"market-shaping devices"

Leitura de "Value propositions as market-shaping devices: A qualitative comparative analysis" 

"Both value propositions and markets have been conceptualized as configurations of interdependent elements. The complexity of the studied phenomenon is best captured by the configurational perspective, which is increasingly employed across business disciplines. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to identify the configurations of value proposition characteristics that are effective for focal firms engaging in market-shaping strategies.

...

Our principal contribution is to distinguish the VP's role as a key device for market-shaping; more specifically, we identify four characteristics of market-shaping VPs. We also show that even though VPs can shape markets without displaying all four of these characteristics, no single characteristic alone can create all the expected outcomes. Further, our study extends our understanding of the nature of the VP concept. Specifically, we identify that market-shaping VPs are complex configurations rather than unidimensional constructs aimed at differentiating the firm in the market. Practically, we distinguish distinct configurations of VP characteristics that are successful in either: (1) changing the elements comprising the market system, or (2) inducing an overall market change at the system-level.

Research is progressively recognizing markets as systems or ecosystems, suggesting a need to look beyond the seller-buyer dyad and to see the dyad as part of a larger system of actors. This transition from dyadic relational thinking to complex systems thinking reveals that nobody can fully predict or control the development of a market system.

Market systems do not obey simple laws of cause and effect. Furthermore, they have no center and no central control mechanism. Rather, they evolve from a mix of deliberately designed influence and random emergence."

Segundo o artigo:

• As empresas podem moldar activamente os seus mercados criando e implementando propostas de valor fortes. Essas propostas envolvem a oferta de combinações únicas de produtos, serviços ou experiências que ressoem nos clientes e diferenciem a empresa dos seus concorrentes. Claro que quem aposta em dominar os biombos e carpetes do poder, perde a oportunidade de se especializar na moldagem do seu mercado.
• Há quatro características essenciais que tornam as propostas de valor eficazes na modelação do mercado: integração acrescida de recursos, (a velha densificação de Normann), processo colaborativo de proposta de valor (customização, interacção), promessa de valor sistémica e verificada (é como fazer uma grande promessa de que se pode mudar o jogo para muitas partes interessadas, e depois provar que realmente se consegue fazer isso), e novas representações utilizadas na comunicação.
• Há que empregar uma abordagem configuracional, sugerindo que estas características podem ser combinadas de várias maneiras para atingir os objetivos de formação do mercado. Nenhuma característica por si só é suficiente; a combinação e interacção entre eles são cruciais. Num sistema complexo como o mercado, os resultados resultam de uma combinação de factores que trabalham em conjunto e não apenas de uma causa. Diferentes combinações desses fatores interligados podem levar ao mesmo resultado, mostrando que múltiplos caminhos podem atingir um objetivo. 

"does not imply desperation"

Na sequência de:

• A fase "wonder"
• Calçado - Fazer a transição 

"a pivot is a substantive change to one or more of your business model facets, be it your product, your customer segment, your channel, pricing logic, resources, activities, or partners. But note that pivoting market shapers should keep one foot on the ground, true to the origins of the metaphor in basketball. In other words, apply your learnings from past success and failure to the new area. Note, too, that pivoting does not imply desperation. It can be a clever leadership tool to discover growth opportunities.

At its best, pivoting is a systematic, hypothesis-driven process of experimentation (hence overlap with another of our Es), to drive and evaluate market opportunities. You translate your market vision into falsifiable business model hypotheses, test the hypotheses using minimum viable set-ups, then decide whether to persevere with the existing model, or pivot by changing some elements.

Pivots continue after the start-up phase. Many a successful company have pivoted both in their start-up phase and over longer periods."

Trecho retirado de SMASH: Using Market Shaping to Design New Strategies for Innovation, Value Creation, and Growth de Kaj Storbacka e Suvi Nenonen.  

IFAQs

Mais um trecho retirado de  SMASH: Using Market Shaping to Design New Strategies for Innovation, Value Creation, and Growth de Kaj Storbacka e Suvi Nenonen. Este fez-me logo recordar o esforço do meu parceiro das conversas oxigenadoras:

"Focus on the IFAQs. Here’s another rule of thumb for leaders wishing to improve their organization’s peripheral vision. Dwell less on answers and more on questions. Especially worthwhile are the infrequently asked questions - call them IFAQs if you will. And since we’ve been citing notable quotes from quotable notables, when approaching market shaping, leaders should take Voltaire’s advice. The French philosopher and wit tells us to “judge a man [sic] by his questions rather than by his answers.” Questioning orthodoxies makes your firm more inquisitive, intelligent, and vital. Finding a single pertinent new question can generate more insight into your market system’s resource potentiality than studying all the existing answers. After all, those answers share the bias of being framed by the old questions. Yet, while management consultants and incoming CEOs as new brooms sweeping clean are in the habit of asking tough, fundamental questions, it’s far rarer to find a leader who will build and maintain a culture of continuing to ask the hard questions."

Quando se quer moldar o mercado a uma nova realidade é preciso olhar para a realidade, olhar para as peças do mercado e procurar imaginar outras possibilidades, procurar conceber outras combinações.

Com quem temos de contar?

"Picking up on those necessary actors, the first step in promoting a market-shaping vision is to figure out the “minimum viable system” of your market. What channels are needed to reach the customers? What happens between your customers and the end user? What kind of sub-contractors and business partners will you require? Working out the requisite value chain is only half the job, though. In addition to the physical value chain, your future market system most likely needs other actors in it.

...

Okay, so you’ve identified the actors in your minimum viable market system. Now do some math. How does the envisioned change impact each respective actor? Who stands to gain? Who will lose? Will some actors remain unaffected? Anecdotal evidence suggests that those market-shaping initiatives which both (1) create a positive change to all actors involved and (2) distribute the added value relatively evenly across the network enjoy the best chances of succeeding.

...

