Por uma vez de acordo

Recordar "nenhum treinador é pau para toda a obra" ou "Um conselho, um desafio" ou "Uma aposta manca (parte I)". Depois, ler este texto de Ricardo Paes Mamede, "2,7% de despesas em I&D: quando o que parece uma boa notícia não passa de um absurdo".

Costumo ser tão crítico do pensamento de Ricardo Paes Mamede, por exemplo aqui, no entanto, desta vez não posso estar mais de acordo:

"o nível de despesas em I&D sobre o PIB está fortemente correlacionado com a estrutura produtiva de cada país, em particular com o peso relativo de sectores cujo desempenho depende crucialmente da realização de um grande volume de actividades de I&D (por exemplo, farmacêutica, aeronáutica e electrónica).
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Dada a sua estrutura produtiva, Portugal tem já um nível de despesas em I&D sobre o PIB que é superior ao expectável. Contrariamente ao que é habitualmente assumido, o facto de Portugal se encontrar abaixo da média da UE neste indicador não significa que o esforço realizado a nível nacional seja insatisfatório – apenas reflecte o facto de a estrutura produtiva do país assentar em actividades cujo bom desempenho é menos determinado pelo nível de despesas em I&D.
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a partir de certo nível as despesas em I&D constituem essencialmente um desperdício, pois acarretam um custo financeiro sem que a sociedade portuguesa e o tecido económico nacional estejam em condições de beneficiar dos retornos desse esforço."

Por uma vez de acordo com Paes Mamede.

"Push the envelope in a stable market, but focus on efficiency in an uncertain one"

Esta semana ao ler "If You're in a Dogfight, Become a Cat!: Strategies for Long-Term Growth" achei interessante o autor reforçar esta mensagem:

Sempre que a Apple foi first-mover deu barraca.

Ontem li ouvi este interessante artigo "Sometimes, Less Innovation Is Better":

"in certain situations, more innovation led to poorer performance. Their conclusion: sometimes, less innovation is better.
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A time of turbulence is mainly defined by three factors. One: the magnitude of change. How much is the industry changing compared with other times? Two: the frequency of change. How often are changes coming at you? And three: predictability. Can you see changes coming? The most important of these is predictability. You can absorb almost any change you can see coming. But if predictability is low, and either frequency is high or magnitude is large, you should scale back innovation until things get more stable. Certainly if all three are working against you, you should innovate less.
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anytime exogenous forces or shocks to the system happen in their markets—for instance, a new set of regulations or a major political shift—innovators tend to lose. Sudden changes create instability that seem to beg for innovation, but it’s probably better to sit tight and focus on execution and efficiency.
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Push the envelope in a stable market, but focus on efficiency in an uncertain one."

"including the customer C in the mix and basing prices on value"

“the questions that are central to your business and for wich you need shared answers: Who are and aren’t our customers? Why are we diferente? How do we add value? [Moi ici: Questões quase tão velhas como este blogue]
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There has to be a match between the value you create and communicate and your ability to extract value. Customers must demonstrate some willingness-to-pay. The higher this is, and the more differentiated your value proposition is, the greater your pricing power. Companies stray from this path in the R&D processes when they focus primarily or exclusively on just two Cs—cost and competition—instead of including the customer C in the mix and basing prices on value.
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In essence, we need a shift in how R&D projects hit the market. Instead of pricing developed mostly on costs, you should have innovation projects that are based on willingness to pay. [Moi ici: Interessante como é a mesma abordagem the “Monetizing Innovation] The sooner you begin this switch in innovation focus, the easier the back end of the value approach gets.”

