Common Industry Challenges

𝗣𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗼𝗱 𝗻𝗼𝘄 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝘁𝘄𝗼 𝗖𝗘𝗢𝘀. 𝗧𝗵𝗮𝘁'𝘀 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗮 𝗺𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲. 𝗔𝗴𝗲𝗱 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘂𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗱 𝘀𝗽𝗶𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗻𝗼𝘄 𝗱𝗶𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗯𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗲𝘀. → Gold Business Unit: Nodjame Cecile Fouad, ex-Irish Distillers CEO. → Crystal Business Unit: Stéphanie Durroux, ex-Absolut Group CEO. → Two divisions. Two leaders. Two strategies. Every spirits executive is asking: "Is this just org chart shuffling?" ↳ Wrong question. Ask: 𝘞𝘩𝘺 𝘥𝘰 𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘶𝘯𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘥 𝘴𝘱𝘪𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘴 𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘥 𝘴𝘦𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘱? ↳ Because growth dynamics are now materially different. ↳ Consumer behaviour has fragmented. ↳ The required channel focus is different. ↳ The strategy must follow. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝟰 𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗱 𝘁𝗿𝘂𝘁𝗵𝘀 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗚𝗼𝗹𝗱/𝗖𝗿𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗹 𝘀𝗽𝗹𝗶𝘁: 𝟭. 𝗔𝗴𝗲𝗱 𝘀𝗽𝗶𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘀 𝗿𝗲𝗾𝘂𝗶𝗿𝗲 𝗱𝗶𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗰𝗮𝗽𝗮𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗲𝘀 ↳ Jameson is #1 Irish whiskey globally. Martell leads prestige Cognac. ↳ Gold: Glenlivet, Chivas Regal, Jameson, Martell, Jefferson's. ↳ Heritage brands. Long production cycles. Premium positioning. ↳ Fouad's focus: operational depth and brand stewardship. 𝟮. 𝗨𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗱 𝘀𝗽𝗶𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘀 𝗱𝗲𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗲𝗱 ↳ Consumers are switching between spirit types more frequently. ↳ Crystal: Absolut, Malibu, Havana Club, Monkey 47, RTDs. ↳ Durroux's priority: market-specific prioritisation. ↳ Faster innovation cycles. Mixability matters. 𝟯. 𝗚𝗹𝗼𝗯𝗮𝗹 𝗼𝗻𝗲-𝘀𝗶𝘇𝗲-𝗳𝗶𝘁𝘀-𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗶𝘀 𝗱𝗲𝗮𝗱 ↳ Local consumer preferences now drive investment decisions. ↳ Broad portfolios demand sharper resource allocation. ↳ This is the end of centralised brand playbooks. ↳ What wins in Europe may fail in Asia. 𝟰. 𝗖𝗘𝗢-𝗹𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹 𝗮𝗰𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗮𝗹 ↳ Manage complexity instead of drowning in it. ↳ Tailored strategy execution. Faster market response. ↳ Commercial specialisation, given portfolio breadth. ↳ Not VPs. Not GMs. 2 CEOs. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝟯 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘀𝗽𝗶𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘀 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝘆: First: Category management is now new. ↳ Aged and unaged require different toolkits. ↳ Different innovation rhythms. ↳ Different consumer journeys. Second: Consumer fluidity is structural. ↳ Drinkers aren't loyal to categories anymore. ↳ Brand relevance and mixability drive share. Third: Agility beats scale. ↳ Pernod is building for speed, not just size. ↳ Targeted innovation. Quicker market response. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗱 𝘁𝗿𝘂𝘁𝗵: This follows Diageo's Luxury Group playbook. The industry is converging on the same answer. Barbell Strategies Require adequate RTM. Different playbooks. Different priorities. Pernod Ricard isn't simplifying for efficiency alone. They're reorganising for relevance. The question for spirits leaders: Is your org built for yesterday's RTM? Or tomorrow's? ___________ 👋 Hi, I am Filiberto. Follow me for sharper FMCG insights. 👍 this post? You are going to ❤️ my newsletter: https://lnkd.in/dFwbrjwG