Note the limits to spreading your market-shaping love, though. It’s only the actors in your minimum viable market system whom you have to treat nicely and fairly! Market shaping can, and does, generate losers! That’s why ignoring market shaping just isn’t an option. And it’s half the reason we’ve urged you to shape markets yourself
lest some other player who doesn’t need you in their minimum viable system gets in first and forces you out. Some market-shaping strategies have, in fact, bankrupted companies. And while the word “disruption” may inspire dreams of deliciously unreasonable wealth in the minds of would-be disrupters, it will strike fear into the hearts of the professions and sectors that would be disrupted."

Trechos retirados de  SMASH: Using Market Shaping to Design New Strategies for Innovation, Value Creation, and Growth de Kaj Storbacka e Suvi Nenonen.  

Market shaping e o timing

"In market shaping as in comedy, timing is everything.

...

shapeability: is your market system currently hot and malleable, or frozen stiff?

...

mapping the life of market ecosystems over sustained periods, our work has confirmed that markets can behave quite differently over time. Long eras may exhibit relative calm and stability
some gradual development, perhaps, but more or less constant basic structure and rules of the game. Punctuating the stability, however, come times of turbulence. At such points, the market undergoes rapid changes
and perhaps becomes a completely different market ecosystem. 

Savvy market shapers seek to time their efforts to coincide with these latter periods of instability, rapid change, or discontinuity.

...

While acknowledging the issue of timing is as much art as science, we offer three more generalized and enduring signs of shapeable markets. First, any major shock or crisis brings turbulence.

...

Short of obvious shocks or crises, a second sign of a shapeable market is rising dissonance or debate in the market
from controversy to simply a buzz abroad that “something should change.” Such dissonance is an especially strong indicator of a market-shaping window if it is sustained for a long period of time or if it seems to be increasing in intensity rather than gradually subsiding. Finally, the recent history of the market ecosystem may also divulge clues about its malleability. Recent studies suggest that markets that have assumed their current form through a government-led process or the deliberate market-shaping efforts of a particular firm are more susceptible to continued market shaping than those which have evolved organically, without strong influence from any particular market actor."

Vivemos tempos maduros para a aplicação generalizada da capacidade de "moldar mercados". 

Trechos retirados de  SMASH: Using Market Shaping to Design New Strategies for Innovation, Value Creation, and Growth de Kaj Storbacka e Suvi Nenonen.  

"can to some extent be indirectly influenced, supplied, or brought into existence"

"For a market to work and develop, more actors than sellers and buyers are needed: sub-contractors, providers of complementary products or services, intermediaries, information providers, market research agencies, media, various interest groups, and regulators, to name just some. Actors play certain roles. To execute these roles, each actor requires certain know-how and to be configured or connected in certain ways. [Moi ici: Ou incentivados a participar no ecossistem. Não através de chantagem ou de suborno, mas indo ao encontro do que procuram e valorizam] Market ecosystems also require various forms of infrastructure, ranging from simple and often self-evident things like roads and electricity to more sophisticated things such as reliable data-communication links and fuel distribution systems.

...

Because your optimal market might benefit from more, or fewer, or different actors, playing different roles, in different configurations and equipped with different resources. And your optimal market might require more, or less, or different, or differently supplied, material and immaterial infrastructure. Indeed, if your market is still mostly the twinkle of a brilliant innovation in your eye and you have yet to create the market itself, you certainly won’t have enough actors or infrastructure yet! You’ll have to populate that space.

Happily, all these different elements
the actors, their roles and know-how, and the infrastructure
can to some extent be indirectly influenced, supplied, or brought into existence. Companies with an ambition to create new market systems or shape existing ones need to do exactly that. And we’ll be distinguishing here more between making new markets and shaping existing ones."

Trechos retirados do capítulo II do livro SMASH: Using Market Shaping to Design New Strategies for Innovation, Value Creation, and Growth de Kaj Storbacka e Suvi Nenonen. 

Repensar a situação

Esquema adaptado do capítulo II do livro SMASH: Using Market Shaping to Design New Strategies for Innovation, Value Creation, and Growth de Kaj Storbacka e Suvi Nenonen. 

1 - Que recursos a empresa possui? Em que é que a empresa se distingue ao aplicar esses recursos?

2 - Que actores participam na rede? Que recursos e capacidades possuem? Que recursos e capacidades estão em falta na rede?

3 - O que é que o cliente procura e valoriza? O que é dor para ele?

4 - O que é que outros participantes da rede procuram e valorizam? O que é dor para eles?

Gosto de começar por olhar para o que pode ser a rede...

Depois, pergunto em que é que somos bons, em que é que fazemos a diferença? As PMEs têm de olhar para o que têm à mão, não têm tempo nem dinheiro para abstracções, têm de partir daquilo que já está a resultar, nem que seja só com um segmento pequeno de clientes, e começar a construir a partir daí. (1)

Quem são os clientes-alvo? O que procuram e valorizam? (3)

Como é que os outros participantes na rede podem ajudar a criar o valor que os clientes-alvo procuram? (2) Por que é que eles estarão dispostos a participar na rede, o que têm ganhar em fazer parte dela?(4)

"pitching a win-win-win “story”

Três ideias fundamentais retiradas do primeiro capítulo do livro SMASH: Using Market Shaping to Design New Strategies for Innovation, Value Creation, and Growth de Kaj Storbacka e Suvi Nenonen. 

Os mercados são mais do que para trocar valor, também servem para co-criar valor:

"The Function of a Market System Is Exchange, for the Purpose of Value Creation 

Specifically, markets are CASs of exchange, for the creation of value. And we do need to be very specific about that. Common definitions which include exchange but omit use-value and the value creation aspect sound curiously zero-sum, as though the same resource is simply being shuffled around the system in a grand version of the children’s birthday game pass-the-parcel.

...

Just as markets divide into supply and demand, so does value divide into exchange value to the supplier and use value to the customer/user. In a firm-focused, production-centric view such as the traditional business strategy approach, value too easily comes to mean what is really only exchange value - the value to the producer or seller - or, worse still, the price.

