildings, and by luring even more residents onto bikes and public transit. Copenhagen has acted as an inspirational “beacon leader” for Denmark, which now generates almost 50% of its energy through wind energy. I hope Dallas City can do the same for the US!

As an avid beer drinker, I find this article super interesting (and depressing should the price of a Corona actually increase). In this context, it is interesting to look at the European equivalent of an American NAFTA repeal, Brexit, and how it is likely going to affect the European beer industry. The expected new beer tariff structure under Brexit may lower the cost of some imports into the UK while raising the price of others. While this sounds counter-intuitive, it is because that as part of the free-trade zone, EU member-countries do not pay tariffs on goods they trade bilaterally- however, they do pay tariffs on goods imported from outside the EU. Once Britain leaves the EU, it will most likely drop the EU-mandated tariffs it had been paying on say, malt from South Africa while it may decide to start charging tariffs on hops from Poland and cider apples from Spain. The EU will almost definitely impose tariffs on British goods, which will mean that a Danish brewer will pay more for earthy English hops. Perhaps we will see some of the same dynamics unfold between the US, Canada, and Mexico, should NAFTA be repealed.

This is really interesting – well written! I wonder whether Trump’s action spur isolationist reactions from countries that would be impacted by a potential American repeal form NAFTA? For example, while Canada’s Trudeau is quite the opposite of Trump in that he champions trade and Trump campaigned on protectionism, I think he might have to express some isolationist threats to increase his chances of renegotiating a good (new) NAFTA agreement on behalf of Canada, should it ever come that far. As an outside observer from Europe, I find it hard to understand whether Trump actually believes that the people who voted for him would be better off without NAFTA. While an American NAFTA repeal would potentially drive jobs to the US, it will inevitably also drive up the prices on the cars.

Awesome article, Simon! An element that is also great about the “cashlessness” of the nordics is that as an average (nordic) Joe, you do not need to worry about losing cash (e.g. if you lose your wallet). However, something that worries me about the migration to digital payments is the lack of transparency into the underlying service from a consumer’s point-of-view. As a consumer, your relationship with the financial institution becomes weaker as your touch points become less personal- in this case I would argue that digital touch points are among the least personal. This means that financial institutions’ levers for improvements in customer service becomes fewer and fewer, which in turn drives consolidation of services in the industry and limits competitive pressure. This trend is highlighted by Danske Bank’s recent decision to switch off MobilePay in Norway, and instead partner up with its main competitor, Vipps (developed by DNB). Let’s hope our Scandinavian governments are as succesful in managing this risk as they are at operating SAS!
https://www.finextra.com/newsarticle/31184/danske-bank-terminates-mobilepay-in-norway-enters-talks-with-vipps

What an interesting read! I agree on the last mile of delivery becoming increasingly important for online retailers like Amazon. In terms of what Amazon could do going forward, I think that looking into robotic-technology delivery systems could also be an potentially fruitful avenue to explore. Starship Technologies, an Estonia-based company started by Skype co-founders Ahti Heinla and Janus Friis, is actually seeking regulatory approval in Seattle for its 35-pound ground-based robots that deliver everything from parcels to vegetables. Also, as of March this year, when ordering a Dominos pizza in Hamburg, Germany, there is a good chance that it will be delivered by one of these robot. Hence, although we do not have any insights to the business case behind robotic-technology delivery, it seems there is already a substantial proof of concept.