"it is the apparently pointless thing that makes the system work"

“When Downton Abbey first appeared in 2010, a British newspaper interviewed a nonagenarian aristocrat to ask her whether it faithfully reproduced her memories of the pre-war British country house. ‘Well there’s one thing it doesn’t tell you,’ she explained. ‘Back then, the servants literally stank.’ And in the early twentieth century, when it was proposed to install baths for the undergraduates in one Cambridge college, an elderly fellow was having none of this: ‘What do the undergraduates need baths for? The term only lasts eight weeks.
.
What had caused this spectacular change in behaviour was complicated, but it was driven as much by unconscious status-seeking as by a conscious effort to improve life expectancy. Soap was sold on its ability to increase your attractiveness more than on its hygienic powers, and while it contained many chemicals that improved hygiene, it is worth remembering that it was also scented to make it attractive – supporting the unconscious promise of the advertising rather than the rational value of the product. The scent was not to make the soap effective, but to make it attractive to consumers.If we are in denial about unconscious motivation, we forget to scent the soap. If we adopt a narrow view of human motivation, we regard any suggestion of scenting the soap as silly. But, like petals on a flower, it is the apparently pointless thing that makes the system work.”

Excerto de: Rory Sutherland. “Alchemy”. Apple Books.

Curiosidade do dia

"A desilusão é o que aparece no fim das ilusões. E que persistirá nesse estado de vazio de futuro enquanto não for feita a crítica (com confissão e penitência) do passado. A crise da bancarrota e do ajustamento não foi usada para abandonar as ilusões. Em lugar da crítica, escolheu-se reformular as mesmas ilusões com um truque de retórica: os que antes se opunham às políticas do ajustamento são os que adoptam as mesmas políticas (até porque não há outras com o valor da dívida que as ilusões do passado acumularam), trocando o programa dos cortes pelo programa das cativações: os bonés são diferentes, mas a cor é a mesma.
...
vai confirmar-se que é a mudança da realidade efectiva das coisas que configura as sociedades e os partidos, não é a sociedade ou os partidos que comandam a mudança. Quando há uma descontinuidade no presente, ela faz com que o futuro que é projectado em função do passado não se confirme. Nestas condições, a memória engana em vez de orientar, e quem conduzir em função do retrovisor não irá ver a curva que está antes do futuro que vai acontecer."

Trechos retirados de "Tempos de desilusão"

Vou apenas especular (parte II)

Leio "Sonae Indústria vai fechar mais uma fábrica na Alemanha" e recuo mais de quatro anos, até Fevereiro de 2015, e ao texto "Vou apenas especular".

Falta uma dose de alquimia, "Alchemy: Or, the Art and Science of Conceiving Effective Ideas That Logical People Will Hate" segundo Rory Sutherland, ou uma dose de paixão, ou como diria o amigo Paulo Vaz, uma dose de optimismo não documentado. Há demasiados mordomos de Gondor à solta.

Tendências

Na sequência de "Alterações que podem ter implicações ..."

"BoF: What industry shifts are you most optimistic about?
.
DLR: The two biggest changes are sustainability and inclusivity. 10 years ago, [sustainability] was kind of a niche topic, [but] now it’s on everybody’s lips — everyone from Zara to H&M and Arket are using sustainable fibres. Everybody in our industry is getting conscious about our impact on the environment, as well as how popular and sales-driving it can be to become more eco-responsible.
...
BoF: What topics should the fashion industry be debating more vigorously?
.
DLR: In my personal opinion, one of the biggest issues at the moment is overproduction. There's too much product and too many collections. The market is oversaturated. I don't know how this trend could stop but, the industry — both fast fashion and luxury brands — are moving towards the concept of dropping small capsule collections with the aim of selling out. This could be a test for being more limited in production.
...
BoF: What are you doing differently in your role this year?
.
DLR: My roles at Valentino and Loro Piana are the complete opposite of overproduction. We actually want to produce and sell just a bit less than what people are going to buy because in luxury, we are all based on rarity and desirability. We cannot — and do not want to — overproduce. It has to remain a very special and precious style that you will keep for years, if not generations.
.
At Loro Piana, our ultimate focus is quality, durability [and] sourcing the most precious fibres out there. On a professional and personal level, it's already going against this overproduction and overconsumption, as it's a kind of conscious consumption."

Acham que as estruturas produtivas de ontem continuarão a ser as de amanhã?

Trechos retirados de "Loro Piana's Danielle Lesage-Rochette: 'One of the Biggest Issues at the Moment Is Overproduction'"

Intuição estratégica

Interessante como responsáveis de livrarias pequenas têm uma intuição estratégica muito mais afinada do que muito doutor e engenheiro em empresas grandes, "‘Amazon doesn’t play with the kids’: why booksellers are beating the odds":

"Books and bookshops are on the up. Sales of printed books have risen for the fourth successive year; sales of ebooks are falling; and, perhaps most encouraging of all, despite two recent high-profile store closures, the number of independent bookshops is growing again after decades of decline. Books – and readers who want to experience bookshops, rather than buy from Amazon – are not dead. The physical world lives on.
...
Most of the independents who responded are positive, although some are having to diversify to stay afloat. One has opened a tea room, while another I spoke to has closed her shop but plans to start selling children’s books from a boat. A would-be bookseller in Olney, Buckinghamshire, has bought a bus and hopes to sell children’s books from that. Shops are expensive to run, so bibliophiles are using their ingenuity."

What a difference a year makes! (parte II)

Parte I.

A evolução das exportações este ano - números do INE. 

Sabem o quanto aprecio aquele "Parcial I" (Julho e Setembro de 2017). 

À partida podíamos apreciar a evolução positiva do Parcial I de 16,2% do total para 29,6% do total, mas não enganemos a nós próprios... o Parcial I em valor absoluto caiu mais uma vez e até o Parcial II caiu. 

Olhando para a evolução das exportações de automóveis só se pode concluir que continua a fragilização da economia exportadora portuguesa.

BTW, para alguns sectores, como o calçado, 2019 é de encolhimento em cima de encolhimento.

"context and framing matter”

“we should remember that if you design something in a certain way, people can perceive something which doesn’t exist in reality.
.
What really is and what we perceive can be very different.
This is where physical laws diverges from psychological ones. And it is this very divergence which makes Alchemy possible.
...
In the same way, you cannot describe someone’s behaviour based on what you see, or what you think they see, because what determines their behaviour is what they think they are seeing. This distinction applies to almost anything: what determines the behaviour of physical objects is the thing itself, but what determines the behaviour of living creatures is their perception of the thing itself.
...
If you are a scientist, your job is to reach beyond the quirks of human perception and create universally applicable laws that describe objective reality. Science has developed sensors and units of measurement, which measure distance, time, temperature, colour, gravity and so on. In the physical sciences we quite rightly prefer these to warped perceptual mechanisms: it does not matter whether a bridge looks strong – we need to know that it really is strong.
.
A problem arises when human sciences – politics, economics or medicine, say – believe this universalism to be the hallmark of a science and “pursue the same approach; in the human sciences, just as in TV design, what people perceive is sometimes more important than what is objectively true.
...
In physics and engineering, objective models usually make problems easier to solve, while in economics and politics objectivity might make things harder. Some pressing economic and political issues could be solved easily and cheaply if we abandoned dogmatic universal models; just as TV designers don’t wrestle with the problem of producing the entire spectrum of visible light, policy-makers, designers and businessmen would be wise to spend less time trying to improve objective reality and more time studying human perception and moral instinct.
...
Economic logic is an attempt to create a psychology-free model of human behaviour based on presumptions of rationality, but it can be a very costly mistake. Not only can a rational approach to pricing be very destructive of perceived savings, but it also assumes that everyone reacts to savings the same way. They don’t, and context and framing matter.”

Trecho retirado de "Alchemy: Or, the Art and Science of Conceiving Effective Ideas That Logical People Will Hate" de Rory Sutherland.

Alterações que podem ter implicações ...

Alterações que podem ter implicações para a indústria portuguesa:

• encomendas mais pequenas;
• mais encomendas feitas para reposição;
• menos tempo entre a data de recepção da encomenda e a data da sua entrega;
• mais encomendas colocadas na Europa do que na Ásia?

Na sequência de "France Moves To Ban The Destruction Of Unsold Luxury Goods In Favor Of Recycling":

"The French government announced an end to the destruction of unsold non-food stock earlier this week, calling time on a practice that is common in the luxury retail sector. More than $730 million of returns and unsold inventory are routinely thrown away or destroyed by consumer goods retailers in France, and the practice is widespread in the luxury sector in an effort to maintain label exclusivity. The current value of goods thrown away or destroyed is five times more than those given away." 

 Não é só no "common in the luxury retail sector". Recordar:

• "How Amazon destroys millions of new items it can’t sell with everything from TVs to kitchen equipment, books and nappies dumped in landfill sites";
• "Taking stock of fashion’s $210bn inventory problem"
• "Destroying Unsold Clothes Is Fashion’s Dirty Secret. And We’re Complicit."

Interessante

Por um lado, "Número de portugueses empregados baixa pela primeira vez desde 2013", por outro, "Entrada de portugueses no Luxemburgo aumentou pela primeira vez em cinco anos".

Ruidosamente a caminho da Sildávia.

