Apostar nas forças

Excelente reflexão, útil para empresas que sentem que têm de mudar de vida:

"In their efforts to compete, business strategists often forget a basic principle: Build from your strengths. [Moi ici: Começar pela análise do ADN] The most successful companies have a clear, well-articulated view of what's important to them and their customers. They understand that the way to win consistently is through what they do rather than what they sell.
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These companies also understand that “what they do” is unique to them; they have their own capabilities and practices that no other company could quite duplicate, even if it tried. In that sense, building from your strengths is the most reliable way we have found to differentiate your company.
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when you understand what you’re great at, and design your capabilities and strategy accordingly, you can define how you want to compete, and shape your own future rather than waiting for others to do it for you.
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1. Accept Your Weaknesses
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All of us — individuals, teams, and organizations — have weaknesses. These are not skill gaps; those can be corrected with learning. Weaknesses are inherent deficiencies of talent or capability that do not change even after aggressive efforts to improve them. Pride and our ingrained work ethic may cause us to deny our weaknesses, but acceptance is the first step toward designing for strength.
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2. Recognize Your Specific Strengths
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Weaknesses tend to be universal and broad. ... But strengths are often extraordinarily specific.
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3. Solve the Right Problem
A moment of magic accompanies the willingness to quit. It involves gaining a better perspective. Prior to this moment, it is almost impossible to be objective about your challenges. Too many emotions and pressures intrude. But now, you can evaluate your options more dispassionately, and — in the language of design thinking — learn to ask better questions. The problem you are trying to solve may not be the right one to address.
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In my case, fixing my weaknesses was the wrong problem to solve. I have since come to think that the same is true for many other people and organizations seeking breakthrough performance. Instead of solving for “how do I fix my weaknesses?”  [Moi ici: Isto é o que critico quando escrevo aqui sobre o Return-of-Attention das organizações patronais. Gastam demasiado tempo a combater a última guerra quando o mundo entretanto mudou, em vez de procurar uma nova guerra onde tenham vantagens únicas] I asked myself, “how can I design for my unique strengths?”

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4. Double Down on Your Strengths"

Trechos retirados de "Design for Your Strengths"

Num país que faz leis por tudo e por nada um tipo desconfia

"Indeed much of the work of investment banks my days was to play on regulations, find loopholes in the laws. And, counterintuitively, the more regulations, the easier it was to make money."

Trecho retirado de "Why Each One Should Eat His Own Turtles (Revised )"

O artigo é demasiado rico e merece ser lido e relido. Voltaremos a ele.

Curiosidade do dia

"O primeiro-ministro esteve impecável. Em vez de explicar, como os fracos, o dr. Costa exigiu explicações. Em vez de dar respostas, como os pelintras, o dr. Costa fez perguntas. Em vez de pedir desculpas, como os malucos, o dr. Costa pediu um “focus group” para avaliar o impacto dos fogos na sua imprescindível popularidade."

Trecho retirado de "Tudo está bem quando acaba bem"

Alinhar vendas com estratégia

Na sequência de "Fiquei com curiosidade ..." recordei "Executives and Salespeople Are Misaligned — and the Effects Are Costly":

"The results show that executives feel that they have a high level of understanding of their companies’ strategic priorities, while sales reps — who aren’t typically in the planning meetings, on the conference calls, or roaming the halls with the people crafting strategy — said they did not.
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The sales force gets better and better at things that leaders and customers value less and less while remaining unclear about performance expectations.
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In order to achieve alignment, companies need to break these routines and treat causes, not symptoms.
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They linked strategy to behaviors.
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They changed their approach to training.
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They revamped their compensation and performance evaluations."

