Até as feiras onde se expõe e as conferências a que se assiste, podem ter de ser diferentes

Este artigo "Drone Dogfight: Big Defense Firms vs. Techies" é interessante e, pode alimentar uma série de discussões sobre:

• o conluio comum entre os incumbentes e o Estado;
• o medos dos incumbentes em relação à destruição criativa;
• a importância de escolher os clientes-alvo;
• a disrupção em acção.

Em relação à importância de escolher os clientes-alvo:

"The battle over new rules for unmanned aircraft in the U.S. is pitting the drone industry's two starkly different cultures against each other: high-tech entrepreneurs versus big aerospace and defense companies.
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The two groups tend to have different sensibilities and different target customers, even meeting at different conferences. They've coexisted amicably, with the big firms serving the military and the smaller players serving hobbyists. But now their relationship has soured over efforts to influence long-delayed drone regulations and their increasing convergence in the market as demand for drones takes off."

E no caso da sua PME, sabe quem são os seus clientes-alvo?
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Até as feiras onde se expõe e as conferências a que se assiste, podem ter de ser diferentes.

Porque Mongo vai ainda demorar a chegar

Ao longo dos anos fui descobrindo, e fui percebendo que Portugal não é um país muito diferente dos outros, e que os seus agentes não são nem melhores nem piores que os dos outros países.
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Às vezes esqueço-me disso e, por instinto, volto a cair no velho erro de pensar que Portugal é o pior de todos.
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Depois, encontro coisas destas:

"In Minnesota, more classroom time is required to become a cosmetologist than to become a lawyer. Becoming a manicurist takes double the number of hours of instruction as a paramedic. In Louisiana, the only state in the country that requires licenses for florists, monks were until recently forbidden to sell coffins because they were not licensed funeral directors.
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In the 1970s [Moi ici: Nos Estados Unidos], about 10 percent of individuals who worked had to have licenses, but by 2008, almost 30 percent of the work force needed them.
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With this explosion of licensing laws has come a national patchwork of stealth regulation that has, among other things, restricted labor markets, innovation and worker mobility."

Trechos retirados de "Why License a Florist?"

Sintomático

"Suspensão de despacho pode colocar saúde dos diabéticos em risco" fruto de um país de corporações e incumbentes...
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Esta é a cultura anti-Mongo que permeia Portugal...

Acerca da desigualdade

"In no other period of history have so few institutions wielded so much economic power over the lives of so many people.
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This unprecedented - and unimaginable - concentration of economic power was not just happenstance or a byproduct of man's insatiable avarice. Nor can it be rationalized away by simply blaming deregulation or finding fault with political ineptitude or, worse still, political collusion and enablement - although these were all contributing factors to its growth. Rather, on a more fundamental level, it flowed inexorably from the communication/energy matrices that were the foundation of the First and Sec-ond Industrial Revolutions.
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Like it or not, giant, vertically integrated corporate enterprises were the most efficient means of organizing the production and distribution of mass produced goods and services. Bringing together supply chains, production processes, and distribution channels in vertically integrated companies under centralized management dramatically reduced transaction costs, increased efficiencies and productivity, lowered the marginal cost of production and distribution, and, for the most part, lowered the price of goods and services to consumers, allowing the economy to flourish. While those at the top of the corporate pyramid disproportionately benefited from the increasing returns on investment, it's only fair to acknowledge that the lives of millions of consumers also improved appreciably in industrialized nations."

Mongo vai também mexer com isto, ao rebentar com esta concentração eficientista. Claro que não vai ser pacífico, os gigantes incumbentes vão oferecer luta, muitas vezes travestida de defesa de qualquer outra coisa:

"A Associação da Hotelaria de Portugal (AHP) propôs ao Governo a criação de uma licença especial para o alojamento local, que inclui a obrigação de uma autorização prévia do condomínio para quem quer alugar o seu apartamento a turistas.
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os hoteleiros não exigem o mesmo tipo de regras, mas sim restrições quanto ao número de camas e quartos e o cumprimento de regras de segurança e higiene. “Defendemos transparência fiscal e a publicitação online. Não faz sentido que um alojamento que serve para turistas não esteja obrigado a estar legalizado e seja intermediado em sites sem estar legal, nem transparente do ponto de vista fiscal”,"

Trecho inicial retirado de "The Zero Marginal Cost Society" de Jeremy Rifkin.
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Trecho final retirado de "Hotelaria quer condicionar aluguer de casas a turistas à autorização do condomínio"

Estava escrito nas estrelas

Já o escrevi aqui há muito tempo, os maiores inimigos de Mongo serão os incumbentes e o Monstro da Impostagem aka "Estado".

