Acerca da fábrica do futuro

Um artigo interessante, "Inside the Digital Factory", que aborda vários teas acerca da fábrica do futuro, mas que convenientemente esquece as implicações da democratização da produção. Adiante:

"heralding a new era for manufacturers, marked by totally integrated factories that can rapidly tailor products to individual customer needs and respond instantly to shifting demands and trends. This fully digital factory can be a catalyst for a kinetic growth agenda delivering gains in productivity, financial and operational performance, output, and market share [Moi ici: LOL!!! Até parece que Mongo vai ser terra de competir por market share!] as well as improved control and visibility throughout the supply chain.
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98 percent of respondents still view digitization somewhat blandly as a path for increasing production efficiency.  [Moi ici: Conheço esta gente. Muitos são boa gente, mas estão de tal forma moldados pelo modelo mental anterior que não conseguem fugir dele. Também por isso vão ser vítimas do que esteve na base do seu sucesso no nível anterior do jogo] But at the same time, a whopping 74 percent of companies named regionalization (being able to set up or expand factories in markets where their products are sold and where opportunities exist to widen revenue streams through customized products and improved service levels) as a primary reason for digital investments. [Moi ici: Uma fábrica para cada continente, dizem algumas multinacionais mais dinâmicas, mas não estão a ver que não é uma questão de eficiência, é uma questão de interacção, de customização, de relação, de proximidade]
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Moreover, in a sharp departure from the recent past, the possibility of being able to immediately tailor products to match customer preferences and to offer customers the option to “build” their own products appears to be driving production decisions more strongly than slashing labor costs.  [Moi ici: Q.E.D.] Indeed, only about 20 percent of respondents now plan to relocate manufacturing facilities to low-wage countries in Asia, Eastern Europe, and South America; nearly 80 percent are looking at Western Europe (where their largest customer bases are) for new digital factory capacity."

O trecho que se segue parece retirado do discurso do meu parceiro das conversas oxigenadoras:

"One of the more intractable obstacles to a successful digital factory is the makeup of the workforce itself. This type of advanced production approach represents an entirely new model of human–machine interaction, one that not many workers — or manufacturers — are prepared for. In our view, understanding the impact on the people in the company is at least as important as calculating the financial benefit of the digital factory, in part because the former will ultimately impinge on the latter. Employees who feel marginalized by the emphasis on new technologies or who are not equipped to work in that environment will compromise the factory’s chances for success."

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,”
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“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.
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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.”"

O futuro passará por voltar ao passado

“In the 1950’s footwear brands offered many different widths and in-store customer service for bespoke fitting. However, with mass scale global production in the 1970’s and fast fashion of today, this went away. Now 90% of the population buy the wrong shoe sizes or don’t even know their correct shoe size. This has created an average of 20% return rate from brick and mortar and e-commerce sales. This mounts to annual 80 billion of lost revenue for the footwear industry! Thus, the pain point is in correct sizing, fitting and reducing returns and not necessarily figuring out the new trendy color for the spring collection. By offering consumers 127 sizes you can capture 90% more of the population simply by offering a vast size range that serves the consumer directly for accurate fit with 3mm increments. The 90% of the population needs to be provided for different widths and global sizing fitting to encompass all markets. 127 sizes will also increase revenue for brands to better serve the consumer for a better fit.”

O futuro passará por voltar ao passado. Uma ideia que não é nova neste blogue.

Trecho retirado de "Janne Kyttanen: Finding the magic number for customization utilizing 3D printing in your industry"

"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.
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“[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.”
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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.”"

Demoram tanto a perceber isto?

