Adiamento ou ignorância?

Por que é que é preciso chegar a um estado terminal para se começar a pensar neste tipo de decisões?
.
"A administração dos supermercados AC Santos, cuja insolvência foi declarada na passada sexta-feira, garante estar a procurar "uma solução de continuidade" que permita manter as lojas "viáveis" para salvar postos de trabalho e conseguir pagar as dívidas.
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A administração afirma, num comunicado, que "não foi possível até à data encontrar alternativas de viabilização da continuidade da empresa" que sofreu, nos últimos dois anos, "um ambiente económico adverso" caracterizado pela "concorrência esmagadora" e drástica redução do consumo.
A administração acrescenta, no entanto, que quer encerrar apenas algumas lojas "e manter as que se afigurem viáveis, salvando alguns postos de trabalho e viabilizando o pagamento do passivo"."
.
Isto é tão português... adiar até à última.
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Não havia informação contabilística a mostrar que lojas inviáveis estavam a roubar o valor gerado pelas lojas viáveis?
.
Recordemos Jonathan Byrnes:
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"In virtually every company today, 30-40 percent of the business is unprofitable by any measure, 20-30 percent of the business is so profitable it provides all the reported earnings and subsidizes the losses, and no one is responsible for managing profitability (i.e. managing the interaction of costs and revenues customer-by-customer and product-by-product)."
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Nuno, um exemplo vivo... aqui são lojas inviáveis a parasitarem lojas viáveis, com as fábricas temos clientes inviáveis a parasitarem clientes viáveis, ou produtos inviáveis a parasitarem produtos viáveis.
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Nada de precipitações, não há, necessariamente, uma "culpa" dos funcionários das lojas inviáveis, muitas vezes é a localização da loja.

É preciso aterrorizar com números

Nuno, há aqui muito trabalho para profissionais... para os novos profissionais de uma coisa que em tempos se chamou contabilidade mas que hoje pode ser muito mais do que foi.
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"Here's the really big question: if the budget process is a central determinant of a company's performance, why do so many companies have so much embedded unprofitability?
.
In virtually every company today, 30-40 percent of the business is unprofitable by any measure, 20-30 percent of the business is so profitable it provides all the reported earnings and subsidizes the losses, and no one is responsible for managing profitability (i.e. managing the interaction of costs and revenues customer-by-customer and product-by-product). The upside? Over 30 percent profit improvement within a year, and every year after."
...
"Lack of granular profitability information. Virtually all companies have accurate financial reporting information, but poor micro-level profitability information. Think about this: if I selected five of your accounts at random, and in each account I selected five products, could you tell me how profitable each was? Could you explain exactly how to increase the profitability of each? If I asked your sales and operations managers, would they know? Would they agree?"
...
"Lack of granular coordination. Because most companies lack the granular profitability information that profit mapping provides, managers throughout each company are not able to identify the exact ways in which they must coordinate with each other in order to maximize their company's profitability. Importantly, these measures will vary from account to account, and product to product.
This causes a big problem. When a company's managers cannot coordinate to optimize the profitability of individual accounts and products, they are forced, without realizing it, to focus on creating incremental improvements in their respective areas of responsibility."
.
Há aqui muito potencial para ajudar as empresas definirem quem são os seus clientes-alvo.
.
Como diz John Kotter: See, Feel, Change! Se mais empresas tivessem este retrato, aterradas, não perderiam tempo em começar a mudar apara trabalhar só com clientes-alvo rentáveis.

Trechos retirados de "Getting Under the Hood of a Flawed Budgeting Process" de Jonathan Byrnes

Cuidado com as médias

Qual a percentagem dos clientes de uma empresa que se encaixa em cada um dos tipos?
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Claro que os clientes não têm todos a mesma importância!
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Por isso, trabalhar com um número global para descrever o grau de satisfação dos clientes é absurdo.
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Que interessa ter 99% dos clientes do tipo III satisfeitos se 10% dos clientes do Tipo I estiverem insatisfeitos?
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E vale a pena manter os clientes do Tipo III?
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Há cerca de 10 anos, um director-geral lançou-me à queima-roupa uma pergunta que me deixou a pensar e que nunca mais esqueci:
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"Vamos lançar este inquérito a clientes, será que é bom ter todos os clientes satisfeitos?"
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Jonathan Byrnes veio-me recordar a reflexão que fiz então e que, sobretudo, ficou assente com a ajuda de Gertz e Baptista em "Grow to be Breat", com o postal "What’s Wrong With a 95% Service Level?":
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"When you focus on aggregate measures of customer service, in reality you are maximizing what’s easiest to measure, not what gives you the most profitability and lucrative growth. This is another artifact of the Age of Mass Markets, when companies distributed as widely as possible, customers had plenty of inventory, and computers were in their infancy"
.
Como ele bem sublinha:
.
"Is your objective simply to maximize average customer satisfaction? Or is your objective to maximize your company’s profitability and growth? These are not necessarily, or even often, linked."
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Claro que para quem só quer fazer um visto na lista de tarefas isto é irrelevante

Clientes não como entidades estatísticas mas como gente de carne e osso

Primeiro a descrição da situação de partida:
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"Developing a winning go-to-market model isn't easy for incumbent suppliers, because few are well positioned to provide what demanding customers want: simple, low-cost support for some needs and deep knowledge and collaboration for others. The basic transaction costs of suppliers are too high for them to compete with the no-frills specialists ... And they don't have enough industry-specific "solutions" expertise to compete with businesses that are setting new standards for value-added sales and service.
.
This "stuck-in-the-middle" scenario is playing out across a wide range of industries, from advanced materials and chemicals to information technology and telecommunications. It can leave companies vulnerable to attack from both sides. More than one global supplier has recently lost a substantial share of its revenue both to Asian attackers with far lower costs and to genuine solutions specialists offering faster, more sophisticated service."
...
Depois, uma proposta de abordagem:
.
"Rethinking the approach
.
More specifically, to cut costs and enhance the customer experience, companies should take three steps:

• Identify the company's full range of sales and service situations, from simple transactions to complex consulting arrangements
• Build a high-quality, low-cost platform of sales support and service processes for interactions that cut across all customers; this "lean backbone" typically encompasses efforts to supply customers with information as well as order entry, fulfillment, training, and after-sales service
• Develop affordable standard modules (or high-touch overlays) for situations where customers value additional sales or service support enough to cover its cost; these modules might include teams of industry experts, application-development teams, and "hunting" teams to focus on acquiring new customers"

Por exemplo:

Recordo o exemplo da Xiameter.

