"enhance brand strength and business performance"

"As shown in figure 8.1, while 87 percent of consumers would like to experience a more meaningful relationship with their favored brands, only 17 percent believe companies are currently meeting their expectations. Three particularly promising opportunities to enhance brand strength and business performance warrant further exploration: personalization, community-based marketing, and customer dialogue."

Customização - fazer à medida, co-criação
Marketing - recorrer às tribos
Interacção -  co-criação


Trecho e figura retirados de "If You're in a Dogfight, Become a Cat!: Strategies for Long-Term Growth" 

O típico para as nossas PME

O típico para as nossas PME:

"Conhecida pela marca ROQ, a empresa constrói máquinas customizadas e de alta performance e precisão para a indústria têxtil, com recurso a tecnologia de ponta, nas áreas do corte a laser e da quinagem."

E ainda:

"Aqui conseguimos fazer amostras no tempo que eles pretendem – às vezes temos de fazer amostras em três, quatro dias e em malhas não é fácil. Mas é a amostra que vai trazer o cliente e isso diferencia-nos»" 

Primeiro trecho retirado de "ROQ reforça liderança mundial e cria mais 31 empregos em Famalicão"

Segundo trecho retirados de "A revolução das malhas na TMG"

Cuidado com a automatização

A propósito de "When Robots Miss the Minutiae":

"But the case for automation isn’t universally clear. For although they may lack certain human foibles, software programs also lack certain human attributes that can be enormously useful in business.
...
In time, of course, it’s possible that computers will develop the capacities of empathy, historical understanding, and social awareness that humans have. But it’s clear they are not there yet. And in the meantime, it poses a dilemma. The business of online advertising – as so many others do today – relies increasingly on automation. Insert more people into the process, and the price goes up while the pace of execution declines dramatically. That’s bad for margins. But there are clearly times when leaving the computers to their own devices can lead to results that drive clients to rethink their decisions to do business on a platform in the first place. And that’s even worse for margins."

Recordar "a Mercedes e a Toyota"

O efeito de Mongo na imprensa

Mais um efeito de Mongo, agora na imprensa:

"SCHOLARS of mass media long ago established the theory that part of a society’s bond comes from the shared experience of consuming the same news. We shape our worldview, our opinions — however different they are from one another — after reading about and watching many of the same things. We gain a sense of community, however false or fleeting.
.
Even as social media and algorithms started changing all that, there remained media giants like The New York Times that gave millions of readers around the world a unified news experience.
.
Or at least that’s how it used to be. By midyear, The Times will begin an ambitious new effort to customize the delivery of news online by adjusting a reader’s experience to accommodate individual interests. What readers see when they come to The Times will depend on factors like the specific subjects they are most interested in, where they live or how frequently they come to the site."

Por um lado, a tribalização das sociedades. Por outro, a customização, a personalização, a chegar a todo o lado.

Trecho retirado de "A ‘Community’ of One: The Times Gets Tailored"

O factor descurado

A propósito de "The optimist’s guide to the robot apocalypse" há um factor descurado e que me perturbou sobremaneira a leitura do mesmo.

Será que o tipo de produção, as quantidades a produzir vão ser as mesmas?

Será que a automatização não vai acelerar a democratização da produção? O que por sua vez acelerará a diversidade e aumentará a personalização? O que por sua vez reduzirá o tamanho médio dos lotes? O que poderá reduzir o tamanho médio das empresas grandes?

Uma aceleração tremenda

Outro sintoma de Mongo e da força da:

• personalização;
• rapidez,;
• proximidade; e do
• online

Atenção a este exemplo "Local manufacturer bets on fast fashion for furniture":

"Third-generation furniture maker Meganne Wecker is betting that customization will be the next big trend in home decor, and she's anted up to capitalize on it.
...
a digital textile printer capable of producing fabric in any one of 500 colors or patterns.
...
The question is how fast the market for midrange custom pieces will arrive, and how big it will be when it does.
...
Skyline's customers do not yet have websites designed to offer the "Nike experience"—so dubbed because consumers can craft and order customized sneakers online from the shoemaker. The Thornton company spent more than $1 million last year to buy the printer; it plans to offer its first customizable furniture through an online retailer sometime this year. The company expects others to follow.
...
High-end manufacturers like Lexington Furniture have offered customization for decades, if customers were willing to pay top dollar and wait four to 12 weeks. But Wecker doesn't need to order textiles from a supplier, and she doesn't need to buy in bulk. She just prints the fabric.
...
t's not just about the sales, either. It's about margin. Customization is one more way for retailers to differentiate themselves in a crowded market so they're not competing on price,"

Em todo o lado a força de Mongo e a implosão do Normalistão herdado do século XX.

