Será que sabe?

Vi a montra e sorri.

Reparem na mensagem a vermelho abaixo do preço: 100% pele

Cada vez mais gente procura alternativas à pele.

Será que o lojista sabe? Será que o lojista não sabe? Será que é uma opção estratégica deliberada? Será que é uma herança não questionada?

"brand feedback mechanism"

“we felt uneasy buying something that cost a few hundred pounds without the reassurance of a recognizable name.
...
Without the brand feedback mechanism, there was no incentive for any one manufacturer to make a safer, better version of the board, since they were not positioned to reap the gains. As a result, the market became a commoditised race to the bottom, in which both innovation and quality control fail. Why make a better product if no one knows it was you who made it? So no one did make a better board, and the whole category more or less died as a result. It may correct itself if better boards arise, or if a shrewd company such as Samsung cannily attaches its name to the best.
...
Branding isn’t just something to add to great products – it’s essential to their existence.”

Uma marca é o princípio da concorrência imperfeita, como bem sabia o totó do Chamberlin.

Não está fácil

"A quebra das exportações em 2018 foi uma surpresa? Estamos num setor que cresce praticamente há uma década de forma consecutiva. Desde 2008, as exportações portuguesas de calçado cresceram cerca de 50% e o emprego aumentou mais de 20%. É normal que haja algum pequeno reajustamento. Tivemos um recuo na ordem dos 3% nas vendas ao exterior e a surpresa foi apenas uma: já não estávamos habituados.
.
E como começou o ano para a indústria portuguesa de calçado? O início do ano foi, ainda, um período de contenção. Nos dois últimos anos, o retalho tem sido muito fustigado, nomeadamente no centro da Europa. Desapareceram centenas de retalhistas e tivemos de procurar novos clientes. Não é fácil. No primeiro trimestre ainda sofremos uma quebra de 10%, mas as nossas previsões apontam para um segundo semestre já mais favorável."

Recordar:

Trecho retirado de "Luís Onofre: “O que é preocupante é perceber que o mercado não é tão grande como um dia ambicionamos”"

Mongo e magia (parte IX)

Parte I , parte II, parte III, parte IV, parte V, parte VI, parte VII e parte VIII.

“no one believes in magic any more. Yet magic does still exist – it is found in the fields of psychology, biology and the science of perception, rather than in physics and chemistry. And it can be created.
...
We don’t value things; we value their meaning. What they are is determined by the laws of physics, but what they mean is determined by the laws of psychology.
...
but had got it into their heads that the value of something lies solely in what it is. This was a false assumption, because you don’t need to tinker with atomic structure to make lead as valuable as gold – all you need to do is to tinker with human psychology so that it feels as valuable as gold. At which point, who cares that it isn’t actually gold?
.
If you think that’s impossible, look at the paper money in your wallet or purse; the value is exclusively psychological. Value resides not in the thing itself, but in the minds of those who value it. You can therefore create (or destroy) value it in two ways – either by changing the thing or by changing minds about what it is.”

Trechos retirados de "Alchemy: Or, the Art and Science of Conceiving Effective Ideas That Logical People Will Hate" de Rory Sutherland.

Curiosidade do dia II

A normandagem, os esbirros do João Sem Terra cá do sítio, têm de aumentar o saque para pagar o resgate de Ricardo Coração de Leão.

Toda a gente sabe que isso era um bode expiatório, o dinheiro era para pagar à casta normanda. As famílias e os 800 mil funcionários ficam muito caros. O resto é paisagem.

Curiosidade do dia I

Hoje, pouco antes das 9h da manhã, enquanto circulava numa autoestrada ouvia o Nico do laço entusiasmado porque mais uma empresa de software se vai instalar em Portugal.

Nico explicava que estas empresas vem para Portugal por causa de uma série de vantagens competitivas que ele enumerava, entre as quais a criatividade lusa e eu ria-me.

Tenho gente cá em casa que anda a sondar o mercado para programadores na Alemanha, Suíça et al.

Por exemplo, na Suíça um programador com um ano de experiência pode entrar a ganhar 5000 euros por mês, em Portugal pode estar a ganhar 1000-1100 e com n jogadas para reduzir saque impostal.

O Nico não se lembrou desta vantagem.

Mongo e magia (parte VIII)

Parte I , parte II, parte III, parte IV, parte V, parte VI e parte VII.

Um texto que parece tirado deste blogue:

“Business, technology and, to a great extent, government have spent the last several decades engaged in an unrelenting quest for measurable gains in efficiency. [Moi ici: No caso dos governos basta recordar a paranóia das escolas-cidade e hospitais-cidade, basta recordar o meu ataque ao eficientismo e ao denominador, o desconhecimento do Evangelho do Valor] However, what they have never asked, is whether people like efficiency as much as economic theory believes they do. The ‘doorman fallacy’, as I call it, is what happens when your strategy becomes synonymous with cost-saving and efficiency; first you define a hotel doorman’s role as ‘opening the door’, then you replace his role with an automatic door-opening mechanism.
.
The problem arises because opening the door is only the notional role of a doorman; his other, less definable sources of value lie in a multiplicity of other functions, in addition to door-opening: taxi-hailing, security, vagrant discouragement, customer recognition, as well as in signalling the status of the hotel. The doorman may actually increase what you can charge for a night’s stay in your hotel.
When every function of a business is looked at from the same narrow economic standpoint, the same game is applied endlessly. Define something narrowly, automate or streamline it – or remove it entirely – then regard the savings as profit.
...
[Moi ici: Recordar quando falo dos Muggles e daqueles que não nutrem relações de amor com clientes, produtos e serviços] Today, the principal activity of any publicly held company is rarely the creation of products to satisfy a market need. Management attention is instead largely directed towards the invention of plausible-sounding efficiency narratives to satisfy financial analysts, many of whom know nothing about the businesses they claim to analyse, beyond what they can read on a spreadsheet. There is no need to prove that your cost-saving works empirically, as long as it is consistent with standard economic theory. It is a simple principle of business that, however badly your decision turns out, you will never be fired for following economics, even though its predictive value lies somewhere between water divining and palmistry.”

Trechos retirados de "Alchemy: Or, the Art and Science of Conceiving Effective Ideas That Logical People Will Hate" de Rory Sutherland.

