Uma outra abordagem (parte VIII)

Parte I, parte II, parte III, parte IV, parte V e parte VI.

"With a service lens, what is the proper focus for strategic advantage?A service lens requires recasting goals from a constrained focus on the market
(such as making better products, selling things, and growing market share) to an unbounded focus on co-creating value by integrating resources for specific jobs-to-be-done.
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[Moi ici: O trecho que se segue é, verdadeiramente, poético e poderoso. Muda completamente o paradigma da história do "valor acrescentado". As empresas não acrescentam valor, as empresas podem propor valor, só os clientes criam valor. As empresas, os fornecedores, podem, quando muito, co-criar valor. A concentração não é no que se produz, mas no que os clientes perseguem, no resultado que procuram e valorizam] A service lens encourages a company to anchor strategic planning around “How might we help?” [Moi ici: Gostava de ser capaz de transmitir a beleza e o potencial desta mudança de perspectiva] before “What can we do?”"

Trechos retirados de "A Service Lens on Value Creation: Marketing's Role in Achieving Strategic Advantage" de Lance A. Bettencourt, Robert F. Lusch e Stephen L. Vargo, publicado no número de Outono de 2014 da California Management Review.

Uma outra abordagem (parte VI)

Parte I, parte II, parte III, parte IV e parte V.

"Value always depends on the context in which a job is done because co-creation is inherently experiential. Value co-creation happens as customers integrate a unique set of resources through service provision to satisfy their distinct value priorities in getting a job done at particular times and locations. [Moi ici: Fazer a ponte para o SPIN selling]
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Value depends on context because customers have unique access to market, public, and private resources and unique personal knowledge and skills.
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Context also frames the demands and potential of resources used to get a job done. When, where, with whom, and on what a job is done alter the value priorities of a customer independent of any change in resources.
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Finally, value depends on context because each customer draws on their unique combination of experiences, culture, and mind to shape their value priorities and assign meaning to service received. In other words, customer involvement happens not only via the actions a customer takes to get a job done, but also by how they interpret and process information to define and assess value.
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As such, a deep understanding of context is a prerequisite to successfully competing with a service lens. To achieve this, companies must move from merely “monitoring” the customer environment to “connecting” with it.
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Context is neither fully within our control nor beyond our influence. Companies who see the market through a service lens, therefore, seek to shape how value is interpreted in distinct contexts, assist customers with accessing necessary resources within contexts, enable service delivery across varying contexts, and expand the potential of resources in specific environments."  

Trechos retirados de "A Service Lens on Value Creation: Marketing's Role in Achieving Strategic Advantage" de Lance A. Bettencourt, Robert F. Lusch e Stephen L. Vargo, publicado no número de Outono de 2014 da California Management Review.

Uma outra abordagem (parte V)

Parte I, parte II, parte III e parte IV.
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Quando no Sábado, em "Empresas, objectivos, clientes, satisfação e lucro" chamei a atenção para estas duas posturas face aos clientes:

"O objectivo das empresas é satisfazer clientes, como consequência podem, ter lucro"

E

"O objectivo das empresas é ter lucro, como estratégia devem satisfazer os clientes." 

Estava longe de relacionar isto com o artigo desta série de Vargo, Lusch e Bettencourt:

"A service lens shifts the role of marketing from being a value distributor to being a value enabler. The customer is no longer viewed as a “target” for value delivery, but rather as a “partner” who actively contributes to value creation." 

Uma outra abordagem (parte III)

Parte I e parte II (também podia ser a parte XVIII da série dos tectos de vidro)

"If one assumes that value is embedded in an offering and delivered to the customer, as goods-dominant logic does, then it makes sense to accept any and all customers who might benefit from that value. However, once one realizes that value is only realized through co-creation with a customer, then customer choice becomes critical to success. Success depends on matching the resources and capabilities of the firm and its service network (e.g., partners, suppliers, and employees) with the willingness and ability of a given segment of customers to be part of the service operation based on their expertise, desire for control, access to resources, risk-taking orientation, and the relative priority they place on the value advantages versus disadvantages of distinct service options. A proper match is a source of strategic advantage.
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While the customer always participates in value creation, the customer can have a more or less active role in the service provision itself.
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In an “enabling” service, the customer is a job (co-)executor who acts in conjunction with the firm to provide service to get a job done. In such instances, the customer is really a service partner to the firm because their knowledge and skills play a prominent role in success or failure."

Como não recordar "selection is key to the development of the experience"

E a sua empresa, escolhe os seus clientes? É conduzida pelo mercado, ou conduz o mercado?




