Curiosidade do dia

"Since the turn of the millennium, Europe has been undergoing some pretty intense demographic change.
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The BBSR collected data between 2001 and 2011.
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The map works as follows. Dark blue patches show an average annual population fall of 2 percent or more, the medium blue patches a fall of between 1 and 2 percent, and the lightest blue patches a fall of up to 1 percent. Areas in beige have experienced no statistically significant change, while the red areas show population growth. Municipalities in deep red have experienced an average annual population rise of 2 percent or more, the medium red of between 1 and 2 percent, and the pale pink areas of up to 1 percent."

Imagem e trecho retirado de "An Incredibly Detailed Map Shows Europe's Population Shifts From 2001 to 2011"

"volume is vanity profit is sanity" mesmo com bits

"It has become a central tenet of tech growth investing (in both the public and private markets) that growth is more valuable than profitability and you can always focus on profits once you have “captured the market.” This leads to behaviors like investing heavily in sales and marketing to increase the growth rates of a business beyond what it can grow at “organically.”
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These experiences lead me to question the orthodoxy in the world of technology that says if you are not investing heavily in growth (and losing money), then you are not maximizing the potential value of your business over the long haul.
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I also think the profit motive, generating more revenues each year than the expenses you are spending to do that, is a really valuable constraint on a management team.
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If you don’t need to make money because there is plenty of capital available to fund your losses and you are “investing in growth”, then you can also avoid making the hard decisions that focus an organization and insure a high quality team where everyone is pulling their weight"

Trechos retirados de "Profits vs Growth"

Um dos três exemplos

Calçado, têxtil e vestuário e, mobiliário, são os três exemplos que acompanho e relato aqui no blogue há vários anos.
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Em "70% Da Produção Do Mobiliário De Lar Segue Para Exportação" encontro o reforço de alguns padrões que costumo salientar:

"Percebe-se uma crescente internacionalização da atividade dos fabricantes portugueses: as exportações representaram em 2014 67% do valor da produção nacional, face a 56% de 2011 e 44% de 2008.
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As vendas no exterior situaram-se em 2014 perto dos 500 milhões de euros, o que contrasta com o valor de 352 milhões de 2011 e de 209 milhões no ano 2006.
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O tecido empresarial no sector de mobiliário de lar tem reduzido significativamente nos últimos anos O número de fabricantes passou de cerca de 5.300 em 2009 para 4.250 em 2013. O volume de emprego, por seu lado, situou-se neste último ano perto de 22.400 trabalhadores, valor notavelmente inferior ao de 28.790 empregados de 2009.
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O número médio de colaboradores por empresa situa-se próximo das cinco pessoas. Perto de 50 operadores têm mais de 50 trabalhadores e quase 90% do total emprega menos de 10."

Estando o número de empresas e de trabalhadores a diminuir e a facturação a crescer é fácil imaginar o aumento do valor acrescentado, em termos agregados, por empresa e por trabalhador,

Uma mudança de estratégia (parte II)

Parte I.
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Este artigo "Exportações de calçado foram as que mais subiram de preço" remete-nos para este texto "Taxas de Variação Anual Homóloga em Valor, Volume e Preço das Importações e Exportações de Mercadorias em 2014 por Agrupamentos de Produtos" de Walter Anatole Marques (BMEP N.º 05|2015 – Em Análise)
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Infelizmente, o artigo remete para a mesma conclusão da parte I. Comecemos pelas imagens:

E, sobretudo:

Ou seja:

O crescimento das exportações em 2014, na maioria dos sectores, assentou na redução dos preços.
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Mais sintomas de que muitas empresas precisam de rever as suas estratégias e fugir da prisão mental em que se encontram.
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Está satisfeito com a estratégia da sua empresa? Gosta dos resultados?
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Não estará na altura de a mudar?
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Será que podemos ajudar?

RBT (parte II)

Parte I.
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Nestes tempos em que andamos a preparar um caderno prático sobre o "Risk Based Thinking" (RBT) da ISO 9001:2015, dá logo para fazer paralelismos:

"Standardized processes that work are great. But if the folks at the head office get it wrong, then operations around the world can be locked into systematic dysfunction."

E:

"Call it assuming, call it blindspots, call it oversight, call it taking unknown forces for granted. Brian realized a valuable lesson from the kindergarten experience, and applied it to the Pathfinder project: inevitable, unforeseen and disruptive forces could be the ruin of the project, so there had to be a way to mitigate their potential impact.
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Now, in space projects like the Pathfinder mission, it’s the job of someone called the fault protection engineer to look at possible failures of the spacecraft, understand how to recognize them, how the spacecraft would react, and what the consequences might be. But the focus of the job is on “what is true now,” rather than “what must be true” for things to go as planned."

1º trecho retirado de "Don’t Set Process Without Input from Frontline Workers"

2º trecho retirado de "The Gremlin Strategy, or How to Ward Off Disruption"

Curiosidade do dia

Há uma tendência para analisarmos os problemas ou desafios como se fossem específicos do nosso país.
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A propósito de "The future of the postdoc", relacionar com "Dois terços dos professores das universidades privadas a recibos verdes" e, recordar:

• "Curiosidade do dia"
• "Uma questão de estatísticas"
• "A paixão pela educação"

RBT (parte I)

Da próxima vez que ler que as acções preventivas deixaram de ser mencionadas explicitamente na futura ISO 9001:2015, convido à leitura de "Acções preventivas, uma ajuda da ISO 9001:2008?"
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Risco como uma potencial não-conformidade.
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RBT - Risk based thinking

Não creio que cheguem as mãos dos trabalhadores

A propósito deste título "“A saúde da empresa está nas mãos dos trabalhadores”".
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O texto começa com a frase:

"Os prejuízos na TAP são grandes."

Por que é que os prejuízos são grandes? Será fruto de uma má estratégia ou de uma má execução? Ou de ambas?

Não creio que cheguem as mãos dos trabalhadores para salvar uma empresa, quando esta segue uma estratégia que não é a mais adequada à realidade actual. Os trabalhadores não podem mudar uma estratégia, essa é a tarefa da gestão de topo.

Uma mudança de estratégia (parte I)

Em Abril, escrevi este postal "Acerca da importância de uma estratégia, não acreditar em boleias!".
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Os números que estiveram na sua origem são poderosos e exemplares, infelizmente.
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Um sector não transaccionável em 2014, em Portugal, teve um crescimento de 19% no número de clientes.
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Mas esperem...
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Antes de começarem a celebrar, vejam o que esse número esconde:
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Quase 50% das unidades (47%) a operar no sector perderam clientes...
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Só 40% das unidades a operar no sector ganharam facturação.
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Assim, pode-se concluir que houve mais unidades a ganhar clientes do que facturação e, mais unidades a perder facturação do que clientes. Ou seja, além das unidades que perderam clientes e, por isso perderam facturação, temos também as que ganharam clientes mas à custa da quebra do preço unitário, à custa da quebra da margem.
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O que é que isto quer dizer?
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Que muita gente ainda só vê o preço como a única variável para seduzir clientes, que muita gente continua prisioneira de uma visão tradicional acerca da criação de valor, que muita gente tem tudo a ganhar com uma mudança de perspectiva e uma mudança de estratégia.
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Estas unidades que perdem clientes e/ou facturação têm, cada uma, a sua estratégia. Podem até nem realizar que têm uma estratégia, podem até nem ser capazes de a descrever mas têm-na, traduzida num conjunto de padrões de comportamentos e de decisões.
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Essas estratégias particulares traduziram-se naqueles resultados:

• Quase 50% das unidades (47%) a operar no sector perderam clientes; e
• Só 40% das unidades a operar no sector ganharam facturação.

Se queremos resultados diferentes, temos de ter estratégias diferentes. Aqueles resultados não são nenhuma anormalidade, não são manifestações de uma doença ou problema, são a consequência perfeitamente natural de um conjunto de estratégias obsoletas.

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E a sua empresa, tem uma estratégia obsoleta? 

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Não está na hora de a rever? (Podemos ajudar?)

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Na parte II vamos ver como esta necessidade está espalhada por grande parte da economia portuguesa.

E por que é que as plataformas bem sucedidas cavam a sua própria sepultura?

E por que é que as plataformas bem sucedidas cavam a sua própria sepultura? Plataformas bem sucedidas crescem muito e recolhem muito, muito dinheiro de investidores.
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Recordar que este blogue há vários anos distingue e não usa indistintamente as designações: grande empresa e empresa grande.

"Great organizations listen to our frustrations, our hopes and our dreams.
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Alas, when a company gets big enough, it starts to listen to the requirements of its shareholders and its best-paid executives instead [Moi ici: Recordar "A rake to far", não é maldade é da natureza das coisas].
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Too big to listen is just a nanometer away from "Too big to care.""

Trecho retirado de "A corollary to 'Too big to fail'"

Curiosidade do dia

Uma tabela interessante:

Depois da entrada do euro, as exportações portuguesas para fora da UE cresceram mais do que no tempo do escudo, apesar da moeda forte.
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Tabela retirada de "Exportações nacionais – principais mercados extracomunitários e produtos (1990-2013)" de Eduardo Guimarães

A minoria que vai encolhendo

Uma minoria...
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Cada vez mais, a minoria a que pertenço, nesta velha Europa, vai encolhendo e perdendo partidários destas ideias:

"Creative destruction is good news. ... This process should be encouraged, even though it’s not pleasant for all parties involved, and even though it leads to job loss and worker dislocation.
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Markets allocate better than bureaucrats do.
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There is such a thing as too much regulation.
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Business is not the enemy.
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The state can’t provide jobs to everybody.
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We’re right about these things. Virtually all my colleagues believe that the statements above are no longer open for debate among serious people. Theory, experiment, and especially experience have shown that they’re correct.
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Davos was a revelation for me because I came across serious, smart, and  influential people who didn’t appear to accept these statements nearly as wholeheartedly as I do. And these people were not from strange or faraway lands (if there were delegations from North Korea or Cuba at the meeting, I didn’t come across them). Instead, they were from Europeans, my first cousins in the global family."

Trecho retirado de "Defending the free market in Davos"

"Posso ajudar?" - E isto, muda tudo!

Parte I.

"During the past decade, the academic discussion has strongly shifted away from GDL and the traditional thinking about the sequential value creation process to new business logics that emphasize customers’ active role in value creation.
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The service-dominant logic (SDL), which stresses the co-creation of value, value-in-use and value-in-context, has been proposed as an alternative view to the traditional notion of value-in-exchange.
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The central idea of the SDL is that there is no value until the offering is used and experienced by the customer. The SDL argues that a company can offer value propositions and value is always co-created.
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customers are value creators during value-generating processes and in value-supporting interactions. Companies are facilitators and co-creators that engage themselves in the customers’ processes. In other words, customers not only determine the value, but also control the value creation in their processes.
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when focusing on value-in-use, the supplier offers a value proposition that can support customer’s value creation processes, but it is the customer who actualizes the value. In other words, the role of a company has shifted from being a producer of value to a supporter of value, since customers are in charge of their value creation. Thus, adopting the service logic means that the supplier company searches for possibilities to understand and support the customers’ value creation processes.
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Value emerges rather than being delivered and service providers can only create resources and means to facilitate customers to create value for themselves
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Understanding the customer experience also before and after an interaction and knowing how value is experienced in the customer’s own context gives companies opportunities to help their customers to better fulfil their daily tasks."

A abordagem mental ao desafio das empresas servirem os seus clientes é muito diferente... COMO POSSO AJUDAR?
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Não tem a ver com a oferta que a empresa tem para impingir, não tem a ver com os activos que tem para fazer rodar, não tem a ver com as regras que lhe dão jeito.
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E isto, muda tudo!


Trecho retirado de "Adapting Business Model Thinking to Service Logic: An Empirical Study on Developing a Service Design Tool" de Katri Ojasalo e Jukka Ojasalo

A prisão mental

"When executives in business-to-business (B2B) markets think about pricing their products, they often raise the white flag before even stepping onto the battlefield. Over the years, they’ve accumulated beliefs that limit their pricing effectiveness.
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Five beliefs, in particular, have become ingrained in many companies to the point that they seem immovable:
    Our products are commoditized, so we must accept prevailing prices in the market.
    We can’t respond effectively against new, disruptive business models—much less figure out if we should be the disruptor—without jeopardizing our core business.
    We can’t constrain negotiations without killing the ability of our salesforce to close deals.
    We need to maintain legacy channel discounts to motivate our partners, even though those discounts create complexity and obscure our view of profitability.
    It doesn’t matter if our list prices are competitive, because we hit the right price points through heavy, nonstandard discounts."

Trechos retirados de "The B2B Pricing Prison"

Curiosidade do dia

Imagem retirada de "Why everyone is so keen to agree new trade deals"

Mais um exemplo

Mais um exemplo da força crescente da customização, da personalização, em "Customisation takes off as Hem launches online service in US":

"Design brand Hem is to launch its online furniture customisation service in the USA, amid signs that mass customisation is becoming big business.
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"It's just the start," said Hem founder and CEO Jason Goldberg, who said over half of the brand's revenues in Europe now come from customers who are designing their own furniture via Hem's online tools.
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"The internet is starting to fulfil the promise of mass customisation and mass personalisation," Goldberg told Dezeen. "It's about half of our revenue in Europe. We have thousands of orders.""

Acerca do poder da autenticidade

Um artigo, "Where Your Favorite Imported Beer Is Really Made" com material interessante para reflectir acerca do poder da autenticidade:

"What is the advantage of claiming foreign roots? One advantage is the association in consumer's minds between "import" and artisan-like quality--the aura of handmade authenticity. Marketing professors call this the concept of "contagion." The general idea is that a consumer is more likely to infer "quality" about a product, if she believes it was made in its original manufacturing location.
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It is well established that differences in manufacturing location can impact consumer preferences through lay inferences about production quality... Specifically, we find that due to a belief in contagion, products from a company's original manufacturing location are seen as containing the essence of the brand. In turn, this belief in transferred essence leads consumers to view products from the original factory as more authentic and valuable than identical products made elsewhere.
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The main takeaway here is that consumers place a higher value on products they believe contain the aura of authenticity."

