inohara's Profile

Very interesting article, Ariana! For Japan’s construction for the Olympic stadium, the committee had to change the design this year because the original design voted for actually costed a lot more than what was anticipated at the time of the design.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/keithflamer/2016/02/12/the-ugly-dust-up-over-tokyos-2020-olympic-stadium/#6d490bbb7117

I like your suggestion on how the industry could try to incorporate raw costs into the designing technologies so clients could compare all aspects of the potential design when making a decision.

Like Pablo, I had to do more research into this hotel as it was very fascinating. I chose a random weekday in January (holiday season pricing just gets ridiculous) and compared with the Sheraton Tribeca Hotel I stayed at last month, which considers itself to be a 4 star hotel, apparently. The price difference was 119 at YOTEL vs 199 at Sheraton – better location, better amenities, and a more “hip” environment. I was amazed at how low the meals were priced ay YOTEL, and how large the bar space was – I presume they’re after a younger crowd, focusing on socializing outside of the hotel room rather than maximizing their time in the hotel they paid for. And compared to this Sheraton I stayed at, I will love to try staying at YOTEL. I must say I was a little surprised how the YOTEL website did not seem too “digitized”, I would love to see how they bring this innovation further into the hospitality industry.

Thanks for an fascinating post! I’m a bit concerned, like Joanna, that these innovation may encourage some parents to depend too much on technology rather than taking care of their baby on their own. I think the possibilities are infinite what IoT could do in terms of monitoring babies when parents have to be away, but I hope that there would be regulations (and strong suggestions from these companies) for parents to use these only as an aid to their parenting responsibilities, rather than seeing it as a form of digital nannies that they could trust fully.

It’s amazing how these traditional airlines forced both online and offline agent commissions to go down significantly through their collaborative efforts. It makes sense for them to do this to push out the online booking sites from the ticket purchasing process, while still allowing customers to compare between multiple airlines – which is essentially all a customer wants. I’ve definitely noticed over the years, the price difference between directly going to the airlines and going through the online booking sites have been smaller – and hotels, similarly, have now began to offer “exclusive perks” to those who book online directly vs hotels.com in order to get rid of the middleman. Very interesting post!

Fascinating post, Joanna. When I moved here I was surprised by how popular online grocery shopping was, because in Japan people (the older generation especially) avoid shopping online for fresh produce because they like to handpick it themselves, as Hugh mentioned above. I think there also is a sense of distrust towards the people picking up the grocery, thinking the stores would send the less fresh goods to the delivery customer. I think the business model B fresh has is optimal for cities like Boston, with young students and professionals as their main customers, but I am wondering how feasible it is to spread the business elsewhere with an older population. Perhaps a delivery company could start a service to live stream the pickup service so if needed, customers could have a say in which produce to pick. Overall, very interesting!

Going off on Ariana’s comment above – McDonalds globally does a great job in catering to the tastes of the regions they serve. Because beef patties are so prominent in the United States, there would have to be a strong shift in consumer sentiment/preference for the demand of beef to go down… But I think providing consumers with options (Turkey burger?!) in addition to launching an widely advertised initiative could help shift consumers to purchase the alternative products over a regular burger. In addition, I’m curious if there are steps being taken for McDonalds to minimize packaging, both for the meals and the materials that’s shipped to the local stores. I remember throwing out my empty fries container in Tokyo and thinking how much space in the trash can all the packaging took, very inefficiently, because it wasn’t compressed.

Similar comment to Aratak above; I think L’Oreal’s next steps could be to make amendments to its packaging, perhaps focusing on recycled materials or to push consumers to recycle their cosmetic packaging/containers by disposing it at the stores. I think an “all-natural, sustainable” series would be well-received from environmental-friendly consumers, and it could be paired easily with the already implemented initiatives.

It makes me feel so silly, complaining about certain airline’s strict check-in luggage requirements when that is playing a big part in airline fuel efficiencies. I’m sure this is especially a tough topic to tackle for the industry because they are responsible for so many lives in each flight they operate. As a consumer and frequent flyer, I am always excited when I fly on the Airbus A380 over the more fuel-efficient Boeing 787 Dreamliner, and again, this must be something that’s a struggle for the aviation industry to work with. I’m interested in how feasible it is to expect 100% of the fuel to be from biofuels in the near future. Thanks for a great post.

I would be interested to see how Whole Foods deals with food waste at their stores. I’ve read that in Massachusetts it’s illegal to dispose usable food and require businesses to convert waste into energy – so presumably the MA Whole Foods already has this implemented. If Whole Foods could be a leader in this movement across the United States by pushing all their stores to participate, they could become the true leader in reducing carbon footprints in addition to all the sustainability measures they take in the stores.

Great post @ARS! I’ve heard of Japanese companies (Fast Retailing/Uniqlo) working directly with small businesses in raw material/fabric production but not entirely sure if it goes through the entire value chain. The fact that they have such a huge presence global is probably what gets in the middle of logistics building in terms of packaging and transportation.

It seems like a big conflict of interest for fast fashion companies to ask consumers to be conscious on their consumption, and I’m curious how they would go about that. Perhaps a method of donation or making clothes out of recycled clothes/materials like we read in Nike?