Trechos retirados de "A Service Lens on Value Creation: Marketing's Role in Achieving Strategic Advantage" de Lance A. Bettencourt, Robert F. Lusch e Stephen L. Vargo, publicado no número de Outono de 2014 da California Management Review.

Uma outra abordagem (parte I)

Ontem de manhã cedo, durante uma caminhada, comecei a leitura de "A Service Lens on Value Creation: Marketing's Role in Achieving Strategic Advantage" de Lance A. Bettencourt, Robert F. Lusch e Stephen L. Vargo, publicado no número de Outono de 2014 da California Management Review.
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Depois, a meio da manhã tive uma reunião numa empresa e, para meu espanto, um dos temas coincidiu com uma das mensagens principais do artigo.
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A empresa produz hardware industrial. É uma especialista reconhecida a nível mundial e, apesar de todos os quadros experientes que tem ao seu serviço, todos diplomados por universidades, continua aprisionada a esta visão do negócio:

"The problem with customer centricity at most companies is that it is grounded in an old enterprise ormanufacturing pattern of thought—what has been referred to as a goods-dominant logic. This outdated logic regards what the firm produces as the proper focal point for creating value."

Interessante como a tradição pode levar uma empresa inovadora a rejeitar convites de clientes concretos, para dar o salto para o futuro:

"In contrast, a service lens regards the proper focus for value creation as helping customers to get one or more jobs done (i.e., accomplish a goal or resolve a problem). This reorientation enables firms to pose truly customer-centric questions grounded in value creation."

 Interessante como a pessoa que mais apreciou o desafio dos clientes foi alguém que está menos integrado no sistema de concepção, desenvlvimento e produção do hardware:

"Business leaders, product engineers, and marketing professionals who
focus on how things are currently being done place constraints on their thinking. They define markets in terms of the output they provide; thus, they are unable to see the business growth possibilities that come with a service lens. This is why so many disruptive innovations - such as zero-turn radius lawn tractors, car sharing services, and retail health clinics - are created by firms that are outside traditionally defined industry boundaries or by the customers themselves."

O meu desafio?
Há uns anos não seria um desafio pois só trabalhava para empresas que sabiam que tinham um problema, ou oportunidade, e me contactavam, para os ajudar. Hoje, já procuro convencer empresas que têm um problema, ou oportunidade, e ainda não se aperceberam, a dar um passo no desconhecido.
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Continua.

Foco no cliente, não na oferta

O livro "Service Innovation" de Lance Bettencourt começa muito bem:

"'The secret of true service innovation is that you must shift the focus away from the service solution and back to the customer. Rather than asking, "How are we doing?" a company must ask, "How is the customer doing?" To achieve this shift in focus, companies must begin to think very differently about how customers define value based on the needs they are trying to satisfy. A proper understanding of these needs enables value to be understood in advance of any particular innovation being created. True service innovation demands that a company expands its horizon beyond existing services and service capabilities and give its attention to the jobs that customers are trying to get done and the outcomes that they use to measure success in completing those jobs."

Algo bem na linha do que MacDivitt e Wilkinson escrevem em "Value-Based Pricing":

"Arguably the biggest challenge faking companies at the beginning of their journey was to identify the competitive advantage (or advantages) that were to form their vehicle for VBP. This is a rather scary and quite subtle consequence of a cost-based approach. Intense focus on specification and functionality of products, coupled with a search for a competitive advantage, leads almost inevitably to technological development of some aspect of the specification the seller considers to be important.
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Companies have a good microscope but are using it to look at the wrong thing. If and when a differentiation is found, it is almost certain to be product-based. As time goes on, this becomes harder and harder to do regardless of how much money is spent. Focusing exclusively on product innovation, and spending all their effort and development funds on this, prevents companies from looking in the right direction - namely, understanding what value the customer is looking for.
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The issue is not the product—it is the total offer that matters. Delivery, technical support, laboratory tests, assays, and so on are all seen through the lens of helping to sell the (more or less commoditized) product and not as value-adding elements in their own right. This is where the problem lies. Sellers often consider themselves to be scientists first and salespeople (a long way) second. While sellers can understand the arguments about the total offer, their training and education take them back inexorably to discussions of product technology. Since they are selling on the basis of product specification, they can do nothing else but cave in when a buyer demands a discount on the basis that the product in question is a commodity. This is demoralizing for this kind of salesperson because she can see no way out."

Entretanto, Ulwick e Bettencourt em "Giving Customers a Fair Hearing" sistematizam estas estruturas para abordar o cliente: