A paixão pela escala (Parte I)

Ao longo dos anos tenho escrito aqui no blogue sobre o que tenho aprendido no meu contacto com PMEs, e que não vejo descrito nem nos livros de gestão, nem ensinado na academia. Por exemplo, o estilhaçar do modelo mental do século XX, que apenas vê o preço como o factor chave de competição e que, por isso, vê o aumento da dimensão como fundamental para o sucesso. Recordo a minha reacção aos académicos da Junqueira em 2013 - Mas claro, eu só sou um anónimo engenheiro da província.

Hoje, sei precisar melhor a minha mensagem. O problema não é a dimensão (como me criticava o Bruno Fonseca), o problema é o foco num modelo de negócio baseado na competição pelo preço, o que passa inevitavelmente por um desafio de corrida contra o tempo para crescer e reduzir os custos unitários. No passado Sábado li este artigo, "Our Obsession With Scale Must End":

"Our obsession with scalability is getting in the way of unleashing the potential of the 21st century. [Moi ici: O que há anos e anos descrevo como Mongo. O século XX só conhecia uma estratégia, um modelo de negócio baseado nos custos unitários. Os clientes eram vistos como plankton, todos iguais, todos indistintos. O século XXI é o século do regresso às tribos, o regresso à paisagem super enrugada. O regresso a modelos não baseados no preço puro e duro] We’re so fixated on scalability we’ve taken our eye off of delivering value at every scale including the most important scale of one. The Industrial Era did that to us. Reaching the mass market takes precedence over delivering value to each customer. New customer acquisition trumps delivering value to existing customers.

...

The Industrial Era brought us the reign of the predominant business model. Every industry quickly became dominated by one business model that defined the rules, roles, and practices for all competitors and stakeholders. We became a nation of share takers clamoring to replicate industry best practices to gain or protect every precious market share point. Companies moved up or down industry leadership rankings based on their ability to compete for market share. 

...

Consumers are bringing the era of the predominant business model to an end. Business models don’t last as long as they used to. Predominant business models are crumbling all around us.

...

It’s time to end our obsession with scalability. [Moi ici: Quantos "milhares de anos" demorarão até que a academia actualize as suas sebentas escritas no século XX de Metropolis?] There are too many consumer, student, patient, and citizen needs left unmet by predominant business models in every industry. There are too many new business model concepts stuck on white boards and in consulting decks. We are still allowing predominant business models to slow down and block the emergence of new business models that can better meet our needs. It’s time to move from the era of the predominant business model to the era of business model proliferation." [Moi ici: O que significa a proliferação de modelos de negócio? Na parte II desta série abordaremos o tema do horror, o leap of faith necessário para entrar no século XXI] 

Move ... to influential “orchestrators.”

"Much more complex than linear supply chains, business ecosystems are groups of companies and other actors (platform providers, government agencies, independent contractors, co-creating customers, and so on) whose contributions come together to produce value. The idea is that each of these parties could benefit if they took a more holistic view of their collective efforts.
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From research and practice, we are beginning to see evidence that managers who adjust their approaches to fit an ecosystems world are better able to succeed in it.
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leaders must move from being high-ranking delegators to influential “orchestrators.” In environments where leaders can’t exercise formal authority, and where collaborative triumphs trump individual achievements, they must become sharper in their ability to build communities and inspire alignment.
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To succeed in the era of platforms and partnerships, managers will need to change practice on many levels. And with the new practices of ecosystem management must come new management theory, also reoriented around a larger-scale system-level view. Both practitioners and scholars can begin by dispensing with mechanistic, industrial-age models of inputs, processes, and outputs. They will have to take a more dynamic, organic, and evolutionary view of how organizations’ capacities grow and can be cultivated.
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An economy, and in particular a capitalist economy, thrives not only when it has the right tools but when it has the right rules. Recrafting these for the era of ecosystems must be the priority of a group that is an ecosystem in itself—the scholars, consultants, regulators, and of course managers whose work shapes the enterprise of management."

Trechos retirados de "What Management Needs to Become in an Era of Ecosystems"

"their business model is fundamentally broken"

O mundo está em permanente mudança, mudança que acelerou nas últimas décadas com a disseminação da internet. Enquanto as mentes dominadas pelo locus de controlo externo apelam ao papá-estado e ao seu apoio pedo-mafioso, a minoria, com o locus de controlo interno, olha as coisas de frente e procura construir uma alternativa.

