Luxo nos serviços e criação de valor

Um artigo que muitos deveriam ler, sobretudo os que se queixam do baixo valor acrescentado dos serviços que prestam, "Understanding the Value Process: Value creation in a luxury service context". Colhemos o que semeamos.

O artigo foca-se em três ideias principais:

• A função dos prestadores de serviço vai além da co-criação. As empresas que prestam serviços de luxo fazem mais do que apenas trabalhar com os clientes para criar valor com a interacção. Elas também preparam o terreno para que os clientes tenham uma experiência única e agradável.
• Os clientes também criam o seu próprio valor. O artigo refere que os clientes também ciam valor por conta própria, independentemente do que a empresa faz. Por exemplo, podem gostar da sensação de fazer parte de algo exclusivo ou luxuoso.
• O escapismo como valor para o cliente em serviços de luxo. Os clientes que utilizam o serviço de luxo para escapar momentaneamente da vida quotidiana. É uma parte fundamental do que torna estes serviços valiosos.

Ideias fundamentais para ajudar as empresas a compreender como tornar os seus serviços de luxo mais apelativos e memoráveis para os clientes. Não se trata apenas do produto, mas de toda a experiência e do sentimento que os clientes obtêm dele.

Excelente figura:

"The value process before the interaction

Customer sphere: Value anticipation. Building on previous research showing that anticipation influences satisfaction (Oliver & Burke 1999), we find that many customers eagerly look forward to the experience of the interaction. Their value process already begins as they start planning and thinking about their visit to ...

the company's fame drives customer anticipation for those who have never visited ... They develop optimistic fantasies about the future visit, in line with psychological research on future expectations.

Customers who have already visited ... also anticipate their interactions, using their familiarity as a heuristics for predictions. Familiarity not only grounds expectations of continuity (i.e., repetition of past positive experienced value) but also escapist discontinuity (i.e., fantasies of unexpected additional value)

...

Provider sphere: Value facilitation. In keeping with its heritage, ... locates the customer at the center of the service to facilitate value creation by conveying an iconic authentic service. As customers enter ..., they are plunged into a visual servicescape that brings together symbols of the ..., granting fictional access to ... the servicescape guides customers as to how to behave in the boutique

...

also facilitates value creation through service disembodiment, with service employees almost becoming actors. Employees wear identical uniforms, behave similarly (e.g., same gestures and phrases), and limit improvisation. They follow a strict code of conduct for respectful interactions with customers and each other. Overall, this grants bold service ritualization wherein service employees become almost interchangeable.

...

Disembodiment is beneficial to the value process for three reasons: (1) it helps reduce value fluctuations due to employees' personal touch; (2) through de-humanization, service employees are liberated from human imperfection; and, (3) customers' humanity becomes more salient, making them the sole protagonists (the personnel never befriends customers).

This is noteworthy as disembodiment is usually an unplanned and undesired consequence of service commodification or digitization.

...

The value process during the interaction

Joint sphere: Value co-creation. All actions in the provider sphere to facilitate customers' value creation come alive in the service encounter. ... We further identify the role of escapism for customers' value in-use in the luxury service context, as escapism is jointly enacted to support value co-creation.

When we asked customers about why they visit..., many mentioned how the service interaction makes them feel, both with service personnel and being in the store, and many unprompted customers talked about a brief escape to another time.

...

By allowing an element of escapism, consumers may even see the time they spend waiting as something adding to their value process.

Next, we identify another important source of value cocreation in time suspension. In our observations and interviews, we find that both the service provider and customer consider the time spent in the boutique to be of utmost importance. 

...

The value process after the interaction

Customer sphere: Value creation. For many customers, the value process does not end when leaving the store; a key part of the process is only beginning. We identify two main types of value that customers attach to the service experience ... First, social value means that consuming the products is not always the main source of value for customers after visiting ...; customers create value from their service in social contexts. Social value is an important aspect of customer value in luxury service settings, ... For example, several customers see value in displaying their trip to a ... boutique and their trophy-like shopping bag.

Our observations document customers taking selfies, standing in front of ... and holding up their purchases with ... logo clearly visible. Many customers immediately upload their picture on social media. Our analysis of some 5,000 pictures hashtagged ... confirms that customers display their visit to ... to others. 

...

Provider sphere: Value learning. In contrast to Grönroos and Voima's (2013) conceptualization of the provider's role ending after the interaction, we find that the provider's value process continues. Our findings indicate that an important part of the provider's process consists of finding ways to learn about what customers do after their interactions in the store and how they consume the product or talk about the service experience." 

A magia da interacção

 Ao longo dos anos tenho aqui sublinhado o papel da interacção nos ecossistemas da procura, para fugir à comoditização, para subir na escala de valor.

"The Joint Sphere: Value Co-creation Opportunities.
In the joint sphere, the customer’s value creation is different. In this part of the value process, the two actors meet and interact with each other.
...
What may happen in such direct interactions, if the actors allow it, is that the provider’s and the customer’s processes—the firm’s service-providing process and the customer’s consumption and value-creating process—merge into one interactive, collaborative and dialogical process. The two processes become one, and a platform of co-creation emerges. Such direct interactions can be both face-to-face interactions and interactions with smart technologies. If both actors are willing to do it and know how to do it, the service provider may engage with the customer’s value-creating process and co-create value with him or her at this stage of the value process. If they do not want to or do not know how to do it, no value co-creation takes place, in spite of the existence of a platform of co-creation. In that case, the provider’s role is restricted to continue facilitating the customer’s value creation.
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Thus, in the joint sphere, the role of the firm may be that of a value co-creator, where the firm’s goal is to, when needed and appropriate, actively influence the customer’s value-creating process and, thus, his or her value fulfilment. On the other hand, the customer’s role is to be the value creator and perhaps also a value co-creator with the provider. The customer’s goal is the same as in the customer sphere: to use and integrate resources with the aim to become better off. In the joint sphere, the actors may switch roles, and the provider becomes the customer and the customer becomes the service provider of, for example, actionable information and feedback. Viewed from below, from a managerial micro-perspective, co-creation only takes place in direct interactions, provided that a platform of co-creation is formed. In all other situations, the firm can only facilitate the customer’s value creation.
...
From a managerial point of view, co-creation can have both positive and negative consequences.[Moi ici: Quando o tema não é abordado de forma preparada, planeada, é provável que por vezes quem interage não tenha consciência das prioridades e das consequências dos seus actos e comportamentos]
...
From the micro-vantage point, one also observes that the firm can do much more than only offer value propositions. If the actors’ processes indeed merge in the joint sphere into an interactive, collaborative and dialogical process and a platform of co-creation comes into existence, the firm has the opportunity to influence the customer’s value process and how this process develops, and in the end, the customer’s value fulfilment. Because this also may have an impact on the customer’s preferences and future purchasing decisions, it also has fundamental implications for marketing. In the service marketing literature, this part of the marketing process is called interactive marketing, and the service employees involved in it are termed part-time marketers."