O pensamento tradicional sobre a criação de valor

Uma boa descrição do mindset que domina o senso comum e impregna a linguagem que utilizamos:

"Traditional thinking about value creation in business sees every company as occupying a position in the value chain, adding value to inputs and then passing the output to the next actor in the chain. In a value chain, value creation takes place inside a company through its own activities, and companies act autonomously with little or no interference from customers. Consequently, the value-added is equalized with the cost incurred by the supplier company. [Moi ici: Por isso, quando falo em subir preços, as pessoas nas empresas pensam logo em produtos ou serviços premium, pensam logo na quantidade de custos a acrescentar, para suportar, para justificar o preço mais alto] This traditional business logic based on goods-dominant logic (GDL) suggests that value is embedded in the units of output (value-in-exchange), and the outputs present the fundamental units of exchange. Interaction takes place mostly at the end of the value chain, and the value chain stops when the end-customer has bought a product or service. GDL highlights the supplier company’s process as primary, and the role of a customer is to fulfil scripts defined by the supplier."

Trecho retirado de "Adapting Business Model Thinking to Service Logic: An
Empirical Study on Developing a Service Design Tool" de Katri Ojasalo e Jukka Ojasalo

Ainda acerca do futuro das plataformas

O @parvalhoti chamou-me a atenção para um interessante artigo sobre o pricing das plataformas, "A Rake Too Far: Optimal Platform Pricing Strategy":

"Many Internet marketplaces also have a rake or vig. The percentage rake is the amount that the marketplace charges as a percentage of GMS (gross merchandise sales), which typically represents net revenues for the marketplace.
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It may seem tautological that a higher rake is always better – that charging more would be better than charging less. But in fact, the opposite may often be true. The most dangerous strategy for any platform company is to price too high – to charge a greedy and overzealous rake that could serve to undermine the whole point of having a platform in the first place.
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High volume combined with a modest rake is the perfect formula for a true organic marketplace and a sustainable competitive advantage. A sustainable platform or marketplace is one where the value of being in the network clearly outshines the transactional costs charged for being in the network. This way, suppliers will feel  obliged to stay on the platform, and consumers will not see prices that are overly burdened by the network provider. Everyone wins in this scenario, but particularly the platform provider.
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Most venture capitalists encourage entrepreneurs to price-maximize, to extract as much rent as they possibly can from their ecosystem on each transaction. This is likely short-sighted. There is a big difference between what you can extract versus what you should extract."

Por um lado, relacionar com "the mindset of extracting and the alternative of feeding" e, por outro, relacionar com o tema da evolução das plataformas "Acerca do futuro das plataformas".

Curiosidade do dia

• "BBVA prevê que a recuperação da economia portuguesa continue e estima crescimento de 2% este ano";
• "Contas externas atingem saldo positivo. Excedente sobe para 186,3 milhões";
• "Desempregados inscritos nos centros de emprego baixaram 3,4% em Maio";
• "Citigroup: Economia portuguesa terá acelerado no segundo trimestre";
• "Portugal entre os países europeus que criou mais emprego no início do ano";
• "Setor do turismo prevê ano de 2015 melhor do que 2014"

E a sua empresa, revê-se nestas tendências?

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Lembra-se do tempo em que se falava e suspirava pela retoma?

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Não espere por boleias, não espere que outros façam por si, o trabalho que só a sua empresa pode fazer.

Portugal faz bem

É pena não se fazerem estas comparações, não serem explicadas, não serem salientadas e elogiadas até à exaustão.
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Primeiro, um convite para apreciar a comparação das marcas Portugal e Espanha no mundo agrícola em "A marca Portugal"
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Depois, esta postura portuguesa "Não nos interessa exportar mais volume, interessa-nos exportar mais valor" e o desempenho espanhol "Quem é o maior exportador de vinho? Olhe aqui para o lado".
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Os espanhóis ainda estão neste campeonato "El precio de venta del vino español es el más bajo del mundo"
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Como escrevi recentemente aqui:

"Competir pelo preço mais baixo não é para quem quer, é para quem pode e, há sempre uns "vizinhos espanhóis do "Mar del Plastico"" que têm vantagem competitiva nesse campeonato. Vender com preços unitários mais elevados exige estratégia e alinhamento."

Por que não se pensa em estratégia?

Interessante ver o que se passa no Reino Unido com a quebra no preço do leite e, as reacções de produtores e distribuição em "Dairy farmers warn supermarket milk price war is crippling their industry".
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Sem diferenciação, sem estratégia, estamos perante uma espécie de Tragédia dos Comuns. Quanto mais alguém produzir mais baixa o custo unitário, mais pode comoditizar o preço e mais pode vender em quantidade. Contudo, se todos fizerem isso, ganha quem crescer mais depressa.
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Apesar disto ter acontecido:

"Last year alone more than 40 dairy farmers in Wales quit the industry, with many fearing that their livelihoods were simply no longer sustainable.
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Some 9,960 dairy farmers in England and Wales have left the industry since 2002, with 60 farmers giving up milk production in December alone in the face of falling prices."

A produção continuou a crescer.
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Recordar:

"In June 2007, the UK dairy herd was estimated at two million animals. Since 1995, the number of UK dairy farms has fallen by around 43 per cent, but average herd sizes have actually risen during this time from 71 cows in 1994 to 92 animals in 2004. Similarly, average milk yields have also risen from 5,299 litres per cow in 1994 to 6,770 litres per cow in 2005 (figures from Defra). Future trends suggest herds will get larger with fewer farmers staying in the industry." 

Por que não se pensa em estratégia?

Não se ria, muitas empresas... talvez a sua também, perante o mesmo problema, agem da mesma forma.

E mudar de .... ? (preencher o espaço em função da sua realidade)

De certeza que em Portugal isto levantará velhos Velhos do Restelo para mais umas rodadas de providências cautelares e outras ilusões fáceis, enganadoras e transitórias, "Carmakers launch peer-to-peer vehicle sharing":

"Three of the world’s biggest carmakers have jumped into peer-to-peer vehicle sharing, as the automobile industry scrambles to stay relevant in the age of Uber and BlaBlaCar.
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Within hours of each other, Ford, General Motors and BMW announced Airbnb-style schemes on Wednesday – with each manufacturer claiming to be the first to let car owners earn money by renting out their new vehicles to other drivers.
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“I think car manufacturers are rapidly waking up to the fact that part of their current and future clientele are not interested in owning cars any more,” he added." [Moi ici: Corrente que está longe de chegar a Portugal, país onde o preço relativo de um automóvel é dos mais altos e, no entanto, onde mais cresce a compra dos ditos cujos]

Pense na sua empresa... pense no seu negócio...
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Estes gigantes do mundo automóvel, são capazes de fazer experiências, de testar novos modelos de negócio, de alterar as suas propostas de valor.
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E a sua empresa, e o seu negócio, enquanto o mundo à sua volta, muda o que faz? Vai para as TV e jornais pedir um apoio, um subsídio, uma protecção, uma barreira artificial?