.

"Companies should thus begin rethinking their approach by deciding exactly what type and quality of sales and service interaction they must provide to their various customers." (Moi ici: Claro que os autores escrevem para a realidade americana, com corporações, com empresas com multi-sítios capazes de produções dedicadas por unidade fabril, por divisão. Para a PME portuguesa há que fazer algum esforço de tradução... estou a imaginar a aplicação a uma empresa prestadora de serviços... a relação pode começar pela compra de hardware, pode evoluir para a prestação de serviços de manutenção e culminar em vendas consultivas que resultam em projectos de co-criação)
.
Gosto muito da figura que se segue, mais uma vez, evitar abordagens iguais para todos... é impressionante a quantidade de negócios que vejo as multinacionais perderem em Portugal, por terem políticas tão rígidas e independentes do tipo de clientes:

Como encontrei há dias nos escritos de Byrnes, é preciso ter mais do que uma cadeia logística, em função do tipo de clientes-alvo.
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"Incumbents needn't remain stuck in the middle. To escape from it, they should rethink their customers' requirements, build a lean backbone to meet shared sales and service needs, and establish standard, high-touch overlays to satisfy more exacting demands cost effectively."
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Trechos de "Transforming sales and services"

Uma meia-dúzia de conselhos importantes

Uma meia-dúzia de mensagens carregadas de valor acrescentado para quem está e, para quem pensa em montar um negócio.
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"Understanding the buyer is the key to being a strong seller
.
Manufacturers used to dispatch reps to the pro shop to educate us on their latest and greatest technologies. They'd tell us about the new ethylene vinyl acetate midsoles that made shoes more comfortable; the Goodyear-brand rubber outsoles that made the shoes more durable; the new variation of Nike Air that was miles ahead of the competition.

They thought they were arming us with facts that would impress the customers. But, it turned out, none of that stuff mattered. In fact, it had a negative effect. When you describe things in terms people don't understand, they tend not to trust you as much. Trust is important. You can bluff your way into money, but for only so long.

Once I stopped slinging the technical terms, I realized that when customers shop for shoes, they do three things. They consider the look and style. They try them on to see if they're comfortable. And they consider the price. Endorsements by famous athletes help a lot, too. But the technology, the features, the special-testing labs—I can't remember a single customer who cared. I sold a boatload of shoes and tennis rackets that summer.

Understanding what people really want to know—and how that differs from what you want to tell them—is a fundamental tenet of sales. And you can't get good at making money unless you get good at selling.
I  learned this as a teenage shoe salesman, and it still drives how I operate."

(Moi ici: Este é o principal alicerce do trabalho que desenvolvo com as empresas. Quem são os clientes-alvo? Quem são eles? A resposta a esta pergunta permite avançar para outra bateria de questões: O que procuram? O que valorizam? Quem experiências os satisfazem?)
...
"In which I sell electronics, knives, and throwing stars—and learn that it's all about passion
This is where I learned my second key lesson: Sell only things you'd want to buy for yourself."
.
(Moi ici: Ainda ontem sublinhei junto de um grupo de empresárias o que Byrnes escreveu "You are what you sell"? Numa PME, como a minha por exemplo, é fundamental a componente da paixão! Trabalhar, desenvolver, estudar, experimentar, sobre aquilo que nos faz sonhar, que nos desperta a curiosidade... só com esse extra podemos ultrapassar o poder do dinheiro das empresas grandes. A paixão é tudo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
...
"How, and why, to charge real money for real products
...
The lesson: People are happy to pay for things that work well. Never be afraid to put a price on something. (Moi ici: Esta semana, um grupo de empresários concordou comigo "As PMEs portuguesas têm tendência a subestimar-se! Por isso, deixam sempre dinheiro em cima da mesa!") If you pour your heart into something and make it great, sell it. For real money. Even if there are free options, even if the market is flooded with free. People will pay for things they love. (Moi ici: Afinal de contas, as pessoas não compram todas nas lojas chinesas... afinal de contas, o Fiat Panda nunca foi o modelo mais vendido... afinal de contas, as escolas privadas sem contrato de associação existem e até prosperam!")
.
There are plenty of free project management tools. There are plenty of free contact managers and customer relationship management tools. There are plenty of free chat tools and organization tools. There are plenty of free conferences and workshops. (Moi ici: Quando algo é gratuito... não é valorizado) Free is everywhere. But we charge for our products. And our customers are happy to pay for them.

There's another lesson in here: Charging for something makes you want to make it better. I've found this to be really important. It's a great lesson if you want to learn how to make money.

After all, paying for something is one of the most intimate things that can occur between two people. One person is offering something for sale, and the other person is spending hard-earned cash to buy it. Both have worked hard to be able to offer the other something he or she wants. That's trust—and, dare I say, intimacy. For customers, paying for something sets a high expectation.
...
As an entrepreneur, you should welcome that pressure. You should want to be forced to be good at what you do."
...
"There are different pathways to the same dollar
.
Don't just charge. Try as many different pricing models as you can. That's a great way to get better at making money."
...
"It's Never Too Soon to Be Hungry - The true value of bootstrapping
.
I began learning these things when I was 14.
...
I've borrowed money to start a business only once. My parents gave me $5,000 to buy my first computer when I went to college. I'm embarrassed to admit I never paid them back, but that's only because I knew they'd never accept the money. One day, I'll figure out how to make that happen.

But that's it. Everything else has been bootstrapped—even though dozens of venture capitalists and private equity firms have offered us lots of money. Instead, my customers have always been my investors. My goal has always been to be profitable on Day One. (Moi ici: Concentração desde o primeiro dia na rentabilidade. O "nice to have" e as tretas do costume desviam a atenção do essencial e torram preciosos e escassos recursos. Por isso, depois, temos os 30 a 40% de Byrnes)

I can't say enough about bootstrapping. Whether you're starting your first business or your next one, my advice is to bootstrap it. Bootstrapping forces you to think about making money on Day One. There's a fundamental difference between a bootstrapped business and a funded business. It's all about which side of the money you're on. From Day One, a bootstrapped business has no choice but to make money. There's no cushion in the bank and not much in the pockets. It's make money or go home. To a bootstrapped business, money is air.

On the other hand, from Day One, a funded business is all about spending money. There's a pile in the bank, and it's not there to collect interest. Your investors want you to hire, invest, and buy. There's less—and in some cases, no—pressure to make money. While that sounds comforting, I think it ultimately hurts. It replaces the hustle, the scrap, the fight, with a false comfort of "we can worry about that later."

Anyone can spend money. Making it is the hard part, and being forced to do it early is one of the best ways to get better at it later." (Moi ici: Recordar aqui as palavras de Steve Blank, ou de Tony Hsieh: "O problema para uma start-up raramente é falta de dinheiro, muitas vezes o excesso de dinheiro inicial é que é o problema")
...
"Try, Try Again - A word about practicing

.
Like I said at the outset, it's all about practice. Whether you're playing drums or building a business, you're going to be pretty bad at something the first time you try it. The second time isn't much better. Over time, and after a lot of practice, you begin to get there."
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Trechos retirados de "How to Make Money in 6 Easy Steps" publicado na revista Inc., da autoria de Jason Fried, co-autor do importante livro "Rework"

A percepção, a recordação e não a realidade, é o que conta

"Is customer service what the customer experiences? Not exactly. Customer service is what the customer perceives and remembers. The acid test of customer service is the customer's future behavior.
…
Here, the customers’ perception, not the reality, is what really counts."
.
Quando um cliente reclama nada está perdido.
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Trechos recolhidos de "Islands of Profit in a Sea of Red Ink" de Jonathan Byrnes.

Preço - A alavanca esquecida

Excelente texto logo a abrir o livro "Power Pricing" de Robert Dolan e Hermann Simon:
.
"The three profit drivers are sales volume, price, and costs. Specifically:
.

Profit = sales volume x price – costs

.
Sales volume inevitably gets everyone’s attention. What actions are we going to undertake to move product? What investments are required in sales force, advertising, and production capacity? Sales volume is seen as a controllable outcome of company actions. (Moi ici: Esta é, ainda, a alavanca mais procurada... mas num mundo com um excesso de oferta é cada vez menos exequível. Arrisco afirmar que é a aposta irreflectida, instintiva, nesta variável que gera os números identificados por Jonathan Byrnes: "If you look carefully at the net profitability of virtually any company, using a technique I call profit mapping, only 20-30 percent of the company by any measure (customers, products, orders) is profitable, while 30-40 percent is unprofitable, and the remainder is marginal.". Por isto é que tantos empresários torcem o nariz à afirmação de Terry Hill: "the most important orders are the ones to which a company says 'no'." Rejeitar encomendas é visto como um pecado.)
.
Recently, (Moi ici: Este texto é de 1996, há que contextualizar...) the “costs” part of the equation has received the spotlight in many companies as companies like AT&T are “rightsized” and processes are “reengineered” in an attempt to “get the costs out.” (Moi ici: Foi nesta onda que surgiu a febre da certificação da qualidade, da normalização, da subcontratação, da ...) The attitude is that sales volume and costs can and should be managed vigorously. Pricing, however, is often the third front in the battle for profitability, as the scarce resources of management time, energy, and imagination are siphoned off to the first two fronts of sales volume and costs. (Moi ici: Tão verdadeiro!!! Ainda recentemente escrevi sobre o retorno da atenção. Interessante recordar que Hermann Simon, co-autor do livro de onde retirei este trecho, em 2006 escreveu "Manage for Profit not for Market Share" - cuidado com o volume, logo no título - onde a certa altura grita "We are not cost cutters")
.
The power pricer does not treat price like a third front; rather, he brings it to the fore. The power pricer believes price can be managed as effectively as other profit drivers and recognizes the extraordinary leverage that price offers. (Moi ici: O artigo de Marn e Rosiello ilustram como apostar no preço é muito mais poderoso do que no volume ou nos custos)
The power pricer does not let “the market” or “the competition” set his price. His viewpoint is that given a customer’s wants, his offering and its presentation, along with competitive products and prices, create a value for his product. He coordinates this “value creation” with pricing, his “value extraction” activity, and understands the system relationship among his profit drivers. Price is a key element of his profit system and he does not give up control of it to someone or something else; nor does he see it as less manageable than the other profit drivers." (Moi ici: Mas não basta querer dominar o preço, há que o merecer. Mais uma vez, praticar preços mais altos não é para quem quer é para quem pode. E como é que se pode? Fazendo a diferença! Sendo diferente!)

All revenue dollars are not equally profitable

Mais um excelente trecho de Jonathan Byrnes no livro "Islands of Profit in a Sea of Red Ink":
.
"You are what you sell
Your sales force is like the front-wheel drive of a car: it pulls you through the marketplace. Regardless of your plans and intentions, your company is what it sells.
.
What then do you sell? To answer this question, just look at your sales compensation system. In most companies, the sales force is rewarded for bringing in revenues, occasionally for units of product, but rarely for profitability. Yet all revenue dollars are not equally profitable. This is the essence of the problem—and the opportunity!
...
in the General Manager's story increased his company's profitability by over 50 percent, without capital investment, by shifting from revenue-focused selling to profit-focused selling."

