Curiosidade do dia

No JdN de ontem de um artigo intitulado "A Alemanha precisa de esteroides":

"A economia alemã está deprimida.

Ponto. Foi o único país do G7 que contraiu no ano passado e, de acordo com as mais recentes projeções do FMI, deverá ser este ano das que menos cresce em todo o grupo das sete economias mais avançadas do mundo. A economista-chefe do Fundo Monetário questionava há dias na rede social X: "O que está a impedir a Alemanha de avançar? Já não são os elevados preços da energia". E ensaiava uma resposta: "Os verdadeiros desafios são o envelhecimento, o subinvestimento e o excesso de burocracia".

Entretanto, há dias, mão amiga enviou-me, "Pension wave brings companies into a swim":

"A wave of pensions is rolling into the German labor market, as the dpa informs. Because the so-called baby boomers will soon retire. But in times of a shortage of skilled workers, German companies are literally running out of time. By the middle of the next decade, around four million employees of the strong birth cohorts of 1954 to 1968 will disappear from the labor market, it is said. According to calculations by the local Chamber of Industry and Commerce (IHK), the Berlin economy alone will lack more than 400,000 skilled workers in around 10 years. However, around 90,000 qualified employees were already missing.

Many also want to retire early

To make matters worse, many older people even want to retire early."

Num cenário polarizado ...

Há muitos anos que aqui no blogue, praticamente desde a primeira hora, escrevo sobre a importância de seleccionar os clientes-alvo e trabalhar para eles. Por exemplo, em 2006 escrevia sobre o perigo de ser uma Arca de Noé:

• Deixar de ser uma Arca de Noé
• Porque não podemos ser uma Arca de Noé!

A reforçar esta mensagem de focalização nos clientes-alvo, tenho desenvolvido aqui também a metáfora de Mongo, um mundo pleno de variedade e de tribos numa paisagem enrugada:

• 1 Origem de uma metáfora
• Criatividade e Mongo
• Covid, empresas, estratégias e paisagens enrugadas

Às vezes criticam-me porque supostamente no mundo actual as empresas tanto podem servir em simultâneo gregos como troianos. No entanto, continuo na minha, ainda na semana passada li, "Why Mushroom Leather (and Other New Materials) Are Struggling to Scale":

"Compare the number of venture capital firms funding software to the number of venture firms specialising in material innovation or fashion. There are far fewer.

The reasons for the chasm are structural. Once a software solution is invented, the marginal cost to distribute the second, third and one millionth sale are close to zero. By contrast, once a new material is invented, the marginal costs for subsequent units are nearly the same. It is only with learning and scale that costs begin to decrease.

At the same time, building the capacity to produce new materials often requires considerable capital expenditure to build out infrastructure."

Entretanto, ontem li "The Myth of the Mainstream":

"Chasing the mass market is a losing proposition for marketers in a polarized culture. Allying with the subculture that loves you is the best way to drive brand success.

...

For years, McDonald's seemed to embody everything that was wrong with the American diet. The brand had become a symbol of food choices that were driving escalating rates of obesity and hypertension.

The company spent more than a decade trying to fight this perception among American consumers by targeting them with messaging about its updated menu, which offered healthier alternatives more in line with contemporary diet trends - but to no avail. Year over year, McDonald's sales declined, and its brand perception continued to spiral downward.

...

Finally, the company decided to go on the offensive. Instead of combating the opposition's hate and attempting to win over those in the middle, McDonald's decided to focus on its fans - the people who self-identify as McDonald's devotees despite the vitriol directed at the brand. 

...

In doing so, it tapped into what these devotees love about McDonald's and not only activated their collective consumption but also inspired them to spread the word on behalf of the brand. The result of this strategy was a 10.4% increase in global revenue for McDonald's from 2018 to 2021 and the return of dormant customers: more than a quarter of those who came in to buy the Travis Scott meal, for example, hadn't visited the chain in over a year. Seemingly overnight, McDonald's went from being a cautionary tale to the darling of brand marketing and a case study for advertising effectiveness.

If you want to get people to move, you must choose a side. The notion that you can win by playing to the middle is a misleading myth.

What's going on here? Conventional wisdom would tell us that in a world of increasingly polarized opinions, our best bet is to appease the middle, if only because that's where the majority of the market is. That also seems like a safe bet to many companies, as a middle-of-the-road position is less likely to alienate potential customers.

...

The middle doesn't adopt new products with any urgency. They are not the first to respond to marketing communications, nor are they likely to weigh in on a debate between advocates and detractors. They mitigate their own risk of moving out of step with what might be considered generally acceptable by stepping back and observing other people's responses first.

The red herring is that we perceive this indifference as an opportunity to persuade them to one side or the other. But the truth is, they are not typically convinced by any marketing communications. Instead, they, too, take cues from other people - sometimes those who are for you, and at other times those who are against you.

Our chances of successfully influencing behavior increases when we choose to address the people who are most likely to take action.

With this in mind, it becomes abundantly clear that in a polarized scenario, the chances of marketers getting people to move are far greater when we activate the collective of the willing as opposed to trying to convince detractors or even persuade the indifferent."

Sobre a polarização do mercado, recordo Polarização do mercado ou como David e Golias podem co-existir. 

A evolução da produtividade (parte II)

Parte I.

Originalmente a parte II metia Seth Godin e Porter, mas vamos ter de fazer uma alteração.

No passado dia 5 o WSJ publicou um artigo intitulado "Productivity Drop Blurs Economic Picture" de onde sublinho:

"You would think from May's blowout jobs report the economy was booming.

Here's the puzzle: Other recent data suggest it is in recession.

The dichotomy emerges from the divergent behavior of employment and output, two key indicators of economic activity.

...

The economy has gone through periods where output has expanded faster than employment, but seldom the other way around,

...

What explains these dissonant signals is productivity, or output per hour worked: It is cratering. That raises questions about whether the much-hyped technology adoption during the pandemic and, more recently, artificial intelligence are making a difference.

...

Labor productivity fell 2.1% in the first quarter from the fourth at an annual rate, and was down 0.8% in the first quarter from a vear earlier, the Labor Department said Thursday. That is the fifth-straight quarter of negative vear-over-year productivity growth-the longest such run since records began in 1948.

...

Usually, employment plummets during recessions because as factories, offices and restaurants produce less, they need fewer workers. That clearly isn’t happening.

...