"To which the correct response is so what? We’re trying to make consumers better off, not maximise tax revenues."

Essa é a arma dos incumbentes, argumentar que os disruptores prejudicam a colecta de impostos.
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Go get a life!
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Trecho retirado de "Now Uber's In Trouble, They've Got The London Black Cabs After Them"

"They’ll work hard to ... protect the past from the future."

"you should care about business innovation and disruption because they’re a primary way that progress happens and that people become better off over time.
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Incumbents, of course, don’t want to be disrupted. And they’ll throw up all manner of barriers and smoke screens to try to prevent it from happening. They’ll enlist politicians, regulators, PR agencies, and everyone else they can think of to help with their campaigns to maintain the status quo.
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They’ll work hard to, as my friend Tim O’Reilly puts it, protect the past from the future. We should work hard to oppose this trend, and to protect the future from the past. A first step in this work is to be skeptical of claims from incumbents that when they protect themselves from upstart disruptors they’re also helping us out. Most of time, they’re not."

Trecho retirado de "Don’t Let Incumbents Hold Back the Future"

Forças anti-Mongo

Se na América que, apesar de ser cada vez mais socialista, ainda é a América, existem estas forças anti-Mongo "The Fight Over Tesla Shows How Little Value Dealerships Add", como será na Europa e em Portugal, onde tudo se faz de forma mais camuflada.

Cuidado com as noções tradicionais de influência e poder

"A small group of passionate people can influence others that are slightly more reticent, still others take notice and also join in. That’s how disruption happens.
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Disruption never makes sense to us [Moi ici: Os incumbentes instalados], because it always starts with them.
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The truth is that it’s not the influentials [Moi ici: Como não lembrar logo os 70 reformados de luxo] we have to worry about, but when ordinary folks start joining in.
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The 20th century was driven by the scale economy.  The path to success was paved by minimizing costs and maximizing control over the value chain.  The bigger you were, the more you were able to able to negotiate with customers and suppliers, acquire technology and talent and leverage capital and marketing might.
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Yet today, we are competing in a semantic economy in which everything is connected.  Anyone with an idea and a broadband connection can gain access to technology, marketing, finance and talent that rival the world’s biggest firms and, indeed, even large nations."

Cuidado com as noções tradicionais de influência e poder, em Mongo as regras do jogo são outras.

Trechos retirados de "Strategy Is No Longer A Game Of Chess"

PMEs insurgentes

Gostei muito deste artigo "FoW (13): You think innovation means better drones? Faster jets? Wrong. We've been out-innovated for the last 13 years."
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Há muitos anos que aprendi, com Tom Peters, a usar a metáfora da Al-Qaeda para visualizar o tipo de actuação que as PMEs têm de desenvolver, para terem sucesso.
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Rapidez, flexibilidade, by-pass aos incumbentes, seguir o caminho menos percorrido.

"The 21st-century insurgent will be adaptive. He will seize opportunities as they break.
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The only way to fight and win as a state actor in the 21st century is to become as smart and as culturally sensitive as the insurgent."

Onde se lê insurgente leia-se PME. BTW, quanto ao poder dos incumbentes instalados, recordar este postal de ontem "Implicações de Mongo".
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Vale mesmo a pena ler o artigo.

Uma Tragédia dos Comuns (parte II)

Parte I.
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Os novos "luddites":

• "Uber taxi vandalized in France despite new law favoring regular cab drivers"
• "French cabbies’ protest over competition puts Hollande in a jam"

Estes são os pioneiros das manifestações que todos os incumbentes vão fazer à medida que Mongo se entranhar na nossa economia.
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Recomendo a leitura "Complaining is not a strategy":

"Many books and blog posts have been written about the many reasons companies fail, a key reason is because they stop paying  attention to customers, and instead focus on competitors.
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Innovation doesn’t follow, it leads. So, when you start complaining about competitors, remember to reflect on the bigger picture; because that is probably what you are missing."