Trechos retirados de Stephan M. Liozu em "Dollarizing Differentiation Value: A Practical Guide for the Quantification and the Capture of Customer Value"

"acerca das perspectivas futuras para a indústria em Portugal"

O @nticomuna no Twitter chamou-me a atenção para um texto que é a cara dele e dos seus "rants" e. também a cara deste blogue. O @nticomuna consegue ser ainda mais optimista do que eu acerca das perspectivas futuras para a indústria em Portugal. Vejamos então "Inovadora cadeira auto com airbags vai ser produzida em Portugal":

"Além de cumprir com a mais recente norma de segurança (a i-Size, que classifica as cadeiras segundo a altura da criança e tem crash testes mais rigorosos), a nova cadeira possui airbags próprios, armazenados no interior do arnês que prende o bebé.[Moi ici: Aposta em produtos mais seguros, com mais atributos e diferentes. Produtos inovadores]
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Além da produção da cadeira inovadora, a Dorel Portugal conquistou mais três modelos (dois da Bébéconfort e Maxi Cosi e um que era produzido na Holanda e passa a ser produzido apenas cá) e vai começar a montar carrinhos Quinny – o topo de gama da marca –, o que lhe permitirá aumentar em 20% o volume de negócios, que atingiu 47 milhões de euros em 2015.
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“Esta evolução não se deveu aos salários baixos em Portugal. O nosso custo de produção já não é o mais baixo da Europa há algum tempo. Não se pode confundir produtividade com eficiência [Moi ici: A mensagem deste blogue acerca do eficientismo e do numerador versus denominador] ... “O que nos distingue é a qualidade e os prazos de entrega. [Moi ici: Outra mensagem deste blogue, a rapidez, a flexibilidade] E o Norte está repleto de fornecedores de matérias-primas de qualidade, desde plásticos a parafusos, além dos recursos humanos à altura”, explica ainda. [Moi ici: Isto é tão o discurso do @nti-comuna]
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“Trabalhámos com a Volkswagen para desenvolver um protótipo de um carrinho que, com os sensores que eles usam para estacionamento, segue os pais e está ligado a uma app no telemóvel que alerta se alguém tentar tirar o arnês ao bebé”.[Moi ici: Isto é um exemplo do nosso "é meter código nisso"]
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Ao contrário do que seria de esperar, apesar de a crise económica e financeira de 2008 ter afetado a natalidade nalguns países, a Dorel conseguiu equilibrar as vendas. “Em Portugal, no segmento médio, sentimos quebra. A solução foi apostar na gama alta da Quinny, que tem uma imagem muito forte cá e em Espanha. Resultou, porque os que têm dinheiro continuam a ter mesmo durante as crises”, revela Paulo Anjos."[Moi ici: Outra "receita" clássica deste blogue e que explica isto, quando se deixa de ser competitivo no preço uma PME só tem um caminho, subir na escala de valor, não o enterrar-se numa race-to-the-bottom,]

As doenças da inovação (parte IV)

Parte I, parte II e parte III.

As inovações zombie:

"Undead. This category of product should never be released, because it comes back to haunt you, like a ghost or zombie. “They come in two varieties: Either they're the wrong answer to the right question; or an answer to a question no one cares about. Either way, you should never have developed these products. Undead failures teach us that some well-intentioned, marvelously engineered new products should never be brought to life,”
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How to avoid the undead: Undead products happen when proponents wildly overstate customer appeal and don’t segment the customer base effectively. “Had these firms asked customers whether and what they’d be willing to pay for their inventions before drafting the engineering plans, and had they identified the market size by segment and who would be willing to pay the most and the least for it, they would have reformulated their products to meet an acceptable price. Or, finding there is no acceptable price, or that the market size is too small, they would have scrapped the product altogether before they incurred too much financial damage,”"

As doenças da inovação (parte II)

Parte I.

Outra doença da inovação tem uma prima que anda muito em voga em Portugal na economia:

"Minivations. Sometimes, companies will create the right product for the right market. The only catch: The company or entrepreneur didn’t have the courage to charge the right price, and as a result, the product is under-monetized. If you evaluate the product’s sales versus its potential, and it gets a C+, that’s a minivation.
“Everyone knows that they could have done better, but they just claim it as a success because it still worked.
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How to catch minivations: Look for minivations early. It’s key to watch your team’s attitude before and after the product launches. “Some early warning signs may be that your team seems comfortable checking the box and lowballing on targets.
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If the majority of deals are going through the pipeline without any pushback on price, you may have underpriced it. Track the number of price escalations, as well as the length of the sales cycle against historical norms. It will give you more hard evidence that something new is occurring, which you can then address.”"