Portefolio de projectos de melhoria

Interessante este trecho:

"Providers resisted the notion that successful continuous-improvement strategies in other hospital units would work in theirs, so we quickly realized that name-dropping Toyota and the Cleveland Clinic would only compound resistance to change.
.
To alter this mindset, we focused on isolating and solving a problem in their unit. Showing the problem exists in a team’s day-to-day setting fuels conversations that lead to change and makes them less likely to jettison the initiative amid a leadership change. In this case, the renal transplant team was able to reduce readmissions by 9% over nine months in 2017 and continued to improve even after the clinic’s medical director departed. This success inspired other teams at the medical center to study and change their own processes."

Actualmente a implementar um sistema de gestão ambiental numa metalomecânica, optámos por concentrar o esforço inicial de implementação no desenvolvimento de alguns projectos:

• Melhorar o tratamento dos resíduos 
• Prevenir, responder e simular resposta a fugas e derrames
• Regularizar a captação de água
• Regularizar as emissões
• Controlar o ruído

Um pouco na linha da sugestão da ISO 14005:2019.

Trecho inicial retirado de "Creating a Culture of Continuous Improvement"

Connected companies

"The Old ApproachCompanies used to interact with customers only episodically, when customers came to them.
.
The New ApproachToday, thanks to new technologies, companies can address customers’ needs the moment they arise—and sometimes even earlier. With connected strategies, firms can build deeper ties with customers and dramatically improve their experiences.
.
The UpshotCompanies need to make continuous connection a fundamental part of their business models. They can do so with four strategies: respond to desire, curated offering, coach behavior, and automatic execution.
.
A seismic shift is under way. Thanks to new technologies that enable frequent, low-friction, customized digital interactions, companies today are building much deeper ties with customers than ever before. Instead of waiting for customers to come to them, firms are addressing customers’ needs the moment they arise—and sometimes even earlier. It’s a win-win: Through what we call connected strategies, customers get a dramatically improved experience, and companies boost operational efficiencies and lower costs.
...
In our research we’ve identified four effective connected strategies, each of which moves beyond traditional modes of customer interaction and represents a fundamentally new business model. We call them respond to desire, curated offering, coach behavior, and automatic execution."

Trechos retirados de "The Age of Continuous Connection"

Desafios

"When setting team goals, many managers feel that they must maintain a tricky balance between setting targets high enough to achieve impressive results and setting them low enough to keep the troops happy. But the assumption that employees are more likely to welcome lower goals doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. In fact, our research indicates that in some situations people perceive higher goals as easier to attain than lower ones — and even when that’s not the case, they still can find those more challenging goals more appealing."

Trecho retirado de "Why You Should Stop Setting Easy Goals"

"Variety isn’t infinitely valuable"

"Seeing this ever-expanding variety and choice as advantageous to consumers is tempting. The economic theory that governs many Americans’ understanding of consumer choice posits that a free, competitive market should drive down prices on the best-quality stuff. But in the arms race to sell as many sandwich bags or beach towels as possible, a problem has become clear: Variety isn’t infinitely valuable.
...
Those infinite, meaningless options can result in something like a consumer fugue state.
...
For a relatively new class of consumer-products start-ups, there’s another method entirely. Instead of making sense of a sea of existing stuff, these companies claim to disrupt stuff as Americans know it. Casper (mattresses), Glossier (makeup), Away (suitcases), and many others have sprouted up to offer consumers freedom from choice: The companies have a few aesthetically pleasing and supposedly highly functional options, usually at mid-range prices. They’re selling nice things, but maybe more importantly, they’re selling a confidence in those things, and an ability to opt out of the stuff rat race."

Trechos retirados de "There Is Too Much Stuff"

Don’t design for average

“Don’t design for average.
Metrics, and especially averages, encourage you to focus on the middle of a market, but innovation happens at the extremes. You are more likely to come up with a good idea focusing on one outlier than on ten average users.”

Trechos retirados de "Alchemy: Or, the Art and Science of Conceiving Effective Ideas That Logical People Will Hate" de Rory Sutherland.

Uma revolução que vai ter de acontecer

A propósito disto "Tight job market squeezing smallest businesses":

"Low unemployment and rising wages are creating hiring challenges for companies of all sizes. There were 7.5 million unfilled jobs on the last business day of March, according to the Labor Department.
.
Smaller businesses often experience lower job growth, but they seem to be having a particularly tough time adding workers in today’s job market."

Recordar o impacte sobre o aumento dos salários desligado do aumento da produtividade e da inevitável destruição de empresas incapazes de subirem na escala de valor a uma velocidade adequada:

• Como aumentar a facturação quando não se pode aumentar a produção por falta de pessoas? (parte IV)
• "Espero que não vos tremam as pernas quando as empresas começarem a cair como tordos"

Nos próximos anos vai haver muito pranto e ranger de dentes da parte dos empresários com o locus de controlo no exterior.

"fabulously efficient"

Há dias num programa na TV cabo onde dois indivíduos percorrem a América profunda em busca de antiguidades, um deles delirou ao encontrar os restos de uma bicicleta de 1880. Isso foi motivo para passarem imagens de marcas de bicicletas dos nos 20 e 30 do século passado. Nessas imagens o que mais me marcou foi a muita preocupação com o design e a pouca preocupação com a eficiência pura e dura.

“Likewise it is absurd for the French to have so many local varieties of cheese, and yet this variety and scarcity seems to add to our pleasure. Contrast it with the US cheese industry thirty years ago – which was fabulously efficient and centred on a small number of states. In the 1990s there seemed to be only two varieties of cheese, a yellow one and an orange one, and neither was much good. Similarly, before the recent revolution in craft beer, the range and quality of American beer was dismal; however, since American brewing has become magnificently diverse and inefficient, the US has gone from being the worst country for a beer drinker to visit, to the best.”

Recordar estes delírios.

Considerar este título "Consumo de cerveja artesanal bate recordes".

"Diversificação da oferta agrada aos portugueses, que são os principais consumidores fora de casa na Europa.
...
entre abril de 2017 e abril de 2019, as vendas desta categoria de cervejas cresceram 88% em valor e 112% em quantidade, num mercado global que evoluiu 8% em valor e 5% em quantidade, no mesmo período. Considerado apenas o último ano, o acréscimo foi de 10% em valor e 15% em quantidade, três a cinco vezes mais do que os 3% do mercado total de cervejas."