Why is geology always behind production? It's a pattern I've seen repeatedly throughout my career, and it reveals something important about how we allocate capital. It's not geology’s fault. Geology is tough - Geology when constrained by production is much tougher.  The problem is structural, and it comes down to how mining companies think about capital allocation. When production is running smoothly, geology departments often get squeezed on budgets. After all, why spend money defining resources you won't need for years? The production teams are hitting their targets, the mill is running at capacity, and everything looks fine on the quarterly reports. So the geology budget gets trimmed, delayed, or reallocated to more "urgent" priorities. Inevitably, production catches up to geology. Suddenly, there aren't enough defined tonnes to maintain production rates. The company faces a choice: slow down production (unacceptable to shareholders) or mine lower-grade material that wasn't part of the original plan (damaging to profitability). Either way, it's a lose-lose situation. At this point, everyone looks at the geology department and asks, "Why aren't you ready?" But the reality is they weren't given the resources to stay ahead of production in the first place. Resource renewal is particularly critical for many operating mines, as the industry faces a looming resource shortage. In five years, many miners simply won't have enough tons in reserve to meet production requirements. It’s also not sufficient for geology to replace each tonne that is mined. Each tonne in the future mine plan will require multiple tonnes in the resource to reserve workflow. Not every tonne drilled will be economic. So what's the solution? The most forward-thinking mining executives understand that resource drilling = derisking future production and creating business optionality.  Level 4 thinking understands the importance of maximizing the efficiency with which inferred resources can become reserves. Resource development becomes a strategic investment and not just a cost centre. Changing our questions is a good start. Instead of asking, "How much do we need to spend on drilling?" the question should be, "How quickly do we need to derisk our resource, and what's the most efficient way to do that?". Our message to mining executives is this: if your geology department is consistently falling behind production, revisit your capital allocation strategy first. More drilling is not the answer. Investing in approaches that fundamentally improve the efficiency of resource conversion is. Objectivity can increase resource conversion efficiency +30-40% respecting QP/CP requirements.  Efficiency helps get ahead of production and secure long term reserves. Reach out, and let's have a conversation about improving your resource efficiency. It'll be different. Very different. Objectivity’s approach is zero risk. We don't engage unless we can clearly demonstrate value.

A bold prediction no one wants to hear: Half of all commercial solar systems installed before 2016 will be underperforming or non-operational by 2030. The solar industry is obsessed with the future. Cutting-edge panels (bigger is better). Sleek batteries. Dazzling projections for new installs. But here's the reality we can't afford to ignore: a silent crisis unfolding on rooftops across America—a crisis I've been tackling firsthand since 2012, traveling the country with SunPower to address some of the industry’s most pressing system failures. Across the country, tens of thousands of rooftop solar systems—once hailed as the clean energy revolution—are quietly decaying. Not because the technology failed, but because the industry did. We rushed to install. We cut corners. We promised 25 years of performance… and delivered systems that can’t make it past 10. Here’s what’s killing them: Inverters are dying—many are already out of warranty, with no replacements available. Wiring and electrical infrastructure that was never designed for 25+ years of exposure. Install quality? Forget it—an army of barely trained crews built the boom, and now we’re paying the price. Maintenance? There was no plan. Just a contract, a handshake, and a hope it would all work out. This is not just an engineering issue—it's a financial one. Underperforming assets are generating less revenue than forecasted, while increasing the risk of electrical faults, fire hazards, and insurance claims. And here's the kicker: almost no one is ready to deal with this wave of system failures. Asset managers, facility owners, and even EPCs are discovering that repowering, remediation, or decommissioning is far more complex and expensive than expected. This is where the next frontier of solar energy lies—not in installing the next 100GW—it’s rescuing the first 100GW. Revitalization. Repowering. Responsible end-of-life planning. The question isn’t whether it’s coming. It’s whether we have the guts to face it. Are we going to keep pitching the dream— —or finally clean up the mess we left behind?