Em "Perilous Times" encontramos um bom exemplo dos que experimentam coisas novas e dos que esperam que o mau tempo desapareça, por artes mágicas, como aquela empresa em 2007:

"But the real challenge facing many colleges and universities at the moment is that their business model is fundamentally broken. “Business model” isn’t a popular phrase in higher education, either, but all colleges have one. When we use the term, we are referring to the revenue that an institution must take in to support the resources and processes it uses to deliver on its value proposition.
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Many colleges and universities are increasingly unable to bring in enough revenue to cover their costs.
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What makes this even worse is that the natural pressure in higher education is for costs to increase -- thanks to the lack of economies of scale and the complexity of higher education operations. A major reason for the complexity of those operations is that many colleges and universities have multiple value propositions with multiple business models for multiple stakeholders. Managing that complexity has driven up the cost of administrative overhead over time.
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First, in the competition to attract students, colleges and universities will continue their arms race. For many, that will mean adopting copycat sustaining innovations -- more faculty, more extravagant facilities, more administrative positions -- that add cost. But this will further strain their business model, because they are already struggling to bring in enough revenue from a mixture of tuition, government funding, endowment returns and donations. For those institutions that are largely dependent on tuition for revenue and have small endowments, they will be in big trouble.
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Second, for those that can’t keep up and those that experience enrollment declines, their large fixed costs -- thanks to tenured faculty, debt payments associated with financing their many buildings, and associated building-maintenance costs -- place them in peril without an easy ability to adjust.
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But standing still, avoiding innovation and trying to be many things to many people is a nonstarter. We look forward to many individual colleges innovating, defying the odds and proving our predictions wrong."

Quem pensa no depois de amanhã concentra-se nisto:

“Against this backdrop, it is true that the emergence of the first disruptive innovation in education since the printing press -- online learning -- will also play a role as more students enroll in online learning experiences. The full impact of disruption in higher education will take at least a generation to be felt, however, not overnight. … the opportunity to carve out a specific focus around a meaningful “job to be done” -- the progress that an individual is trying to make in a particular circumstance -- in the lives of its students.” 

E imagina um mundo de oportunidades muito para lá dos estudantes, pensa num mundo que exige mais informação e formação, pensa num mundo onde essa informação até está disponível gratuitamente, mas pensa na curadoria necessária para filtrar o trigo do joio, pensa na necessidade de confiança e de experiência, pensa na necessidade de interacção. Será, no entanto, um mudo que não vai ser para professores de carreira, formados em pedagogia e sem experiência da vida...

"It’s the new business model that is stealing your customers, not the product”

“Car dealers now make hardly any money on car sales themselves—less than 10 percent of total net profits. Rather, their profits arise from the sale of financing, insurance, extra warranties, and maintenance, which now represent 67 percent of their net income. Car dealers have evolved and today resemble banks selling financial services much more than they do auto retailers.
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After all, Uber, Amazon, and Birchbox are all regarded as technology companies, right? I decided to talk to these firms and learn about the new technologies they developed and were leveraging. It soon became clear to me that the initial success of these companies didn’t hinge on new and innovative technologies, but rather on the power of their business model innovations. Similarly, others have argued that even well-regarded “tech” companies such as Google, in their early days, didn’t invent completely new technologies, but rather invented or perfected new business models. These innovations represented the real engine of disruption.
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Business model innovation is a powerful force of abrupt market-level change, in some cases more powerful than technology. Technology, as Jim Collins put it more than a decade and a half ago in his bestselling book Good to Great, “is an accelerator, never a creator of momentum and growth.
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Likewise, don’t let an excessive focus on your products prevent you from paying attention to your business. Many executives at incumbent businesses, wedded to their business models, react to disruption by blaming their products. As they see it, all the newfangled lemonade stands out there are stealing customers because they have created better-tasting lemonade. Stop blaming your lemonade! The truth is that the upstart’s lemonade tastes the same as yours, or maybe even worse. It’s the new business model that is stealing your customers, not the product. ”

Agora relacionar com "Today's CEO playbook is outdated. Here are 5 things rising stars should focus on to win in the next decade":

