Privilegiar os inputs sobre os outputs (parte XIII)

Parte I, parte II, parte III, parte IV, parte V, parte VI, parte VII, parte VIII, parte IX, parte X, parte XI e parte XII. 

"for many of today’s industrial vendors the ability to create value is less than matched by the power to capture it, because in commoditized markets the customer is the driver in an unbalanced distribution of bargaining power. The consequences for suppliers can be serious: declining prices and margins, inferior returns on investment, and the risk of falling into a ‘commodity trap’ where the pressure on profitability leads to reduced investment in product (or service) innovation, which in turn leads to further loss of differentiation and even greater pressure on prices and margins. Few marketers can escape this vicious cycle with their shirts on.
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Can industrial companies counter commoditization and avoid falling victim to their ever more powerful, hard-bargaining customers?.
The answer for a growing number of companies is an affirmative one. These firms have learned that while core product advantages erode and pressure on prices never lets up, they can still do profitable business by pursuing value-added strategies including aligning themselves with key customers. Put differently, these companies have discovered profitable opportunities in stretching beyond their core products by offering customers compellingly differentiated values. They have thus successfully countered commoditization.
...
Consider the following examples.

• SKF, the world’s largest ball-bearing manufacturer, ... to maintain their production machinery, reduce or eliminate downtime and maximize plant yield.

• ...

• Raisio Chemicals, a major supplier of chemical compounds ... developing new products, upgrading paper quality and improving printability. The company offers its important customers access to its technical staff and facilities, including a unique pilot coating machine and a newly built printing plant, for testing and experimentation."

Dois exemplos da concentração nos inputs e não nos outputs.

Trechos retirados de "3 Countering Commoditization: Value-added Strategies and Aligning with Customers" de Kamran Kashani

"selling projects rather than products"

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

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

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

Continua.

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

Uma realidade transitória

Da próxima vez que ouvir alguém dizer que o paradigma do Normalistão, o século XX, é o normal de que não nos devemos afastar, pense neste gráfico:

Recordar "Mais outro exemplo: Provinciano, mas muito à frente":

"Há anos que escrevo sobre o futuro do trabalho, sobretudo acerca do fim do emprego estabelecido como paradigma pelo século XX, e que a maioria acredita ser algo milenar, algo eterno."

Imagem retirada de "This is what 150 years of US employment looks like"

Fricção positiva e negativa

"Negative Friction.
Friction is the idea that you are difficult to business with, that you make it difficult to transact, that more is required than should be necessary, and that the experience isn’t good. The worse your experience, the less likely you are to continue to buy from companies that create enough friction to drive you to seek other options.
...
Positive Friction.
In a super-relational, strategic relationship where human beings need to work closely to solve problems and generate results together, friction is positive. Meetings are friction, which is why much is written about the amount of time wasted in poor meetings. Perhaps it because of the Digital Age in which we find ourselves, little is written about how face-to-face meetings and a physical presence creates positive friction, the deepening of relationships and the engendering of trust.[Moi ici: Como não recordar "Every visit customers have to make is an opportunity for interaction and co-creation"]
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Conversations to understand what clients need, especially the conversations that include multiple stakeholders with different or competing perspectives, are another form of friction. The friction created by competing perspectives and working through to some reasonable consensus is the benefit of that friction.
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Would it be easier to send a survey to see how you are doing? Would an email accomplish the same goal without interrupting your busy client? While these choices might end a bit of friction, the positive friction that comes from a phone call is that it proves caring and high touch. The lower friction suggests transaction.
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It is a mistake to try to reduce friction when it is positive, just as it is a mistake not to remove it when it is negative."