Quando um produto se vende muito bem, com pouco esforço, é porque muito dinheiro ficou em cima da mesa. Os clientes reconhecem o valor e reconhecem a pechincha.

O valor líquido capturado pelo fornecedor é muito menor do que o que seria possível.

As doenças da inovação (parte I)

Em "It’s Price Before Product. Period."podemos encontrar, de certa forma, um resumo do livro Monetizing Innovation: How Smart Companies Design the Product Around the Price.

"New products fail for many reasons. “But the root of all innovation evil is the failure to put the customer’s willingness to pay [WTP] for a new product at the very core of product design. Most companies postpone pricing decisions until after the product is developed. They embark on a long, costly journey of hoping they’ll make money rather than knowing they will,” Ramanujam says. “You can ensure your product not only stays alive, but thrives, by talking with customers early in the product development process. If you don’t, you won’t be able to prioritize the product features you develop, or know whether you’re building something customers will pay for until it’s in the marketplace.”
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Missteps with monetization frequently occur when companies try to sell a product that they haven’t price-tested thoroughly in advance."

Depois, começa a listar as doenças da inovação. A primeira é uma velha conhecida, querer construir um produto que faz tudo para todos:

"Feature Shock. These happen when a product has been packed with far too many features. “Products fail when they have way too much going on. They’re over-engineered, hard to explain, nothing stands out, and the company puts a price on it and hopes for the best. It’s usually borne of a sincere effort to be ‘all things to all people,’ resulting in a product that pleases few. Due to its multitude of features – none of them a standout – these products are costly to make, over-engineered and usually overpriced,” Ramanujam says.
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How to combat feature shock: Beware when your R&D team wants to add a feature but can’t articulate its value to a customer. Instead of cramming tons of features into one product, practice restraint. Separate your customers into buckets depending on their needs, values and WTP. Then tailor your products differently to each segment. Essentially, you want to sort features into different groups and create packages or bundles that appeal to each.
“Curb your instincts to please customers by giving away too much value unless people will pay for it. This will maximize the potential of your new products,” Ramanujam says. “And get comfortable with the idea of giving your price-sensitive segment only basic quality and service levels, rather than giving them everything. Product configuration requires the guts to take away features.”"

Um exemplo, tantas oportunidades

Um exemplo no artigo "He Went To The Desert With $3 Million In Cash—And Left With 150 Tons Of Cashmere".
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Quantas oportunidades deste tipo, eliminação do intermediário que deixou de trazer valor à cadeia, existem por aproveitar, agora que o mundo é bem mais pequeno?

"They went to Mongolia and paid $31 for a kilo of cashmere, which is more than 50% more than other brokers, but they never resell the raw material. Instead, they bring it to factories in Italy, China, and even Mongolia to be milled and then turned into sweaters, hats, and gloves. They charge between $99 and $200 for 100% cashmere sweaters that are milled in Italy, which is significantly less expensive than garments of comparable quality from brands like Loro Piana, Brunello Cucinelli, or Portolano.
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Over the last two and a half years, Scanlan and Rijsemus built a booming e-commerce business, but they discovered that there was also a demand for a wholesale business, where they could create and sell cashmere collections to retailers, sometimes under private labels. "We can get very good prices because we own the raw material and we can negotiate discounts at manufacturers by leveraging the cost of those law materials," Scanlan explains.
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By cutting out the middlemen margins, they are able to make 79% profits on e-commerce, 60% on wholesale, and 40% on private label, which is significantly higher than industry standards. And this year, they will make about $6 million in top-line revenue."

"was so obsessed with the exploration"

Uma perspectiva interessante de ver o encerramento do ElBulli em "ElBulli and the Limits of Corporate Innovation":

"Actually, Adrià became obsessed with the pursuit of culinary innovation. He eliminated elBulli’s à la carte menu — if you were lucky enough to eat there, you ate a tasting menu created from scratch during the six months it was closed. During the downtime, he sent his staff around the world to search out inspiration. In 2002, Adrià didn’t open elBulli at all. Instead, he directed the staff to codify the restaurant’s intellectual capital in order to revitalize the ongoing effort to invent new techniques, tools, and concepts, such as the foams, frozen airs, and spherifications that have become basic elements in the deconstructed dishes of molecular gastronomy.
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In the early 1990s, while the chef was beginning his rise, Stanford Graduate School of Business professor James G. March was exploring the need for companies to balance “the exploration of new possibilities and the exploitation of old certainties”. Adrià, however, was so obsessed with the exploration that he eventually shut down the exploitation altogether — launching a nonprofit innovation lab. No corporate leader can afford to follow his example that far."

Acerca de uma previsão

No início de Agosto de 2011 escrevemos aqui no blogue "Para recordar no final do ano". Tratava-se de uma previsão acerca das fiações com futuro. Algo na linha do escrito em "Augusto Mateus bem":

"Devia ser uma lição para todos aqueles que julgam que Portugal podia ter evitado o choque de desemprego iniciado em 2009 e aprofundado pela implosão da economia não-transaccionável durante os anos da troika. Portugal não podia recuperar, nem pode almejar um futuro melhor para os portugueses e as empresas, a continuar a fazer o que se fazia só que em maior quantidade ou ritmo."

A previsão de 2011 era:

"Uma sugestão de interpretação: onde se consegue mais flexibilidade? onde se consegue mais customização? onde se pode criar mias diferença? onde se está mais próximo do mercado de consumo?
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Realmente não é nas fiações que existiam...
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Conhecem alguma fiação portuguesa maluca? Uma fiação fora do comum? Uma fiação diferente e capaz de fazer coisas malucas para gente excêntrica? Uma fiação mais pequena do que é habitual?"

Isto a propósito de "Fiação investe 10 milhões de euros em Famalicão e cria mais de 100 empregos":

"A fábrica dedica-se à produção de fios técnicos, de valor acrescentado, “articulados com a tendência da moda do momento”. [Moi ici: Diferenciação e rapidez] Em causa estão fios multicores, com brilhos metálicos, diferentes aplicações e mistura de fibras.
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“Trabalhamos por encomenda, ao lote”, [Moi ici: Flexibilidade e pequenas séries a acrescentar à diferenciação e rapidez] acrescentou, sublinhando que os fios ali produzidos se dedicam essencialmente à indústria de malhas e à tecelagem."

"embracing self-cannibalization"

O meu primeiro superior hierárquico no meu primeiro emprego a sério, tinha pânico de fazer experiências em produtos que funcionavam.
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A empresa fabricava um produto para uma marca de automóveis da gama média-alta há mais de 20 anos e nunca tinha mexido na receita. Em 20 anos muitos ingredientes novo tinham aparecido, com um desempenho técnico muito superior, mas ninguém estava autorizado a fazer mudanças.
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Até que um concorrente alemão apresenta ao cliente uma versão muito melhorada do produto.
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Pânico!!!

"What is the secret that allows these incumbents to fend off the startups aiming to displace them?
The answer is deceptively simple: embracing self-cannibalization. Self-cannibalization occurs when a company chooses to proactively replace one product or process with another that is potentially worth less. Forward-looking incumbents recognize the need to cannibalize their own products, rather than leaving it to other startups, who are more than happy to take on the challenge.
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Embracing this approach isn’t easy – it doesn’t always seem natural to talk about how to replace profitable businesses. But there are four rules which can help managers of all walks of an organization instill the principle in their day-to-day work, in order to make self-cannibalization successful in the long run.
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Rule #1: Get into the habit of setting up new business units that compete with the old
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Rule #2: Find a balance between derivative products, platform upgrades, and breakthrough innovation
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Rule #3: Create a bypass mechanism to pitch ideas to the top
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Rule #4: Create a corporate goal with a percent of revenue earmarked to new products"

Trechos retirados de "The Best Companies Aren’t Afraid to Replace Their Most Profitable Products"

As falhas da inovação

"Succeeding at product innovation is difficult, and it always has been. Every other year, Simon-Kucher & Partners conducts the world's largest survey on the state of pricing. Our 2014 report polled executives in 1,615 companies across the United States, Japan, Germany, and 37 other countries. The primary focus of the survey was to measure how well companies were monetizing their innovations across industries and geographies. The disappointing findings were reported in Harvard Business Review: 72 percent of new products introduced over the last five years failed—either to meet their revenue and profit goals, or failed entirely. These figures applied equally to startups and large businesses in every industry surveyed.
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These numbers show something is very wrong with the way companies bring new concepts to market. No one is immune. As painful as it is to consider, the odds are stacked against all of us.
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Yet succeeding at innovating has never been more important than it is now. In the 2014 Simon-Kucher & Partners study, 83 percent of companies reported facing increasing downward pricing pressures."