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

Sintomas de um mundo em mudança

• Digitalização 3D simplifica a compra e a produção em massa de calçados personalizados
• How a Few Brands Are Making Made-to-Measure Fashion Accessible
• Shoemakers bring bespoke footwear to the high street

A crescente procura pela customização

"Organizations are naturally inclined to routinize things, and that isn't necessarily a bad thing. Through experience, they develop stable ways of working that coordinate and combine the efforts of various people and specialists. When an IVF clinic follows the standard protocol for a regular patient, for example, everybody knows exactly what to do and when, and the organization executes this task without much effort or disruption. It makes production fast, efficient, and reliable. Obviously, there's nothing wrong with fast, efficient, and reliable. But if you want to innovate, you'll need to disrupt this routine, and develop new solutions and new ways of working.
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To put it bluntly, your team needs to makes its own life difficult. This is exactly what IVF clinics did when they didn't turn away difficult cases. By treating patients with complex etiologies, they experienced more valuable learning opportunities than if they concentrated exclusively on higher-probability cases. By experimenting, reflectively communicating about the results, and codifying their newfound knowledge—the three critical components of team learning behavior—the clinics were able to improve their practices in the long term.
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You can't innovate without ever trying something new. This may sound quite obvious - and, frankly, it is - but many organizational processes and practices are precisely aimed at not doing this. Process management techniques (such as ISO 9001), for instance, are aimed at making processes more reliable and secure. In general, organizations are inclined to try to rule out variability and instead concentrate on what works best."

Li isto e relacionei logo com "The Great Strength and Debilitating Weakness of Modern Medicine… and Management" e:

"The great strength of modern medicine lies in the fits that work. The patient enters the hospital with a diseased heart and leaves soon after with a repaired one. But where the fit fails can be found modern medicine’s debilitating weakness. Fits fail, more often generally realized, beyond the categories, across the categories, and beneath the categories.
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Dr. Atul Gawande, in a New Yorker article entitled “The Bell Curve” (6 December 2004), reported on his observation of a renowned cystic fibrosis physician. He wrote the protocols that others used, yet had much better results. Meeting a young woman, and seeing a reduced measure of lung-function, he asked if she was taking her treatments. She said that she was. But he probed further, to discover that she had a new boyfriend and a new job that were getting in the way of taking those treatments. Together they figured out how she could alter her schedule.
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Here, then, lay the good doctor’s secret: he treated the person and not just the patient, by delving beneath the medical context, to her personal situation."

Escrevi há anos um postal, que agora não consigo recuperar sobre uma empresa de dispositivos médicos que era muito eficiente e muito bem sucedida, mas quando quis dar um salto descobriu o poder da "to makes its own life difficult" ao começar a trabalhar no aprofundamento da customização.

Trechos iniciais retirados de "Breaking Bad Habits" de Freek Vermeulen.

"Giants invariably descend into suckiness" (parte III)

Parte I e parte II.

"Not only did print on demand provide an easy way to offer my customers more options, but it was also a simple way to spread brand awareness without having to fill my apartment with inventory.
The world of print-on-demand fashion has revolutionized the side hustle and merchandising game for many entrepreneurs. There is no risk in launching a new T-shirt design in your store because there is no preprinting and inventory required.
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“E-commerce is all about finding ways to do things faster, cheaper, and easier,” ... “The fact that I can run a profitable business out of my home, with no office space, employees, or startup costs is pretty phenomenal.”
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Some store owners have taken advantage of these same tools to make hyper-personalized items.
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Despite these advantages, one of the largest downsides to print on demand remains the price. When no quantities are guaranteed up front, the prices for printing are not cheap, leaving a low profit margin for the seller.
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Print-on-demand platforms make it easy for artists to list their work on a multitude of shirts, posters, mugs, and so on without testing them in advance. Companies make this variety tempting to give customers a greater selection and increase the chances they’ll make a purchase.
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In our fast-paced era of online content creation, social media stars with big fan bases are becoming much more common. For smaller stars with dedicated followings, these on-demand opportunities can also be fantastic for creating branded merchandise. YouTubers and podcasters can let their fans be brand ambassadors, spreading the word and growing the hype.
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But on-demand printing is not limited to fashion. It’s also a wonderful way for writers to self-publish.
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Overall, on-demand printing and its integration with various platforms is empowering designers and creators alike to take charge over their creative ventures and not be limited by traditional business or industry barriers. It makes small fashion businesses more accessible and brings buyers a more custom experience."