 Ainda na semana passada preparei esta imagem para documentar estes dois tipos de fricção:

Trechos retirados de "Negative Friction and Positive Friction"

Privilegiar os inputs sobre os outputs (parte XII)

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

Recordar 

"Privilegiar os inputs sobre os outputs nada mais nada menos do que aplicar uma regra fundamental do Design Thinking.
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Começar pelo que o cliente, ou o consumidor, ou o prescritor (começar por um actor do ecossistema) precisa ou quer fazer. Quais as suas motivações, que problema é que está a tentar resolver.[Moi ici: Recordar sobretudo a parte IX]
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A Empatia é a chave. Não é acerca da nossa empresa. Precisamos da capacidade de perceber e partilhar os sentimentos de outros"

E considerar "How Not to Fail at Retail":

"Think About: Input Before Output
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We all know how online shopping works: a customer can search for products based on various criteria. But an online store isn’t very good at asking probing questions to find out what a consumer really cares about.
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As Frank asked me questions about what I wanted to accomplish with this new amplifier, he gathered key information before suggesting what the right solution would be. He put himself in a position to make recommendations to me that guitarcenter.com would never be able to make. And he helped me learn more about what was really important to me.
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Could I have bought the amp on guitarcenter.com? Sure. But now that Frank has acted like a trusted advisor and helped me with my decision making, I’m much less likely to close the deal online. And truthfully, the only place I even considered making the purchase was in-person, with Frank.
...
As an in-store salesperson learns about a consumer’s needs and interests, they can do something that an online retailer can do in only the most rudimentary fashion: frame the product’s story in terms of the particular benefits to this individual customer.
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An online product listing can tell of generic benefits, such as “gets your teeth their whitest” or “saves you $432 per year in energy costs.” An in-person retail experience can do so much more.
...
Brick and mortar retailers have lost many of the advantages they once had, including providing better access to products and the convenience of “location, location, location.” But in-person retailers still have the advantage of proximate, meaningful human contact to that allows them to better listen to customers, collaborate with them and personalize their purchase experience."

Quem aproveitará?

Perspectiva interessante, o online pode estar a dar cabo das vendas nos centros comerciais norte-americanos e a promover o seu encerramento em larga escala (a densidade de centros comerciais norte-americanos é muito superior à na Europa)

Por outro lado, a economia das experiências está a promover o renascimento das lojas de rua:

"Algunos analistas de mercado lo denominan como «el renacer del comercio tradicional en los Estados Unidos». Con esta definición explican la sorprendente revitalización que está experimentando en los últimos años el comercio minorista en los Estados Unidos. Según un estudio de Credit Suisse, entre el 20 y el 25 por ciento de los grandes centros comerciales de EE. UU. cerrará en los próximos años, lo que supondrá la desaparición de entre 240 y 300 de los cerca de 1.200 existentes. Por el contario, según el banco suizo de inversión, EE. UU. experimentará un nuevo resurgir de las tiendas de proximidad."

O que faz pensar é o remate final do artigo:

"Esta renovada eclosión del retails a pie de calle supone una gran oportunidad para el sector del calzado, especialmente para aquel, como el español, que destaca por su excelente relación calidad-precio y por su diseño. Las pequeñas zapaterías que ahora están apareciendo en cada rincón de las ciudades estadounidenses necesitan diferenciarse de las grandes plataformas de distribución de zapatos mediante la selección de un muestrario original, diferente y con valor añadido. En este sentido, el calzado nacional puede ser un gran aliado de estas zapaterías de proximidad." 

Em que "prateleiras", em que feiras, em que espaços, estas pequenas sapatarias de rua vão abastecer-se com o seu portefolio de sapatos?

Quem aproveitará para trabalhar com elas na co-criação da sua oferta? E estas pequenas sapatarias frequentarão as mesmas feiras que as cadeias de sapatarias?

Trechos retirados de "El renacer del comercio minorista en los Estados Unidos, una oportunidad para el calzado español", artigo enviado pelo amigo Rui Moreira.

Também por isto sou um contrarian (parte II)

Parte I.

A propósito de "Robôs destroem 440 mil empregos na indústria e comércio até 2030" e do pormenor:

"Indústria, comércio, transportes, funções administrativas e de públicas e agricultura. Estão entre os sectores onde o impacto da automação na destruição de emprego mais se fará sentir."

