Para reflexão

"As the world becomes increasingly price-competitive, successful companies will need to become ever more vigilant in targeting markets for profitability, not just volume growth.
...
When working with the client, keep it simple. He said, “Don’t waste too much time overcomplicating the topic of customer value. Just ask the cli- ent this: ‘Do you know how much it costs your customers not to be doing business with you’?”

Trechos retirados de "Integrating Marketing and Operational Choices for Profit Growth" de Thomas Nagle e Lisa Thompson.

O meu radar

• Tem radar? (parte II) (Maio de 2017)
• Cuidado com a absolutização do que a nossa empresa produz (Março de 2017)
• No caminho da "magia" (Março de 2015)
• Conseguem imaginar os job-to-be-done? (Fevereiro de 2015)
• O tempo é a variável mais escassa que temos (Junho de 2011)

E agora "The first dexterous and sentient hand prosthesis has been successfully implanted"... como não relacionar com "It’s Ecosystems, Not Inventions That Truly Change the World" e sentir no ar um cheiro a "instantaneous phase transition".

"Warns of Margin Threat as Niche Brands Disrupt Industry" (parte II)

Há um mês a parte I.

Agora, outro texto sobre os nichos e sobre o seu poder em "Niche is the New Black in China’s Luxury Landscape":

"Over the last few years, a quiet but steady shift has been taking place among Chinese luxury shoppers. Big logos are no longer a priority, and in their place, niche high-end labels and boutique products have been reshaping the retail landscape and are now becoming the new signifiers of luxury consumption.
.
This swing has been propelled by changes within the market itself, which has become younger and increasingly more sophisticated.
...
they’re also looking for authenticity, originality, and a sense of personality. Niche brands often capture all that.”
...
“The smaller you are the easier it is to have a one-to-one conversation,” she said. “As a niche brand, you have to be better than the larger brands at placing the consumer first. [Moi ici: Trabalhar para a miudagem versus trabalhar com o Miguel ou Maria] The more consumer-centric the better. The other very important attribute of being niche is the team you build and how their passion translates into a more special experience for the consumer. [And then there is] the power of the consumers themselves. They have become our most important ambassadors. From the day they discover us, they learn and engage until they become part of who we are.”
...
“Many of the major brands have started looking similar, and innovation has slowed,” she explained, “while smaller labels are offering something novel and exciting to the market. They have a story to share and are captivating customers with that story or journey. Shoppers want more, and niche brands are able to connect on an intimate level with them.” [Moi ici: Este sublinhado final faz-me lembrar este postal ""-Tu não és meu irmão de sangue!""]

Curiosidade do dia

Dois exemplos de como Mongo vai ser um mundo de diversidade:

• Book sales are up this year over last year, and physical books are thriving
• Back to the future: cassettes launch comeback tour

"you have to find a niche market and work to be the best at it"

Leiam o que se segue e comparem com o que este anónimo da província escreve por aqui há milhares de anos:

"The economy is changing and we will see increasing market fragmentation. The only ones who will win in mass markets will be the big platform owners.
...
It seems that to be successful in the network era you have to find a niche market and work to be the best at it. Ross Dawson makes a strong point by stating that “in a connected world, unless your skills are world-class, you are a commodity“. Expertise, relationships, and innovation will mark the successful people in the emerging network era economy according to Ross.
...
It’s not easy finding new market niches but that seems to be the only option for most of us who are not in Silicon Valley building the next social media platform. The only way to make our talent profitable in the network era is to turn it into a highly specialized capital asset. Feeding crowd-milking platforms is not a sane small-business operating model. It’s better to find your own cow than be milked by someone else."

Trechos retirados de "Crowd-milking"

Fábricas flexíveis, fábricas para Mongo

O meu parceiro das conversas oxigenadoras chamou-me a atenção para este artigo "Inside Toyota's Takaoka #2 Line: The Most Flexible Line In The World":