Trechos retirados de "On Value and Value Creation in Service: A Management Perspective" de Christian Grönroos publicado por Jornal of Creating Value.

o vector tempo não é irrelevante (parte III)

Parte II.

Ontem à noite comecei a ler "On Value and Value Creation in Service: A Management Perspective" de Christian Grönroos e publicado muito recentemente por Jornal of Creating Value. É sempre um gosto ler este pensador.

O Abstract soou a algo de familiar:

"To develop a managerially relevant understanding of value and value creation, these phenomena must be analysed on a micro level. Seen from above, they lack a microfoundation. In the present article, value and value creation are discussed from a micro position, based on a service logic (SL) analysis of the service perspective on business and marketing."

E continuou:

"Viewing from above, or taking a macro-perspective, ... it can be observed that a whole host of actors, such as firms in various stages in the supply chain and end users, contribute to the value that emerges for the end user and other actors in the process. ... However, although a macro- analysis reveals phenomena which are not visible from below, ... at the same time, micro-level phenomena can only be observed from below and remain disguised for an analysis on a system- of-actors level. [Moi ici: Como não recordar os encalhados da tríade, qual Sarumans incapazes de abandonarem o alto das suas torres, incapazes de apanharem o que um anónimo engenheiro da província observa todos os dias há anos] The many different ways in which the actors contribute to value cannot be observed from above and, therefore, are not analysed in detail. ... ‘value co-creation is difficult to observe empirically’, and in order to theoretically develop the service perspective further, researchers must pay more attention to the micro-foundations that underpin SDL’s macro- constructs. ... ‘[M]acro scholars too often work with firm-level constructs which often unclear microfoundations, and proceed as if there are direct causal relations between macro variables (e.g. arguments that capabilities cause performance), where, in fact, the real causal relations involve lower level actions and interactions’.
...
What takes place on an actor level, in contrast to a level of systems of actors, is invisible to macro- analysis. ... the need to avoid the ‘black- boxization of concepts’ . In macro-analysis, the roles and goals of the actors cannot be observed, and even the nature of value as value-in-use is difficult to capture  ... To be able to draw conclusions about this, interactions must be observable and the nature of interactions clearly understood.
...
First, analysing the service perspective from below reveals that the nature of value-in-use is partly different from what is postulated in a macro-analysis. Indeed, value-in-use is determined in an idiosyncratic and phenomenological manner by customers, as suggested by SDL, but how value emerges or is created is not observable in a macro-analysis."

A micro-economia sabe coisas que a macro-economia ou ainda não sabe ou nunca chegará a saber. E, escrevo que "ainda não sabe" porque, quando o mundo muda, os encalhados continuam a tentar explicar o mundo com base nas sebentas em que aprenderam. Os "ignorantes", como não sabem, por tentativa e erro, o nosso querido fuçar, descobrem ao nível micro as opções que funcionam no novo mundo.

Ainda ontem num webinar a que assisti, vi esta imagem:

Quando o mundo muda, o conhecimento que funcionava transforma-se numa armadilha, só resta a acção. O novo conhecimento só virá depois da reflexão sobre as acções que resultaram.

O poder da interacção directa

Continuando a minha leitura de Christian Grönroos e Johanna Gummerus em "The service revolution and its marketing implications: Service logic vs service-dominant logic".
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Penso primeiro nos que sonham com a automatização das relações com os clientes, penso nos encadeados pelos faróis do eficientismo e que, por isso, passam ao lado da vantagem competitiva da interacção.

"The firm is not restricted to offering value propositions ...Service marketing knowledge, concepts and models reflect the foundational premise that service providers are not restricted to offering value propositions; instead, the marketing context of service firms, unlike that for consumer goods, is characterised by interactivity, reciprocity and two-way influences in the service process. The value for the customer of the service being provided in this process thus depends on how the service provider and customer, through their behaviour and communication, influence each other. The provider clearly influences the service and its value for the customer. In addition, fellow customers who are simultaneously present in the process may exert impacts....providers, together with other parties, may need to act to ensure the realisation of proposed value, which is possible only during the interaction between the firm and the customer....Because the actors’ processes – the firm’s service production process and the customer’s consumption and value creation processes – merge into one collaborative, dialogical process during direct interactions, a platform for co-creation of value for both actors arises. The activities on this platform are interactive, mutual and reciprocal. Both parties can directly and actively influence each other’s processes. Therefore, the value-in-use created for the customer (or the firm or both actors) is influenced by actions that occur on the platform..As a clearer understanding of the nature of direct interactions shows, in services there are ample opportunities for the firm, as a service provider, to go beyond the goods logic-influenced view that the firm can only offer value propositions. The service provider can actively and directly influence customers’ perceptions of the firm and its service, as well as customers’ willingness to continue buying from it. Whatever value the service provider has originally promised, or proposed (using value proposition terminology), may be moderated and altered during the interaction process and thus change the customer’s experiences and determination of value-in-use. The higher the value-in-use, the greater the likelihood that the customer considers buying from the same firm the next time. If the co-creation process has an unfavourable impact on the customer’s experiences and value-in-use, the effect likely will be the opposite."

