Vendas, custos e riscos

Um trecho interessante para os empresários pensarem:

"Clients pay for two things in the main, either increasing revenue or reducing costs. [Moi ici: Faz logo lembrar "The Three Rules", mas o ponto que quero sublinhar é o que vem a seguir] But they will also pay, in a very direct way, for trust and for the perception of reduced risk. One of the things that allows you to increase your rates over time is think of it that there is a tremendous fear in every client’s mind, when they get into a new technology project (or any kind of project really), that the project is just going to totally blow up and they will get no value out of it. So they discount the rate that they are paying to you, the maximum rate they think they can afford to pay you, by the chance of the project totally blowing up."[Moi ici: Faz logo lembrar a frase "no one was ever fired for buying ibm"]

A ideia do risco tem duas vertentes:

• Ajuda os que estão estabelecidos e têm uma reputação no mercado
• Prejudica os novos que querem entrar num mercado: os estudos todos dizem que o produto é melhor, mas ... são estudos, não a vida real. E se corre mal? Recordar:

Recomendo a audição ou a leitura da fonte do trecho lá de cima "Ramit Sethi and Patrick McKenzie On Why Your Customers Would Be Happier If You Charged More" (muito me ri ao ouvir o podcast enquanto conduzia debaixo de chuva à noite). Por exemplo:

"“How do I download the Googles to my printer?”
Ramit:  What? That’s a reasonable ‑‑ [laughs] to your printer?
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Patrick:  Yeah.
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Ramit:  [laughs] You had me until you said printer. OK, that is ridiculous.
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Patrick:  My users occupy a place of love in my heart. So I say this from a position of love, and not to make fun of anyone, but rather to tell you that real people really think like this: I’ve had to convince people that there are not two physically distinct Internets entitled “the blue Googles” and the “the green Googles.”  This means they can use their login on my website regardless of whether they’re on the blue Googles or the green Googles.  Believe it or not, any site that you can reach from the blue Googles is available on the green Googles as well.
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(Wondering how someone would come to this misconception?  A particular customer used the Internet using IE opening to MSN at school and IE opening to Google at home.  They did not realize that Microsoft and Google were not the same company.  They interpreted this as “the blue Googles” and the “green Googles”, because the Googles is the Internet to them.  When they typed stuff into the two different boxes on the two different Googles, different results came out.  Their natural inclination for, “Why does this strange, devil box work in different ways?” was, “Oh, they must be two different devil boxes.”)"

 À parte as piadas o artigo deixa várias provocações relacionadas com a parte do título "Your Customers Would Be Happier If You Charged More"

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.
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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"

"Smart contracts substitute boundaries"

"Smart contracts substitute boundaries. The architecture of a firm is a live social graph of networked interdependence and accountability."

Este trecho que li ontem ficou-me na memória porque, de certa forma, relaciona-se com conversa que tive durante a manhã numa reunião em Gaia. Conversa em que discutíamos o quanto a tecnologia está a baixar as barreiras à entrada (a democratizar a produção) e a permitir arranjos empresariais novos e exóticos.

O que antes existia sob o tecto de uma empresa caminha cada vez mais para ser realizado por uma orquestra de entidades independentes.

As ideias de Coase e o papel da tecnologia na redução da fricção.

Consigo recuar a Michael Hammer (Junho de 2007) e a uma previsão: a extensão da reengenharia do interior das empresas para os fluxos inter-empresas.

"No fundo trata-se de uma vertente de aplicação do conceito que Michael Hammer promoveu no seu livro "The agenda", publicado em 2001(?). Depois de aplicar a re-engenharia internamente (e ainda há muito por fazer a este nível nas empresas e sobretudo na Administração Pública - basta recordar que a aplicação de metodologias de gestão na Administração Pública norte-americana, levou ao corte do número de funcionários públicos nos Estados Unidos em cerca de 15-20% durante a administração Clinton), pode e deve-se replicar o conceito na relação com os clientes e com os fornecedores. Se deitarmos abaixo as paredes que nos separam dos clientes, porque é que o cliente há-de ter armazém de matéria-prima? Porque é que o cliente há-de ter dinheiro enterrado em inventário e instalações? Porque é que o cliente há-de ter pessoal que não gera valor, a pastorear inventário? Porque é que o fornecedor não entrega directamente à produção do cliente? Idêntico pensamento pode ser feito a montante, em relação aos fornecedores."