"Competing in ecosystems.Classical models of competition assume that there are discrete companies that make similar products and compete within clearly delineated industries. But technology has dramatically reduced communication and transaction costs, weakening the Coasean logic for combining many activities inside a few vertically integrated firms. At the same time, uncertainty and disruption both require individual firms to be more adaptable and also make business environments increasingly shapeable. Companies now have opportunities to influence the development of the market in their favor, but this can be achieved only by coordinating with other stakeholders.
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As a result of these forces, new industrial architectures are emerging based on the coordination of ecosystems  —   complex, semi-fluid networks of companies that challenge several traditional assumptions of business. ... They blur the boundaries of industries: for example, automotive ecosystems include not just traditional suppliers but also connectivity, software, and cloud storage providers. And they blur the distinction between collaborators and competitors: for example, Amazon and third-party merchants have a symbiotic relationship, while the company competes with those merchants simultaneously by selling private-label brands.
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The playbook for how to emulate these ecosystem pioneers has not yet been fully codified, but a few imperatives are becoming increasingly clear:
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Adopt a fundamentally different perspective towards strategy, based on embracing principles like external orientation, common platforms, co-evolution, emergence, and indirect monetization
Determine what role your company can play in your ecosystem or ecosystems  —   not all companies can be the orchestrator [Moi ici: Ao orquestrador chamei em 2012 o arquitecto de paisagens competitivas]
Ensure that your company creates value for the ecosystem broadly, not just for itself"

Trechos iniciais retirados de “Unlocking the Customer Value Chain” de Thales S. Teixeira.

Modelos de negócio

“Although choosing a business model is one of the most important decisions any businessperson makes, executives don’t always reflect much on what a business model actually is or does.
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A business model specifies how the firm creates value (and for whom), and how it captures value (and from whom).
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A business model, as defined above, describes how a business is supposed to function in theory. Although businesses will differ from one another in their particulars (name, location, number of employees, financials, and so on), a model allows us to look beyond the particulars to identify conceptual similarities and differences between businesses, whether or not they happen to operate in the same industry. Likewise, a model allows us to chart how business concepts evolve over time.
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As I’ve indicated, the creation of new business models tended to happen slowly prior to the internet. In the supermarket industry, it took half a century or longer for slotting fees and club membership fees to make their debut as a means of capturing value. Even after they appeared, it took decades for other companies within the industry to embrace them.
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This slow pace of change made life comparatively easy for executives. No matter what market or sector you were entering, the choice of a business model was pretty simple. By default, you were handed a standard model or method for creating value and making money. At best, a second option of business model was available to you as well. In media, for instance, a single model for making money dominated for much of the twentieth century. Companies created value for customers by offering free content such as broadcast television shows, news articles, or radio songs to consumer audiences. They captured value by selling viewers’ attention to advertisers, in what was termed an “ad-supported” model. Over time, premium cable television channels such as HBO and satellite radio SiriusXM embraced a different model for making money. They created value for customers in the same way—by providing content. But they captured value by charging for subscriptions, what was called a “paid media” model. For decades, these two models were basically it. If you wanted to compete, you chose one of the two and gave it your best shot. Switching was rare.
This situation changed dramatically with the advent of the commercial internet in the mid-1990s.
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The appearance of business model innovation in and across industries happens so suddenly that executives and entrepreneurs often struggle to understand it. Disruptors tend to use a surfing metaphor, perceiving promising business models as powerful ocean waves. Seeking to catch and ride these waves, they anticipate them by directing their gazes in a direction where waves will likely appear. When they sense that a wave is imminent, they position themselves by paddling directly in front of the wave. Of course, spotting the right wave to ride requires focus and some luck, and staying atop of the wave once it appears requires learning and patience. For incumbents, the spread of business model innovations feels far less fun, and far more threatening. Incumbents tend to think of them, consciously or not, as wildfires that pop up unpredictably, propagate quickly, and wreak devastation in their paths. Their instinctive response is to suppress the wildfire by attacking or buying the startup. If a business model innovation flares up in your industry, turn on the siren, quick!
Which of these metaphors is most accurate?"

Trechos retirados de “Unlocking the Customer Value Chain” de Thales S. Teixeira.