…

A user will willingly pay a higher price if she can get more use value out of the product. So use value should be integral to the firm’s market view, and any way to increase use value offers potential gains in exchange value right back. This is where co-creation comes in. The firm’s product is only one component in the customer’s use value."

Os mercados não são um dado, são uma variável:

"Markets Are Socially Constructed, so You Can Reconstruct Them, too

Markets are social systems.

…

The key point for us is that, being socially constructed, markets can be consciously reconstructed. Because humans can be persuaded, incentivized or, where laws or sheer market power are involved, coerced by other humans, the firm has a means of influencing the human agents and their creations. This is how you can turn social reconstruction to your advantage. Fundamentally, viewing markets as shapeable systems suggests that opportunities are not precursors of strategy; rather they are outcomes of deliberate efforts to shape markets. ... We should not make strategy for a company - we should make strategy for the system. [Moi ici: Isto é tão bom!!! Urdir um ecossistema. Daqui: "

Uma empresa que trabalha com o BSC começa por determinar quem são os clientes-alvo! Uma empresa que trabalha com o BSC e comigo, para além dos clientes-alvo tem também de determinar qual é o ecossistema da procura."] Furthermore, strategy ought not to be viewed as winning a zero-sum game; nor ought the focus to be on competing. On the contrary, it should clarify how the company can engage in collaborative activities with market actors (suppliers, customers, and partners) in order to improve the creation of the use value. Companies that can promise improved value creation for several actors simultaneously are the ones most likely to be successful in shaping their respective markets.

The job of the market leader is not to increase own market share at the expense of others, but rather about creating a positive sum game where many market actors grow the market together.[Moi ici: Maximizar o valor para todos os que estão no ecossistema]

…

The pay-off to all the theory above is that it enables you to become a market shaper.

...

“What is this market shaping that you are so worked up about?”

…

Changing the definition of markets from mere exchange mechanisms to a system fostering value creation is not just semantics or purely academic debate. Think about the implications. We’re claiming that, like any other human-made systems, market systems can be changed by companies, governments, and even singular individuals" 

 

Os mercados podem ser trabalhados e manuseados:

"Building on the theoretical insight that, unlike poets, markets are not only born but also made, this strategy takes a new product or service and aims to consciously attract or build the elements of a fully functioning market around it.

…

What are the main ingredients for shaping markets? This is a question that it takes the rest of the book to answer fully. There is no single formula and no linear progression of steps. It’s about a continuous cycle. And there’s a degree of art to it as well as science. Broadly though, market shaping begins with re-focusing your business definition, which also acts as your frame on the market, so that you can see the rich reality of your market system and training it on the slice of the universe of possible markets which you want to start with. You then need to envisage a new shape for that market system that would benefit your firm more, by capturing a share of extra use value you’ll help create (in other words, co-create) for customers. Whichever other players it requires to effect the change, you’ll need to appeal to them by offering a share in the value creation as well. This involves pitching a win-win-win “story” or narrative about your proposed new shape. [Moi ici: Há anos que prego isto. Por exemplo: "Ganhar-ganhar-ganhar porque passa por orquestrar uma relação que traga vantagens não só à clássica interacção diádica, cliente-fornecedor, mas também a outras combinações"] And you’ll need to time the whole intervention to strike when the market is “hot” and malleable.

…

Which firms could practice market shaping? … You don’t need market power in the traditional sense of monopolies and oligopolies. In fact, being big can hinder creative thinking of the kind a new strategy requires if the great idea gets tangled up in the red tape of internal processes. However, you need a good idea _ a vision about how to shape your market into a better re-incarnation of that market - because market shaping works only if you are truly able to improve the market. And remember, “improving” means improvement to others as well, not just to you."

Ecossistemas e definições de mercado

Esta segunda-feira regressei à zona industrial de Albergaria-a-Velha para fazer uma auditoria. Há mais de 10 anos que não ia lá.

Doeu-me o coração a passar ao lado deste edifício:

Este foi um dos edifícios onde vivi alguns dos meus melhores projectos profissionais. Por exemplo, em Agosto de 2004 dei por mim a descobrir o papel dos ecossistemas, algo que retratei neste postal de 2007:

Depois, as actividades deste senhor em 2008 acabaram por levar ao desmembramento de parte da empresa e o ramo português foi comprado e fechado. Estava a ficar demasiado perigoso para um incumbente.

Entretanto, ontem na caminhada matinal comecei a ler um livro que já tinha na lista de leitura há alguns anos: SMASH: Using Market Shaping to Design New Strategies for Innovation, Value Creation, and Growth de Kaj Storbacka e Suvi Nenonen, dois autores que muito respeito. E o que encontro logo a abrir?

Uma referência ao "burning platform" memo de Stephen Elop, então CEO da NOKIA em 2011:

“The battle of devices has now become a war of ecosystems, where ecosystems include not only the hardware and software of the device but developers, applications, e-commerce, advertising, search, social applications, location-based services, unified communications, and many other things. Our competitors aren’t taking our market share with devices; they are taking our market share with an entire ecosystem. This means we’re going to have to decide how we either build, catalyze or join an ecosystem.”

A mensagem inicial dos autores é sobre as visões erradas sobre o que é o mercado e sobre as implicações dessas visões. Por exemplo, a ideia de que o mercado é um dado (o mercado pode ser uma variável).

Outro erro, que costumo sublinhar quando uso a expressão "live and let live":

"Competing for market share when everyone defines their market by product is zero-sum. By definition, a theory that tells you to compete for market share reduces your strategy to a zero-sum game. That limitation is built into not only the words “share” and “compete” but also the poor market view itself."

Outro erro é pensar que o preço é tudo:

"The obsession with exchange value misses the opportunities of growing use-value. The exchange value focus overlooks the goldmine of business opportunities that resides precisely in use-value
over on the demand side of the market which the industry view omits and the product view misunderstands."

"Triggering and facilitating capabilities"

Parte I e Parte II.

Excelente lista de actividades que podem ser trabalhadas para desenvolver o desafio de construir um ecossistema.