Estes trechos foram retirados de "Monetizing Innovation". Depois, os autores identificam 4 causas principais na base deste desempenho medíocre:

• Choque de atributos. Amontoar demasiados atributos num produto - muitos não desejados. Cria um produto demasiado caro e que não atrai os clientes. Esta imagem ilustra bem a situação:

• Minivation. Uma inovação que apesar de ser o produto certo para o mercado certo é vendida a um preço demasiado baixo para recompensar o investimento feito no desenvolvimento.
• Gemas escondidas. Um potencial campeão de vendas que nunca terá sucesso porque não foi correctamente comercializado. Por exemplo, o seu mercado-alvo, os clientes-alvo e/ou prateleiras (canais) não correspondem ao core business actual. Recordar "Um conselho, um desafio"
• Zombies. Uma inovação que os clientes não querem e que no entanto foi em frente, quer porque se trata da resposta errada à pergunta certa, ou da resposta a uma pergunta que ninguém fez.

A inovação não é a resposta para tudo

Escrevi este postal na madrugada de ontem. Depois, ao final da tarde, desafiaram-me para um projecto sobre: quando a inovação morre na praia.

"Too frequently, companies decide what they’re going to do before determining why they’re going to do it. That’s challenging, because developing innovations that have a lasting impact requires going beyond doing one single thing. Improving innovation is a system-level issue, requiring a coherent and consistent set of organizational interventions. [Moi ici: Recordar o problema dos que inovam produtos sem mudar de modelo de negócio - "Um conselho, um desafio" e "Uma aposta manca (parte I)"] To begin to determine what set of interventions makes the most sense for your company, first you need to step back and answer a fundamental question: What problem does innovation need to solve? The answer to this question matters substantially because it determines in which part of the organization a company needs to intervene, what resources leaders need to be ready to commit to, and how long it will take before any impact is felt.
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Finally, innovation is not a one-size-fits-all proposition. Leaders need to make the strategic choice: whether to isolate new growth efforts, infuse everyday innovation into daily routines or truly institutionalize innovation. Taking the time to determine which choice is appropriate for you will focus your attention and accelerate the impact of your subsequent innovation efforts."

Trechos retirados de "Innovation Isn’t the Answer to All Your Problems"

"empresas pequenas cheias de ganas de experimentar"

Eis mais um texto sobre as vantagens competitivas das empresas mais pequenas face aos gigantes, "This Company Makes $50 Million a Year Selling
Sexy Orthotics":

"Profoot owes its existence to unconventional products, and its future depends on relentless innovation. "Dr. Scholl's is now owned by Bayer, which is something like an $80 billion company," explains Feldman. Profoot, by contrast, generates less than $50 million in annual revenue, although it turns a profit every year. "It just wouldn't be a very sensible strategy to go head-to-head with them," [Moi ici: A lição de David perante Golias] says Feldman. "I'm sure our entire company is their pencil budget."
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"But we also have tremendous advantages," says Feldman. "We can move much more quickly and come out with a product before their lawyers have figured out whether they can do this or that."
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Often, Dr. Scholl's may not even want to do this or that. Ideas the giant company deems too small to pursue--"interstitial," as Feldman describes them--look like great opportunities to Profoot. "There are plenty of $5 million or $6 million angles we can occupy,"
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In effect, Profoot has built a healthy business in a category dominated by a single giant by trying not to compete with it.
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Profoot innovated not just materials but also the look and packaging of products, based on the mail-order catalog industry's obsession with novelty.
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"I think right now we are clearly the best minds in this category," Feldman says. Alluding to Dr. Scholl's being acquired twice in seven years, he adds, "I don't know how much institutional knowledge is left at the leading brand right now."
Overall, Feldman is bullish. "We have no debt, we have never borrowed a dime, we have more product ideas than we know how to process," he says."

