Business, entrepreneurship, and fintech micro-summaries for June 18, 2019

Business advice for the health care industry; Huawei expects a 40% drop in cell phone sales; Reasons for the recent bitcoin price rally; A new blockchain data initiative launching in Japan; and Mount Everest tourism...

Straight from my RSS feed:

Links and micro-summaries from my 1000+ daily headlines. I filter them so you don't have to.

1. Can Health Care Companies Learn To Compete? - Harvard Business School's Alumni Bulletin interviews Leemore S. Dafny and Raffaella Sadun about business strategies for the health care industry. One point raised is that hospitals are courting mediocrity by trying to "be all things to all people", and they would be better served by focusing their efforts on excellence in their own niche. Another point is that management practices are highly variable across the industry, and they don't reflect the massive amount of money that is being spent. A third point is that hospitals need to become patient-centric, instead of focusing on themselves, and they need to dispel themselves of the idea that there is a necessary trade-off between revenue and quality of care. The article closes on the point that change will be painful and difficult, and that people are overly content with the status quo, but that employers who are paying most of the costs need to demand a different and better care model.


2. Huawei hammered: Chinese tech giant forecasts 40% drop in smartphone sales after US blacklisting nightmare - Company founder, Ren Zhengfei, confirmed the numbers from a Bloomberg report in a speech Monday. The report anticipates a drop of 40-60% in cell phone sales outside of China. (Related: Huawei files to trademark mobile OS around the world after U.S. ban )


3. 3 Reasons Bitcoin Is Rallying Above $9K - Facebook's Globalcoin launch is set for Tuesday, June 18; Cryptocurrency exchange, binance.com, updated its terms of service to bar US customers; and the Litecoin (LTC) halving is expected to trigger on August 5. Two of these may be "buy the rumor, sell the news" type of events.


4. Japan Data Initiative Brings Blockchain Security to 100 Major Businesses - One hundred of Japan's largest companies are slated to participate in a blockchain & data sharing initiative that will launch in the spring of 2020. The firms include "DMG Mori, Mitsubishi Electric and Yaskawa Electric".


5. STEEM Amazing Mount Everest: Highest Peak In The World! by Guest Editor @arbazalam - In this post, @steem4nepal writes about the history of people climbing Mt. Everest up until the present time, and comments on how challenging the climb is, and also how important the tourism is for the local economy. As in Interesting Links: June 2, 2019 and Interesting Links: May 27, 2019, the article notes the 11 climbers who lost their lives in a short period of time this year. Interestingly, the article notes that the mountain's height may have changed after a 2015 earthquake, so it has been measured again. The results from the new measurements are due out in about a month. (5% of the rewards from this post will go to @steem4nepal)

For example, feel free to comment on any or all of these discussion topics:

• Has your own health care experience been impacted by the industry consolidation that's reported in the interview with Dafny and Sadun?
  
  
• Some American tech companies are opposing the Huawei ban. Do you agree with the Commerce Department's ban or with the big-tech dissenters? Why?
  
  
• Do you expect to see bitcoin sell-offs after Facebook releases their whitepaper on the 18th? What about after the litecoin (LTC) halving in August? Buy the rumor, sell the news?
  
  
• When the measurement results are announced from Mount Everest, do you think the mountain will have grown or shrunk? Why?
  
  

About this series

---

Note: Sharing a link does not imply endorsement or agreement, and I receive no incentives for sharing from any of the content producers.

Follow on steem: @remlaps-lite, @remlaps
If you are not on Steem yet, you can follow through RSS: remlaps-lite, remlaps.

Thanks to SteemRSS from philipkoon, doriitamar, and torrey.blog for the Steem RSS feeds!