"selling projects rather than products"

Outro texto delicioso e em sintonia com Mongo, "Selling Products Is Good. Selling Projects Can Be Even Better":

"In the beginning companies sold products. And then they sold services. In recent years, the fashionable suggestion has been that companies sell experiences and solutions, solving the needs and aspirations of customers.
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Companies, indeed, do all of these things. But increasingly, what companies sell are projects. To understand the difference, think of an athletic shoe company, such as Nike or Adidas. A focus on products means a focus on selling running shoes. A focus on experiences might mean they sell you a membership to a local running club. A focus on solutions might mean they figure out how to help you reach your goal weight. While these clearly offer more value than simply selling you a pair of shoes, they also have limitations. Selling products limits the revenues you can make from clients: Unless you are innovating and continually updating your product offering, customer attrition tends to be high, and incentivizing repurchases can be hard. Selling experiences provides intangible benefits that are hard to quantify and measure, often focusing on meeting the needs of one single customer, preventing any mass production. Selling solutions became popular in the early 2000s when customers didn’t know how to solve their problems. But today, in the internet age, people can do their own research and define the solutions for themselves.
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A focus on selling projects would mean helping someone do something more specific, such as running the Boston Marathon.
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The project would have a clear goal (finish the marathon) and a clear start and end date.
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And that is just one type of project. More so than products, the possibilities with projects are endless. [Moi ici: Como não recordar - as pessoas e as empresas não compram o que compram, mas o que vão conseguir, processando o que compraram]
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Soon after launch, products are copied by the competition, which means they must be priced more cheaply. Soon, they become a commodity. This removes any opportunity for steady, high margins over the long term. Philips has experienced this even with its high-end health care products. Shifting its emphasis to selling projects rather than products was a strategic response to this problem.
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For example, Philips sells high-tech medical devices. In the past it sold them simply as products (and it still does). But now Philips seeks out the projects in which its products will be used. If a new health care center is being considered, Philips will seek to become a partner from the very beginning of the project, including the running and the maintenance of the new center."

Há tempos a trabalhar num projecto de reflexão estratégica para exactamente fazer esta transição de empresa de produtos para empresa de projectos, fui surpreendido no inicio pelo pedido para fazer uma análise Value Stream Mapping ao seu ciclo produtivo. Entretanto, com o andar do projecto passei a mensagem que se quisessem aplicar a análise Value Stream Mapping o fizessem à utilização do produto durante o ciclo de vida do utilizador final, como naquele "running and the maintenance of the new center".

Continua.

BTW, confesso que me estou a tornar num fan de Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez.