A receita deste blogue (parte II)

Parte I.
.
Como é que começou a mudança da Marlin Steel?

"The job that rescued Marlin Steel was small--20 baskets, a $500 order. (Moi ici: Mais uma mensagem a reter - atenção ao fora de comum), Greenblatt was handling sales in 2003, so he took the call himself. "It was an engineer from Boeing," he says. "He didn't think I was in the bagel-basket business. He just needed custom wire baskets." The Boeing engineer, who had seen a Marlin ad in the Thomas Register, a pre-Internet manufacturing directory, wanted baskets to hold airplane parts and move them around the factory. He wanted them fast. And he wanted them made in a way Marlin wasn't used to--with astonishing precision. For bagel stores, says Greenblatt, "if the bagel didn't fall out between the wires, the quality was perfect." The Boeing engineer needed the basket's size to be within a sixty-fourth of an inch of his specifications. "I told him, 'I'll have to charge you $24 a basket,'" says Greenblatt. "He said, 'Yeah, yeah, whatever. No problem. When are you going to ship them?'"" (Moi ici: Pequenas séries, com exigências específicas, idealmente a precisar de interacções que gerem co-desenho ou co-produção e entregas rápidas)

O truque de equacionar o servir os clientes que não valorizam tanto o preço:

"What got Greenblatt's attention in that phone call wasn't the need for speed or even the quality standards. It was that Boeing was completely unconcerned about price. "I'm trying to sell a basket for $12, the bagel shops are saying, 'I'm not paying more than $6.' I'm ready to jump off a bridge, and here's a guy who just shrugs at the outrageous sum of $24. I was like, Wow. He's price insensitive."
.
That epiphany marked Marlin's rebirth. The company would keep bending heavy-gauge wire to make baskets, but instead of going to Bruegger's to hold bagels, the baskets would go to the factories of Toyota and Caterpillar, Merck and GE to hold everything from microchips to turbine blades."

E a revolução ao nível do pessoal:

"But for Greenblatt, the most important element of the moat is what Marlin didn't have before Boeing called: engineering and design. No one at Marlin designs baskets on slips of notepaper today. Five of 28 employees are degreed mechanical engineers. "We give people slick, elegant designs that make it worthwhile to use us rather than a commodity-part supplier from China," says Greenblatt. More to the point, says designer Alur, "people come to us with a problem and we try to solve it." Marlin has taken something utterly pedestrian and turned it into a tool of innovation--for its customers."

Faz lembrar o que os "patrões" do calçado andam a fazer:

"Sob o lema "A indústria mais sexy da Europa", os sapatos made in Portugal acompanharam a recuperação das exportações com a qualificação dos seus recursos humanos: a percentagem de trabalhadores qualificados subiu de 28% para 48% e o valor acrescentado bruto por trabalhador cresceu 34% em 10 anos.""

Por fim, outro conselho que costumo dar, "prefiram os clientes mais exigentes":

"The final line of defense for Marlin lies in the customers it targets: Greenblatt wants the toughest ones, the kind who make his competitors roll their eyes. "What I realized is that the customers who are a pain in the neck are really the great customers," he says. "Some people might say, 'Those guys [at Marlin] are crazy expensive.' But we find the people who appreciate that. I've never sold anything to Walmart." (Moi ici: Os grandes que vendem para a grande distribuição nem percebem o orgulho com que Grrenblatt diz isto)
.
What those customers realize is that baskets aren't interchangeable commodities."

Está cá tudo...

BTW, recordar:

"O exemplo da Vipp chama a atenção para o facto de se poder criar uma marca de topo em qualquer sector de actividade, não é preciso ser uma Apple."