Most people still think of LLMs as “just a model.” But if you’ve ever shipped one in production, you know it’s not that simple. Behind every performant LLM system, there’s a stack of decisions, about pretraining, fine-tuning, inference, evaluation, and application-specific tradeoffs. This diagram captures it well: LLMs aren’t one-dimensional. They’re systems. And each dimension introduces new failure points or optimization levers. Let’s break it down: 🧠 Pre-Training Start with modality. → Text-only models like LLaMA, UL2, PaLM have predictable inductive biases. → Multimodal ones like GPT-4, Gemini, and LaVIN introduce more complex token fusion, grounding challenges, and cross-modal alignment issues. Understanding the data diet matters just as much as parameter count. 🛠 Fine-Tuning This is where most teams underestimate complexity: → PEFT strategies like LoRA and Prefix Tuning help with parameter efficiency, but can behave differently under distribution shift. → Alignment techniques- RLHF, DPO, RAFT, aren’t interchangeable. They encode different human preference priors. → Quantization and pruning decisions will directly impact latency, memory usage, and downstream behavior. ⚡️ Efficiency Inference optimization is still underexplored. Techniques like dynamic prompt caching, paged attention, speculative decoding, and batch streaming make the difference between real-time and unusable. The infra layer is where GenAI products often break. 📏 Evaluation One benchmark doesn’t cut it. You need a full matrix: → NLG (summarization, completion), NLU (classification, reasoning), → alignment tests (honesty, helpfulness, safety), → dataset quality, and → cost breakdowns across training + inference + memory. Evaluation isn’t just a model task, it’s a systems-level concern. 🧾 Inference & Prompting Multi-turn prompts, CoT, ToT, ICL, all behave differently under different sampling strategies and context lengths. Prompting isn’t trivial anymore. It’s an orchestration layer in itself. Whether you’re building for legal, education, robotics, or finance, the “general-purpose” tag doesn’t hold. Every domain has its own retrieval, grounding, and reasoning constraints. ------- Follow me (Aishwarya Srinivasan) for more AI insight and subscribe to my Substack to find more in-depth blogs and weekly updates in AI: https://lnkd.in/dpBNr6Jg

Movies that gross $60 million on their opening weekend are now considered flops, indicating a shift in our economic model and perception of success. This equates to about 4 million viewers in the initial days of release. The industry needs to reassess its benchmarks for a hit movie. Moreover, TV shows with a production cost of $22 million per episode, distributed exclusively through a single subscription service, are not financially sustainable. Similarly, investing $295 million in a movie's production, with the same studios eroding the theater business in favor of their proprietary subscription services, doesn't ensure significant returns. As the cinema-going experience evolves with fewer theaters and increased competition from home entertainment, the film industry needs to recalibrate production costs, including the scope of films and talent compensation. This doesn't mean reducing the amount of writer or their writers' pay with AI, but reevaluating the hefty sums paid by studios to themselves and their star actors. A new equilibrium must be found. The future of filmmaking might be found in its past, reverting to a form of sequential distribution, suggesting that industry change is cyclical. https://lnkd.in/eUsMDCNt