One reason could be labor hoarding. [Moi ici: LOL. Acho esta explicação tão inverosímil] After struggling to hire and train workers during the pandemic-induced labor crunch, employers are now balking at letting them go, even as sales slip, given the labor market's unusual tightness.

...

It's "not that technology got worse in the last year, but that businesses were selling less stuff and they're nervous about their ability to attract employees, so they're holding on to their employees,"

...

A more imminent concern is that when workers produce more, companies can raise wages without increasing prices. When productivity falls, it is harder to keep inflation in check."

Ontem durante caminhada matinal li este artigo e tweetei:

Ui! Os americanos não sabem porque é que a sua produtividade está a baixar! Os académicos avançam com explicações bizarras. Para mim é tão simples que também devo estar errado e não tem nada a ver com “hoarding workers”. Para mim é o efeito oposto ao da receita irlandesa.

— Carlos P da Cruz 🇺🇦🚜🇳🇱🇬🇪 (@ccz1) June 6, 2023

Qual é a receita que proponho para o aumento agregado da baixa produtividade portuguesa? Aplicar a receita irlandesa e seduzir empresas de elevado valor acrescentado a estabelecerem-se em Portugal (ver Parte I por exemplo).

Ora o que andam os americanos a fazer? O Financial Times de ontem dá uma ajuda, Gideon Rachman escreveu uma crónica do tempo que passa com o título "How America is reshaping the world economy". Antes de irmos à crónica pensemos por um momento nos fanáticos do Excel quando chegam ao comando das empresas. O que costumam fazer? 

Cortar! Despedir e subcontratar! 

Quanto mais a empresa subcontrata mais a sua produtividade cresce.

Agora voltemos a Gideon:

"An unheralded revolution has taken place in America's approach to international economics. As the new thinking emerges, it is reshaping the global economy and the western alliance.

...

The US intends to use a new strategic industrial policy to simultaneously revitalise the American middle-class and US democracy, while combating climate change and establishing a lasting technological lead over China.

...

Many of America's allies fear that the bit that slipped off the table was the interests of foreigners. They worry, in particular, that subsidies worth hundreds of billions of dollars to American industry and clean technology, set out in the Inflation Reduction Act, will come at the expense of producers and workers in Europe and Asia."

Volto agora ao tema do artigo no WSJ, o abaixamento da produtividade. A minha tese é que na base desta evolução estará o regresso aos Estados Unidos de produção anteriormente fabricada na Ásia. Produtos de valor acrescentado mais baixo, mas protegidos do mercado do preço pelo mesmo fenómeno que salvou o calçado português,  mas protegidos do mercado do preço pelo medo de uma China que pode invadir Taiwan, mas protegidos do mercado do preço pelos "hundreds of billions of dollars" que subsidiam produções que de outra forma seriam incapazes de competir. Esta produção vem diluir a produtividade anteriormente atingida pela economia americana.

Continua.

"all models are wrong, but some are useful."

Há muitos anos li a frase, “Todos os modelos estão errados, alguns são úteis”, desde então tem-me acompanhado e, de certa forma, ajudado a trabalhar com modelos. Um modelo é uma ferramenta, só isso, uma hipótese de lidar com a realidade. Um modelo não é a realidade, algo que muitos esquecem. Um modelo é, de certa forma, uma ilusão. Talvez por isso, tenha abraçado as ideias de Peter Checkland sobre os ovos estrelados, ou as amibas, em vez dos rectângulos arrogantes e pretensiosos. 

Quem trabalha com sistemas de gestão tem de trabalhar com modelos. Por exemplo, os mapas de processos nos sistemas da qualidade com base na abordagem por processos. Ou seja, quem trabalha com sistemas de gestão tem de trabalhar com ilusões. Recentemente comecei a ler o livro "The Upside of Uncertainty" onde os autores nos despertam para o receio que tanta gente tem da incerteza. Talvez por isso muitos esquecem que um modelo é só uma ferramenta e tratam-no como a descrição perfeita da realidade. 

Por que medimos o desempenho dos processos e o desempenho do sistema de gestão? Porque existe incerteza! Porque a realidade é volúvel e pode alterar o que pensávamos. No entanto, há uma outra razão que muitas vezes esqueço de verbalizar. Temos de medir, analisar e avaliar porque o nosso modelo é só uma rede que lançamos à realidade. A realidade é demasiado complexa para ser descrita por um qualquer modelo. A medição, análise e avaliação permite perceber quando é que o modelo se afasta tanto da realidade que deixa de ser útil.

Por que escrevo isto? Por causa de uma crítica ao livro "Escape From Model Land: How Mathematical Models Can Lead Us Astray and What We Can Do About It" de Erica Thompson, publicada no passado dia 28 de Dezembro no WSJournal.

"We live in an information age, as the cliché has it-really an age of information overload. But “measured quantities do not speak for themselves,” observes Erica Thompson, a statistician and a fellow at the London School of Economics. Data, she notes, are given meaning “only through the context and framing provided by models.” [Moi ici: Tenho uma interpretação um pouco diferente. Medimos. Analisamos, qualquer estagiário faz isso se for ensinado. Ou seja, como trabalhar os dados brutos e transformá-los em algo que possa ser avaliado. Avaliamos, já usamos o modelo para analisar os dados. Agora, usamos o contexto interno e externo para avaliar o desempenho e a continuação da confiança no modelo. Aquele pormenor de saltar do ciclo SDCA para o ciclo PDCA - "Avancemos agora para a Figura 2." Quando decidimos que precisamos de dar o salto é quando percebemos que o modelo que temos já não permite esperar um desempenho aceitável, temos de o melhorar.]

When we want to know how rapidly a new infectious virus is likely to spread, we turn to mathematical models. Models are used by climate scientists to project global warming; by options traders to price contracts; by the Congressional Budget Office to forecast the economic effects of legislation; by meteorologists to warn of approaching storms. Without models, Ms. Thompson says, data "would be only a meaningless stream of numbers."

Ubiquitous and persuasive, models also drive decisions-one reason why, in Ms. Thompson's view, they require our urgent attention. She tells us that, as a graduate student studying North Atlantic storms, she noticed how different models predicted different overall effects and produced contradictory results. She started to reflect on the role of models as metaphors, tools for understanding, and expressions of sociopolitical power. "Escape From Model Land" offers a contemplative, densely encapsulated summary of her reflection and research.