Evitar o seu Tancos

Ontem de manhã, na minha caminhada matinal, li:

“Blame, unlike credit, always finds a home, and no one ever got fired for booking JFK. By going with the default, you are making a worse decision overall, but also insuring yourself against a catastrophically bad personal outcome. In his book Risk Savvy (2014), the German psychologist Gerd Gigerenzer refers to this mental process as ‘Defensive Decision-Making’ – making a decision which is unconsciously designed not to maximise welfare overall but to minimise the damage to the decision maker in the event of a negative outcome. Much human behaviour that is derided as ‘irrational’ is actually evidence of a clever satisficing instinct – repeating a past behaviour or copying what most other people do may not be optimal, but is unlikely to be disastrous. We are all descended from people who managed to reproduce before making a fatal mistake, so it is hardly surprising that our brains are wired this way."

De tarde estive numa reunião onde me descreviam os comportamentos de um cliente... fiz logo a associação.

O cliente despeja as coisas para que os seus funcionários evitem problemas. Até comentei:
- Parece que querem evitar o seu Tancos. Por isso, chutam para o fornecedor.

Excerto de: Rory Sutherland. “Alchemy”. Apple Books.

"The modern education system ..."

“The modern education system spends most of its time teaching us how to make decisions under conditions of perfect certainty. However, as soon as we leave school or university, the vast majority of decisions we all have to take are not of that kind at all. Most of the decisions we face have something missing – a vital fact or statistic that is unavailable, or else unknowable at the time we make the decision. The types of intelligence prized by education and by evolution seem to be very different.”

Trecho retirado de "Alchemy: Or, the Art and Science of Conceiving Effective Ideas That Logical People Will Hate" de Rory Sutherland.

Uma das tendências do mercado actual

Um artigo interessante sobre uma das tendências do mercado actual "More Americans Are Living Solo, and Companies Want Their Business":

"More Americans than ever are living alone these days, and many don’t want to bake full-size cakes, buy eggs by the dozen, run half-loaded dishwashers or store 24-packs of toilet paper.
...
Consumer-products companies are taking note, catering to what they see as a lucrative market for single-person households by upending generations of family-focused product development and marketing. Appliance makers are shrinking refrigerators and ovens. Food companies are producing more single-serving options. Household-product makers are revamping packaging.
...
“We have to go beyond the paradigm of the middle-class family of four for growth, so smaller households have been a huge focus for us,”
...
Looking beyond the family of four, she says, “is a really big shift.”
...
Today, 35.7 million Americans live alone, 28% of households. That is up from 13% of households in 1960 and 23% in 1980, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Delayed or foregone marriage, [Moi ici: Ontem de manhã sentado no hall de um hotel, enquanto aguardava a chegada de uma pessoa, ouvia uma conversa de turistas brasileiras todas bem entradas na terceira idade. Uma delas dizia para as outras, com um toque de reprovação, que o filho de 34 anos nem pensava em casar] longer life expectancy, urbanization and wealth have contributed, demographers say.
...
Researchers have found many affluent, single-person households in urban areas tend to spend more per person than larger ones. They are often willing to spend more for a unit of something—twice as much, say, for chopped romaine as a whole head.
.
Some want smaller appliances but bigger closets, or prefer one huge roll of toilet paper over multiple backup rolls they must store somewhere. Many marketers approach single-person households with urban consumers in mind.
...
For generations, consumers favored appliances with the biggest capacity, so manufacturers have long boasted how many towels squeeze into a washing machine or how easily a large turkey slides into an oven. But small households usually choose appliances by finding which will best fit their space, companies say.
.
“They’re not trying to load every towel in from the pool,”"

A personalização

Este texto levanta um tema interessante: a customização levada ao extremo, a personalização, será viável economicamente?

Acredito que será, algures no futuro, mas não com as empresas de hoje e com os modelos económicos de hoje. Terão de começar por produtos premium e, por tentativa e erro, ir construindo os modelos de negócio que vão resultar. Terão de ser empresas mais pequenas, se calhar cooperativas com estruturas produtivas partilhadas. Terão de ser produtos para durar uma vida e que voltarão mais do que uma vez ao fabricante para reparação. Terão de ser produtos co-criados em proximidade.

Não digo que o modelo actual de produção desapareça completamente, mas  deixará de ser tão comum certamente.

Home delivery

Desde 2010 que era tão previsível o sucesso do "home delivery". Recordar o uso do marcador.

Agora, "FedEx to deliver 7 days a week to satisfy online shoppers"... e os CTT desde mundo? Presos a modelos de negócio do passado, mais preocupados em defender o passado do que abraçar a mudança para conquistar o futuro.

A supporting role

"Problems are stories — it’s a dull tale that has no conflict to resolve. The customer on the other side of that table is the protagonist in their own adventure. We’ve selected them as a persona that might be interested in casting us as their hero (or even in a supporting role that lets them be the hero of their own story)."

É isto, voltar a Luke e a Yoda: "Parte III - O cliente é que é o Luke"

Trecho retirado de "What a Journalist Can Teach Lean Startups about Customer Interviews"

Show me the money!