Recordar todos aqueles que têm sempre na boca a inovação, a Indústria 4.0, a IA e, continuam a acreditar que a escala é tudo:

"Hoje em dia, na grande parte das actividades, a escala é muito importante."

E não percebem a dispersão crescente da procura, de como a autenticidade é cada vez mais importante e de como há cada vez menos barreiras à entrada: a democratização da produção.




Trechos retirados de "Technology Shaping the Fashion Industry"

"Giants invariably descend into suckiness" (parte II)

Parte I.

Quem ao longo dos anos segue este blogue, conhece a minha metáfora de Mongo sobre o mundo económico para onde caminhámos, e sobre como esse mundo representa um distanciamento face ao paradigma que formatou as universidades e os cursos de economia e gestão, moldados nos modelos da produção em massa, da escala, daquilo a que chamo de Metropolis ou Magnitogorsk, crentes na racionalidade das decisões.

Quem conhece a metáfora de Mongo, olhe bem para o tweet que se segue:

The explosion of craft brewing could be an early signal of a big shift away from standardized mass market products to tailored creative products, leading to a significant fragmentation of product businesses https://t.co/rF3q7MT48A

— John Hagel (@jhagel) January 27, 2018

Reparem:

"a big shift away from standardized mass market products to tailored creative products, leading to a significant fragmentation of product businesses"

Como isto é nem mais nem menos o que aqui dizemos desde Novembro de 2007:

"Se Chris Anderson tiver razão, e espero bem que sim, trata-se de uma esperança, para as sociedades dos países pequenos. Quanto mais aumentar o poder da cauda longa, mais oportunidades de negócio existirão, para as pequenas empresas, rápidas e flexíveis que apostarem na diferenciação, na diversidade, na variedade. A cabeça pode ficar para os asiáticos, mas a nata das margens, essa ficará para quem, como dizia Jesus Cristo, tiver olhos para ver, e ouvidos para ouvir, a corrente, a tendência de fundo."

Na parte III vamos mergulhar nas implicações das produções "on demand" para na parte IV analisarmos o artigo sobre as cervejas artesanais e o seu simbolismo.

Uma nova produção

"As manufacturing shifts from offshore mass production to customized, local fabrication, new jobs will open up for human workers, some of which have yet to reveal themselves. “We used to have distribution built around manufacturing,” Mandel says, referencing the centrality of offshore factories, “and now I think that manufacturing is going to be built around distribution.”"

Será que a unidade do futuro será mesmo a distribuição? Tendo a pensar que a unidade do futuro será a relação, será a interacção, será a co-criação, e todos os modelos de negócio que a fomentem e potenciem serão importantes.

Trecho retirado de "Inside Adidas’ Robot-Powered, On-Demand Sneaker Factory"

Acerca dos processos (parte III)

Parte I e parte II.

Este trecho:

"The feel of Starbucks stores isn’t created merely by the layout and the décor—it exists because the people behind the counter understand how their work fits into a common purpose, and recognize how to accomplish great things together without needing to follow a script."

Retirado de "How to Excel at Both Strategy and Execution" e citado aqui permite conciliar o dilema da parte II.

Recordo, eu, um adepto incondicional da abordagem por processos, a sublinhar que os processos podem também ter um lado perverso quando cristalizam as práticas e impedem as organizações de fugir do incrementalismo.

Aquele sublinhado ali em cima fez-me pensar numa série de actividades que as pessoas têm de realizar e que estão sistematizadas em processos para o fazerem de forma uniforme e eficiente. E muitas organizações ficam-se por este nível. Outras, por causa da sua estratégia, por causa das suas pessoas, por causa dos seus clientes, por causa de uma mistura destas coisas, olham para o processo como uma espécie de esqueleto, um script-base, e sobre ele começam a construir camadas de interacção, camadas de personalização, camadas de facilitados de co-criação de valor que acabam por  descaracterizar o script inicial num conjunto de scripts adequados a cada contexto numa relação 1-para-1.