Um profit map?

Enquanto lia este artigo "Exportações são o segredo do novo fôlego da fábrica de cerâmica das Caldas da Rainha" onde sublinhei os seguintes trechos:
.
"os resultados ainda não são positivos e que é necessário um incremento de mais 50 por cento nas vendas para se sair do vermelho, mas ficaram para trás os tempos conturbados dos salários em atraso e do risco de todo o património de Bordalo Pinheiro se perder."
...
""No primeiro semestre de 2010 crescemos 60 por cento face ao período homólogo anterior e desde Outubro o ritmo de produção é quatro vezes superior ao de 2009". Joaquim Beato, administrador da empresa, diz que fechou o ano com uma facturação de 1,9 milhões de euros e lucros que são quase simbólicos (12 mil euros), mas que representam uma melhoria brutal face ao período negro vivido há dois anos."
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Não pude deixar de recordar o livro que ando a ler de Jonathan Byrnes "Islands of Profit in a Sea of Red Ink":
.
"The hunt for profits begins in your own backyard. The theme of this book is that in most companies, 20 to 30 percent of the business provides most of the profits, while 30 to 40 percent of the customers, products, and transactions lose money. The key question is how to identify which is which."
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Byrnes recomenda um "profit map":
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"It enables you to cluster your customers, products, services, and transactions by profitability, to assess and prioritize your key profit levers, and to crystallize this into a high-impact action plans."
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E sobretudo este ponto tão comum nas empresas:
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"Some managers argue that it is a good idea to accept business that contributes, even marginally, to covering overhead. However , when you take on a lot of business that contributes only marginally to overhead, in almost all cases it will absorb a significant amount of sales and operations resources that otherwise would have been devoted to increasing your "good" business. And it will remain and grow into the embedded unprofitability that drags down earnings in company after company."
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Como não conheço nada da empresa em causa, é óbvio que apenas especulo com a minha curiosidade natural.
.

Não é o que nos acontece que conta, é a forma como decidimos encarar o que nos acontece

Continuando a nossa leitura de "Islands of Profit in a Sea of Red Ink" de Jonathan Byrnes.
.
"Recession Opportunities":
.
"Recession; is this the worst of times or the best of times?

The answer is both. Difficult times bring difficult problems to all managers, but they also create rare opportunities for renewing change.
.
Consider cost-cutting. In recession, revenues fall, cash is depleted, and stock prices plummet. In most companies, the instinctive reaction is “all hands on deck” cutting costs. The problem with cost-cutting, however, is two-fold: managers often do it wrong, and cost-cutting is not enough.
.
Managers charged with cost-cutting in recessionary times all too often focus inordinately on short-term incremental gains, and miss major strategic opportunities.
...
What are the implications for cost-cutting? It means that there is a bad way and a good way to cut costs.
.
The bad way is to cut across the board (“let’s get inventory and travel expenses down…”). The good way is to look very carefully at your company and identify the winners and losers in terms of profitability and growth potential. The key is to shift resources systematically from the losers to the winners.
.
This will enable you to lock in and nurture the profitable portion of your business, and to find and land more high-potential business. In the vernacular, you should “shoot one, promote one.”
.
Opportunity for change
.
It turns out that economic difficulties present a critical opportunity to drive progressive change in a company.
.
When my readers confirmed that the profitability pattern I wrote about was so widespread, I called a number of top executives to ask a simple question, “Why aren’t you doing anything about it?”
.
The answer varied a bit from individual to individual, but the essence was the same: it’s too hard to move a company to change when it’s doing well. This was a dilemma. It was very hard for executives to execute fundamental change, even when they knew that it would create major lasting improvements.
.
Recession changes all of this. It is ironic that difficult economic times present one of the most important opportunities to drive renewing change in a company. In difficult times, with the company in jeopardy, managers throughout the company are very worried. It is precisely at this time that they will be most receptive to initiatives and change. Importantly, the same is true for customers and suppliers."
.
Claro que quem recorre a apoios e subsídios adia a necessidade de se re-inventar. Recordo sempre o caso da Pirelli e a introdução de "Confronting Reality" de Larry Bossidy e Ram Charan:
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“To confront reality is to recognize the world as it is, not as you wish it to be, and have the courage to do what must be done, not what you’d like to do.”
.
"The most widespread unrealistic behavior when the game changes drastically is to violate the First Law of Holes (when you're in one, stop digging). People redouble their efforts to do waht they know best. They often achieve heroic results - which are, alas, almost as often pointless, because they fail to confront the new realities.”

Nunca esquecer: profit is sanity, volume is vanity

Mal comecei a ler "Islands of Profit in a Sea of Red Ink" de Jonathan Byrnes dei por bem empregue o meu dinheiro.
.
Claro que só podia ficar positivamente impressionado quando ao segundo capítulo encontro este título prometedor ""Revenues are Good, Costs are Bad" and Other Business Myths" e para não perder o momentum Byrnes começa logo ao ataque:
.
"1. Revenues are good, costs are bad
This is the biggest myth of all. The truth is that some revenues are very profitable, and some are very unprofitable. If you use profit mapping to look carefully at the net profitability of virtually any company, 20 to 30 percent is profitable, 30-40 percent is unprofitable, and the remainder is marginal. Islands of profit in a sea of red ink.
.
By focusing on average, or aggregate, profitability, you lose this essential fact, along with the opportunity to radically increase profitability at very little cost using sharply targeted measures. Because most sales compensation systems are based simply on revenues - and not all sales dollars are equally profitable (many are not profitable at all) - most companies are doomed to carry significant embedded unprofitability. (Moi ici: Please rewind and read again and again and again. Em 2009, uma PME que conheço, descobriu com espanto que, apesar da facturação ter caído cerca de 30%, teve lucro semelhante ao de 2008. Teve a sorte da crise a ter livrado dos clientes não rentáveis.)
.
What about costs? If all revenues are viewed as equally desirable, it follows that all costs are uniformly bad. Thus, most cost reduction programs are broad and across the board. In fact, the very profitable portion of your business can support the extra expenditures needed to lock in and grow that portion of your business. But this is usually precluded because the unprofitable business absorbs unwarranted resources. The danger is that competitors can identify and pick off your best business by focusing their resources very selectively.

