O 1º passo para aumentar a produtividade de uma empresa.

Neste clipe, falo sobre o impacto das empresas inexistentes na produtividade nacional. Essa é a cena do Carlos cidadão; essa é a cena de actuação dos políticos e dos governos.

E o Carlos consultor?

O Carlos consultor trabalha com as empresas existentes. Trabalha com as empresas concretas que querem aumentar a sua produtividade. No entanto, o Carlos consultor não se concentra na eficiência (bom, se uma empresa trabalhar no sector não transaccionável o trabalhar a eficiência, pode, por si só, gerar milagres. A maior parte das vezes trabalhar a eficiência é o meio de preparar a empresa para o salto seguinte, o arrumar a casa para a "the next big thing"). Trabalhar a eficiência é manter-se no quadrante 1, e isso só funciona para quem pode e não para quem quer. Recordar a 1ª lição da teoria dos jogos.

O ponto de partida é trabalhar o numerador da equação da produtividade. Trabalhar o numerador significa aumentar o valor potencial para os clientes. Quando se aumenta o valor, pode-se naturalmente elevar o preço. E o aumento do preço tem um impacte muito maior no aumento das margens do que a redução dos custos.

Tudo começa nos clientes. Se uma empresa existe, é porque tem clientes. Quem devem ser os clientes-alvo?

Em 2011 descobri as curvas de Stobachoff.

O que são as curvas de Stobachoff?

Imaginemos uma empresa concreta com 100 clientes.

No final do ano, somamos quanto cada cliente pagou, menos tudo o que custou servi-lo (descontos, visitas comerciais, apoio técnico, urgências, retrabalho, gestão de conflitos, tempo da equipa).

Depois, fazemos um exercício simples, mas raro:

1. Ordenamos os clientes do mais rentável ao menos rentável.
2. Começamos a somar o lucro, cliente a cliente, nessa ordem.
3. Desenhamos um gráfico em que, no eixo horizontal, estão os clientes (do melhor para o pior) e, no eixo vertical, o lucro acumulado.

O que aparece quase sempre não é uma linha recta. Aparece uma curva que sobe muito depressa com poucos clientes… e depois abranda… e muitas vezes desce no fim.

A essa curva chamamos a curva de Stobachoff.

Ela mostra, de forma visual e impossível de ignorar:

• quantos clientes realmente sustentam o negócio;
• quantos não fazem grande diferença; e 
• quantos estão, na prática, a destruir valor.

Não é um exercício financeiro sofisticado. É um exercício de honestidade económica sobre quem paga o salário no fim do mês. Se uma empresa desaparecer amanhã, não são "os clientes" em abstracto que vão sentir a sua falta. São alguns clientes muito concretos, e a curva de Stobachoff diz-nos exactamente quais são.

Clientes diferentes geram retornos diferentes (e não é por serem "bons" ou
"maus")

Um ponto importante: clientes pouco rentáveis não são desonestos, nem incompetentes, nem "maus clientes" no sentido moral. O problema é outro.

Clientes diferentes usam o mesmo produto de formas distintas, exigem níveis de serviço muito distintos, geram custos invisíveis (tempo, atenção, urgências, excepções) e valorizam coisas diferentes.

Um cliente pode pagar pouco, exigir muito, gerar atrasos, aumentar o risco, consumir foco da gestão, ... tudo isto sem nunca violar um contrato.

Outro cliente, com o mesmo produto, paga mais, pede menos, planeia melhor, valoriza a aplicação certa do serviço. Resultado: margens radicalmente diferentes.

As curvas de Stobachoff tornam isto visível. Sem moralismos. Sem narrativas. Só factos.

Como as curvas de Stobachoff ajudam a identificar os clientes que mais valorizam o que oferecemos

Quando desenhamos a curva, há normalmente uma parte inicial muito inclinada. Essa parte diz-nos algo fundamental: Uma pequena percentagem de clientes explica uma grande parte do lucro.

Esses clientes:

• percebem o valor da proposta de valor,
• usam o produto na aplicação certa,
• estão dispostos a pagar por isso, e
• reforçam a lógica económica do negócio.