Pensar na race-to-the-bottom entre cervejeiras industriais que julgam que o preço e a eficiência são tudo. E como não recuar a Loulé em Novembro de 2007?

Trechos retirados de "Alchemy: Or, the Art and Science of Conceiving Effective Ideas That Logical People Will Hate" de Rory Sutherland.

Mongo e magia (parte VII)

Parte I , parte II, parte III, parte IV, parte V e parte VI.

“GPS devices know everything about what they know and nothing about anything else.
...
The reason we don’t always behave in a way which corresponds with conventional ideas of rationality is not because we are silly: it is because we know more than we know we know.
...
The trouble with market research is that people don’t think what they feel, they don’t say what they think, and they don’t do what they say.’ Trivers and Kurzban explained the evolutionary science behind that conundrum: we simply don’t have access to our genuine motivations, because it is not in our interest to know.
...
Evolution does not care about objectivity – it only cares about fitness.
.
If it helps us to perceive the world in a distorted fashion, then evolution will limit our objectivity. The standard, naïve view, as Trivers observes, is to assume that evolution has given us senses which deliver an accurate view of the world. However, evolution cares nothing for accuracy and objectivity: it cares about fitness.
...
For a business to be truly customer-focused, it needs to ignore what people say. Instead it needs to concentrate on what people feel."

Trechos retirados de "Alchemy: Or, the Art and Science of Conceiving Effective Ideas That Logical People Will Hate" de Rory Sutherland.

Operacionalizar uma estratégia

Uma estratégia, qualquer que ela seja, não passa de uma ideia. Para que tenha algum impacte numa organização tem de ser traduzida em acção.

Acção significa saber: o que fazer; por quem, até quando, com que recursos.

Ou seja, a estratégia tem de ser operacionalizada em actividades muito concretas, muito específicas.

“1. Selecting existing capabilities that need to be enhanced and/or new capabilities that need to be introduced into the sourcing, operations and selling activities
.
2. Identifying enabling practices that will help and support the development of the required capabilities; the practices will affect the structure, systems and culture of the business
.
3. Developing specific initiatives to install those practices and to directly build the required capabilities
.
4. Moving from initiatives into actions that directly impact the system. These actions must also generate feedback to enable us to track the effects of the changes introduced.
.
This last step is critical: if there is no change in what people actually do, the strategy process will have no positive impact on the system.
.
A clearly stated competitive strategy can build a coherent collective intention, which can help to integrate the efforts of all the members of the firm.”

Recordar:

• BSC numa IPSS (parte VI) (Julho de 2014)
• Transformar uma empresa de forma alinhada com a estratégia (parte VIII) (Agosto de 2018)

Imagem e trechos retirados de “What's Your Competitive Advantage?” de Paul Raspin

Ecosystem marketing

"In essence, ecosystem marketing is about understanding the market as a network of participants and being able to influence the right actors at the right time.
...
Companies used to last 75 years.  Now the average company dies or disappears in 15 years.
.
Companies die for a number of reasons.  One growing reason is that the company’s leaders do not understand the ecosystem that supports the company.
...
Ecosystem marketing is the process of positioning your idea, message or product in the right ecosystems to gain visibility, engage prospects, capture attention, and create customers.  It is the process of discovering, analyzing, understanding, and taking marketing actions – in four distinct yet interrelated ecosystems:
.
Company,
Competitor,
Category, and
Customer.
...
Company ecosystems are defined as the digital neighborhood in which your business is located to include your partners, suppliers, and distributors. It is your business ecosystem.
...
An economic community supported by a foundation of interacting organizations and individuals—the organisms of the business world. The economic community produces goods and services of value to customers, who are themselves members of the ecosystem. The member organisms also include suppliers, lead producers, competitors, and other stakeholders. Over time, they coevolve their capabilities and roles, and tend to align themselves with the directions set by one or more central companies."

Trechos retirados de "“Ecosystem Marketing: The Future of Competition” – Christian Sarkar and Philip Kotler"

Mongo e magia (parte VI)

Parte I , parte II, parte III, parte IV e parte V.

“People are highly contradictory....Our very perception of the world is affected by context, which is why the rational attempt to contrive universal, context-free laws for human behaviour may be largely doomed.
...
Economic exchanges are heavily affected by context and attempts to shoehorn human behaviour into a single, one-size-fits-all straitjacket are flawed from the outset – they are driven by our dangerous love of certainty: However, this can only come from theory, which by its very universal nature doesn’t take context into account.
...
I hope it will free you slightly from the modern rationalist straitjacket, and help you understand that many problems might be solved if we abandoned the rationalist obsession with universal, context-free laws. Once free of this constraint, you might have the freedom to generate magical ideas, some of which may be silly but of which others will be invaluable."

Trechos retirados de "Alchemy: Or, the Art and Science of Conceiving Effective Ideas That Logical People Will Hate" de Rory Sutherland.

Curiosidade do dia

A propósito de "Défice externo salta para 2,5% do PIB no primeiro trimestre":

"Segundo os dados publicados esta terça-feira pelo Banco de Portugal, o saldo conjunto das balanças corrente e de capital fixou-se em -1.231 milhões de euros, o que compara com -78 milhões de euros em igual período de 2018."

Juntar a "Endividamento da economia sobe para 356,8% do PIB no primeiro trimestre"

Mongo e magia (parte V)

Parte I , parte II, parte III e parte IV.

“it is perfectly possible to be both rational and wrong.
Logical ideas often fail because logic demands universally applicable laws but humans, unlike atoms, are not consistent enough in their behaviour for such laws to hold very broadly.
...
The drive to be rational has led people to seek political and economic laws that are akin to the laws of physics – universally true and applicable. The caste of rational decision makers requires generalisable laws to allow them confidently to pronounce on matters without needing to consider the specifics of the situation. And in reality ‘context’ is often the most important thing in determining how people think, behave and act: this simple fact dooms many universal models from the start. Because in order to form universal laws, naïve rationalists have to pretend that context doesn’t matter.
...
Logic requires that people find universal laws, but outside of scientific fields, there are fewer of these than we might expect. And once human psychology has a role to play, it is perfectly possible for behaviour to become entirely contradictory.
...
While in physics the opposite of a good idea is generally a bad idea, in psychology the opposite of a good idea can be a very good idea indeed: both opposites often work."