Enquanto lia isto pensava na lengalenga que ouvia na televisão quando era miúdo, e que ainda oiço alguns encalhados recitarem:

"As empresas grandes ficam cada vez mais grandes, só a regulação, só a intervenção do Estado impede os monopólios"

A verdade é que sempre existirão empresas pequenas cheias de ganas de inovar, de experimentar, de servir melhor os clientes e, como efeito secundário, derrubam os gigantes, naturalmente.

Pricing power (parte III)

Parte I e parte II.
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A parte II termina com esta afirmação:

"companies have recognized that launching new products is by far their best option to escape these pressures and re-establish their pricing power."

Só que há um problema:

 "Companies know that innovation is the one true solution to escaping oppressive market conditions. Many companies back this up with real commitments to R&D in order to generate ideas which will change the basis of competition.
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Yes, companies had the right idea when they decided to invest in innovation and try to change the basis of competition in their markets. They could hardly pick a better means to escape market conditions and re-establish their pricing power than innovation.
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Innovation begets innovation. But it is a cycle fueled by profits, not just by great ideas. If enough products at a company fail to meet their profit targets, the positive cycle — innovation begets innovation — gets disrupted or stops entirely. The company lacks the resources to develop its freshest big ideas and bring them to market. These failures can have crippling consequences for corporate profits. Short-term financial performance suffers, and more importantly, a company can lose its long-term ability to fund more innovation to remain competitive." 

E atenção:

"The irony: Flops make oppressive market conditions even worse In the same way that having a successful new product triggers a positive spiral, having a flop can trigger a negative one, depending on how a company responds. When a new product starts to fall short of expectations, a natural reaction is to cut prices to stimulate demand, move existing units, and salvage whatever one can. The problem is that these tactics can intensify the very same price pressures that the new product was supposed to free the company from."

Portanto, uma empresa tem de ter sucesso nas suas apostas e, tem de ter possibilidade de não ver esse dinheiro impostado pelo monstro normando.
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Os autores propõem que a inovação e o marketing trabalhem em paralelo e não como actividades em série.

Pricing power (parte II)

Parte I.

"The respondents in the Global Pricing Study 2014 made it acutely obvious that selling conditions for just about any product have gotten worse over the last two years. Downward pressure on prices is at very high levels. When asked whether they have experienced increasing price pressures in the last two years, 83% of the respondents said “yes”.
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Where do these pressures come from? Based on our study and our own day-to-day work with clients, we would say the source is aboute venly split between the customers and the competitors. In the B2B world, procurement continues to become more professionalized, meaning more and more companies bring to bear skill and expertise in an effort to drive down prices or achieve the most favorable price-value relationship. In both the B2B and B2C worlds, the enormous transparency created by the internet lets people compare prices almost instantly with ease."

Quando li estes trechos, baixei o tablet, continuei a caminhar e a pensar na reacção típica em Portugal perante este cenário: pedir ajuda ao papá-Estado; fazer manifestações, cortar estradas, provocar tumultos, apelar à compaixão pelos coitadinhos.

Qual a alternativa?

"This begs one urgent question: what is the way out? Prayer is definitely not the answer. Innovation is the right answer, and the respondents in our study know it."

A inovação é a alternativa!
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Fugir da commoditização, fugir do granel, arranjar uma identidade.

"companies have recognized that launching new products is by far their best option to escape these pressures and re-establish their pricing power.
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When asked how they planned to fight or survive amid those pressures, a large majority of respondents (77%) said they planned to introduce new, innovative, or differentiated products. These are their means to change the basis of competition."

Recordar o exemplo da empresa que não conseguia vender sapatos a 20€ mas que os vende agora a 230€.