Interacção e co-criação de valor

Parte I.
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Continuando a saborear a reflexão de Christian Grönroos e Johanna Gummerus em "The service revolution and its marketing implications: Service logic vs service-dominant logic".

"If co-creation of value is used analytically, rather than in a metaphorical sense, we must ask: what is the role and focus of co-creation, who is involved, and when does value co-creation occur? The key to answering these questions is the interaction concept.
...
Although “enterprises can offer their applied resources for value creation and collaboratively (interactively) create value following acceptance of value propositions, but cannot create/deliver value independently”, the meaning of this assertion gets disguised by the claim that firms and customers are always co-creators of value.
...
Direct interaction means that two (or more) actors act together in one process, in which their doings and sayings influence each other’s actions and perceptions. The two actors’ processes thus merge into one collaborative, dialogical joint process. During this interactive process, every actor involved can directly and actively influence the value-in-use that emerges for the other actor (or actors). This collaborative, dialogical joint process then becomes a platform for reciprocal co-creation of value. What takes place on the interaction platform may influence how value is realised, or value fulfilment, for one or all actors – provided they are prepared to and effectively make use of the value co-creation opportunity.
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Direct interaction need not be a joint collaborative, dialogical process with two persons though; it also can be a direct interaction between one actor (e.g. customer) and an intelligent non-human resource. For example, interactions with a system that can intelligently register the actions or speech of a person and respond to it form a joint dialogical process together with the person, as well as a platform for value co-creation. Both parties learn and immediately react on the basis of the lessons. Such interactions are also direct interactions. Most non-human resources, such as products and various types of systems, do not possess intelligent properties in this sense. For example, physical products or IT-based systems that respond in a standardised way to user actions do not meet the  criteria of intelligent non-human resources. The customer still interacts with the firm, through the use of products or resources, but the interactions do not provide a value co-creation platform. These indirect interactions with a firm or a service provider involve resources, including non-intelligent products and systems, that the service provider offers to the customer as a source of potential value-in-use. Whether value-in-use is created or emerges by the use of such resources depends on the actions of the customer alone. This value creation can be characterised as a customer’s independent value creation.
...
Only direct interactions enable co-creation between the actors, such as a service provider and a customer, and form a platform for value co-creation. In the total value generation process, the development and provision of products and other resources by a firm, which enable indirect interactions only, are part of the provider sphere, which is closed to the customer (and other actors). Similarly, the resource integration actions of a customer, involving only indirect interactions with the firm, is closed to the firm."

Acerca do valor e da sua criação

Um artigo, "The service revolution and its marketing implications: Service logic vs service-dominant logic", de Christian Grönroos e Johanna Gummerus, muito bem escrito, dá gosto ler.

"we offer five notes on value and value creation. First, both SDL and SL use the expression “value creation”, even though value is not always, and perhaps is even infrequently, instrumentally created. Value can just emerge from a resource integration process; as suggested by the customer-dominant logic, such emergence even could be the normal case. In the SL and for this paper, the expression “value creation” refers to this phenomenon, without any assumptions about whether value-in-use emerges or is instrumentally created. Second, use – not context, experience or interaction – is the key qualifier of the value-in-use notion, so SL adopts the term value-in-use, without disguising this key qualifier. Naturally, value-in-use depends on, for example, the social and physical context in which usage takes place. If the context changes, so should the level of value-in-use. Third, value-in-use does not exist at a singular point in time, as value-in-exchange does, but rather evolves over time in a cumulative process during usage. This cumulative process may include destructive phases, in which value accumulation takes negative turns. Then value can be both positively created and destroyed. Fourth, use can take many forms, not just as a matter of physical use. For example, mental use occurs when a person dreams about a holiday trip in the near future or remembers the trip while looking at pictures afterward. Use also might be mere possession, such as when a person feels content knowing he or she owns a luxury car or a famous painting. Fifth, value for the customer and value for the firm are two sides of the same coin, so firms and customers reciprocally influence each other’s value creation. Not only does the firm function as a service provider, but the customer may provide the firm with actionable information about how to develop its resource base and systems, in which case the customer functions as service provider, with the firm as a user and value creator.
...
The service provider then serves as a creator of potential value-in-use and facilitator of real value-in-use. From a customer perspective, potential value-in-use is not real value yet; there is no difference between potential value-in-use and value-in-exchange. When a customer pays for a resource, the act manifests value-in-exchange, but there is still no realised value or value-in-use for the customer. In contrast, for the firm, manifested value-in-exchange is real value."

Continua.

Co-criação de valor e transformação dos clientes

Numa primeira análise este título "The Ultimate Sales Goal Is Connecting to Buyer’s Value Drivers — NOT Creating Value" parece que faz sentido até porque o valor é criado e sentido pelo cliente.

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No entanto, em "Can Sales Really Create Value?" o autor chama a atenção para o espaço da co-criação:

