Qualquer um pode fazer a diferença

Em "Good Enough, Not Good Enough, and the Value of Brands" apresenta-se uma perspectiva estratosférica dos negócios, uma visão a 10 mil metros de altura:

"Executives who seek to avoid commoditization often rely on the strength of their brands to sustain their profitability—but brands become commoditized and de-commoditized, too. Brands are most valuable when they are created at the stages of the value-added chain where things aren’t yet good enough. When customers aren’t yet certain whether a product’s performance will be satisfactory, a well crafted brand can step in and close some of the gap between what customers need and what they fear they might get if they buy the product from a supplier of unknown reputation.
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For similar logic, however, the ability of brands to command premium prices tends to atrophy when the performance of a class of products from multiple suppliers is manifestly more than adequate.
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The migration of branding power in a market that is composed of multiple tiers is a process, not an event. Accordingly, the brands of companies with proprietary products typically create value mapping upward from their position on the improvement trajectory - toward those customers who still are not satisfied with the functionality and reliability of the best that is available. But mapping downward from that same point - toward the world of modular products where speed, convenience, and responsiveness drive competitive success - the power to create profitable brands migrates away from the end-use product, toward the subsystems and the channel.
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Where the products’ functionality and reliability have become more than good enough and it is the simplicity and convenience of purchase and use that is not good enough, then the power to brand has begun migrating to the channel whose business model is delivering on this as-yet-unsatisfied dimension."

O racional descrito no texto tem sentido, é lógico e podem encontrar-se muitos exemplos que o demonstram. Contudo, a minha primeira reacção foi achá-lo simplista, porque descarta a possibilidade de actores isolados e anónimos lutarem contra uma inevitável corrente macro. Depois, lembrei-me daquela descoberta do meu Maio de 2010, a caminho desta reunião, que relatei em "A realidade e a teoria". Claro que me lembrei de "A distribuição de produtividades a funcionar, um exemplo tuga", ou de "É deixá-las morrer!" ou mesmo de "Shift happens!".
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Por fim, três exemplos práticos entraram-me pelos olhos e que demonstram que este racional pode ser contrariado:

• os Mac e a sua tribo de fãs;
• A Nest e a Dyson, recordados esta semana em "E quando o "é meter código nisso" vier subverter o seu modelo de negócio? Mete uma providência cautelar?"

Bom momento para acrescentar esta visão:

"competitive advantage is importantly driven by exogenous initial variation and with the more 'rational' or 'strategic' perspective that views firms as responding with foresight to changes in their environment."

Qualquer um pode fazer a diferença. Claro que tem de trabalhar para isso e, apesar disso, não tem garantias de sucesso no final. Recordar o Eclesiastes.

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Trecho final retirado de "Untangling the origins of competitive advantage" de Iain M Cockburn; Rebecca M Henderson e Scott Stern, publicado por Strategic Management Journal; Oct/Nov 2000; 21.