[Moi ici: O parágrafo que se segue é precioso] Models seek to represent the real world, but they live outside it. Indeed, they exist in their own "wonderful place,' what Ms. Thompson dubs "Model Land." In Model Land, the assumptions of a model are considered "literally true," enabling expansive exploration and ambitious predictions. The problem is that Model Land is easy to enter but difficult to escape. Having built "a beautiful internally consistent model," Ms. Thompson writes, it can be "emotionally difficult to acknowledge that the initial assumptions on which the whole thing is built are literally not true."

 ...

There are all sorts of ways that models can lead us astray. A small measurement error on an input can lead to wildly inaccurate forecasts-a phenomenon known as the Butterfly Effect. Fortunately, this type of uncertainty is often manageable. Far more problematic are what Ms. Thompson calls "unquantifiable unknowns" -things that are left out of a model's calculation because they can't be anticipated, such as the unexpected arrival of a transformative technology or the abrupt collapse of a robust market.

...

[Moi ici: Outro parágrafo precioso] Beyond the inherent inability of models to account for the unaccountable, models also reflect the biases of their creators. We may be inclined to regard models as objective expressions of truth, yet they are deliberately constructed interpretations, imbued with the values and viewpoints of the modelers-primarily, as Ms. Thompson notes, well-educated, middle-class individuals. During the pandemic, models "took more account of harms to some groups of people than others," resulting in a "moral case" for lockdowns that was "partial and biased." Modelers who worked from home while others maintained the supply chain often overlooked "all of the possible harms" of the actions their models were suggesting. And even when models try to describe the effects of different courses of action, human beings must ultimately weigh the benefits and harms. "Science cannot tell us how to value things," Ms. Thompson says. "The idea of 'following the science' is meaningless."

...

The statistician George Box once observed that "all models are wrong, but some are useful." For Ms. Thompson, the real utility of models is as a tool for exploration rather than a mechanism to divine the truth or predict the future. "The process of generating a model changes the way that we think about a situation," she writes; it "strengthens some concepts and weakens others." Recalling President Eisenhower's legendary maxim-that "plans are useless, but planning is indispensable"--she argues that relying on models solely for their output misses the indispensable value of the process of model development: of trade-offs, and the agility to adapt if foundational assumptions unexpectedly change.

While acknowledging our "overenthusiasm for mathematical solutions," Ms. Thompson emphatically counsels not abstinence but discipline and humility. Clarity about the purpose of the model matters, she says: An epidemiological model may inform us about viral transmission and hospital pressure but not about the economic effects of closing businesses. Modelers should acknowledge the value judgments implicit in their models, explain what makes a model "good" and describe relevant limitations. But it's up to us to learn from models without being drawn in by their seductive elegance and to ensure that the lessons from Model Land find substantive expression where it actually matters: in our messy, material, magnificent world."

How can we use the process approach (part IVa)

Part I, part II, part IIIa and part IIIb.

5.Processes and strategy

5.1 Anything about strategy in ISO 9001 and ISO 9000?

ISO 9000:2015 defines strategy as:

plan to achieve a long-term or overall objective

When you remember the old article from Henry Mintzberg, The Strategy Concept I: Five Ps for Strategy, published in October 1987 by California Management Review. 

Summarizing the strategy in a plan is too little, too poor. 

What about ISO 9001:2015, where does the strategy come in? 

Clause 4.1:

The organization shall determine external and internal issues that are relevant to its purpose and its strategic direction

Interestingly, not many people realize that relevant external and internal issues and their classification are a function of strategic orientation.

Clause 5.1.1:

ensuring that the quality policy and quality objectives are established for the quality management system and are compatible with the context and strategic direction of the organization;

OK, alignment of quality policy with context and strategic direction.

Clause 5.2.1:

is appropriate to the purpose and context of the organization and supports its strategic direction;

Again, alignment of quality policy with context and strategic direction. Quality policy should derive from strategic orientation.

Clause 9.3.1:

Top management shall review the organization’s quality management system, at planned intervals, to ensure its continuing suitability, adequacy, effectiveness and alignment with the strategic direction of the organization.

OK, this is understandable, it is peaceful. 

That’s it!!!

Not very useful as a guide to work with strategy.

Let us try another door. One of the quality management principles is customer focus. ISO 9000:2015 states:

The primary focus of quality management is to meet customer requirements and to strive to exceed customer expectations.

One of the things that worries me about ISO 9001 is that it uses the language "customer" instead of "target customer".

Seth Godin in his book “We Are All Weird” writes:

"The mass market — which made average products for average people was invented by organizations that needed to keep their factories and systems running efficiently.

Stop for a second and think about the backwards nature of that sentence.

The factory came first. It led to the mass market. Not the other way around.”

“For a hundred years, industrialists have had a clearly stated goal: standardized workers building standardized parts”, [Another text by Seth Godin, from his blog]. This resulted, as a business model, while demand was bigger than supply. When demand is bigger than supply, the boss, the one calling the shots, is the one who produces. And when that is the case, whoever is more efficient wins. Everyone tries to compete for the lowest cost. 

In this world, the competitive landscape can be compared to a single mountain and all competitors try to climb that mountain, the higher they rise, the higher the yield, but the higher they climb, the fewer the number of companies that survive, because in this landscape of a single mountain, the one that wins is the one that uses the effect of scale, grow in volume to lower unit costs and be more competitive.

As soon as supply started to exceed the level of demand, the economic world began a transformation towards more variety. In terms of the competitive landscape, this translates into many, more and more mountains. And those who climb one do not compete with those who climb the other:

In an economic world full of different peaks in a rugged landscape there are many types of customers. Different customers look and value different things. 

Let us stay away from statistics and look customers in the eye, literally and metaphorically. If we look at customers who value price above all else, what satisfies them? 

Satisfied customers do not happen by chance, they are the normal and natural result of work done upstream to achieve the results they value. 

What do we have to do upstream to produce these results in a perfectly normal, systematic, and sustainable way? 

This market is highly competitive, different competitors seek to improve their efficiency, whoever is more efficient wins, whoever stretches the frontiers of operational excellence wins. 

Amateurs cannot compete with paranoid competitors.

Now, let's look at another type of customer, the one who wants tailor-made service, or a customized product. What do they value? 

What kind of priorities are behind these results?

Finally, let's look at another type of customer, the one who wants innovation, or values design above all. What do they value? 

Again, what kind of priorities are behind these results?

Now imagine an organization that wants to serve the three types of customers at the same time

What a big mess it will be! A typical stuck-in-the-middle situation.

The following figure is taken from an article called “Using Product Profiling to Illustrate Manufacturing-Marketing Misalignment” by Terry Hill, Rafael Menda, and David Dilts and published in July 1998.

One can look into an organization and evaluate its products and markets, its manufacturing structure, and its infrastructure. 

For example, about the products and markets: organizations can have wide or narrow product ranges, high or low rate of new product introductions. High or Low frequency of schedule changes. And different order winners, the most relevant topic at the eyes of certain groups, certain segments of customers.

For example, for manufacturing: organizations can have small or large production run sizes, high or low set-up frequencies, low or high set-up costs.

For example, for infrastructure: organizations may be designed to new product introductions or for process improvements to improve efficiency. Manufacturing Managers’ tasks may be dedicated to schedules or to quantity.

Let us see two examples.

The blue company is a company that bets on innovation, they have a wide range of products, they have a high rate of new product introductions, They are flexible enough to accommodate and thrive in the middle of a high frequency of schedule changes. Customers love the innovative products and the brand. Their manufacturing is aligned by being able to run small production sizes, handle a high frequency of set-ups and their cost is low. Infrastructure is aligned with product introductions and meeting schedules.

On the other side, one can think about a green company. A company that bets on low cost to compete on price, they have a narrow range of products, they have a low rate of new product introductions. A new product introduction is a headache, is more entropy. They try to minimize the frequency of schedule changes, which reduces throughput, that reduces efficiency. Customers love their low prices. Their manufacturing is aligned by being able to run large production sizes without stop, they minimize set-ups, and their cost is high. Infrastructure is aligned with efficiency and process improvements process in and throughput.

Different organizations, different strategies, different processes, different mindsets.

Now consider the example of a third company, a company that has a weak or unclear strategy, a company not aligned.

They have a wide product range, an average rate of new product introductions, an average frequency of schedule changes, and their order winners are based on price. Things don’t fit nicely together

They run small to average production run sizes and average set-up frequency and cost.

Their mind is in searching for efficiency but at the same time, they look to meet schedules to satisfy different customers looking for different products in small quantities.

This company is a mess, is stuck in the middle trying to serve everybody and fighting with conflicting priorities.

Continue.

Acerca dos monopólios informais (I)

Consideremos aqui o Facebook, a Apple como exemplo de monopólios. Basta atentarem no cabeçalho deste blog para lerem "monopólios informais":

"there is a huge incentive to attack the luxurious market of an existing monopolist — and innumerable companies do so. The monopolist must understand that these insurgents can’t help themselves: the opportunity is too attractive.

But taking on the monopolist at the heart of its business is rarely their approach. The dominant approach is to chip away at the edges of the monopoly. Think of the monopolist’s business as a circular disk. At the center is the perfect customer who thinks the monopolist’s offer is perfect. As you move away from the center, the offering is ever less perfect to those customers. And that is where insurgents attack: not at the center but at the fringes. And they win fringe customers.

When MCI and Sprint attacked AT&T’s monopoly, they didn’t attack the core of middle-American residential customers. They went after large businesses, who were being vastly overcharged relative to cost to serve, in order for AT&T to subsidize undercharged rural customers. Facebook’s insurgents aren’t attacking the core of its business. They are picking off customers who are hyper-sensitive to privacy issues (MT Social) or hyper-sensitive to ads (MeWe) or want to get credit for their participation (Minds) or they are searching for ideas/inspiration (Pinterest). If successful, that insurgent becomes the new monopolist for that niche — some of which are too small to be profitable, others not.

But the result is that the original monopolist’s territory becomes ever smaller as it is dynamically segmented around the edges. Ironically, the same thing happens in due course to the new entrants’ monopolies. So, dynamically over time, markets keep segmenting and segmenting into shrinking monopolies. It is inexorable."

Trechos retirados de "The Two Rules that Monopolists Ignore at their Peril" 

Em que lado do teste do lápis está a sua empresa?

Há anos que recomendo às PMEs a ARTE!

Por exemplo:

• Arte, sempre a arte (Maio de 2018)
• O futuro da economia é a arte (Abril de 2018) 
• A ascensão do artesão e da arte na produção (parte II) (Abril de 2017)
• Qual a alternativa? (Maio de 2016)
• O papel da arte! (Abril de 2016)
• Arte e PME (Novembro de 2015)
• Acerca da paixão nas PME (Março de 2015)
• Passion Rules!!! (Maio de 2011)
• Há sempre uma alternativa (parte II) (Maio de 2011)
• Paixão e relações amorosas (Fevereiro de 2011)

Há muitos anos que uso a frase:

Há anos que descobri o caso da Viarco:

• Inovação na ponta do lápis (Agosto de 2009)
• Mandamentos para os gestores das unidades com futuro (Novembro de 2009)
• "Nós fazemos as contas ao contrário" (Setembro de 2014)

Estou já na fase final da leitura de um livro simplesmente delicioso, "The Passion Economy: The New Rules for Thriving in the Twenty-First Century" de Adam Davidson. O capítulo 9, “Don’t be a commodity” é acerca de uma empresa que produzia o produto mais commodity que se possa imaginar, lápis escolares, e que depois de ser esmagada pelos chineses deu a volta por cima.