"It’s also important to recognize value is situational and time dependent.  Stated differently, our customer value drivers change over time and with the situation.
...
the same person will change over time, based on needs and what they face.  To make it more complicated, these value drivers may change within the same buying/selling opportunity.  As customers learn more through their buying process, their value drivers will change.
...
But there are far more customers who don’t realize they should/must change, there are opportunities they are missing, there are areas where they can improve. It’s our responsibility to help educate customers, help them identify ways to grow, improve, even bring sanity to their lives, or grow their businesses. This is value we create for the customer.
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Helping our customers think differently about their businesses, to disrupt their status quo is critical to their success. ... Helping our customer consider new business models—leveraging agile practices, imagining new possibilities in IoT and how they engage their own customers are ways that sales people create value.
...
In these days of customer research and self education, customers will inherently focus on the things they “value.” But what if they are missing important considerations?  After all, they unless they are buying in this category every day, they may not know what they don’t know. Consequently, they may be doing something very wrong, or be missing opportunities. Sales people educating customers on these issues, challenging them to think differently, challenging their assumptions, having them consider different points of view or alternatives is value creation.
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If sales people are doing what they should be doing, focusing on helping customers identify and address problems and opportunities, rather than pushing products, they should be expert helping customers recognize the need for change, mobilize change, develop and implement plans/programs to achieve their goals.  Since we focus on our sweet spots, the problems we are the best in the world at solving and those who have those problems–we have deep expertise and greater knowledge than the customer.  Teaching, educating, helping our customers recognize new opportunities, mobilize, and execute is value creation.
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Value creation is not limited to bringing something into existence (though I believe that is a huge element of value creation—new business processes, new technologies, new methods). Value creation is also about bringing things into awareness for the customer."

Quando vendemos um produto ou serviço que vai ao encontro das necessidades e expectativas do cliente ele experiencia valor. Quando ajudamos a transformar um cliente entramos naquele espaço da co-criação de valor.

Acerca de sectores estáveis e demasiado homogéneos na oferta (parte III)

Parte I e parte II.
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Outro sector do mercado interno onde se pode aplicar a reflexão da Parte I é o da farmácia comunitária.
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Primeiro, por causa de acções de formação sobre o balanced scorecard que realizei em 2005 e 2006 para a Ordem dos Farmacêuticos e, por causa de alguns trabalhos de consultoria com empresas farmacêuticas em 2003 e 2007, escrevi algumas reflexões sobre o sector em postais como estes:

• Um caminho para a farmácia do futuro (2008) (BTW, 2008, antes da troika, do MoU, dos PEC, da austeridade... quem tem olhos que veja e não se porte como os "lesados" do BES)
• A farmácia do futuro (parte II) (2010)
• A farmácia do futuro (parte III) (2011)
• A farmácia do futuro (parte IV) (2011) 
• Mais subsídios para a reflexão sobre a farmácia do futuro (2013) 

Segundo, voltemos à citação da parte I:

"what steps to take when looking for a new way to compete in a relatively stable and homogeneous industry
...
When you are in an industry where the firms are more homogeneous than the customers,"

Actualmente, porque ando a facilitar o desenvolvimento de um balanced scorecard para uma farmácia comunitária, acabo por, nas pesquisas na internet, encontrar textos muito interessantes, por exemplo "Designing Pharmaceutical Services Using the Multilevel Service Design Methodology" (tese de mestrado na FEUP). A página começa assim:

"The pharmacy sector has led a rather static business model for the last decades, highly depending on the sale of pharmaceutical drugs to ensure its economic viability. In Portugal, such business model was threatened with the decrease in the sale margins of pharmaceutical drugs. The decline in margins’ values which were implemented since 2010 triggered the average revenue from the Portuguese pharmacy sector to be negative for both 2011 and 2012."

Claro que este "decline in margins" obrigou a actuação, uns seguiram o caminho mais fácil, o instinto, o preço, o desconto, o "Grab & Go". Outros, o caminho menos percorrido, o do valor (volto à tese de mestrado):

"In order to face the loss of profitability and the low integration in the healthcare system, the pharmacy sector as a whole was forced to change customers’ perception of pharmaceutical services and how these can deliver tangible value to clients. Pharmacists are diversifying the settings in which they practice by expanding and upgrading their business operations while evolving towards providing services beyond the dispensing of medicines. In fact pharmacies are now differentiating in number, level, type and quality of services they provide, developing service offerings aiming at increasing their customer satisfaction.
...
a new paradigm is emerging within the definition of pharmaceutical services which can be defined as “an action or set of actions undertaken in or organized by a pharmacy, delivered by a pharmacist or other health practitioner, who applies their specialized health knowledge personally or via an intermediary, with a patient/client, population or other health professional, to optimize the process of care, with the aim to improve health outcomes and the value of healthcare”" 

 O interessante é estar a abordar o desafio recorrendo à service-dominant logic, e ao poder da interacção, para co-criar valor, bem na linha de Gronroos, por exemplo:

E, depois, perceber que os especialistas do sector e eu andamos sintonizados. Em "Are YOU a “value-driven” pharmacy?":

"Pharmacy is the fastest growing occupation in Canada, he added. “This is a problem in an industry with an internal focus on costs savings and cost containment, where the only differentiation between pharmacies is based on price and product offerings,” he said.
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With value-driven pharmacy, however, the focus is from the customer’s perspective and pharmacy is seen as a consultative service.
In order to facilitate the shift to value driven pharmacy, a longitudinal focus is required. This involves focusing on the customer/ patient, seeing health not products, assessing what needs the pharmacist is satisfying per patient, and determining what the pharmacist’s job is actually doing for the customer. “Pharmacy should be practiced as a specialized service. This is where the focus has to change,”"

 Momentos de mudança exigem reflexão estratégica e escolhas!
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Continua.

A propósito da produtividade

Ainda na sequência do texto de Teixeira dos Santos:

"Herdamos do passado um setor produtivo subcapitalizado e com baixa produtividade que apostou numa competitividade assente em atividades trabalho-intensivas, de mão de obra barata e pouco qualificada."