"Value over volume"

Há dias criticavam a União Europeia por esta querer relacionar o aumento do número de professores com a melhoria dos resultados dos alunos.

Onde é que já se viu tamanha enormidade?! (Estou a ser irónico)

Eis o futuro na saúde, também:

"Doctors and hospitals are increasingly being paid not for the quantity of care they provide, but for the outcome or quality of care patients receive. The emerging trend in health care is about rewarding value, rather than volume. This is the future, where there is less focus on the number of tests or treatments a patient receives and more focus on whether a patient’s health is improving.
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Roughly 20 agreements have been announced in recent months, and each is developed with differing details. For example, some result in larger rebates or lower prices if a drug does not lead to its intended results. Other arrangements let patients “try before you buy” and only require payment if the therapy works. Still others promote “pay for performance” in which a drug’s cost is tied to its effectiveness....While nearly 90 percent of all drugs on the market are low-cost generic medicines, roughly 5 percent of patients take so-called “specialty” drugs to treat serious or life-threatening diseases. These drugs represent one-third of all drug spending, and this trend is expected to continue with the discovery of new treatments for rare diseases and other highly personalized medicines."

Trechos retirados de "The future of drug pricing: Value over volume"

Permutar não é arte

"It’s no secret that the world of in-person, store-based retail is losing a major portion of its business to online retailing.  This isn’t surprising. Any store can lose business when competitive stores open up, especially when those competitors offer advantages it can’t offer, such as breadth of selection, price and convenience.
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But online retailing doesn’t hold all of the advantages. If brick and mortar retailers want to survive – and even thrive – in this new marketplace, it’s important they play to their strengths and not to the strengths of their online competitors.
Let’s start with in-person retailing most important competitive advantage: It’s in person.
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A store sales person has the opportunity to engage a customer, learn about them, and customize the dialogue in way that is personally relevant to that customer.  An amazon.com page may be able to offer a buyer products that are relevant based on past browsing or purchases, but amazon.com is unable to help the customer form a nuanced, personalized, meaningful story about how a certain product is a great choice for them. [Moi ici: Daí a importância das interacções essa magia que sublinhamos vezes sem conta nesta vida] As amazing as it is, amazon.com is essentially the world’s biggest, most high-powered vending machine.
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This is the first element that can distinguish an in-person store experience: the feeling that a real person is working with you to accomplish what you are trying to accomplish. [Moi ici: E com uma "real person" há a possibilidade de criar algo de novo, há a possibilidade da arte. Customização matemática, permutar materiais e cores, não é o mesmo que arte]
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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 they still have the advantage of proximate, meaningful human contact, which, in many situations, is a competitive advantage that can win the love – and loyalty – of customers."

Trechos retirados de "How Not to Fail at Retail"

Co-criação de valor - uma fonte

Quando escrevo sobre Mongo, sobre um mundo de artesãos, um mundo de mais proximidade, um mundo de mais customização, um mundo de menos vómito industrial, um mundo de mais significados, penso no aumento da co-criação e penso que esta pode ser realmente uma vantagem competitiva que as PME podem usar para viverem e terem sucesso. Acredito mesmo nisto:

"Value cocreation has long been praised as the next source of competitive advantage for service providers in the 21st century. The value of focusing on value cocreation as a source of competitive advantage lies in the interactions service providers develop with their customers and their potential to generate value for their customers. These interactions present a certain level of intimacy with the service provider’s customers, ensuring that they are difficult to replicate for competitors, and can yield long-term benefits such as customer loyalty and high lifetime share of wallet"

Por isso, recomendo vivamente a leitura de "Value cocreation in service interactions: Dimensions and antecedents" de Carmen Neghina, Marjolein C. J. Caniëls e Josée M. M. Bloemer, publicado por Marketing Theory, Volume: 15 issue: 2, page(s): 221-242, 2015. 