2. We should give our customers what they want
This myth goes to the heart of how you define your business. You should give your customers what they need, which often is different from what they want. What your customers want is usually defined by their current way of doing business; what they need usually moves them forward and enables them to change and improve their business.
...
3. Sales reps should sell, operations should fulfill orders
In transactional account relationships, where you are responding to one-off customer needs, this distinction holds true. But in relationship selling, operations has a critical role, both in the initial sale and on an ongoing basis.
...
4. All customers should get the same great service
In most companies, if you try to give all customers the same great service, service declines and costs spin out of control. When this happens, management has trouble rebalancing the supply chain: The objectives swing back and forth between cost and service like a pendulum. One quarter, management focuses on reducing inventories because costs are too high; the next quarter, they push for increased inventories because "the customers are screaming."
.
The answer is service differentiation, a process in which you set different order cycle times for different customers and products. Typically, customers are divided into core and non-core categories, according to sales volume, profitability, and loyalty. Products are similarly divided into core and non-core categories according to sales volume, profitability, criticality, and substitutability.
.
When you break your customers into these four groups, it turns out that each group can best be served with a different supply chain, each with finely tuned service and cost characteristics. The key is to make different but appropriate order cycle promises to different customers for different products, but always to keep the promises you make. (Moi ici: AGAIN!!! Please rewind and read again and again and again. Diferentes clientes-alvo chamam valor a coisas diferentes, logo, precisam de ser servidos por diferentes cadeias de valor.)
.
5. Supply chain integration is a great goal
I recall seeing a presentation depicting the stages of supply chain evolution. The stages progressed from primitive arm's-length relationships to sophisticated, fully integrated channels. The clear implication was that the latter was the ideal to which all supply chains should aspire. This is ridiculous.
.
The proper degree of supply chain integration should reflect a variety of factors, including channel economics, customer willingness and ability to innovate, loyalty, and customer-supplier strategic alignment. For example, if you created a simple 2x2 matrix with customer importance on one axis, and customer willingness and ability to innovate on the other, you would find that the correct degree of supply chain integration depends on the quadrant the customer is in. Because companies have finite resources, and supply chain integration is a very intense relationship, it is necessary to be very selective and tailor the degree of supply chain integration to the account relationship."
.
Continua.
"

Fazer o by-pass ao país

Nos últimos dias tenho apontado aqui no blogue algumas notas que sublinhei no livro "How Companies Win" de Rick Kash e David Calhoun e que estão em total sintonia com o que aqui defendo há anos sobre a importância de escolher os clientes-alvo e focar toda a organização no serviço a esses clientes.
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Actualmente ando a ler outro livro recente que vai na mesma onda "Islands of Profit in a Sea of Red Ink" de Jonathan Byrnes. Ontem mesmo sublinhei este trecho:
.
"Everyone knows that if you are not best at something, someone better will beat you. So why does this happen to so many companies?
...
Many managers are so reluctant to let go of any business opportunity, they cannot make the choices necessary to create a focused strategy. They cannot say no.
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Instead, they dissipate their go-to-market resources (resources used to engage a company's customers, including a company's sales force, advertising, promotion, and supply chain integration) across too broad a customer/product/service base, and fail to achieve meaningful traction in any one area. Because the incoming business stream is so diverse, they cannot focus their operations and supply chain to achieve the major gains in productivity and accelerated sales that come from aligning sales and operations.
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It all comes back to the core reasons for strategy: focus and alignment.
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Companies that fall into the trap of trying to be everything to everyone almost by definition cannot be best at something. This leads to a vicious cycle."
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Como a figura 12 daqui ilustra:
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"Uma empresa que em simultâneo, procure trabalhar com clientes que valorizam acima de tudo o preço baixo e, com clientes que privilegiam o serviço, o produto à medida, estará em desvantagem com um concorrente dedicado a uma única proposta de valor"
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A primeira vez que neste blogue se utilizou o marcador "Clientes-alvo".
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Na quinta-feira da semana passada tive uma reunião numa empresa de calçado. A conversa com o empresário decorreu na sala de amostras onde estavam expostos os modelos para a colecção do Inverno do próximo ano.
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Quando o empresário chegou à sala, apontei para um modelo em particular e perguntei por quanto é que estaria à venda numa montra.
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O empresário disse-me que o modelo, como todos os outros, não era para vender em Portugal, era para exportar e talvez chegasse à montra com um preço a rondar os 90€.
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Por que é que mais de 95% da produção de calçado português é para exportação?
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Porque o sector especializou-se, concentrou-se em trabalhar para um tipo de clientes-alvo que não tem massa crítica em Portugal. Tentar vender modelos de 90€ em quantidades interessantes no mercado português não é rentável...
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Escrevo tudo isto motivado por estes dois artigos sobre as palavras de Carlos Tavares, presidente da CMVM.
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"Carlos Tavares diz que empresas portuguesas perderam quota no mercado interno":
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""Mais do que pôr a tónica nas exportações temos que ser fortes no mercado interno. Se não conseguirmos competir aqui dificilmente vamos competir noutros mercados", afirmou Carlos Tavares.
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"As empresas portuguesas têm perdido quota no seu próprio mercado. Sem resolver esses problemas, dificilmente podem ter sucesso nos mercados externos", acrescentou o presidente da CMVM."
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Esta abordagem é nova... qual o CV de Carlos Tavares? Qual a sua experiência de vida? O que o habilita a mandar estes bitaites sobre o que as PMEs exportadoras devem ou não fazer?
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Aquilo que permite a estas PMEs serem suficientemente competitivas na exportação é, muitas vezes o que as impede de ser competitivas no mercado interno. Os consumidores do mercado interno têm um poder de compra muito diferente dos que consomem nos mercados externos. Por isso, escrevo e falo tantas vezes nas empresas que fazem by-pass ao país.
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Depois, no mesmo artigo, Carlos Tavares afirma:
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"Para Carlos Tavares, as "empresas portuguesas não têm tempo para crescer passo a passo. Precisam de crescer rapidamente"."
...
"O economista disse ainda que no mercado aberto em que concorrem grandes empresas, ser pequeno não é positivo: "neste caso 'small' não é 'beautiful'"."
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Num outro artigo "Carlos Tavares: «Empresas não se prepararam a tempo»" afirma:
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"A afectar a competitividade, segundo o presidente da CMVM, está a dimensão das empresas e a concorrência: «Neste caso, o small não é beautiful. Temos muito carinho pelas pequenas e micro empresas, mas no sector dos bens transaccionáveis são precisas empresas com dimensão, fortes, para primeiro ganhar o mercado interno e depois os mercados internacionais»."
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Lamento mas julgo que Carlos Tavares está mas é interessado em conseguir que mais PMEs entrem no mercado bolsista, não esquecer o que diz Hermann Simon sobre isso, as mittelstand não estão na bolsa, são campeões anónimos, mantêm, por isso, a paciência estratégica para apostar no longo prazo.
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As empresas portuguesas, ao contrário do que diz Carlos Tavares, ainda encalhado nos modelos mentais que aprendeu como uma tabuada quando frequentava os bancos da universidade, não precisam de escala, precisam é de flexibilidade, precisam de rapidez, precisam é de criatividade. E procurar servir bem, em simultâneo o mercado nacional e o mercado externo pode ser desaconselhável se isso obrigar a apresentar diferentes propostas de valor.
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"são precisas empresas com dimensão, fortes, para primeiro ganhar o mercado interno e depois os mercados internacionais" arrisco afirmar que esta frase só é marginalmente verdadeira se a proposta de valor for a do preço mais baixo. No calçado, no têxtil, no mobiliário, na maquinaria, na farmacêutica, na... a dimensão não é crítica, por que no negócio do preço puro e duro não temos hipóteses.
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BTW, o que está a acontecer ao mega-gigante Walmart é sintomático da chegada de Mongo, a arte é mais valiosa do que a massa.

"Demand now rules" e isso faz toda a diferença!

A leitura de "How Companies Win" de Rick Kash e David Calhoun foi uma constante espécie de reconfortante "dejá vu" relativamente às ideias defendidas neste blogue e no nosso trabalho nas empresas:
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"3. Supply Chain Management
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no longer the decisive factor it once was.
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Supply must be tempered, channeled, and directed by an equivalent attention to the demand side of the equation. Your supply chain can’t truly be optimized unless you thoroughly understand the demand it is built to serve" (Moi ici: Dá para recordar logo "este artigo da Harvard Business Review na internet "Lean Consumption" de James P. Womack e Daniel T. Jones, onde se pode ler:
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"Shoe stores don’t do any better. By relocating most production for North America and Europe to Southeast Asia and putting retailers on 150-day order windows, the shoe industry has created a marvel of low cost at the factory gate in combination with an extraordinary array of styles (about half of which only endure for one three-month selling season). But suppose you want the size nine “Wonder Wings” in gray? The chances are only 80% (an industry average) that they will be in stock; and there is a good possibility (because of the long order window) that they will never be in stock again. Not to worry, though. There are millions of size nine Wonder Wings in pink available and many more on the way because the order flow, once turned on, cannot be turned off and the replenishment cycle is so long. As a result, the shoe industry fails to get one customer in five the product he or she actually wants, while it remainders 40% of total production (pink Wonder Wings, for example) through secondary channels at much lower revenues."
.E ainda o início da coluna "The perils of efficiency" neste outro artigo da Harvard Business Review de Outubro de 2004 "The Triple A Supply Chain" de Hau Lee").
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4. Alignment and Execution
No organization can win if its parts are not all aligned to execute the same strategy and achieve the same goals.
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The company that has not aligned its internal resources in pursuit of a precisely defined goal is wasting resources (Moi ici: concentrar uma organização no que é essencial!) it can no longer afford to squander. And the company that can’t execute with ever greater speed is one that risks being left behind.
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1. The Primacy of Demand
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demand is the new game changer. You can’t win anymore through great supply chain management alone; it remains necessary, but it is no longer sufficient. Today, almost every industry and category is in a significant oversupply situation, and any company that expects to maintain strong profitability and outpace its competitors must compete on demand. Demand now rules, and it will for years to come.
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2. Adding the Fifth P: Precision
For forty years, most business students have been taught the four P’s of marketing: product, price, place, and promotion. This model has proven to be remarkably influential and enduring. But to win in this new competitive environment we need to add one more P to the mix: precision. The greater the precision in analyzing demand, the tighter the alignment between what you want to sell and what the customer wants to buy. (Moi ici: Ainda recentemente encontrei o mesmo termo "precision markets" nas palavras de Jonathan Byrnes).

