Vinhos, um exemplo australiano

Um artigo interessante, "The Applicability of the Balanced Scorecard in Small Wineries", pelo que nos conta acerca da evolução da situação dos viticultores australianos.
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Aqui, ouvimos, frequentemente, notícias sobre manifestações de viticultores protestando contra o abaixamento do preço das uvas, contra a diminuição da procura, contra o mundo que está contra eles e o bocado de queijo a que têm direito por graça divina. Os culpados? É o euro, é a troika, é o governo, é o aquecimento global, são os homens-maus, ...
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Vejamos a situação na Austrália nos primeiros anos da década passada:

"Put simply, there are too many people competing for a tiny slice of the market place. The access to the marketplace for a small winery is constrained by: increased competition from other small labels; a lack of differentiation between competitors with regions; static consumption rates domestically; despite exports increasing 20%, the limited interest of overseas distributors and merchants in low volume producers; increasing competition from US, South American, and Eastern European producers; and the loss to the forces of Woolworths and Coles-Myer of independent wine merchants who traditionally took product from smaller producers.
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The dire predicament facing the burgeoning small wine producers is emphasised by the CEO of the Victorian Wine Industry Association who has observed that many vineyards surrounding Melbourne are not viable, and in fact there are “Too many grapes…(and)…“It’s hard bloody work and not the pot of gold everyone thought its was…”. The repercussions are highlighted by the alarming estimate that “Up to 40 per cent of Australia’s wineries are tipped to fail in the next few years as conditions change”."

Em vez de manifestações, sintoma de que o locus de controlo está no exterior (?), o que há muito defendemos aqui é a via do pensamento estratégico:

"Economic success & survival in the tough economic, market and regulatory environment facing small wineries is largely contingent on having effective strategic and operational control. A key driver of effective strategic and operational control is the ability to recognise, measure and react to critical success factors (CSFs).
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Small wineries, like any businesses competing in dynamic and complex environments, must have a clear understanding of their objectives and the methods for efficiently and effectively attaining them." 

 E para quem acha que os empresários portugueses, agrícolas ou não, são piores do que os estrangeiros:

"The customer perspective appears to be relatively un-addressed. Whilst all interviewees speak of the importance of customers, performance measurement is largely a haphazard and random mix of occasional forays into the show circuit, cellar door customer contact, phone or email feedback from customers, and comments by distributors. For six wineries, the comments from tasters at cellar door are the only regular indicator of product and service level. Current sales-mix analysis, together with comments from trade magazines, distributors and fellow winemakers forms a very informal approach to the market demand for their regional product. The utility of much general trade information is often discounted by comments such as “…overall market trend for pinot is one thing, but ours are Macedon ranges pinots, they will stand separate from the others…”. While three wineries have comprehensive initiatives to assess and action CSFs in the customer perspective, the others had a disturbing dislocation which was often justified by views like “…if you make good wine, you will sell it…”.…"