Estratégia, modelo de negócio e táctica

"Business Model refers to the logic of the firm, the way it operates and how it creates value for its stakeholders; and
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􏰛Strategy refers to the choice of business model through which the firm will compete in the marketplace; while
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Tactics refers to the residual choices open to a firm by virtue of the business model it chooses to employ.
...

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Business models are made of concrete choices and the consequences of these choices. different designs have different specific logics of operation and create different value for their stakeholders.
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Tactics - the residual choices open to a firm after choosing its business model - are crucial in determining firms’ value creation and capture.
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strategy refers to a firm’s contingent plan as to which business model it will use. It is im- portant to note the word ‘contingent’ - strategies should contain provisions against a range of environmental contingencies, whether they take place or not. An outside observer will only be able to observe the realized strategy, rather than the entire contingent plan.
...

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the set of strategy choices made in setting the business model up are not easily reversible . tactical choices are relatively easy to change."

Trechos e imagens retiradas de "From Strategy to Business Models and onto Tactics" de Ramon Casadesus-Masanell & Joan Enric Ricart, publicado por Long Range Planning 43 (2010).

As oportunidades e ameaças que se revelam com o ranger das placas tectónicas

Ao ler, só nos últimos dias:

• Sente-se o ranger das placas tectónicas...
• Mais sintomas do reshoring em curso
• "in two years, it has lost 14.79 per cent of its exports"

Basta usar a ferramenta do Business Model Canvas para visualizar as alterações em curso com o ranger das placas tectónicas:

• alteram-se canais de distribuição (prateleiras);
• altera-se a forma como se desenvolve a relação com os clientes;
• altera-se a proposta de valor (de eficiência para rapidez, para flexibilidade, para customização, para design, ...);
• alteram-se os clientes-alvo;
• alteram-se as actividades-chave;
• alteram-se os recursos-chave;
• alteram-se os parceiros-chave.

O mundo que uma empresa conhece a mudar.

Que oportunidades e ameaças se vão revelar?

Jornalismo com futuro

Ao longo dos anos escrevo aqui acerca da erosão e decadência do modelo económico dos jornalismo pago pela publicidade:

• "the rebound in the paid-for model"

Acredito que o jornalismo regressará baseado num novo modelo de negócio baseado na subscrição paga e no serviço aos clientes underserved. E foi o que encontrei ao ler "The Local News Business Model":

"In short, the business model [Moi ici: Baseado na publicidade, apelando à maior audiência possível] drove the content, just as it drove every other piece of the business. It follows, though, that if the content bundle no longer makes sense — which it doesn’t in the slightest — that the business model probably doesn’t make sense either. This is the problem with newspapers: every aspect of their operations, from costs to content, is optimized for a business model that is obsolete. To put it another way, an obsolete business model means an obsolete business. There is nothing to be saved.
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It is very important to clearly define what a subscriptions means. First, it’s not a donation: it is asking a customer to pay money for a product. What, then, is the product? It is not, in fact, any one article (a point that is missed by the misguided focus on micro-transactions). Rather, a subscriber is paying for the regular delivery of well-defined value.
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This last point is at the crux of why many ad-based newspapers will find it all but impossible to switch to a real subscription business model. When asking people to pay, quality matters far more than quantity, and the ratio matters: a publication with 1 valuable article a day about a well-defined topic will more easily earn subscriptions than one with 3 valuable articles and 20 worthless ones covering a variety of subjects. Yet all too many local newspapers, built for an ad-based business model that calls for daily content to wrap around ads, spend their limited resources churning out daily filler even though those ads no longer exist."

O artigo continua e reforça a necessidade de uma forte disciplina de corte:

"It’s also worth noting what a subscription business model does not — must not — include:
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Content that is widely available elsewhere. That means no national or international news (except what has a local impact, and even that is questionable), no non-local business content, no lifestyle section.
Non-journalistic costs centers.
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This is perhaps the easiest change to make, and the hardest for newspaper advocates to accept. A subscription business is just that: a business that must, through its content, earn ongoing revenue from customers. That means understanding what those customers want, and what they don’t. It means focusing on the user experience, and the content mix. And it means selling by every member of the organization." 

Conspiração (parte II)

Parte I.