"Ever since the first cars rolled down Ford’s assembly line a little more than 100 years ago, a Gordian knot strangulated carmakers the world over: Assembly lines are fast, but inflexible. After pulling a few strings to get into the Takaoka plant, you will see the Gordian knot become untied.
...
Why would you want a flexible car plant? Isn’t it enough that the damn thing spits out cars in ever increasing numbers?
.
Did we just hear “ever increasing numbers?”
.
Assembly lines are great at building cars in great numbers and at relatively high speed. At the same time, assembly lines abhor change. Assembly lines pretty much have two speeds: On, or off. They hate to go much faster, or much slower, than their rated speed. Try introducing a new car model to the assembly line of old, and you sometimes face months of retooling. When demand for the car increases, customers sometimes must wait months for the long-tailed assembly line beast to catch up. When demand slackens, plants often must be idled. Takaoka is a marvel of production engineering that solves all that, and then some.
...
“Alright,” you say, “you replaced a robot with a human, but how does this make the line flexible?”...
For other automakers, substantial increases or decreases in capacity often mean building new factories, or idling current ones. At Toyota, it can be done over the weekend. Workers lay down cable trays on a flat shop floor. Instead of a mess of cables, only one fat cable is connected. Where cables must cross the line, a gate shaped cable tray on casters is rolled into place. Platforms are set down left and right to guide motorized dollies for cars in nascent state. Formerly fixed stations are rolled in place down the line, and on Monday, the plant has a completely different capacity than what it was on Friday. In the course of a year, this magical capacity conversion can happen several times."

Bem na senda de "O que protegerá Portugal dos robôs?"

Mateus 13:9

Recordo "Mongo a bater à porta. Tão bom!!!" e:

"O artigo é um exemplo da tendência que enquadramos no fenómeno a que chamamos de Mongo. Os gigantes, emaranhados com o seu umbigo, muito preocupados com a eficiência e os custos, tentando ser tudo para todos, abrem as oportunidades a novos actores."

Agora encontro "When Patients Become Innovators":

"Patients are increasingly able to conceive and develop sophisticated medical devices and services to meet their own needs — often without any help from companies that produce or sell medical products.
...
Unlike traditional producers, who start with market research and R&D, free innovation begins with consumers identifying something they need or want that is not available in the marketplace. To address this, they invest their own funds, expertise, and free time to create a solution. Rather than seeking to protect their designs from imitators, as commercial innovators do, we found that more than 90% of consumer innovators make their designs available to everyone for free.
...
The ability of patients to develop new medical products to serve their own needs is growing, and we expect the system to become stronger over time for several important reasons. First, the DIY design tools that patient innovators need are becoming cheaper and increasingly capable. People with fairly rudimentary engineering skills can acquire powerful design software that can run on an ordinary personal computer either for free or for very little money. Second, the materials and tools used to build products from DIY designs are also becoming both cheaper and increasingly capable."

Recordo também "Os humanos são todos diferentes":

“There is no perfect product, because there is no perfect patient” and “It’s a good product, but it’s not right for everyone.”

Recordo também esta leitura de 2007:

"In 1970, 5% of global patents were issued to small entrepeneurs, while today the number is around one-third and rising. When P&G realized this, it saw that its old model of purely internal innovation was suboptimal. Why not tap these entrepeneurs and scientists?"

E esta outra de 2011:

"The mass market — which made average products for average people was invented by organizations that needed to keep their factories and systems running efficiently.
.
Stop for a second and think about the backwards nature of that sentence.
.
The factory came first. It led to the mass market. Not the other way around."

 E deixo-vos com os industrialistas e a sua tendência para a suckiness.

Mongo e a liberdade de escolher

"Henry Ford’s first great contribution to America was the Model T, which rolled off the assembly lines at his Highland Park, Michigan, plant at the rate of one every 24 seconds. At the time, it was an amazing display of industrial efficiency. By streamlining automation in his factories, Ford advanced an era of mass production that built his fortune and brought the automobile within reach of an emerging middle class. But while the miracle of mass production delivered the goods, it didn’t adapt easily, so all Model T’s looked alike. Ford’s approach can be summed up in what he said about the car’s exterior: “The consumer can have any color he wants so long as it’s black.”
Ford’s take-it-or-leave-it attitude wouldn’t cut it in today’s economy. 

...

...
This proliferation of products, models and styles isn’t capitalism run amok. Variety shouldn’t be dismissed as a trivial extravagance. It’s a wealthy, sophisticated society’s way of improving the lot of consumers. The more choices, the better. A wide selection of goods and services increases the chance each of us will find, somewhere among all the shelves and showrooms, products that meet our requirements.
...
Until 1914, Model T’s were available in red, blue, green, gray and black. The move to all black was a concession to mass production that made the car a commodity of sorts, but standardization wasn’t a winning strategy in the long run. By 1927, competition forced Ford to rethink variety. The Model A came in several body styles and an array of colors. With each decade, Ford gave consumers more choices,
...
They do it because pleasing the customer isn’t just about producing more stuff. It’s about producing the right stuff.
Just what is the right stuff? It’s more of what we do want and less of what we don’t want. The economy provides more of what we do want by customizing products to our particular tastes.
...
The economy’s progression to customization isn’t a fad. It arises from the free market’s relentless drive to bring what we buy closer to what we want. What we buy yields a lot more utility when it exactly matches our needs, and Americans are reaping enormous benefits as new tools help business cater to markets of one. We’re getting more for less, helping keep inflation in check.
.
There’s just one glitch in this otherwise serendipitous story: traditional measures of the economy may not reflect how much our living standards are improving. Conceived in an era of mass production, the nation’s GDP and productivity statistics may ably count more stuff, but they give little credit for right stuff. Mass customization and prevention—just like variety— deliver their gains in important but subtle ways, so gross domestic product and productivity statistics fail to capture the extent of our progress."

Estes trechos retirados de um texto de 1999, "The Right Stuff", foram escritos antes da entrada da China no mercado mundial, algo que atrasou a tendência de Mongo, a tendência para esta variedade de produtos.

Interessante conjugar isto com:

• "Corbyn fails yet again to grasp the magic of competitive markets"

"What Corbyn doesn’t understand is that competition is what makes the economic world go round.
.
It is what has given us civilisational wonders like iPhones and Teslas and the Greggs vegan sausage roll. It is what makes companies work in your interests, rather than their own. It is why Pret a Manger can’t charge you £10 a sandwich – because it knows that there’s an Eat down the road.
.
And here’s the big problem. Across America, Britain and Europe, competition is falling and market concentration is increasing, as big firms get remorselessly bigger."

• "Freedom of Choice—Not Competition—Is What Sets Capitalism Apart"

"Capitalism is not “a system of competition” any more than any other system. Capitalism (at least in its free-market, laissez-faire ideal) is a system of the voluntary exchange of goods and services in the absence of physical coercion, theft, compulsion or fraud, predicated upon the fundamental right to own and accumulate property.
...
The miraculous wonder we miss when we focus our attention upon the competition, which derives from choice, is the ability to choose, itself.
...
The primary feature of free-market capitalism is not competition, but choice.
.
Because people make choices with scarce resources and limited time, competition will be an inherent part of any economic system so long as there is scarcity. The primary feature of free-market capitalism is not competition, but choice. Rather than moderate the amount of competition in an economy, state intervention will replace competition to serve customers and convince them to voluntarily spend their money on a wide array of ever-expanding goods and services. We can contrast this with other systems in which competition rages over who can gain the favor of those who control the levers of government. That is where the real “tooth and nail” begins."

Levittown

Quando quero usar uma metáfora sobre o modelo económico do século XX uso os termos Metrópolis, por causa do filme de Fritz Lang, e Magnitogorsk ou Magnitograd por causa do bairro operário dessa cidade do tempo de Estaline. Centenas ou milhares de casas todas iguais, todas com o mesmo mobiliário. A única diferença é que algumas casas tinham candeeiros brancos e outras tinham candeeiros laranja.

Não se pense que as Magnitogorsk eram um apanágio do mundo comunista. Não, eram uma consequência de um modelo industrialista baseado na produção em massa e com pouco ou nenhum cuidado com o que os utilizadores pretendiam ou valorizavam.

Ontem, ao folhear uma publicação do Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas reencontrei uma imagem que procurava à muito:

"In July 1947, on potato fields 20 miles from Manhattan, William Levitt pioneered the mass production of affordable homes. Variations in the 17,477 houses were minor; each had two bedrooms, a bath, living room and kitchen on a 750-square-foot concrete slab. By standardizing the units, Levitt eventually was able to put up more than two dozen a day, helping fill the enormous postwar demand. Over the years, innumerable changes to the homes have transformed the community. But even now, Levittown remains a kind of shorthand for the sameness of mass production that’s starting to give way to mass customization."

A fábrica do futuro

Mais um texto que parece retirado deste blogue, um texto sobre Mongo e muito diferente do que o mainstream escreve, normalmente, encadeado pelas luzes da automatização. Recomendo pois a leitura de "The manufacturing job of the future: clean, urban, and better paid":

