"Strategy is Not a To Do List, It Drives a To Do List"

"“You stupid x?!x. These strategies are mutually exclusive. Executing both of them would put us out of business.  You don’t have a clue about what the purpose of marketing is because all you are doing is executing a series of tasks like they’re like a big To Do list. Without understanding why you’re doing them, you’re dangerous as the VP of Marketing, in fact you’re just a glorified head of marketing communications.”
.
Strategy is Not a To Do List, It Drives a To Do List
...
Once I understood the strategy, the To Do list became clear. It allowed me to prioritize what I did, when I did it and instantly understand what would be mutually exclusive."

Por isso é que a última actividade na sequência é: o que vamos fazer na próxima segunda-feira?


Recordar "Strategy is not a to do list"

Trechos retirados de "Strategy is Not a To Do List"

As marcas da Amazon

"The bottom line for brands is they can no longer view Amazon as solely a channel and need to acknowledge them as a competitor.""

A loja como concorrente das marcas dos fabricantes. É o cúmulo!!! E as marcas dos fabricantes que se queixavam do aperto nas margens, de repente, ficam sem prateleiras!
.
Em mercados comoditizados as marcas dos fabricantes concentram-se tanto no seu umbigo, na eficiência, que deixam de ser marcas para os consumidores.
.
A memória recua a 2007, a leituras na estação do Carregado, e faz-me ir buscar:

"Manufacturer brands seem to be moving in the wrong direction. While industries with higher advertising intensity tend to have lower private label share, companies are increasingly diverting money away from advertising to promotions.
...
Diverting money from communicating with customers to retailer support is the beginning of a vicious cycle for manufacturer brands. As manufacturer brands spend less building their brands with end consumers, they lose brand equity with the ultimate arbiter in the marketplace. This increases the relative power of retailers and their negotiating power. As a result, manufacturer brands are subject to even greater concessions by retailers. In order to fund these concessions to retailers, manufacturer brands divert more money from consumer communications to retailers.
...
As reseller equity goes up, to maintain balance, manufacturer brands have to spend more rather than less money communicating with customers."

No limite, o dono da prateleira interroga-se: por que devo dar margem a outros quando posso colocar à venda um produto tão bom ou melhor?
.
Amazon a caminho de tornar-se uma espécie de Decathlon ou IKEA.

Trecho inicial retirado de "Amazon’s private label brands are killing it"

Trechos retirados de "Private Label Strategy" 

Curiosidade do dia

"Para muitos especialistas, Portugal deve aproveitar para apostar em produtos onde já é muito  competitivo, nomeadamente, o vinho, o azeite e o queijo."

Uma pessoa fica logo elucidada acerca dos ditos "especialistas" quando:

• a economia de Portugal é resumida à agro-indústria;
• acham que somos competitivos no queijo (LOL);

Farto deste voluntarismo e desta ignorância.

Trecho retirado de "CETA. Uma lança para Portugal aumentar as vendas para o Canadá"

O mundo a mudar

Ontem ao final da tarde na minha caixa de correio electrónico caiu um convite para uma acção de demonstração:

Agora reparem no teor da demonstração:

"A KYAIA - Fortunato O. Frederico, Lda. implementou em consórcio com a FLOWMAT - Sistema Industriais, Lda., Silva & Ferreira Lda., Creative Systems, Lda., CEI - Companhia de Equipamentos Industriais, Lda, INESC TEC- Instituto de Engenharia de Sistemas e Computadores, Tecnologia e Ciência, FEUP - Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto e CTCP - Centro Tecnológico do Calçado de Portugal o projeto de I&D HSSF - High Speed Shoe Factory.
.
Este projeto teve como objetivo conceber, desenvolver e implementar um novo modelo de fábrica de calçado para resposta ágil em 24 horas, orientado para a produção unitária par a par, capaz de responder sem stocks, às vendas pela internet, às pequenas encomendas e reposições de produtos em loja e ao fabrico rápido das amostras."

O mundo a mudar, as tentativas para ir encontrando resposta, respostas que por sua vez permitem mais mudança num bailado de co-evolução.

"It was just what the 20th century was about: mass production"

 Daqui "Сhristos Passas (Zaha Hadid Architects): It is interesting to work in Russia, but the approval process is complicated here" sublinho este trecho que parece retirado aqui do blogue:

"we do not have any ready-made solutions. We do not believe in mass produced architecture. We believe in mass customization, making everything unique, not making everything the same. Of course, the idea of repetition has something to do with the mode of production we had at the beginning of the 20th century, with machines that would repetitively do the same job, so that you got standard, high-quality products — but it was the same from one to the other. It was just what the 20th century was about: mass production — and if you wanted to have something individualized, you could change the colour, or, say, the buttons.
.
Christos Passas: “We do not believe in mass produced architecture. We believe in mass customization, making everything unique, not making everything the same”
Nowadays, I think, the mode of production is changing. It is very important, because the machines we are using today for fabrication, for construction, are so agile that they can produce unique objects in every case."

Recordar:

• Magnitograd versus Mongo
• O século XX começou há  100 anos
• A marca do século XXI

Um tema que tem tudo a ver com "Budweiser's Battle for Beer Market Dominance Hinges on the U.S.":

"“Small brewers have been growing in market share since the late ’70s and early ’80s, but for a long time they were too tiny to pose any threat to the bigger brands,” he says. “Only in the past 10 years have they really made themselves known, with more than 20 percent of the market in dollar sales.” By volume, their share also is going up, with craft beers representing 12.2 percent of the U.S. market in 2015, he says, and they will likely hit a peak this year.
.
Craft concoctions can do many things the big beers can’t, like offer greater variety, fuller flavor and snappier names (Pepperation H, Apocalypse Cow and Citra Ass Down) or humorous mottos appealing to locals and tourists, like Utah’s Polygamy Pale Ale (“Try one and you’ll want another, and another, and another...”). Watson says craft brewers also tend to be deeply involved with their communities and are highly philanthropic, bolstering brand loyalty in a way the monster beer makers cannot."

"Because if nobody hates it, nobody loves it"

O @armando_moreira chamou-me a atenção para um artigo de Ray Algar no número de Outubro da revista "Health Club Management". Escreverei amanhã sobre ele.
.
Hoje, sublinho um trecho que capturou a minha atenção:

"Mobile devices will be used for sign-up and access, and membership is fully flexible: pay per use or pay on a weekly basis — and even with the latter, if you want to leave, you only have to give that week plus one more week's notice. It's designed to give power to the consumer. We're trying to create the ultimate, flexible, user-friendly fitness experience for this target market.
.
It's a risk, because only about 800,000 people in Denmark belong to a health club — and of those 800,000, we're expecting a significant number will come into our gym and think it's the worst place they've ever been. In fact, if that isn't happening, we won't have done our job properly. Because if nobody hates it, nobody loves it.
.
I come back to clothing. Obviously you can make something that will fit almost everybody and look OK on them — but it wouldn't make a statement Not about the person developing it, nor the person wearing it. We're definitely making a statement with our clubs."

Como não recordar:

• Assim, talvez ter inimigos entre os clientes ou ex-clientes seja bom sinal (Parte I e parte II)
• Justin Bieber e o preço da diferença

Humanos e máquinas

"In his 2013 book, “Average Is Over,” Mr. Cowen briefly mentioned how two average human chess players, working with three regular computers, were able to beat both human chess champions and chess-playing supercomputers.
.
It was a revelation for Mr. Work. You could “use the tactical ingenuity of the computer to improve the strategic ingenuity of the human,” he said."