"Dan Ammann, president of GM, last month outlined the dilemma for city-dwellers who rarely use their cars. “It’s the last thing you should do because you buy this asset, it depreciates fairly rapidly, you use it 3 per cent of the time, and you pay a vast amount of money to park it for the other 97 per cent of the time,” he said in an interview with the Financial Times.
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“However, demand for personal transport in cars continues to increase. The more cars get used – ie shared – the faster they wear and need to be replaced. So pooling and sharing isn’t necessarily negative, unless one fails to get involved.”
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The other benefit for manufacturers is they can introduce young consumers to their products."

E mudar de estratégia? E mudar de modelo de negócio? E mudar de proposta de valor? E mudar de canal? E mudar de clientes?

Outra fonte "MINI relaunches its brand and offers Airbnb-style sharing to car owners"

Porquê um balanced scorecard?

"Managers should always try to maximize profits, except when they should not. The occasions when they should not are when other strategic priorities must be considered, and are explicitly taken into account.
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poor alignment on priorities is a serious obstacle to capturing value.[Moi ici: Recordar a série "Tecto de vidro"]
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With such trade-offs to manage constantly, it can be hard for companies to make unambiguous decisions about priorities. But the confusion runs deeper than that. In the real world, the decision-makers are not companies but rather people within those companies. Individual objectives often are not aligned."

O desenho de um mapa da estratégia e, depois, a sua conversão num balanced scorecard, permite alinhar, focar, canalizar e explicitar:

• atenções para um conjunto de prioridades;
• acções concretas que se reforçam;
• recursos sintonizados com as prioridades;
• mensagens com um conteúdo em torno da proposta de valor; e
• prioridades em função dos clientes-alvo. Recordar que ter inimigos nos negócios pode ser um bom sinal

A sua empresa tem um balanced scorecard? E um mapa da estratégia? 

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Não?! 

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Estará na hora?

Trechos retirados de "8 Reasons Companies Don’t Capture More Value"

Curiosidade do dia

"Os dados da execução orçamental mostram que, em universos comparáveis, o défice das Administrações Públicas aumentou 108 milhões de euros até Maio, quando comparado com o período homólogo. Está agora nos 1.098 milhões."

Trecho retirado de "Défice orçamental agrava-se em 108 milhões de euros até Maio"

"O défice da Administração Pública atingiu 868 milhões de euros nos primeiros cinco meses do ano, uma redução de 123 milhões face ao período homólogo, revelam as Finanças em comunicado."

Trecho retirado de "Défice melhorou 123 milhões de euros até Maio"

Rápido, sem olhar, responder à pergunta:

- Qual o nome que assina o artigo do JdN?

Sim, eu sei, fácil demais.

Imagine que a sua empresa percebia o porquê...

"Employees don’t know your strategy
Surveys suggest that 50 percent of employees don’t have a clear understanding of their company’s strategy."

Concordo com a resposta de Ron Shevlin à pergunta:

"Why do 50% of employees NOT have a clear understanding of their company’s
strategy?"

Cá vai:

"The company doesn’t have a clear strategy.
 ...
Many people believe that Peter Drucker said it best when he said “strategy is as much about figuring out what you won’t do, as it is about what you will do.” Few people, however, seem to like my corollary: “If you don’t figure out what you won’t do, you’ll find yourself in a lot of doo doo.”"

Infelizmente, demasiadas vezes a resposta às perguntas:

• o que vos distingue?
• o que vos diferencia?
• em que é que são realmente bons?
• qual a vossa vantagem competitiva?
• por que é que o vosso melhor cliente, a pensar no que é melhor para ele, opta por trabalhar com a vossa empresa?

É um ou mais rostos cheios de dúvidas, de incertezas, de opiniões cheias de "perhaps", cheias de nevoeiro, ...

"STRATEGY FOG: A state of being in which an organization is unable to clearly see where it is, how it got there, where it’s going, and/or where it should go."

Imagine que a sua empresa percebia o porquê...
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Uma coisa é empurrar, outra é ser puxado por um propósito, por uma bússola, por um destino.


Trechos  retirados de "Clearing Up The Strategy Fog"

Amâncio Ortega era um pacato subcontratado, até que um dia [em 1975] aconteceu-lhe uma desgraça..."

"Amâncio Ortega era um pacato subcontratado que produzia em regime de private label para quem o contratasse. Até que um dia [em 1975] aconteceu-lhe uma desgraça..."
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Primeiro, os resultados:

"Inditex, the fast-fashion retailer's parent company based in Spain, recently said profits in the first quarter jumped by a whopping 28%. Sales were up by an impressive 14%."

Segundo, a justificação, um modelo de negócio diferente:

""Unlike fast-fashion retailers, which have buying teams sourcing current trending fashion from third-party vendors, traditional specialty retailers have design teams creating product they believe is going to be trending 12 months out,
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Zara's unconventional business model eliminates this risk [Moi ici: have a "fashion miss," it means markdowns,].
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The company's strategy involves stocking very little and updating collections often. Unlike brands that update only once a season, Zara restocks with new designs twice a week, [Moi ici: Os membros da tríade ficam à nora com estas cenas que arrasam os modelos baseados no Homo racionalis]
...
it encourages customers to come back to the store often. It also means that if the shopper wants to buy something, he or she feels the need to buy it to guarantee it won't sell out.
...
"They broke up a century-old biannual cycle of fashion," an analyst told Hansen. "Now, pretty much half of the high-end fashion companies" — Prada and Louis Vuitton, for example — "make four to six collections instead of two each year. That's absolutely because of Zara."
Specialty retailers will need to follow suit in order to succeed, according to Goldman."

Recordar:

• Etapa 1: a narrativa (Dezembro de 2009)
• E que tal agarrar o destino com ambas as mãos? (Março de 2011)
• Para macro-economistas, políticos e comentadores de coisas económicas (Março de 2012)
• Modelos de negócio: escolhas e consequências (Novembro de 2012)

Trechos retirados de "This clothing company whose CEO is richer than Warren Buffett is blowing the competition out of the water"

Acerca do futuro das plataformas

Esko Kilpi continua a fazer-me pensar na evolução das plataformas com "From Firms to Platforms to Commons":

"Traditional business economics focus on economies of scale derived from the resource base of the company, which scales much slower than the network effects these new firms build on. The start-ups have a huge advantage over incumbents.
...
A platform company should therefore be as open, as accessible and as supportive as possible, to as many users as possible. This is unequivocally the route to optimum value creation. Internet scale economies can create almost boundless returns without the (core) company growing at all.
...
The central aggregator of enterprise value will no longer be a value chain, but a network space, where these new firms are fully market facing and the customer experience is defined by apps.
...
The previous iteration transformed firms to platforms. Perhaps the next evolutionary step in the life of firms is a transformation from platforms to open commons with shared protocols."