"A lack of workers"

"China Daily reported in 2015 the building of the first robot-led plant in Dongguan by the Guangdong Everwin Precision Technology company, in which it planned to use 1,000 robots to reduce the labour needed for the factory by 90 per cent.' The gearing is interesting, as the assistant general manager of the company indicated that sixty robots could take an assembly line that needed 600 workers in the past down to 100. So, not fully dark, but a significant reduction in the number of hands involved in the production process.
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This story is repeated in factory after factory, across sectors and companies around China. The Cambridge Industries Group (CIG) wants to replace two-thirds of its workers in a factory making optical networking equipment in Shanghai because labour costs have doubled over the past seven years and they face competition from automated manufacturing in Germany and other traditionally high-cost economies, According to Gerald Wong, the CEO of CIG, 'It is very clear in China: people will either go into automation or they will go out of the manufacturing business:. The main driver for these changes? A lack of workers. Hiring is difficult in the region, with estimates of a shortage of 100,000 workers from the local government. It may seem counter-intuitive to those outside China that there is a labour shortage in these areas, as the narrative was companies moving east to access the lower labour costs where hands were abundant. That has changed, as wages in manufacturing have risen and China's working-age population begins to shrink. According to some estimates, between now and 2050 China will see the number of its population aged between fifteen and fifty-nine shrink by 212 million." For the planners and factory owners across China, it looks as if they are hoping to pivot from labour-intensive manufacturing to robot-intense manufacturing, leaping forward to become a high-tech centre for making."

Tendo em conta o que a Toyota e a Mercedes já aprenderam com a automatização, esta tendência pode contribuir para um acelerar do reshoring por causa da falta de flexibilidade e as exigências de quantidades mínimas crescentes por modelo.

Por outro lado, a "lack of workers" relatada leva-me a fazer um paralelismo com as celuloses e os modelos cancerosos de crescimento. É preciso apostar num crescimento baseado na subida na escala de valor e não na quantidade pura e simples.


Trecho retirado de "From Global to Local" de Finbarr Livesey

Prioridades?

E na sua empresa como é?

Figura retirada de "Closing the skills gap: companies and colleges collaborating for change"

Tour de France 2017

O maior espectáculo desportivo em solo europeu começa hoje:

Força Froome e Cavendish.

Curiosidade do dia

"O ministro da Agricultura afirmou que é preciso disciplinar as plantações de eucaliptos. Novas plantações vão ser proibidas excetuando transposição de áreas ecologicamente mal localizadas."

O que são áreas ecologicamente mal localizadas?

Qual o critério para classificar uma área como bem ou mal localizada ecologicamente?

Recordo:

"Se o eucalipto for introduzido em territórios onde não exista falta de água, ao contrário do seu terreno natural, este crescimento será ainda mais rápido, com elevada voracidade de absorção de água e nutrientes dos solos. E é assim que em Portugal e Espanha temos boas condições para o eucalipto, razão pela qual os mais altos Eucalyptus globulus do mundo se encontram na Península Ibérica e não na Oceânia O eucalipto está perfeitamente adaptado a Portugal, o problema é que Portugal não está perfeitamente adaptado ao eucalipto."

E volto a perguntar:

O que são áreas ecologicamente mal localizadas?

Por que é que nenhum so-called jornalista coloca a questão?

Fazem-me lembrar o José Alberto Carvalho a convenientemente perguntar, "Esta assinatura é sua?" Em vez de perguntar, "E este projecto, é da sua autoria?"

Primeiro trecho retirado de "Capoulas Santos: É preciso “disciplinar” o eucalipto" (O mesmo que Abril passado se justificava assim):

Segundo trecho retirado de "Eucaliptugal, o ecocídio da floresta nacional"

Heranças

Cuidado com estas crenças herdadas do século XX.

Onde é que eles não têm vantagem? Onde é que eu sou bom e posso ter vantagem? Quem é que valoriza aquilo que a minha vantagem permite atingir?

Recordar:

• livrarias independentes mais aqui;
• discos de vinil;
• cerveja;

Imagem retirada daqui.

"All models are wrong, some are useful"

Há anos que uso esta frase "All models are wrong, some are useful." Ajuda a não ser fundamentalista, a aprender a tolerar os modelos "infantis" que encontro, segundo os meus padrões, mas que são autênticos quando bem intencionados e funcionam:

"All models are wrong, some are useful.
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Remember that all models are wrong; the practical question is how wrong do they have to be to not be useful.
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A model is a simplification which fosters understanding.
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we believe in using models for the purpose of building a massive, but finite amount of fundamental, invariant knowledge about how the world really works. Applying this knowledge is the key to making good decisions and avoiding stupidity.
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“Scientists generally agree that no theory is 100 percent correct. Thus, the real test of knowledge is not truth, but utility. Science gives us power. The more useful that power, the better the science.”
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Too many people are caught up wasting time on physics-like precision in areas of practical life that do not have such precision available. A better approach is to ask “Is it useful?” and, if yes, “To what extent?”
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Mental models are a way of thinking about the world that prepares us to make good decisions in the first place."

Trechos retirados de "All Models Are Wrong"

A força da testosterona é demolidora...

A propósito de "Pick-up da Mercedes já pode ser encomendada" que li ontem à noite lembrei-me logo da sensação que tive ontem de tarde quando passei por um SUV da Porsche.

Lembrei-me do hummer da Volvo e de "Reflexões sobre a evolução das marcas".

A diluição de uma marca avança assim... a força da testosterona é demolidora...

A confiança é demasiado importante

Artigos destes "Tem a certeza de que está a comprar comida biológica?" põem em causa todo um sector.

Ao não identificarem os "culpados" lançam um suspeição sobre todos.

Justo ou injusto não interessa, é a vida.

Eu, se fosse um operador biológico procuraria forma de me destacar da massa e estaria a pensar em forma de me distinguir e de reforçar a minha credibilidade.

A confiança é demasiado importante para este tipo de negócio ...

Curiosidade do dia

Além do timing... quem paga?

Estas coisas não lembram à corte lesboeta

Ontem em conversa com um empresário fiquei a saber do caos que reina na zona de Águeda.

Parece que estas coisas não chegam ao mainstream, não lembram aos lesboetas que mandam nos media.

Águeda é um avatar do que vai acontecer em breve no resto do país. Águeda é forte na metalomecânica. Ainda há dias sublinhava isto:

"“O setor não tem número de formandos necessários e isto é uma tragédia e com a taxa de desemprego a baixar, este é um problema que se vai agudizar”, sublinha." 

Este empresário já está a pensar numa resposta: automatização.

Ainda mais especulações

Assim que li o título, "Businesses Scale Back Investment in America" veio-me logo à mente a leitura e a reflexão de um passeio "Mais especulações".

Conjugo facilmente o estarmos a entranharmos-nos em Mongo e o choque com a teimosia anglo-saxónica de continuar a acreditar no século XX: eficiência, volume, escala, custo.

"if investment declines over the long term, it could imply at least two bad trends -- either businesses don’t see many good opportunities, or society is becoming more short-termist in its thinking.
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Net of depreciation, privately held American businesses are only investing about 2 percent of the country’s gross domestic product in the U.S. itself" 

Constância de propósito?

Os mesmos que diziam isto em Fevereiro de 2017:

Agora dizem que a expansão do eucalipto começou em 2013.

Os mesmos que ainda em Abril deste ano diziam:

"O Governo garante que pretende "aumentar a produção e a produtividade do eucalipto" e que continuará a apoiar o setor do celulose e do papel."

Agora dizem:

"Capoulas Santos: “Não haverá mais um único hectare de eucalipto em Portugal”" 

Como não recordar o tema da constância de propósito.

"knowing who you are and ... why you exist"

Um texto com uma séries de mensagens deste blogue concentradas num único ponto: "Brand Value Niche, What?"