Trecho retirado de "The Pentagon’s ‘Terminator Conundrum’: Robots That Could Kill on Their Own"

Conjugar com "Man and machine: The new collaborative workplace of the future":

"At Ford's factory in Cologne, Germany, a new kind of robot is sitting by the assembly line helping manufacture the legendary automaker's cars. But these collaborative robots, or co-bots, aren't replacing their human counterparts at this Ford Fiesta plant. Instead, they're working side by side with 4,000 Ford factory workers, and not for them.
...
"It's not just the use of co-bots — it's the reduction of industrial robots," said Frank Tobe, a robotics expert and publisher of "The Robot Report." "The traditional caged robot at auto factories is becoming obsolete, because every car is different from every other car."
.
Manufacturing precisely configured vehicles where customers choose details like the trim of the dash or the caps of tire valves is not a task for large industrial robots, which have trouble adapting to an age of mass customization in part because they constantly have to be reprogrammed."

Recordar:

• Para recordar ...
• "humans and machines will work together"

Curiosidade do dia

Recordo muitas vezes a palavra histerese quando penso no desemprego.
.
Usava-a muito em Fenómenos de Transferência, sobretudo associada à adsorção.

Quando o fenómeno corre no sentido da adsorção tem um comportamento diferente de quando corre a dessorção.
.
Por que penso agora em histerese?
.
Por causa do desemprego e do salário mínimo.
.
Ao longo da década de 90 do século passado tivemos uma evolução dos custos de mão-de-obra no sector do têxtil e vestuário que pode servir de avatar para o que se passou nos outros sectores da economia transaccionável:

À medida que o país adoptava um modelo mental que considerava os sectores tradicionais como obsoletos e incapazes de se ajustarem ao mundo novo, e os sectores não-transaccionáveis como a nova última Coca-Cola no meio do deserto, os salários iam subindo muito acima da produtividade e as fábricas iam fechando. Quem não se lembra da facilidade com que se dizia que se uma fábrica não consegue pagar o novo salário mínimo deve fechar.
.
Nessa altura, mesmo que os salários não tivessem subido, mesmo que os salários tivessem baixado, o resultado final teria sido o mesmo, a única coisa que variaria seria a velocidade de destruição de emprego e das fábricas como resultado da adesão da China à Organização Mundial do Comércio (ver tabela acima). Como não recordar o choque de 18 de Fevereiro de 2008, foi o ponto onde começou o comeback.
.
Depois da travessia do deserto, no início de 2008  escrevi aqui que o pior para os sectores transaccionáveis tinha passado. O sector do calçado é um exemplo paradigmático dessa evolução.

Quando a troika chegou, os políticos e os Sarumans do costume (a tríade) estavam sempre a falar do sector transaccionável, que era preciso baixar salários para o salvar: TRETA!
.
Lembram-se de em 2012 andarem todos à nora com um famoso relatório sobre o desemprego? Esse relatório demonstrava, contra a ideia do mainstream que quanto mais um sector económico em Portugal estava aberto ao exterior menos desemprego tinha.
.
Regressemos à actualidade. Esta semana escrevi esta "Curiosidade do dia" e hoje mesmo "Um peu partout". Entretanto, no Twitter aparecem muitas bocas acerca da evolução do desemprego e da subida do salário mínimo. Olhando para a força do reshoring em curso, tema que passa completamente ao lado de artigos como este "A Little-Noticed Fact About Trade: It’s No Longer Rising" e que se traduz em números como estes:

Unemployment rates in European Union countries: @EU_Eurostat pic.twitter.com/WKa7FpcvBP

— Alvaro SantosPereira (@santospereira_a) November 3, 2016

Podemos pensar que ainda poderíamos ter uma evolução melhor.
.
No entanto, o ponto deste postal é outro: como está a evoluir o emprego nos sectores não-transaccionáveis? Interessante que agora no sector privado quem mais tem falado contra o aumento do salário mínimo seja a Confederação do Comércio e Serviços, precisamente o subsector privadoque mais subiu os salários durante a orgia despesista até à troika.
.
Agora o massacre é e será nesta área por causa do comércio online, por causa da demografia, por causa do fraco poder de compra e porque a dinâmica de crescimento actual está nos sectores transaccionáveis. O perfil de criação de desemprego com o aumento do salário mínimo é diferente e é mais do que compensado pela dinâmica do reshoring.

Un peu partout

Um pouco por todo o lado sintomas do reshoring, desta vez até na anquilosada França:

"Ils sont jeunes, fins gestionnaires, passionnés surtout. Prêts à réveiller une vieille industrie qu'on croyait éteinte: la confection. Elle ne représente plus que 10.000 emplois sur les 57.000 de l'industrie textile française. Mais de plus en plus d'entrepreneurs décident de reprendre des ateliers. Grâce à eux, bien des marques de luxe, ou plus accessibles, proposent ou peuvent à nouveau propose un «made in France» de plus en plus en vogue."

Trechos retirados de "Ils réveillent le «mode in France»"

"43% of managers cannot state their own strategy"

Gostei muito deste artigo, "Make Strategic Thinking Part of Your Job":

"How can we implement strategic thinking if we’re not even sure what it looks like? [Moi ici: Tema demasiado importante para um consultor que trabalha a formulação e implementação de estratégias. Se os potenciais clientes não sabem o que é como vão procurar ajuda?]
...
44% of managers spent most of their time firefighting in cultures that rewarded reactivity and discouraged thoughtfulness. Nearly all leaders (96%) claimed they lacked time for strategic thinking, again, because they were too busy putting out fires.[Moi ici: Como devem imaginar isto não são números acerca dos empresários portugueses]
...
Unfortunately, for many executives, the connection between their role and the strategic contribution they should make is not so obvious.[Moi ici: OMG]
...
Roger Martin’s research, which found that 43% of managers cannot state their own strategy. [Moi ici: OMG] Executives with less clarity must work harder to etch out the line of sight between their role and its impact on the organization’s direction. In some cases, shedding the collection of bad habits that have consumed how they embody their role will be their greatest challenge to embodying strategic thinking.
...
One study found that only 14% of people understood their company’s strategy and only 24% felt the strategy was linked to their individual accountabilities. Most executives mistakenly assume that repeated explanations through dense PowerPoint presentations are what increases understanding and ownership of strategy.
...
Sound strategic thinking doesn’t have to remain an abstract mystery only a few are able to realize. Despite the common complaint, it’s not the result of making time for it. Executives must extract themselves from day-to-day problems and do the work that aligns their job with the company’s strategy. [Moi ici: Não é fácil! O empresário com quem almocei ontem gosta é de estar a aprender técnica e a aplicá-la. Visitar clientes, interagir com eles é um sacrifício] They need to be armed with insights that predict where best to focus resources."

"This is called value‐based pricing" (parte II)

Parte I.

"Value‐based pricing results from value engineering. As a construct, it works from the premise that in order for the firm to serve customer needs profitably, it needs to understand what those customers need and what they will pay to have their needs met. That is, value‐based pricing seeks to identify the value an offering delivers from the customer’s perspective and then charge accordingly.[Moi ici: Como ontem conversava ao almoço com um empresário, não é cobrar mais porque se consegue dar a volta ao cliente, é cobrar mais porque o cliente reconhece mais valor]
.
Value‐based pricing requires approaching pricing challenges through the lens of detecting and understanding value from the customer’s perspective. It requires gathering facts that can be constructed into meaningful information about what needs customers have, how an offer will impact those needs, and how valuable that impact is, all from the customer’s perspective.
.
Value‐based pricing isn’t a specific technique or process, but rather a paradigm for managing exchanges between the firm and its customers. As a paradigm, it flows across the firm’s decision‐making process. It defines the context through which all pricing and strategic competitive positioning decisions are made.
.
If value‐based pricing relies on understanding value from the customer’s perspective, then what is that value? That is, what value is relevant for pricing decisions?
.
The total value a customer receives from a product is the difference between the total benefits the product or service delivers and the total price the customer must pay to receive that bundle of benefits.
…
the relevant meaning of value for customers is not an absolute, total value construct but a relative, differentia value construct.
.
Differential value is the difference in value delivered to customers by choosing one firm’s offer compared to that delivered by choosing an alternative offer.
…
The concept of differential value, ΔV, covers both hard, calculable issues and softer, perceptual issues."

Trechos retirados de "Pricing Done Right"

Context Map Canvas

Quem trabalha com a ISO 9001:2015 vai sorrir ao reconhecer a parte da cláusula 4.1 sobre compreender o contexto de uma organização ao olhar para este "Context MapÒ Canvas"

Consultar:

• How to Understand Your Market (and Crusg the Competition) (que segunda parte do título mais inadequada)
• Get Clarity on the World Around You and Your Business With the Context Map

Curiosidade do dia

A propósito de:

"A taxa de desemprego situou-se em Setembro nos 10,8%, segundo a estimativa provisória divulgada pelo Instituto Nacional de Estatística (INE), que reviu em baixa os valores de Agosto para 10,9%, face à estimativa inicial de 11%."

Há dias estive em empresa industrial que teve de recorrer a trabalho temporário, não porque quisesse mas porque era a maneira mais rápida de contratar trabalhador que pretende integrar nos quadros.
.
Hoje estive em empresa que colocou anúncio no jornal para contratar trabalhador. O entrevistado que mais gostaram e queriam contratar teve de recusar porque a empresa de trabalho temporário com a qual tem contrato actualmente o "ameaçou" (algo estúpido, porque seria sinal de que um trabalhador temporário teria mais dificuldades em se despedir que um trabalhador contratado) (parece outra versão do mundo das taxas negativas) mas suficiente para amedrontar o tal trabalhador).
.
Acrescentar "Turn, turn, turn" e cenas como esta "Spain Runs Out of Workers With Almost 5 Million Unemployed".
.
Ouvem alguém nos media tradicionais a relatar estas coisas?
.
Pois, convém não estragar a narrativa de alguns.

"taking responsibility for making it a success"

"I also knew that most people in large organizations like ours would have a hard time joining movements like the one we started. It’s not that they don’t want to. It’s just that most of the time, executing today’s strategy using current information is the more comfortable path. That’s what we all learn to do in school, after all. But using yesterday’s information to execute yesterday’s strategy is a terrible excuse for not moving forward. All of the information in the world will not guarantee success if it’s based on yesterday. Sure, you can hire third parties to design your vision and strategy for you. But then you’re not taking responsibility for making it a success."

Trecho retirado de "Design a Better Business: New Tools, Skills, and Mindset for Strategy and Innovation"

"This is called value‐based pricing"

"Value‐engineered firms focus every aspect of their deliverables to customers on what adds value in excess of the costs to produce and then execute against that mandate.
.
That is, in value engineering, the firm works backward from the customer’s needs and value to define the firm’s actions. [Moi ici: Como não recordar a Viarco] Value engineered firms strive to understand their customers’ willingness to pay for different benefits in defining the target price of the offering. From this target price, a target cost is identified that ensures profitable customer interactions. Using the target cost and the target need to be addressed, all attributes of the offering are redefined to ensure market goals are met.
.
In drilling down on the issue of value engineering, we confront a simple fact of competitive free markets: customers have alternative choices. Customers can buy from the firm, its competitors, or do nothing at all. Hence, it isn’t enough to deliver value to customers; value‐engineered firms focus on delivering value in excess of their competitors for their select customer segment.
.
In setting prices, rather than focusing on costs and markups, value engineered firms work from an understanding of their customers willingness to pay. This is called value‐based pricing. In value‐based pricing, a firm identifies those prices that most closely match customers’ willingness to pay without leaving money on the table nor entering into unprofitable or unhealthy transactions.
.
Value‐based pricing is not cost‐plus pricing. It does not always start from the costs to produce and add a markup. This is a good thing. Too often, cost‐plus pricing either (1) sets prices far below a customer’s willingness to pay and therefore leaves money on the table or (2) sets prices so high that few, if any, customers will purchase at that price.
.
Starting with an understanding of what customers value - from their perspective, not the firm’s  - results in a culture of value‐based pricing.
.
As for competitors and competitive pricing, value engineering positions competitive offerings as an alternative choice for the target customer. It doesn’t ignore competitive prices. Instead, it accounts for their role in engineering the value proposition itself. It suggests that if firms want to outdo their competitors, they have to out‐serve their customers—profitably."

Trechos retirados de "Pricing Done Right"

“Manufacturing bootstraps people out of poverty.”

Muitos Sarumans, do alto das suas colunas de marfim, quase todos lesboetas (naturais ou emigrados), desprezam as PME industriais dos sectores tradicionais, não lhes dão pica, não são boas para eles aparecerem em reportagens ou em revistas de social travestido de economia.
.
Como ocupo a posição oposta, gostei muito de ler "Small Factories Emerge as a Weapon in the Fight Against Poverty":

"What altered Mr. Branch’s fate? There was his own discipline, of course, like completing a two-year course in metalwork between his shifts at Popeyes. Or getting up at 3:45 a.m. and taking three buses to avoid being late for his first factory job.
.
But his success is also because of the unlikely survival of Marlin Steel, a rare breed: the urban industrial manufacturer.
.
Marlin is a thriving factory in a place where, over the last half-century, factories have fled — first to the South, and later to Asia. That flight haunts the United States perhaps most in its urban areas — especially neighborhoods that once housed the nation’s working class — and helps explain why many African-Americans in particular today live in poverty in metropolises like Baltimore, Detroit, Newark and St. Louis.
…
small manufacturers like Marlin are vital if the United States is to narrow the nation’s class divide and build a society that offers greater opportunities for everyone — rich and poor, black and white, high school graduates and Ph.D.s.
.
“The closing of factories has taken the rungs out of the ladder for reaching the middle class in urban areas,”
…
Many service jobs do not pay as well, nor do they offer the same opportunities for advancement. And as the service sector has expanded in recent decades, less-educated workers in big cities have largely been bypassed as demand has grown for well-compensated professionals in what Mr. Johnson calls F.T.E., or finance, technology and electronics.
.
“Manufacturing jobs involve a skill base that you develop over time, and that fortifies your negotiating strength,” Mr. Johnson said. But in lower-skilled jobs, the competition is with someone who will do the same work for less. “The marketplace doesn’t give you any leverage,” he said.
…
Today, smaller plants are particularly important to job creation in factory work, … “Small manufacturing is holding its own — and you are seeing some interesting developments in urban centers.”
.
Out of 252,000 manufacturing companies in the United States, only 3,700 had more than 500 workers. The vast majority employ fewer than 20.
…
While they may not rival the scale of 1950s assembly lines, these smaller “craft type” producers hold out hope for cities, Mr. Paul said, particularly as some companies look to move jobs back from overseas to be closer to customers and more nimble to supply customized, small-batch orders.
.
What is more, these jobs pay people more.”"

Depois, uma queixa que este blogue percebe bem a discriminação dos governos contra os pequenos a favor dos grandes:

"In addition to uniquely local challenges like these, Marlin — along with plenty of other small manufacturing companies — faces a forbidding landscape simply because of its size. “I’m not Under Armour. I can’t get concessions,” Mr. Greenblatt said, referring to the giant sports clothing company that received hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks and other subsidies as part of a plan to build a new headquarters here."

A propósito da Marlin Steel, fábrica citada no artigo, recomendo a leitura de:

• A receita deste blogue (parte I e parte II)

É interessante que uma fábrica que serve de base à demonstração empírica de como funciona a minha abordagem com as PME sirva, por sua vez, de exemplo para ilustrar como estas PME são muito importantes e necessárias para o funcionamento de uma economia com espaço para todos, mesmo os que abandonaram a escola.

"People, not businesses, buy products"

Julgo que esta é a última citação decorrente da leitura de "When coffee and kale compete" e é acerca de um tema relevante para o meu trabalho nas empresas: os ecossistemas da procura:

"People, not businesses, buy products. Some are tempted to treat B and D differently than A and C. The case is made that there are differences between what is called business to business (B2B) and business to customer (B2C) markets. I don’t make any such distinction. From a JTBD point of view, there’s not much difference between children asking their parents to take them to Disneyland and employees asking their bosses to get them better equipment.
.
What matters to us are: (1) do multiple people have varying degrees of influence on the decision and (2) what kind of progress is everyone trying to make with a particular product – regardless if they are using it, buying it or both.[Moi ici: Recordar o Gabinete de Arquitectura deste postal]
.
When multiple systems interact. Instead of segregating B2B markets from B2C markets, I suggest we make the distinction between products that interact with one system of progress (what we’ve studied thus far and what most call B2C products), and those that interact with multiple systems of progress 

Everyone expects a product to help them make progress, regardless if they don’t buy it or use it directly.
…
Study the system, not just “users” and “choosers”. One of the most important principles of JTBD is solutions and Jobs should be thought of as parts of a system that work together to deliver progress to customers."

Recordar este postal e a figura:

 Recordar também "Ecossistemas dentro de um cliente", "O ecossistema da procura das parafarmácias", "Acerca do ecossistema da procura" e "Como é o ecossistema da sua organização?"

Curiosidade do dia

Continuem com a eucaliptação desenfreada e depois digam que a culpa é do clima, "Península Ibérica pode transformar-se num deserto até ao final do século".

Os piores do mundo

Para os que acham que os empresários portugueses são os piores do mundo:

• Comparar calçado espanhol e calçado português;
• Comparar vinho espanhol e vinho português;
• Comparar hortaliças espanholas com hortaliças portuguesas.

Turn, turn, turn

Ontem o @nticomuna chamou a atenção para "China as Factory to World Mulls the Unthinkable: Price Hikes" que descreve uma tendência já há muito antecipada neste blogue:

"China’s factories may be on the cusp of delivering a new shock to the global economy after years of undercutting rivals with cheaper costs. This time, increases in prices could reverberate around the world."

Recordar:

• "o impacte da "reversão" da maré da globalização" (Setembro de 2016)
• O maior risco (Agosto de 2016) (atenção ao maior risco)
• Tit for tat (Março de 2016)
• Curiosidade do dia (Janeiro de 2016)
• Implicações para Portugal? (Novembro de 2015)
• Passamos ao nível seguinte do jogo? (Fevereiro de 2015)
• “This industry doesn’t have a future in China” (Dezembro de 2013) (Pimenta no XXX dos outros é refresco. Tão fácil ver o que eles precisam de aprender a fazer... subir na escala de valor, seguir a lição de Berger: Não existem indústrias obsoletas, existem sim estratégias obsoletas)
• Curiosidade do dia (Fevereiro de 2013)
• Por que não se fala nisto? (Abril de 2012)
• A re-industrialização do Ocidente (Fevereiro de 2012)

Há um tempo para tudo, o eterno retorno.

"The value is in the experience"

"It is all about the customer experience these days. That is where the value lies for any businesses wanting to attract and to serve customers.
...
“The value is in the experience: it won’t go down in price, and no one can steal it.” It is more than a wrapping; the customer experience is now very much a part of the product. The how has become part of the what."

Trechos retirados de "The end of the captive audience: why airports need to develop their value chain"

Vantagens e desvantagens comparativas

Para os que acham que que temos de ser auto-suficientes em pleno século XXI, custe o que custar, eis um cheirinho da coisa em "That Boom You Hear Is Ukraine’s Agriculture".
.
Recordar David Ricardo e o vinho português conjugado com os têxteis ingleses.

Curiosidade do dia

"Fazer parte desse país-Estado ou conseguir ser tratado por ele de uma forma diferenciadamente privilegiada gera um sentimento de casta. E se essa diferenciação choca no momento da atribuição de poderes, então que termo usar para descrever a absoluta tolerância para com a ineficácia e a irresponsabilidade, desde que praticadas em nome do Estado?
...
Denominador comum a todos estes casos: um país em que o Estado não se coíbe de legislar a seu favor, cria excepções que isentam os seus protegidos dos deveres, razoáveis ou injustos, que impõe aos demais e sabe que no fim pode sempre lançar mais uma taxa ou alterar um imposto para ir buscar o dinheiro que está em falta. Na verdade a casta a si perdoa quase tudo. Só não perdoa que lhe toquem no que chama seu, a saber o Estado mais os seus regimes especiais, as suas excepções, as suas parcerias privilegiadas, os seus estatutos únicos…"

Trechos retirados de "A casta"

Oportunidades e ISO 9001 (parte II)

Parte I.

À hora a que este postal é publicado estarei numa empresa a discutir, entre outros temas, o esquema da figura que pretende representar a primeira ronda de caracterização de um processo.
.
Fusão de duas empresas, crescimento muito forte e introdução de um novo ERP foram os motivos para repensar o processo "Subcontratar produção".
.
A caracterização ainda está muito "verde". A preto aquilo que parecem ser as etapas fundamentais. A azul as actividades realizadas e a vermelho algumas chamadas de atenção a considerar na reunião de hoje.
.
No final pergunto:

• O que está mal?
• O que falta?

Depois, num outro registo:

• O que pode correr mal?
• O que devemos melhorar?
• Que oportunidades de melhoria?