Um tema que abordo há anos quando recordo os que pensam que a economia é como a física newtoniana ou galilaica. Um tema que também abordo quando recordo que o preço é contextual



Trechos retirados de "Alchemy: Or, the Art and Science of Conceiving Effective Ideas That Logical People Will Hate" de Rory Sutherland.

Outro regresso

Depois do regresso do vinil, da cassete, das livrarias, das ... eis o regresso dos catálogos em papel, "How to Use Catalogues in a Digital Age".

"For decades, retailers used catalogues — often hundreds of pages thick — to showcase their inventory and sell products via mail or telephone orders.
...
But with the rise of e-commerce, catalogues fell out of favour.
...
Marketers say they’ve started to see a rebound in the last couple years, mainly from online brands, which now fill the mailboxes of their millennial consumers. They see mailings as a low-cost alternative to advertising on search engines and social media, where costs have risen as more companies look for new customers online. Today’s iteration of catalogues are slimmer and less product-driven. Consumers are encouraged to purchase items online, often with a special discount code in the catalogue.
.
“I think digital communications are starting to overwhelm people, and a well-designed piece of print advertisement can be an unexpected touchpoint,”
...
Unlike the dense catalogues of the past, mailers today are shorter because there’s no longer a need to feature every single product a brand carries when the online shop is at a consumer’s fingertips.
.
Many catalogues now look more like magazines, and some brands produce editorial content."

"not because you figured out how to spend money to interrupt more and more strangers"

"If you can figure out how to embrace the true fans, they’ll go ahead and spread an idea–not because you want them to, but because they want to.
.
Your ability to reach a tiny group of committed fans is essential. But the work spreads because of the fans, not because you figured out how to spend money to interrupt more and more strangers."

E em Mongo isto vai ser cada vez mais verdade.

Trecho retirado de "It’s all horizontal (and books went first)"

Nichos

Trabalhar para nichos:

• Ex-trabalhadora da Salsa calça mulheres com pés grandes
• Lavoro apresenta bota nova para o exército

"Never quote a price before..."

"So, when it comes to pricing, here's the most essential rule--the pricing rule that always produces both the most sales and the most profit:
.
Never quote a price before the customer fully understands the benefit of buying.
...
"The specific price varies depending on exactly what you order, how you pay for it, and so forth. I'm sure we can make an arrangement that will work for both of us, but in similar situations, companies like yours spend in the range of [low price] to [high price.]"
...
The client goes "Whoa! That's way more than we can afford!" You win, because now you know this isn't a prospective client, so you can end the conversation without wasting more of your valuable time.
.
Or the client nods and says something like, "Why such a large difference in price?" You continue with "it depends on exactly what you want to accomplish..." and segue back to talking about the benefits."

Trechos retirados de "The Single Most Essential Rule About Pricing"

Sinais de Mongo por todo o lado

Sinais de Mongo por todo o lado.

Desta feita a explosão de marcas, a ascensão das marcas das empresas pequenas, o triunfo do numerador sobre o denominador.

"The fast-moving-consumer-goods industry has a long history of generating reliable growth through mass brands. But the model that fueled industry success now faces great pressure as consumer behaviors shift and the channel landscape changes. To win in the coming decades, FMCGs need to reduce their reliance on mass brands and offline mass channels and embrace an agile operating model focused on brand relevance rather than synergies.
...
Consumers under 35 differ fundamentally from older generations in ways that make mass brands and channels ill suited to them. They tend to prefer new brands, especially in food products. According to recent McKinsey research, millennials are almost four times more likely than baby boomers to avoid buying products from “the big food companies.”
.
And while millennials are obsessed with research, they resist brand-owned marketing and look instead to learn about brands from each other. They also tend to believe that newer brands are better or more innovative, and they prefer not to shop in mass channels.
...
Explosion of small brandsMany small consumer-goods companies are capitalizing on millennial preferences and digital marketing to grow very fast. These brands can be hard to spot because they are often sold online or in channels not covered by the syndicated data that the industry has historically relied on heavily.
...
Retailers have also taken notice of these small brands. According to The Nielsen Company, US retailers are giving small brands double their fair share of new listings. The reason is twofold: retailers want small brands to differentiate their proposition and to drive their margins, as these small brands tend to be premium and rarely promote. As a consequence, small brands are capturing two to three times their fair share of growth while the largest brands remain flat or in slight decline"

Trechos retirados de "The new model for consumer goods"

Curiosidade do dia

A caminho da Sildávia.

Acerca da comunicação

Comunicação objectiva?

Não, isso não existe, ponto!

Imagem retirada daqui.

A tradição do linho para o século XXI

Muitas vezes recordo aqui no blogue a artesã de Bragança:

"Ontem, em casa dos meus sogros vi uma boa hora da programação do Porto Canal. Numa reportagem sobre as inúmeras feiras que nesta altura se realizam em todo o Norte do país, a certa altura, numa feira transmontana, uma artesã dizia que não havia mercado para as suas colchas de linho... talvez haja, se calhar, deixou foi de frequentar estes espaços.
.
Talvez precisasse de frequentar outras feiras, noutros países, talvez precisasse de divulgar os seus produtos na internet, talvez precisasse de aproveitar os meses de Verão para expor os seus produtos nas lotadas quintas de turismo rural que se multiplicam desde a Beira-Alta até Trás-os-Montes."

Este artigo, "O linho de Ribeira de Pena, a inovação e a projeção com a mala de Louboutin", vai ao seu encontro:

"Tecedeiras de Cerva conciliam a tradição do linho com a inovação de peças e acreditam que a participação na nova mala do designer Christian Louboutin vai ajudar a projetar esta arte ancestral de Ribeira de Pena.
...
Além da mala do designer francês, Fernanda Machado destacou a produção de toalhas de praia em linho que estão a exportar para os Estados Unidos da América (EUA) e também os tecidos que estão já a preparar para o desfile de moda que irá abrir a Feira do Linho de Ribeira de Pena, que se realiza no primeiro fim de semana de agosto."

Pena que não haja um Portugal 2020 para apoiar um projecto de internacionalização desta realidade.

Mongo e magia (parte IV)

Parte I , parte II e parte III.

Há anos que falo da tríade e do seu foco no eficientismo, os encalhados.