A conspiração continua. Desta vez via "To change the game, change the business model":

"Change the interaction and you’ll find a different business model.
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Seen from a traditional business perspective, businesses are just business models competing against each other; it’s why we have all this sameness out in the world. But what if you shift your perspective, look at things differently and change the components of the business model?"

Acerca de modelos de negócio B2B e B2C

Interessante sistematização de modelos de negócio para startups quer para B2B quer para B2C em "Business Models".

Mais do que o custo

"Our research into business model innovation in Asia uncovered two distinct, yet overlapping, waves of innovation: one decades old and still going, and one that ... is evolving now.
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The first wave, as we call it, primarily exploited differences in labor and other input costs between developed and developing markets. By contrast, the second wave is driven primarily by business model innovation and typically leverages new technology. [Moi ici: Em tom quasi irónico direi que apostam em dumping legislativo. Sociedades mais abertas à mudança e com menos direitos adquiridos pelos incumbentes] These companies are characterized by extensive and often radical reconfigurations of the profit formula, resources, processes, and relationships within a broader stakeholder ecosystem.
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The first wave of innovation from emerging markets in Asia has been predicated on the replication of existing business models at lower cost. As the model has evolved, it has become increasingly sophisticated,
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Nonetheless, we believe the second wave could be even more disruptive than the first wave was. There are three reasons why, all of which reveal the ability of second-wave companies to achieve scale while remaining nimble.
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The first reason is that second-wave companies fundamentally reimagine various facets of the business model. The second is that second-wave companies find new, often digitally enabled, ways in which resources and processes can be leveraged, ... The third is that second-wave companies identify creative ways for partners, stakeholders, and customers to be involved in value creation and capture, [Moi ici: Co-criação e ecossistemas]
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If you want to reimagine your own business model, the first step is challenging the fundamental assumptions about what it means to be a business, employee, partner, or customer."

Trechos retirados de "The Next Wave of Business Models in Asia"

Cuidado com o título

Há dias estava a fazer uma auditoria numa PME, quando reparei que em cima da mesa de trabalho do gerente estava um livro bem conhecido.
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Um livro de capas azuis, "Estratégia - Sucesso em Portugal" de Adriano Freire.
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Respirei fundo e segui em frente, por respeito a quem me contratou para fazer a auditoria, porque não me contratou para fazer consultoria ou entrar em discussões ontológicas.
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Hoje, voltei a lembrar-me da cena por causa do artigo que aparece no JdN com o título "Os planos de negócios são uma perda de tempo", uma entrevista a Alexander Osterwalder.
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O livro de Adriano Freire é mau? Não, longe disso pelo contrário. Contudo, é um livro que relata casos de empresas grandes e, como discutimos aqui no blogue muitas vezes, o que se aplica e faz sentido para empresas grandes, não faz sentido para PME porque o poder e influência são outros, porque os canais e estratégias são outros, porque as estruturas de pessoas e competências são outras.
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Qual a relação com a entrevista de Alexander Osterwalder?
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Não fica claro na entrevista, para o leitor comum, que a mensagem de Osterwalder é para startups, é para empreendedores. Osterwalder não critica o uso de plano de negócio para empresas novas com modelos de negócio claros e estabelecidos.


BTW, recuar a Novembro de 2012 e a "Empreendedorismo e planos de negócio... um retrato da superficialidade"

O canto da sereia

"Most enterprise managers find business model innovation decision making difficult preferring stay the course than to aim for paradigm shift. One possible explanation for this comes from a bias first described by Barry M. Staw in his 1976 paper, “Knee deep in the big muddy: A study of escalating commitment to a chosen course of action” and called: escalation of commitment or sunken cost fallacy. Even though it is commonly expected that individuals will reverse decisions or change behaviors which result in negative consequences. Yet, based on the cumulative prior investment and despite new evidence suggesting otherwise, within investment decision contexts, negative consequences may actually cause decision makers to increase the commitment of resources (time, money, manpower, emotions) and undergo the risk of further negative consequences."

Trecho retirado de "Why you’re in love with your current business model"

Aprendizes de feiticeiro, limpem as mãos à parede!