Sorrio e vou buscar "Report: Retailers have zero clue what shoppers really want":

"Hey, retail executive. It’s very nice of you to suggest I speak with your robot, but no, I’ll pass. It looks like there is a fully functioning human standing in the corner of your shop. Would it really be too much trouble to speak with him instead?
...
I’m not the only one who feels like this. In a report that comes as a surprise to absolutely no one but overeager retail execs, 95% of consumers don’t want to talk to a robot when they are shopping, neither online nor in brick-and-mortar stores. And 86% have no desire for other shiny new technologies either, like artificial intelligence and virtual reality. I, for one, don’t want to pop into a store to quickly pick up that alpaca sweater I saw online, only to have some sort of weird headset shoved in my face.
...
The vast majority of retail executives believe that AI and VR will increase foot traffic and sales, but 48% of shoppers say these technologies will have zero impact on whether they visit a store, and only 14% say they will make a purchase because of these technologies. This also applies to online technologies like chatbots. Seventy-nine percent of retail execs believe that chatbots are meeting shopper’s needs by providing on-demand customer service, while 66% of consumers disagree, with many respondents noting that chatbots are, in fact, more damaging to the shopping experience than helpful."

 Até parece que a batota da interacção entre humanos passa por robôs?!?!?!?!

E recordo a economia das experiências, "The experience economy is booming, but it must benefit everyone":

"The only companies that will exist in 10 years’ time are those that create and nurture human experiences. This learning and growth will come from maximizing opportunities, including the reinvention of retail spaces, new models of engagement, and an understanding of experiences as perhaps the most important form of marketing."

"hav[ing] the conversation with the client"

Ao ler:

""One of the most common mistakes [small business owners make] is to avoid hav[ing] the conversation with the client regarding [the client's] expectations," the Speros pointed out. "These expectations can often be unrealistic, unmeasured, and don't match what they actually are trying to communicate."
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As a business owner, it is your responsibility to initiate that difficult conversation. Customers should have a realistic picture of what they are buying, including the cost of their purchase, what it includes, what they can expect as a result, and any return or refund policy you may have in place."

Como não recordar logo de imediato "aposta noutro mindset" onde a isto:

Contrapus:

"Every visit customers have to make are an opportunity for interaction and co-creation"

Trecho inicial retirado de "Customer Retention Strategies for Small Businesses"

Acerca do eficientismo

Este blogue fala do eficientismo e da paranóia da eficiência há muitos anos (por exemplo, em 2012 e 2011).

"The Problem Management has come to be seen as a science whose purpose is to make commercial enterprises more efficient. But the single-minded pursuit of efficiency makes businesses less resilient. [Moi ici: Por um lado, recordar os nabateus e a sua lição, por outro recordar a fragilização decorrente de uma estratégia pura e, em paralelo, recordar que o negócio do preço não é para quem quer, mas para quem pode]

...
The Solution Business, government, and management education need to increase their emphasis on organizational resilience. This will involve limiting the size of businesses, introducing more friction into global trade and the capital markets, giving long-term investors a larger say in strategic decision making, creating jobs that are richer in learning opportunities, and offering educational programs that balance efficiency and resilience. [Moi ici: Não vai ser preciso fazer nada disto com intervencionismo ingénuo basta deixar que Mongo faça o seu trabalho com a variedade, a proximidade, a interacção e a co-criação]
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Smith, Ricardo, Taylor, and Deming together turned management into a science whose objective function was the elimination of waste—whether of time, materials, or capital. The belief in the unalloyed virtue of efficiency has never dimmed. [Moi ici: Fui um crente a 100% na bondade da redução da variabilidade como estratégia para o sucesso, até que percebi que isso era uma visão redutora e só para quem pode, (Redsigma - O fim da linha) e quem pode é cada vez menos porque o mundo caminha para Mongo, o mundo da variedade]

A partir daqui divirjo da receita que Roger Martin prescreve. Em vez de intervencionismo, deixar Mongo fazer o seu caminho e não deixar que os estados apoiem os seus amigos-incumbentes.

Oh! BTW, lembrem-se da malta da Junqueira e da sua mania das grandezas.

Trechos retirados de "Rethinking Efficiency"

Dois tweets e a co-criação de valor (parte II)

Parte I.