"I came to think of them as exemplifying the single most important rule for thriving in a twenty-first-century economy. The rule applies to manufacturers, but also to bankers and artists and teachers and middle managers at large corporations. The rule is simple: Do not be a commodity.
.
Commodities fit a few key criteria. They are undifferentiated. That means that people who buy them don’t see any qualitative difference between competing versions. Instead, commodities are bought based on price and convenience. Most people gravitate toward buying the cheaper dish soap, the cheaper lumber, or the cheaper light bulb instead of the more expensive version on the same shelf.
...
General Pencil had so many orders from so many school districts that it no longer needed to be at the cutting edge of innovation.
The American pencil business had by then become what economists call a mature business.
...
This sleepy world was overturned in the 1990s when something entirely new began to happen. Ships arrived in the nearby Port Newark with huge containers filled with pencils made in China. These pencils looked identical to the ones General made.
...
[Moi ici: Anos depois, a filha do dono da empresa de lápis teve uma ideia] In that moment, Katie realized that she had come upon an enormous hole in the U.S. pencil market. She couldn’t possibly be the only person who wanted a solid, reliable drawing utensil, something between the two extreme options. [Moi ici: Os dois extremos eram os láis chineses de um lado e os de engenharia, de origem alemã] Parents, she knew, would happily pay a reasonable premium for pencils custom-made for their kids. She picked up the phone, called her dad, and offered him an idea that might just save the family business.
Katie eventually created a line of kits that included drawing supplies and instruction books based on her classes.
...
There would be kits with entire lines of colored pencils, and there would be kits with charcoals for high schoolers who had more ambitious goals and wished to develop more comprehensive skills.
...
The companies that shipped container loads of Chinese pencils were too large and distant to worry about such a niche market. They were still satisfied selling commodities. The German companies, which needed to maintain their professional reputation, were reluctant to dilute their brand image by focusing on children. [Moi ici: Como não recordar o truque de Roger Martin para avaliar se uma estratégia é mesmo uma estratégia. O contrário de uma estratégia a sério não é estúpido, mas representa uma brutal fricção para quem a queira seguir] This is why Katie was able to charge a dollar apiece for her pencils. The parents who buy General Pencil kits for their kids are happy to pay a premium, since they are getting a product precisely designed for them.
...
I have come to think of “the pencil test” whenever I am confronted with a question of how best to thrive in a rapidly changing global economy. There is no product more commoditized, more easily reproducible, than the simple No. 2 pencil. Yet General Pencil was able to get out of commodity competition. It was able to thrive and profit by identifying a specific audience with clear needs and serving that audience thoroughly. [Moi ici: Qualquer empresa em Portugal está de um lado ou do outro do teste do lápis. Ou são uma commodity ou são algo com valor acrescentado para um grupo de clientes-alvo que outras empresas nunca poderão oferecer porque estragaria o seu modelo de negócio]
...
[Moi ici: Depois, vem o final do capítulo para fechar este postal, tal como ele começou, a arte] Katie was far more of an artist than an industrialist. Her passion lay in sketching nature, not in looking at spreadsheets, worrying about the rising cost of graphite and the bottleneck at their Midwest distributor. That was stuff her dad loved and would never be for her.
But while working with her dad developing the pencil kits, she found herself becoming fascinated by some of the very things she assumed she’d hate. Distribution, she realized, isn’t just a dull corporate word; it’s the way she can get pencils in the hands of children and artists. Finance isn’t a deathly dull spreadsheet; it’s a language that allows her to make better decisions about the experiments she wants to conduct, and it guides her as she invents different kinds of kits and assesses which ones have successfully found a market. She would never make distribution and finance the core of her work. General Pencil has plenty of experts in those areas. But she learned that there could be as much joy and creativity in business as there is in art."

BTW, neste artigo de Julho de 2011, "Uma Sildávia na América", comentei o estado da empresa antes do tal telefonema de Katie

“The core problem is uncertainty”

"It was expected, perhaps, but still startling. In its 22nd Annual Global CEO Survey, PwC asked 1,378 top business leaders from around the world which territories (excluding their own) they considered the most important for their company’s growth prospects in the next 12 months. The world’s chief executives were noticeably noncommittal. As many as 15 percent of them answered “don’t know” in 2019, up from 8 percent the previous year.CEOs in the United States were even more dubious: 14 percent of them didn’t consider any other markets suitable for growth, up from only 2 percent in the 2018 survey.
...
This shift in attitude is already reflected in business investment. Of the 31 percent of CEOs who said they were “extremely concerned” about trade wars, 45 percent said they were shifting their supply chain strategy, and 25 percent said they were shifting their growth strategies to other territories.
...
Fundamental aspects of the global economy have been shifting for more than a decade. Elements undergoing change include costs for manufacturing (including labor costs, which are rising), new technological platforms (such as those associated with Industry 4.0), stronger suppliers and other businesses in emerging markets (which are maturing), middle-class consumer populations around the world (which are growing rapidly in emerging markets and shrinking in other places), and political and regulatory uncertainties.
...
A new model of market expansion strategy — we call it “internationalization” — is replacing the globalism of the early 2000s. This model acknowledges that the global business ecosystem now includes many small and medium-sized enterprises and ambitious family businesses, often based in emerging markets, linked together by collaborative supply chains and platforms. At the same time, larger companies with established global supply chains have realized that they need to bring their operations closer to the demand they are targeting. The trade tensions of 2019 have heightened awareness of these dynamics, and accelerated the business response to them.
...
To be sure, global trade will still thrive, but there will be more regional concentration. Rather than shipping goods around the world from cheaplabor hubs, companies manufacture goods for Asian customers in Asia, for European customers in Central Europe, and for North American customers in Latin America. They develop regional footprints, sourcing from more locations."

Interessante:

"The World Trade Organization (WTO) published a report in June 2019 showing that G20 nations had implemented 20 new restrictive trade measures between October 2018 and May 2019, including higher tariffs, import bans, and new customs procedures for exports.
...
All this has had a chilling effect on international commerce. Imports by G20 economies were 1.2 percent lower in the first quarter of 2019 than they were a year earlier, whereas exports were only marginally (0.4 percent) higher, Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development figures show. “The core problem is uncertainty,” said Piyush Gupta, chief executive of Singapore’s largest domestic bank, DBS, in an interview with strategy+business. “There’s a general environment of skittishness.”"

Trechos retirados de "Growth strategies for an uncertain world"

Heterogeneidade dos mercados (parte II)

Em "Heterogeneidade dos mercados" sublinhámos, com o exemplo da China, que se pode ser muito bom a produzir e a exportar um produto e, no entanto, precisar de importar esse produto para outra segmento de mercado.

Outro exemplo que poderia ter utilizado no texto inicial é o do mobiliário. Portugal exporta mobiliário caro, e importa mobiliário barato.

Um outro exemplo que acrescento agora é "Fast Fashion Must be High-End to Compete in China". Podemos logo relacionar o título com o exemplo do calçado. Os chineses produzem calçado barato, não precisam de importar calçado barato. Daí que o preço médio de um par de sapatos importado pela China é substancialmente superior ao preço médio do calçado importado por países como a Alemanha, França ou a Holanda:

Voltando ao artigo sobre a fast fashion na China:

"While overseas fast fashion brands were quick to enter the Chinese market, they’ve had a hard time competing with local online retailers on websites like Tmall and Taobao. Chinese tastes have also shifted toward more elevated options, which offers an opportunity to high-end, fast fashion brands but hurts entry-level fast fashion. McKinsey & Company’s research suggests that more than 75 percent of China’s urban consumers will enter the middle-class bracket by 2022.
...
“Chinese consumers have easy access to a variety of home-grown and affordable fashion brands online that pose a bigger challenge to brands like H&M and Zara,” says Ray Ju, the New York-based senior consultant of the global brand consultancy Labbrand. As this consumer steps into a new bracket, they are looking for new options that they can’t already find online: clothing with an affordable price point but with higher quality and design.
.
Local customers have shown waning interest in fast fashion in recent years, complaining about bad quality and uncompetitive prices compared to local brands on Taobao."

O “Mendelian executive” - o mecanismo (parte I)

Ontem, durante uma caminhada matinal comecei a ler "Mendel in the C-Suite: Design and the Evolution of Strategies" de Daniel A. Levinthal e publicado em 2017 por Strategy Science 2(4):282-287.

Levinthal escreve de uma forma muito atractiva.

"The question of “where do good strategies come from” is arguably a subset of the broader question of why things are the way they are. At its most basic level, as with respect to the question of life on planet earth, we have two general classes of answers: one invoking some form of intentional design and the other invoking a Darwinian process of descent with variation and a contested selection process. The argument developed here tries to set forth a middle-ground perspective of a Mendelian executive. This “Mendelian executive” operates with a degree of intentionality; but, unlike the conception of rationality in neoclassical economics, this intentionality is limited. Furthermore, the emphasis is more on the design of experimental processes than on the design of specific paths forward. [Moi ici: Desenhar caminhos específicos é demasiada arrogância. É menos inseguro fazer pequenas expriências e ir tacteando] While circumscribed, this intentionality and design sets this Mendelian executive apart from a pure Darwinian process. Both orientations highlight the role of path dependencies. However, the intentionality of the Mendelian executive allows for the conscious exploration of adjacent “spaces” rather than the happenstance of random variants. Furthermore, the argument developed here highlights the role of intentionality with respect to the selection and culling of strategic initiatives. The firm is viewed as operating an “artificial selection” environment in contrast to selection as the direct consequence of the outcome of competitive processes. [Moi ici: Tanto a paisagem competitiva evolui e afecta as organizações, como estas podem procurar espaços competitivos alternativos] While these outcomes may inform the artificial selection process, the two criteria need not be the same.
...
While not controlling these processes, perhaps to some degree we can engage in some intentional engineering of these evolutionary processes. Consider, for instance, the frequently discussed need for organizations to balance processes of exploration and exploitation. Such manipulation is unlikely to be a precise engineering of the evolutionary process, but rather a reflection of a broad awareness of the effect of alternative organizational policies on the dynamics of firm evolution, as these policies tilt the “needle” of the exploration/exploitation balance in one direction or another.
...
An important dichotomy in arguments regarding the specification of business strategies is the degree to which action is identified a priori as a result of “offline” reasoning and consideration versus an ex post assessment of “online” trials. In this regard, it is import to note that a Darwinian process is one extreme of online trials. The Mendelian executive straddles both online and offline forms of learning and strategy identification. The experimental variants are not random acts but rather conscious choices of potentially promising initiatives. Furthermore, the Mendelian view melds an offline sensibility with regard to the ex post evaluation of online trials. A purely evolutionary or Darwinian mechanism operates through a contestation of relative fitness and what is fundamentally a myopic selection process. By contrast, the Mendelian executive may make conscious choices of what might constitute the dimensions of merit by which initiatives are evaluated. Furthermore, that calculus of evaluation may constitute forward-looking indicators of merit. The ultimate value of the contemporaneous realization of any initiative is inevitably speculative, but speculation is conscious and explicit. From an evolutionary perspective, there are two basic mechanisms at work: processes of variation and selection. We can consider the work of the Mendelian executive with respect to both of these processes. We tend to associate variation as the consequence of some stochastic process, but variation may have considerable elements of planning and intentionality. [Moi ici: Variação ou variedade?] Variation may be considered from the perspective of individual ideation; the internal ecology of initiatives within the firm; and the role of path dependence, “pivots,” and adjacencies.
...
Yet, in the Mendelian perspective developed here—situated between classic images of design and intentionality and a Darwinian process of random variants and contested selection—the interpretation of experimental outcomes plays a prominent role. It is common to contrast learning processes with processes of selection. Our typical conceptions of learning processes are based on notions of reinforcement learning in which the proclivity to engage in a particular act is reinforced or diminished as a consequence of the association between that act and an observed outcome. However, in the strategy context, outcomes in terms of an ultimate consequence of a strategic action are typically rather distant in time from the “act.” Given this “distance,” the time between initiating a new product, mode of competing, entry into a new geography or market space, and the ultimate feedback regarding the wisdom of such an effort, interim judgments play a critical role in any adaptive efforts. [Moi ici: O papel dos indicadores do balanced scorecard como forma de avaliar se a execução da estratégia está a ocorrer como previsto e se os resultados estão a caminhar para o desejado]
...
when organizations define milestones and metrics around key success factors, they are constituting an artificial selection environment that guides the cultivation of initiatives within the firm. The virtue of such shaping rewards is that they may substantially speed up the feedback process relative to the feedback from the environment as to whether a given action or strategy is pushing forward along a promising track."

Continua.

Democratização da produção (Parte III)

Parte I e Parte II.

"The globalization manufacturing paradigms of the past few decades were primarily cost-cutting ventures built on traditional high-volume production schemes. Locating factories in regional hubs, typically in developing countries outside a manufacturer’s domestic market, was seen as a way to reduce labor expenses and form alliances with low-cost suppliers in these regions. And as long as the discount to operate in emerging nations was large enough to overcome logistics inefficiencies and time-to-market requirements, this approach was profitable and made perfect sense.
.
But a combination of trends is making this strategic approach obsolete — and is shifting value creation in production downstream toward customers and customization. For one thing, wage escalation in emerging nations and concerns about uncertain energy costs have eroded the perceived competitive advantage that multinationals sought from offshoring.
...
the growing importance of the “build where you sell” principle
...
More than anything, however, the rapidly morphing relationship between manufacturers and their consumers is at the heart of the point-of-demand revolution — and will have the most permanent impact on it. In all regions, but particularly in emerging nations as demand evolves and the middle class expands, customers increasingly expect products that match local cultural preferences, rather than homogeneous global brands and business-to-business services.
...
For the first time, customers can reasonably demand products from mainstream manufacturers that look and feel like they were made next door. And companies can expect increased customer loyalty when they meet these demands through personalization"

Cito isto e lembro-me da reacção da indústria automóvel incumbente a pedidos em pequena quantidade e com requisitos fora da caixa:

"Deutsche Post says it took this route when the conventional vehicle makers turned down requests to build the electric vans in what are limited numbers by their standards."