Isto saiu-me naturalmente, sem pensar:

• O que pode correr mal? (estamos a falar de riscos)
• O que devemos melhorar? (estamos a falar de oportunidades)

"fazer emergir o que já funciona bem"

Recordei logo este postal, "A ideia é um resultado, não um começo", e os outros postais nele referidos, quando li "Need a strategy? Let it grow like a weed in the
garden":

"1.Strategies grow initially like weeds in a garden; they are not cultivated like tomatoes in a hothouse. In other words, the process of creating strategies can be over-managed. Sometimes it is more important to let ideas emerge than to force a premature consistency on the organization. Allow those strategies to form, as patterns, not having to be formulated, as plans. The hothouse, if needed, can come later.
2. These strategies can take root in all kinds of strange places, virtually wherever people have the capacity to learn and the resources to support that capacity.
...
3. Ideas become strategies when they pervade the organization.
...
4. The processes of proliferation may or may not be consciously managed.
...
Of course, once strategies are recognized as valuable, the processes by which they proliferate can be managed, just as plants can be selectively propagated. Then it may be time to build that hothouse - make that emergent strategy  deliberate going forward.
.
5. There is a time to sow strategies and a time to reap them.
...
Managers have to appreciate when to exploit an established crop of strategies and when to encourage new strains to replace them.
.
6. Hence to manage this process is not to preconceive strategies but to recognize their emergence and intervene when appropriate."

Formalizar uma estratégia para uma PME passa muito pelo ponto 4, pesquisar, investigar, fazer emergir o que já funciona bem, o que pode ser a base para uma estratégia sustentável com base no que a empresa já faz de melhor mas pode estar escondido por muita tralha.

O nosso mantra

 O nosso mantra de há muitos anos: diferenciação e flexibilidade para fugir do preço como order-winner

"O “fabricado em Portugal” é muito apreciado e não é por acaso que os grandes grupos têm cá produções.
...
As nossas quantidades não são as mesmas de quem tem cinco ou seis mil lojas no mundo. Temos é de desenvolver produtos diferentes, com uma qualidade diferente. Ninguém nos vem dizer que não compra por causa da qualidade – não quer dizer que não haja reclamações, há e estamos cá para as atender. O desafio é recuperar a marca. Quando há diferenciação, o preço não é a chave. Quando fazemos coisas diferentes, as peças esgotam.
.
Os clientes pagam mais por peças diferentes.
.
Sim, não é pelo preço. Quer queiramos, quer não – e sou o primeiro a elogiar todo o grupo Inditex – a verdade é que é um mass market. Encontrar duas mulheres vestidas de igual é normal. Temos a noção de que, ao fazermos 100 peças, a probabilidade de isso acontecer é muito menor. Na área da criança tem corrido mesmo bem porque nos diferenciámos muito bem. Não é o mais barato, mas não somos iguais a uma Zara.
...
“Queremos desenvolver competências ainda maiores, ser mais flexíveis e com capacidade de abastecimento”"

Trechos retirados de "“O ‘fabricado em Portugal’ é muito apreciado lá fora”" e "Lanidor regressa às origens com investimento de 1,8 milhões"

BTW, o problema de quem não segue os nossos conselhos de by-pass ao país:

"As lojas ficaram sem clientes. Funcionárias públicas, professoras, juízas, a “base sólida” da marca deixou de comprar ou comprou muito menos. As vendas foram “caindo, caindo”. “Houve alturas em que nos questionávamos onde iríamos parar porque cada mês era pior do que o anterior”"

Acerca da medição da satisfação dos clientes

Ao longo dos anos tenho referido aqui algumas das dúvidas existenciais que sinto sempre que se fala de medição da satisfação dos clientes no âmbito dos sistemas de gestão da qualidade segundo a ISO 9001.
.
Recordo:

• Medir o Grau de Satisfação dos Clientes para quê? (Setembro de 2006)

"Na minha humilde opinião, uma organização deve avaliar a opinião dos seus clientes, para ter acesso a informação privilegiada sobre o que é prioritário: onde agir, onde investir, para melhorar o desempenho da organização aos olhos de quem a sustenta, de quem lhes paga as facturas."

• Avaliar o grau de satisfação dos clientes? (Julho de 2009) 

"Cada vez mais, estou convencido de que o que devíamos perguntar aos clientes era outra coisa. Não somos perfeitos, não há empresas perfeitas. Por outro lado, quando olhamos para a relação entre a nossa empresa e os clientes não conseguimos descalçar os sapatos de fornecedor e calçar os de cliente. Assim, como não somos perfeitos, por que não usar os inquéritos e entrevistas para pedir aos clientes, em primeira mão, opiniões sobre onde devemos melhorar, onde devemos investir os nossos esforços de melhoria? Onde é que a nossa posição de fornecedores impede que vejamos lacunas, pontos fracos, indutores de aborrecimento?"

• Não é armadilhar, é arte (Julho de 2011)

"Mas qual é o objectivo de uma empresa, ter pontuações elevadas nas avaliações da satisfação dos clientes, ou ganhar dinheiro de forma sustentada?
...
Mandar às malvas a satisfação geral e apostar nos pontos que ajudam a "fazer batota", que ajudam a criar e alargar a diferenciação? "

Ao chegar ao capítulo 20, "Interviewing customers" de "When Coffee and Kale Compete" de Alan Klement encontro matéria para continuar a remoer:

"Our investigation’s just cause determines whom we interview, how we interview them, and what data we get from them.
...
Habits change our brains and invalidate data we gather from observational studies. Ethnography is a research philosophy designed to study the behaviors of people as they are. There is no intent to gather data for the purposes of affecting cause systems. For this reason, ethnography’s data are helpful to anthropologists but not suited for innovation.
...
our brains change when we develop habits.

In the beginning, most of the brain activity occurs as we execute the task. This is the “sense-making” part where our brains are figuring things out. This includes situational analysis, mental simulation of options, visualizations of future states and outcomes of actions, investigating discrepancies, what to do, what not to do, what’s important, and what’s not important.
.
These data contain a cornucopia of insights that help us understand customer motivation. Embedded in them are data that tell us what customers do and don’t value, what their struggle is, and how they imagine their lives improving when they find the right solution. These are the data we need to help customers make progress.
.
As we execute the task more and develop habits, our brains “go to sleep” as we execute those activities. Our brain activity shifts from areas that focus on evaluation and decision-making to areas that look for queues to start the task and predict the outcome.
.
What are the implications? Investigations that involve a study of customers’ habits are unable to access data that give us the greatest insights into customer motivation. Such studies are focusing on the “asleep” part of our brains.
...
Moreover, they do not account for and distinguish between the different types of variation.
.
For these reasons, I recommend that innovation efforts do not incorporate data from techniques such as contextual inquiry, diary studies, ethnography, or any type of longitudinal research. When you conduct any study that involves the habits of customers, you are studying the asleep part of their brain. At best, your data will be incomplete; at worst, they will be misinformation—and misinformation leads to bad changes to a product,
...
I recommend these techniques only when you are monitoring the relationships between customers and the system of progress. The goal here is to ensure that the system is operating as you intend. You will observe variations due to common causes, but you should rarely act on them. But when you detect a variation due to a special cause, there is a good reason to explore a just cause for investigation.
...
The intent is to gather data about why the old way wasn’t working, why the new way was so appealing, and how the transition happened."

Há aqui algo a merecer reflexão...
.
Medir só por medir não parece útil.
.
BTW, recordar a Spirits Airline e "Focus on What Users Do, Not What They Say" e ainda "First Rule of Usability? Don't Listen to Users".

Curiosidade do dia

"O engraçado é que, com meros 17 ou 18 anos, a Maria pensa como um português crescido, convencido de que compete ao Estado providenciar-lhe uma vida. Erro seu, minha cara, e dos portugueses crescidos. A solitária competência do Estado consiste em humilhar cidadãos e subtrair-lhes dinheiro. O resto, por cá, em Espanha ou na Quirguízia, é consigo e com o acaso. Perceber esta evidência é alcançar a responsabilidade que a Maria inclui entre as virtudes dos melhores médicos. E das melhores pessoas."

Trecho retirado de "Carta à jovem que escreveu uma carta ao prof. Marcelo"

Who murdered strategy?" (parte II)

Parte I.

1. Leaders will stop underestimating the implementation challenge and realize that it is tougher than they ever anticipate.
2. We will recognize that every implementation is unique and it has to fit the organization’s culture.
3. Strategy is about making the right choices and implementation is about the right actions.
4. We will recognize and share that implementation at the end of the day, means more work for staff members.
5. Staff members will be treated as the ‘‘Strategy Customers’’ and implementation will no longer be forced upon them.
6. When starting the rollout implementation will be targeted at the 20 per cent of staff members who will support it and that leader must actively support this 20 percent in return.
7. Strategy cannot be implemented if it cannot be understood and explained. We will become even better at communicating strategy.
8. Organizations will brand their strategy by giving it an image so as to win over both the hearts and minds of their Strategy Customers.
9. Leaders will conduct more implementation reviews so as to resolve small problems before they become big problems.
10. These reviews will be conducted every two weeks.
11. Made the promise? Now deliver. We will equally focus on strategy and implementation."

Trechos retirados de "Who murdered strategy?", Strategic Direction, Vol. 27 Iss 9 pp. 3 - 5, Robin Speculand, (2011).

"especially in the hands of underdogs"

"Having observed that tidy organisational schemes – scripts, targets, filing cabinets – are sometimes great ways to approach the world, we make the mistake of applying them in all kinds of situations where they’re dysfunctional.
.
In those cases, a looser, vaguer, or more improvised approach works much better – even though it often makes us anxious.
...
nothing I’ve seen has changed my view that mess can be a very powerful weapon – especially in the hands of underdogs"

E o que são as nossas PME senão crónicos underdogs?
.
Somos todos alemães, jogamos o mesmo jogo, mas não podemos competir com eles de igual para igual no mesmo terreno.
.
Há dias visitei empresa que recebeu encomenda grande, vai ter um prazo muito curto para produzir e instalar, vai ter de receber o material, vai ter de contratar e formar muita gente em zona do interior e ... finalmente produzir a um ritmo que nunca teve.
.
Quando saí de lá virei-me para quem me acompanhava e disse-lhe algo que agora refino como:
- Se fossem alemães teriam agora as pernas a tremer!

Trechos retirados de "Tim Harford: Why the world needs to be a lot more messy"

"raising the bar"

Mais um exemplo da direcção do futuro, o caminho para diferenciação, "raising the bar":

"Mendoza knows the soils and microclimates of his native region as well as anyone.
...
These young men and women want the right to print the name and location of their vineyards on their wine bottles. In that, they’re part of a wider movement. In November 2015, a group of 15 wine professionals wrote what they called the Club Matador manifesto, signed by Spanish producers, merchants, sommeliers and wine journalists
...
The manifesto was aimed at the broader Spanish wine industry, but it had particular implications for Rioja, a region in which it is illegal to use the names of vineyards and villages on labels. [Moi ici: Por que razão terá aparecido esta proibição? Quem terá sido beneficiado com esta proibição e porquê?] (Imagine if all the domaines of Burgundy sold their wines only as Bourgogne rouge or blanc .) Instead, the majority of wines in the appellation are simply classified as joven (young), crianza (matured), reserva (aged) or gran reserva (extra aged), according to the amount of time they do—or don’t—spend in oak barrels.
...
“Rioja’s soils are very complicated, but we’re not allowed to talk about them. It’s crazy. There are four different soil types in San Vicente alone, but most Rioja is sold like Coca-Cola.” All of his wines are labeled as Rioja, with no mention of cask aging. His focus is on the quality of his grapes, which makes him part of the global trend toward wines based on the unique properties of their vineyards of origin. Setting the desire for self-expression aside, there is an economic reason for this, as acknowledged by the manifesto: “ We believe that by raising the bar…we will be capable of better explaining the reality of our country’s wines, which would help sell our wines more effectively.”

Uma aspiração ao contrário da verificada recentemente por cá na zona do Alvarinho (recordar a minha receita para os produtores genuínos).
.
Recordar a diferença entre o vinho português e o espanhol (aqui também)

Trechos retirados de "Grapes of Wrath: Rioja Rebels Changing the Way Wine is Sold"

Job stories

"We can think of Job Stories as microstruggles or microjobs. These are the individual situations that prompt a customer to seek a solution for a JTBD.
...
Two helpful formats for a Job Story are:
.
When _____, I want to _____, so I can _____.
.
When _____, I want _____, so that _____.
.
Job Stories answer questions. I find it helpful to think of Job Stories as addressing three questions:
1. The customer goes about life as usual, and then a problem arises. What is the trigger or situation?
2. Customers create mental pictures of effects that the solution should and shouldn’t have as they use it. What are these effects?
3. Once customers do find a solution and use it, how has life changed for the better? What can they do now that they couldn’t do before?
.
Where do Job Stories come from? Before designing a feature or new product, you must talk with real people and uncover all the anxieties and contexts that were in play when they used your product or a competitor’s product. Then, you write your Job Story.
...
Different customers, same Job Story.
...
Situations and context—not demographics, tasks, activities, or solutions.
...
Undoubtedly, we could use countless other attributes to describe these customers; however, describing who the customers are and their various attributes won’t tell you why they struggle. As I’ve mentioned, customers don’t have to share demographic features or attributes to experience the same struggles.
The other thing to notice is how this Job Story does not describe a task, activity, or solution.
...
Job Stories contextualize the JTBD."

Recordar "uma oportunidade tremenda de se diferenciar"

Trechos retirados de "When Coffee and Kale Compete"

Não é novidade

Não é novidade para quem pensa em Mongo e na explosão de tribos:

"The sociological concept of neo-tribalism suggests that human beings have evolved to live in tribal society as opposed to mass society.
...
From hackerspaces to co-living communities, to eco-villages to festival culture to movements for collaborative economy and cooperative ownership, we believe we’re in the throes of a re-tribalizing moment."

Trechos retirados de "NeoTribal Emergence"

Para reflexão (parte IV)

Parte I, parte II e parte III.
.
Juntar "Powering up the neighborhood grid: A strategic entry plan for the microgrid business" e "Tesla unveils its solar roof and Powerwall 2"
.
Aquele trecho:

"The company will sell the tiles directly to customers instead of working with home builders."

Fez-me sorrir! Querem vender, e bem, o lado emocional, a independência, e não a funcionalidade apenas. Fugir da comoditização.

