Um currículo escondido

Este título "Seguros 'low cost' nem sempre são melhor opção" tem um currículo escondido.
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O título assume que todos os clientes procuram o mesmo, valorizam o mesmo.
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O título assume que a oferta é sempre a mesma e o que distingue a proposta de uma seguradora de uma outra seguradora é só o preço.
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Em 1989(?) comprei o meu primeiro carro, o meu critério foi, o mais barato do mercado na altura. Por isso, comprei um Fiat Panda.
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Quando circulava com ele, raramente via outros Fiat Panda. Ou seja, a maioria esmagadora dos compradores de automóveis optava por um outro critério que não o preço.
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O que é que um potencial cliente compra quando compra um seguro?
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Uns compram paz de espírito, outros protecção contra o "azar", outros o cumprimento de um requisito legal, outros ...
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E na sua empresa, também comete este erro? Também confunde o mercado com o produto? Também tenta vender o mesmo produto a todo o tipo de clientes, independentemente do que eles procuram e valorizam?
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Se é isso... lamento informar que tem um problema grave, olha para o que faz como uma commodity e vende uma commodity...
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Recordar "“Commodities only exist in the minds of the inept""

“Commodities only exist in the minds of the inept"

Ontem de manhã, li isto:

"Brands are an economic concept that was produced by the industrial revolution. Most markets were commodity markets. In fact economic theory talks only about commodities, optimal pricing to reach equilibrium conditions, and the difficulty of longterm differentiation between suppliers. Branding is the only strategy to get out of commodity markets.
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This is why economic theory does not like brands. As a rule people tend to say that a commodity market is one where differentiation is impossible. The market is driven by price alone and maybe corporate reputation to secure the buyers. The brutal truth is that a commodity market is one where no one has invested enough in differentiation. It is a lazy market. Now we do not mean that no one has advertised, as is too often believed, but that no one has thought of a new ‘value curve’ for a specific target. A ‘value curve’ is a specific set of utilities delivered by the brand to a chosen and well-delineated target.
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Services are a classic way to differentiate commodities in B2B. To fight against low-cost suppliers that suppress all services in order to reach the lowest cost and offer a price-killing proposition, there is no other solution than to invest in intangibles: services plus image reputation. Business credit cards fight by proposing to be more than cards but rather partners in cost control, accounting, funds and flow management, etc. Air Liquide, like Linde or Air Products, makes 80 per cent of its profits on 20 per cent of its volume. Eighty per cent of the volume is a commodity (bottled oxygen for hospitals, for instance), but the company develops tailor-made speciality gases for niches identified as mainstream segments. These niches are price insensitive: the fresh food industry seeks a special gas to sustain the crispiness of packaged salad leaves for more than a week, as does the retailer."

Depois, à noite, via "Strategy as love, not war" (BTW, este título tem tanto que se lhe diga... em vez da guerra entre concorrentes, o desafio de procurar desenvolver relações amorosas com os clientes) encontro:

"At the beginning of my work on the Delta Model, I coined a silly statement, thinking it was a joke: “Commodities only exist in the minds of the inept.” It turns out it isn’t a joke.  Obviously a product could be a commodity. Take copper. The product cannot be differentiated, which makes it a commodity.  I cannot say that the Chilean copper is superior to the American copper. But copper as a business — the way that Siemens uses copper in their power plants, the way that GM uses copper in their cars, the way Carrier uses copper in their air conditioning units – is completely different.
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Therefore, commodities don’t really exist.  The customers are all different, and if you do not understand that, you are commoditizing something — and believe it, there is so much of that happening in business in America.  Typically, when I’m teaching these concepts, I ask the group of executives I teach, “Tell me, among all of you present, how many of you think that a significant percentage of your business comes from commodities?”  And invariably, 100 percent of the hands come up, and I know then that they have come to the right place — because they are not thinking correctly."

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Trechos iniciais retirados de "The New Strategic Brand Management" de Jean-Noël Kapferer.

Estratégia baseada no amor (Lc 10, 21)

Excelente!!!

"Conventionally, all of the major frameworks of strategy start by recognizing that the essence of strategy is to achieve superior competitive advantage. That is what everybody adheres to. We found that that as a concept and as a mindset is extremely dangerous, because it puts competitors at the center. And if you do that, then there is a tendency to watch your competitors and try to imitate them. (Moi ici: Muitas vezes me queixo aqui no blogue do excesso de atenção que é dada à concorrência. Impressiona ver que algumas empresas conhecem melhor os concorrentes do que conhecem os seus clientes. Assim, em vez de criar experiências novas, tornam-se cada vez mais parecidas com os concorrentes...)
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And that imitation creates sameness. Sameness will never bring greatness, and, even worse, its final result is something which is the worst thing that could ever happen to a business: commoditization. (Moi ici: Youngme Moon ilustra-o de forma soberana)   Commoditization means a business in which there is nothing that you can claim that differentiates your offering, and therefore, all you can do is to fight for price. That leads to a very aggressive rivalry. In order for you to win, you have to beat somebody.

It is like strategy as war, and that, as we know very well, is not really the most effective way to manage a business. Wars just create complete devastation; they are the worst thing that could happen to mankind, yet we use that as a simile for management! We felt it was the wrong simile.

Now, if competitors are not at the center of management, then who is at the center? For us, the answer was obvious. The customer is. Therefore, the customer is the driving force. You have to start deeply understanding what the customer’s requirements are and how you can help the customer in the most effective way. This changes completely the way you figure out what actions to do.