3. Innovation as a Science of Demand
In the demand economy, a spirit of innovation must now permeate the entire organization.
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Successful innovation is to find unsatisfied profitable demand and fulfill it.
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4. Developing a Clear Thesis for Winning
… powerful thesis for how they will win in the marketplace that can be expressed in simple terms the entire organization can understand.
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5. Building the Mental Model
It is not enough to simply express your company’s strategy for competing and winning against the competition. Rather, that strategy must be supported, endorsed, and believed in by the people inside the company. This is best accomplished with the creation of a clear statement of how the company will win, and then that statement must be promulgated through every part of the company until it becomes second nature to every employee. A successful Mental Model of how you will compete and win is shared throughout your organization." (Moi ici: é aqui que um mapa da estratégia faz maravilhas como suporte para a comunicação e o alinhamento das mentes)

Quem são os clientes mais rentáveis? (parte I)

No final de Dezembro, por causa da publicidade na revista HBR fiz uma compra por impulso e encomendei um livro.
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Mais de um mês depois o livro chegou-me a casa... e já não me lembrava de o ter encomendado e, mais importante, já não me lembrava do motivo porque o tinha escolhido, e isso intrigou-me.
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Assim, mal tive uma aberta foi para ele que foi a minha opção de leitura experimental.
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O livro chama-se "How companies win - Profiting from demand-driven business models no matter what business you're in" de Rick Kash e David Calhoun e tem sido uma agradável surpresa. Há já vários meses que não lia um livro tão útil assim.
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O livro é um hino à defesa que fazemos neste blogue e na nossa vida profissional do conceito de cliente-alvo.
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O livro na parte inicial, defende que os clientes não são todos iguais e que diferentes clientes querem e valorizam coisas diferentes. No entanto, chama a atenção para o facto das empresas dividirem os seus clientes em segmentos em função da idade, geografia, rendimentos e... mas isso tudo não passarem de elementos exteriores à compra, o que é que uma empresa pode fazer para aumentar a venda de produtos topo de gama numa dada zona?
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Os autores dividem a história económica mundial nestas 4 temporadas:

• market equilibrium (1947 - 1990) (equilíbrio entre a oferta e a procura);
• oversupply (1991 - 2007)
• demand contraction (2008 - 2009)
• demand-driven economy (2010 and beyond)

IMHO a "demand-driven economy" para as PMEs exportadoras portuguesas começou há muito mais tempo, com a adesão da China à OMC, com a queda do Muro de Berlim e a abertura da Europa de Leste, e com o fim do escudo como moeda fraca com a qual se podiam fazer manigâncias em conluio com os governos.
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"... whenever there's a growing ratio of supply to demand, there is a downward pressure on prices and profit. Organic growth, which has always been difficult to achieve, becomes ever more elusive.
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For the next several years, businesses will find themselves in a period of hypercompetition driven by flat demand and significant increases in lower-cost supply. The conclusion: companies that have a competitively advantaged understanding of profitable demand will be the winners." (Moi ici: olhar para o mercado, olhar para a procura e em vez de ver todos como potenciais clientes, ver diferentes tipos de procura, como num mapa militar olhar para o terreno e ver diferentes curvas de nível, ou seja, diferentes tipos de clientes)
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Durante décadas as empresas concentraram-se na sua cadeia de fornecimento, na escolha, na localização dos fornecedores de materiais, componentes e subcontratados, focaram a sua atenção na redução de custos e no aumento da eficiência.

No entanto, num mundo com excesso de oferta, o fundamental é a concentração na criação, no desenvolvimento e aprofundamento de uma outra cadeia, a cadeia da procura.

Ainda ontem reflectimos aqui sobre o preço e sobre a importância, o impacte, que um aumento de apenas 1% tem nos lucros de uma empresa.
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Num mundo com excesso de oferta é impossível subir o preço e não esperar uma quebra de volume de vendas.
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"Ultimately, pricing is about control. When you lose your power to set prices to your best advantage, you also lose the ability to shape the market. You lose the ability to maximize your profits. That means you are no longer in control of your destiny. And, as every business leader knows, that is a very vulnerable - and dangerous - place to be."
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O primeiro conselho dos autores começa com uma pergunta:
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"What do you know about the demand of your most profitable customers that your competitors don't know?
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It is the precise and strategic answer to this question that enables you to make and align differentiated supply so that it better satisfies the demand of your most profitable customers."
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Aqui convém fazer uma interrupção e recordar as palavras de Kotler em "Marketing para o século XXI":
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Philip Kotler no livro “Marketing para o século XXI” chama a atenção para a relação 20/80/30.
Já ouviu falar dela?
De certeza que já ouvi falar na relação 20/80.
80% dos lucros de uma empresa são gerados pelos 20 clientes mais rentáveis.
E os 30? O que querem dizer?
Os 30 clientes menos rentáveis provocam um corte de metade dos lucros de uma empresa.
Pense bem no significado, no impacte, desta relação…
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E como será na sua empresa?
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Uma empresa esfalfa-se a trabalhar para os 20 clientes mais rentáveis para, depois, desperdiçar metade do que lucrou a servir os 30 clientes menos rentáveis.
Além de Kotler, vários outros autores chamam a atenção para este fenómeno. Os clientes não são todos iguais, há clientes com os quais se perde dinheiro, mesmo quando pagam a tempo e horas.
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Jonathan Byrnes num livro recente "Islands of Profit in a Sea of Red Ink" (Já chegou e é o próximo na lista de prioridades de leitura) escreve:
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“numa empresa típica, 30 a 40% das vendas não são rentáveis, geram prejuízo, enquanto que outra parcela das vendas - por vezes mais de 20 a 30% - é responsável pela maior parte da rentabilidade da empresa.”
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A mesma história!
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E como será na sua empresa?
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Quer isto dizer que as empresas, ao tentarem servir todo o tipo de clientes, desperdiçam muitos recursos.
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Voltando ao "How Companies Win":
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"Real success comes from the combination of understanding demand and then (Moi ici: O que se segue é o fruto do mosaico sobre o qual escrevemos há algumas semanas) creating the right product, the right package, the right price, and the right communications and total messaging, so that your total proposition aligns with that demand.
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What do you know about the demand of your most profitable customers that your competitors don't know? Do you know the answer? If not, can you find that answer? If you can't, you can at least take heart in the fact that your predicament is shared by most companies - even some of world's largest corporations.
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This shouldn't be surprinsing. In a world focused for generations on supply, that wasn't a question most companies ever needed to ask of themselves. But today it is.
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Perhaps the best way to begin answering this question is to break it down into four focused questions:

• Who are my most profitable customers?
• What is their unsatisfied current, latent, and emerging demand?
• How do I differentiate my products and services so I better satisfy the demand of those most profitable customers?
• What is the action plan so I can align the people inside of my company to satisfy the demand for all our customers outside of my company?"