Acerca da variabilidade dos clientes

Há dias sublinhei "Learn more about your most loyal customers". No entanto, ontem, Alan Klement fez-me voltar ao tema sob uma outra perspectiva, até porque sendo alguém que vem da área da Qualidade e que muito estudou Deming e as causas aleatórias e especiais:

"Customer motivation, on the other hand, is not a natural system. Nature puts no limits on how customer motivation can be measured, interpreted, or affected. Nothing limits the amount of variables we can test for or defines how those variables interact. Such a system contains vastly more useless data about your customers than useful data. This means that as you gather more and different types of data about your customers, the more likely you are to misunderstand them.[Moi ici: Big Data anyone?]
…
We want to change the system, not just study it as it is. Here is another reason that the “more data are better” approach does not suit innovation: innovation is about changing the system, not just studying it as it is. … The innovator wants to change the system of today to produce something different tomorrow.
…
Life is variation. [Moi ici: Recordar a génese da Redsigma (2006, 2013] Every investigation you do will discover variation. Understanding the basics of variation—as it relates to systems and innovation—will help you better understand the data you gather and help you know how you should react to them.
.
Variations due to common causes versus special causes.
…
The system of progress has variation. You will find variation within every part of the system of progress. There will be variation among customers, their struggles, how customers find and choose a product, how they use it, and how they imagine their lives being better.
…
How does this concept help innovation? Poorly designed products happen when innovators respond to common variation as if it were special variation, and vice versa. In these cases, innovators keep piling on more and more features and changes to the product, making it bloated and fragile. This makes both the product and the business vulnerable to creative destruction.[Moi ici: Bem visto. Nunca me tinha passado pela cabeça fazer esta associação entre variabilidade aleatória e especial e as diferenças entre clientes]"

Existem diferentes variedades de clientes, diferentes segmentos. Cada variedade exibe variabilidade.

Trechos retirados de "When Coffee and Kale Compete"

JTBD e Kaizen

Como conciliar:

"Once a company identifies its product's job, it must organize around that job, for example by creating metrics that matter to the customer rather than focusing on those that improve efficiency or deliver a narrow outcome within a function."

Com "Como ganhar dinheiro sem gastar dinheiro ou como o método Kaizen funciona mesmo"?
.
Fácil, quando o preço, ou o custo, é o factor principal na hora da escolha. Se não for ... pode ser perigoso. Recordar a 3M

Trecho inicial retirado de "To Win Loyal Customers, You Need to Master 'Jobs Theory'"

Curiosidade do dia

Venezuelização em curso.

Porque Mongo é gigantes-unfriendly

Porque Mongo é gigantes-unfriendly:

"“Owners” who are changing all the time, and many of the stock analysts who do their bidding, couldn’t care less about engaging employees, about pride and respect in work, about serving customers, about quality in products and services.  All they care about is MORE: squeezing out more revenues, more savings, more profits. Manage the enterprise the way you make orange juice.
.
But what happens when there is no more to be squeezed out of a place that has been run really well? The answer is easy: provide less to make more. Rip the customers off with add-on fees. Pressure the staff to cut corners. Or “downsize” them altogether so that there is no-one to replenish the toilet paper. And don’t forget to pay the CEO outrageous bonuses to drive all this."

Uma PME pode fazer milagres se vir que ganhar dinheiro é uma consequência e não um objectivo directo, se tiver paciência estratégica, se tiver ao leme quem tenha paixão, se apostar na interacção e na co-criação.

Trecho retirado de "The devil is in a detail"

Estratégia sempre antes dos objectivos

"Like most goals, especially those that come before strategy, ours was an arbitrary one, and it diverted our attention from some fundamental choices.
...
having goals come ahead of strategy is putting the cart before the horse. When this happens, companies often fall into trouble.
...
Beware leaders who tell you their company will be the best this or the largest that before they tell you their strategy for winning. When big, hairy audacious goals drive strategy, they can waste time and money. [Moi ici: Como não recordar os políticos que começam por dizer que o objectivo é aumentar o emprego] The goals companies adopt don’t have to prevent them from coming up with great strategies. But they often do, because the brightness of big goals has a way of blinding their owners to the realities of great strategy.
.
Another lesson is that maintaining sharp thinking about your value proposition is easier said than done.
...
Great strategies require an objective, self-aware, and up-to-date sense of the capabilities that give you the right to win. Most of us are smart enough to recognize when our capabilities have lost their edge. But it’s all too easy for our emotions to get in the way. Companies are often forced into this realization after making a costly mistake.
...
The fundamentals of strategy seem so obvious: Pick, choose, or design a winning value proposition for the right target market that requires the distinctive capabilities you really have — rather than those you used to have or wish you had."

Trechos retirados de "The Strategy Lessons of a Long Hike"

Voltem a recordar os novos-velhos

Lembram-se dos novos-velhos?
.
Na altura interrogava-me como é que jovens recém-licenciados podiam ter uma mente tão fechada e tão derrotista. Que tipo de ensino superior teriam?
.
Durante cerca de 10 anos fui professor convidado da Universidade Católica e assumia-me como um empirista dedicado a injectar optimismo entre os alunos, tentando alertá-los para o mundo de oportunidades que existe, se o virmos como tal.
.
Voltem a recordar os novos-velhos e atentem nestes trechos:

"The world has changed.
...
entire markets are shifting and emerging out of the uncertainty and unpredictable nature of today’s network economy. Interestingly (and infuriatingly to some), many of the companies leading the charge – and the change – did not exist two decades ago. It’s not that these new players are just lucky or employ smarter, more capable people. So, how is it that they’ve found gold in some of the most unlikely places? In a word: design.
.
Design is fundamentally about enhancing the way you look at the world. It’s a learnable, repeatable, disciplined process that anyone can use to create unique and qualifi ed value. Design is not about throwing away the processes and tools you have.
...
Most of all, design is about creating the conditions by which businesses thrive, grow, and evolve in the face of uncertainty and change. As such, better businesses are ones that approach problems in a new, systematic way, focusing more on doing rather than on planning and prediction. Better businesses marry design and strategy to harness opportunity in order to drive growth and change in a world that is uncertain and unpredictable."

Como é possível esta diferença de mentalidades?
.
E lembram-se da posição do estudante que queria fechar a profissão aos membros de uma ordem a criar?

"The good news is that you are already a designer, at least some of the time. Every time you intentionally develop strategy or make a decision based on insight, you are acting as a designer." 

Trechos retirados de "Design a Better Business" de Patrick van der Pijl, Justin Lokitz, e Lisa Kay Solomon.

Acerca da mineração (parte II)

Parte I.
.
Na parte I sublinhámos:

"The system of progress allows customers to evolve. When we add this idea of an evolving customer who continues to want and make progress"

A verdade é que o JTBD depende também do contexto do cliente. A evolução do cliente altera o contexto, logo altera a forma como o cliente percepciona e avalia as soluções que tem pela frente para contratar.

"When you study customers’ stated preferences—wants, needs, or desired outcomes—you are studying the interactions between customers and the system only at that moment. All those wants, needs, and desired outcomes will change when the systems that customers belong to change. Yesterday, customers wanted gaslight mantles that wouldn’t set their houses on fire, cheap meat, and somewhere to get their film developed. Today, those same customers want environmentally friendly CFL lights, organic kale salads, and accumulating likes on Instagram. Why did those needs change? The systems that customers belong to had changed.
...
Innovators must understand what the customer does and doesn’t know. We must abandon the idea that customers have needs or wants. We need to replace it with the idea that all customers have only one need: to make progress within the systems they belong to. Any discomfort or frustrations they experience in making that progress should not be thought of as needs but rather descriptions of interactions between customers, their JTBD, and the product they’ve currently hired for their JTBD."