"we claim that institutions are the coordinating link that have impact on value cocreation efforts and are the reference base for customers’ value assessment. When conceptualizing the systemic nature of resource integration, we include the regulative, normative, and cognitive institutions and institutional logics.
...
the discussion surrounding resource integration emphasizes the means through which actors like customers, suppliers, and other interested stakeholders use their knowledge and skills to cocreate value
...
Coordination is essential, as resource integration requires process(es) and forms of collaboration at many levels of business. Furthermore, resource integration is always performed in the context of a service system driven by the actors’ knowledge and skills as well as their intentions and motivation. Within these service systems and the larger social system, knowledge, skills, intensions, and motivation are influenced by institutions on the one hand and the actions taken by actors influence existing institutions on the other. Consequently, we view institutions as enabling or constraining the ‘‘humanly devised constraints that shape human interaction’’. Institutions play a major role in shaping an actors’ behavior when managing resource integration and the cocreation of value in service systems.
...
Value is here understood as being cocreated by customers and other actors, and service systems are configurations of actors, resources, and technology designed to enable value cocreation. As service systems are shaped by social values and forces in social systems, we emphasize that institutional settings and thus institutional logics affect service systems and the involved actors’ behavior. This means that no single, unrelated institution is active but that there is a set of typically nested institutions of different kinds affecting each other in various but coherent ways with respect to their effectiveness.
...
From this understanding it becomes clear that value cocreation and service-for-service exchange do not happen in an institution-free world. They incorporate a reciprocal reaction, where institutions influence actors’ behavior and vice versa, actors influence institutions through their behaviors. It is through this creation and recreation of service systems that institutions become pre- requisites for value cocreation, as an institutional context plays a key role when actors are using or operating on resources in service systems. For that reason, institutional logics are crucial in shaping service systems as they introduce broader belief and regulation systems that shape the cognition and behavior of actors."

Como não relacionar, "institutional logics are crucial in shaping service systems as they introduce broader belief and regulation systems that shape the cognition and behavior of actors", com Mongo e a política?
 
Trechos retirados de "Institutional logics matter when coordinating resource integration" de Bo Edvardsson; Michael Kleinaltenkamp; Ba ̊rd Tronvoll; Patricia McHugh; e Charlotta Windahl, publicado por Marketing Theory 2014, Vol. 14(3) 291–309.

Dois tweets e a co-criação de valor (parte I)

Sábado passado encontrei dois tweets que relacionei logo com o que ando a ler:

This is a CENTRAL result: you don't get peace forcing pple to hold hands & sing Kumbaya by the campfire.

You get peace via fractal LOCALISM.

The usual idiotic AUB-style pseudoleft in Lebanon call "sectarian"(pejorative) anyone who believes in such Swiss-style localism. https://t.co/sel9Hbtl5E

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) December 8, 2018

This is an image of GPS tracking of multiple wolves in six different packs around Voyageurs National Park, Minnesota, which shows how much the wolf packs avoid each other's range [source: https://t.co/BYFdDNCIOi] pic.twitter.com/MRKpw2KA9b

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) December 7, 2018

 

"Unlike arms-length transactions, relational exchange stems from previous agreements. Relational exchange generally lasts longer and reflects an ongoing process in which anticipated conflicts of interest are counterbalanced by trust and efforts at unity. Essentially, actors sacrifice short-term gains because they trust that the relationship will pay off in the long run.
…
Importantly, the glue that binds these chains of reciprocity is composed largely of social constructs such as trust and loyalty.
...
All institutions are therefore “cognitive,” insofar as their effect depends on actors’ beliefs and expectations. … we use the phrase “shared understanding” to reference the beliefs and expectations common to a set of actors but note that others have variously used terms such as socio-cognitive structures, broadly diffused schema, or shared representations in reference to the same phenomenon. Nonetheless, the power of an institution is apparent only when many actors share the same (or similar) set of understandings. That is, an institution can only be referred to as such if it shapes the behavior of many individuals in a similar manner, and this only happens if those individuals have a broadly shared understanding of how to behave."

Trechos retirados de "Redefining the market: A treatise on exchange and shared understanding" de Lusch e Watts, publicado por Marketing Theory.

