YW's Profile

While I’m encouraged by the advances in waste management technology, I believe that the real solution needs to come from reduced waste creation. Increased consumerism, combined with low prices driven by supply chain efficiencies, have led consumers to buy and trash more goods.

Fashion is a prime example of this trend. Fast fashion companies such as H&M, Zara, and Forever 21 produce goods at low prices and refresh styles frequently, encouraging customers to visit and buy often. These brands are now being countered by upstarts selling high-quality basics meant to last (article below with more details). My hope is that this new trend in fashion is here to stay and will expand to other industries. Through increased education and a shift in mentality towards paying more for fewer, longer-lasting goods, we may be able to attack the consumer behavior side of the problem.

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/02/buying-less-by-buying-better/462639/

I thought the article below was an interesting expansion on this topic. It mentions data collection as another area of challenge in Kellogg’s pledge to reduce emissions from its suppliers. Emissions measurements on farms are simplistic today and may be substantially misestimating the true emissions produced. If Kellogg is genuinely committed to reducing agricultural emissions, it may need to invest in improving the science and application behind this measurement issue.

https://hbr.org/2016/06/how-general-mills-and-kellogg-are-tackling-greenhouse-gas-emissions

I agree that political and business leaders need to ask themselves what tradeoffs they are willing to make in our our new cloud-first world. A complicating factor is that regulators seem to be using an old model to evaluate a new paradigm.

A central tenet of cloud computing is that data location should be abstracted from the users and easy to access by multiple parties. In this case, what is the definition of data ownership and location? If the London and Boston offices of a company hosting on Azure both make substantial contributions to the same database, which location “owns” the data? What about data in transit (traveling over the network) vs. at rest (static in a data center)? In today’s world, the answer may be to default to European locations given GDPR, but what happens if other regions enact their own versions of GDPR?

To effectively lobby, business leaders need to shift politicians’ fundamental way of thinking about data and digital supply chains. Cloud companies should also look internally to tackle tricky questions about data ownership in their products.

I agree that exclusive partnerships with telecom providers would be a beneficial way to safely enter a protectionist market as well as lock out competition. However, I wonder what advantage Netflix would have in those negotiations. In Indonesia’s example, Telkom had the ability to open the gate between Netflix and the majority of Indonesian viewers. Unless Netflix offered a convincing financial incentive, Telkom may be happy to offer the same deal to Netflix competitors.

I’m by no means an expert in the content industry, so perhaps I’m missing a strategic insight. Does Netflix have something unique to offer telecom companies?

Allstate’s greatest challenge to digitization may be internal resistance. While re-inventing its systems and business model will create incredible growth in jobs, these openings may come at the expense of some reductions on the agent side. On a day-to-day basis, channel conflict between the D2C business and the traditional agent business will frequently increase ire and anxiety from the agents.

Two solutions for Allstate, at least in the intermediary term, may be to clearly segment its business between D2C and agents and to build tools to help the agents. Clearer delineation of go-to-market segments will reduce agents’ daily frustrations of seeing customers “stolen” by D2C. Digitization that directly empowers the agents via better tooling may also help the agents see digital disruption in a positive light.

It’s exciting that vending machines have innovated so much! However, the facial recognition idea frightens me. I also think it is a poor idea for Coca-Cola’s business. Facial recognition in vending machines clearly benefits Coca-Cola without any similarly meaningful gain for customers (I doubt they care for product recognitions or targeted ads). In addition, it is sure to set off customers’ creepy meter. This violation of privacy could significantly hurt Coca-Cola’s reputation and turn customers away from its brand.