New York Times (October 6)
“For companies and governments worldwide, defending their digital operations is a constant challenge.” Recent cyberattacks at big British brands demonstrate how they can “upend company operations.” Marks & Spencer, Co-op, and Jaguar Land Rover have all been “severely disrupted by cyberattacks this year, bringing pain to the lives of customers, workers, suppliers and government officials.” In fact, “Jaguar Land Rover hasn’t built a single car” since shutting its systems down on September 1. This has halted “production at its factories in England, as well as sites in Brazil, China, India and Slovakia.”
Tags: Brazil, Challenge, China, Co-op, Companies, Customers, Cyberattacks, Defending, Digital, Governments, Jaguar Land Rover, Marks & Spencer, Officials, Operations, Suppliers, UK, Upend, Workers
Financial Times (May 9)
To increase market access and streamline operations, “many of the world’s largest financial exchanges are transforming the way they run global capital markets” by adopting cloud computing technologies. CME Group “will move its IT infrastructure and markets to the cloud” through a partnership with Google while “Nasdaq and Amazon Web Services announced a similar collaboration” to transfer Nasdaq’s “North America-based markets to a cloud computing environment.” As the transition progresses, AI and quantum computing look poised to play more integral roles.
Tags: AI, AWS, Capital markets, Cloud computing, CME Group, Collaboration, Financial exchanges, Global, Google, IT infrastructure, Market access, Markets, Nasdaq, Operations, Streamline, Transforming
New York Times (September 25)
Companies are discovering that “quitting China is hard to do” as they look to shift operations to avoid Trump tariffs. “Few places can match China’s convenience and reliability.” Not only is China a near comprehensive source of “the ingredients that go into today’s consumer goods,” it also boasts “a dependable source of workers who know how to hold down factory jobs,” along with “reliable roads and rail lines connecting suppliers to assembly plants to ports.”
Tags: China, Consumer goods, Convenience, Dependable, Factory, Operations, Ports, Rail, Reliable, Roads, Source, Suppliers, Tariffs, Trump
Inc (July/August Issue)
“Artificially intelligent machines could streamline a company’s operations. Or, as the doom-and-gloomers say, one day they could supersede human founders.” The answer probably lies closer to the latter. “According to a recent article in the Washington University Law Review, algorithmic entities, or AEs, are nearly sophisticated enough to run a company–and have a particular comparative edge when it comes to ‘criminal enterprise.’”
Tags: AEs, AI, Criminal enterprise, Doom, Gloom, Human, Operations, Sophisticated, Streamline
Wall Street Journal (March 23)
“A majority of the board has been in place for at least 10 years” at nearly a quarter of the largest companies in America. This is prompting investor concerns. “Long-tenured directors can offer companies institutional memory and deep insight into company operations across a variety of economic and competitive environments…. Yet some investors worry that longtime board members may grow too close to the companies and management teams they are supposed to oversee, and lack the critical eye and fresh ideas that newer directors likely bring.”
Tags: Board, Concerns, Critical eye, Directors, Fresh ideas, Insight, Institutional memory, Investors, Management, Operations, U.S.
Institutional Investor (July 28)
“CSR reporting is on the rise, and so is its impact. More companies are publishing corporate social and sustainability reports on their operations amid fresh evidence that transparency enhances valuations.”
Tags: CSR, Evidence, Impact, Operations, Reporting, Sustainability, Transparency, Valuations
Financial Times (February 23)
French leaders “should listen when international business leaders say how their French operations must change to be competitive. Ministers should share with multinationals a common interest in achieving that outcome. Otherwise, the workers will not be alone in facing accusations of being unproductive.”