Uma Tragédia dos Comuns

“France is dying a slow death. Socialism is killing it. It’s like a rich old family being unable to give up the servants. Think Downton Abbey.”
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"When I began to look around, I saw people taking wild advantage of the system.
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When you retire, you are well cared for. There are 36 special retirement regimes – which means, for example, a female hospital worker or a train driver can retire earlier than those in the private sector because of their “harsh working conditions,” even though they can never be fired.
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But all this handing out of money left the state bankrupt.
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The government is so inward looking and the state fonctionnaires who run it are so divorced from reality that it has become a country in denial."

Trechos retirados de "The Fall of France" e recordar que França é o país mais anti-Mongo.
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BTW, conjugar com "Freedom and the Public Goods"

Nada que não fosse de esperar

França!
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França, o país mais anti-Mongo que existe. O país, por excelência, dos incumbentes.
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Há anos que escrevo aqui no blogue que só os governos podem atrasar o advento de Mongo, para proteger os seus "amigos, eleitores-corporativos e impostagem", pois bem, "French Uber users face 15-minute delay starting next year":

"To the surprise of virtually everyone in France, the government has just passed a law requiring car services like Uber to wait 15 minutes before picking up passengers. The bill is designed to help regular taxi drivers, who feel threatened by recently-introduced companies like Uber, SnapCar and LeCab."

Parece uma lei saída da mente de Conceição Cristas.

A reacção dos incumbentes a Mongo passará por coisas como esta

À medida que Mongo avança, criam-se as condições para que mais e mais pessoas entrem na categoria de prosumers de Alvin Toffler, continuam como consumidores e transformam-se em produtores independentes.
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Essa mudança não vai ser bem recebida por quem actualmente produz, as empresas incumbentes. Um aliado dos incumbentes serão os Estados e todas as entidades que vivem de impostos. Se eu produzo para consumo próprio, toda uma série de transacções da produção até ao consumo final desaparecem. Assim, esta fase actual em que vivemos, em que os instalados acham engraçado o aparecimento de mais e mais "makers" e de mais e mais tecnologia que democratiza a produção e aumenta a variedade da oferta, há-de dar origem a uma fase de perseguição por parte do Estado e dos incumbentes porque lhes rouba receitas e lucros.
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Creio que não andaremos muito longe deste fascismo democrático "Los inspectores podrán entrar sin orden judicial en las viviendas que produzcan energía solar", concentrado em saber se tem uma printer 3D em casa e o que faz com ela, por exemplo.

Counter to public perception

"we misunderstand the incentive structure of corporate managers. Counter to public perception, corporate managers are not entrepreneurs. They are not what one could call agents of capitalism."

Trecho retirado de "Skin in the Game as a Required Heuristic for Acting Under Uncertainty"

Como é que os desconhecidos podem aproveitar os tempos de crise? (parte III)

Parte II e parte I.
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Os "desconhecidos" têm a liberdade mental, a flexibilidade de recursos, a ausência de remorsos e a agilidade, para fazer bom uso desta mensagem de Seth Godin "How big is critical mass?":

"In the idea business, critical mass is minimum size of the excited audience that leads to a wildfire. People start embracing your idea because, "everyone else is..."
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If your idea isn't spreading, one reason might be that it's for too many people. Or it might be because the cohort that appreciates it isn't tightly connected. When you focus on a smaller, more connected group, it's far easier to make an impact."

Basta que acrescentem a isto, um pensamento de criança (os desconhecidos têm mais a ganhar com a exploração do novo ("exploration"), do que com a exploração do conhecido ("exploitation"))  ou de artista.

Receita para disrupcionar mercados

Rita Gunther McGrath dá uma excelente lição sobre como disrupcionar um sector em "Recipe for Disruption Leans on Lazy Incumbents"
Leio isto:

"the would-be disruptor first needs to select a target, and there's no better target than a lazy incumbent. Better yet, an entire niche or setting in which multiple incumbents have enjoyed a privileged position for a long time. Stability in a sector is often synonymous with lack of change.
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Managers in these niches don't have to take many many risks to move forward in their careers, so guess what? They don't. Powerful people enjoying long, stable careers, lots of perks and very few challenges to their authority are just what the disruptor ordered. Brownie points if the leaders in your target segment take a "I don't want any surprises, and don't bring me bad news" approach to hearing from their direct-reports. Ideally, the incumbents count on sizable revenue flows."