"Our data analysis yielded two distinct types of market-shaping capabilities: triggering and facilitating. Triggering capabilities generate new resource linkages by directly influencing various market-level characteristics. They focus on re-designing exchange, re-configuring the network, and re-forming institutions. Facilitating capabilities relate to the creative ability of the firm to determine which triggering capabilities are applied and how. They enable market-shaping by discovering the value potential of new resource linkages, and augment the impact of the triggering capabilities by mobilizing relevant intra- and inter-stakeholder resource integration.
...
Triggering capabilities: Generating new resource linkages...
We identified three aggregate themes, or triggering capability sets: capabilities related to re-designing exchange, re-configuring the network, and reforming institutions.

Facilitating capabilities: Enabling and augmenting market-shaping.
We identified 17 properties describing the creative abilities of the firms to determine which triggering capabilities should be applied and how. These are further categorized into four concepts or facilitating capabilities. We identified two aggregate themes or facilitating capability sets

Trechos retirados de "Capabilities for market-shaping: triggering and facilitating increased value creation" de Suvi Nenonen, Kaj Storbacka and Charlotta Windahl, publicado por Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science em Abril de 2019.

"resources are not, but rather become"

Interessante apanhar este artigo de Nenonen e Storbacka ao memo tempo que apanhei as disputas em torno da actualidade da ideia de Milton Friedman sobre a prioridade do lucro. É claro que o lucro é uma prioridade, mas já não pode ser a prioridade num mundo em que a assimetria de informação diminuiu e o poder passou para as mão dos clientes. Neste mundo faz cada vez mais sentido trabalhar o ecossistema:

"The aim of market-shaping is to enhance the value creation and realization for stakeholders in a market. Value creation happens when resources are combined in novel ways, the key being the ability to create, access, deploy, combine, and exchange them. ... it is not so much the attributes of resources that matter, but the linkages between them. This emphasizes a dynamic aspect of resources and their potentiality: resources are not, but rather become, i.e., what is a resource (and its value) is determined when linked and integrated with other resources. [Moi ici: Isto faz-me lembrar um tweet que apanhei ontem. Um partido brasileiro de extrema esquerda acusava Mises de ser nazi e de defender que o valor não é gerado pelo trabalhador. Enfim, Mises era judeu e teve de fugir dos nazis. O que é que os marxistas empedernidos dirão desta corrente cada vez mais forte de que o valor não é criado pelos produtores (trabalhadores, máquinas, gestão), mas acontece na mente e na vida de quem utiliza e processos os recursos que adquiriu. Isto joga com a ideia de que o mesmo recurso pode ser utilizado/valorizado por diferentes clientes, com resultados muito diferentes]
...
Key is therefore resource orchestration, in the sense of how managers structure, bundle, and leverage a firm’s resources. [Moi ici: O arquitecto de paisagens competitivas...]
...
To successfully shape a market for increased value creation, the shaping firm requires capabilities not only to add, combine and deploy the firm’s own resources, but also the resources of a network or system of organizations and individuals, with the aim to enable new types of resource linkages and integration patterns. In this process, access to resources becomes as important as ownership.
...
we view market-shaping as a purposive process by a focal firm to (1) discover the value potential of linking intra- and inter-stakeholder resources in novel ways, (2) trigger changes in various market characteristics to enable the formation of new resource linkages, and (3) mobilize relevant stakeholders to free up extant resources for new uses."

Continua.

Trechos retirados de "Capabilities for market-shaping: triggering and facilitating increased value creation" de Suvi Nenonen, Kaj Storbacka and Charlotta Windahl, publicado por Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science em Abril de 2019.

"a would-be market-shaping firm must understand ..."

Artigos de Nenonen e Storbacka são sempre um must read.

"In addition to sensing and responding to changes in established markets, firms increasingly undertake market-shaping strategies to create new business opportunities.
...
The shaping of markets is nontrivial in that it goes beyond incremental changes occurring in markets through the process of competition. Market-shaping implies purposive actions by a focal firm to change market characteristics by re-designing the content of exchange, and/or re-configuring the network of stakeholders involved, and/or re-forming the institutions that govern all stakeholders’ behaviors in the market. These actions aim at creating new opportunities to link resources of various stakeholders in ways that improve value creation in a market. Hence, the market-shaping firms engage in a process to (1) discover the value potential of linking intra- and interstakeholder resources in novel ways, (2) trigger changes in various market characteristics to enable the formation of new resource linkages, and (3) mobilize relevant stakeholders to free up extant resources for new uses.
...
We contribute to the literature on marketing and dynamic capabilities by identifying two distinct types of deeply embedded repeatable processes that together comprise the market shaping process: triggering and facilitating capabilities. Triggering capabilities generate new intra- and interstakeholder resource linkages by directly influencing various aspects of the market. They focus on re-designing exchange, re-configuring the network, and re-forming institutions. Facilitating capabilities relate to the creative ability of the firm and determine how the triggering capabilities are applied. They enable market-shaping by facilitating discovery of the value potential of new resource linkages; they also augment the impact of the triggering capabilities by mobilizing relevant resources.
...
Research in marketing and management is progressively recognizing markets as networks, systems, or ecosystems, suggesting a need to look beyond the seller–buyer dyad, to see the dyad as part of a larger network or system of stakeholders. This view implies that the locus of value creation moves beyond the borders of the firm, i.e., value is viewed as co-created with a multitude of stakeholders in the market, not only by the firm and for the customer.
...
markets cannot be understood only as a context for production and consumption, but rather as a context for value co-creation.
...
Institutions are schemas, rules, norms, and routines that form authoritative guidelines for the behavior of market actors. The argument runs that markets as value-creating systems are governed by institutions and institutional arrangements that are themselves actor generated. This raises questions as to how institutions are "created, diffused, adopted, and adapted over space and time; and how they fall into decline and disuse".
.
Consequently, to avoid the "new marketing myopia", a would-be market-shaping firm must understand how a larger system of organizations and individuals can co-create value and recognize the institutional arrangements that govern everyone’s behavior in this process."

Continua.

Trechos retirados de "Capabilities for market-shaping: triggering and facilitating increased value creation" de Suvi Nenonen, Kaj Storbacka and Charlotta Windahl, publicado por Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science em Abril de 2019.

"Re‐shaping demand landscapes" (Parte III)

Parte I e Parte II.

"The decision of where on the landscape firms should position their products is at the core of product positioning. By deciding what attributes to include in the product and what uses of the product to promote, firms guide the customers’ understanding of the new product’s comparison set, i.e., the appropriate demand landscape for the product. Firms’ emphasis on a subset of product attributes helps the customers determine the product’s location on the relevant demand landscape and the customers’ WTP for the product.
.
Competitor products can serve as referents for the introduction of new products and repositioning of existing products. Depending on the competitors’ positioning in relation to the customers’ ideal points, firms may pursue either differentiation or imitation strategies.
...
Four conditions are useful for thinking about how firms decide when to move on the demand landscape and when to reshape the landscape: weak connection between product attributes and performance, large number of attributes used by the customer to evaluate products, opportunity for collective action, and fragmentation of buyers and suppliers. Both firms that are constrained in their product-attribute choices and firms that have exhausted their repertoires of product modification options can pursue profits by attempting to change the shape of their demand landscapes.
...
Firms that are limited in their product modification options, e.g., generic drug manufacturers, may be especially likely to turn to landscape-shaping strategies in order to promote their products."

Trecho retirado de  "Re‐shaping demand landscapes: How firms change customer preferences to better fit their products". 

"Re‐shaping demand landscapes" (Parte II)

Parte I.

"A long-standing tradition in strategy conceptualizes the firm's operating environment as a fitness landscape. In this conceptualization, the firm’s performance is an outcome of searching the landscape for an optimal position. ... More recent contributions to this literature put forward the possibility of firms not just searching a landscape shaped by other actors, but also reshaping the landscape, i.e., changing the topology of the landscape to improve a focal firm’s position on the landscape and, with it, the firm’s performance. This suggestion expands the repertoire of strategies available to firms.
...
To date the research on demand landscapes has taken the shape of the landscape as a given, implicitly assuming that firms operate on exogenously determined landscapes (i.e., firms’ only option is to change products to accommodate customer preferences). Taking a different perspective, I propose that firms can reshape the demand landscapes for their products (i.e., change customer preferences to accommodate their products).
...
I consider two approaches to landscape reshaping by firms—1) moving the customer’s ideal point and 2) manipulating the customer’s perception of the distance between the customer’s ideal point and the firm’s product.
...
My starting point is the demand landscape —a concept that describes the distribution of customer preferences in terms of customers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for different combinations of product attributes. ... In my conceptualization, the demand landscape represents a mapping from product attribute combinations (product positions) to customers’ WTP for these combinations."

Trecho retirado de  "Re‐shaping demand landscapes: How firms change customer preferences to better fit their products".

"Re‐shaping demand landscapes" (Parte I)

Usar uma paisagem enrugada para explicar comportamentos observados no mercado é um clássico neste blogue.

Por exemplo, recordar "Acerca da Totoestratégia" de Julho de 2012 ou "O modelo NK de Kauffman - uma introdução" de Dezembro de 2010:

Empresas que procuram subir na paisagem competitiva em busca de melhores retornos ou menos ameaças e que têm de estar alerta porque, quando menos se espera, o espaço onde se movem altera-se, e a posição onde se aterra pode significar a morte, ou pelos menos muita dor.

Depois, com Nenonen e Storbacka, assume-se que as empresas podem ser elas próprias a alterar a paisagem competitiva em seu benefício. Os mercados não são, vão sendo "markets are not – they become" de Março de 2015:

• Não é armadilhar, é criar harmonia, é construir uma sinfonia... (Julho de 2011)
• Scripting markets (Abril de 2014)
• Driving markets (Maio de 2014)
• "The key source of success is to conceive the VCS and make it work" (Setembro de 2017)
• Market shaping (Janeiro de 2018)
• Assumir o desafio de mudar um mercado (parte IV) (Janeiro de 2018)
• "You can’t shape your customer" (Abril de 2018)

Agora encontro "Re‐shaping demand landscapes: How firms change customer preferences to better fit their products":

"I suggest that in addition to repositioning their products to accommodate customer preferences firms also change the distribution of customer preferences to accommodate the firms’ products.
.
Specifically, I argue that firms alter customer preferences by adding, removing, and transforming the dimensions of the demand landscape.
...
Managers often assume that customer tastes are fixed and that the only way to improve a product’s appeal to customers is to change the products’ attributes to better accommodate the customers’ preferences. In this paper, I consider two approaches firms can take to changing customer preferences to better accommodate their products. One approach is to convince the customers that the combination of attributes offered by a focal product, e.g., the Apple iPhone is more valuable than the combination of attributes a customer is used to consuming. An alternative approach is to manipulate the customer’s perception of similarity between a product she is used to buying and the focal firm’s product."

Relacionar também com a sugestão "mudar de clientes", de mudar de vida.

Continua.

"You can’t shape your customer"

Este texto de Alex Osterwalder, "You Don’t Design Customers, You Understand Them (Or Not)", merece alguma reflexão:

"What he had done was retrofit the customer profile against the digital payments solution they’ve worked out.
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Now, it’s ok to sketch out the customer profile for a customer you’ve never met in a meeting room. However, you then have to immediately go and verify (and get a reality check) if your assumptions from the meeting room were true. From those tests you adapt and modify the customer profile based on what you’ve learned. Only now, armed with this verified information, you are ready to design the appropriate solution.
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You can’t shape your customer. You can only understand the customer. The value proposition is where you make choices: you decide which jobs, pains and gains you want to address with which solutions. Get out of the building to understand your customer, then shape your value proposition around them. While this might sound like common sense, it’s still not common practice."

