Sergio Villanova-Marquez's Profile

Great article–and I love the tweet quotes. In looking at GM through the lens of a post-NAFTA world, I do think it’s important to realize that a post-NAFTA world would include some sort of trade agreement. Would there be a reason to believe that GM would be worse off under the terms of a new agreement? I think that, if anything, they would benefit locally, but the implications (possible backlash) globally might be hard to stomach.

Great article! The last cruise I went on had an interesting presentation on the effects of climate change. I thought it was strange that they would present such a topic at the time (and that there wasn’t any mention of climate change in the title or the description of the event). Still, they presented a lot on climate change’s negative impact on reef life and made no pains to hide that there was an economic benefit for the cruise industry to some extent–no reef life, no excursions to see the reef life.

Thank you for your balanced approach in assessing Nestle. Like most companies, there are certainly two sides to Nestle’s efforts. Polypropylene is one of the bag styles Nestle uses with certain products, and it is widely used across the pet care industry. It appears to be recyclable; however, many recycling facilities are ill-equipped to process it, so it ends up in the trash.

Mr. Harvard, I enjoyed your writing and recommendations to CVS. My question is if they have the ability to change customer behavior for older customers which constitute a large majority of prescription sales? https://hpi.georgetown.edu/agingsociety/pubhtml/rxdrugs/rxdrugs.html It would definitely be a smart (very) long-term play to capture younger generations age they age, but CVS will need to find creative ways to bring its customer base along for any initiative to work in the short-term.

This is a great topic! In thinking about how Farm Friend can retain its position when companies like DJI have the ability to forward integrate, I believe that DJI has little interest in playing the middle man and will be better suited to stick to its expertise within making the drones themselves. However, what Farm Friend is doing is easily replicable, so it will come down to relationships with farmers and drone pilots. Farm Friend’s best play would be to create loyalty and continue expanding to other marketplaces–admittedly, easier said than done.

I think unilateralism is a more accurate term. Isolationism would be avoiding any entanglements whatsoever both diplomatically and economically. Unilateralism seeks the best terms of agreement for oneself, but does not preclude engagement with other parties. On the scale from acting solely in a nation’s own interest, and being a charity organization for other countries, where should a government fall? Any shift will be met with disdain because it’s a relative scale. In a global economy where these shifts can happen, companies simply need to be prepared or at least be aware of the possibility of “unfair” trade conditions.

That’s a great point about consolidated orders. I always find it sad (but understandable from a logistics standpoint) when I place orders at the same time from an online retailer and they come separately (and not due to stock-outs or availability). I imagine it’s due to inventory being held at different locations, but the amount of packaging used is always overboard, and is as much as doubled if two items come separately. With Amazon Prime and more and more retailers, the incentive is I can order this right now because I can place an order later and don’t have to pay anything. At this point, changing the culture, a difficult, long-term play, would be necessary to incentivize consolidating orders. Minimum order sizes have just become annoying.

As alluded to above, obsolete might not be the best word choice–despite being an extremely catchy title. However, there is no doubt that either Deloitte and similar auditing firms will benefit greatly and either 1. be more productive with the same resources or 2. not need the same amount of people. I have a hard time believing that CAATs haven’t increased productivity (which is essentially reducing the number of needed CPAs for the amount of work done.) Thoughtful, conscientious, integrity-centered people will always be necessary to make sure a system functions.