“In theory, you can’t be too logical, but in practice, you can. Yet we never seem to believe that it is possible for logical solutions to fail. After all, if it makes sense, how can it possibly be wrong?
...
Highly educated people don’t merely use logic; it is part of their identity. When I told one economist that you can often increase the sales of a product by increasing its price, the reaction was one not of curiosity but of anger.
...
This book is not an attack on the many healthy uses of logic or reason, but it is an attack on a dangerous kind of logical overreach, which demands that every solution should have a convincing rationale before it can even be considered or attempted.
...
We could never have evolved to be rational – it makes you weak.
...
A rational leader suggests changing course to avoid a storm. An irrational one can change the weather.
...
If you are wholly predictable, people learn to hack you."

Por que é que tantos académicos e comentadores previram o fim das PMEs? (recordar aqui e aqui, por exemplo) Porque o enquadramento lógico, o seu modelo ambiental, impedi-os de ver, ou de suspeitar que existiam alternativas. Quem as descobriu? Os livres de modelos mentais castradores (recordar aqui), os ignorantes e a sua vantagem (recordar aqui).

“Evolution, too, is a haphazard process that discovers what can survive in a world where some things are predictable but others aren’t. It works because each gene reaps the rewards and costs from its lucky or unlucky mistakes, but it doesn’t care a damn about reasons. It isn’t necessary for anything to make sense: if it works it survives and proliferates; if it doesn’t, it diminishes and dies. It doesn’t need to know why it works – it just needs to work.”

Trecho retirado de "Alchemy: Or, the Art and Science of Conceiving Effective Ideas That Logical People Will Hate" de Rory Sutherland.

"meaning cannot simply be discovered"

"People often need to act and make decisions in situations in which causality is poorly understood, where there is considerable uncertainty and people hold different beliefs and have personal biases. However, people very reluctantly acknowledge that they face ambiguity at work. Problems in organizations tend to get labeled as lack of information. It feels more professional to try to solve a knowledge management problem that is called lack of information than a problem that is called confusion.
...
The challenge is that managers often treat the existence of multiple views as a symptom of a weakness rather that as an accurate and needed barometer of uncertainty.
...
The reality is not an objective set of arrangements outside us, but is continually constructed in daily interaction.
...
Because any information can mean a variety of things, meaning cannot simply be discovered. Information does not help. We have to talk!...
situations are progressively clarified in iterative interaction. Our reality is an ongoing accomplishment that takes form when people together make sense of the situations in which they find themselves"

Trechos retirados de "Confusion and ambiguity"

Uma evolução interessante

Uma evolução interessante, uma aprendizagem mais rápida que a dos produtores de leite:

• Agora, Maio de 2019 - Pescadores só voltam a apanhar sardinha portuguesa a partir de 3 de junho
• Outubro de 2015 - Gente inteligente sabe fazer render o peixe
• Agosto de 2015, a minha sugestão - A propósito das quotas da sardinha

Mongo e magia (parte III)

Parte I e parte II.

"It’s true that logic is usually the best way to succeed in an argument, but if you want to succeed in life it is not necessarily all that useful; entrepreneurs are disproportionately valuable precisely because they are not confined to doing only those things that make sense to a committee.
...
When you demand logic, you pay a hidden price: you destroy magic. And the modern world, oversupplied as it is with economists, technocrats, managers, analysts, spreadsheet-tweakers and algorithm designers, is becoming a more and more difficult place to practise magic – or even to experiment with it.
...
The human mind does not run on logic any more than a horse runs on petrol....
if we allow the world to be run by logical people, we will only discover logical things. But in real life, most things aren’t logical – they are psycho-logical.
...
Similarly, if you expose every one of the world’s problems to ostensibly logical solutions, those that can easily be solved by logic will rapidly disappear, and all that will be left are the ones that are logic-proof – those where, for whatever reason, the logical answer does not work.
...
More data leads to better decisions. Except when it doesn’t.
...
The need to rely on data can also blind you to important facts that lie outside your model."

Trecho retirado de "Alchemy: Or, the Art and Science of Conceiving Effective Ideas That Logical People Will Hate" de Rory Sutherland.

Curiosidade do dia

Da próxima vez que ouvir falar em convergência com a zona euro recorde dois gráficos:

Este, retirado de "EU economies have converged since last elections".

E este outro:

Retirado de "PIB português sobe acima da média europeia, mas há 13 países a crescer mais".

A vida é um eterno retorno

Volta e meia recordo aqui no blogue uma canção dos anos 60 com o refrão "turn, turn, turn". Por exemplo,  Tudo tem o seu tempo, tudo muda.

Podemos contar o tempo como algo linear, mas a vida é um eterno retorno. O que é verdade hoje, amanhã é mentira e, depois, volta a ser verdade.

A economia é uma continuação da biologia. Na economia vemos empresas fecharem ou evoluírem quando o contexto muda, tendo de alterar proposta de valor e estratégia. Na biologia é o mesmo "Extinct bird resurrected as evolution starts over again".

Mongo e magia (parte II)

Parte I.

“There is a simple premise to this book: that while the modern world often turns its back on this kind of illogic, it is at times uniquely powerful. Alongside the inarguably valuable products of science and logic, there are also hundreds of seemingly irrational solutions to human problems just waiting to be discovered, if only we dare to abandon standard-issue, naïve logic in the search for answers.
...
Engineering doesn’t allow for magic. Psychology does.
.
In our addiction to naïve logic, we have created a magic-free world of neat economic models, business case studies and narrow technological ideas, which together give us a wonderfully reassuring sense of mastery over a complex world. Often these models are useful, but sometimes they are inaccurate or misleading. And occasionally they are highly dangerous.
We should never forget that our need for logic and certainty brings costs as well as benefits. The need to appear scientific in our methodology may prevent us from considering other, less logical and more magical solutions, which can be cheap, fast-acting and effective. The mythical ‘butterfly effect’ does exist, but we don’t spend enough time butterfly hunting.”

Para quem conhece este blogue e consegue recordar o conceito de tríade, um marcador que nasceu em Outubro de 2011 e que foi referido pela primeira vez no texto:

"Podemos começar a listar os académicos, paineleiros e políticos portugueses (a tríade) que não conhecem alternativa ao preço mais baixo e aos salários baixos)"

Para quem conhece este blogue e consegue recordar o conceito de Muggles, gente que não conhece a magia, "Temer o pior sempre que os Muggles se metem". Marcador nascido em Julho de 2011.