Não quero ser diletante nem, como conta Pedro Arroja, ser aquele tipo que numa conferência, na parte das perguntas e respostas, coloca uma pergunta ao orador e acaba a querer fazer ele próprio uma conferência, mas acho que há motivo para reflexão.

Alex Osterwalder escreve, e bem, para startup-people. Eu escrevo sobre a realidade a pensar nos meus clientes-alvo, PME industriais. As PME industriais com que trabalho querem dar uma sapatada no status quo em vivem, mas têm alguns constrangimentos: têm uma herança, ou seja uma estrutura produtiva e comercial que não se pode deitar fora como a água de um banho, têm um espaço de Minkowski (As posições anteriores limitam as posições futuras afinal os macacos não voam)

... e, sobretudo, têm pouco dinheiro.

Assim, ao contrário da liberdade de uma startup uma PME pode estar perante uma situação que se pode traduzir desta forma: sou o que sou, a minha vantagem, ou o que pode ser a minha vantagem é o que sou e não posso mudar - por falta de dinheiro, por autenticidade, por falta de alternativa, por falta de outras experiências. Nesse caso, o que a empresa produz não se altera mas tem de alterar quer o cliente, quer a abordagem comercial:

"Se calhar não é a lã que tem de mudar, se calhar são os mercados onde se quer vender os produtos autênticos feitos com ela que têm de mudar. Como no exemplo da artesã de Bragança, ou das tábuas de cozinha, ou do burel de Manteigas, ou os "Tecidos tradicionais em lã como o burel, a samarra ou o sarrubeco" de Albano Morgado."

Assim, para muitas PME aquele "You can’t shape your customer" não pode ser levado à letra. Elas têm de ir a todo o mundo à procura dos clientes que se ajustam ao que elas podem oferecer com vantagem. Sei que isto roça o limite e pode ser interpretado quase como arrogância estatal que trata os contribuintes como reféns. Não é desprezo pelos clientes, é não ter alternativa de recursos para investir em mudanças.

Considerem os empresários do calçado cheios de dinheiro ou de acesso a financiamento e com uma tradição de gestão bem maior, imaginem o que teriam feito quando a China invadiu o Ocidente com o low-cost... teriam deslocalizado. Em vez disso, tiveram de subir na escala de valor e subir às árvores como no exemplo dos 20 para os 200€. Assim, fazem uma análise da sua situação e concluem: só posso sobreviver se trabalhar para este tipo de cliente ...

Outro ponto que merece reflexão em "You can’t shape your customer" é: não se modifica um cliente individualmente, mas acredito numa frase que será "You can shape your market":

• Arquitecto de paisagens competitivas (parte II) (Junho 2012)
• Driving markets (Maio de 2014) (Storbacka escreveu um livro em finlandês cujo título era qualquer coisa como: market driving not market driven)
• Acerca dos ecossistemas (Setembro de 2014)
• "markets are not – they become" (Marlo de 2015) ("markets are malleable and subject to multiple change efforts. Markets are always in the making, or paraphrasing Vargo and Lusch: markets are not – they become. This opens up questions about how market actors join in and influence this process of becoming in practice.")
• Assumir o desafio de mudar um mercado (parte IV) (Janeiro de 2018)

Em suma, a startup vai-se reformulando e pilotando até se ajustar ao cliente-alvo. A PME-tipo percebe onde pode actuar e depois procurar os clientes, ou trabalho o mercado, com quem pode ter sucesso. 

Por isso uso os marcadores lá em baixo.

As interacções como a base para a criação de valor

"As business becomes more system-like with "business ecosystems ("BE") ... becoming the norm and  not the exception, value and its production requires more system-like, networked, and emergent conceptual frameworks.
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In the strategy frame we use in this book, we place interactivity as the focus for where value is created and assessed. Interactivity is, of course, also a major source of risk as well of value.
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Our argument is that this central concern with the interactivity that has become so ubiquitous inescapably leads strategists to rethink value creation and strategy.
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Attending interactivity also involves thinking of value as contingent, always located in a setting - no longer as isolated in things or individuals or groups - and dependent on those whom it connects and who co-create it as well as in termos of those it affects positively or negatively.
...
patterns of interactivity that enable the production or co-creation of value and values arise or can be designed.[Moi ici: Aquela situação da empresa que toma consciência que está bem e pretende perceber porquê, para fazer batota!!!]
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So perceived patterns of interactivity do not therefore require any intentional design on the part of any particular actor, though they might arise in part because of such intent - and often do arise in this manner in business.
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the notion of value arises for the strategist when one takes the perspective of an actor within a pattern of interaction.
...
how actors choose which interactions to privilege over others, and how they relate one interaction to another.[Moi ici: Como não recordar tantos postais deste blogue, como estes de 2007, 2012, 2013 e 2014]
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An organization's managers express its intents - and thus its values - by configuring interactions to establish (more or less) continuing patterns of activity with other actors. Are interactions with employees more important than those with customers? are interactions with shareholders more important than those with employees? For which of these interactions is the strategy primary constructed? These senior managers take views on what possibilities for value co-creation their organization is providing for which actors, and make choices that reflect and reinforce their values.
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We consider this configuring of interactions as a design activity. We use the term Value Creating System (VCS) for the pattern of interactions intentionally configured by the strategic planning carried out by an organization. The designed interactions become manifested as "designed" offerings.
...
if the key to creating value is to design and co-create configuring offerings that mobilize others (who may have the role in the interaction of customer or supplier or partner or employee or investor, etc.) to co-create value, then a key source of success is to conceive the VCS and make it work.
...
value is not simply "added", but is mutually "created" and "recreated" among actors with different values. These multiple values are "reconciled" or "combined" in co-creating value, and as we shall see bellow, cannot be reduced to a single metric, like the price of a commodity.
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We characterise VCS as designed activities that are part of much broader business ecosystems or business ecologies ("BE")
...
we consider strategy as entailing reconfiguring roles, actions and interactions among economic actors through designed configuring offerings that result in a given VCS.
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In co-creation, it is the co-created offerings and the relationships these manifest, not the "business unit" actor, which becomes the central unit of (competitive and collaborative) strategic analysis.
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Designing co-creation requires the strategist having the role of ascertaining and ideally defining the engagement and the dialogue that underpins designing novel and distinctive value creation."