"Your Brand Value Niche (BVN) involves knowing who you are and just as important why you exist.[Moi ici: O "who" tem a ver com o ADN]
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Your ideal client is not everyone—it cannot be everyone, let me restate—it cannot be everyone.
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You need to step back and take a sharp look at everything that you are doing. Ask yourself what am I doing well? What am I not doing well? What is it that excites me both in my personal life as well as my professional life? What do I think I could do better than anyone else in my field? [Moi ici: Tem de haver alguma coisa em que possamos fazer a diferença, algo que os clientes valorizem, ...]
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The time you dedicate to clearly defining your brand’s value, offering, and audience will come back to you twenty-fold. If you do not give proper attention to this phase it can result in your company completely missing the target with your ideal client, create a lack of direction as to exactly where you fit in and not help you connect the right features and benefits with your most appropriate prospects.
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• You can’t be everything to everybody. Avoid the urge to be everything to everybody–focus, focus, and focus!

• Having a unique selling point (USP) isn’t enough. A customer needs to see the value of your service or product as it relates to their life—not just that it’s unique or different.

• Be disciplined and consistent in your messaging. You only have a few moments to capture their attention and generate enough interest for them to want to learn more.

• Your internal culture reflects your external image. Make sure that everyone on the team is working with the same clear goal and vision.

• Don’t let conventional wisdom determine your customer value proposition. While conventional wisdom may serve as a guidepost, don’t get trapped by its limitations. Just because it works for someone else does not mean that it will work for your business."

No-brainer

Escrevo aqui muito sobre Mongo, sobre a explosão de tribos, sobre a progressiva radicalização de cada tribo e sobre o problema das empresas grandes, habituadas a trabalhar para a grande caixa da massa central, a tentarem continuar a servir todos.

Tribos radicalizadas valorizam a autenticidade...

Como é que as empresas grandes vão lidar com o desafio:

"Startups can do anything..
Companies can only do what’s legal..
Startups can do anything One of the unheralded advantages of a startup is what at first glance appears to be its weakness. Initially, a startup has no business model and no market share to defend. Its employees and investors don’t depend on an existing revenue stream. If they select a business model that targets industry incumbents, they don’t have to worry about upsetting existing customers, partners or distribution channels.
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Yet those very weaknesses give startups an overwhelming advantage in innovation.  Startups can try any idea and any business model—even those that are on the surface patently illegal.
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At times laws and regulations are in place for the health and safety of consumers. But often the legal obstacles confronting startups have been put in place by companies that look to the government and regulators as their first line of defense against new market entrants. (Existing companies also use network effects of monopolies/duopolies, distribution channel kickbacks, etc., to stifle competition.)
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In the past, these anti-innovation tools were sufficient to keep new entrants out. But today, investors realize that companies that depend on regulation and artificial market constraints are actually vulnerable. Once presented with an alternative to the status quo, customers who have been locked into rent-seeking companies flock to innovative startups with business models that provide better service, lower prices, etc. Enormous financial returns are available to startups taking on incumbents, regulators and the law. So, startup investors comfortable making a risk capital bet are actively encouraging startups to go after large, static industries that look prime for disruption.
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Companies can do anything legal In the 20th century companies worried about increasing their market share, profit margins, return on investment and return on net assets. They tenaciously protected their existing markets from other existing companies that were using the same business model. They very rarely worried about disruption from new firms as the barriers to entry (financial, legal, regulatory) were so high.
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Ironically once companies become locked in their entrenched market positions, it became difficult for them to compete by breaking the same laws or untangling their existing channel relationships. In contrast to startups, companies are constrained by local, state and federal laws and regulations.  The risk of breaking laws can result in large penalties and shareholder lawsuits.  The Justice Department and State Attorneys General find large companies attractive targets.
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As a consequence, one of the roles of the legal department in large corporations is to protect the company from straying into any legal or regulatory danger."