Trecho retirado de "Alchemy: Or, the Art and Science of Conceiving Effective Ideas That Logical People Will Hate" de Rory Sutherland.

Curiosidade do dia

"E quando, aos 30 anos, deixam de ter a maminha da mamã, habituaram-se de tal maneira à maminha, que são já um caso perdido para o liberalismo. Agora, querem a maminha do Estado.
.
Portugal é uma sociedade híper-protegida onde as pessoas se fazem à vida muito tarde, se é que alguma vez se fazem. São, literalmente, pessoas muito mimadas quando comparadas com as gentes do norte da Europa, onde o liberalismo nasceu (o liberalismo é a doutrina política que emergiu do protestantismo calvinista).
.
É muito difícil fazer uma sociedade liberal com esta matéria-prima. Mas não se perde nada em tentar."

Trecho retirado de "a maminha da mamã"

"acha que uma PME consegue?"

Nem as empresas com dinheiro e protecção governamental se safam quando não estão focadas, quando escolheram ser tudo para todos e estar em todo o lado.

Isto a propósito de "Air France plans to cut almost 500 jobs on ‘fierce’ competition":

"Air France blamed increased competition from high speed rail and low-cost airlines as it announced 500 job cuts and said it would downsize its short haul operations.
.
The airline said on Monday it would implement 465 voluntary redundancies over the next year. It also announced plans to cut its domestic network capacity by 15 per cent by 2021.
.
The move comes as the carrier, part of the Air France-KLM group, looks to deal with “extremely fierce competition” in the sector."

Se empresas com dinheiro e consultores pagos a peso de ouro não conseguem, acha que uma PME consegue?

Quem são os clientes-alvo? Qual a proposta de valor?

Perguntas e inquéritos (Parte II)

Parte I.

Sabem que sou muito crítico acerca do que se faz sobre a medição da satisfação dos clientes. Por exemplo:

• "e eu respondi ao calhas!!!" - Janeiro de 2019
• But Our Executives Want A Number! - Dezembro de 2017
• Acerca da medição da satisfação dos clientes - Outubro de 2016
• Avaliar a opinião, não a satisfação - Janeiro de 2010
• Avaliar o grau de satisfação dos clientes? - Julho de 2009
• Acerca da satisfação dos clientes (parte I) - Fevereiro de 2010
• Acerca da medição da satisfação dos clientes - Fevereiro de 2010
• Medir o Grau de Satisfação dos Clientes para quê? - Setembro de 2006

Por isso, neste artigo, "What Must You Ask? Comparing Two Customer Survey Approaches", apreciei sobremaneira a liberdade das perguntas abertas:

"Understanding context of satisfaction – Word cloud based on responses to question, “What one word best describes this company?” [Moi ici: Até que ponto o que os clientes pensam da empresa está em sintonia com a mensagem que a empresa procura passar?]

Understanding context of satisfaction – What improvements would you make?" [Moi ici: Uma das frases mais comum naquela lista de artigos lá em cima é "não existem empresas perfeitas"]

Como escrevo aqui:

"Não existem empresas perfeitas. Por isso, de cada vez que um inquérito de satisfação dos clientes conclui que somos bons... perdeu-se uma oportunidade de melhoria e reforçou-se o conformismo com o status-quo."

Agora, relacionar isto com a parte I.

Perguntas e inquéritos (Parte I)

Há dias, ao terminar a leitura do livro "Choose" de Ryan Levesque fixei a SMIQ:

“The ASK Method starts with the desire to better understand your market at a deep emotional level so you can ultimately better sell and better serve your market. Knowing your market at this deep emotional level requires asking the right questions in the right way to understand what your most ideal potential customers want. Not what they think they want, not what they say they want, but what they really want. And most importantly, what they really want to buy.
...
People don’t know what they want. But they do know one thing, and that’s this: They do know what they don’t want. And therein lies the first clue to figuring out what to ask. The right questions are somewhat counterintuitive.
...
what we call the SMIQ, which stands for Single Most Important Question, because as the name implies, this is your single most important question
...
When it comes to X, what’s your single biggest challenge, frustration, or question you’ve been struggling with? (Please be as detailed and specific as possible.)
...
Now, the reason for asking this question in this specific way, is because, as we now know, while people don’t know what they want, they do know what they don’t want.
...
When you ask people this question, whether through a survey link created in a survey software like bucket.io designed for this very process, or through a simple Facebook post, you want the response format of this question to be open-ended—that is, they can write their response in their own words, as opposed to selecting one of several multiple choice options. The reason for keeping this question open-ended is that it’s all about discovering who the “hyper-responsive” potential customers are in your market—the people most motivated and interested and likely to spend money to solve the problem that you’re intending to solve. It’s about uncovering what natural language patterns these hyper-responsives use, so you can echo that language back in your marketing and messaging. It’s about identifying what makes the hyper-responsive people in your market different from everyone else so you can focus 100 percent of your effort on targeting and serving similar customers.
One of the ways in which you can identify hyper-responsives is, in part, by looking at the length of their response to your SMIQ. All things being equal, the person who gives a longer, more detailed, more passionate response to the question “What’s your single biggest frustration?” is more likely to spend money on a product that solves that frustration than the person who gives you a short one- or two-word answer.”

Julgo que a técnica proposta faz todo o sentido.

Continua.

O fim de um ciclo (parte III)

Parte I e parte II.

"Many investors lose sleep over "black swans" -- hard-to-predict events that cause chaos, like terror attacks or the bursting of the dot-com bubble.
Now authorities in China are being urged to watch for "gray rhinos" -- obvious dangers that are often ignored anyway."(daqui)

Nunca é se, é quando. Quando é que a maré muda. A maré muda sempre.