Como se pode aumentar a produtividade?
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A produtividade é medida por um rácio.
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Por isso, tem um numerador e um denominador. Por isso, a produtividade pode ser aumentada ou fazendo o numerador crescer, ou fazendo o denominador encolher. Com a Revolução Industrial, com o século XX, com o mercado de massas, ninguém pensava em mudar a oferta, apenas em ser mais eficiente a produzir o que já se produzia. Assim, sempre que se fala em aumentar a produtividade, pensa-se logo no denominador e parte-se do princípio que o numerador permanece constante.
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Como aqui no blogue somos fanáticos pelo crescimento da produtividade à custa do crescimento do numerador, aqui fica esta figura:

"making sense of value creation and co-creation" (parte V)

Parte I, parte II, parte III e parte IV.
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Dá um gozo tremendo misturar o genial texto de Gronroos e Voima com exemplos da realidade.
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Este artigo, "Citizen Hackers Tinker With Medical Devices" pode ser um sintoma da falta de interacção entre os fabricantes e os clientes. Fabricantes concentram-se nos atributos e na tecnologia e, esquecem-se de trabalhar com os utilizadores, com o contexto da sua vida, de reparar na forma como integram o recurso "equipamento" na sua vida:

"Then Mr. Adams found NightScout, a system cobbled together by a constellation of software engineers, many with diabetic children, who were frustrated by the limitations of current technology. The open-source system they developed essentially hacks the Dexcom device and uploads its data to the Internet, which lets Mr. Adams see Ella's blood-sugar levels on his Pebble smartwatch wherever she is. It isn't perfect. It drains cellphone batteries, can cut out at times and hasn't been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. But for many, it has filled a gap.
...
The home-built setup is part of a shift in the way Americans relate to the medical industry and their own health care. Technologically savvy patients are starting to tinker under the hoods of medical contraptions, seeking more influence over devices like blood-sugar monitors, insulin pumps and defibrillators that record and control bodily functions."

"making sense of value creation and co-creation" (parte IV)

Parte I, parte II e parte III.
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Mais uma achega para o desafio da co-criação de valor, para a importância da interacção entre fornecedor e cliente.

"Customers construct potential or future service experiences from multiple different sources, such as from their own imagination or stories told by others. If we fail to recognize the role of the customer as the creator or constructor of value, the role of the firm grows out of proportion, reverting the evolution away from value-in-use and users as the creators of value, toward value-in-exchange and value for customers being embedded in producer outputs (e.g., products).
...
when value creation refers to the customer’s creation of value-in-use, the customer is a value creator. The scope of value creation shifts from a provider driven, all-encompassing process to a customer-driven process. Value is created in the user’s accumulated experiences (individual and collective/social) with resources, processes, and/or their outcomes and contexts accumulating from past, current, and envisioned future experiences in the customer’s life.
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The locus of value creation is the customer’s physical, mental, or possessive activities, practices, and experiences in multiple individual and social contexts. Value is therefore realized through possession, usage, or mental states.
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The customer experiences value by becoming better or worse off over time during the accumulating process, and value creation becomes a structured process in which firms and customers have defined roles and goals (nature of value creation). When the customer creates value through experiences in an accumulating process, the firm as a service provider may facilitate the customer’s value creation by producing and delivering resources and processes that represent potential value, or expected value-in-use, for the customer.
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the role (or roles) that the seller plays in helping customers to create value for themselves” is a defining aspect of a service perspective or logic. The customer is the one who constructs and experiences value by integrating resources/processes/outcomes in his or her own social context. In conclusion, the customer is the value creator, and a firm facilitates value for its customers. Of course, the role of the firm in a customer’s value creation is not unimportant. Facilitating value for customers means that the firm creates potential value that the customer can transform to value-in-use or real value.
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Value co-creation should be analyzed on the basis of the roles of the customer and the firm and in recognition of the value spheres that encompass the provider and the customer. If the system is closed to the customer, co-production cannot take place in the production process. Nor can value co-creation take place if the customer’s process is closed to the provider. In both cases, we would find no joint activities, and no co-creation is possible. Co-creation occurs only when two or more parties influence each other or, using service marketing terminology, interact."

Mais um recorte do artigo de Gronroos, "Critical service logic: making sense of value creation and co-creation" de Christian Grönroos e Päivi Voima, publicado por J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci.

"making sense of value creation and co-creation" (parte III)

Parte I e parte II.
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Li "Diez retos para adaptarse al nuevo escenario del fitness" acerca dos desafios que o mundo do fitness tem pela frente em Espanha nos próximos anos.
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Houve um desafio que logo captou a minha atenção:

"Personalización. “El cliente pide cada vez más un servicio a su medida. Como mínimo, cada instructor debe dirigirse a sus clientes por su nombre”."

E foi como a sensação de um balão que subitamente se esvazia...
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Então a personalização resume-se a fixar o nome dos clientes? Que pobreza!!!
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E volto a alguns recortes da parte I:

“the use of interaction as a basis for co-creation is at the crux of our emerging reality.
...
value creation becomes an ongoing process that emphasizes the customer’s experiences, logic, and ability to extract value out of products and other resources used (create value-in-use).
...
value creation is the customer’s creation of value-in-use during usage, where value is socially constructed through experiences"

Personalização é muito mais do que simpatia e familiaridade. Personalização é entrar na mente do cliente e perceber quais são os seus objectivos, quais são os seus motivos, qual é o seu propósito. Personalização é perceber que o que se oferece é só um recurso para integrar na vida do cliente, para que ele chegue a um lado escolhido por ele e diferente do do parceiro do lado e isso é que é importante.
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Personalização é perceber que o negócio não é o produto ou serviço, é o que o produto ou serviço gera na vida das pessoas.
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Personalização é ter uma carta, como a de Zander, um contrato único com cada cliente:

• onde é que ele quer chegar e quando;
• o que se espera que ele faça, para atingir o objectivo;
• o que se espera que o fornecedor faça, para o ajudar a atingir o objectivo;
• como e quando se monitorizará o progresso;
• como se celebrará o sucesso, para, depois, estabelecer novo contrato.

Por isso é que a service dominant logic faz ainda mais sentido para as empresas que prestam serviços.

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Continua.

"making sense of value creation and co-creation" (parte II)

Parte I.
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Ontem realizei uma auditoria interna ao sistema da qualidade de uma empresa que apoiei até à certificação.
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A certa altura, ao auditar o processo associado à actividade comercial, "Divulgar a empresa", a conversa descambou para a vertente estratégica.