Trechos retirados de "Strategy in a Networked World" de Ramírez & Mannervik.

BTW, como não recordar Storbacka e Nenonen:

• Não é armadilhar, é criar harmonia, é construir uma sinfonia... 
• Os mercados como configurações (parte III)
• Scripting markets

Não está na altura de organizar as ideias?

"Companies that are great at both strategy and execution don’t follow the prevailing practices of their industries.
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First, these companies commit to an identity. They avoid getting trapped on a growth treadmill, chasing multiple market opportunities where they have no right to win. Instead, they are clear-minded about what they do best, developing a solid value proposition and building distinctive capabilities that will last for the long term.[Moi ici: Recordar "Focalização, focalização, focalização"]
...
Second, many managers assume they should adopt the best practices of their industry and treat external benchmarking as the established path to success. But the companies we studied believe otherwise. They translate the strategic into the everyday. They design and build their own bespoke capabilities that set them apart from other companies. Then they bring those capabilities to scale in their own distinctive ways.[Moi ici: Como proponho às PME, não existem boas práticas "Não existem boas-práticas!!!" e "Não faz sentido, para uma PME, procurar "ser o melhor""]
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resist disruptive reorganizations and instead put their culture to work. They tap the power of the ingrained thinking and behavior that already exists below the surface in their company, using culture, not structure, to drive change.[Moi ici: Podem ser empresas grandes mas seguem o que proponho às PME, recordar "Do concreto para o abstracto e não o contrário" e comparar com "They tap the power of the ingrained thinking and behavior that already exists below the surface in their company,"]
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Fourth, a conventional company might try to reduce costs across the board by going lean everywhere. But the companies we studied cut costs to grow stronger. They marshal their resources strategically, doubling down on the few capabilities that matter most and pruning back everything else.[Moi ici: Recordar a parte III desta série "Como descobri que não é suficiente optimizar os processos-chave" (Parte I, parte II e parte III)]
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Finally, these companies are not trying to simply become agile. They don’t respond to external change as rapidly as possible. Instead, they shape their future by creating the change they want to see. [Moi ici: Parece difícil para uma PME enveredar pelo que Storbacka e Nenonen chamam de ser market driver em vez de market driven, ou de "scripting markets" recordar as 3 proposições de "Acerca da definição do mercado" e "Scripting markets". No entanto, recordar este caso de sucesso aqui]
...
they are focused on the fundamental questions about a company’s strategy, such as: Who do we want to be? What is our chosen value proposition? And they’re just as focused on fundamental questions of execution: What can we do amazingly well that no one else can? What other capabilities do we need to develop? How will we blueprint, build, and scale those capabilities — and put them to use?"

Quantos modelos de negócio tem a funcionar em simultâneo na sua empresa?
.
As ginásticas dos últimos anos levaram a sua empresa a jogar em vários tabuleiros em simultâneo? Produz o que parece ser o mesmo tipo de produto quando na realidade produz para diferentes tipos de clientes com exigências e valores diferentes? Expõe os seus produtos em diferentes canais? Os argumentos comerciais que funcionam para um grupo de clientes não resultam com outros grupos? Uns clientes preferem uma relação transaccional e valorizam o preço, enquanto outros pedem-lhe para co-construir soluções?
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Não está na altura de organizar as ideias, alinhar negócios e fazer batota com o resultado da reflexão e transformação?
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Será que podemos ser parceiros na co-construção dessa transformação?
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Porquê nós?

Trechos retirados de "5 Ways to Close the Strategy-to-Execution Gap"

"Listen very carefully, I shall say this only once." (parte II)

Parte I.
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Ainda ontem à noite na ETV ia tendo uma coisinha má ao ouvir propostas de engenharia para aumentar os preços do leite, sempre agarradas a vários acrónimos de programas da União Europeia.
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O que tem acontecido ao número de produtores de leite e de carne nas últimas décadas em todo o mundo?
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Redução, concentração do número de produtores e aumento da quantidade produzida.

"Em 1993, existiam em Portugal cerca de 84000 produtores de leite; Em 2010 restavam apenas 8400. ... Ao logo de décadas, a desistência de produtores foi compensada pelo aumento de dimensão das explorações que permaneceram e da produtividade por animal."
...
"Começou com 40 vacas do pai num terreno de 30 hectares ("era propriedade do meu bisavô"). Agora, dirige uma exploração modelar mecanizada e informatizada com 560 animais, que dá trabalho directo a 4 homens e produz cerca de sete mil litros por dia." (fonte)

No Reino Unido o mesmo filme:

"Last year alone more than 40 dairy farmers in Wales quit the industry, with many fearing that their livelihoods were simply no longer sustainable.
...
Some 9,960 dairy farmers in England and Wales have left the industry since 2002, with 60 farmers giving up milk production in December alone in the face of falling prices." (fonte)

"In June 2007, the UK dairy herd was estimated at two million animals. Since 1995, the number of UK dairy farms has fallen by around 43 per cent, but average herd sizes have actually risen during this time from 71 cows in 1994 to 92 animals in 2004. Similarly, average milk yields have also risen from 5,299 litres per cow in 1994 to 6,770 litres per cow in 2005 (figures from Defra). Future trends suggest herds will get larger with fewer farmers staying in the industry." (fonte)

 Em França o mesmo filme:

"The number of dairy farmers is forecast to drop by 70 per cent by 2015, coupled with an increase in the number of cow per farm as the industry moves away from the traditional family unit." (fonte)

Vamos introduzir um pouco de pensamento estratégico pragmático:

Os produtores começam na primeira casa e à pergunta "Existe uma vantagem competitiva?" respondem logo:

- Não!!!