Project Based Organisation

Mongo também passa por isto:

"The number and importance of projects are increasing steadily. Projects are being used to deliver innovative products and services, to perform change and transformation and – in general – get things done in organisations.
...
A project based organisation (PBO) is ... one in which the project is the primary unit for performing certain tasks.
...
Processes in a PBO are organised from the client to the client, a value stream of activities, orchestrated by a project manager, using agile or traditional methods, tools and techniques. The culture of a PBO is clearly project-friendly, client-centric and oriented towards “doing the right things right”, which means combining effectiveness and efficiency.
...
A PBO may comprise several firms, for example a project consortium or network organisation, and thus is temporarily organised, flexible and adaptable to the specific circumstances of the project, its context and partners.
...
The more we see a change from products to services, from mass production to individualisation, from single organisations performing projects to a co-creative network of partners, the more we´ll see PBO as a role model. So PBOs are a trend which will change the way of organising, and the transformation of many organisations prove that this process is already taking place. We need to see this from an economic perspective, identify the drivers for this change and the impact it may have for traditional organisations."

Trechos retirados de "Will project-based organisations be the new normal?"

“Globalization is becoming regionalization, and regionalization is becoming intra-national,”

A propósito de "More Factories Crop Up Closer to Customers":

"The largest share of manufacturers in at least a decade is spending to expand facilities, as companies look to build plants closer to their customers to offset record-high trucking costs and seek out pockets of available workers in a tight labor market.
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Twelve percent of U.S. manufacturers that invested in added capacity at domestic factories in the second quarter did so through building expansions, according to the Census Bureau, the highest proportion in the decade that metric has been released. Manufacturing construction spending hit a 16-month high in September, according to the Census Bureau. Executives are making some of those investments in new factories to alleviate rising transport bills and supply-chain bottlenecks.
...
as the company seeks to make its products as close to customers as possible to speed up delivery times and cut logistics costs.
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Companies building plants nearer to customers say the investment costs can be made up in faster turnaround times and increased orders.
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Some companies also are trying to source more parts locally to mitigate the impact of U.S. tariffs on some foreign goods, said executives at Flex Ltd., which makes and ships products—including shoes and personal electronics— for other companies.
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“Globalization is becoming regionalization, and regionalization is becoming intra-national,” said Tom Linton, Flex’s supply-chain officer.""

A mim ninguém me tira a ideia de que Mongo tem um dedo importante nesta evolução: proximidade, rapidez, flexibilidade, interacção, co-criação

Algo para fermentar

Volta e meia repito uma frase que aprendi em São João da Madeira:

"O boi cresce mais com o olhar do dono do que com a erva do pasto"

Ainda ontem de manhã, em Felgueiras, a usei para resumir o que me estavam a contar. Fui com um controlador da qualidade de calçado visitar várias pequenas empresas que trabalham como costuras subcontratadas. Contou-me como em algumas costuras, a patroa olha para um modelo e visualiza logo a sequência de trabalho, alterando o posicionamento das máquinas para minimizar operações e tempos sem acrescento de valor.

No dia anterior tinha lido mais uma porção de "Reinventing Organizations: An Illustrated Invitation to Join the Conversation on Next-Stage Organizations" de Frederic Laloux:

"Self-management has proven itself in many industries. There are, for instance, a number of very successful factories that operate in this way. One of them is FAVI, a five hundred-person brass foundry in the north of France that produces gearbox forks for the automotive industry, among others."

Estas pequenas unidades não têm nada a ver com o conceito de "self-management", mas é interessante como conseguem que muitas decisões cheguem mais próximo da trabalhadora da linha do que na produção de uma empresa de maior dimensão.