Um pouco por todo o lado vejo sintomas do crescimento canceroso no mundo agrícola... uma pena.

A propósito de "O maior desafio dos produtores de vinho é aumentar a capacidade negocial":

"Ao fim de seis anos, os vinhos portugueses ultrapassaram os franceses e os italianos em volume de venda para o Brasil, disputam de perto o segundo lugar com a Argentina e já puseram o Chile em sentido, roubando-lhes dez por cento do mercado.
.
Há espaço para todo o tipo de vinhos e lugar para todos os visitantes, dos mais exigentes aos menos conhecedores. [Moi ici: Portanto, ausência de estratégia?] Todos os bilhetes para as provas de vinho e academias esgotaram em horas e as filas para o salão de degustação são prova do sucesso do evento." [Moi ici: Qual o preço médio? Esse devia ser o critério de sucesso?]

A vida é um eterno retorno (parte III)

Parte I e Parte II.

O que não era relevante para a competição quando o pico da esquerda estava a crescer, passa a ser relevante quando o pico da direita começa a crescer.

Lembram-se do banhista gordo?

Lembram-se do banhista gordo?

Confrontar com "Logistics Bottlenecks Hamper Efforts to Produce Less in China":

"Companies looking to move some production from China to other Asian countries to avoid mounting U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports face significant bumps in the road.
.
Manufacturers and supply-chain experts say logistics infrastructure in Southeast Asia, where many goods-makers are scouting for new production sites, remains far less developed than China’s long-established connections between factories, suppliers and customers around the world.
.
Poor roads, sparse rail lines and congested ports in Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, Cambodia and other potential manufacturing destinations in Southeast Asia have stretched out delivery schedules and raised shipping costs, according to manufacturing and transportation company executives, even as companies have migrated some factory work to the region in the past decade in search of lower labor costs.
...
Even before U.S. tariffs, factory work in Southeast Asia has been growing as companies have sought lower costs while wages and other expenses in China have increased. That manufacturing migration has taken on more urgency for some producers as the trade conflict between the U.S. and Washington has heated up, with a new round of back-and-forth tariffs this spring and threats of higher levies this summer."

A vida é um eterno retorno (parte II)

Parte I.

A propósito de "Fashion chains use factories in Africa that pay £5 a week"... e de "Não está fácil":

"Tivemos um recuo na ordem dos 3% nas vendas ao exterior [Moi ici: em 2018] e a surpresa foi apenas uma: já não estávamos habituados.
...
No primeiro trimestre ainda sofremos uma quebra de 10%" [Moi ici: em 2019] 

Começámos uma recuperação de 10 anos no sector do calçado tirando partido da carta da rapidez face à China. No entanto, cada vez mais alternativas rápidas vão surgindo e com custos mais baixos.

Abordagem baseada no risco e os processos

Ontem recebi uma pergunta interessante:

"Estou um pouco confuso sobre se as inspecções de recepção das mercadorias dos clientes devem ou não ser incluídas no procedimento de recepção.  Somos um armazém que recebe e armazena as mercadorias dos clientes. Como os produtos não são de fornecedores, mas de clientes, as verificações a serem realizadas precisam estar no procedimento de recepção?"

A pergunta é interessante porque permite exemplificar como sempre vi a aplicação aos processos da abordagem baseada no risco.

Vamos imaginar que o autor da pergunta observou as actividades em torno da recepção de mercadorias do cliente para serem armazenadas no seu armazém. Vamos supor tenha anotado as seguintes atividades:

• Receber camião;
• Verifique papéis;
• Determinar o local de armazenamento;
• Descarregar camião; 
• Armazenar mercadorias;
• Atualizar inventário.

Agora, aplicando a abordagem baseada no risco e pensando com as pessoas que trabalham no processo: o que é que pode correr mal no processo?

E listam-se coisas como:

• Recepção de mercadorias endereçadas a outros;
• Recepção de mercadorias (quantidades e / ou referências) diferentes do que está no manifesto de carga;
• Recepção de mercadorias com embalagem danificada ou violada;
• …

Agora, há que aplicar uma avaliação a estes riscos, para os classificar como críticos ou não críticos.

Se a organização considera alguns dos riscos determinados como críticos, então é preciso desenvolver planos de ação para lidar com esses riscos críticos. Um dos planos de ação pode ser verificar quantidades e referências durante a descarga e registar o resultado. Outro plano de ação poderá ser a criação de um conjunto de imagens que serão usadas para classificar um dano ou violação de embalagem como relevante. Nesse caso, os eventos são registados, fotografados e comunicados imediatamente ao cliente.

A organização não usará os produtos, mas será responsável pelas quantidades e estado enquanto estiver à sua guarda.

Se os riscos são críticos, então as acções realizadas diariamente para os controlar ou minimizar devem fazer parte do procedimento.