Recordar:

• "Reflexão-previsão acerca do futuro das plataformas" 
• "O poder das plataformas (parte II)"

Acerca do pricing

• "The Price is Complicated"

"Many chains use a cost-plus approach. That is, prices are based on food costs plus a labor charge and an overhead factor. The problem with cost-plus pricing is that it is a short-term, inside-out approach. Not only does it leave you vulnerable to variability in commodities pricing, but it also doesn’t reflect the full margin potential of your offerings. Customers may be willing to pay more for some items, but cost-plus pricing essentially treats all products the same. Pricing should be decided from the outside in.
...
You should approach pricing as thoughtfully and strategically as your menu.
...
Reinforce your brand identity. Use price to communicate what your brand stands for.
...
Be clear about your competitive positioning. Don’t be afraid to charge more if you’re competing on quality, exclusivity, or a superior experience.
...
Vary price to emphasize brand differentiation and value. Variable pricing draws attention to the value you offer or to the one dimension that most meaningfully differentiates you from competitors.
...
Vary price to target customer segments.
...
Anchor your pricing. Price anchoring uses cues to set the customer’s expectations.
...
Pricing is too important to be made as an arbitrary decision. And just because consumers have cut back on spending doesn’t mean pricing is simply a game of  “how low can you go.” With a strategic approach, you can use price as a helpful tool in your brand-building toolbox."

• "10 Classic Studies on Pricing Psychology" 

"1. Similarity Can Cost You Sales...
Sometimes marketing (and pricing) needs to help customers get the difference between products, because as it turns out, too many options can be demotivating to consumers.
...
if two similar items are priced the same, consumers are much less likely to buy one than if their prices are even slightly different.
...
2. Utilizing Price AnchoringWhat's the best way to sell a $2,000 watch? Right next to a $10,000 watch!
...
By placing premium products and services near standard options you can create a clear sense of value for potential customers, who will then view your less expensive options as a bargain in comparison.
.
3. The Secrets of Weber's Law...
the just noticeable difference between two stimuli is directly proportional to the magnitude of the stimuli.
...
4. Reduce Pain Points in the Sales ProcessAccording to neuroeconomics experts, the human brain is wired to "spend 'til it hurts."
...
Reframe the product's value.
...
Bundle commonly bought items.
...
Sweat the small stuff.
...
Appeal to utility or pleasure.
...
It's either free or it isn't.
...
5. Try Out an Old ClassicEnding prices with the number 9 is one of the oldest pricing methods in the book...
...
6. Emphasize Time Spent vs. Saved...
study shows that consumers tend to recall more positive memories of a product when they are asked to remember time spent with the product over the money they saved.
...
7. Never Compare Prices Without a Reason...
the act of comparative pricing can cause unintended effects in consumer evaluations if there is no context for why prices should be compared.
...
The focus should be on why prices are cheaper, not just that they are.
.
8. Utilize the Power of Context...
Where you buy is just as important as what you buy.
...
9. Test Different Levels of Pricing...
Some customers are always going to want the most expensive option, so adding a super-premium price will give them that option and will make your other prices look better by comparison.
.
10. Keep Prices Stupidly Simple"

• "Improving Your Sales Through Strategic Pricing" 

"Let the consumer – not your competition – determine the value of your product and remember that it is much easier to lower your price after a product launch than it is to raise it down the line."

• "Steal These Tips On The Power of Effective Pricing"

"no great companies can be all things to all people; you have to choose what sort of organization you are-- and exactly what value you're delivering. They divide the world in three: Are you primarily a product company? a customer-service driven operation? or an operationally efficient enterprise?
...
Until you decide what kind of company you are, you can't develop an effective pricing strategy. Product-oriented companies can command premium prices because they deliver truly distinctive goods and services. Customer-centric companies have to be middle-of-the pack in their pricing, though they can command a degree of a premium based on outstanding service. Companies grounded in operational efficiency present a value-based model, and so must price themselves below the midpoint. What are you? You can be some of all three. But you have to major on one."

• "A Penny Saved: Psychological Pricing" 
• "19 Pricing Strategies for Your Business to Try"
• "The Psychology of Pricing: A Gigantic List of Strategies"

Curiosidade do dia

"As exportações portuguesas de bens para Espanha cresceram 10,1% nos primeiros quatro meses do ano, para um total de 3.468 milhões de euros, indicou à Lusa a delegação de Madrid da AICEP.
...
As manufacturas de consumo (têxteis e confecção, calçado, brinquedos, joalharia e outros produtos de consumo) representam 18% do total e registaram um acréscimo de 11,7% (mais 65 milhões de euros).
.
Os bens de equipamento cresceram 12,1% e o sector automóvel aumentou 10,8%."

Trechos retirados de "Exportações de bens de Portugal para Espanha cresceram 10% até Abril"

"Portugal exportou para Espanha quatro milhões de euros por dia em serviços nos três primeiros meses do ano, num total de 364 milhões de euros, indicam dados provisórios do Instituto Nacional de Estatística (INE) espanhol.
Este valor representa um aumento de 3,3% face ao mesmo período do ano anterior."

Trecho retirado de "Portugal exportou para Espanha 4 milhões de euros em serviços por dia"

Ponto da situação

Ontem ao princípio da noite, um desafio do @pauloperes permitiu desenhar esta figura, para sistematizar o nosso progresso:

Um JTBD e vários contextos possíveis (recordar link "Não começar sem saber qual o trabalho e o contexto seleccionado")
.
A unidade de análise é a combinação JTBD e um contexto concreto.
O serviço prestado por uma organização é contratado pelo cliente para realizar um trabalho na sua vida, no âmbito de um certo contexto, para atingir um resultado (outcome).
Falamos de resultado (outcome) como uma consequência na vida do cliente, como um benefício, como uma experiência procurada e valorizada. Não falamos de ouput, não falamos de uma coisa concreta que é transaccionada e que tem especificações independentemente do cliente concreto. O cliente não procura a coisa, o objecto, o produto! O cliente procura o que a coisa faz na sua vida.
A coisa, o objecto, o produto transaccionado, é um recurso processado pelo cliente na sua vida para produzir o benefício, a experiência procurada.
.
Durante esse trabalho o cliente vai sentir resistências e problemas (barreiras). Por exemplo, porque não tem o know-how ou a paciência, para tirar o melhor partido dos recursos que lhe são disponibilizados. A monitorização do progresso, durante a realização do trabalho, pode dar força para seguir em frente, criando uma espécie de espiral de motivação positiva:

"People don’t want just the outcomes; they want the progress outcomes represent."

Recordei os objectivos proximais, para vencer as barreiras.
.
O olhar para trás no fim é o sublinhado a amarelo daqui:

"When you design for outcomes, you’re designing for your customers’s future past — the moment, at some end, when they look back and evaluate."

Como Kahneman e Gigerenzer escrevem, o que recordamos das experiências não é o mesmo que o que sentimos durante a sua vivência inicial. Há aqui qualquer coisa de Damásio?

Falta incluir a co-criação na primeira figura.

Perguntas críticas cheias de sumo

Uma lista de perguntas críticas cheias de sumo:

"WHO are you trying to reach? (If the answer is 'everyone', start over.)
HOW will they become aware of what you have to offer?
WHAT story are you telling/living/spreading?
DOES that story resonate with the worldview these people already have? (What do they believe? What do they want?)
WHERE is the fear that prevents action?
WHEN do you expect people to take action? If the answer is 'now', what keeps people from saying, 'later'? It's safer that way.
WHY? What will these people tell their friends?"

Texto retirado de "Every marketing challenge revolves around these questions"

Para reflexão

"Yet the future is about more than just technology. Health and economic trends, population growth and climate change, just to name a few, will also create massive challenges—and massive opportunities. The time to prepare for the future is always the present.
...
Most executives are busy people. We embed ourselves into the networks of our companies and industries. So, not surprisingly, the issues we spend the most time thinking about are focused on the present - customer demands, competitive moves, supply chain snafus and the like.
.
Yet Dr. Canton urges managers to take a broader view. How do they see their business in 20 years?
...
Yet look 20 years ahead and the concerns are quite different.
...
A big part of his job is not only getting his clients to see that these issues exist, but to prepare them to take effective action.
...
So to become truly future ready, trendwatching and analysis are necessary, but not sufficient. Leaders today need to act.
...
“you need shape your future before someone else does. Those that lack the courage to predict and shape their future may become victims of an unwelcome destiny.”

E na sua empresa, quem pensa no futuro?
.
Trechos retirados de "To Prepare For The Future You Need To Shape It—Or Someone Else Will"

Quantas vezes?

Um exemplo concreto deste postal "Prisioneiros das rotinas..." neste artigo "The story of the invention that could revolutionize batteries—and maybe American manufacturing as well". Meio incrédulo dei comigo a ler:

"The reason battery factories are so huge ... goes back to a chance event at the birth of lithium ion.
...
But Sony also had to quickly figure out how to manufacture this new kind of battery on a commercial scale. Providence stepped in: As it happened, increasingly popular compact discs were beginning to erode the market for cassette tapes, of which Sony was also a major manufacturer. The tapes were made on long manufacturing lines that coated a film with a magnetic slurry, dried it, cut it into long strips, and rolled it up. Looking around the company, Sony’s lithium-ion managers now noticed much of this equipment, and its technicians, standing idle.
.
It turned out that the very same equipment could also be used for making lithium-ion batteries. These too could be made by coating a slurry on to a film, then drying and cutting it. In this case the result isn’t magnetic tape, but battery electrodes.
.
This equipment, and those technicians, became the backbone of the world’s first lithium-ion battery manufacturing plant, and the model for how they have been made ever since. Today, factories operating on identical principles are turning out every commercial lithium-ion battery on the planet."

Interessante como nunca ninguém questionou a dimensão das fábricas, os pressupostos, apesar das centenas de milhões de dólares, até arrepia.
.
Quantas vezes isto acontece na vida das empresas?
.
BTW, ao ler a parte final do artigo:

"In a new report, McKinsey describes a broad new age of manufacturing that it calls Industry 4.0. The consulting firm says the changes under way are affecting most businesses. They are probably not “another industrial revolution,” it says, but together, there is “strong potential to change the way factories work.”
.
For decades, the US has watched its bedrock manufacturing industries wither  away, as they’ve instead grown thick in Japan, in South Korea, in China, Taiwan and elsewhere in Asia. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the US lost about 5 million manufacturing jobs just from 1997 to 2014. This includes the production of lithium-ion batteries, which, though invented by Americans, were commercialized in Japan and later South Korea and China.
.
So Chiang’s innovation could be a poster-child for a new strain of thinking in the US. This says that, while such industries are not likely to return from Asia, the US can possibly reinvent how they manufacture. The country wouldn’t take back nearly as many jobs as it has lost. But there could be large profits, as the country once again moves a step ahead in crucial areas of technology."

Não pude deixar de recordar "Mais especulações"

Curiosidade do dia

"Uma das promessas do euro, em particular para os países mais fracos, era a de dar maiores garantias e reforçar a confiança, promovendo maior estabilidade e prosperidade. Hoje, demasiados países do euro estão confrontados com o contrário. Isto é, com serem obrigados a fazerem um esforço maior para conseguirem financiar-se e manter a confiança, exactamente por estarem no euro. Uma moeda comum limita a margem de manobra. Mas uma moeda comum devia reforçar a confiança, sendo especialmente benéfica para os países mais fracos. A gestão que as instituições europeias fizeram da crise, enterrou essa promessa. A pertença ao euro deixou de ser um valor, para passar a ser um fardo, que contribuiu para afundar de forma mais forte os países mais vulneráveis. A pertença ao euro deixou de ser uma vantagem, para ser apenas algo que devemos manter porque os custos de saída seriam muito elevados."

Fico sempre intrigado com a qualidade dos alunos formatados por estes professores:

Para estes formatadores bom é haver inflação, é destruir poder de compra na ilusão monetária, Já viver dentro dos limites da sustentabilidade da riqueza criada é que não dá.

Trecho retirado de "A Grécia, Portugal e as promessas europeias"

Várias formas diferentes de facturar

Um texto simples e eficaz a explicar três formas diferentes de facturar:

• com base nas entradas, com base na quantidade de trabalho;
• com base em saídas concretas; ou
• com base nos resultados, nos benefícios.

Em "The Outcomes Business".
.
E com base na experiência proporcionada?
.
E com base no progresso do cliente? (Recordar a ideia da Amazon começar a pagar aos autores com base no número de páginas lidas)
.
Nem todos os clientes estarão disponíveis para todas estas formas de facturar.
.
Não basta escolher a sua forma de facturar, é preciso conciliá-la com a preferência ou tolerância do cliente.

Por sua conta e risco - foi avisado

Aviso retirado de "Why You Really Shouldn’t Mess with Price-Buyers", capítulo V de "How to Sell at Margins Higher Than Your Competitors Winning Every Sale at Full Price, Rate, or Fee Lawrence L. Steinmetz, e William T. Brooks.

"Salespeople who are the most successful don’t mess with price-buyers. That’s right - they know when not to sell and to whom not to sell.
.
There’s probably not an experienced salesperson anywhere in the world who hasn’t had the unhappy experience of accepting an order from a prospect and, after the fact, wishing that he or she had never even met the new customer. [Moi ici: The winner's curse] One of the most difficult things for salespeople to understand is that the pure price-buyer is devoted to one fundamental, singleminded proposition: “You are not going to make any money on me.
.
Period.” Therefore, it is incredibly foolhardy for any salesperson to waste time trying to sell to someone with that mind-set. The pure price-buyer is going to squeeze every drop of blood out of you and your organization before they place the order. [Moi ici: O "price-buyer" honesto compra um produto standard, um produto maduro. A compra deve ser rápida, fácil e sem complicações] There’s nothing more professionally disgusting than seeing a salesperson trying to cajole an order out of someone who simply has no intention of allowing anyone but himself to “make a buck.”
...
1. Pure price-buyers take all your sales time.
...
2. They do all the complaining.
...
3. They forget to pay you.
...
4. They tell your other prospects or customers how little they paid you.
...
5. They drive of f your good customers.
...
6. They’re not going to buy from you again, anyway.
...
7. They require you to “invest up” to supply their needs - and they blackmail you for yet a lower price.
...
8. They destroy the credibility of your price and your product or service in the eyes of the end users.
...
9. They steal any ideas, designs, drawings, intellectual property, information, and knowledge they can get their hands on."

Marxianismo entranhado

A realidade relatada neste artigo "The Ethics of Pricing for Value" é comum nas PME, também. Foram décadas e décadas de formatação mental, de marxianismo entranhado:

"What always strikes me in these trainings, is the difficulty of researchers to fully understand the key concept of value. This difficulty becomes most apparent in the discussion of pricing issues. When I say that a health service (e.g., some type of
diagnosis) should be priced according to the value it offers to the consumer, I always get pushed back by participants arguing that even when the value of the service is big, it is unethical to charge, e.g., 600 for something that costs only 150."

