"Niching up"

"And it gives us the foundation to kindly recommend alternatives to people who aren't in our group. Instead of hustling for more, we're focusing for better."

Este trecho final de "Niching up" de Seth Godin é muito interessante. Seria tão bom que mais empresas o percebessem e não procurassem ser tudo para todos, perdendo o poder da diferenciação.

Seth Godin desafia o conceito tradicional de “niching down”, que envolve estreitar o foco de um projecto para atrair um segmento de mercado específico. Em vez disso, propõe o conceito de “niching up”, que enfatiza o foco num público menor e mais específico para melhorar a qualidade e o impacte do projecto.

O autor sugere identificar o menor grupo de pessoas necessário para sustentar um projecto. Isso envolve entender o que esse grupo específico tem em comum, seus desejos e o que sentiriam falta se o projecto deixasse de existir. Ao atingir esse público específico, o projeto pode ser mais personalizado e significativo. Ao focar num público menor, há uma responsabilidade maior no projecto para atender às necessidades e expectativas específicas deste grupo. Esta abordagem focada provavelmente terá um impacte mais significativo, pois atende às necessidades específicas do público escolhido.

Recordar que isto se encaixa no que publicamos ontem em Outra coisa que me faz espécie, empresas mais pequenas, trabalhando para nichos conseguem libertar mais valor acrescentado.

Recordar o que temos escrito sobre o "anichar" nos últimos anos - Niching down. Seth Godin também escreveu para mim.

Mongo e o "Bud Light Fiasco"

O planeta Mongo da série de banda desenhada Flash Gordon é o lar de várias tribos e reinos com culturas, tecnologias e sistemas distintos. Da mesma forma, a economia pós-século XX é marcada pela complexidade e diversidade da oferta e procura cada vez mais atomizada e apaixonada. Foi disso que me lembrei em 2007 para criar uma metáfora que dura até aos dias de hoje (A cauda longa e o planeta Mongo).

Seth Godin usa uma imagem interessante, o século XX via os clientes como plancton, uma massa homogénea. Eu vejo o século XXI como o tempo de Mongo, ou do Estranhistão, terra de Um número infinito de nichos.

Em Novembro passado escapou-me este artigo sobre Mongo, "Strategy in a Hyperpolitical World":

"So what does that mean for strategy?

We define strategy as the art of making informed choices in a competitive environment. Choices are important when differing paths lead to differential risks and rewards. When the social environment is broadly favorable to business, a company's strategic choices can be justified in purely business terms or, as necessary, finessed with carefully crafted press releases. Today, however, choices must be made on an expanded playing field. They are often complex because the underlying ethical, social, and political issues are constantly evolving and defy simple analysis. To make and implement the best strategic choices in this environment, leaders will have to (1) develop robust principles to guide strategic choices, (2) address ethical issues early, (3) consistently communicate and implement their choices, (4) engage beyond the industry to shape the context, and (5) learn from mistakes to make better choices."

Entretanto, há dias li "The Strategy Lesson from the Bud Light Fiasco": 

"A company’s goal should be to present an offering — supported by compelling messaging — that has advantaged appeal to the biggest circle possible. That may be a relatively small circle — Red Bay Coffee — or a relatively big one — Starbucks Coffee. But it should be as big a circle as the offering can support.

The Temptation

In pursuing the biggest circle supportable, companies are forever tempted to send different messages to different parts of their audience — whether inside or outside the confines of their current circle — in an attempt to strengthen and/or enlarge their circle.

...

this kind of thing is getting ever more dangerous with ever increasing transparency,

...

In this age of fuller transparency, brands must think a lot more thoroughly and carefully about the heterogeneity of their Where to Play (WTP), which hangs together now and produces their current market share. But under its apparently calm surface, that overall share hides fault lines — those customers aren’t all the same even if they buy the same product. If a brand isn’t careful, it can take those fault lines that lie benignly beneath the surface and turn them into giant fissures with its actions.

...

The naïve idea — not an unusual one but naïve nonetheless — was that Bud Light could keep all its current customers, and, with this terrific new message, could appeal to some new ones (whether light users or non-users). This kind of naivety has always been dangerous. But it has gotten a lot more so in this hyperpolitical and transparent world.