São estes clientes que justificam investimento, merecem atenção estratégica, e devem servir de referência para novos clientes.

A curva de Stobachoff responde, de forma brutalmente honesta, a esta pergunta: Quem são os clientes para quem isto que fazemos faz realmente sentido?

E isso é trabalhar o numerador da produtividade: valor criado, não custos cortados.

Imaginem o impacte de substituir clientes não lucrativos por clientes lucrativos…

Como as curvas de Stobachoff revelam que clientes destroem valor, aumentam risco e roubam foco

A parte final da curva é a mais ignorada — e a mais perigosa. É aí que aparecem os clientes que:

• reduzem o lucro total;
• são subsidiados pelos bons clientes;
• aumentam a complexidade operacional;
• criam excepções atrás de excepções, e 
• geram ruído, urgência e entropia.

Em muitos casos:

• os 75% melhores clientes geram 120% do lucro, 
• os 25% piores destroem os restantes 20% C 

Aqui está o erro clássico: a empresa acha que está a "ganhar volume", quando na verdade está a comprar risco.

1º passo - determinar os clientes-alvo.

2º focar a empresa em servir esses clientes-alvo

Subir na escala de valor e, como consequência, aumentar a produtividade, mais do que a corrida para o fundo que representa trabalhar só na eficiência, é precisamente o terreno em que tenho trabalhado (o lado Carlos consultor) ao longo dos últimos 30 anos: ajudar organizações a sair da lógica do volume, da eficiência defensiva e da sobrevivência reactiva, e a construir trajectórias sustentáveis de criação de valor. Não por meio de slogans, mas com uma abordagem estruturada que liga estratégia, execução e aprendizagem, combinando Balanced Scorecard, Teoria das Restrições e abordagem por processos.

Se fizer sentido explorar como a sua organização pode libertar capacidade, clarificar o que realmente cria valor para os seus clientes e desenhar conscientemente outro futuro, deixo aqui uma proposta concreta e os próximos passos.

Subir na escala de valor não é um acaso. É uma decisão — e um trabalho contínuo.

O sabotador!!!

Recordar O retrato (parte III), O retrato (parte II) e O retrato. 

"In our experience, customers are rarely profit drains because of below-market pricing; they’re profit drains because of an excessively high cost to serve, generally caused by relatively minor factors that are unseen and unmanaged. The good news is that this is often relatively easy to fix: You can create a win-win solution for both companies, increasing the customers’ own profitability while converting many into profit peaks. We call this process of joint cost reduction — increasing profitability by lowering the cost to serve rather than raising prices — conditional pricing."

Relacionar com isto de "your interests overlap, but they are not the same":

"The mantra that 'the customer is always king' requires interpretation, I learned. The customer is transactional; your interests overlap, but they are not the same. You provide a good service; you delight the customer, but you maintain margins sufficient for a good living and protect your own interests. [Moi ici: Demasiadas vezes quem negoceia o preço com o cliente, a seguir aceita alterações que sabotam as margens negociadas] You do not necessarily cede to every demand a consumer makes,"

Treco inicial retirado de "3 Strategies for Managing Your Profit-Drain Customers" 

 

Acerca da importância de escolher os clientes-alvo

Para reflexão:

"We each have a noise in our heads, an agenda, and something urgent that’s grabbing our attention. And so, the amount of interest you receive (or don’t receive) has little to do with how interesting you are and a lot to do with how the people you seek to serve have organized their priorities long before you got there."

Acerca da importância de escolher os clientes-alvo.

Trecho retirado de "Interested vs. Interesting"

Wrong customer?

A propósito deste artigo "How Under Armour Bet Everything on the Wrong Customer" algumas divergências com o seu conteúdo:

"The “performance” corner of the athletic-wear market — meaning products made for actual sports use, not for sitting on the couch in front of the game — is where Under Armour made its name. [Moi ici: A Under Armour começou com um certo tipo de cliente-alvo que valorizava a performance.]

...
Under Armour went on to live out the axiom that if you win over the most demanding consumers (in this case, serious athletes), then the wannabes fall in line and follow whatever trend those influencers set.[Moi ici: A Under Armour confiou no impacte dos influencers]
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But lately, the company’s strategy hasn’t been a winner. ... Under Armour announced disappointing results and a gloomy forecast, its stock has suffered accordingly, and among other problems, a federal probe is reportedly exploring whether the company used accounting tricks to massage its sales-growth curve.
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What went wrong? One compelling answer is that Under Armour misread the rise of the so-called athleisure trend and put too much focus on performance. In short, this maker of gear for authentic athletes may have been better off catering more to the poseurs and couch potatoes.
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It’s not that a brand can’t be successful with a strict focus on performance, ... But a brand with mass aspirations shouldn’t get overly obsessed with an elite customer niche. “[Under Armour] clearly needs to understand that [performance] is very much the smaller part of the market,” he says. “And a shrinking part of the market.”

A Under Armour quis crescer para o mass market. Por isso, teve de procurar servir um outro tipo de cliente que não o da performance. Ora, parece que os influencers não determinam as compras para esse mercado. Será que o cliente errado da Under Armour é o da performance, como pensa o artigo, ou o do athleisure? Será que a Under Armour tem vantagens competitivas para ter sucesso no mass-market?

Wrong customer ou wrong strategy?

Para reflexão

"Too often, people are limited by their idea of what things should cost. When someone turns you down, and you’re charging an amount of money you’re uncomfortable with, you’re going to assume that you were too expensive. But you’re not necessarily too expensive! That’s the big thing to understand. Most likely, they really said no because:

1. They’re not a good client for you

1. You didn’t communicate your value correctly

1. They were never going to buy from you, and they’re looking for an excuse.

To assume you are like your customer is a giant mistake. Just because you won’t pay for it doesn’t mean somebody else won’t.
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I see clients undercharging all the time. Mostly it’s because they think nobody will pay the appropriate price, so they undercut themselves."

Trecho retirado de "Your Low Prices Might Be Costing You Clients"

"you have to start with the customer experience and work backwards to the technology"

"As Steve Jobs said: you have to start with the customer experience and work backwards to the technology. Jobs understood that when you try to reverse-engineer the need statement from the product, it's too easy to lose touch with reality.
...
Dedicating one or two sentences to the problem statement is often a false economy. For startups, the need is all that really matters. It's the foundation of your entire business. It's how you position your product. It's the 'why'. And it can trigger powerful human emotions like empathy and disgust on command.
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Every need is contextual. It's felt by a particular person at a particular time in pursuit of a particular end-goal. It has a functional side e.g. 'I need to make this picture looks beautiful' and an emotional side e.g. 'I need attention from my friend'. And needs find a way of getting themselves met... with your product or without it.
...
Target audience: Who are your target customers? For B2B startups, who actually uses your product?
General problem: What's a problem that every target customer can agree with? e.g. not enough time or money
Key activity: What are customers doing while they use your product? e.g. booking flights or collecting receipts.
Primary goal: What's the end-goal of performing this activity? e.g. travel abroad or prepare a VAT return.
Niche: Which sub-group of potential customers is most like to be an early-adopter?
Primary functional problem: What's the hardest part about doing the activity today?
Negative outcomes and emotions: What happens if the activity goes wrong? For B2B startups, what is the negative business impact?
Substitutes: What's the next-best-option or workaround?
Most common complaints: Why do customers hate these substitutes?
Key trend: What will make this problem worse in the future?
Quantifiable impact: How can you measure the impact of solving the problem?
Positive outcomes and emotions: What good things happen as a result? For B2B startups, what is the positive business impact?
Number of potential customers: How many people can you target?"

Trechos retirados de "Why You Need to Follow the Steve Jobs Method and 'Work Backwards'"

"não saem da cepa torta"

Ler este texto "What’s the Second Job of a Startup CEO?":

"A CEO’s first job is to build a product users love; the second job is to build a company to maximize the opportunity that the product has surfaced; and the third is to harvest the profits of the core business to invest in transformative new product ideas.
...
As a Phase 2 CEO, you need to transition from “Doer-in-Chief” to “Company-Builder-in-Chief.” This is how you scale as a CEO, and CEO scaling is the first step in company-building. For most founders, this is very difficult. When you’ve been a successful Doer-in-Chief, it’s hard to stop. It’s hard to stop coding, designing product specs, and interacting with customers on a daily basis. It’s hard to stop answering support tickets, doing all the product demos, and debugging the latest build. It’s even hard to delegate the random and sometimes menial tasks that you’ve accumulated over the years because they were “no one’s job.” But you have to stop doing all of these things so that you can safeguard your time for high leverage tasks that only CEOs can do."

Lê-lo e pensar nas muitas PME que não saem da cepa torta porque, sem o percepcionarem, estão prisioneiras do tecto de vidro. Talvez por causa desta dificuldade em passar do perfil da fase 1 para o perfil da fase 2.

Conciliação possível?

Em "The importance of purpose in a digital world" sublinhei estes trechos

"Purpose is not a marketing idea, it’s a company idea – and it drives the entire organisation. Essentially, it’s that unique identifier that answers why the brand exists and defines how the customer experiences the brand. Purpose touches on how a company operates and delivers its social impact and its shared values.
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We call organisations that have a clear sense of purpose ‘purpose-led organisations.’ These businesses don’t just pay lip service to a cute slogan, being purpose-led means making every effort to ensure that all decisions and actions taken by business leaders – be that with customers, employees, suppliers, partners, shareholders or the wider community – fully encapsulate and transmit its values.
...
With purpose, values, meaning and brand in alignment, that message must carry through every point of interaction with the outside world: websites, content, advertisements, even the helpdesk script.
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Businesses hit the sweet spot when those expressed values can, through association, say something positive about the customer. When customers get a strong sense that ‘your values are my values’, when they believe the company’s commitment to those shared values is genuine and that communicating that bond to their peer group says something desirable or favourable about them, or simply engenders a feeling of pride, that’s when the magic happens. It brings the brand to life.
...
I feel as if the shift toward purpose we’re now seeing is one of a number of examples lately that demonstrate an encouraging change in the way organisations relate to the public. Whether it’s businesses and their customers or governments and citizens, it’s the human element that’s now, happily, coming to the fore.
...
Purpose, in the context of business, is the realisation that companies have always sold more than what’s inside the packaging. My hope is that as western society proceeds on its collective journey toward knowing itself, we’ll see it transform into one that reflects who we are, what we want to be, and serves us in the ways that we really need."

E volto a sublinhar aquele:

"Businesses hit the sweet spot when those expressed values can, through association, say something positive about the customer. When customers get a strong sense that ‘your values are my values’"

Agora admitamos que isto tem um fundo de verdade (pessoalmente acredito que sim e escrevo-o aqui há vários anos) e acrescentemos o que Seth Godin escreveu em "We are all weird" e que sublinhámos em "Estranhistão... weirdistão".

Se a massa central homogénea de clientes está a desaparecer e a espalhar-se cada vez mais em grupos heterogéneos, como é que as empresas grandes vão conciliar a mensagem do artigo citado com a evolução da realidade? Como é que a mesma empresa vai conciliar trabalhar em simultâneo para diferentes grupos cada um com diferentes valores?

Pessoalmente não acredito que tal seja possível no longo prazo. Outra força a contribuir para o advento de Mongo e para uma paisagem de oferta muito mais diversa.

O velho ditado

Há um velho ditado que aprendi com uma boutique de vinhos australiana em 2006:

"e que tal uma “boutique small winery”. Um gestor da "boutique" diz mesmo que é um negócio “high end fashion retailing”, em vez de inundar o mercado com produtos banais, e desesperar numa guerra de preços, atacar nichos específicos. É um prazer ver uma actividade ligada ao sector primário transpirar pensamento estratégico, demonstrar capacidade de distanciamento e de se situar no mercado."

Ou seja:

"Volume is vanity, profit is sanity" 

Ao longo dos anos tenho chamado a atenção para a curva de Stobachoff que tanto atrai os nórdicos a este blogue. Aprendi com Byrne aquela frase:

"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."

E ainda a relação 20/80/30 de Kotler:

"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."

Assim, como não sorrir com este artigo "HTC only wants to make high-end phones, should be worrying for Sony":

"Sony doesn’t often get credit for for their strategic vision as they more often than not skate to where the puck is, with a delay, rather than to where the puck is going to be. With smartphones this was no different but with their mobile division in disarray, the company did something many pundits thought to be suicide – they exited the entry market and instead focused on high-end devices like the Xperia Z5, Xperia X, and now Xperia XZ. The results? A division that was once reporting over a billion dollars in losses is now recording profits.
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Now mind you there is a lot Sony could be doing to better the situation for themselves but their initial vision was correct – to put aside the volume driven mentality that drove the PC business and many Android makers into the ground and instead focus on profitability."

Conhece os seus clientes estratégicos (parte II)

Parte I.

"The way in which strategic customers are distinguished from others differs from one organization to another. In practice we quite often find pyramids with customer tiers or ‘A/B/C’ rankings. Also the definition of strategic customers varies and criteria are company specific.
...
A Strategic Customer is: a customer whose current and potential value to us is high and to whom our (potential) value is significant as well. It is a customer who makes us change and who is willing and committed to change with us.
...
Once we have distinguished true strategic customers from the other customers, we have a solid basis to differentiate sales approaches and resource allocation accordingly. With our strategic customers we can drive change and transform the business
...
Strategic value reflects the extent to which a particular customer is helping (and sometimes forcing) us to move into our chosen strategic direction. ... Does the direction in which the customer is moving suit our strategic direction (strategic fit)? Is this a customer who ‘makes us change’? Strategic customers are typically customers who make us change. In a close cooperation between suppliers and customers joint value innovation takes place, in many cases transforming the seller and buyer business."

Gostei desta definição de cliente estratégico.

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Trechos retirados de "Transformational Sales Making a Difference with Strategic Customers"

Recordando o tecto de vidro

No início do ano corri aqui uma série com o título "Tecto de vidro? Uma hipótese de explicação" e, neste postal "Pois, despedir clientes" sistematizei uma série de reflexões sobre a blasfémia de despedir clientes.

"Here are my 5 reasons why you need to fire some of your customers:
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1. Customers you get because of a low price will always be  low price customers. Don’t forget that low price equals low profit.
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2. Customers who demand a high level of service and aren’t willing to pay for it are sucking your profit.
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3. Customers who demand too much of your time are preventing you from spending it on other activities that will create incremental sales and profit.
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4. Customers who you can’t satisfy will tell others. Last thing you need is to have customers who simply don’t fit with your model then going off and telling other customers.
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5. Bad customers are a disease that will suck the life out of you and everyone else in your company.
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Never forget that sometimes the most profitable business you have is the business you don’t have.
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When you invest your time with bad customers, you’ll find yourself attracting even more bad customers.  Sell to great customers and you’ll find yourself selling to even more great customers."

Trechos retirados de "5 Reasons You Will Increase Your Business By Firing Some Customers"

Tecto de vidro? Uma hipótese de explicação (parte XVIII)

 Parte I , parte II,  parte III, parte IV, parte V, parte VI, parte VII, parte VIII, parte IX, parte X, parte XI, parte XII, parte XIII, parte XIV, parte XV, parte XVI e parte XVII.

Bem na sequência de "Tecto de vidro? Uma hipótese de explicação (parte XVII)"

"Sales reps are always looking for that next big opportunity and justifiably so. But while all new big opportunities initially look great – be cautious! All “bright shiny objects” aren’t good opportunities.
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In major B2B sales it is critical early on to distinguish between an account that represents good and bad business.
...
Wasting time and money chasing bad business is like salt in the wound.
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Yet, why might a significant opportunity in fact be a bad piece of business? Well, it could be a bad opportunity for a number of reasons related to the opportunity but in major sales most reasons relate back to a common factor: the initial customer specifications are vague or ill conceived.
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The core problem is poor specifications often lead to troubles during the project implementation requiring more of your resources then planned or demanding skill sets that are outside your power swing. Consequently you end up with less profit then anticipated or in the worse cases loses and perhaps a lack of resources to pursue other opportunities. This constitutes small problems in small opportunities but big problems in big opportunities."

Trechos retirados de "Pipeline management – not all business is good business"