Assim, o cliente que nunca entraria num ginásio "tradicional" começa a sua jornada num ginásio low-cost e aí pode ficar ou ... progredir e aspirar a algo mais.
.
Quem gere um ginásio "tradicional" tem de perceber que os clientes que capta poderão estar numa fase mais avançada desse progresso. Em boa verdade, não deve pensar em competir com o ginásio low-cost, deve antes aparecer como uma solução para quem está a namorar a ideia de que precisa de algo mais do que aquilo que tem actualmente.
.
Recordo os meus primeiros tempos de birdwatcher. Na primeira vez que fui ao Douro Internacional, nas férias da Páscoa de 1983 passei tanto frio a dormir na minha tenda que logo percebi que o saco-cama que usava no campismo da praia não funcionava nas fragas de Lagoaça. A pessoa que precisava de um saco-cama para o Douro Internacional no Inverno não era mais a mesma pessoa que usava saco-cama no Verão, o contexto era diferente.

Curiosidade do dia

Mais um exemplo do dinamismo que se vive a Norte e que mais cedo do que se julga vai chocar com a falta de mão-de-obra, "Grupo Simoldes contrata 300 pessoas até 2017 e investe 33 milhões em inovação".

.

Por todo o lado:

Por isso, cuidado ...

"You are what you believe you are. Or, as the great Earl Nightingale put it, “We become what we think about.” There is no way to underestimate just how important is this idea. It is the foundation of all of the results you produce in life.
.
Your beliefs precede your actions, and your actions precede your results. If you believe that there is something that you must do to succeed, your actions will fall in line with that belief. Certain results inevitably follow.
.
But a lot of people don’t believe that they “must” do something to succeed. Instead, they believe they “should” do something, and so they lower their standard, never taking the necessary actions, never producing the great results they are capable of, and never reaching their full potential.
...
What beliefs do you need to transform from “should” to “musts?” What do you need to spend your time thinking about for you to reach your full potential?
.
There is nothing more powerful than your beliefs. What will you choose to believe?"

Por isso, cuidado com as pessoas a quem dá o poder de o influenciar mesmo subrepticiamente, mesmo involuntariamente. Por isso, cuidado com os media e a sua troupe de produtores de cortisol. Por isso, cuidado com os que não sujam as mãos na prática do dia-a-dia mas estão sempre cheios de respostas sem dúvidas.

Trechos retirados de "You Become What You Think About"

Sem stress e sem urgência é difícil

Esta manhã publiquei "Fuçar e a quebra de tabus" onde sublinho uma mensagem clássica deste blogue. Muitas vezes só o desespero permite fazer os cortes que a emergência de uma nova realidade exige.
.
Por isso é que o stress é informação, informação que convida as pessoas/organizações a mudar.
.
Por isso, sem stress, sem a pressão da urgência, só com base na racionalidade é difícil mudar. Daí "Norway’s oil wealth swamps innovation":

"The trouble is that Norway is too comfortable. It takes a crisis to get most people to change their ways radically or for an economy to adjust the way that it works.
...
There were plenty of young people touting start-ups at Innovation Week but many work part-time for big companies and experiment with entrepreneurship in their spare hours. They do not need to take the plunge.
...
They like the idea of creativity but fear disruption."

Daí este cenário visto por um outsider "Norway, here is how you make your startups fly"


BTW, importante este ponto:

"Unlike Sweden and Denmark, oil-rich Norway failed to climb the value chain into fashion when production moved offshore to countries with cheaper labour in the 1970s."

Na vida real não há direitos adquiridos

Subir na escala de valor é a melhor, talvez a única, forma de equacionar um futuro no médio prazo. Na vida real não há direitos adquiridos:

"disturbing for many global manufacturers, which have ceded low-end production to Chinese rivals but are banking on staying ahead in higher-end goods and ingredients that feature more advanced technology.
...
China’s chemical makers, whose profits were getting squeezed by overcapacity and falling prices of cheaper ingredients, accelerated their push into higher-value areas.
...
One local producer whose chemicals GMM now uses is Fujian Kuncai Material Technology Co. Ltd., a maker of shiny pigments and aluminum paste based in Fuqing. After initially plying its wares to small industrial paint shops in China’s southern manufacturing zone, it increased investment in new products, set up a big R&D center in China and started working with Chinese universities to hone its technological edge. A year and a half ago, it formed a joint venture with a Netherlands-based distributor to sell its China-made pigments in Europe."

Trechos retirados de "China to World: We Don’t Need Your Factories Anymore"

BTW, esta tendência se aprimorada é um aviso sério para as Mittelstand que não derem corda aos sapatos.

Fuçar e a quebra dos tabus

O fuçar passa por isto:

"When faced with creative desperation, we try to find a weak belief that is trapping us. We want to jettison this belief so that we can escape from fixation and from impasse. In contrast, when using a contradiction strategy, we center on the weak belief. We take it seriously instead of explaining it away or trying to jettison it. We use it to rebuild our story.
...
In times of desperation, we actively search for an assumption we can reverse. We don’t seek to imagine the implications if the assumption was valid. Rather, we try to improve the situation by eliminating the assumption."

Por isto é que em tempos de mudança turbulenta da realidade é perigoso confiar em académicos. Só gente desesperada está disposta a quebrar os tabus.
.
Por isto é que a tríade foi a última a reconhecer a mudança.

Trechos retirados de "The Remarkable Ways We Gain Insights"

Curiosidade do dia

Isto "Acidente com C-130 no Montijo deveu-se a erro humano" é uma prova de que a Força Aérea precisa de ler este livro "O Erro em Medicina"
.
Não existe o "erro humano". Recordar:

• Recordar: Não há erro humano!!!
• O erro humano não existe
• Aprender com os erros
• Erro humano

A tribo dos Marillion (parte II)

Parte I.
.
Ontem enquanto aguardava numa recepção, folheei um Jornal de Notícias e, na última página fui surpreendido por:

Confesso que não conhecia o Wuant mas o Want não precisa que pessoas como eu o conheçam. Wuant tem a sua tribo que o conhece e apoia.
.
Mongo é esta profusão de tribos que em muitos casos passam pela vida sem se tocarem e sem darem conta umas das outras. Este é o terror das empresas grandes, empresas preparadas para servir a média, para servir quem está dentro da caixa.
.
Agora, num registo completamente diferente, pensem na escola do século XIX, esse mecanismo uniformizador preparado para criar os funcionários do Normalistão, a tentar lidar com este mundo.
.
BTW, a sua PME conhece as tribos para que trabalha? Ou a sua PME não tem tribos e trabalha para a malta de dentro da caixa?
.
Quem trabalha para tribos tem mais oportunidades do que quem compete com as empresas grandes.

Hoje, olho e paro!

Houve um tempo em que nem olharia para estes títulos "Pinhel organiza segunda edição do evento "Beira Interior - Vinhos & Sabores"". Depois, veio um tempo em que olharia e os classificaria de copiadores de outros.
.
Hoje, olho e paro!
.
Olho, leio e regozijo-me:

"A cidade de Pinhel vai receber, de 18 a 20 de novembro, a segunda edição do certame "Beira Interior - Vinhos & Sabores", que pretende promover os vinhos e os produtos da gastronomia tradicional daquela região."

Hoje, reconheço o que pode ser um certo dinamismo local que consciente ou inconscientemente já descobriu que o futuro das terras do interior não passa por serem uma emulação parola das cidades do litoral. O futuro do interior passa pelo que passa pela sua individualidade, pela sua identidade e pela riqueza com o que é gerado na zona.