The Particular Challenge for Broad-Based Companies

It is particularly challenging for broad-based companies and going to get more challenging. The broader-based a company is, the greater heterogeneity its customer base is likely to embody. Every company will have heterogeneity in its customer base. But a giant retailer, like Target, will likely have a greater level of heterogeneity in its customer base than tiny LGBTQ+-friendly clothing retailer, WILDFANG. Ultra Right Beer was launched to woo disaffected Bud Light customers and seemed deliriously happy to hit the $1 million mark in sales. But that is one-five thousandth of the (pre-fiasco) sales of Bud Light. With great size comes more dangerous and pronounced fault lines."

Como não recuar a 2014 e a "-Tu não és meu irmão de sangue!"

O século XX económico (da inauguração da linha de montagem da Ford até à queda do Muro de Berlin) foi um acidente histórico que agora estamos a corrigir, o futuro não é de homogeneidade, mas de heterogeneidade. E mundos heterogéneos não são meigos para com os gigantes. Nunca esqueço: Too big to care.

"that starts the race to the bottom"

 

"the hard, cold facts show that competing in an existing category is a race to the bottom.

If everyone says they are "better," consumers get confused. They assume if everyone says they are "the best" at what they do, the only way to make a decision is to compare.

The first thing they compare is price. And that starts the race to the bottom. It's like watching two prizefighters stand in the middle of the ring and pound the shit out of each other."

Trecho retirado de "Niche Down: How To Become Legendary By Being Different" de Christopher Lochhead e Heather Clancy. 

Nichos, problemas e ofertas

Interessante ter apanhado este artigo de Seth Godin, "Which problem are we solving?":

"Solving a problem puts value creation first.

Who’s it for?

What problem does it solve?

Would we miss it if you didn’t build it?"

Quando ainda tenho este outro no bornal, "Steve Blank Your Product is Not Their Problem": 

"“So why should anybody in the concrete industry care? Do you really think they’re looking for bacteria made in fluidized bed reactors? Do you think there are a significant number whose number one issue is to buy bacteria? Do you know what if any of the features you mentioned actually matter to a potential customer?” There was silence for a moment. And then he said, “I don’t know.”

I wasn’t completely surprised because as a young marketeer, I made this mistake all the time – thinking that my product was a solution to someone’s problem  – without ever understanding what problems the customers really had. And that I needed to have all the answers when in fact I didn’t even understand the questions."

Este outro também relevante para o tema, "Niching Down For Success": 

"Talk about niching down! She’s found a lot of success focusing on this slice of the wedding market and recommends you get just as granular. 

...

niching down allows you to get really good at the details. ... When you master your niche, you will naturally get really good at recognizing the small but impactful details that make you stand out."

A diferença entre "Think “outcome before output”"

“It’s a difficult proposition to be all things to all people, as opposed to doing one thing really well”

Há textos que lemos e nos fazem sorrir. Ontem li "The Next Generation of Resale Sites" onde sublinhei:

"part of a new generation of resale start-ups that sees a big opportunity in filling in the gaps not already dominated by the category’s giants,

...

many niche resale sites pitch themselves as an antidote to e-commerce sites that stock tens of thousands of items. They’re counting on shoppers getting fed up with sifting through an endless online garage sale.

“There is just so much stuff on [large resale sites], sometimes it gets overwhelming,”

...

“If a site is known for selling one certain category, and they do it well, they bring a level of trust,” 

...

“That’s how you get virality,” Chan said. “They will remember that it’s tailor-made for a particular hobby they identify with.”

...

“It’s a difficult proposition to be all things to all people, as opposed to doing one thing really well,” Rose said. “There’s value in community and building deep resonance.”"

Em sintonia com algo que fui lendo ao longo dos anos e que adoptei muito cedo, pode e deve haver estratégia em todo lado, não é winner-take-all! Assim ao longos dos anos citei aqui:

""It soon became apparent that much of the received wisdom about network effects was wrong. The first-mover advantage and winner-take-all theories, for example, were shaky at best.

...

Economists missed the fact that matchmakers, just like any other businesses, can differentiate themselves."[Fonte em 2016]

A todos os que acreditam que as plataformas são uma coisa de "Winner take all"[Fonte de 2019] 

Seth Godin pôs-me na rota certa [Fonte em 2014] 

 E por que é que as plataformas bem sucedidas cavam a sua própria sepultura? [Fonte de 2015] Too big to care é um primeiro passo para a suckiness, para perder perante tribos apaixonadas e irmãos de sangue.

 

Mongo é assim!

Introdução:

"Altra running has sped up. Naturally. And as the Denver-based company celebrates 10 years of natural running, the growth of the footwear company only continues.

Known on the trail for its Lone Peak and on the road for the Torin, the uniquely designed footwear has experienced steady progress over a decade and a rapid rise over the past year with 17% growth from spring 2020 to spring 2021 and 54% growth during the height of the pandemic."

As tribos apaixonadas (os assimétricos), we are all weird:

"“The brands offering uniquely different propositions, a different direction, those are the brands growing the fastest. What we are seeing is that through the pandemic we are still growing at a faster percentage than the traditional brands.”"

Skin-in-the-game, não é inovar, é resolver um problema:

"The two eventually ran the store and the self-professed shoe geeks started tinkering. Working with a nearby resoler, they started customizing off-the-shelf running shoes to reduce the wedge on the heel and open up the toe box for a more natural foot splay."

Quando David se aproxima de Golias este despreza-o. Quando a Deutsch Post fez a proposta de um veículo eléctrico à VW esta rejeitou por falta de volume:

"The co-founders went to every running brand they could to “beg them to build” shoes the way they were creating them after market, but when nobody would—and some laughed in their faces—they did it themselves.

Altra started with a road shoe, the Instinct, pre-launched in April 2011 ahead of the brand’s true August 2011 launch. “It’s just been an amazing 10 years of trying to encourage people to look at shoes differently,” Beckstead says."

Trechos retirados de "Altra, One Of The Fastest-Growing Running Footwear Brands, Celebrates Natural Running"

Calçado - Fazer a transição

Em "Rust never sleeps" (Agosto de 2020) usei esta figura:

Em "A fase "wonder"" (Dezembro de 2020) usei esta figura:

E escrevi:

"As empresas de calçado têm de fugir da fase "war" e avançar para a fase "wonder"... "wonder" é magia, é surpresa, é ... arte!!!

Ainda esta semana numa empresa alinhavam-se mentes em torno da relevância dos nichos para o futuro da organização."

Avançar, que neste contexto no mapa de Swardley quer dizer recuar para a esquerda, tal como na primeira figura acima.

Em "Longe do mainstream" (Setembro de 2020)  voltei a citar algo que escrevi em Fevereiro deste ano acerca do sector do calçado português:

"Vamos entrar numa Fase 4

O número de empresas vai voltar a diminuir

A quantidade de pares produzidos vai voltar a diminuir

O número de trabalhadores vai voltar a diminuir

O preço médio por par vai novamente dar um salto importante"

Tenho escrito aqui ao longo dos anos acerca da nichização. A nichização a longo prazo imporá a especialização das empresas que servem cada nicho. O meu velho "Tu não és meu irmão de sangue!"(Setembro de 2014), porque as tribos têm uma paixão assimétrica.

O caderno de Economia do semanário Expresso da passada semana trazia o artigo "Uma têxtil rendida ao colorau" com uma entrevista a Mário Jorge Silva CEO da empresa Tintex:

"colocou a inovação e a sustentabilidade no ADN da empresa para fintar a concorrência, certo de que este era “o grande trunfo e o passaporte para o futuro” da fileira.

“Apostámos na sustentabilidade logo em 1989, muito antes de esta ser uma palavra da moda”,

...

aceitou o desafio lançado por alguns clientes e deixou a têxtil onde trabalhava para lançar o novo projeto cheio de “grandes esperanças” na sua receita assente “na diferenciação e criação de valor, não na guerra de preços”.

...

A procura de uma oportunidade para se diferenciar num mundo onde o verde ainda não estava na moda

...

Hoje, desdobra-se em vários projetos de investigação e desenvolvimento (I&D), em parceria com empresas têxteis e de outros sectores de atividade, centros tecnológicos e universidades. [Moi ici: Trabalhar o ecossistema. Parceiros e fontes de know-how teórico]

...

Outra frente de trabalho prioritária é a área médica,

...

E noutra linha de ação no segmento dos têxteis técnicos e da alta performance promete mais uma solução inovadora para ajudar a recuperação do atleta depois do esforço, lendo indicadores e dando até 13 possibilidades de tratamento em simultâneo.

...

No currículo, apresenta incursões no tingimento da fibra de milho biodegradável e em métodos de tingimento mais sustentáveis e reutilização de materiais, a par de uma série de certificações que garantem reconhecimento mundial na área dos têxteis sustentáveis porque “as pessoas têm de acreditar no que oferecemos”. [Moi ici: Trabalhar o ecossistema. Influenciadores que trazem credibilidade]

“As novas gerações valorizam saber o que compram por isso faz sentido criar nos têxteis uma cultura idêntica à que existe à volta do vinho e dos terroirs"[Moi ici: Muito interessante este conceito. Poderá ser relacionado com Mongo?]