Entretanto, encontrei esta reflexão, "We need to shift our focus from competencies to agency":

"In mass-production, work corresponds mainly with what has been planned and budgeted. But today, knowledge work is understood as creative work we do in interaction. Unlike the repetitive business processes we know so well, where inputs are acted on in some predictable, structured way and converted into outputs, the inputs and outputs of knowledge work are problem definitions and exploration for solutions. Even more, there are no predetermined task sequences that, if executed, would guarantee success.
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Due to the variety of contexts people link to and work in, work requires interpretation, exploration and negotiation, work requires a new kind agency. What defines most problems today is that they are not isolated and independent. To solve them, a person has to think not only about what she believes the right answer is, but also about what other people think the right answers might be. Work, then, is exploration both what comes to defining the problems and finding the solutions.
...
The industrial make-and-sell model required categorical skills, as we still know them. The decisive thing was your individual knowledge and individual education. Today, in new creative spaces you work more from your presence and network than your explicit skills. Agency is more important than education.
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The most important reason why we need a new concept of agency insted of competences is because the workers and their contributions in the post-industrial world are contextual and, at best, too diverse to rank. They are, and should be, too qualitatively different to compare quantitatively.
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Instead of talking about generic competences we need to focus on continuously developing agency."

Decididamente algo para fermentar.

A abominação da eficiência - o anti-Mongo (parte II)

Parte II.

Qual a reacção ao eficientismo? O toque humano, a co-criação, a proximidade, a interacção, ...

Voltemos ao livro "Reinventing Organizations: An Illustrated Invitation to Join the Conversation on Next-Stage Organizations" e à continuação do tema da mega-enfermagem:

"Jos had been working as a nurse for ten years and experienced firsthand the changes forced onto his profession. Disgusted, he quit his job and created Buurtzorg. It would operate entirely differently. Quickly, he found that a self-organizing team of ten to twelve nurses with no manager and no team leader was perfect to provide great care—and a great work place.
...
With a whole different perspective on health care Care, at its best, is a small miracle that happens, or not, in the relationship of a patient and a nurse. That miracle never shows up when a mechanical perspective is applied to care. The best care will happen, de Blok is convinced, when nurses are seen as professionals, when they are trusted. Give them freedom, and they will offer truly great care.

Patients and nurses love Buurtzorg so much that nurses have been deserting traditional nursing companies in droves. Every month, Buurtzorg receives hundreds of applications from nurses wanting to jump ship. Buurtzorg now employs more than nine thousand nurses, or two-thirds of all neighborhood nurses in the Netherlands! The nine thousand nurses all work in small teams of ten to twelve nurses, without a leader in the team and with no manager above them. No one times the nurses’ interventions with patients. The whole nine thousand-strong company is managed with a headquarters of just twenty-eight people."

E a cereja no topo do bolo:

Mandando a eficiência às malvas, têm-se melhores resultados com os clientes, com os trabalhadores e com menos custos para o pagador.

Por momentos lembrei-me de reunião com um grupo de empresários, em que quiseram que eu demonstrasse que um euro a mais no preço unitário era melhor que um euro a menos nos custos unitários: a receita para a loucura do eficientismo é o Evangelho do Valor.

Mongo e o emprego

O que digo aqui sobre Mongo e o emprego?

• O fim do emprego modelado pelo século XX e elevado à categoria de modelo único e eterno.
• A ascensão dos artesãos
• A perda de valor no mercado dos cursos superiores porque já não haverá CV para apresentar, só um portfólio de projectos em que se participou

Tudo a ver com "Teenagers, Forget Engineering. Your Future Is Craft":

"A report by Altagamma, the Italian luxury goods association, estimated that some 50,000 people working in the luxury goods industry in Italy are close to retirement and that it will be a struggle to find qualified personnel to fill those jobs.
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The problem is, recent generations of Italian youth have increasingly shied away from traditional handwork, opting instead for seemingly more contemporary sectors like engineering, and cooking."

Recordar as preocupações com a automação... Mongo é sobre um mercado cada vez mais heterogéneo. Por isso, faz cada vez mais sentido fugir da produção em massa, e apostar na proximidade para fazer batota com a interacção e a co-criação. Assim, os robôs deixam de ser problema, porque tem de existir o criativo que interage com o cliente.

Em Mongo o futuro passará pela arte, pela criatividade, e longe do vómito.

