O que resultou no passado algures vai deixar de resultar

A revista strategy+business acaba de publicar mais um interessante artigo "Consumer Packaged Goods: Escaping the Consolidation Mentality" de Steffen Lauster, Elisabeth Hartley e Samrat Sharma.
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"Holding fast to the two myths that have long dominated strategy in consumer-oriented industries — that bigger companies win, and that one or two players control every product category — can get a firm into trouble. A capabilities-driven strategy can provide a better path to profit."
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Some strategic concepts, if they’re regarded as sacrosanct, may lead an entire industry in the wrong direction. Something of that sort has happened during the past two decades in the consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry. Two of the most influential strategy ideas are so widely held, so intuitively appealing, and so seemingly pragmatic that they are very hard to give up. Yet they can also be very dangerous to follow.
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Both of these misleading ideas have to do with consolidation: the premise that, when it comes to business strategy, bigger is better. (Moi ici: Crescer por crescer é uma estupidez, no meu modelo mental. Custa tanto... mudar pessoas, mudar processos, mudar de clientes, muitas vezes para ter menos rentabilidade) Since the 1980s, the conventional wisdom has held that shareholder returns accrue most to companies with huge brands and the scale to compete in emerging markets. Many CPG leaders have assumed that their chances of winning, in every region and every product segment, were enhanced by size. More salespeople, a bigger distribution footprint, a bigger advertising budget — these were the ingredients of success.
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This perception gave rise to the second misleading idea: Consolidation is inevitable. For years, experts predicted that most consumer packaged goods segments would end up like carbonated beverages, razor blades, and diapers — with just two or three big rivals, a handful of niche players battling over the scraps, and a few private-label brands for value consumers."
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O que os autores propõem é como lidar com...
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Mongo!!!
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"To be sure, some players, such as Procter & Gamble, use their size and scale to great advantage, particularly in emerging markets or new growth areas. But in reality, the industry is much more diverse and dynamic than the conventional wisdom would suggest. Most CPG categories — including staples such as food, personal care products, and cleaning supplies — are in a constant state of evolution. They move from consolidation to fragmentation, and some can cycle back, time and time again.

In such an environment, there are many ways to prosper, with each successful company finding its own path: some end up large, some small, some global, some regional. But none of the paths taken involve growth for the sake of scale alone. Instead, they require the kind of growth that leads to profitability. This in turn requires coherence. (Moi ici: Sempre o alinhamento, sempre a concentração)
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Coherence is a company’s ability to concentrate its resources and collective intelligence, and marshal all of them in the service of a well-aligned group of products and services with a focused strategic direction.
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Because of the consolidation mentality, many executives of CPG companies have overlooked the value of coherence. They have focused on sheer size and scale instead. But size and scale are no longer as critical as they once were — at least not in the mature markets of industrialized nations.
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Coherence seems to be particularly important in consumer products companies, where there is always a temptation to react opportunistically to changing markets, with brand extensions, new products, or acquisitions.
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A coherent company — for that matter, a company that is simply more coherent than its competitors — can focus its investments on relatively few capabilities, increasing its mastery of those critical areas. It gains in efficiency; it doesn’t waste time, money, and attention on capabilities in domains where it doesn’t need to outdo its rivals and a modicum of competency is sufficient. A coherent company also makes more prudent portfolio decisions, applying the lens of capabilities as it decides which products or services to acquire and which to divest.
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if the advantages of size, international penetration, scale, and retailer satisfaction were really so great, one would expect bigger companies to do better than the vast majority of their smaller peers. Instead, they are on par with most smaller companies and far behind a few in the important area of total shareholder returns.
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In recent years, the CPG industry has undergone a sea change in its structure. Some product categories are consolidating, but many are fragmenting instead: They are splitting the customer base among more, rather than fewer, competitors.
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(Moi ici: E agora umas recomendações muito interessantes. Mongo, Mongo, Mongo!!!)
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If you are a small company in a fragmenting category, focus not on expansion into other categories, but on distinguishing your existing products in ways that customers value. Build or develop capabilities related to the features that your customers value most.
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If you are in a consolidated category, you might be able to take over the market by changing the category’s dominant value proposition to something that you do uniquely well.
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If you are pursuing organic growth (without M&A), seek “scale at the shelf,” not across categories. In other words, establish multiple brands at diverse price points, each with its own proposition."
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Eu adoro isto! Tudo o que promova a erosão da ideia que o futuro é dos grandes, é bem vindo!!! Viva a agilidade das PMEs, viva a diferenciação!!!