Este artigo pode ilustrar uma estratégia baseada na inovação e concretizada a servir um conjunto de nichos: sustentabilidade; área médica; desporto de alto rendimento. 

Uma crítica que muitos empresários me fazem é a de que os nichos são pequenos, não lhes sustentam a estrutura das empresas. 

1º - Recordar o que prevejo para a Fase 4 - Empresas mais pequenas.

2º - Quando um nicho ainda está na fase "wonder" ainda permite que seja servido por um especialista, não por um super-especialista. Assim, talvez trabalhar para 2 ou 3 nichos ajude a fazer a transição.

Para reflexão

 "Given how much our culture depends on finding out what’s new, it’s surprising that few have figured out how to be smart about it. If you’re a creator, the truth remains what the truth has been ever since Yahoo tried to sort the web by hand: the best way to make a hit is to build something for the smallest viable audience and make it so good that people tell their peers."

Trecho retirado de "Who is good at discovery?" 

Desformatando (parte II)

Parte I.

"Much of the fragmentation is likely to occur in product design and commercialization activities.
This activity depends on creative talent, and creative talent tends to seek the autonomy available in smaller organizational settings. This creative talent can establish much closer connections to their customers and build deeper relationships over time that will help them to deliver more effective personalization and customization, opening up opportunities for customers to participate in the design and creation of the products. These more specialized players will acquire deeper insight into the needs of the highly focused niches they are serving—needs that the customers themselves have a hard time articulating or may not even recognize.
...
[Moi ici: Niche operators] Over time, they should have a greater impact on their domains, competing with large companies by serving increasingly diversified consumer desires and providing personalized, even localized, products and services.
...
As consumer demand for uniqueness or other specialized attributes causes product fragmentation, another type of fragmentation will occur in the retail space, as retailers cater to specific consumer preferences with a targeted set of niche products. A new type of retailer is emerging that uses both physical and virtual facilities to help customers more effectively navigate a vast range of products to find and use those that are most personally relevant. They will increasingly offer targeted experiences to niche customer segments—showcasing products, providing learning environments to help customers get more value from the products, and creating venues for customers to form communities around these niche offerings. This phenomenon is different from more narrowly defined curation services, which simply provide expertise or reviews in a product category.
Increasingly, we will see similar trends across other domains where the barriers to entry, commercialization, and learning are diminishing."

Trechos retirados de "The hero’s journey through the landscape of the future" do Deloitte Center for the Edge" de 2014.

Desformatando

"The erosion of barriers to forming and pursuing a business venture [Moi ici: A democratização da produção levará a um mundo muito diferente daquele que o século XX formatou] will lead to increasing fragmentation in certain parts of the economy.
...
For individuals and small entities, the barriers to forming and pursuing a business venture are rapidly being dismantled. As barriers fall, many small yet viable players will emerge, with increasing influence on the economy, via three primary pathways:

• Freelancers, empowered by online staffing platforms, will begin as individual contractors, but will quickly transition to forming flexible teams—colloquially called “hives”—comprised of other freelancers with complementary skill sets. Gradually, these hives will move from just accepting work from other businesses to collectively creating their own products and services, and ultimately forming their own small companies.

• Hobbyists will transition from “moonlighting”— working full-time for someone else while pursuing their passion projects during off-hours—to being fully dedicated business owners.

...

• “Star” performers within big companies— confident of their value and frustrated by a lack of autonomy—will increasingly choose to leave employers in favor of building businesses that use their full range of talents.

...
Fragmentation (within a domain) is defined by the following characteristics:

• Each player within the domain has a small, addressable market and is focused on a specific niche

• Collectively, players address a diverse spectrum of customer and market needs

• Both players and niches are proliferating within the domain

• No single player has enough market share to influence the direction of the domain long term

• A relatively modest level of investment is sufficient to enter and sustain position

• “Diseconomies of scale” are in play—it is more challenging for large players to stay in business"

Trechos retirados de "The hero’s journey through the landscape of the future" do Deloitte Center for the Edge" de 2014.

The Rules of the Passion Economy (parte II)

Parte I.

Ainda do capítulo 2 “The Rules of the Passion Economy", retirado de "The Passion Economy: The New Rules for Thriving in the Twenty-First Century".