Conservationists are burning out — and some are breaking Conservation has long been framed as a moral calling. For many who enter the field, it is precisely that sense of purpose that sustains difficult work in remote places, under uncertain funding, and against problems that rarely yield quick victories. Yet the same intensity of commitment now appears to be exacting a psychological toll. Reports of burnout, depression, and suicide among conservation professionals have prompted some leaders to describe a crisis within the sector itself, reports Jeremy Hance. Part of the strain reflects the condition of the natural world. Wildlife populations have fallen sharply in recent decades, ecosystems are degrading, and climate risks continue to mount. Those tasked with slowing these losses confront them daily, often with limited tools and little assurance that their efforts will succeed. The result is a form of grief that is both chronic and socially unrecognized. Unlike bereavement for a person, sorrow for species or landscapes rarely elicits public sympathy, yet it can be just as consuming. Structural features of the profession compound the problem. Conservation relies heavily on short-term grants, modest salaries, and a workforce motivated by passion rather than financial reward. Early-career scientists and field staff may endure unstable employment, long separations from family, and exposure to danger, particularly in regions affected by conflict or illegal resource extraction. Women face additional pressures related to pay, caregiving, and career progression. Men, meanwhile, may be less likely to acknowledge distress in cultures where stoicism is expected. The paradox is that a field devoted to protecting life has not always protected its own practitioners. Funding often prioritizes projects over people, leaving little room for mental-health support or professional development. Because many workers view their role as a vocation rather than a job, they may also feel compelled to push beyond sustainable limits. Addressing the problem will require more than individual resilience, writes Hance. Organizations, donors, and governments will need to treat workforce well-being as essential to conservation outcomes, not incidental to them. Without that shift, the effort to safeguard nature risks eroding the very people on whom it depends. Hance’s piece includes remarks from Rachel G., Vik Mohan, and Jessie Panazzolo. 🌳 The piece: https://mongabay.cc/EmpFZZ 🌿 2025 post on the research: https://mongabay.cc/KJDerP

From Reuters: The era of “peak TV,” is over, said 17 entertainment business executives, agents and bankers who spoke with Reuters. From fewer original series and movies to greater scrutiny of budgets and a further squeeze on movie theater profits, people who call the shots said the television and #film industries are adjusting to sober economic realities. “The great contraction is upon us,” said one veteran television executive, speaking on condition of anonymity. “I think there will be a significant retrenchment in the quantity of content, and the amount spent on content.” The contraction story will figure prominently as The Walt Disney Company, Warner Bros Discovery, and Fox Corporation report quarterly results this month. It is also the backdrop for media merger chatter, most recently sale talks between the owner of #Paramount Global and Skydance Media CEO David Ellison, the #media mogul Analyst TD Cowen estimated broadcast and cable television advertising will end 2023 down 7% from the prior year, with total advertising declines of 11.7% at Disney, according to LSEG. Warner Bros. Discovery reported a 13% decline in advertising for the first nine months of 2023. Along with print and radio, traditional TV has been “hollowed out” by digital advertising. The outlook for 2024 is not much better. TD Cowen forecast that broadcast and cable TV ad revenue would fall another 7%. Even though the media companies are expanding their digital ad businesses, the sinking traditional #TV business still accounts for 80% of their total #advertising revenue Streaming services, which were supposed to carry the industry into the future, are also struggling to reach profitability after years of profligate spending. As the industry enters what MoffettNathanson LLC describes as the “third act of the streaming wars,” production spending will fall below 2022 levels, when competition stoked "never sustainable" investment. Most streaming services are charging more while delivering less new content, feeding skepticism over their long-term strateg The overall number of scripted series is expected to shrink dramatically from the pinnacle of 633 shows released in 2022. The combination of the #Hollywood strikes and constrained spending dented production last year, with just 481 U.S. series released in 2023, according to data from market research firm Ampere Analysis. Even market-leading Netflix slashed the number of scripted series it released by more than one-third from 2022 to 2023, Ampere said. The profitable #streaming service, which reported record subscriber gains in its fourth quarter, declined to comment. Executives said the industry could shed more scripted series and hit the 300-shows range in coming years. In 2024, the domestic box office will continue to feel the impact of the actors and writers strikes, with just 90 #films offered for wide release this year, down from around 100 in 2023 The industry is slowing down, executives said. 