H2H

Há dias numa empresa falava-se em B2B e das suas diferenças para o B2C quando alguém disse que tinha lido algo sobre o H2H (human to human).

Rapidamente a minha mente abstraiu-se da conversa e, por momentos, voou para a metáfora de Mongo.

Em Mongo a explosão de tribos, a banalização da customização, a democratização da produção e a necessidade da co-criação irá levar-nos para o regresso dos artesãos, dos alfaiates e modistas em todos os aspectos da nossa vida.

Assim, as relações económicas vão tender cada vez mais para uma relação de uma pessoa, cliente, com outra pessoa, ou equipa, artesão(s). Ou seja, de humano para humano H2H.

Mongo e a customização dos carros (parte II)

Parte I.

Este surto de automatização "Businesses Ordered More Robots Last Year Than Ever Before" tem duas leituras:

• Por um lado, o atraso americano a entrar nesta onda;
• Por outro, um sintoma da continuação da paixão americana pelo preço, (Ver "Para recordar..."), quando alemães e japoneses já estão noutra fase.

"North American businesses ordered 35,000 robots in 2016, a 10% increase from 2015, according to a report on Tuesday by trade organization Robotic Industries Association."

Acerca da paciência estratégica

Há muito que refiro a falta de paciência estratégica dos gringos.
.
Ontem, li um exemplo de quem a teve e soube utilizar não confiando na força bruta.

"What is your favorite mass customized product?When I was in business school in 1994, I did a lot of research on the Motorola Bandit project and it remains my favorite mass customized product and one of the formative role models that I look to for Cimpress. The product no longer exists, and this example is going to make me sound kind of old, but the Bandit pager that Motorola produced at its Boynton Beach, Florida factory was one of the most forward looking implementations of mass customization of all time.
.
Back in the mid-1980s, the pager market was becoming extremely competitive, and Motorola was one of the last standing American companies in the face of Japanese competition. Motorola responded not by shipping all of the assembly to Asia but, instead, by rethinking every aspect of the value chain. [Moi ici: A abordagem que fez das PME portuguesas máquinas super competitivas] They started with design for manufacturing, and flexibility, allowing for tens of millions of variations in a lot size of just one unit. They used what was, at that time, cutting edge information technology systems to allow field sales teams to configure and enter orders from portable PCs. It was computer integrated manufacturing, focused on mass customization, at its best."

Flexibilidade e customização são muito úteis mas não chegam num produto tecnológico, é preciso evoluir.

Trecho retirado de "Leading Mass Customization and Personalization - 24 expert interviews: How to profit from service and product customization in e-commerce and beyond"

Humanos e máquinas

"In his 2013 book, “Average Is Over,” Mr. Cowen briefly mentioned how two average human chess players, working with three regular computers, were able to beat both human chess champions and chess-playing supercomputers.
.
It was a revelation for Mr. Work. You could “use the tactical ingenuity of the computer to improve the strategic ingenuity of the human,” he said."

Trecho retirado de "The Pentagon’s ‘Terminator Conundrum’: Robots That Could Kill on Their Own"

Conjugar com "Man and machine: The new collaborative workplace of the future":

"At Ford's factory in Cologne, Germany, a new kind of robot is sitting by the assembly line helping manufacture the legendary automaker's cars. But these collaborative robots, or co-bots, aren't replacing their human counterparts at this Ford Fiesta plant. Instead, they're working side by side with 4,000 Ford factory workers, and not for them.
...
"It's not just the use of co-bots — it's the reduction of industrial robots," said Frank Tobe, a robotics expert and publisher of "The Robot Report." "The traditional caged robot at auto factories is becoming obsolete, because every car is different from every other car."
.
Manufacturing precisely configured vehicles where customers choose details like the trim of the dash or the caps of tire valves is not a task for large industrial robots, which have trouble adapting to an age of mass customization in part because they constantly have to be reprogrammed."