A segunda regra parece tirada de tantos postais escritos neste blogue desde 2006: 

"RULE #2: ONLY CREATE VALUE THAT CAN’T BE EASILY COPIED.
...
you should be careful not to produce value — create a thing that people want—at scale. [Moi ici: Recordar os "sábios" da Junqueira. BTW, da próxima vez que ouvirem Vítor Bento na TV lembrem-se do que ele disse e da suckiness dos gigantes] Creating value at a large volume is something only huge companies can do profitably. ... Your value should be created slowly and carefully. Absorbing the significance of this point can be hard. Only focusing your attention on those things that reach a relatively small and strongly opinionated customer base, things that are hard to do, will be worth your while. [Moi ici: Recordar as tribos assimétricas de Taleb]
...
in the current economy, you want to do the opposite of what in the past has usually been considered good business sense. The moment one of your products or services takes off and becomes widely copied, you should begin abandoning it and looking for the next thing.
The more stuff you make or the more clients you take on, the harder it is to maintain excellence and to adapt your products and services in a way that both you and your customers want. Leave scale for the mass market. The Passion Economy is about quality and the conversation you have with your clients." [Moi ici: Recordar a co-criação] 

"we must redefine art"

Em "A alternativa", um postal de maio de 2016, e em "A ascensão do artesão e da arte na produção, um postal de Abril de 2017, voltei à arte como a alternativa para fugir às estratégias cancerosas que nunca serão sustentáveis num país pequeno e pouco habituado a rigor e planeamento.

Como diria MacGyver:

That's our edge!

É afinal o twist na estória de David vs Golias, enquanto Saúl pensava que o puto David ia combater de igual para igual, David tira um seixo branco de um saco só com seixos pretos (parte I e parte II).

Ontem, apanhei este texto de Esko Kilpi, "Art, entrepreneurship and the future of work":

"Art creates suggestions for fresh ways of defining the world we live in.
...
Artists are like entrepreneurs, and entrepreneurs are like artists. They turn nothings into somethings. Thus, artists give a form to ideas that for some other people might be nothing more than vague notions or emotional impulses. But it is often not easy.
...
Fostering creativity is a genuine goal for all in the post-industrial society. A creative economy needs individuals with the freedom, courage and capacity to think, learn and live imaginatively. We need people who can conceive ideas and who can realize them. Maybe all schools in the future are going to be art schools and all offices creative studios.[Moi ici: Mas não com a Nomenklatura que por lá anda agora]
.
But we must redefine art. Art today often stands apart from everyday life. It is a pastime and an indulgence, admired in a gallery, museum or a concert hall from a contemplative distance.
.
In the future art are not only objects we contemplate, but also experiences we possess and create."[Moi ici: Relacionar com o tema dos artesãos, dos nichos e Mongo]

O estilhaçar do século XX

Continua a minha leitura de "Prime movers" de Rafel Martinez e Johan Wallin.

Segundo os autores, quando pensamos na abordagem da criação de valor devemos olhar para a oferta como o resultado de de três conteúdos:

O potencial de criação de valor ao longo de cada uma das dimensões da oferta dependerá do sistema de criação de calor de cada cliente.

Assumir isto e querer fazer parte do processo de criação de valor do cliente, apostando na co-criação de valor, requer o aumento da granularidade ou resolução, para permitir a diferenciação requerida por cada cliente.

Reparem só nesta linguagem usada:

"Enhanced 'granularity' or 'resolution' was not present in the traditional, 'industrial' logic. There, supply and demand factors were considered at a fairly aggregated level, (generic) products and (mass) markets. For example, car manufacturers didn't think of their customers as individuals, but viewed them as a mass of buyers (markets or market segments) who bought the same product.
.
As the potential for interactivity between the firm and its environment increases, being able to specify the contribution of each individual party participating in value co-production is of great help. Instead of throwing products at undifferentiated market 'sinks', in co-productive situations, companies must decide which of their firm-specific capabilities to deploy for each specific customer."

Leio isto e recordo a suckiness dos gigantes.
Leio e isto e recordo o plankton tão querido às Heinz e às Procter & Gamble deste mundo.
Leio isto e recordo Seth Godin:

"The defining idea of the twentieth century, more than any other, was mass.
.
Mass gave us efficiency and productivity, making us (some people) rich. Mass gave us huge nations, giving us (some people) power. Mass allowed powerful people to influence millions, giving us (some people) control.
.
And now mass is dying."

Voltando a Ramirez e Wallin:

"Customers have different priorities in their value creation, and offerings targeted at them reflect these. The characteristics of the offerings can include low-risk solutions; low-cost solutions; broad relationship-based offerings, co-produced with a distributor or not; co-learning initiatives; facility of integration into customer systems; and so on. As customers' value creation conditions evolve, the offerings — and thus the capabilities brought in to make them possible, must be altered.
...
The more the types of 'fit', the more granularity or resolution is required, also with respect to capabilities. From a customer's point of view, a value constellation has an architecture designed around each individual customer, with manysuppliers targeting this customer with different offerings. The logic is the same: offering architecture will be judged in terms of 'fit' with customer value creation."

Aquele, "The more the types of 'fit', the more granularity or resolution is required, also with respect to capabilities", é poderoso. A explosão de tribos e a progressiva incapacidade dos gigantes para se adaptarem ao estilhaçar do mundo da massa. Mongo! Terra de artesãos.

Já cheguei a pensar que Mongo seria de artesãos e suas cooperativas. Talvez um dia, para já ainda é cedo. Antes dessa fase teremos empresas mais pequenas, pelos padrões do século XX,  focalizadas em nichos. Só que com o fim mitigado da geografia, esses nichos têm alguma dimensão.

Mongo e o pós-capitalismo

Ontem à tarde, durante uma caminhada de 9,5 km, um dos textos que ouvi foi "The end of capitalism has begun". A certa altura o autor escreve:

"We can predict, from this, that postcapitalism – whose precondition is abundance – will not simply be a modified form of a complex market society.
...
The main contradiction today is between the possibility of free, abundant goods and information; and a system of monopolies, banks and governments trying to keep things private, scarce and commercial. Everything comes down to the struggle between the network and the hierarchy: between old forms of society moulded around capitalism and new forms of society that prefigure what comes next."

Sempre que o autor referia "abundância" eu torcia o nariz...

Eu acredito que Mongo pode ser uma espécie de pós-capitalismo (pós cronyismo, pós empresas grandes, pós vómito industrial) em que o que conta é a criatividade. Pensar num futuro de abundância é pensar num futuro incapaz de respeitar o ambiente. Há dias li "Nike Has Taken a Page Out of the Tech Industry's Playbook. Here's Why You Should, Too" e cinicamente sorri ao pensar em conjugar esta medida da Nike com as suas rezas de que é muito amiga do ambiente, para, depois promover o consumismo sobre o consumismo. Acredito muito mais na postura de uma Patagonia.

Acredito que o futuro do pós-capitalismo não é a abundância, mas a tribo, mas a pertença a um grupo identitária forte e pequeno.

Por exemplo, em "From Scrubs to Chef’s Whites, The Business of Uniforms Is Suddenly Fashionable" vejo esta tendência de fugir do baratucho para usar e deitar fora logo a seguir e voltar a um mundo onde os uniformes têm um sentido e o seu uso continuado é uma medalha extra:

“I think when I started this business, there was no such thing as the selfie in the uniform,”

Mongo é inevitável

Recentemente em "Speed to market" escrevi:

"Ou seja, alguém em 2004 publicou um artigo sobre os perigos do modelo eficientista, e em 2019 ainda  vemos tantas empresas mergulhadas nesse modelo." 

Nos últimos dias tenho apanhado vários artigos sobre Mongo e o seu crescente impacte. Por exemplo, ontem, fiquei preso a esta imagem (tirada daqui).

Eu que até já comprei pensos amarelo-berrante e, coloridos com padrões, faço logo a ponte para Mongo. Para muita gente não basta a um produto o mero cumprimento da sua função básica, há que acrescentar algo mais. Esse algo mais não é racional, é emocional e isso abre a porta a uma variedade de respostas que a lógica do século XX não contemplava, ou não valorizava o suficiente.

Recentemente voltei a um tema iniciado em Agosto de 2014 com "Porque não somos plancton ..." por causa da Procter & Gamble, foi em "exploitation através de local searches quando a paisagem competitiva está em mudança" sobre a Heinz. Entretanto, dou de caras com este artigo e o seu exemplo da profusão de marcas e sabores, "The Best Hot Sauces on Amazon, According to Hyperenthusiastic Reviewers". Já agora, hiperentusiastas tem tudo a ver com a assimetria das tribos apaixonadas e "tu não és meu irmão de sangue":

Estes exemplos traduzem-se em realidades novas "P&G cuts annual ad spend by $350M as it targets 'smart audiences'":

"“We’re reinventing brand building from wasteful mass marketing to mass one-to-one brand building fueled by data and technology,”
...
P&G is moving away from generic demographic targets such as women 18 to 49 years old to more than 350 precise smart audiences, he said." [Moi ici: Como não recordar o tweet de Tom Peters sobre a suckiness dos gigantes. Quem procura servir o mediano, afugenta os não-medianos. Ora quando os não-medianos já são mais que os medianos... desastre para as empresas grandes e os seus modelos do século XX]

Já agora, tenho uma nota sobre esta abordagem da P&G:

"“We have developed a very large proprietary database,” Taylor said. “We have over a 1 billion consumer IDs worldwide. … That allows us to have these smart audiences. And once you have the smart audiences, you can do propensity marketing with people that have similar characteristics.”" [Moi ici: Se os segmentos forem por grupos de pessoas teria cuidado. Se os segmentos forem por situações em que as pessoas se encontram, talvez faça mais sentido]

Por fim, um último artigo dos últimos dias, também sobre a agonia da Heinz, "Today’s Contrarian Ketchup Consumers":

"The ketchup scientists have been busy. Kraft Heinz Co. now has at least 20 varieties of the stuff. [Moi ici: Pequenas séries, muita variedade, mata o modelo das empresas grandes baseado no volume e no grande centrão dos medianos] There’s the jalapeño flavor, the sriracha, the kind with no salt, the sugar-free and a version sweetened only with honey.
.
Still, it’s not enough. Even as Heinz locked down an unprecedented 70% of the ketchup market, the company posted yet another crushing financial update and yet another massive writedown this week, as its shelf full of Americana was further squeezed in a startup, small-food world. [Moi ici: Faz-me lembrar um postal sobre as empresas grandes que tentam passar-se por fornecedoras de nichos... Minkowsky rules, o ADN não engana. Não é impunemente que se tenta mudar]
.
To date, the narrative has focused on niche consumption: the sweaty masses are passing up on boomer brands in favor of trendy startup condiments and healthier options.
...
The study found that collectively people have been buying a wider range of products, in part because of an increase in choice. No surprise there.
.
What’s really interesting, though, is that spending has become more concentrated within product categories. As a whole, we have become ketchup-curious, but once we figure out what we like, we stick to it (no doubt because of the sheer glut of options).
...
This is all tricky for the big incumbents in the consumer product game. It suggests that they need to constantly gin up (or buy) new varieties to maintain their trajectory. In other words, Heinz needs 20 ketchups to do the business it used to manage with one—and each other iteration adds a dollop of cost on every line item, from research to production to packaging to marketing. What’s more, boutique brands are more likely to come in at lower prices in order to steal market share.[Moi ici: Porque se podem concentrar em ser azul ou preto e não se atolarem no pântano do meio-termo onde as marcas das empresas grandes caem]
.
It's a vicious cycle where the customer increasingly gets both more choice and more value."

Mongo é complexidade e "em ambientes cada vez mais complexos os gigantes falham"

Lembram-se da estória dos nenúfares que precisaram de 47 dias para cobrir metade de um lago? Ontem chamaram-me a atenção para a situação da GE. Imaginem a cascata que decorreria da falência de uma empresa com mais de 1 milhão de trabalhadores, com uma rede de parceiros e fornecedores ...
Calro que Trump não a deixará cair: to big to fail.

Mongo é inevitável e trará custos e dor aos incumbentes.

Mongo é um mundo de tribos

Mongo é um mundo de tribos e de tribos com interesses assimétricos.

Eis um bom exemplo das muitas oportunidades que há por explorar, "Universal Standard wants to end the plus size binary once and for all":

"Last month, clothing brand Universal Standard announced that it would start carrying all of its items in sizes 00 to 40, officially making it the most size-inclusive retailer for women across the world.
...
With US’s 00 to 40 sizing, the founders hope to usher in what they describe as the “new normal,” a sort of paradigm shift for apparel in which, as Veksler put it: “It doesn’t matter if you’re a size two or size 32, you should be able to walk into any store or go to any website and only ask yourself one question, and that is: ‘Do I like this?’ not, ‘Does this come in my size?'”