Na sequência da série "Tão syrizas que nós teimamos em ser" o resultado final:

• "Gasolineiras aumentam margem com os combustíveis simples";
• "Combustível normal sai dos postos de abastecimento"

Uma frase que ouvi nos meus tempos de infância, e que sempre guardei para estas ocasiões:

"Podem limpar as mãos à parede"

Tão syrizas que nós teimamos em ser

Qualquer pessoa percebe que o Syriza não estava preparado para ser um partido de poder na Grécia.
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A árvore conhece-se pelos frutos que dá.
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Por cá, muita gente, da oposição e da situação, teima em brincar ao Syriza. Por exemplo, esta história "Combustíveis simples chegam dia 17 a todo o país. Preço é o problema" onde se pode ler:

"Contudo, alguns agentes do mercado suspeitam que os combustíveis simples que a Galp, BP, Repsol e Cepsa vão passar a vender a meio do mês serão mais caros que os que estão à venda nos super e nos hiper, mesmo sendo exatamente o mesmo produto e custando uns oito a 12 cêntimos a menos que os produtos normais."

Suspeitam?! Eu não sou um agente desse mercado e nunca suspeitei, sempre tive a certeza e em "e encerro o meu caso" documento os meus argumentos desde Fevereiro de 2013.
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E aquele "mesmo sendo exactamente o mesmo produto" é tão básico... E o modelo de negócio?
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Um voo Porto-Milão via Ryanair ou via TAP é o mesmo produto?
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E o modelo de negócio de cada uma das empresas não é relevante?
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Outra história é "Combustível low cost não existe. O que há é a gasolina e gasóleo simples"
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O que me faz recordar algo que escrevi aqui:

"O low-price não depende só do produto, é resultado de todo um modelo de negócio que as pequenas bombas de combustível não vão poder emular. Receio que no futuro algumas pequenas bombas de combustível ainda venham a ter problemas com consumidores exaltados que estavam à espera do mesmo preço, pelo mesmo produto, que pagam na bomba de combustível do Pingo Doce da cidade mais próxima."

 Porque, como enquadro aqui:

"There is a real strategy called "low-cost," which can facilitate more attractive prices than competitors. But low prices unaccompanied by low costs is an approach to liquidation"

Há muitos anos, no tempo da TV a preto e branco, este anónimo de província já estudava química na universidade, ouviu um grupo de políticos discutir as evidências do "Caso Camarate" e um deles, advogado, defendia algo que, se fosse verdade, era o que os alquimistas procuravam, a transmutação. Segundo ele, um elemento químico encontrado nos destroços, ter-se-ia formado após o incêndio...
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Agora pensem no que os políticos dizem sobre o SMN e o desemprego jovem não estarem relacionados...

e encerro o meu caso

A primeira vez que escrevi sobre o tema aqui no blogue foi em Fevereiro de 2013 e, na altura, chamei-lhe "mais uma asneira dos políticos".
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Como é possível, dois anos depois, ler-se o seguinte título "Lei dos combustíveis low cost pode não ter impacto nos preços". Então, qual era o propósito da lei? Se a lei não vai mexer nos preços porque perderam tempo e dinheiro a introduzir mais socialismo na legislação? Não tinham técnicos que tivessem a coragem de lhes contar a verdade sobre o impacte da lei que se propunham criar?

"A Autoridade da Concorrência (AdC) tem dúvidas sobre o impacto positivo da lei que obriga quase todos os postos de abastecimento do país a vender combustíveis não aditivados - ou low cost - já a partir de meados de abril.
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no documento que apresentou ontem aos deputados, pode ler-se: "Não se antecipa que a legislação possa ter um impacto importante ao nível dos preços de venda ao público, porque não terá efeito direto nos custos de exploração dos postos convencionais".
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Para a AdC, o combustível simples é aquele a que se juntam os aditivos para fazer produtos premium e que, por isso, "o conceito de low cost tem menos a ver com o tipo de combustível e mais com o tipo de serviço que existe nos postos".
Contudo, diz Ferreira Gomes, "não quero agoirar o impacto de uma legislação séria e ponderada. [Moi ici: Eheheh isto soa-me a ironia] Não quero que me interpretem mal. Quero é que os mercados funcionem e desejo os melhores sucessos para a legislação"."

