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Membro-me de na BSC Euro Summit 2004, Kaplan e Norton falarem de 4 estratégias genéricas:
- o preço ou custo mais baixo;
- serviço à medida;
- inovação ou moda; e
- lock-in
Acho que nunca escrevi sobre esta última estratégia genérica, lock-in, Um exemplo clássico é o da língua inglesa, quanto mais gente fala inglês como língua de negócios; mais atraente fica a língua inglesa como língua de negócios, e assim por diante.
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Neste artigo, os autores dão pistas interessantes sobre como fazer face a um padrão estabelecido e, assim, poder "roubar" clientes.
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Quem monta um negócio baseado numa plataforma assente no lock-in, quer crescer muito rapidamente na fase inicial, para diminuir as possibilidades de aparecimento de outra plataforma concorrente. Em alguns desses negócios a coisa não corre bem:
"In rapidly scaling, the company neglected to take into account differences among its customers. [Moi ici: É tão interessante que seja este o culpado, a heterogeneidade do mercado] In the following pages we'll explore how both incumbents and new entrants can take advantage of customer differences to challenge seemingly secure competitors and fuel growth in markets with network effects.
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Our analysis reveals that customer groups can differ in two important ways:
Mutual attraction. Even in markets with net-work effects, not all customers benefit from the presence of every other customer.
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Asymmetric attraction. In any network, some customers are more equal than others.
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Indiscriminate growth often undermines the very network effects you're trying to achieve. That's why developing a finer understanding of customer differences can lead to better strategic decisions, for both new entrants and incumbents.
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THE STRENGTH of network effects can be as varied as the human beings who make up the network. A strategy that fails to take into account this variation - ignoring differences in mutual and asymmetric attrac-tion among customers - is likely to fail. It is the rare and lucky firm that prospers simply by being first and getting big fast. In nearly any market with network effects, customers will find the presence of too many of the "wrong" sort of people a distinct turnoff. Welcome to the networked economy - perhaps not so different from the old economy after all."