"niche retailers with strong identities"

Tão interessante, tão em sintonia com a visão de Mongo como um mundo de tribos de interesses assimétricos, tão de acordo com "tu não és do meu sangue", tão de acordo com a ambivalência face a Bieber. Ninguém quer ser tratado como plancton. Trechos retirados de "The global village needs walls":

"Facebook has been a giant experiment in understanding humanity. It has proven that we actually don’t want to be part of a global community — we are instead a species of small groups and tribes. If you’re part of everything, you’re not invested in anything, and that feels bad. “Everyone, no exception, must have a tribe, an alliance with which to jockey for power and territory, to demonize the enemy, to organize rallies, and raise flags,”
...
So what does this mean for business? For one, it creates an opening for a smorgasbord of social networks and social businesses.
.
“There should be social networks around every conceivable interest,” [Moi ici: Como não recordar o que escrevi, ao arrepio do mainstream, sobre as plataformas universais, não é winner-take-all]
...
“The really exciting model is not one company to rule them all, but distributed companies and distributed wealth and revenue, and a social experience built around these supernodes,” said Bianchini, whose company is making a big bet that we’re headed in this direction. Some recent trends seem to bear it out. The number of niche social networks is exploding,
...
Such fracturing of the online world is a headwind even Amazon will eventually have to battle. The bigger Amazon gets, the less it feels like it connects with your personal identity — even with algorithms that figure out what you’re most likely to buy.[Moi ici: Recordar o que escrevo sobre o big data e a miudagem]
.
Just as microbrews stole customers from giant, least-common-denominator brands such as Budweiser, niche retailers with strong identities are likely to be more of a challenge to Amazon than some other centralized behemoth.[Moi ici: O que escrevo neste blogue desde sempre... cuidado com os gurus da Junqueira]"

"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!""]

Como aumentar a facturação quando não se pode aumentar a produção por falta de pessoas?

Como relacionar "Falta de mão de obra desespera empresas" e esta série "O que aí vem! (parte II)" e parte I, com "O que são os custos de oportunidade" e estes canários na mina (""Warns of Margin Threat as Niche Brands Disrupt Industry""; ""profecia fácil do "hollowing", ou "radioclubização", de como uma marca forte e genuína se transforma numa carcaça, num aristocrata arruinado, fruto de deixarem os muggles à solta""; ""Giants invariably descend into suckiness" (parte XIII)" e "Será o efeito de Mongo?"

E ainda aquele sublinhado de "Acerca da Micam"?

Cada vez mais sinais de que a ascensão dos nichos, o avanço de Mongo, começa a fazer mossa no modelo paradigmático do século XX, o trabalhar para o interior da caixa da normalidade onde estava a maioria dos clientes: o Normalistão:

Em Mongo, também chamado de Estranhistão, a maioria das pessoas não quer ser tratada como plancton, e há que trabalhar para todo o espectro de clientes/nichos porque há cada vez mais gente fora da caixa da normalidade:

A demografia por um lado, e a fiscalidade e o assalto das gerações mais velhas ao bolso das mais novas por outro (ainda esta semana li "Cerca de 90 mil portugueses emigraram em 2017" - lembram-se disto ser motivo de rasgar de vestes no tempo da troika) vão criar um desafio para as empresas: como aumentar a facturação quando não se pode aumentar a produção por falta de pessoas?

Ou subir na escala de valor, ou mudar de ramo, ou deslocalizar para África.

Continua.

"Warns of Margin Threat as Niche Brands Disrupt Industry"

Isto é um bálsamo para o autor deste blogue porque vem suportar as suas ideias à revelia do mainstream e da tríade. Recordar "profecia fácil do "hollowing", ou "radioclubização", de como uma marca forte e genuína se transforma numa carcaça, num aristocrata arruinado, fruto de deixarem os muggles à solta"

"Shares in Beiersdorf dropped more than 10 percent on Wednesday after the maker of Nivea skin cream warned that its operating margin would fall in 2019 as it invests to compete with niche brands that are disrupting the sector.
.
Beiersdorf was the latest consumer goods company to reset profit expectations for 2019 after German rival Henkel and Colgate-Palmolive last month, and following Kraft Heinz's write-down last week.
...
the future of mass-market labels was being challenged by the rise of small, disruptive brands as consumers increasingly expect more personalised products and services."

 Basta recordar os artigos relacionados com os marcadores até em baixo. Como não relacionar aquele "expect more personalised products and services" com a metáfora do plankton... a vida está difícil para a suckiness dos gigantes: "Mongo, micro-marcas, plancton, suckiness e emprego"

Trechos retirados de "Nivea Maker Warns of Margin Threat as Niche Brands Disrupt Industry"