E começo logo a pensar no massacre que foi a "invasão dos produtos chineses" e da "produção na China", para as nossas empresas do sector transaccionável, durante a primeira metade do século XXI, com a entrada da China na OMC. As nossas empresas viviam dos baixos preços, dos baixos salários, tinham-se habituado, com cerca de 25 anos de boleias clandestinas proporcionadas pela desvalorização do escudo, a não precisarem de mudar nada, o Estado mudava por elas. O Estado proporcionava-lhes uma vantagem competitiva externa; a taxa de câmbio.
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A chegada do factor China foi "mortal"!!!
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Recordar sempre esta tabela:

(Muitas empresas definharam, colapsaram e morreram. Demorámos cerca de 6/7 anos a dar a volta, a perceber como dar a volta.)
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De seguida vêm as várias formas de abordar os clientes do incumbente:

"Next, think about the customer need you'll be addressing. It might be the same need that the incumbent provides, or it could conceivably be a way of making what the incumbent provides unnecessary. Or doing the same thing, but at a fraction of the price. Can you think of a customer need that is not being met, is being met badly or expensively, or is being met in such a way that infuriates customers? Might they reward you for making their experience better?"

Como é que os desconhecidos podem aproveitar os tempos de crise? (parte II)

Na parte I,  falava-se sobre uma oferta que "rasga", de algo inovador, de moda, por exemplo. Mas os desconhecidos têm mais hipóteses de entrar, aproveitar os passos em falso dos cost-cutters:

"There is constant pressure in business to improve margins through cost-cutting. This is particularly true in 2013, when consumer confidence is shaky and many community costs (particularly in food) are on the rise.
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Cost-cutting can be the mother of invention, inspiring creative problem-solving and efficiency. But it can also tax product quality over time. Consumers may not notice the change in any one cost-cutting round, but the cumulative effect over time can weaken the products materially. Chronic cost-cutting was a major factor behind the horse meat scandal.
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Chronic cost-cutting creates an opportunity for new brands to out-premium the premium brands.
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In the push to increase margins, it’s important to remember that there can be a cost to cost-cutting."

E pensar que esta é a única receita que a tríade conhece... cortar nos custos e remeter-nos para o tipo de competição que empobrece os países... race-to-the-bottom.
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Trechos retirados de "cost-cutting"

Como é que os desconhecidos podem aproveitar os tempos de crise?

Como é que os desconhecidos podem aproveitar os tempos de crise?
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Em tempos de crise, os incumbentes são os que têm mais a perder. Por um lado, vêem o consumo a baixar e ficam com o legítimo receio de excesso de inventário e subsequente venda ao desbarato do mesmo.
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Por outro lado, reconhecem que os consumidores em tempos de crise ficam mais conservadores nos seus gostos. Assim, por tudo isto, os incumbentes reduzem o leque da oferta que colocam no mercado e, matam dois coelhos de uma cajadada: menos inventário e oferta mais conservadora, a que sai mais em tempos de crise, em sintonia com a massa de consumidores.
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O que pode fazer um desconhecido?
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Aparecer no mercado com uma oferta que "rasga", uma oferta fora do comum, uma oferta dirigida não à massa mas aos visionários que estabelecem hoje aquilo que será moda daqui a 2/3 anos.
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Entretanto, os incumbentes, com a sua táctica conjuntural, controlam os inventários e vendem... mas mancham a sua imagem perante os visionários que começam a pensar: Ah! Afinal são como os outros!
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E assim começam as novas lendas...

Industrialista

Ontem, no noticiário das 8 da manhã na Antena 1 ouvi a entrevista a Rogério Alves como presidente da Associação de Empresas de Segurança.
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Hoje, encontrei uma boa designação para o que ouvi: industrialista.
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Explicação aqui.

Lições sobre disrupção

Excelente artigo de Constantinos Markides na MIT Sloan Management Review deste Outono, "How Disruptive Will Innovations from Emerging Markets Be?":

"Numerous and less-well-known companies and entrepreneurs are currently serving billions of local consumers with low-cost products without significant competition from global corporations. But once the local entrepreneurs establish themselves in their home markets, they should also make the leap into more developed countries." (Moi ici: Ao ler os trechos que se seguem, pode-se fazer um exercício, olhar para as PMEs portuguesas como potenciais disruptores ao exportarem para novos mercados, e olhar para as PMEs portuguesas como incumbentes a reagir à invasão chinês durante a primeira década do século XXI) 

E se acontecerem, quão disruptivas serão essas movimentações?

"Just because a product is very inexpensive or targets non-consumers of existing technologies does not mean it is disruptive. To be disruptive, a product has to meet two conditions: First, it must start out as inferior in terms of the performance that existing customers expect, but superior in price.(Moi ici: Assim, quem começa a comprar esses produtos são não-clientes do mercado que existe. São agentes que aceitam o desempenho mais baixo por troca com um preço muito atraente)
...[then] it must become “good enough” in performance and superior in price.
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What makes a product disruptive is how it develops over time and how incumbents respond to it. This has the important implication that you can never tell ex ante whether a product will be disruptive or not.
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Will the emerging-market innovators continue to have a significant price advantage over competitors from more developed countries?
Will the emerging-market innovators succeed in closing the performance gap so that customers in more advanced economies come to see their products as “good enough”?"

Seguem-se alguns trechos carregados de sumo:

"If the source of the cost advantage is low labor costs or a reengineered product that requires fewer or cheaper components, incumbents can find a way of neutralizing these advantages.
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A cost advantage is difficult to sustain over time, especially if incumbents cut their costs in an aggressive and committed way.(Moi ici: Estão a recordar as vozes que falam nos custos, nos custos, nos custos, no imperativo de reduzir salários?)
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However, there is one source of cost advantage that is more sustainable than others. This is the business model of the disruptors. A cost advantage that comes on the back of a business model that is not only different from but also conflicts with the business model of the established companies is more sustainable than other cost advantages.
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Business models are difficult to imitate. What makes the task even more difficult is the fact that the disruptors’ business models often conflict with the incumbents’ business models. (Moi ici: A solução muitas vezes passa por aqui, passa por inovar no modelo de negócio)
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The existence of such trade-offs and conflicts means that a company that tries to compete in both positions simultaneously risks degrading the value of its existing activities.
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a company could find itself “stuck in the middle” if it tried to compete with both low-cost and differentiation strategies.
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When there are inherent conflicts between their traditional business model and the disruptor’s business model, incumbents will think twice before attempting to imitate the disrupting business model.
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This suggests that a cost advantage that’s based on a different and conflicting business model is the disruptor’s best chance to make inroads against incumbents. (Moi ici: Raramente teremos vantagem por esta via)
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Less obvious is the proposition that whether the disruptors’ products come to be seen as “good enough” depends not only on what disruptors do, but also on what incumbents do to influence consumers’ expectations of what is “good enough.” (Moi ici: Este ponto é muito interessante e, aqui as PMEs portuguesas podem fazer a diferença. E o calçado, o têxtil e vestuário, o mobiliário, e o agro-alimentar é exemplo disso, por exemplo) In particular, incumbents must continue to innovate in their products so that consumers in more developed countries continue to see a big gap between what the potentially disruptive product can offer them and what is available from the incumbents.

There are two major ways to do this. The first is to focus on the product’s existing value proposition and raising that to higher levels. Doing so will keep raising the bar on what is good enough and make life more difficult for disruptors.
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The more successful the incumbents are in increasing consumers’ expectations of what is “good enough” in their markets, the less successful the entrants from emerging markets will be in disrupting them. (Moi ici: Aquilo a que chamo fazer batota ao apostar nos itens onde se pode ter uma vantagem competitiva. Velocidade, flexibilidade, design, ...)
In short, whether low-cost innovations from emerging countries end up disrupting markets in developed countries depends not only on whether the disruptors succeed in putting in place an innovative business model that supports their cost advantage but also on how aggressively the incumbents respond. For incumbents, knowing that much of their fate rests in their hands is half the battle won."