Uma boa fonte de informação sobre o "estado da arte"

Decisões de localização (parte II)

Parte I.

Na leitura final de "From Global to Local" de Finbarr Livesey encontrei uma série de trechos sobre decisões de localização com os quais concordo embora com algumas dúvidas:

[Moi ici: Primeiro algo sobre Mongo] "While new production technologies are not going to give us Star Trek like 'replicator' any time soon, they are enabling smaller factories to be  economically viable. They do this by lowering what is referred  to as minimum economic scale, the lowest volume of production for which the investment in the factory is financially viable. [Moi ici: Isto é Mongo a 100%. A democratização da produção]
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The simple view of production was that bigger is better: you offset large capital costs by having a factory that produces in high volume with extreme efficiency. The case for ever increasing sizes of factory hits barriers of coordination if the factories become too large and the level required to be efficient or cost competitive has fallen as additive manufacturing and other techniques have developed and improved their performance. [Moi ici: BTW, a seu tempo os políticos descobrirão isto mas só depois de provocar muito sofrimento com as escolas-cidade, os hospitais-cidade, os tribunais-cidade, as esquadras-cidade, ...] A key implication of techniques like additive manufacturing is that they remove the need for specialised components such as moulds or forms to be made specific to the product working its way down the assembly line. [Moi ici: Pesquisar a palavra japonesa "seru"] As well as saving cost and time by not having to make these specialised pieces, it also means that a factory can more easily make a variety of products. Rather than thinking of the investment in a factory being tied to one product, the costs can be offset against the income generated from a series of products, hence a lower minimum economic scale for each product. With lower scale, the likelihood of having a greater number of smaller factories instead of a small number of extremely large factories goes up. And as that happens the factories are going to be geographically dispersed, lowering the number of trade movements necessary to get a product to customers in different countries.
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[Moi ici: Agora sobre decisões de localização] The second level of change is a strengthening of the regionalisation of trade. The temptation is to work at the extremes — everything is global or everything is local. This misses the subtleties that are needed in industrial organisation and the diversity that exists in manufacturing. Regionalisation will be driven by the balance of forces between the scale required to have efficiencies and the desire to reduce time to customer and the costs of being in different countries simultaneously.[Moi ici: Sinto que há muito de verdade neste último trecho. Unidades produtivas muito eficientes a trabalhar para todo o mundo produzindo artigos fáceis de transportar e pouco dependentes da vontade do cliente na sua versão final. Unidades produtivas ágeis e mais pequenas, talvez a trabalhar para mercados até 3/4 dias de camião, mais próximas do lugar de consumo, permitindo produções com séries curtas, reposições rápidas, alterações de design e iterações rápidas. Unidades produtivas junto do consumo para permitir customização, interacção, co-criação ]
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It is worth noting that even though the declining importance of distance for trade has been accepted as a stylised fact for many years. distance has always moderated trade. [Moi ici: Ghemawat tem um livro com uns gráficos espectaculares que ilustram esta realidade] The further away from one another two countries are, the smaller the level of trade we would expect to see between them. A recent review of over one hundred academic papers on the effect of distance on trade indicates that the average effect means that to per cent increase in distance lowers bilateral trade by about 9 per cent? Distance continues to matter even with absolute transport costs falling and increasing digital interconnection around the world. [Moi ici: Depois disto tudo tenho dúvidas num aspecto. Se a digitalização e a conectividade reduzem as fronteiras, como conciliar tudo isto com a técnica alemã de procurar clientes-alvo independentemente da geografia? Acredito que a diferenciação que trabalha para nichos e que não se baseia na interacção mas antes na vantagem tecnológica ou de design crescerá baseada na conectividade digital sem olhar à geografia]
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With smaller factories being economically viable and tooling costs falling due to increased use of techniques like additive manufacturing, companies can produce for the different regions of the world independently rather than attempting to have a global product. [Moi ici: Teremos pois, é fácil de prever para os próximos anos, a criação de unidades produtivas de multinacionais para servirem continentes e não o mundo]
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In a regionalised scenario a company may not have its supply chain and final assembly all in the country in which it will be selling its products. They can organise themselves and their suppliers across the region. However, in some cases that won't be the best way to be organised, for example if time is really an issue. If there cannot be a lag of, say, a week to get goods from Mexico to the east coast of the USA, then the company will need to have at least final assembly in the country of purchase, if not more of the supply chain feeding that assembly process for your product.
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At the third level within regions we are likely to see agglomeration or clustering effects. These clusters arise as there are positive effects for companies to be close to other companies im similar sectors.
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As we move into a world where products have shorter journeys to get to us, where factories are smaller and there are more of them, and where is great uncertainty about what work we will be doing, the other elements of globalization will also continue to evolve. Nothing in the trends we have described will by themselves reduce or block digital globalization."