Sustainability managers are the door-to-door salespeople of the corporate world. Both are trying to get someone to open a door that's currently slammed shut. The salesperson is pitching vacuum cleaners. The sustainability manager is pitching carbon reductions. Here's what I mean: You present your beautifully crafted Net Zero strategy to the leadership. Congratulations. Your CEO just spent two hours on a call where your biggest customer threatened to move to a competitor that's 8% cheaper. He does not care about your Net Zero strategy. He cares that he's about to miss quarterly targets for the third time in a row. The best sustainability professionals out there aren't the ones with the most comprehensive LCA databases or the fanciest certifications. They're the ones who understand that nobody in the C-suite wakes up thinking about carbon footprints. They wake up thinking about: Can we make payroll? Why are our margins shrinking? How do we stay ahead of incoming regulations? We've spent decades perfecting our sustainability frameworks while executives kept choosing the cheapest option that keeps them employed another quarter. Science-based targets? Your CEO hears "expensive commitments with no guaranteed return" Scope 3 reduction? Your CFO hears "I want to push requirements onto our suppliers and probably increase costs" Circular economy? Your COO hears "complicated new processes that will definitely break something" The sustainability professionals of the next decade aren't the ones with the best data. They're the ones who learned to translate it into dollars. Tell me I'm wrong.

Pentagon rewrites acquisition playbook. November 4 memo transforms how defense buys capability. LaPlante's draft blueprint accelerates everything. Duffey now leads the charge. Portfolio Acquisition Executives get $500M direct authority. No more programs crawling through 47 approval layers while China fields hypersonics in 18 months. The acceleration mechanics. PAEs = Mission-focused portfolios • Long-Range Strike, Autonomous Systems, Air Defense • 3-star civilian leads with delegated spending power • Cross-functional teams: PMs + engineers + operators • Pilots launch Q2 2026, full deployment by 2028 Commercial-First mandate changes the game • 70% COTS requirement for non-classified components   • 6-12 month sprint cycles replace 5-year milestones • Fixed-price contracts reward speed over specs • Mountain View integration hubs connect DoD to Valley velocity Two-to-Production ensures resilience • Dual suppliers mandatory before LRIP • Digital twins enable virtual qualification • CHIPS Act trusted foundries get subsidies • Supply chain redundancy becomes non-negotiable Accredited Test Pipelines enable continuous deployment • Pre-certified modular labs for incremental updates • AI anomaly detection replaces months of manual validation • 10 pipelines by end-2026, scaling to 50 by 2030 • DevSecOps finally moves from theory to practice The GAO warns of 15-20% cost inflation due to redundant qualifications. Senators raise workforce transition concerns. Industry adapts business models for compressed timelines and commercial integration. The strategic reality cuts deeper. When PAEs control budgets and commercial tech sets the pace, acquisition velocity becomes a competitive advantage. Traditional and non-traditional contractors alike face the same imperative. Adapt or lose relevance. Is your acquisition strategy ready for 50% timeline compression? Supply chain mapped for dual-source mandates? Teams prepared for 6-month sprint cycles? When procurement speed determines strategic outcomes, velocity becomes victory.

As the UK prepares to see the latest SDR, I’ve written in the Financial Times (link below), arguing that the key question to define success is this: can we actually use what we buy? The MOD faces a deeper challenge than procurement inefficiencies or budget constraints: a cultural resistance to adoption. Adoption is when new technologies go from “trial” to “tool” — becoming part of doctrine, training, and permanent budget lines. Until that moment, the military can’t use them. And the companies building them? They don’t get paid. To unlock private capital investment into defence, investors need to see a customer that actually adopts and rewards innovation. The UK has spent tens of millions on FPV drones — but all were sent to Ukraine. Our own troops train without them. Meanwhile, Ukraine updates tactics weekly, adapting faster than the MOD finds its pen. The MOD knows what kit it needs. But internal structures actively block progress — leaving our forces dangerously behind modern warfare trends. We need more than reform on spreadsheets. We need a cultural shift. The SDR, the new Defence & Security Partnership with the EU, and discussions of a global defence bank are promising steps. But unless the UK fixes its adoption bottleneck, these reforms won’t deliver real change. Innovation doesn’t just need funding. It needs will. Read the full piece in the Financial Times: https://lnkd.in/e-mwp32H #UKDefence #SDR2025 #DefenceTech #FPVDrones #MOD #DefenceReform #TechnologyAdoption #FutureForce