- Têm esses novos serviços que podem realizar para valorizar os produtos dos clientes...
- Mas é difícil, os clientes são muito conservadores, estão habituados aquelas referências e não saem dali.
- E o que é que têm feito para os "educar"? Para lhes dar a conhecer as novas possibilidades?
- Tem graça, há dias, para comemorar os 10 anos da empresa fizemos um jantar com um cliente que trabalha muito connosco e conversamos sobre isso. O designer deles ficou admirado, não sabia que ele podia propor alterações e que nós as podíamos concretizar. Desde essa altura, temos trabalhado muito em conjunto e têm surgido umas coisas interessantes.
- Agora, é pensar como é que pode, com outros clientes, desencadear esse tipo de conversas. Por exemplo, está a ver este produto? É "criminoso" o cliente que fabrica este produto não aproveitar o vosso potencial para torná-lo mais atraente.
- Pois é, andamos para marcar uma reunião com eles há algum tempo...

O poder da interacção... fortalece a relação, permite que ambas as partes subam na escala de valor e se diferenciem, permite que o fornecedor co-crie valor com o cliente.

"making sense of value creation and co-creation"

Mais um excelente artigo de Gronroos. "Critical service logic: making sense of value creation and co-creation" de Christian Grönroos e Päivi Voima, publicado por J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci.
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Eis alguns sublinhados:

"“the use of interaction as a basis for co-creation is at the crux of our emerging reality.” [Moi ici: Algo que permite isto "Move Over ‘Made In China’, ‘Made By Consumer’ Is The New Sheriff In Town" e que o requer] In this view, co-creation functions by activating operant resources

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value creation might be described more accurately as value emergence or formation
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Value is perhaps the most ill-defined and elusive concept in service marketing and management
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value creation entails a process that increases the customer’s well-being, such that the user becomes better off in some respect. Yet a service provider’s actions also may make a customer worse off
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When value is perceived as value-in-use for the customer, the focus is no longer predominantly on a customized bundle of products or services exchanged for a price. Instead, value creation becomes an ongoing process that emphasizes the customer’s experiences, logic, and ability to extract value out of products and other resources used (create value-in-use).
...
value creation is the customer’s creation of value-in-use during usage, where value is socially constructed through experiences
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Users’ accumulated experiences (individual and social) with resources, processes (and/or their outcomes), and contexts thus are the core of value creation, and value-in-use not only accumulates from past and current experience but also can be envisioned in future experiences.
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Value emerges through the physical or mental use of these resources, and sometimes even from possession of them, so the process of usage is the defining concept.
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Value creation may take place on different levels of consciousness, where becoming “better off” (or “worse off”) may occur in different ways (imagined before, perceived during, or evaluated after) in the experiential use process. Sometimes value is literally created (e.g., driving from one place to another); sometimes it just emerges for the customer (e.g., a feeling of freedom when driving around).
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Value-in-use implies that the customer, as the user, creates value and is the value creator, not just that he or she assesses or determines value. The customer creates and assesses value in a longitudinal and experiential process of usage. Therefore, in the same way that the firm controls the production process and can invite the customer to join it as a co-producer of resources, the customer controls the experiential value creation process and may invite the service provider to join this process as a co-creator of value. For our analytical purposes, we use cocreation to denote the joint process whereby firms and customers together (or customers with other actors), in interactions, create value."

Continua.

"continuam no paradigma da venda"

Leio "Are you paying enough attention to customer retention?" e sublinho:

"most companies still put more effort into attracting new customers than selling more to the ones they have already.
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The paradox is this: We all know attracting new customers is more expensive than selling to existing ones, but most marketing people consider the hunt for new business to be sexier and more high-profile than figuring out how to sell more to people already in their database."

E penso logo no Evangelho do Valor, no poder da interacção, e no pouco investimento que tantas e tantas empresas fazem em procurar perceber melhor os seus clientes... continuam no paradigma da venda, ainda não perceberam que o valor é co-criado durante a interacção e criado durante a utilização.

"where value emerges for customers and is perceived by them"

"Nowhere is the idea that enterprises make and deliver value more evident than in the concept of "value added." Value added has been a ter used to describe the process of firms transforming matter to change its form, and its time, place, and possession. Predictably, these transformations require effort and thus costs, and these costs  became labeled "value added" and often identified as a source of "utility." However, offerings (tangible or intangible) are not embedded with value (valu-in-exchange) or utility but rather value occurs when the offering is used.
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Accountants might believe that an unsold good has value but this is economic value; value creation from an actor-centric and service-dominant vantage point is only possible when market and other offerings are used - that is, when they contribute to the well-being of some actor in the context of his or her life.
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With G - D logic, the value is embedded during production and distribution/marketing without the involvement of the actor who will become the beneficiary of the enterprise's offering. Early scholars in the area of services marketing succinctly identified the problem with G - D logic. For example, Gumesson argued: "if the consumer is the focal point of marketing, value creation is only possible when a good or service is consumed. An unsold good has no value, and a service provider without customers cannot produce anything." Similarly, Groonroos stated:
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Value for customers is created throughout the relationship  by the customer, partly in interactions between the customer and the supplier or service provider. The focus is not on products but on the customers' value-creating processes where value emerges for customers and is perceived by them ... the focus of marketing is value creation rather than value distribution, and facilitation and support of value-creating processes rather than simply distributing ready-made value to customers."

Trecho retirado de "Service-Dominat Logic: Premises, Perspectives, Possibilities" de Robert Lusch e Stephen Vargo.