Também me lembro disto, "Comboio Vasco da Gama vai ligar Portugal à Alemanha em 2020". Da janela do meu escritório, a menos de 10 metros da linha do Norte vejo passar os comboios de mercadorias carregados de: eucalipto; brita; carvão; e cimento (eheheh escrevo isto, oiço o comboio a passar, levanto-me e é um comboio com contentores fechados). Não digo que seja impossível levar exportações das PMEs do Norte para a Europa Central, mas vai ser muito difícil. A variedade de destinos, as pequenas quantidades e as entregas rápidas não sei se podem ser conciliadas por quem tem o mindset noutro mundo. Fazem-me lembrar:

"Em 2009, com a forte quebra da produção automóvel, recordo as empresas produtoras de composto para esse sector, que com preços muito baixos tentaram fornecer os fabricantes de solas. Claro que a coisa não correu bem porque a indústria de calçado queria variedade e pequenas quantidades, não a monocor e as grandes quantidades. E a coisa deu para o torto." 

Continua.

Trechos retirados de "Manufacturing’s new world order - The rise of the point-of-demand model"

Uma das tendências do mercado actual

Um artigo interessante sobre uma das tendências do mercado actual "More Americans Are Living Solo, and Companies Want Their Business":

"More Americans than ever are living alone these days, and many don’t want to bake full-size cakes, buy eggs by the dozen, run half-loaded dishwashers or store 24-packs of toilet paper.
...
Consumer-products companies are taking note, catering to what they see as a lucrative market for single-person households by upending generations of family-focused product development and marketing. Appliance makers are shrinking refrigerators and ovens. Food companies are producing more single-serving options. Household-product makers are revamping packaging.
...
“We have to go beyond the paradigm of the middle-class family of four for growth, so smaller households have been a huge focus for us,”
...
Looking beyond the family of four, she says, “is a really big shift.”
...
Today, 35.7 million Americans live alone, 28% of households. That is up from 13% of households in 1960 and 23% in 1980, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Delayed or foregone marriage, [Moi ici: Ontem de manhã sentado no hall de um hotel, enquanto aguardava a chegada de uma pessoa, ouvia uma conversa de turistas brasileiras todas bem entradas na terceira idade. Uma delas dizia para as outras, com um toque de reprovação, que o filho de 34 anos nem pensava em casar] longer life expectancy, urbanization and wealth have contributed, demographers say.
...
Researchers have found many affluent, single-person households in urban areas tend to spend more per person than larger ones. They are often willing to spend more for a unit of something—twice as much, say, for chopped romaine as a whole head.
.
Some want smaller appliances but bigger closets, or prefer one huge roll of toilet paper over multiple backup rolls they must store somewhere. Many marketers approach single-person households with urban consumers in mind.
...
For generations, consumers favored appliances with the biggest capacity, so manufacturers have long boasted how many towels squeeze into a washing machine or how easily a large turkey slides into an oven. But small households usually choose appliances by finding which will best fit their space, companies say.
.
“They’re not trying to load every towel in from the pool,”"

Don’t design for average

“Don’t design for average.
Metrics, and especially averages, encourage you to focus on the middle of a market, but innovation happens at the extremes. You are more likely to come up with a good idea focusing on one outlier than on ten average users.”

Trechos retirados de "Alchemy: Or, the Art and Science of Conceiving Effective Ideas That Logical People Will Hate" de Rory Sutherland.

Não é nem roubo nem desigualdade

Recomendo uma reflexão baseada em dois textos de Niraj Dawar.

O primeiro texto é "The Critical Role Of Context In Building Brands" e parte do vídeo com alguns anos, que muitos terão visto, de um reputado violinista a tocar anonimamente no metro de Washington, quando dias antes tinha enchido o Symphony Hall de Boston com os bilhetes a $100. A mensagem de Dawar é: o contexto é tudo.

"But ultimately, where does context reside? In the mind of the customer. By creating context, marketers play with the customers’ mind. They shape it to create the most receptive setting for the brand and the product."

O meu ponto de vista é: não podemos servir todo o tipo de clientes e para alguns, ainda que o nosso produto ou serviço seja de topo, não seremos a melhor solução pois o resultado que procuram obter nas suas vidas pode ser conseguido com uma oferta alternativa, ou mais barata, ou mais fácil, ou mais luxuosa, ou mais amizade genuína, ou mais ...

O segundo texto é "Brands And The Consumer Hourglass Theory" e vai de encontro a muitos desabafos que faço quando vejo empresas a deixarem dinheiro em cima da mesa - Damn! It's not about the price!!!

"Citigroup calls it the Hourglass Theory. As income inequality increases, consumers are polarizing into two groups – the few looking for high-end, highly differentiated and high value-added products, and the many looking for value, and sometimes extreme value.
.
The middle, which was the staple target market of consumer goods companies since at least the mid-twentieth century, has shrunk, and continues to shrink." [Moi ici: Isto faz-nos recuar a 2005 e à polarização dos mercados]

O ponto de Dawar, com o qual estou totalmente de acordo, é que isto, o desaparecimento do mercado do meio termo, não acontece por causa do aumento das desigualdades económicas. Quantas pessoas conhecem com um bruto carrão, e que não têm onde cair mortas com dívidas? Quantos estudantes não querem gastar um cêntimo em livros e propinas, mas não hesitam em ir à discoteca da moda derreter dinheiro? [Apesar desta linguagem não faço julgamentos de valor, cada um é livre de decidir onde e como gastar o seu dinheiro, a menos que depois eu tenha de contribuir para fazer o bail-out de uns quaisquer lesados-[colocar nome dos maus de turno]]

"But while the data on income inequality are incontrovertible, there is another explanation for the hourglass that marketers should not rule out: attention scarcity.
.
What if the scarce commodity at the source of the hour glass is not so much consumer income or spending, but consumer interest and attention?
.
Consider for a moment that consumers now make thousands of purchase decisions in hundreds of product categories every year. They can’t possibly be experts in all of these product categories, nor do they have an interest in optimizing their choice in each product category. They just want something that will do the job."