"As exportações da indústria têxtil e do vestuário começam a tremer e fecharam o primeiro trimestre do ano a cair 0,9%, pressionadas pelo segmento do vestuário (-2%) e pelo desempenho negativo dos 4 maiores clientes da fileira: Espanha, França, Alemanha e Reino Unido, anunciou esta sexta-feira a ATP - AssociaçãoTêxtil e Vestuário de Portugal.
.
Depois de bater três recordes consecutivos na exportação, para fechar 2018 nos 5,3 mil milhões de euros (+2%), o sector entrou em 2019 já de forma cautelosa.
...
No seu conjunto, a fileira exportou 1,35 mil milhões de euros, menos 12 milhões de euros do que no ano anterior, e terminou o trimestre com um saldo positivo de 241 milhões de euros na balança comercial, o que se traduz numa taxa de cobertura de 122%.
...
Com uma quota de 29,7% nas exportações da fileira têxtil, Espanha continua, assim, a estar sob o "efeito Inditex", o grupo que reúne marcas como a Zara, Pull&Bear, Bershka ou Massimo Dutti, é o maior cliente das têxteis do Vale do Ave e tem estado a desviar compras que fazia habitualmente no país, especialmente as encomendas de valor mais baixo, para outros destinos, designadamente a Turquia e Marrocos."

E quando se escreve:

"No entanto, o esforço das empresas para diversificarem clientes e encontrarem alternativas à quebra de Espanha está a ter resultados positivos em dois destinos do top 10 do ranking das exportações do sector, com os Estados Unidos a protagonizarem a maior subida (+14,8% ou 11 milhões de euros)" 

Há que ter cuidado, os Estados Unidos são um mercado de preço:

"É que o mercado dos EUA "é um dos mais sensíveis em relação ao preço, mesmo em produtos de valor acrescentado" 

Tempo para parar para pensar, tempo para reflectir no que cortar, tempo para reflectir no que focar, tempo para lançar novas sementes, tempo para testar novos caminhos.

É claro que há gente a sofrer com esta evolução, por isso, peço desculpa por recordar esta ironia: Boas notícias, Portugal a ser abandonado pelo negócio do preço (1)

Mongo é a resposta

Pena que o papa Francisco não conheça Mongo. Mongo é a resposta aos seus desejos:

"O objetivo é criar um modelo económico "diferente, que permita às pessoas viver e não matar, incluir e não excluir, humanizar e não desumanizar, cuidar da Criação e não depredar", num evento que gere "um pacto" para mudar a economia atual."(1)

Mongo é a fuga ao vómito industrial e a ascensão do trabalhador-artista.

A inevitabilidade de Mongo a emergir, também neste texto, "Changing the German growth model will not be easy":

"What gave German industry another lease of life was how globalisation increased demand for German machinery and how it led to integrated global supply chains. I admit I did not see the supply-chain effect when I predicted the demise of the German economic model over a decade ago.
.
New trends may intrude that would extend the lifespan of the growth model further. But Mr Macron is ultimately right. It is going to end — “perhaps”, as he wisely added."

(1) - Trecho retirado de "Papa aos jovens: novo modelo económico deve “incluir e não excluir, humanizar e não desumanizar”"

Mongo e a magia

Ao folhear o livro apanhei com esta lista memorável:

“Rory’s Rules of Alchemy
.
The opposite of a good idea can also be a good idea. [Moi ici: Como não relacionar com o teste do algodão de uma estratégia - "and it's not stupid"]
Don’t design for average.  [Moi ici: Como não relacionar com "Justin Bieber e o preço da diferença" - na semana passada usei esta estória de 2010 duas ou três vezes ]
It doesn’t pay to be logical if everyone else is being logical. [Moi ici: Como não relacionar com a segunda lei da teoria dos jogos "Rational choice, chosing a dominant strategy, can lead to outcomes that suck"]
The nature of our attention affects the nature of our experience.
A flower is simply a weed with an advertising budget.
The problem with logic is that it kills off magic.  [Moi ici: Como não recordar a tríade e a sua incapacidade de ver o poder da magia... chamo-lhes de Muggles]
A good guess which stands up to observation is still science. So is a lucky accident. [Moi ici: Como não recordar "A vantagem dos ignorantes"]
Test counterintuitive things only because no one else will.
Solving problems using rationality is like playing golf with only one club.
Dare to be trivial.
If there were a logical answer, we would have found it.”

Trecho retirado de "Alchemy: Or, the Art and Science of Conceiving Effective Ideas That Logical People Will Hate" de Rory Sutherland.

Quem lida com o extremo da cadeia, tem um trunfo

De "5 Ways to Know Your Customer Better Than Your Competitors Do" sublinho:

"Step 1: Spend Time Talking to the End UserMost businesses classify themselves as business-to-business (b2b) operations, meaning they don’t sell to the end users of their product. Yet these businesses would benefit from interacting personally with the end users.
.
Take YouTube. ...

While the YouTube team knows it is critical to be well-connected to the needs of the “business” customers who pay them, they also spend time directly with their end users, attending events like the annual VidCon conference.
...
Step 2: Spend More Time with the Customer Than Your CompetitionWhen it comes to understanding your customers, spending quality time with them is important—but spending “quantity time” matters even more. Decision makers who spend enough time seeing the day-to-day lives and challenges of their customers have a level of understanding that staged drop-ins cannot provide. In addition, they get the “credit” that comes from being the supplier that is willing to walk in its customers’ shoes.
...
Step 3: Watch Consumers Buy Your Product Before consumers can use your products, they usually have to purchase them. There are many insights that can be gained from watching consumers as they attempt to do this.
...
Step 4: Watch Consumers Use Your ProductObserving consumers as they use your product or receive your service is the perfect chance to understand which features create value, which ones are never used, and which ones actually get in the way.
...
Step Five: Engage End Users as Product Designers Finally, consider putting your customers to work. Stop seeing them as research subjects and instead begin to see them as partners in product development.
...
A Word of WarningToday, businesses have more data than ever. While this is in many ways a great thing, it also creates a dangerous temptation to spend hours and hours analyzing spreadsheets, and runs the risk of confusing quantification for true understanding.
.
Big consumer firms are experiencing the dangerous downside of being insulated from the consumer."

Uma provocação para todos os que esquecem os "end users".

Recordar "Alinhamento":

"The value proposition of the overall supply chain is the same as that of the company that is facing the end customer."

Quem estuda, quem interage com o end-user tem um trunfo importante!

Beware!

Não é se, mas quando!

Quando a próxima recessão chegar como vai estar preparada a sua empresa?