Um adepto e promotor incondicional da concorrência imperfeita

Lembram-se de "1 O exemplo do calçado"?
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Por que é que o calçado português consegue ter o desempenho ilustrado no texto acima referido?
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Então não ouvimos e lemos que é preciso sair do euro para sermos mais competitivos nas exportações?
Então não ouvimos e lemos que é preciso reduzir salários para sermos mais competitivos nas exportações?
Então não ouvimos e lemos que temos de trabalhar mais horas para sermos mais competitivos nas exportações?
Então não ouvimos e lemos que temos de mexer na TSU para sermos mais competitivos nas exportações?
Então não ouvimos os dirigentes do sector do calçado dizer que o objectivo é continuar a aumentar os preços de venda?
O que é que não bate certo entre a realidade dos números e a narrativa sobre o aumento da competitividade?
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Por que é que a narrativa que tem acesso aos media tradicionais não consegue enquadrar o desempenho do sector do calçado?
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Por que razão as soluções encontradas pelas PMEs portuguesas para terem sucesso no mercado internacional, não passam pelas medidas previstas na narrativa que tem acesso aos media tradicionais?
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Por que é que pessoas como Daniel Bessa foram incapazes de adivinhar o sucesso do calçado português?
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Os seguidores da narrativa oficial, sejam eles de direita, defendendo a redução de salários, ou de esquerda, defendendo o retorno ao escudo, foram educados numa escola de pensamento económico que entende que os mercados de concorrência perfeita, porque permitem uma eficiência superior das empresas, são o modelo a seguir, são o modelo mais adequado. Esta ideia da concorrência perfeita tornou-se no modelo mental da gestão anglo-saxónica que permeia e molda o pensamento dos autores da narrativa oficial, aqui e no resto do mundo.
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Qualquer livro de Economia não só descreve a concorrência perfeita como o modelo económico a seguir, como associa a concorrência imperfeita a situações extremas, associadas a práticas monopolistas formais, que devem ser evitadas num mercado que se quer livre.

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Na pátria do capitalismo, havia mesmo um académico americano, nos anos sessenta, que era contra a existência de marcas porque, dizia ele, as marcas introduzem fricção na concorrência que se quer perfeita. E, havia mesmo leis que impediam que um mesmo produto pudesse ser vendido a diferentes preços a diferentes clientes, porque isso não seguia o modelo da concorrência perfeita.

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Adiante.

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Por que é que o calçado português consegue ter o desempenho ilustrado no texto acima referido?

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Porque abandonou a concorrência perfeita. Se estivesse a competir na grande arena onde estão os fabricantes asiáticos o negócio seria decidido pelo preço e, aí não têm hipóteses.

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Fabricantes portugueses e chineses podem estar no mesmo sector, podem partilhar a mesma classificação estatística mas pertencem a mercados distintos.

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Os analistas "oficiais" não têm tempo para descer ao terreno e perceber o quanta heterogeneidade existe dentro de um mesmo sector, por isso, recorrem a modelos cegos que fazem sorrir quem está no mercado, como este exemplo da Reuters ilustra:

"as mudanças na estrutura da economia portuguesa sob o acordo de resgate estão a ajudar as exportações, embora os trabalhadores estejam a pagar um preço elevado, pelo menos a curto prazo.
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As reformas dolorosas exigidas pela UE e pelo FMI melhoraram a competitividade sobretudo através da redução dos custos laborais. Os patrões podem agora contratar e despedir pessoas de forma mais simples e pagam menos pelas horas extraordinárias. Os portugueses têm também de trabalhar mais dias por ano.
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Os salários são baixos e estão a descer."

Como se os salários portugueses baixassem o suficiente para competir com a Ásia. Não é a fazer mais do mesmo cada vez mais depressa, é com sexo, muito sexo.
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Prefiro outra narrativa, mais cheia de diversidade, mais heterogénea, mais pessoal, mais carregada de imperfeição nos mercados, mais carregada de Davids e as suas fundas. Este texto "McLaren, Guarda Real de Omã e mineiros mongóis usam calçado português da Lavoro" exemplifica o que penso ser a resposta à pergunta inicial:

"Segundo o empresário, o segredo do sucesso da marca passa pelo desenvolvimento, quase personalizado, (Moi ici: Recordar o poder da interacção...
referido aqui e, recordar os fundamentos da Service-Dominat Logic) do calçado mais adequado a cada tipologia de ambiente de trabalho, recorrendo, para isso, a um Centro de Estudos de Biomecânica (SPODOS) que é "a única no sector" a possuir.
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"Por exemplo, no Médio Oriente o segmento em explosão é o petróleo e o gás, pelo que tivemos que nos adaptar desenvolvendo uma gama de calçado profissional adequado a esse segmento", explicou.
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Já para os engenheiros e técnicos de mecânica automóvel do Grupo McLaren, sediado no Reino Unido, a Lavoro desenvolveu para "um sapato leve, flexível e desportivo", que se adaptasse ao espírito da empresa, mas cujas biqueira em compósito, para proteger do impacto, e palmilha resistente à perfuração asseguram a necessária segurança.
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No caso da empresa mineira que a Lavoro fornece na Mongólia, os rigores da actividade e do clima extremamente frio são contornados com "uma gama de calçado com forro em pelo de carneiro verdadeiro, que resiste a temperaturas de -20 ou, mesmo, -30 graus", precisou José Freitas."

Personalização, customização, domínio técnico, tudo coisas que encarecem os custos de produção e desenvolvimento e, paradoxalmente, para os adeptos da concorrência perfeita, deviam tornar o produto menos competitivo.

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Faz-me lembrar o empresário que exporta portões e gradeamentos para Malta. Como é que o conseguiu, como é que ultrapassou os italianos? Porque fez algo que os italianos nunca tinham feito, meteu-se no avião e foi visitar o primeiro potencial cliente.

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É por isto que sou um adepto incondicional da concorrência imperfeita, gente que consegue vender areia com marca. Os que vendem areia como comodity, concentram-se na areia. Os que vendem areia com marca, concentram-se no cliente, concentram-se no serviço que o cliente vai fazer com a areia, concentram-se na razão que leva o cliente a comprar areia e, descobrem que ele pode precisar de muito mais do que areia.

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Não se esqueçam que se podem comprar botas de segurança na net por 30 euros ou menos, a cumprir as normas e com marcação CE.