Acredito profundamente nisto que se segue:

"for most of the thousands of choices consumers make, they merely want a reasonable product – give me something that works at a price that makes sense. This is the very definition of value.
Some consumers are willing to spend the time to learn about product categories about which they are passionate, and are usually also willing to spend more money on the better products in those categories. For all other product categories, they couldn’t care less.
...
So the bifurcation of the market into what looks like an hourglass occurs, but due to attention disparity, not income disparity.
.
If it is interest and consumer attention that are creating the hourglass"

Por isso, tento convencer os empresários que quando um concorrente conquista um cliente que entra num mercado pela primeira vez, o mais certo é que esse cliente ainda não esteja no patamar [de atenção] que os torna como a oferta mais adequada. O seu interesse e conhecimento vai ter de aumentar porque, por exemplo, querem subir na escala de valor, só nessa altura estarão maduros para uma outra oferta.

E no seu caso, como é?

Mongo e a liberdade de escolher

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

...

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

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

Interessante conjugar isto com:

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

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

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

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

"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"

No postal anterior abordámos o tema da quebra da procura do fast-fashion e uma certa aposta na qualidade.

"People are moving away from poorly made, inexpensive fashion items.
...
Payless was the shoe equivalent of fast fashion. The brand was not known for the quality or durability of its product, but competed largely on price."

Recordar, "Para reflexão pelos empresários do calçado e do têxtil":

"Dá que pensar no potencial impacte numa série de modelos de negócio baseados no fast-fashion... ou no low-cost."

Entretanto perante este descalabro:

Encontro, "The Lesson Of The Kraft Heinz Nosedive: Radical Cost-Cutting Is Out, Brands Are Back":

"Marketing budgets became a key target for the frugality drive of companies ever since the last recession. [Moi ici: Como é a memória... faz-me recordar qualquer coisa que li em 2007 sobre as marcas do FMCG... cá está, Kumar] Last year, budgets had decreased from 12.1% of average revenues in to 11.3% the previous year, according to consulting firm Gartner.
.
Predictably, with a focus on cost-cutting rather than growth, the financial health of corporate America is deteriorating. According to an analysis of the 2017 Fortune 500, 53% of corporates had experienced an after-tax profit decline, while only 47% saw profit growth. Marketing, once the driving force of America’s consumer society, has been in retreat for over a decade
...
The 3G Capital approach to business is ruthless and revolves around cost-cutting. Every employee must justify his existence every single day. Promotions are quick and merit-based, and underperformers get fired with the same alacrity. Budgets are zero based and evaluated unsparingly every year, or even sometimes with more frequency. Expenses are eliminated if they’re no longer judged worth incurring.[Moi ici: Oranges, como classificaria Laloux. A receita da tríade, e a paranoia do eficientismo]
.
In less than two years after merging Kraft with Heinz, its workforce was cut by 20% and overhead by 40%. Critics have long contended that 3G Capital’s cost-cutting went too far and came at the expense of growth. They turned out to be right. The problem with this philosophy is that you can’t cost-cut your way to growth.
...
Not surprisingly, what followed is sales declined for six quarters in a row. The wheels came off last Friday morning when Kraft Heinz stock dropped 30% at the open and the company lost $16 billion of its market value. The essential problem facing Kraft Heinz is that it stopped investing in its brands at a time when consumer tastes and behaviors are shifting, and the competitive environment is intensifying. [Moi ici: Seria interessante relacionar a #G Capital e as ideias Itamar Simonson]
.
It is time for companies to refocus on growth by investing in marketing, distribution and continued innovation, not adhere to a strategy of frugality alone.
...
Brands are more important than ever, as the world has come online and there are many new markets and a growing middle class in places like India, China, Brazil, Russia, South Africa, Nigeria, Indonesia, Turkey or Mexico. These consumers buy brands, not commoditized products. They buy premium brands. And branding is essential to differentiate itself in a world of parity and, in order to create brand preference.
.
Remember, brands do better in tough times compared to unbranded products and brands outlive product cycles."

O que escrevi sobre a ideia de Simonson: o fim das marcas:

• Plataformas, Mongo, emprego e confiança nas marcas (Fevereiro de 2016)
• Leu aqui há vários anos... (Julho de 2014)
• O jogo de sedução pode ir para muito mais longe (Abril de 2014)
• O papel da marca em Mongo (Fevereiro de 2014)

Recordar também os marcadores hollowing, radio clube, muggles, eficientismo e tríade. Por exemplo, acerca das marcas ocas:

• Marcas que viraram carcaças (bonitas por fora mas ocas) (Setembro de 2016)

"Uber", Mongo e a educação (parte II)

Parte I.

Mais uma peça para a construção de uma reflexão sobre o futuro da educação em Mongo em "Young Americans need to be taught skills, not handed credentials":

"One recent survey found that 43 per cent of college grads are underemployed.
.
This certainly mirrors what I hear from chief executives, many of whom tell me they cannot find the skills they need either at the top or the bottom of the socio-economic ladder. Ivy League colleges are great for those who can afford them but most education has become completely disconnected from the needs of both students and the labour market.
.
There are plenty of MBAs who can read a balance sheet but have neither operational nor soft skills. Four-year business administration graduates are settling for low wage gigs, while $20-an-hour manufacturing jobs go unfilled because employers can’t find anyone with vocational training.
.
Desperate companies are trying to plug the gap — telecoms group AT&T has set up an internal online course to train the 95 per cent of those in its own technology and services unit that have inadequate ability in Stem subjects — Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths. Walmart Academy has trained thousands of workers, including in basic skills they should have learnt in high schools.
...
Perhaps the most successful and scalable bridging of the skills and credentials gap thus far has been the P-Tech high school, initially started by IBM as a way to create a middle-market talent pool and now said to run with 500 other industry partners in 110 schools in eight states."

Voltaremos ao século XIX? A escola pública existe para servir os funcionários,

2/2 voltaremos a ver a genuína escola comercial oliveira martins no porto, suportada pelo sector e independente do ministério da educação?

— Carlos P da Cruz (@ccz1) October 6, 2015

"Então, veio-me à mente a conversa deste mês de Agosto com estudante da FCUP do curso de Ciências de Computação. Segundo ele, o curso foi objecto de reformulação há dois anos. No entanto, continua a não dar toda uma série de linguagens de programação que as empresas precisam mas que os professores não dominam, nem têm motivação para aprender (esse estudante passou parte do mês de Agosto a estudar programação para Android nos cursos da Udacity).
.
Se a FCUP optasse por contratar professores para darem aulas sobre essas linguagens os professores incumbentes sofreriam."

Daqui, de onde também recordo:

"Há uma frase feita qualquer acerca das organizações que se aplica como uma luva neste caso:
Quando a velocidade da mudança no exterior, no contexto, no entorno de uma organização, é muito maior que a velocidade a que essa organização consegue mudar... temos outra Torre de Babel:"