Recordar:

• Para recordar ...
• "humans and machines will work together"

Para recordar...

"In principle, the production of virtually any component or assembly operation could be robotized and moved to high-wage countries—but only so long as demand is great enough, and design specifications stable enough, to justify huge scale and hundreds of millions, if not billions, in upfront investments."

Recordar a Toyota e a Mercedes.
.
Recordar a Deutsche Post.
.
Trecho retirado de "The Meaning of Open Trade and Open Borders"

Mais um exemplo para calar os palhaços que falam da década perdida

Mais um sector, mais um exemplo do Portugal anónimo que longe dos holofotes merdiáticos faz bem e trata da sua vida. Mais um exemplo para calar os palhaços que falam da década perdida. Um texto que nem parece do Público, cheio de esperança, alegria, entusiasmo, vitalidade, desafio... que diferença para os designers novos velhos.

"o sector da joalharia tem apostado na internacionalização. Faz por isso com as marcas a mostrarem-se em feiras dos Estados Unidos à Ásia.
...
Os famosos vendem e a Associação de Ourivesaria e Relojoaria de Portugal (AORP) escolheu a modelo e actriz Milla Jovovich para protagonista da campanha que vai promover a joalharia nacional nos quatro cantos do mundo, numa estratégia de incentivo à exportação de forma a alcançar a meta de 150 milhões de euros em cinco anos.
...
Os resultados alcançados, entre 2008 e 2014, com as vendas para o exterior a registarem um crescimento de 500%, traduz-se em optimismo entre os intervenientes, bastou uma mudança de atitude. [Moi ici: Mudar de atitude, mudar de ponto de vista, mudar de modelo mental: Metanoia] “O sector estava totalmente vocacionado para o mercado interno e, quando sentimos a crise de forma muito severa, as empresas só tiveram uma saída, a exportação”, [Moi ici: O meu conselho de 2008 "Fazer o by-pass ao país"] diz Fátima Santos. Para isso, foi preciso um esforço e um endividamento ainda maior de estruturas, muitas de cariz familiar, onde até aqui apenas havia espaço para rotinas.
.
A mudança para reagir às alterações de consumo não foi fácil. “Cometeram-se muitos erros, a maioria das empresas não estava preparada e continua a não estar. Houve as que se reestruturaram e outras que surgiram mais adequadas aos novos tempos, com estruturas leves e uma nova forma de comunicar.”
...
Para 2016 e 2017 a AORP conta com um orçamento de cerca de 2 milhões de euros para apoiar a internacionalização. As feiras são uma das montras para o negócio. Nos últimos meses a associação levou 17 empresas a Paris, dez a Madrid, cinco a Hong Kong. Em França, um dos mercados-alvo do sector pela proximidade, as vendas subiram 24%.
.
Entre os 430 associados que reúne, muitos são jovens designers a arriscar a sorte. Para a promoção destes novos talentos criou a plataforma Portuguese Jewellery Newborn, uma das novidades da Bijorhca, em Paris – esta feira é um dos principais eventos que reúne compradores de todo o mundo, duas vezes por ano.
...
[Moi ici: Agora, comparar o texto que se segue com o do postal de ontem "Mongo em todo o lado": ""We believe [customization] is the new form of luxury, which is really a return to the old form of luxury in the idea of having something made just for you,""] “A produção em massa não é o caminho.” Entre todas as peças da Leitão & Irmão, o proprietário conta que são as peças feitas por medida as mais desejadas. “Continua a haver pessoas que querem ter a sua jóia, que falam com o mestre joalheiro, que transmitem a ideia e o que resultar é algo de muito pessoal e isso não tem preço, essa é a ideia mais próxima de luxo nos dias de hoje.”"