Proximidade, interacção e co-criação

"As demands for higher value and creativity are the norm today and the complexity of offerings has grown, we have begun to see that the division of labor has reached its point of diminishing returns. What managers have learnt is that the division of labor always implies a scheme of interaction by which the different divided activities are made to work together. The lines between the boxes are starting to matter more than the boxes! Complex value creation is impossible without interaction. This is because any higher-value activity involves complementary, often parallel, contributions from more than one person or one team. In fact, the more complex the offering is and the more specialized the resources needed, the greater the demand for the amount, quality and efficiency of communication, because of the inherent interdependence of the activities."

 "Complex value creation is impossible without interaction" - recordar a importância da proximidade para a interacção por trás da co-criação:

• "para lidar com tribos aguerridas é preciso proximidade e interacção, co-criação" (2018)
• "A interacção e a necessidade da proximidade para a co-criação requererão empresas mais pequenas e ... "every laptop will be a corporation"" (2017)
• "Não esquecer o aumento da importância da proximidade produção-consumo, por causa da interacção e da co-criação que acabam por exigir rapidez, flexibilidade e customização." (2016)
• "Apostar na rapidez, na flexibilidade, na proximidade, na autenticidade, nas pequenas séries, na customização, na co-criação, na interacção" (2014)

Trecho inicial de "Interactive value creation"

"psychological ownership"

"psychological ownership. That’s when consumers feel so invested in a product that it becomes an extension of themselves.
.
Companies that encourage psychological ownership can entice customers to buy more products, at higher prices, and even to willingly promote those products among their friends. But if businesses disrespect this feeling, sales can suffer."

Em "How Customers Come to Think of a Product as an Extension of Themselves" um texto sobre como promover a "psychological ownership":

• "One way is to allow customers a hand in forming the product"
• "Businesses should strive to make products customizable. When consumers can personalize products, they buy more and are happy to recommend those products to friends."
• "Building intimate knowledge - This occurs when customers believe they know every facet of a product or brand so well that they have a special, unique relationship with it."

"Companies legally own their brand, but their most devoted customers may own it psychologically. Businesses should cultivate this feeling—and then respect it."

Nós é que sabemos o que é melhor para os clientes

“Cars go to a diverse audience and diverse customers, and people don’t always agree with the balance or compromises, and you can’t get upset with that,”

Mesmo no final do artigo, "Car Engineers Scoff at Enthusiasts’ Modifications. But Not Always.",  aparece o trecho acima.

Algo que ajuda a explicar Mongo e a democratização da produção, algo que ajuda a explicar a co-criação, algo que ajuda a explicar o sucesso da Local Motors, algo que ajuda a explicar porque as empresas grandes vão perder o seu mercado actual (a reacção dos engenheiros das marcas):

"“I have no doubt in my mind they cannot do it better,”
...
“They can never achieve the finely balanced trade-off we have achieved,”"

Mas a verdade é:

“The reason the market grows the way it does is that the carmakers have a mass-production model and it does not leave a whole lot of room for people who want to improve or personalize or upgrade their cars and trucks,” he said.
.
Social media — like websites or Facebook pages for owners of specific models — is also playing an increasing role, Mr. Kersting said.
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“Now people who have similar interests are able to find one another and share expertise and the passion they have for whatever segment of automotive lifestyle or hobby they enjoy,” he said. “It has been very good for the market.”"

"a natural fit for their agile development philosophies"

"Domestic manufacturing enables companies like Burrow and Chapter 3 to continually refine their designs and ramp production up and down in response to customer feedback. They can also ship directly to consumers, reducing delivery times.
...
“[Burrow] can send over an idea to me or my husband, and sometimes in the same day we can mock up a modification of something,” Schock says. “We can get the email, walk downstairs to the plant, and pull it together.”
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She adds: “The consumer, if they want more choices, you’re going to need to have shorter lead times and smaller quantities. Importing doesn’t adhere to those things.”
...
he and others are discovering that domestic manufacturing is a natural fit for their agile development philosophies. “I’ve made stuff in China, it’s a huge pain in the ass. You can’t be very reactive in your iteration process, and there are high minimum order quantities,” Kan says. “The cool thing about the internet is that you can make changes very quickly. Taking some of that to the physical goods world is really good.”"

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Trechos retirados de "From Mexico To Mississippi: Why This Sofa Startup Is Now “Made In The USA”"