Não precisavam de esperar pela AdC.
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Bastava terem lido este blogue:

• Mais uma asneira dos políticos (Fevereiro de 2013)
• Modelo de negócio com mais peso que o produto na gasolina low-cost (Dezembro de 2014) 
• Reflexões sobre a doutrina Cristas (Janeiro de 2015)

Trechos retirados de "Lei dos combustíveis low cost pode não ter impacto nos preços"

"Time is our scarcest resource"

Aproveito para recomendar este interessante vídeo de Ash Maurya sobre a construção de um modelo de negócio usando o Lean Canvas.



Um pormenor que vai sendo cada vez mais violado, à medida que o empreendedorismo vai-se tornando num modo de vida, num pet project dos políticos e, num sifão de dinheiro, não de investidores mas de dinheiros públicos, aparece no vídeo aos 59 segundos:

"Time is our scarcest resource"

Por alguma razão a toda poderosa Procter & Gamble tem cortado na investigação interna e apostado em comprar investigação desenvolvida fora, muitas vezes por indivíduos. Departamentos ricos e anafados não sentem a pressão para entregar resultados. Essa pressão, não só entrega resultados como melhora a qualidade do que se entrega.
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Mas vejam o vídeo todo, vale a pena.

Reflexões sobre a doutrina Cristas

Este tema "Postos de combustíveis obrigados a vender low cost já a partir de abril" ainda vai dar muito que falar.
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Preocupa-me o crescimento da doutrina Cristas, ou seja, um governo interferir a torto e a direito na relação comercial entre clientes e fornecedores. No entanto, aqui quero sublinhar apenas este ponto.
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As petrolíferas podem passar a ser obrigadas a vender combustível não aditivado, o chamado low-cost. Contudo, os consumidores não pagam o custo, pagam o preço. Assim, muita gente vai protestar porque a pequena bomba de combustível, apesar de ter combustível low-cost, não vai poder praticar os preços das bombas low-price.
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O low-price não depende só do produto, é resultado de todo um modelo de negócio que as pequenas bombas de combustível não vão poder emular. Receio que no futuro algumas pequenas bombas de combustível ainda venham a ter problemas com consumidores exaltados que estavam à espera do mesmo preço, pelo mesmo produto, que pagam na bomba de combustível do Pingo Doce da cidade mais próxima.
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E, no prolongamento da doutrina Cristas, não me custa imaginar, num futuro governo, a Dona Estrela a exigir o regresso do preço único.
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Sublinho que este sector não está sob a dependência directa de Cristas e, sim de alguém que comunga dessa doutrina.

Modelo de negócio com mais peso que o produto na gasolina low-cost

A propósito de "Petrolíferas avisam: combustíveis simples não vão ter os preços dos supermercados" onde se pode ler:

"As petrolíferas argumentam que os supermercados vendem combustíveis 12 a 14 cêntimos mais baratos, os chamados "low cost", porque têm um modelo de negócio diferente, sem os custos de uma petrolífera (localização das bombas em zonas mais caras; desenvolvimento tecnológico; etc.)."

Recordar o que escrevemos em Fevereiro de 2013 em "Mais uma asneira dos políticos":

"Os políticos que querem impor bombas low-cost são como os empresários, que refiro na apresentação, que julgam que low-cost é fazer mais desconto, que low-cost é ter menor margem. [Moi ici: E acrescento agora, ou que low-cost anda de braço dado com produto de qualidade inferior obrigatoriamente. Segundo a associação do sector petrolífero, o modelo de negócio é responsável por 8/9 cêntimos de abaixamento do preço e o produto não aditivado por 5/6 cêntimos ]
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Esta gente não percebe que por detrás do low-cost há um modelo de negócio diferente?"

Tornar a competição imperfeita, alterando as regras (parte II)

Parte I.
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Na linha da reflexão sobre alterar as regras do mercado, orquestrar uma alteração no ecossistema da procura:

"Companies fail to identify future opportunities because they do not have fresh business models
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Products and companies do not differentiate winners from losers; it is the right business models that do.
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Business model innovation is more profitable and more sustainable than product innovation and is badly needed in Europe today.
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Global competition requires a more holistic approach to business development that typically reflects business model thinking.
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overcoming the dominant logic of their industry remains the biggest barrier for experienced managers. Some innovators do it accidentally, some intuitively, but rather seldom as a systematic leadership task.
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The biggest challenge is learning how to unlearn. This is a challenge that should be taken up by business schools."

Trechos retirados de "The danger in missing the innovation moment".