Trechos retirados de "O sonho americano da ourivesaria portuguesa"

Mongo em todo o lado

Mais um exemplo de como Mongo, o Estranhistão, anda por aí a entranhar-se em todas as áreas da economia e da vida das pessoas.

.

As pessoas, os clientes, não querem ser tratados como plancton!

""Beauty is a very personal thing," says Finding Ferdinand founder Nhu Le. "People don't want to be told. They want to choose what looks good."
.
As Le sees it, customization is what today's consumers desire of all industries, not just cosmetics. "There's definitely a subset of the market that wants customization, especially with millennials and the 'selfie generation,'" she says. "They want to dictate what's [personally] looking good."
...
The ability to compose a unique product versus pacing a store floor has inspired a new generation of startups to take aim at the beauty industry. These companies are reimagining how we purchase everything from nail art to hair products.
...
"We believe [customization] is the new form of luxury, which is really a return to the old form of luxury in the idea of having something made just for you,"
...
Consumer involvement can create strong bonds. Like the do-it-yourself "maker" movement, people increasingly want to create. "From start to finish, you feel like you're involved and getting a product that you like,"
...
"If you look at any other industry, from social media to fashion, from technology to food, you will notice that customization is definitely the trend and the future,""

Trechos retirados de "Is Customization The Future Of The Beauty Industry?"

Sem interacção ... vai ser difícil

"Can there be too much personalisation? ... that now the ‘segment of one’ can truly exist, we could run the risk of making marketing too predictable.
...
Now that we have the technology to effectively personalise every communication, the concept of mass customisation has been able to move itself forward and the ‘segment of one’ can truly exist.
...
The paradox of personalisation is that identifying our past behaviour may not indicate future behaviour and if marketers personalise too much, curiosity is curbed outside of pre-defined preferences. It all comes down to how we use the technology available to us and the extent to which we allow these tools to dictate how we engage with consumers."

Isto chama-me a atenção para 2 pontos:

• a importância da interacção; e
• o desejo de transformação.

Sobre a interacção escrevi ontem em "A importância da interacção".
.
Sobre o desejo de transformação quero recordar o esquema de Pine & Gilmore:

E o recente "A economia das transformações".
.
Como saber se alguém quer ser transformado sem interagir e criar um projecto de co-criação de um resultado que nenhuma das partes à partida sabe qual vai ser?

Trechos retirados de "Segment of One: Why Personalisation Could Become a Victim of its Own Success"

A importância da interacção

Aqui no blogue usamos com frequência o marcador "interacção". Por exemplo:

• "making sense of value creation and co-creation" (parte VIII) (Outubro de 2014)
• É a interacção (Outubro de 2015)
• O poder da interacção (Fevereiro de 2016)
• O papel da relação, o trunfo da interacção (Abril de 2016)
• Confundir o Estanhistão com Comoditização... suspeito (Agosto de 2016)

A ideia que defendo é fácil de expor e decorre disto:

Os eficientistas enterram-se na busca da eficiência, exemplo:

• "Why cutting your expenses can kill your business…"
• ""respond by becoming a shell of their former selves""

Deliram com a automatização, com a remoção de fricção.

A alternativa para as PME passa pelo numerador, passa pela aposta na fricção, passa pela aposta na interacção. Por isso, acho muito interessante este texto "An Emotional Connection Matters More than Customer Satisfaction":

"Our research across hundreds of brands in dozens of categories shows that the most effective way to maximize customer value is to move beyond mere customer satisfaction and connect with customers at an emotional level – tapping into their fundamental motivations and fulfilling their deep, often unspoken emotional needs
...
Of course, it’s necessary to provide customers with what they say is important. However, our research shows that it’s much more valuable to align customer experience investments to those elements shown to drive emotional connection
...
Shaping a customer experience by being precise about the emotional connections you’re trying to build and investing in the touch points that drive these connections is an powerful way to increase customer value, and maximize the return on investment decisions and minimize the risk. Emotionally connected customers not only generate greater value, but in every interaction become more and more convinced that “this company gets me.”"

O consumidor de Mongo (parte II)

Parte I.

"2. We want convenience...
Convenience is the new basis of loyalty. If things don’t happen for customers quickly or easily, they will quickly go elsewhere. Today’s consumers want extreme simplicity
...
Many more mature companies struggle with the idea of extreme simplicity, as they have built their products, services and infrastructure around the idea that everything must be complete and perfect and therefore complex.
...
3. We want a human connectionIt is an interesting paradox of the digital world that the more we embrace digital, the more powerful human beings become again. It is the law of scarcity: human contact declines in frequency and therefore its value rises in the eyes of the customer. Of course, you cannot automate the human element of the customer relationship.[Moi ici: Recordar o que escrevemos: "Every visit customers have to make are an opportunity for interaction and co-creation"]
...
4. We want to buy from awesome companies:
... there is a growing group of companies that consumers connect with on an emotional level and begin to really pride themselves in buying from them, acting as brand advocates.
...
5. When digital becomes human...
If a brand is really going to stand out from the crowd, however, they must consider the role people play in the customer relationship. Only by allowing consumers to make a genuine human, emotional connection will they establish themselves as a favorite brand, so a strategy that combines modern PR and modern HR is required to capture people’s imaginations."

Os 5 pontos não são nada simpáticos para as empresas grandes habituadas a confiar na eficiência, na automatização e na generalização.
.
AZAR!


Trechos retirados de "How the digital world is shaping the modern consumer", Strategic Direction, Vol. 32 Iss 5, Steven Van Belleghem , (2016).

O consumidor de Mongo (parte I)

Algumas sugestões sobre o consumidor de Mongo:

"If businesses today are going to compete, it is vital that they think about exactly who their customers are today, how they behave and how they expect companies to interact with them. Through my research into consumer behavior, the following four characteristics are already becoming apparent in today’s consumer, and this is only likely to increase in the near future.
.
1. We want to be treated as individualsToday, the ideal segment size today is one. We are evolving toward a situation where everyone has his or her own services and products, tailored to their individual needs. Connected technology and intelligent use of data have already enabled extreme personalization when it comes to on-demand services, and the logical next step is for personalized products. One of my favorite examples of this is “nrml” in New York – a store that makes personalized earphones based on just five photographs of your ear. They are made on site and adapted by a 3D printer so that your earphones fit perfectly. This new trend of extreme personalization of products could certainly be a sign of things to come, especially as home 3D printing becomes more common."

Nada que seja novidade para este blogue que prevê esta evolução há muitos anos. O que é muito interessante, associado a esta evolução, é a tendência para empresas mais pequenas e especializadas, mais interacção, mais co-criação, mais tribalismo e muito mais diversidade.

• Para pessoas e para PME (Fevereiro de 2016)
• Been there, done that and... moved on (Novembro de 2011)

Continua.
.
Trechos retirados de "How the digital world is shaping the modern consumer", Strategic Direction, Vol. 32 Iss 5,Steven Van Belleghem , (2016).

O impacte tecnológico a montante

Mais um texto sobre o mundo novo que já está por aí, ainda que mal distribuído:

"I strongly believe that we are on the edge of a new industrial revolution: “Industry 4.0”, the rise of intelligent automation in manufacturing, where digital manufacturing meets the Internet’s democratisation of design. Digital manufacturing is maturing and 3D printing is now widely used in aerospace, automotive and medical industries for rapid prototyping, the ability to manufacture “impossible” shapes and completely custom products.
...
A recent PwC survey found that 71.1% of US manufacturing companies now use 3D printing in some way, which demonstrate how more and more manufacturing processes changing toward 3d printing.
...
Digital Forming has created a suite of custom services which allow you to build mass customisation into your customer journey, whether you are selling traditional items in a more personal way, or building a full digital supply chain. By building mass customisability into your existing customer journey, you can build your future piece by piece.
...
Along with mass customisation, emotional branding is key to engaging the modern, millennial consumer. Emotional branding stems from the understanding that people are willing to pay for experiences as well as features."

Um artigo que li ontem perguntava se o progresso tecnológico ia acabar com os gestores intermédios nas empresas. Na minha mente formou-se outra frase, serão precisas empresas grandes em Mongo?
.
O impacte do progresso tecnológico vai actuar também a montante, na dimensão e tipo de empresas.