Só que aqui a realidade está a seguir um percurso que não conseguia prever em 2007. Não é a reengenharia entre as entidades do passado (a empresa e os seus fornecedores e clientes) é a explosão da empresa clássica em entidades mais pequenas.

Trecho retirado de "Business game design"

Fricção e Originação de Valor

"There is a long tradition in strategy of linking superior performance to the existence of imperfect competition and competitive frictions play a central role in both the industry-level and resource-level of analysis. In particular, Mahoney (2001) argues that the resource-based view is fundamentally about the set of frictions that enable the capture of sustainable rents. Without any frictions, perfectly competitive product and factor markets assure that all rents are dissipated.
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As perfect competition arises when all buyers are always able to play all suppliers off against one another, the introduction of such frictions serves to moderate the level of rivalry in the market.
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Markets with low frictions are those where little or no information has to be acquired for transactions and negotiations to take place. Everyone knows who is selling and what is to be sold. For example, commodity markets show very little frictions. Markets with high frictions are those where it is costly to ascertain the quality of what is to be sold to buyers and suppliers need to spend time to search for each other. (Moi ici: Julgo que esta descrição está incompleta. A fricção, a imperfeição do mercado não surge só por causa da falta de informação. Quando uma empresa se diferencia, pelo seu serviço, pelo seu produto, pela sua flexibilidade, pela relação que desenvolveu com os clientes, está a tornar o mercado imperfeito, está a introduzir fricção) Matching between supply and demand is hence imperfect. Markets for new innovative products could be characterized by high frictions as buyers need to understand if the new product fits their needs and suppliers need to understand who constitutes their demand. Professional services could also be characterized as high frictions as there are both high switching costs and services can be difficult to evaluate.
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Obviously, as markets evolve over time, the level of frictions can change. The definition of standards, the establishment of reputations and the maturation of technologies can contribute to reduce frictions. (Moi ici: Os autores só abordam a fricção na relação entre fornecedores e clientes. Acho muito mais interessante a fricção que um fornecedor cria na relação entre os clientes-alvo e outros fornecedores ao se diferenciar) The increased availability of information through the internet for products can be seen as lowering frictions; more generally advances in information and communications technologies can be seen as allowing buyers to work with a larger and more dispersed set of suppliers."
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Até porque está de acordo com a definição de fricção dada pelos autores do artigo:
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"A central aim of this paper is to introduce frictions into value-based analysis. We define frictions as impediments to the free form negotiations among all players that are assumed in the received value-based approach. The key implication of the presence of frictions is to break the assumption that all buyers are able to negotiate with all sellers. As perfect competition arises when all buyers are always able to play all suppliers off against one another, the introduction of frictions serves to moderate the level of rivalry."
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Pensemos nas empresas grandes, plenas de capacidade financeira... e como não são capazes de ser eternas... 
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"A leader with high value creation and a follower with low value creation emerge due to the conjunction of two factors. The first factor, which is due to the underlying cooperative game theoretic model, is that free form negotiation allows buyers to make suppliers compete harshly against each other. Solely on the basis of free form negotiation this would be a winner-take all market, with room for only one supplier, as two identical suppliers would both earn zero profits. The second factor, which we introduced in this paper, is the friction parameter which shields the weaker supplier from the brunt of competition from the stronger one. Because of frictions, which prevent some buyers from negotiating with both suppliers at the same time, there is a niche available in the market for a weaker supplier and which justifies this supplier’s investment in some capabilities."
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Trechos retirados de "Value Creation and Value Capture with Frictions" de Olivier Chatain e Peter Zemsky.