Dinheiro em cima da mesa

A propósito de deixar dinheiro em cima da mesa, "Your New Hit Product Might Be Underpriced":

"The odds are stacked against new products or services. Between 65% and 75% miss their revenue or profit goals, depending on whose research you look at.
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But one innovation pitfall is particularly insidious because it doesn’t involve an outright failure; in fact, these product launches actually do well in the marketplace. But they don’t do nearly as well as they could, leaving big revenue and profit on the table.
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We term these product launches “minivations” and they are the result of product developers who don’t realize just how much value their offerings would provide to customers. They then grossly underestimate how much customers would be willing to pay for them and charge prices far below what they could have charged."

Conhecendo o Evangelho do Valor ... podem imaginar o quanto dinheiro fica em cima da mesa!

A realidade é muito mais complexa

Há aquela frase: há sempre uma solução rápida, bonita, pacífica e... errada!
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Muitas vezes as empresas arranjam uma resposta desse tipo para evitar ir ao fundo de uma questão. Por exemplo: por que é que as vendas baixaram?
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- Ah! É a crise!
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Entretanto, agora apanho "Setor do café duplica faturação em Portugal":

"Entre 2009 e 2015, o setor do café duplicou a faturação em Portugal, para 257 milhões de euros."

Ou seja, no auge da crise, nos anos mais negros da troika, nos anos de chumbo da austeridade o sector do café duplicou a facturação em Portugal.
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Recordar os exemplos, durante esses anos:

• da Bimby - "O mercado interno não está morto"; "O morto mercado interno"; 
• da Tupperware - "Outro exemplo, outra lição"
• do café - "Aumentar a produtividade? Façam as contas!"; "Num ano de crise"

A realidade é muito mais complexa do que a prevista pelos modelos económicos povoados por econs.

Recordar “Commodities only exist in the minds of the inept"

PME e código, já pensou nisso? (parte II)

Parte I.

"First came steam and water power; then electricity and assembly lines; then computerization… So what comes next?
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Some call it the fourth industrial revolution, or industry 4.0, but whatever you call it, it represents the combination of cyber-physical systems, the Internet of Things, and the Internet of Systems.
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there are also grave potential risks. Schwab outlines his concerns that organizations could be unable or unwilling to adapt to these new technologies
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It seems a safe bet to say, then, that our current political, business, and social structures may not be ready or capable of absorbing all the changes a fourth industrial revolution would bring, and that major changes to the very structure of our society may be inevitable.
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In order to thrive, business leaders will have to actively work to expand their thinking away from what has been traditionally done, and include ideas and systems that may never have been considered. Business leaders must begin questioning everything, from rethinking their strategies and business models, to discovering the right investments in training and potentially disruptive R&D investments."

Trechos retirados de "Why Everyone Must Get Ready For The 4th Industrial Revolution".

PME e código, já pensou nisso?

Acredito, com cada vez mais força, que as PME deviam levar a sério, muito a sério mesmo, o mote "é meter código nisso".

"To leverage such strategic opportunities, firms need to recognize a new concept: demand-side interdependencies. Demand-side interdependencies arise after the consumer procures the product. For the traditional or Industrial Age thermostat, for example, such interdependencies would include an appropriate wiring and the availability of electricity. But as the traditional thermostat has transitioned into a smart one, it has also become a sensor for collecting information and a focal point for communication across room occupants and an array of other smart devices. As a result, much more than just electrical wiring and power supply now contribute to its demand-side interdependencies.
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Traditionally, demand-side interdependencies were largely left for the customers to arrange for and manage. After all, such demand-side interdependencies were few and largely stable in the industrial age.
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Firms that are able to pioneer initiatives for recognizing, tracking, and influencing such new demand-side interdependencies can expand their frontiers of customization.
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Identify and develop demand-side interdependencies: Companies should begin to consider the products/services that they have built inside, for possible extensions by third parties. By adding APIs to data and services, firms can avail opportunities to invite the attention of complementors who could expand the ways in which the products and services are used in conjunction with other products and services on an ongoing basis. This will allow them expand their product and service offerings through more and more customized options."

Representa uma mudança de paradigma, não basta produzir, não basta "vomitar" unidades, é precisar pensar no uso, é preciso pensar na experiência, é preciso pensar no resultado pretendido com o uso, é preciso pensar no contexto do uso.

Trechos retirados de "Mass Customization and the Do-It-Yourself Supply Chain"