"For most small business, cash reserves are a critical tool for meeting liquidity needs. Cash reserves provide a readily available means to pay employees and suppliers in normal times and are an important buffer to draw upon during adverse times. This is particularly true for small businesses with limited access to credit and other sources of liquidity. In other words, cash reserves are a key measure of the vitality and security of a small business."(1)

"The question for these executives, then, isn’t whether to prepare, it’s how to prepare.
...
What did the resilient companies do differently?[Moi ici: Durante a última recessão]
.
They weren’t protected from the market because they had better products or services. In fact, most of the resilient companies lost nearly as much revenue as industry peers during the recession; the outliers were from a few sectors that didn’t experience the downturn as strongly.
.
But by the time the recession had reached its lowest point in 2009, the resilients had increased their EBITDA by 10%, on average, while industry peers had lost nearly 15%. The resilients seem to have accomplished this by reducing operating costs earlier in the recession cycle, and more deeply. By the first quarter of 2008, the resilients had already cut operating costs 1% compared with the year before, even as their sector year-on-year costs were growing by a similar amount. The resilients maintained and expanded their cost lead as the recession moved toward its trough, improving their earnings advantage in seven out of the eight quarters during 2008 and 2009.
.
Their willingness to move early made the resilient companies far more likely to successfully weather economic shock. As the effects of the downturn became more and more apparent, resilient companies focused on building more flexibility into their investment-planning and operations in addition to pursuing continued earnings expansion. By the time the economy was in full-on recession, the resilients had reduced their debt by more than $1 for every $1 of total capital on their balance sheet.
...
Even as the debate about “when” continues among economic forecasters, companies should begin to prepare themselves for the next recession. To assure some measure of resiliency, they should start now to assess the degree of exposure they have to slowdown, identify initiatives that can help to mitigate the exposure, and establish a “nerve center” to monitor progress on those initiatives."

Cuidado com as previsões que ouve ou lê. Quantas pessoas em 15 de Setembro de 2007 ousavam escrever este marcador "desde que ouvi o ministro pinho dizer que a crise financeira não afectará a economia...,"





(1) - Cash is King: Flows, Balances, and Buffer Days
(2) - What Companies Should Do to Prepare for a Recession

Curiosidade do dia

"O país descobriu agora pela reação do PS - o PSD e CDS já sabiam por experiência própria - que a austeridade é o nosso caminho coletivo para os próximos anos. Infelizmente esta vai ser só para alguns: para os que não têm força reivindicativa como os contribuintes [Moi ici: contribuintes líquidos, os saxões do costume] (comprovando a lei da Olson), porque são muitos. Os pequenos grupos de interesse - armadilhados ou não com substâncias explosivas, o sindicalismo estatal e o capitalismo de Estado e compadrio - sobrevivem sempre à falta de coragem governativa reformista.
...
o socialismo é e sempre será um beco sem saída. O património real e o rendimento anual duma nação são as limitações da vida coletiva e individual.
.
O socialismo assume temporariamente para manter o poder que é preciso devolver rendimentos (isto é a vida e a liberdade ao cidadão, comprovando as tesas liberais sobre o Estado por portas travessas), ainda que não os tenha. Por isso, o socialismo é sempre mais original e criativo com mais um imposto, umas taxas ou um emprestimozinho apresentado sempre na comunicação social como tendo a melhor taxa de juro (parecendo que o Governo ganha sempre e os credores perdem...).
...
A evolução na continuidade será sempre um erro político neste país com um povo e uma história nobres: mas sabemos que só a adversidade nos obriga a mudar, ou um Governo que não se negue a construir um Estado inteligente para o séc. XXI. Este Estado constitucional tornou-se bafiento e geracionalmente irresponsável."

Trecho retirado de "A negação do poder e do Estado"

Risk management

J&J model to deal with risk management:

"Risk can be viewed as the combination of the probability of an event and the impact of its consequences. Events with a negative impact represent risks that can prevent value creation or erode existing value. In order to deliver value to our stakeholders we must understand the types of risks faced by our organization and address them appropriately.
Generally, risks to the Company’s success can be grouped into four categories: (1) Strategic, (2) Operational, (3) Compliance and (4) Financial & Reporting. Specific examples of each type of risk are included in the table below.

Our J&J Enterprise Risk Management Framework is made up of six process components
...
Objectives are set by the Executive Committee in alignment with our strategic framework and are cascaded throughout the organization.
...

Trechos retirados daqui.

"your single most important decision as an entrepreneur"

“Remember that this is your single most important decision as an entrepreneur: Who are you going to serve? What market are you going to enter? It’s worth spending time here. In the end, your future business will be all the better for it because you took the time to scrutinize your ideas from every angle and eliminate the ones that won’t lead to a viable market choice. Be committed to the tightest, strongest business idea possible. If you do this, you’re setting yourself up to be that much more likely to succeed.
...
choosing your market isn’t like choosing what froyo flavor you want in your cup. This decision creates many more ripples in your life, and knowing that tends to drum up some profound emotions at both ends of the spectrum. In the entrepreneurial world, we don’t like to talk about this much because it feels like inviting or admitting weakness, but the reality is that entrepreneurship is emotional. I don’t want to be one who downplays your emotions as you come to this big decision.”

Trechos retirados de “Choose” de Ryan Levesque.

Curiosidade do dia

o contribuinte é o saxão parvo do costume que alomba com todas as bandarilhas impostais pic.twitter.com/eITA0VeLxR

— Carlos P da Cruz (@ccz1) April 4, 2019

Pena que o Mário Cortes se tenha escondido.

"O controlo das contas públicas previsto pelo Governo até 2023 vai continuar a depender do aumento das receitas com impostos e contribuições, diz o Conselho das Finanças Públicas, que antecipa uma subida destas receitas acima do aumento previsto para as despesas rígidas do Estado. A receita adicional vai permitir pagar o aumento de 9,4 mil milhões de euros nas despesas com pessoal e prestações sociais" (1)

"“Se, por ora, é possível acomodar, em previsão, estes aumentos nominais em resultado do crescimento superior previsto para o PIB nominal, não é garantido que essa capacidade acomodatícia se mantenha no futuro próximo“, avisa."(2)

Os saxões, aka contribuintes líquidos, que paguem.

Não sentem as bandarilhas no lombo?

(1) - Impostos e contribuições pagam aumento de mais de 9 mil milhões da despesa com pessoal, diz o CFP
(2) - CFP avisa que Centeno pode ter subavaliado fatura com pessoal até 2023