Estas quatro perguntas são as clássicas:

• Quem são os clientes-alvo?
• O que procuram e valorizam?
• Como nos vamos distinguir?
• Como nos vamos organizar num mosaico que produza naturalmente essa proposta?

"With entire pools of demand evaporating in the current economy, and others becoming commoditized and low-profit in the face of global oversupply, finding those highest-profit customer clusters, growing them, and then hanging on to them for dear life may decide your company's future."

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BTW, uma pergunta para reflexão ... e o que têm feito as mittelstand?

Continua.

The Age of Precision Markets

Ontem, por causa deste comentário:
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"Gostava de ver, por exemplo um curso profissional, com o nome de "gestão aplicada aos têxteis", em que fosse estudado o sector têxtil de uma forma profunda, em que os tais gestores saiam com uma ideia precisa do que é necessário fazer para catapultar as empresas do têxtil para o sucesso. É disto que as empresas precisam, desde que leccionados por pessoas que saibam o que as empresas precisam.... refiro-me à gestão, mas é apenas um exemplo...."
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Recordei este trecho lido durante a manhã:
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"most companies' policies and processes reflect each company's situation three to five years ago. However, because supply chains involve long-lived facilities and equipment, in many companies they actually are designed to address the company's operating needs from ten to twenty years earlier"
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Pois é John, a velocidade a que mudam os factores abióticos é muito superior à velocidade a que a lei da vida muda os catedráticos nas escolas. Ainda hoje há doutorados a chefiar linhas de investigação e a ensinar, que se doutoraram antes do 1º choque petrolífero... como estão longe da vida real...
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E os economistas que foram educados no tempo em que a oferta era inferior à procura? Continuam a teimar seguir algoritmos formulados num mundo que já não existe.
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Ou seja, aquilo que é necessário para catapultar uma empresa têxtil para o sucesso ... está sempre a mudar!!!
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Encontrei estes dois artigos de Jonathan Byrnes que são absolutamente deliciosos e preciosos, em sintonia com o que defendemos neste blogue e, sobretudo, prevendo o sucesso da hipótese MONGO.
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"You Only Have One Supply Chain?" (Moi ici: Uma das razões para o regresso dos clientes estrangeiros a Portugal no B2B. Staple products podem continuar a vir da China, se os chineses continuarem interessados, seasonal e fashion products devem ser produzidos mais perto do consumo por causa da incerteza e da volatilidade da procura)
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"The Age of Precision Markets" (Moi ici: A nossa pregação missionária acerca dos clientes-alvo, da proposta de valor, da concentração... )
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"Toward the middle of the twentieth century, mass markets had developed to the point where their submarkets, or segments, were large enough to support efficient-scale production and market development. These segments were defined by demographics and psychographics (e.g., children's aspirin, jogging shoes). In response, mass marketing companies adapted or differentiated their products to fit these markets in a sort of "theme and variations" strategy. For ease of exposition, I'll refer to both the earlier mass markets and these large segmented markets as "mass markets."
The rise of mass markets created huge benefits for society, and also formed the dominant paradigm of how companies are managed today.
All that is changing.
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The shift from mass markets to precision markets is manifested along several dimensions. It is a shift (1) from product-driven competition to account-driven competition; (2) from product innovation to supply chain innovation (including related services); (3) from broad-market targeting to precision account targeting; (4) from standardized, broad market engagement to focused, aligned, flexible market engagement; and (5) from functional department separateness with periodic budgetary and planning alignment to functional integration with overlapping responsibilities and ongoing alignment.
Like all paradigm shifts, the old will not simply go away; rather, it will be subsumed, enriched, and extended by the new. The essential difference between the old and the new is what each leads to operationally. Mass markets accommodate "silo" management, and the management focus is primarily on marketing and product positioning.
Precision markets offer a new way of thinking about a business, where marketing is just one of the main components. Even though a precision market will be defined around a "segment," which may be just an account, developing these markets requires an organic, whole-business response that goes far beyond classical marketing."
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Quem é que nas universidades está a estudar este fenómeno e as suas implicações em Portugal?

Concentrar, focar, alinhar, sintonizar, ... sempre!!!

Uma das minhas principais divergências com as decisões de gestão de muitas PMEs portuguesas... a violação da primeira regra de Hermann Simon para as Mittelstand (PMEs exportadoras alemãs) como referi aqui:
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"2. Define a market narrowly and in so doing include both customer needs and technology. Don’t accept given market definitions but consider the market definition itself part of strategy. Stay focused and concentrated. Avoid distractions. (Moi ici: Este é, talvez, o desafio mais difícil… se voltarmos ao final da série sobre a ideia de mosaico, facilmente veremos que concentração e especialização, implicam um trade-off aterrador para muitos, um autêntico pacto faustiano, aumentar a rentabilidade em troca da redução dos graus de liberdade para o futuro… e se factores abióticos alteram a apaisagem competitiva enrugada? Há o risco da empresa perder o pé e cair num vale mortífero)"
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Vem isto a propósito do artigo "Increasing Profits, Sans Pain" publicado na MIT Sloan Management Review. .
Um artigo que devia chegar aos gabinetes dos gestores de muitas empresas, portuguesas também.
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"in a typical company, 30 to 40% of revenues are actually unprofitable, while another fraction of revenues — often more like 20 to 30% — accounts for most of the organization’s profitability."
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Outros artigos do mesmo autor, Jonathan Byrnes:

•  "The Bottom Line: Who's Managing Profitability?"
• "Which Customers Don't Fit?" ("most companies don't manage profitability on a day-to-day basis—coordinating sales and operations to maximize profits to the fullest potential. Consequently, they have a few islands of high profitability, but lots of unprofitable accounts, products, and transactions.")
• "The Bottom Line, The Hunt for Profits"