Um exemplo de Mongo

Um exemplo de como Mongo vai permitir muito mais oportunidades para independentes: "This entrepreneur bootstrapped a sneaker business for celebs and high-end stores".

A aposta na customização, a aposta na diferenciação.

Um cheirinho de futuro

Mais um exemplo, mais um cheiro do futuro que Mongo vai trazer: "You Can Now Design Your Own Custom Swatch"

Têxtil e placas tectónicas

Um exemplo português de utilização da Indústria 4.0 em "Adaptarse o morir: la industria 4.0 vuelve a poner en jaque al textil":

"Tras adaptarse a la deslocalización industrial y sobrevivir a la última crisis financiera y de consumo, el textil encara ahora un cambio de paradigma productivo, que vuelve a poner en jaque su continuidad. Si la tercera revolución consistió en la automatización de los procesos para la producción en masa y en serie, la cuarta consiste en digitalizarlos y gestionar los datos para ganar eficiencia y rapidez, y mejorar la rentabilidad, con series cortas y personalizadas.
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Esta transformación implica replantear de nuevo el modelo productivo de la industria textil y vuelve a redefinir las redes de aprovisionamiento, acercándolas de nuevo. [Moi ici: Outra vez o ranger das placas tectónicas e as oportunidades e ameaças] Esta nueva industria pone en riesgo modelos productivos tradicionales así como los cientos de miles de puestos de trabajo no cualificado, aunque abre el abanico a nuevos perfiles profesionales más técnicos y más creativos. El cambio ha empezado y no hay marcha atrás. Los expertos coinciden: no se puede dar la espalda a la tecnología.
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El futuro
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Ahora, la industria de la moda es capaz de colocar en el mercado un diseño en veinte días con normalidad; con proveedores en proximidad, puede forzar las entregas a diez días. Con la digitalización, ¿por qué no en 24 horas? Y con impresoras 3D, desde la misma tienda, ¿por qué no en quince minutos? Los expertos consultados coinciden en que llegará, sólo falta ver cuándo."[Moi ici: Esta aceleração não se compadece com distância nem com complexidade... aquele "poner en jaque al textil" faz pensar em: será que os gigantes vão sobreviver?]

Sente-se o ranger das placas tectónicas...

"If you follow the state of retail at all, you know things aren't looking good for brick and mortar. At a glance, all signs point to an ongoing retailpocalypse..
Estimates suggest that 15-30 percent of shopping malls will close in the coming years. This isn't a surprise, since foot traffic dropped 50 percent from 2010 to 2013. CNN Money reports that a record 8,600-plus stores are estimated to close in the U.S. this year.
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The retailpocalypse isn't necessarily a clear indicator of the state of retail at-large. What's happening isn't gloom and doom, but rather, a powerful change in this space. It's a real opportunity for smart retail leaders who can recognize and capitalize on one of the single most important shifts in the market in years."

