The Better You Understand Economics, the More You Realize that Money Isn’t All that Matters

O título deste postal foi roubado a Don Boudreaux no "Cafe Hayek".
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E foi roubado porque é uma grande verdade que muitos desconhecem:
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"The Better You Understand Economics, the More You Realize that Money Isn’t All that Matters"
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O dinheiro, o preço, não é tudo.
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E os empresários do futuro são os empresários que trabalham para aumentar os preços do seu serviço-produto.
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Como?
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Concentrando-se no que está para lá do dinheiro trocado na transacção... concentrando-se na experiência que os clientes vão viver.
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Os sinais estão por todo o lado, por exemplo em "Manufacturing’s Wake-Up Call":
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"debate over the future of U.S. manufacturing is intensifying. Optimists point to the relatively cheap dollar and the shrinking wage gap between China and the U.S. as reasons the manufacturing sector could come back to life, boosting U.S. competitiveness and reviving the fortunes of the American middle class.
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Instead, for the foreseeable future, manufacturing will largely be regional. (Moi ici: Há anos que o marcador "proximidade" marca presença neste blogue... recordar também Ghemawatt e a semi-globalização)
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But for many manufacturers, economics and market dynamics increasingly suggest that they locate factories close to their major markets, including the United States. This type of region-oriented footprint is a clear way to provide adequate scale and volume, minimize transportation and logistics costs, increase market responsiveness and innovation, and customize products for the unique preferences of different regions and cultures. If factory labor costs and currency rates were the sole enablers of manufacturing success, then the West could not compete with emerging nations or offshoring. More and more, though, these factors play a smaller part in manufacturing decisions. (Moi ici: Claro que os políticos e os académicos, longe da realidade, não percebem esta mudança estrutural) Four other considerations, all more complex, drive manufacturers’ choices about where to place and expand factories:

1. The skill level and quality of factory employees, especially for high-tech facilities. 
2. The presence of high-impact clusters, in which many companies can learn from one another and innovate more readily. 
3. Access to nearby countries with emerging consumer markets and lower-cost labor (for the U.S., this means building a future with Mexico). 
4. A reasonably competitive regulatory and tax environment (for the U.S., this means simplifying and streamlining the current tax and regulatory structure).

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With unit labor costs playing a smaller part in manufacturing decisions, (Moi ici: Entretidos com a TSU, com o ataque ao euro, com a impressão de bentos, não percebem como é que isto pode acontecer...) other factors — including talent availability, market accessibility, innovation, regulations, intellectual property protections, barriers to entry and exit, and scale of operations — increasingly drive decisions about where to place and expand factories. Based on the relative economics for each segment, we charted which U.S. industries can compete as exporters, which can be dominant in the regional North American market, which can survive but are threatened by foreign competitors, and which are already mostly overseas but can still manufacture in the U.S. to serve niche markets. (Moi ici: A divisão é interessante e permite pensamento estratégico... ver as figuras)
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designing production systems that align employees’ activities with the company’s overall strategy (Moi ici: A mensagem deste blogue, do nosso trabalho, dos nossos livros... concentrar uma organização no que é essencial, alinhar recursos, vontades, motivações, ideias) and that empower employees to improve manufacturing processes can unlock the productivity and innovation potential of the well-educated U.S. workforce."