"We have shifted from..."

À atenção da tríade e de todos aqueles que aprenderam microeconomia nos anos 50/60.

"How well do you know your customers? This seems to be a key question on the minds of not just marketers, but company strategists these days. We have shifted from a competitive landscape in which companies are more exclusively focused on external forces affecting their industries and sectors, to one that has become significantly more customer centric. [Moi ici: Idiossincrasia rules!!!] This intensive customer focus has increased as technology-enabled transparency and online social media accelerate an inexorable flow of market power downstream from suppliers to customers. Now, every company of any scale and in any sector wants to be closer to its customers, to understand them more deeply, and to tailor their products and services to serve them more precisely."

Os que foram formatados, e continuam a formatar outros, segundo o modelo do século XX não percebem esta realidade.

"Graças te dou, ó Pai, Senhor dos céus e da terra, pois escondeste estas coisas dos sábios e cultos, e as revelaste aos pequeninos." (Mateus 11, 25) 

Trecho retirado de "How IBM, Intuit, and Rich Products Became More Customer-Centric"

Curiosidade do dia

Ao longo dos anos os sinais não eram famosos:

• Descer na escala de valor (Outubro de 2013)
• Até teria vergonha desse feito (Setembro de 2011)

Agora, "Bimbo compra Panrico mas não quer o pão de forma":

"O que se sabe é que a aquisição deixa de fora o negócio de pão de forma da Panrico. Apesar da Bimbo, conhecida por este tipo de panificação, querer a Panrico, também conhecida pela mesma produção, este produto não será comprado. A opção é uma forma de evitar problemas junto da Concorrência espanhola, segundo avança o jornal espanhol Expansión. O objectivo da Bimbo é o de que o pão de forma Panrico seja comprado por outra empresa."

Uma espécie de Font Salem a caminho?

Não precisamos de ser bruxos, basta analisar a informação que se vai lendo pelos jornais e confrontá-la com o que se aprende na prática, nos livros e na reflexão.
.
E a sua empresa, também está numa de descida na escala de valor?

Algo que a tríade ainda não percebeu

"Scale isn’t what it used to be. It’s never been easier to start a company, and as a result new entrants are unbundling incumbents’ businesses and chipping away at their advantage. Upstarts ... decomposing markets into highly customized niches so that the incumbents can’t compete on scale alone. And by now it’s clear that these companies are well positioned to achieve greater success than originally envisioned, and may displace many of the Fortune 500 brands over the next decade or two. It’s also clear that this is an economy-wide phenomenon. The playing field is being leveled across a variety of industries:
...
There are companies attempting to redefine customer experiences in almost every industry including education, healthcare, and financial services.
...
Today’s innovative companies also run the risk of being  disrupted by a new generation of nimble upstarts that will use the very same unbundled business model to their advantage. [Moi ici: Recordar a previsão acerca das plataformas de 2ª geração] Businesses will need to persistently focus on product and customer success, because for most firms scale isn’t a moat any more.
...
Still, the lessons for businesses are relatively simple. For incumbents: you can’t count on scale like you used to. For entrepreneurs: rent scale where you can, and focus on product design above all else."

O mundo mudou e muita gente, sobretudo membros da tríade, continua a pensar como quando tinha vinte anos, e se vivia no Normalistão do século XX.
.
Claro que num país de incumbentes, esta nova realidade fluída e muito mais volátil deixa sempre uma especial sensação de mal-estar.

Trechos retirados de "Why Startups Are More Successful than Ever at Unbundling Incumbents"

Dimensão e especialização no Estranhistão

""o facto de a grande maioria delas [PME de construção] ser de carácter regional, o que provou que tinham a dimensão adequada e, por isso, conseguiram sobreviver; e porque eram e são empresas especialistas, que estão focadas em nichos de mercado"."

Primeiro, acerca da dimensão, recordar:

• ""the mindset of extracting and the alternative of feeding""

O sucesso não é necessariamente crescer e crescer muito depressa. Recordar também:

Segundo, acerca de serem especialistas, recordar:

• "Ter uma estratégia clara = escolhas claras = ideias claras = desejar sucesso à concorrência" 

Está lá o "desejar sucesso à concorrência", quando se é especialista, existem n especialidades, com n com tendência a crescer com o tempo, como as espécies de insectos. Diferentes especialidades não concorrem entre si porque estão em campeonatos diferentes.

.

Entretanto, Mintzberg escreveu recentemente "Win-Winning in a Collaborative World":

"Don’t get me wrong. I am not calling for an end to competition, even if that were possible. What we need is an end to is the winner-take-all mentality - some people having to be bigger, faster, richer, more powerful at the expense of  many other people, and, ultimately, themselves. We shall have to balance competition with cooperation."

Recordar também:

"Os ginásios com mais de um clube (cadeias) registam maiores perdas de clientes que os independentes (um único clube); de forma surpreendente, os clubes independentes que não possuem vantagens de escala, têm recursos mais escassos e menor facilidade de crédito que as cadeias, são mais resistentes e conseguem obter melhores resultados também na variação da facturação” 

O exemplo dos rouxinóis de McArthur é fundamental para a economia:

 Texto inicial retirado de "PME da construção resistiram melhor que o resto do sector"

Renunciar, tão difícil

Se recordarmos o teste básico de Roger Martin, para avaliar se se está perante uma verdadeira estratégia ou não, teste que permite concluir "Assim, talvez ter inimigos entre os clientes ou ex-clientes seja bom sinal", é fundamental o foco estratégico. É fundamental saber escolher e, sobretudo saber renunciar. Porque ao escolher uma orientação estratégica que parece válida, está-se automaticamente a renunciar a outras que também podem ser trabalhadas por outros.
.
Em 2008 sublinhámos aqui:

"the most important orders are the ones to which a company says 'no'."

Em quase todos os projectos em que me envolvo sinto esta dificuldade dos empresários, de renunciar, de dizer não a clientes honestos e com dinheiro. Por isso, é fundamental sublinhar "Strategy Is About What You Don’t Do":

"Strategy is what allows you to say “no” to the things you shouldn’t do.
.
Most people think of “strategy” as the guiding principle for what they and their business do - a  roadmap that defines who they are and where they’re headed. Most people don’t approach a strategy  offsite thinking that they’ll be spending time talking about where their business isn’t heading. But it’s important to remember that good strategy work allows you to have an effective framework for  making decisions about what you don’t want to be doing as well as what you do intend to do.
...
It’s critically important to make sure you create a strategy that can be used in this way. It’s easy to get carried away in strategy work and create something so broad and overreaching that pretty much anything you can think of could theoretically be “on strategy.” The single most common reason for company failure - and this is true whether your business is an app company or providing some social service half way across the world - is lack of focus.
.
Knowing what you don’t do is just as important (perhaps even more important) than what you do do."

