SofiaBerrada

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Capital One: Aligning the organization through data
SofiaBerrada
Posted on December 8, 2015 at 10:24 pm
Capital One is a Fortune 500 company that provides financial services such as credit cards and loans to consumers, small businesses and commercial clients. The company operates mainly in the US, Canada and the UK. Since the economic crisis in [...]

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On December 14, 2015, SofiaBerrada commented on Xiaomi – Mobile Disruptor from China :

Very interesting company, thank you Lucy!
This remind me of Threadless, when it comes to the way they use the community to collect feedback about the designs and also for the product launch.
It seems that the community of fans that they have built is a huge component of their success. Given that they want to expand their product line, I worry a little bit about their ability to translate this model and create new communities around the other products that they want to develop. It is going to be interesting to see how they manage to attract fans for their new products!

On December 14, 2015, SofiaBerrada commented on EasyJet: Making Travel Easy and Affordable :

Thanks Alberto, this is very interesting. EasyJet has indeed disrupted the airline industry, and has been a leader in Europe in low costs plane travel. I don’t worry as much as PVD about customer service, their customer base is very price sensitive, and as long as they manage to keep their prices low, they will still have a crucial competitive advantage. They have particularly benefited from the entire opening of the airline market, and the free competition within the European Union on all routes.
The biggest risk that I see with their business model is on safety. As you mentioned, they have been reducing costs continuously through reduced check up time for planes, longer working hours for pilots and by hiring junior staff. They should be careful not to push their cost reduction too much to not compromise safety, that remains the most valuable factors for passengers.

On December 14, 2015, SofiaBerrada commented on Solar Mosaic: The Kickstarter of community solar :

Hey Lidiya,

This is indeed a very interesting company!
I worked on a market research back in France about another type of innovative financing model for solar power. Instead of offering a loan to customers to instal a PV equipment, the company rents the available roof area from customers and uses it to install a solar equipment and then sells the electricity generated back to the utility. Therefore, customers have a fixed revenue stream, and the company manages all the operations, enabling economies of scale.
My findings were that this was better suited for large roof areas, so mainly for big warehouses, and that household’s roof area was too small for this model to be profitable, at least in France. Moreover, as it is the case for Solar Mosaic, the price of electricity as well as current favorable regulation (such as tax rebates) are crucial factors for the success of these business models.