Os mercados como configurações (parte IV)

Gerosky em "Thinking creatively about markets", publicado por International Journal of Industrial Organization 16 (1998) 677–695 (um artigo escrito em 1998 e... que continua actual).
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Um mercado não é algo inerente à natureza, não é algo intrínseco, é uma criação intelectual, é uma organização mental da actividade económica. Quando uma empresa define a natureza do seu mercado, influencia de forma poderosa a sua identidade, as suas capacidades o seu know-how. Por sua vez, a identidade de uma empresa, ajuda a focar as energias e recursos dos seus elementos proporcionando um sentido comum de propósito.
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Quando uma empresa dá o salto mental de "criar" o seu mercado, em vez de se posicionar num mercado que já existe, criado por outros (qual Bill Russell), pode criar as condições para destapar oportunidades de inovação estratégica.
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A redefinição de um mercado é, muitas vezes, a única forma de engenheirar com sucesso a entrada numa actividade bem protegida por barreiras à entrada ou à mobilidade.
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"The notion that there is a well-defined ‘market’ for any good or service is an artefact of the collective imagination of those interested in the buying and selling of that good or service. A market exists whenever someone can dream up a set of needs that can be profitably served through production and trade, and that means that markets exist only in the eyes of their beholders. Market boundaries are imaginary lines which we impose on reality, and we draw them to isolate certain kinds of activities from others in order to make sense and think creatively about what we observe. Where we draw the boundaries depends on why we are interested in doing so, and the first point that I have tried to make is that different users are almost certainly likely to draw different boundaries.
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that markets are places where economic activity occurs, and this means that identifying a market is about identifying a viable activity."
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"firms might try to identify a strategic market, defined as ‘ . . . the smallest area within which it is possible to be a viable competitor’. The two key features of this definition are ‘smallest’ and ‘viable’, and a useful way to see the power of the concept is to apply it to the vexed question of whether any particular market truly is global or not.
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‘Viable’ refers to profitability, and this means that it reflects both supply side factors and demand side influences. (Moi ici: Em especial para os jotinhas) On the one hand, a strictly national producer of a commodity whose production is subject to substantial economies of scale is always at risk of being undercut by a large sized foreign based competitor, and, therefore, it is unlikely that operating at a strictly national (or even at a subnational) scale will be viable. On the other hand, if the product is capable of being differentiated and niches of consumers who value certain variants of the product very highly exist, then a firm that serves these niches well can sacrifice the cost advantages of large scale operation without threatening its viability. In this case, it would be incorrect to assert that the ‘market’ in question was global, even if it were populated by global players. More generally, viability means that a strategic market must be built up around products or services which perform valued functions. This means matching technological capability to important user needs, and assembling a long enough list of people who have these needs to make serving them profitable.
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‘Smallest’ is important because it enables one to draw a strong line between strategic necessity and strategic options. When small, economically viable niches exist in a market otherwise characterized by substantial economies of scale and homogeneous demand, firms have a choice: they can occupy one of these niches or they can operate globally. The strategic market is not, in this case, the global market, since a viable smaller alternative exists. That is, a firm may choose to go global, but it need not necessarily do so." (Moi ici: E onde é que uma empresa portuguesa com cultura portuguesa pode dar cartas, sendo global e apostando na escala, ou sendo uma ocupante de nichos?)