Trechos retirados de "The Retailpocalypse Is Finally Here--and It's a Great Opportunity for Entrepreneurs"

"Sears Holdings continued its steady drip of store closures Friday with the announcement that it would close 35 more Kmart locations and eight Sears stores.
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J.C. Penney has said it will shutter 138 locations, roughly 14% of its stores, and give buyouts to 6,000 employees. Macy’s plans to shut 68 stores. Radio Shack, which has sought bankruptcy protection twice in two years, has closed more than 1,000 locations since Memorial Day weekend. And one-time mall favorites Bebe, The Limited, and Wet Seal have closed or are in the process of shuttering all of their storefronts."

Trechos retirados de "SLOW DEATH: Sears, Kmart to close 43 more stores as retail crisis continues"

"So the key to survival has less to do with mindless debates about “digital vs. brick and mortar” than it does about putting customers at the center and building out operations that can service them effectively.
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That’s how you get disrupted. You become a square-peg business in a round-hole world. Clearly, this is what most retailers are facing today. They act as if they are still operating in an environment where the function of a physical store is to drive transactions, rather than to provide an immersive physical experience, build personal relationships and upsell.
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The good news is that the opportunities are endless. Apparel retailers can become style guides. Toy stores can become playrooms. Electronic retailers can demo the newest gadgets and help even the most tech averse customers adopt technology that will enrich their lives. The best part is that these strategies can also reduce inventory and rental costs while at the same time expand reach to smaller urban locations and pop up shops."

Trechos retirados de "Retail Isn’t Dead, But It Does Need To Adapt"

"They are sharp retailers operating in a tough, competitive environment. They have used customer service as a strategy to build customer loyalty, as their competitors have. But in addition, they have gracefully moved into the digital age, exploiting data and technology to create a better customer experience.
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Create killer experiences that resonate with customers, especially customers who like to take advantage of technology"

Trechos retirados de "Walgreens: At The Corner Of Technology And A Better Customer Experience (CX)"

O mundo económico a mudar, sente-se o ranger das placas tectónicas...

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O reshoring a mudar o ponto de produção por um lado, a evolução do retalho a mudar as prateleiras do outro e a evolução dos consumidores a entrar também na dança "Klaus Huneke (Euratex): “La relocalización será una realidad con la personalización masiva y los plazos cortos”"

"in two years, it has lost 14.79 per cent of its exports"

"China is the number one textile and clothing exporter to the world, producing more than 43.1per cent of global demand. As per the 13th five-year plan of Chinese Government for the year 2016 to 2020 period, China strategically is moving towards more value adding tech intensive products. The plan is to maintain traditional market share and to grow more on the high value adding product range. But real market data shows that the country is losing its export market drastically from 2015 in almost all product sectors in the textiles and clothing arena.
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In 2014, Chinese global apparel export was the highest ever and afterwards in two years, it has lost 14.79 per cent of its exports."

Trecho retirado de "IS CHINA LOSING ITS TEXTILE TOUCH?"

Conjugar com "Klaus Huneke (Euratex): “La relocalización será una realidad con la personalización masiva y los plazos cortos”"

Uma mudança de paradigma

"Mass customization doesn't have to be a trend to offer an opportunity to differentiate yourself from competitors and boost margins. That's the point of the Bain study, which found that people are warming to the idea of customized products.
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Although fewer than 10 percent had actually purchased customized products or options, between 25 percent and 30 percent were interested. "While it is hard to gauge the overall potential of customization, if 25 percent of online sales of footwear were customized, that would equate to a market of $2 billion per year," Bain wrote.
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It's not as though only giants can offer customization. FashionPlaytes is a young business that lets girls order customized clothing. Any auto or motorcycle shop that builds custom vehicles would be a clear example.
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Customization is an old service that has a chance for some new appreciation. Customization can tie a customer closer to you and give them a reason not to do business with competitors who don't do things the customer's way."

Trechos retirados de "Mass Customization: Let Your Customers Have It Their Way"