E seguem a vida intuitiva, a via do senso comum, a via do século XX. Tenho de crescer para baixar os custos unitários e poder ser competitivo pelo preço.
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Esta via é honesta, é legítima e alguém tem de a seguir. No entanto, não haja ilusões é a via da selva dos números, da crueza das commodities.
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99,9% dos produtores segue esta via. Como o consumo agregado de leite e seus derivados tende a baixar com a evolução demográfica, quanto mais um produtor cresce em produção, mais um outro tem de desaparecer, daí os números do filme lá de cima.
.
E é esta pressão medonha que leva a esta situação "Près de 10 % des élevages sont « au bord du dépôt de bilan », selon Stéphane Le Foll" (Imaginem um ministro francês com tomates para dizer esta verdade, nem Jaime Silva conseguiu)
.
O que pode um produtor retirar da mensagem da parte I?
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Sim, eu sei, há anos que escrevo aqui que "o leite é a commodity alimentar por excelência"
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Conhecem aquela frase "Se eu lhes der amendoins, vou ter macacos!". Se eu lhes der uma commodity como posso esperar que eles queiram tratar o meu produto como se não fosse uma commodity?
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Um produtor X, e escrevo um porque esta é uma decisão pessoal, resolve olhar para aquela figura lá de cima e pensar. Será que posso criar mercado? Será que posso influenciar o mercado? Será que tenho de me submeter ao mercado que existe? (Ele não sabe mas está a precisar de ler Nenonen e Storbacka sobre scripting markets)
.
Num acto de loucura, quebra o molde mental onde foi enformado, e descobre que a sua missão não é alimentar todo o mundo, descobre que a sua missão não é produzir mais do que o vizinho, sob pena do vizinho ser mais competitivo no preço que ele, a sua missão é produzir carne ou leite que clientes apreciem e estejam dispostos a sustentar o seu negócio de livre vontade.
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Então, resolve responder à primeira pergunta com um sim! Depois, acrescenta para si mesmo:

"Ainda não tenho mas vou ter e quando a tiver vou ter um oceano azul por minha conta em vez de tentar apenas sobreviver num tanque infestado de tubarões."

 Ao comunicar a sua ideia radical à família, alguém lhe diz:

"Li num blogue escrito por um gajo anónimo da província, que existe uma coisa chamada a polarização do mercado. Todos os produtores estão, há décadas, a fugir do mercado do meio-termo para o low-cost comoditizado, onde entram numa guerra infernal entre si. Quantos é que estão a fugir do mercado do meio-termo para cima, para o da diferenciação, para o da autenticidade?"

Que diferenciação pode um produtor criar que seja valorizada não pela massa, mas por um nicho? (Ele não sabe, nem o contabilista que lhe ajuda nas contas, mas precisa de ler Marn e Rosiello. Precisa de saber que se seguir a via da diferenciação, reduz os custos e o  risco da quantidade por um lado, e aumenta o lucro porque pratica preços mais interessantes)
Que outras fontes de receita pode um produtor conseguir além da produção?
Quem serão os seus clientes-alvo? Há mercado para leite integral?
Há mercado para espécies menos eficientes mas autóctones? Nunca esquecer o exemplo das irmãs psicólogas no deserto de Aragão.
Posso vender directamente ao consumidor? Quanto me custa ter as autorizações para o fazer?
Posso vender visitas de estudo de escolas à exploração?
Posso vender refeições na quinta com produtos retirados da horta por indicação do cliente, como se escolhesse os peixes ou crustáceos numa marisqueira?
Posso vender o aluguer da terra e o trabalho para cultivar os legumes, como se fosse um jogo do FB?
Talvez a mudança tenha de ser feita por tentativa-e-erro, até encontrar o que funciona.
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Qual a alternativa a não fazer esta mudança? Continuar no duelo até que no final só exista um produtor.
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Será que vai avante com a mudança?
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A maioria desiste, vende o negócio.
Outros adiam o inevitável lutando por mais subsídios e apoios.
.
Só uma minoria desesperada:

"To play by David's rules you have to be desperate. You have to be so bad that you have no choice."

 Arrisca mudar de vida, sair da sua zona de conforto. Deixar de vender quantidade e passar a vender experiências.
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E agora, para terminar em grande com um termo da moda, fazer da exploração uma plataforma de negócios que alimentam uma marca em vez de vomitar quantidade industrial.

Continua.

"markets are not – they become"

A linguagem utilizada no artigo citado em "Iludidas com a democratização do luxo", fez-me voltar a ler Storbacka e Nenonen, nomeadamente "Finding market focus for solution business development" (J Bus Mark Manag (2013) 3:123–142).
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Julgo que encontrei o que fez a ligação entre os dois textos na minha mente:

"markets are malleable and subject to multiple change efforts. Markets are always in the making, or paraphrasing Vargo and Lusch: markets are not – they become. This opens up questions about how market actors join in and influence this process of becoming in practice."

O artigo começa por referir que o mercado mudou e, lista uma série de marcas que deixaram de conseguir impor um certo nível de preço. Depois, quase numa nota, reconhece que algumas marcas continuam a fazê-lo. Diferentes marcas, diferentes abordagens, diferentes reacções e diferentes clientes.
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Num mercado existem vários mercados. Do lado da oferta, uma heterogeneidade de produtos e estratégias que podem mudar e que efectivamente vão sendo alteradas, com maior ou menor frequência. Do lado da procura, gostos que evoluem, condições económicas que evoluem, percepções que evoluem.
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O que aprendi a apreciar na investigação de Storbacka e Nenonen é esta descomplexização do que é o mercado. O mercado é subjectivo, a definição de mercado é subjectiva!
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E, quando falamos de estratégias de trajectória estamos, de certa forma, a partilhar esta ideia de que o mercado não é algo objectivo que existe, independentemente da oferta, à espera de ser achado e satisfeito. A procura pode ser influenciada, educada, deseducada, desenvolvida. O mercado e a abordagem ao mercado constrói-se... ou destrói-se.