"The Power of Customisation Without The Pain – Digital Forming Blog"

Mongo e a customização dos carros

"Gone are the days when Ford’s factories would turn out cookie-cutter copies of a particular model, truck after truck after truck. The River Rouge Complex here can produce 600,000 variations of the F-150, giving a distinct, made-to-order touch to many of the 1,300 vehicles that roll off its assembly lines daily.
.
That kind of variety helps keep demand high for the F-150 — the best-selling truck in the United States for four decades — and that sort of innovation, some think, could help revive American manufacturing.
...
Even as automation has bolstered productivity, it has taken a toll on American autoworkers, whose wages flat-lined as their employers shed jobs. Since 2000, U.S. carmakers have trimmed by 30 percent the number of employees in parts and manufacturing, according to federal data.[Moi ici: Quem estará mais avançado, a Ford ou a Mercedes? A Ford ou a Toyota?]
...
The flexibility made possible by smarter manufacturing also improves the buying experience for customers, analysts say. Mass customization is the future,
...
With that level of specificity, customers have more control over the details in products they buy.
.
“A vehicle is really becoming a part of an individual,” Dearborn plant manager Brad Huff said. “So we’ve seen it go from, in this particular vehicle line, being just a tool for work to being a family vehicle. I see that going even further: people putting their own stamp on it.”[Moi ici: Quanto mais investimento pessoal, mais tribos, mais oportunidades para projectos alternativos para micro produções]
.
And if carmakers can do it, other manufacturers can, too. Think about custom textiles or electronics, manufacturing analysts say. Companies in scalable industries — those that can generally step up production without sacrificing performance — probably can afford, and benefit from, investment in technology to optimize mass customization."

Trechos retirados de "Is that a robot in the driver’s seat at Ford’s F-150 plant?"

Os outsiders vêem oportunidades onde os incumbentes vêem paredes

Meu Deus... fico a pensar no que os portugueses poderiam fazer neste campeonato se saíssem mais do modelo mental padrão. Como esse modelo resulta, têm de ser os outsiders a entrar e aproveitar:

"one of a number of custom retailers disrupting the luxury market, luring consumers with cheaper options and the ability to design their own products. [Moi ici: Interacção! Personalização!!!] As the proliferation of fast fashion and e-commerce creates an increasingly detached shopping landscape, these companies are working to rebuild relationships with consumers by adding a touch of personalization to the digital space. The challenge comes in building name recognition and expanding variety amid a mass customization market.
...
custom companies hold a level of accountability to their customers that you don’t see in the traditional retail space.
.
“There’s this sense of stewardship. You want to make sure the customer is making the right choices, and you want to inform them to make the right choices,”
...
“bringing back old-school craftsmanship” and responding to a shift in men’s wear from off-the-rack styles to customizable pieces.
.
Increased accessibility and lower price points become a selling point by minimizing the middle men, in this case wholesalers, distributors, retailers, salespeople and the costs associated from typical brick-and-mortar style stores.
...
“The biggest challenge with the space is that this is all mass customization,” Mulpuru-Kodali said. “The companies generally are limited by the few items they can customize. They’re like pizza restaurants with lots of variants around a few core items. To scale, they’ll need to offer much more variety and choice.”
...
Beyond a return to tradition, custom wear gives the consumer a sense of ownership and artistic jurisdiction over their apparel, an integral element of building truly unique personal style.[Moi ici Tribos de Mongo!]
...
“People are looking to be part of the process,” Pagano said. “For millennials, expression is such a core value of what we espouse and what we purchase.”
.
Jodie Fox, co-founder of custom women’s shoe company Shoes of Prey, echoed Pagano, and said that giving the consumer the ability to design their own products helps enhance custom brands and gives them an edge over standard retailers.
.
“Customization is a really important thing now, really having that ownership and connection to what [consumers] want,”
...
“I think that a lot of brands that have been around for a long time have to think about how they’re going to exist in a digital environment,” said Hamilton, whose company was founded by his father before the dawn of the Internet age. “Especially custom, which is so special because there’s this interaction with somebody who’s guiding you through all these decisions."

Trechos retirados de "Customization is the next front for luxury retailers"