Exemplos da dinâmica do capitalismo

Ontem, li dois textos que são excelentes exemplos da dinâmica do capitalismo.
.
Primeiro, a destruição criativa, "Delicious Creative Destruction":

"When one particular use of resources proves to be insufficiently productive – when one particular use of resources fails to satisfy consumers sufficiently – when one particular use of resources is revealed by market competition to cost more than the value that that use of resources generates for consumers – that particular use of resources is ended. That particular use of resources is “destroyed” by market forces so that those resources can be used in ways that produce greater value for consumers.
...
Importantly, the “destruction” that occurs in the process of creative destruction is not physical destruction at all. The great physical destroyer of resources (and lives) is war, which is the main and core speciality of the state. Markets, in stark contrast to governments, are peaceful. The “destruction” that they constantly unleash is creative: it’s a process of moving scarce, productive resources from uses that satisfy consumers less to use that satisfy consumers more.
...
And when Pizza Hut shut down this restaurant, it did not raze the building to the ground. Nor did it trash most of the booths that are inside of this building. No. Those resources were transferred peacefully and voluntarily to another entrepreneur who, recombining them with other resources, now uses this building and its booths to offer to consumers a product different from the one that was offered there before. It’s a product that consumers are – daily – free to accept or to reject. If Pizza Hut were protected from competition – which is to say, protected from the consequences of consumer choice – that particular building might still be operating as a Pizza Hut. But consumers would be worse off as a result. The wealth of the nation would be lower."

Claro que neste país de incumbentes esta dinâmica é mal vista.
.
Recordar:

.
Segundo, este outro texto, "Taking the Work Out of Short-Term Rentals", salienta outra característica. Surge um novo mercado e, logo, rapidamente aparece um ecossistema, uma constelação de negócios, de empresas que vão realizar trabalhos associados a novas situações:

"A fledgling industry has sprung up in the last five years offering to take the work out of short-term rentals, for a fee. Start-ups with names like Guesty, Flatbook, onefinestay and proprly will do everything from greeting guests with the keys to swapping out your cowboy-print polyester sheets for natural linens. Some allow you to book services like cleanings and key exchanges à la carte.Others take the entire rental process out of your hands, dealing with bookings, storing your belongings and cleaning up after the guests go home in exchange for as much as half of your revenue. A few will even dispatch a team of decorators to your apartment."

Gostei muito deste texto.
.
Claro que neste país apareceriam logo umas providências cautelares, lançadas por alguns incumbentes.

Curiosidade do dia

E quando o mundo muda?

"building the business is often the easy part. Growing and maintaining the business can be much tougher and figuring out how to appeal to new consumers is no small feat.
One reason is that consumers are far from homogeneous. Different segments have different risk tolerances, ways of making decisions, and — perhaps most challenging for growing businesses — preferences for when and how they adopt innovations."

Retirei este trecho de um artigo com o título "Focus On the Customers You Want, Not the Ones You Have"
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E quando o mundo muda e uma empresa precisa de mudar de clientes-alvo, de geografia de actuação, de tipo de oferta, de proposta de valor, de modelo de negócio?
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Por exemplo, quando vou para o centro de Gaia, chego de comboio às Devesas e subo até ao jardim Soares dos Reis. Pelo caminho, vejo um ginásio numa cave, há anos era uma loja chinesa. Os vidros estão cobertos com fotos de jovens de ambos os sexos, erguendo pesos e realçando a sua musculação.
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Penso sempre neste gráfico:

E na demografia europeia, sendo Portugal um dos países mais envelhecido da Europa.
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E penso nas razões porque os europeus não fazem exercício físico:

E interrogo-me porque é que nunca vi um ginásio dedicado explicitamente ao sector sénior?
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Têm dimensão, têm tempo livre, têm poder de compra, têm um trabalho concreto por realizar (recuperar/manter e prolongar qualidade de vida, autonomia, autoestima, ...)
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BTW, o preço é o sexto motivo! Não é nem o primeiro, nem o segundo, nem o terceiro.

Que tipo de relação?

"co-creation is a function of interaction. Consequently, direct and indirect interaction lead to different forms of value creation and co-creation; co-creation can occur only when two or more parties influence one another.
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“Since customer relationships do not all have the same value-creation potential, they can at worst tie up customer and provider resources that could have been used to create value in more efficient ways. From the provider’s perspective, it is therefore vital to review them, and identify how to allocate resources in such a way as to enhance the interactions and consequent value creation. From the customer’s perspective, it makes no sense to allocate resources to collaboration with a provider whose offerings focus mainly on value-in-exchange if it is possible to derive more value-in-use from a similar collaboration with a more competitive provider.”
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As Grönroos points out, not all customers want to engage in relationships with their suppliers. Hence, even if the Nordic School emphasises mutual value creation, it does not assume that relationship investments and interactions will per se increase customer value, or that relationship marketing is a panacea for competitive advantage. Overall, however, I would argue that the main challenge for companies is not the lack of arm’s-length relationships. Quite the contrary: the excessive and endemic short-term orientation of the actors (including customers and shareholders) inhibits value creation and competitive advantage at both company and value-constellation level."

Que tipo de relação é a mais adequada para construir um posicionamento diferenciador? Que tipo de cliente, que tipo de trabalho e em que contexto?

Trechos retirados de "Business Markewting– A Nordic School Perspective" de  Christian Kowalkowski

Não começar sem saber qual o trabalho e o contexto seleccionado

"They have a job to get done.
Your product gets hired to solve that job. That’s what causes purchase and use.
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I am hungry and I have 15 minutes to eat lunch at work. That’s the job.
I hire a sandwich from the deli in the lobby of my building.
My hunger at work, with only 15 minutes to spare, caused me to purchase at the deli.
Did my age, martial status, viewing habbits, number of kids, gender, cause me to purchase? No. These are attributes of a buyer that might be correlated to purchase but don’t cause purchase.
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Same type of job, hunger, but different situation and different hiring criteria.
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For the job, the situation is critical. [Moi ici: O contexto] As Clayton Christensen says: “the customer is the wrong unit of analysis.” It’s the job in a situation.
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Also, the job is stable over time. I’m repeatedly hungry, but in different situations. The solutions you choose to hire change. This is critical to your differentiation efforts.
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There is a job that we want to get done. That causes us to purchase.
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Don’t start your segmentation, development, messaging or much of anything until you know the job to be done.
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emphasize the need to understand what will cause the customer to buy, not what is correlated.
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If you don’t know the job in the situation, stop. You are wasting time and money and you probably don’t even know it. You need to improve upon the job someone is trying to get done. Make it easier, more convenient or less expensive.
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How you frame a market determines how you serve it. The job to be done is the frame. That’s the market, the job in the situation. Getting it right will trim your list of features, relieve some of the pressure on the development team, and give you confidence to decide what NOT to include in the product.
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Understand and uncover the emotional jobs associated with a functional job. The Re-Wired Group calls this the “forces” and the emotional energy people use when using, buying or switching to a product/service. Progress hindering forces could include loss aversion, cognitive load (also called cognitive miser), sunk cost effect, social bias comparison, choice paradox, endowment effect (also called divestiture aversion) and many more.
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Deeply understanding the job to be done in that situation is the starting point for how to frame, design and deliver the complete solution….that will cause that person to buy."

Trechos retirados de "This Causes People to Purchase"