"A thick stack of fabric lies on a long machine waiting to be compressed and cut into shapes. “It can automate a lot,” says Gregg Thompson cofounder of combat wear company Crye Precision, “but the volume has to be there.” Machines are not so great at design iteration, he says. A man standing next to the machine slices sheets of fabric by hand. He’s faster, says Thompson, and he can execute multiple designs without needing to be reprogrammed.
.
A shift is happening in manufacturing, bringing humans and machines closer together and making production more responsive to changing needs. The change is coming from companies that need flexible processes that allow their products to evolve with the needs of their customers. They also want their facilities not in industrial suburbs, but in amenity rich neighborhoods, so they can attract star talent. [Moi ici: Quase que não se pode pedir começo mais promissor do que este reforçar da esperança num lugar para o humano na produção em Mongo]
...
BNYDC’s grand vision is to create a campus that seamlessly integrates small and medium manufacturing operations with white collar offices, production studios, restaurants, coffee roasteries and shops, distilleries, grocery stores, bakeries, and rooftop gardens with edible greens.
...
The workflow will look something like this: a customer will call and ask for something, a designer will mock up a solution in its upstairs offices, that drawing will travel downstairs to production, once the part is made it will fly under the purview of a solutions architect who will vet whether the product actually suits the described need. Essentially, the company can iterate on customer needs much faster–in a single day. Previously, the company would have had to send parts back and forth between its manufacturing facility in Los Angeles and main headquarters in New York, a process that takes days if not weeks.
...
Factory workers are no longer just doing mindless production line work. The new manufacturing requires interacting with complicated robots and fixing computer systems. [Moi ici: Clubes de leitura e as ironias automação] “The manufacturing is smaller and cleaner and more sustainable and doesn’t pollute as much,”
...
The Navy Yard also recently opened its own high school [Moi ici: Até a escola que conhecemos, formatada para a revolução industrial e o Normalistão tem os dias contados] on campus called the Brooklyn Science Technology Engineering Arts and Mathematics Center (The STEAM Center for short). The school, developed in partnership with the Department of Education, gives qualifying junior and senior high school students from eight area schools the opportunity to spend half their day learning curriculum influenced by the equipment, jobs, and working cultures on display at the Navy Yard."

O senhor eurodeputado precisa de conhecer Mongo e ...

O mundo muda, mas muitas pessoas não se apercebem e, por isso, continuam apegadas aos mitos do paradigma onde nasceram e foram enformados.

Recordo aqui no blogue muitas vezes uma frase de Napoleão:

Nesse mundo o crescimento era possível ao estilo canceroso, por isso uso a  metáfora de Metropolis ou de Magnitograd, ou Magnitogorsk. 

Para quem está prisioneiro do paradigma do século XX a falta de pessoal para trabalhar é medonha. Porque ainda não chegaram ao fim deste postal, "Coisa de loucos", porque nunca leram esta série "Como aumentar a facturação quando não se pode aumentar a produção por falta de pessoas?", continuam focados na última guerra, que já acabou, e fazem figuras tristes: "José Manuel Fernandes diz que é necessário "aumentar a natalidade"" 

A juntar a "10 profissões tradicionais onde há falta de gente" e a:

"Por outro lado, grande parte dos profissionais que dominam este ofício trabalha por conta própria, mostrando pouca disponibilidade para aceitar desafios por conta de outrem que embora estejam hoje mais valorizados monetariamente, continuam a não ser suficientemente aliciantes."

Encontro agora "As profissões sem 'canudo' que oferecem salários acima da média".

Tudo sintomas previstos aqui no blogue há muito, muito tempo.

O senhor eurodeputado precisa de conhecer Mongo e mergulhar no Estranhistão, precisa desta epifania:


BTW, comparem a primeira frase do vídeo com o discurso do feike niús.

Mongo é esta capacidade de aprendizagem colaborativa

Mongo é esta capacidade de aprendizagem colaborativa, é esta predisposição para o DIY referida em "The backyard mechanic who is taking on Tesla":

"It was the ultimate DIY project, with no guidance from Tesla.
...
He is preparing to open the first repair shop on the East Coast dedicated to electric vehicles, with the goal of servicing vehicles while teaching owners how to care for the cars themselves."

A preparar os actores de Mongo

E as sementes em "São João da Madeira aposta no turismo industrial"

Mongo e automatização - tanta treta que se ouve

O meu parceiro das conversas oxigenadoras mandou-me este artigo, "Can There Be Too Much Automation?":

"Much of what you hear about automation focuses on the increased productivity that automation can bring to production lines. You hear about this a lot because it’s a true, measurable reality.
.
But is it possible that too much reliance on automation can hinder the overall productivity of a factory? [Moi ici: Um velho tema deste blogue, Mongo e automatização não jogam bem!!! Ver Lista de artigos abaixo]
...
At Mitsubishi Electric´s Kani manufacturing facility, which is part of the company’s Nagoya Works in Japan, the company found that, by bringing humans into work cells that were once 100 percent automated, the footprint occupied by the cell itself could be reduced by 84 percent.
...
In addition, Mitsubishi Electric notes that the introduction of human workers to previously automated assembly lines is helping the Kani factory react faster to changes in product demand.[Moi ici: Tão Mongo!!!]
...
The Kani factory produces motor starters and contactors for Mitsubishi Electric. The vast amount of production variations and possible configurations of these products—14,000—diluted the volumes of each particular product. This amount of variability, coupled with customer demands for even greater choice, highlighted the automation problem for Mitsubishi Electric. [Moi ici: Tão Mongo!!!]
.
According to the company, manual production at the Kani factory had given way to totally automated assembly lines, which were ideal for mass production with few product variations where high yields could be realized at high speed. But this required many individual components to be held in stock and ready for the manufacturing process; otherwise, the lines would not be able to run for any appreciable length of time.
.
In effect, it became difficult and uneconomical for the factory to produce its products in small batches—which just happens to be the very direction in which industry as whole is headed.
...
The company realized that, by restoring some human elements, it could reduce some of the manufacturing problems it was encountering.
...
Despite that fact that the new cells, featuring a combination of human workers and automation, cannot produce at the same volume and speed as the fully automated lines, the reduced size of the new cells means the company can deploy up to 6.3 cells in the same space once occupied by one cell. Mitsubishi Electric says this means that total productivity density for the facility is much higher due to three key factors: a wider variety of products can be manufactured in smaller batches; one stoppage does not halt the whole of production; and the total number of production lines has increased."

Como escrevo no postal de Fevereiro de 2018 na lista abaixo:

"Muitas vezes penso que as pessoas quando planeiam o futuro não fazem como Teseu no labirinto, não usam uma corda para unir o hoje com o futuro desejado. Por isso, usam lugares comuns. Por isso, não põem os pés no chão e testam a validade dos pressupostos que estão a assumir." 

1. Estranhistão, autenticidade, imperfeição e automatização (Agosto de 2013) 
2. Um mesmo processo automatizado é demasiado rígido para Mongo (Abril 2014)
3. Mongo e a automatização... pois! (Fevereiro 2016)
4. Beyond Lean (Agosto 2017)
5. Seru (parte V) (Setembro 2017)
6. Da normalização para a excepção (parte II) (Fevereiro de 2018)
7. Coisa de loucos (Maio de 2018)
8. O que protegerá Portugal dos robôs? (Outubro de 2018)
9. Nem de propósito! (Dezembro de 2018)

"will lead to a big change for manufacturing"

Os trechos que se seguem parecem retirados daqui do blogue. Há anos que escrevemos sobre esta tendência.

"Personalised production is an evolution of customization that enables companies to differentiate their offer through innovative products for specific needs of a customer or a target group thanks to adaptable and reconfigurable production systems supported by easy-to-use product configuration systems to make processes along the supply chain efficient. In this scope, the proposed mission is to turn ideas into products by transforming passive consumers into active participants in the production of their own products thanks to new technologies that can enhance and empower their capabilities. This mission implies a paradigm shift because innovation will not originate anymore from the identification of consumer requirements; indeed, innovation and production will be taken out of the factory boundaries to allow people to be the decision makers during the design and production process in new collaborative supply chain models.
Consumer goods (e.g. clothing, footwear, sports items, glasses) but also other kinds of product such as medical products (personalised orthopaedic prosthetics, dental prosthetics, etc.) or durable goods (cars, kitchens, buildings facades, etc.), and even food can be produced based on the ideas of and by customers applying an approach of self-managed personalisation. In this way, they can create products with a unique design and style, along with functional and comfort-related aspects, going beyond the conventional choice dictated by off-the-shelf products.
.
This mission will lead to a big change for manufacturing heading towards socialization and massive involvement of consumers. Many small and medium sized manufacturers (e.g. SMEs, fab-labs and even individuals) will participate in different market segments, while evolving into production service providers to satisfy customers’ personalised requirements. These entities will further aggregate into dynamic communities in a decentralized system and win bargaining power and efficiency. Moreover, new companies will basically sell ideas and their integration into new and dynamic value chains and markets.
...
The implementation of the proposed mission will have an indirect impact also on sustainability since production will shift from Make-to-Stock to Customise-to- Order,"

Trechos retirados de "Key Research Priorities for Factories of the Future—Part I: Missions" de Tullio Tolio, Giacomo Copani e Walter Terkaj, publicado em "Factories of the Future The Italian Flagship Initiative", 

E quando Mongo "rouba" os trabalhadores?

Na parte V desta série "Como aumentar a facturação quando não se pode aumentar a produção por falta de pessoas? (parte V)" começo a abordar um tema que será cada vez mais relevante à medida que Mongo e a demografia avançarem:

Mongo vai dar poder aos makers, que poderão fazer uso de plataformas como a Crafted Society para chegarem ao consumidor. A tecnologia vai avançar para máquinas pequenas, boas para pequenas séries e trabalho customizado, que podem ser propriedade de um maker ou de uma cooperativa de makers. Ou seja, aquilo que refiro na parte IV e V sobre os carpinteiros, electricistas e outras profissões que preferem trabalhar por conta própria em vez de por conta de outrem, vai ter tendência a alargar-se a outras profissões tradicionais.

Mesmo sem Mongo, com uma demografia a gerar falta de trabalhadores, isto será cada vez mais frequente "Ohio Sonic drive-in staff quit after wages were reportedly reduced to $4/hour":

"The entire staff at three different Sonic fast-food drive-in restaurants in Ohio reportedly walked out to protest poor working conditions this past week."

Qual a alternativa? Talvez passe por coisas como esta "KitchenAid’s Key Ingredient: Investing in Workers. ‘It’s Not a Dead-End Job Anymore.’":

"Companies discover investment in workers as a way to keep churn low:
...
As the U.S. labor market continues to tighten, companies are reaping decades of underinvestment in their workers. Blame it on a wave of skilled baby boomers retiring or colleges teaching the wrong things or a lack of loyalty among younger workers. The harder it gets to find the next generation of Jenni Hannas, the bigger the headaches get in the human-resources department.
“If you’re the person who is in charge of finding staff, they want you to go out and find the unicorn,” Andrew Angyal, founder of NexGen Recruiting in Youngstown, Ohio, said. “They want all these people with 10, 20 years of experience and, if you do happen to find them, it’s a big question of whether you can pay them enough.”"

Ao escrever estas linhas não consigo deixar de pensar no aumento do lobby das empresas junto dos reguladores e governos de turno para dificultar a vida aos freelancers do futuro.

Como aumentar a facturação quando não se pode aumentar a produção por falta de pessoas? (parte V)

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

Comecemos pelo último texto citado:

"Por outro lado, grande parte dos profissionais que dominam este ofício trabalha por conta própria, mostrando pouca disponibilidade para aceitar desafios por conta de outrem que embora estejam hoje mais valorizados monetariamente, continuam a não ser suficientemente aliciantes."

E acrescentemos uma citação do último postal:

"Business model innovation is a powerful force of abrupt market-level change, in some cases more powerful than technology.
...
Likewise, don’t let an excessive focus on your products prevent you from paying attention to your business. Many executives at incumbent businesses, wedded to their business models, react to disruption by blaming their products. As they see it, all the newfangled lemonade stands out there are stealing customers because they have created better-tasting lemonade. Stop blaming your lemonade! The truth is that the upstart’s lemonade tastes the same as yours, or maybe even worse. It’s the new business model that is stealing your customers, not the product. ”

Quem lê este blogue sabe o que é Mongo, a metáfora do Estranhistão. O mundo cauda longa a espalhar-se por todo o lado, em vez das grandes séries do século XX, customização, individualização, interacção, co-criação, proximidade, pequenas quantidades.

Há dias em "Calçado português? Bom no fabrico, desconhecido na marca" voltei a ler a actualização dos números:

"A conclusão nessa altura foi que tanto o calçado masculino como o feminino made in Portugal tinha melhor avaliação (média de 34 e 31,50 euros, respectivamente) do que o italiano (31,50 euros e 29,60 euros) quando a origem do produto não era revelada. Só que, depois de dar a conhecer a origem, o sapato português desvalorizava (-18,2%, para 27,80 euros, no masculino; e -18,4%, para 25,70 euros, no feminino), ao passo que o calçado italiano valorizava ligeiramente (+1,6% no masculino) ou mantinha o preço inalterado (no calçado feminino), ainda assim 13,6% acima do preço do calçado português."

Recordo outra comparação entre o calçado italiano e o português, a dimensão, aqui: "Calçado italiano e português" (empresas bem mais pequenas - também por causa disto).

Stop! reparem no título "Calçado português? Bom no fabrico, desconhecido na marca".

Agora, leiam o artigo "Meet the Italian Makers of Luxury":

"We are long used to applauding designers at the end of a season. But behind them is a plethora of generally unheralded artisans who also power the “Made in Italy” brand, creating everything from knits to sneakers. Now, one nascent company is aiming to place that talent firmly in the spotlight.
...
“We decided we wanted to celebrate the unknown,” Mr. Johnston said, “those who are rarely identified but are also behind some of the most beautiful creations made for the luxury market.” He noted that many artisans sign strict confidentiality agreements that keep them out of the public eye. [Moi ici: Conseguem fazer o paralelismo com aquela parte do título "Bom no fabrico, desconhecido na marca"]
...
 "Create ways in which consumers could truly appreciate things made by hand and preserve a crafted  society in the digital age.”
...
All of the sales tags carry the label’s logo and the names of the Italian businesses that made the products, highlighting the craftspeople involved [Moi ici: Recordar "Fugir do anonimato"]. Available online are supplier details like contact and address information alongside photographs and biographies of the artisans who worked on the piece.
...
As a direct-to-consumer brand, Crafted Society’s retail prices do not include the traditional distributor or wholesale markups, nor the usual markup associated with a premium brand name, which usually is 7 to 10 times the manufacturer’s cost price. (Crafted Society said its markup is three times the cost price.
...
The partnerships that Crafted Society has been building, he said, could also tackle a broader crisis weighing on the future of Italian luxury manufacturing: the struggle to find the next generation of artisans.[Moi ici: O mesmo tema do artigo do Caderno de Economia na parte IV desta série]
“Most artisans in factories and workshops now are in their 60s and 70s, and younger people are not so interested in this line of work,” Mr. Mattioli said. “We cannot recruit them by saying the big luxury names we work for because of our contracts. But if we can take pride in what we do and in our community, and can present our craft independently, perhaps we can convince them of the importance of what we do.”

E volto aquela citação com que terminei o postal anterior e iniciei este. Há anos coloquei esta pergunta numa empresa de calçado: 

- Não têm receio que os vossos trabalhadores comecem a trabalhar para marcas a partir de casa?

E pensar no 2º golo? E pensar num modelo de negócio alternativo? Como metaforicamente escreveram num comentário na parte IV: "obrigar as empresas "a saírem da vala""

Quem está focado no 1º golo pensa à la Bruce Jenner, quem pensa no 2º golo pensa em salami slicers. Quem pensa no 2º golo sabe que tem de dizer não a muita coisa.

É tão difícil fazer esta transição... Maliranta e Taleb explicam 

Como aumentar a facturação quando não se pode aumentar a produção por falta de pessoas? (parte IV)

Parte I, parte II e parte III.

Regressemos ao título "Como aumentar a facturação quando não se pode aumentar a produção por falta de pessoas?"

Falta de pessoas...

No último fim-de-semana no Caderno de Economia do semanário Expresso, roubado em casa da minha mãe, encontrei o artigo "10 profissões tradicionais onde há falta de gente".

Sobre as costureiras pode ler-se:

"Salários ainda pouco valorizados (ligeiramente acima do mínimo nacional) e a exigência das funções fabris estão na base das dificuldades de contratação. Atrair talento para esta indústria — e são precisos cerca de 15 mil profissionais, diz Paulo Vaz, diretor-geral da Associação Têxtil de Portugal —, terá de passar pela valorização destas profissões."

Sobre os carpinteiros pode ler-se:

"grande parte dos profissionais que dominam este ofício trabalha por conta própria, mostrando pouca disponibilidade para aceitar desafios por conta de outrem que embora estejam hoje mais valorizados monetariamente, continuam a não ser suficientemente aliciantes." 

Sobre os soldadores e serralheiros pode ler-se:

"E apesar dos aumentos dos últimos anos, os salários actuais - em média €1200 para candidatos com um patamar médio de experiência laboral - e a dureza do quotidiano profissional continuam a não ser atractivos para os mais jovens."

Sobre os montadores e modeladores de calçado:

"Os salários têm aumentado mas esta continua a ser uma questão crítica no sector ... o calçado continuará com falta de mão de obra porque os salários são baixos"

Sobre os pintores de automóveis e bate-chapas, sobre os técnicos de manutenção industrial, sobre os padeiros e pasteleiros, sobre os chefes de cozinha, sobre os electricistas e electromecânicos e sobre os alfaiates.

Lembram-se de "Espero que não vos tremam as pernas quando as empresas começarem a cair como tordos"?

Perante a falta de pessoas as empresas vão ter de aumentar os salários, ponto. O @nticomuna chamou-lhe populismo, eu chamo-lhe desespero.

O que acontece a uma empresa que aumenta os salários acima do aumento da produtividade? Ou a empresa fica menos competitiva, e/ou os sócios terão de ter menores rentabilidades. Empresas menos competitivas fecham, capitalistas com menos retorno dão outra aplicação ao seu dinheiro... a menos que seja emprestado e, nesse caso, ficam tramados.

Em "Gachiche (parte III)" escrevi:

"ou a demografia obriga a subir salários, e os salários mais elevados matam as que não se adaptarem, ou os engenheiros sociais obrigam os salários a subir e matam as que não se adaptarem"

Portanto, a demografia vai obrigar-nos a fazer o mesmo que os europeus do centro da Europa fizeram na década de 60 do século passado:
Ou as empresas dos sectores ditos tradicionais se adaptam e dão um salto na produtividade, ou terão de se deslocalizar, ou terão de fechar para que o dinheiro seja melhor aplicado noutro sítio com mais rentabilidade. Acredito que esta adaptação vai ser difícil e muito dolorosa. Explico.

Ontem de manhã, enquanto fazia uma caminhada matinal de 6 km e lia uns trechos de "Key Research Priorities for Factories of the Future—Part I: Missions" de Tullio Tolio, Giacomo Copani e Walter Terkaj, publicado em "Factories of the Future The Italian Flagship Initiative", só me vinha à mente a frase:

- Não tentem marcar o 2º golo antes de marcarem o 1º!

Vais ser uma adaptação difícil e dolorosa porque os empresários são gente pragmática que estão preocupados em marcar primeiro o 1º golo, em vez de pensarem na nota artística na marcação do 2º golo. Por isso, vão, como qualquer incumbente vítima da disrupção, serem os últimos a descobrir que têm de mudar, que terão quase de certeza de encolher as suas empresas e subir na escala de valor. Só uma forte subida na escala de valor permitirá pagar aos artistas de Mongo.

BTW, naquela lista acima de profissões tradicionais é relevante a quantidade de vezes que se refere:

"Por outro lado, grande parte dos profissionais que dominam este ofício trabalha por conta própria, mostrando pouca disponibilidade para aceitar desafios por conta de outrem que embora estejam hoje mais valorizados monetariamente, continuam a não ser suficientemente aliciantes."

Isto vai-me servir de base para a parte V desta série.

Uma realidade transitória

Da próxima vez que ouvir alguém dizer que o paradigma do Normalistão, o século XX, é o normal de que não nos devemos afastar, pense neste gráfico:

Recordar "Mais outro exemplo: Provinciano, mas muito à frente":

"Há anos que escrevo sobre o futuro do trabalho, sobretudo acerca do fim do emprego estabelecido como paradigma pelo século XX, e que a maioria acredita ser algo milenar, algo eterno."

Imagem retirada de "This is what 150 years of US employment looks like"

"The traditional playbook for strategy is no longer sufficient"

"Many of today's business leaders came of age studying and experiencing a classical model of competition. [Moi ici: Como não recordar as palavras de Napoleão] Most large companies participated in well-defined industries selling similar sets of products; they gained advantage by pursuing economies of scale and static capabilities such as efficiency and quality; [Moi ici: Como não recordar o Normalistão e o plancton] and they achieved those advantages through deliberate analysis, planning, and focused execution.
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The traditional playbook for strategy is no longer sufficient, however. Across all businesses, competition is becoming more complex and dynamic. [Moi ici: Como não recordar a explosão de picos na paisagem enrugada] Industry boundaries are blurring. Product and company lifespans are shrinking. Technological progress and disruption are rapidly transforming business. High economic, political, and competitive uncertainty is conspicuous and likely to persist for the foreseeable future.
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Accordingly, in addition to the classical advantages of scale, companies are now contending with new dimensions of competition  —   shaping malleable situations, adapting to uncertain ones, and surviving harsh ones  —   which in turn require new approaches. And the stakes are higher than ever: the gap between the performance of top- and bottom-quartile companies has increased in each of the last six decades.[Moi ici: Como não recordar o bispo Berkeley]
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Today's business leaders are having to deal with multiple and complex short-term concerns, like declining growth, political uncertainty, resistance to globalization, social division, and so on. But as the 2020s approach, leaders must also look beyond today's situation and understand at a more fundamental level what will separate the winners from the losers in the next decade."

Trecho retirado de "Today's CEO playbook is outdated. Here are 5 things rising stars should focus on to win in the next decade"