Now, instead of trying to imitate somebody, you are trying to separate yourself from the rest of the pack."

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"Therefore, commodities don’t really exist. The customers are all different, and if you do not understand that, you are commoditizing something — and believe it, there is so much of that happening in business in America. Typically, when I’m teaching these concepts, I ask the group of executives I teach, “Tell me, among all of you present, how many of you think that a significant percentage of your business comes from commodities?” And invariably, 100 percent of the hands come up, and I know then that they have come to the right place — because they are not thinking correctly."

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Agora, reflictam um pouco na quantidade de economistas, políticos e comentadores que todas as semanas nos catequizam dizendo que temos de reduzir custos para sermos mais competitivos... sim, até parece que essa foi e é a receita seguida pelas mittelstand...

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O meu conselho é o do abandono das folhas de cálculo e o desenvolvimento de relações amorosas com clientes, produtos e fornecedores. Ou seja, a estratégia passa pelo amor... agora, reparem no título do artigo de onde os trechos foram retirados:

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Trechos retirados de "Strategy as love, not war"

Competências associadas a um posicionamento

Continuado daqui.

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Uma vez identificados os vários segmentos de clientes, há que equacionar quais os que podemos servir melhor. Por isso, faz sentido identificar quais as competências existentes na organização.

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Arnoldo Hax propõe:

"Keep the following in mind with respect to determining the firm’s underlying competencies of each of the eight strategic positions:
Best Product
• Low Cost: Identify the capabilities that allow us to get significant advantages in
our cost infrastructure relative to our competitors.

• Differentiation: Examine the superior attributes that we possess and that allow us to develop and deliver a stream of products with characteristics distinct from the rest of the pack.
Total Customer Solutions
• Redefining the Customer Relationship: Analyze the advantages we might have surfaced from a deep understanding of our customers and the way we attract, satisfy, and retain them.
• Customer Integration: Assess the nature of our unique knowledge base and develop a firm understanding of how it can be transferred to our customers for enriching the solutions to their most critical problems, thus enhancing their profitability.
• Horizontal Breadth: Review and catalog the fullness of the portfolio of products and services that we can provide to our customers either alone or with the support of our Extended Enterprise.
System Lock-In
• Restricted Access: Look at the existence of possible barriers to entry that impede our competitors from reaching into our customer base, and the barriers to exit that hold our customers in our orbit.
• Dominant Exchange: Examine our capacity to transfer to our customers systems that we own and are critical to the conduct of their business.
• Proprietary Standards: Detect our capacity to generate important and impacting intellectual value that attracts complementors and produces a strong network that, to a great extent, we are able to control."

The Delta Model

Isto parece retirado deste blogue:

"Task 1 Customer Segmentation and Customer Value Proposition
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We begin by segmenting the customer base so that we can identify subsets of customers sharing similar needs, to which we will be providing distinct value propositions. We cannot overemphasize the importance of this task. It is the true foundation of a well laid out strategy.
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Task 2 The Existing and Desired Competencies of the Firm

The previous task allows us to understand the demand side of our business in a creative way. This task forces us to deeply focus on the supply side, on our own capabilities.
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Task 3 The Mission of the Business

The previous two tasks – customer segmentation and customer value proposition; and existing and desired competencies – are the foundation of our overall diagnosis.
What emerges is a clear understanding of where we are and what changes will be required to improve our existing circumstance. The true purpose of the mission statement is to capture and clearly articulate our intent. It is a critical task because it integrates the strategic tasks that we have conducted into a sole statement that defines the purpose of the organization and the challenges we face to move it in the desired direction. The mission is a fundamental vehicle to communicate our sense of direction, both inside and outside the organization.

Task 4 The Strategic Agenda
The strategic agenda attempts to identify and lay out in very pragmatic and concrete terms the specific tasks that we must undertake in order to serve our customers, define our new capabilities, and move the organization forward into the desired state of leadership. It should not only spell out the tasks but also identify who is accountable for their execution, as well as how to establish the necessary organization, information, and control mechanisms for its proper implementation.

Task 5 Monitoring the Strategy Execution

What happens after we have formulated what we hope is a winning strategy? The answer is obvious: we need to assure its proper implementation. In other words, we need to “manage by strategy” – so that strategy becomes the compass that directs the myriad tasks that are part of the routines of management.
Two important elements are required to assure proper implementation of the strategy, in addition to the unbounded attention that managers have to devote to its proper execution. The first is the development of an “intelligent budget.” ... The second vehicle required to assure proper implementation is the use of the Balanced Scorecard, both at the business and individual customer tier. This allows us to continue to focus on how we deliver the differentiated value propositions for each individual customer group."

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Trechos retirados de "The Delta Model" de Arnoldo Hax e em sintonia com a nossa metodologia.

Posicionamentos estratégicos

Interessante esta forma de identificar e sistematizar posicionamentos estratégicos.
O autor tem uma abordagem diferente sobre a forma como classifica o que é "Best Product":

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"Best Product positioning builds upon the classical form of competition. The customer is attracted by the inherent characteristics of the product itself – either through low cost, which provides a price advantage to the customer – or through differentiation, which introduces unique features that the customers value and for which they are willing to pay a premium.

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It is an inward-looking approach. Attention is centered on the product economics, the value chain, and the abilities to develop the capacities to deliver the best product."

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Trechos e figura retirada de "The Delta Model - Reinventing Your Business Strategy" de Arnoldo Hax.