Mongo pode ser muito mais do que a customização que estamos a pensar

Isto está tão longe dos tempos em que, como atleta de pista federado (do FCP) no início dos anos oitenta do século passado, tinha de requisitar os sapatos de pitões à sexta-feira, para competir ao fim de semana. Ou seja, de um tempo em que um par de sapatos era partilhado entre vários atletas, para um tempo em que cada atleta tem um par construído à sua medida e à medida de uma estratégia em particular:

"Athletes are measured on a sensitive track to gauge the direction their foot travels whether its forward or back, left or right, and how it moves; 100 sensors are placed on an insert inside the shoe to measure pressure at different points; and a motion capture system — like the ones used for video games and movies — adds stride and broader movement into the equation. Based on the biomechanical data, custom spike plates, the part of the shoe that actually connects with the ground, are created.
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“The technology is early and our implementation is still really in a very early phase, but you can envision as the technology improves and capacity increases — and cost comes down — the audience who will benefit from customisation will just grow and grow and grow. This will get down eventually to the casual athlete.”"

Trecho inicial retirado de "With 3-D Printing, New Balance Running Customisation in New Direction"

E sapatos de corrida, não à medida de um atleta, mas desenhados para a estratégia que um atleta vai executar numa certa corrida?

"The possibilities for easy customization are nearly endless. Previously, a custom spike plate required an expensive injection molding process, but with the 3-D printers, the speed of production is much faster and the cost is slashed. Because it’s so much easier, runners can choose different designs based on their strategy for a particular race. “If you’re going to rely on a strong finishing kick, that means having lots of traction for running up on your toes at the end,” says Petrecca."

Trecho final retirado de "Pro Track Athletes Get a Grip With 3-D Printed Equipment"

Um mundo de possibilidades aberto por Mongo, "interaction rules"!!!

Parte I - Os fundamentos da SDL

Mais um interessante artigo sobre a service-dominant logic com a sua perspectiva diferente de encarar as relações com os clientes, "Linking Service-Dominant Logic and Strategic Business Practice: A Conceptual Model of a Service-Dominant Orientation":

"A central implication of S-D logic is that the notion of superior value cocreation replaces the more prevalent one of superior value provision as the cornerstone of business strategy. Therefore, from an S-D logic perspective, the capabilities that facilitate and enhance value cocreation processes are strategic capabilities central to an organization’s competitive advantage.

(Moi ici: Cada vez gosto mais deste esquema que adaptei de um artigo de Gronroos. É fundamental para todas as empresas, e outro tipo de organizações, que não podem ou não querem competir com o low-cost, perceber a sua mensagem. Quando um fornecedor se concentra nos clientes que procuram e valorizam a experiência e os resultados que conseguem atingir com a interacção, acontece magia. O low-cost vai para o outro extremo, corta as possibilidades de interacção. Interessante como faz sentido para tantas empresas do mercado interno no sector dos não-transaccionáveis, neste esforço de adaptação, de recalibração para uma nova realidade.)
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We interpret an S-D orientation as a cocreation capability, resulting from a firm’s individuated, relational, ethical, empowered, developmental, and concerted interaction capabilities.
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The first premise is that market actors interact and collaborate for the capabilities of the other party that renders service, thereby making a distinction between goods and services redundant (FP1). (Moi ici: Descodificar FPx aqui) The actual service can be rendered either directly through a firm’s relieving activities or indirectly through enabling service platforms (FP3) such as goods or Internet websites. According to these
premises, a firm’s goods are valuable and relevant resources to the degree that they can be used as inputs to lever the customer’s own value creation processes and experiences. (Moi ici: As ofertas das empresas são recursos usados pelos clientes para atingir um determinado objectivo) Ultimately, service
defines all economies (FP5) but this view might be masked by service intermediaries such as goods, money, or institutions (FP2).
Service-based logic further highlights that value is not what is inherent in or added to a product, but what customers get out of a product. Accordingly, value cannot be distributed or delivered by firms (FP7). Rather, firms facilitate the actualization and determination of value that network partners derive from their experiences; this is also referred to as value-in-context (FP10). Value cocreation requires all network partners (Moi ici: O que chamo de ecossistema da procura) to interact with, and integrate, resources (FP9) to achieve mutual betterment.
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creating value in concert with - rather than for - customers within a relational context (FP8), indicates the operant and cocreative nature of network partners (FP6) as active resources in value creation processes. Finally, a firm’s own and accessible operant resources (e.g., employee competencies, network service capabilities), rather than operand resources (e.g., goods, materials), play a central role for competitive success (FP4)."

Continua,

A aposta na interacção

Excelente artigo "Making Sense of Value and Value Co-Creation in Service Logic" de Gronroos e Voima.
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Uma reflexão sobre as definições de criação de valor, de co-criação de valor, de facilitação de valor.
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Decorrente das definições dos autores, as empresas podem apresentar mais do que propostas de valor aos seus clientes, podem, através das interacções com os clientes, co-criar valor para os clientes:

E se repararmos, grande parte do truque para fugir à vantagem do preço do online sobre o offline, para fugir da vantagem da eficiência e da escala, para fugir do volume, assenta no desenvolvimento das interacções.
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Ontem, ao descer a estrada nacional de Mangualde para o IP3, na zona entre Nelas e Canas de Senhorim, reparei nelas, é fácil detectá-las pela arquitectura, vários pavilhões fechados que outrora foram galinheiros.
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Dezenas e dezenas de pequenos produtores, quando se deu o despertar da eficiência e o fim do corporativismo, tiveram de fechar , incapazes de competir com os produtores que tinham crescido mais depressa.
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Os grandes produtores, apostam na eficiência, apostam nas espécies mais resistentes e de mais rápido crescimento. Como é que um pequeno produtor podia resistir e até, eventualmente, prosperar?
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Apostando na interacção, apostando no que os clientes procuram e não é dado pelos grandes e eficientes.