"Start with the central idea that you want your organization to stand for"

"1. Ask the deep questions about your organization.
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When you ponder these questions, remember that a higher cause is not about your organization and its products. A higher cause is about customers and potential customers: how their lives will be elevated, and how the world will be better off too.
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Many managers in many companies function automatically and reactively, without really knowing why they do what they do or what they need to be doing instead. If you ask these questions regularly and then have conversations about what the answers signify for your business right now, you’ll be amazed at how often there is initially no clue or no consensus about the answers among your team. But the more you ask them, the clearer the responses will become.
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2. Concentrate your attention on the horizon. Asked the secret behind his great insights about future trends, Peter Drucker responded, “I look out the window.” Start the conversations about what trends on the frontier of your industry might threaten your current business or offer it big opportunities. Dig into these analyses. Take the trends seriously. Map them out. Form groups to do quick studies on them and report back. Discuss the implications that intrigue you. Discuss the possibilities that excite you. You’ll feel the higher cause emerging.
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3. Rearrange the pieces to make a big difference. Push your people to talk about concrete possibilities that could be groundbreaking and that could make a big difference in the lives of your present (or potential) customers, and maybe even the world. Consider possibilities that might come from new technologies, new partners, new supply chains, new scientific advances, new sources of capital, and any new trends out in the marketplace.
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Start with the central idea that you want your organization to stand for. Don’t water down your aspirations; keep raising them, even if your goals violate accepted practices in your industry, even if your goals sound impossible at first."

Trechos retirados de "Break From the Pack" de Oren Harari.

Não se pode ser tudo para todos

"If there’s one phrase I would eliminate from corporate strategy sessions, it’s “one-stop shopping.” [Moi ici: I've been there!!! É uma desculpa recorrente para não cortar, para não fazer escolhas difíceis] This phrase is diabolical, for it can make otherwise sensible executives salivate with infantile glee. Their eyes glaze as they visualize hordes of customers spending gobs of money and never leaving for another competitor because the company magically provides them with an all-inclusive, integrated, A-to-Z menu of products and services that they absolutely must have, forever.
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Apart from those darn customers who insist on making their own decisions, there’s another reason why “one-stop-shopping” is a fantasy. No matter what your consultants and investment bankers tell you, you can’t be great in everything, you can’t do it all, and if you try to do it all you’ll wind up with a big diversified menu of undistinguished “metoo” products and services. Further, the wider the net you try to cast, the more cumbersome, costly, and complicated your organization will be, and the more your company’s resources, management attention, creative capacity, and customer care will be spread thin.
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Forget trying to be all things to all people. Resist the temptation to acquire and diversify for the purpose of being in as many segments and sectors of the marketplace as you can. These are losers’ strategies because companies that declare they intend to dominate everything wind up dominating nothing."

Trechos retirados de "Break From the Pack" de Oren Harari

Para que servem os apoios e subsídios?

Ainda ontem ouvi o ministro da Agricultura a falar sobre subsídios.
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Para que servem, para que são usados os subsídios e apoios?
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Durante a greve dos pescadores percebi que os pescadores portugueses estão quase só reduzidos à pesca de carapau e sardinha... é o equivalente das empresas têxteis e de calçado que se especializaram nos artigos de preço-baixo e não souberam dar a volta, acabando por fechar.
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Os subsídios são para atacar as causas-raiz do desempenho actual, ou para adiar o inevitável, para a aliviar a pressão?
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A situação é de:

• "Extreme" competition
• Excess capacity
• Mature and saturated markets
• Thinning margins
• Less customer loyalty
• Customers increasingly making buying decisions primarily by price
• Customers raising the bar on their minimal expectations regarding price, quality, and performance
• Analysts and investors growing pessimistic about corporate prospects
• For many companies, the real possibility of outright bankruptcy or liquidation"

Em que é que os apoios e subsídios servem para gerar:

• "A clear differentiation from competitors
• Rapid, sustained, and real growth (not the shaky kind that often results from megamergers)
• Higher margins
• Higher stock prices and market caps
• Boosts in market buzz
• Reputation as the employer and partner of choice
• More customer loyalty
• An optimistic and creative work environment
• A far easier sales and marketing effort
• An agile, aggressive infrastructure that is positioned for next-generation growth"

O esbracejar de alguém em risco de afogamento é perigoso, o desespero cega...
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Quem acena com subsídios e dinheiros de Bruxelas só adia o inevitável e distorce a economia, porque não obriga as organizações a encararem a realidade de frente.
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A não perder este texto "Welcome to Commodity Hell: The Perils of the Copycat Economy" de Oren Harari.