Trechos retirados de "Steve Blank Why a Company Can’t “Be More Like a Startup”"

Uma mudança de paradigma

"Mass customization doesn't have to be a trend to offer an opportunity to differentiate yourself from competitors and boost margins. That's the point of the Bain study, which found that people are warming to the idea of customized products.
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Although fewer than 10 percent had actually purchased customized products or options, between 25 percent and 30 percent were interested. "While it is hard to gauge the overall potential of customization, if 25 percent of online sales of footwear were customized, that would equate to a market of $2 billion per year," Bain wrote.
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It's not as though only giants can offer customization. FashionPlaytes is a young business that lets girls order customized clothing. Any auto or motorcycle shop that builds custom vehicles would be a clear example.
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Customization is an old service that has a chance for some new appreciation. Customization can tie a customer closer to you and give them a reason not to do business with competitors who don't do things the customer's way."

Trechos retirados de "Mass Customization: Let Your Customers Have It Their Way"

"People don’t buy IoT"

Recomendo "People Don’t Buy IoT, They Buy a Solution to a Problem" à  atenção do Victor M.:

"Too many product teams and entrepreneurs think, “If I connect it, they will come.” The problem is that people don’t buy IoT, they buy a solution to a problem.
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The fact that we can connect any device to the Internet doesn’t mean we should. And if we’re not careful, we can fall into the trap of having technology looking for a problem, instead of starting with a problem and looking for the best way to solve it.
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People don’t buy IoT, they buy a solution to a problem.
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You see, Brita never set out to become an IoT company. They didn’t sit in their lab with IoT components trying to figure out what to build. Instead, they realized that IoT was a good tool to solve their user’s problem. Remember, people don’t buy IoT, they buy a solution to a problem.
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So start by understanding your customer’s needs [Moi ici: O job to be done] and then choose the best tool for the job. It might be IoT and it might not. And figuring that out early on will save you a lot of time and money."

Surpreso explica a surpreso

A propósito de "Têxtil português conta história de sucesso ao FMI" onde se pode ler:

"“foi uma conversa simpática, na qual o FMI se mostrou muito interessado e surpreso por uma indústria dita tradicional ser hoje uma indústria moderna, incorporando tecnologia, design e serviço e aumentando a sua presença global“.
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Os responsáveis pelo setor têxtil aproveitaram a ocasião para demonstrar como um setor condenado há uma década exibe hoje uma dinâmica renovada e aparece como exemplo para outros setores na economia tendo, em 2016, ultrapassado a fasquia dos cinco mil milhões de euros em exportações.
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A ATP destacou ainda, na sua apresentação, a mudança de paradigma do setor baseando-se a competição no valor e não no preço, o que implicou por parte do setor uma aposta no design, na moda, na tecnologia, na inovação e no serviço. E também um investimento em missões internacionais e na participação nalgumas das mais importantes feiras do setor."

Não deixo de enquadrar esta surpresa do FMI no que relato aqui há anos e anos como sendo a mentalidade da tríade, baseada no século XX: eficiência, escala, volume, custo.

E recordando aquele título "Sei o que fizeste no Verão passado" viajo até 2010 e a "Arrepiante". Não foi só o FMI que ficou surpreso, foi a própria cúpula da ATP uma vez que a revolução foi bottom-up e começou pelas empresas mais pequenas.

A propósito deste exemplo usado pela ATP:

"Isabel Furtado fez inclusivamente uma apresentação do grupo TMG, especialmente focada na mudança de uma empresa têxtil convencional para uma altamente tecnológica."

Recordo este postal escrito num parque de campismo no Gerês "Exemplo da diversidade intra-sectorial".

A TMG que apresentaram ao FMI não tem nada a ver com o têxtil... foi onde tive o meu primeiro emprego.

Curiosidade do dia

O amigo Aranha mandou-me esta!

Lembrei-me logo do calvário que ele viveu por causa da actuação desta Empresa na Hora.

Tecnologia e salários

Há dias chamei a atenção para isto:

Pede-se aos teóricos sem skin in the game que olhem para as fotos da realidade. Por favor. Veja os empregos criados com curso superior pic.twitter.com/HTL4SdaRr2

— Carlos P da Cruz (@ccz1) June 21, 2017

Agora encontro:

"even more critically, the enabling technology view implies that any improvement in technology should lead to higher wages for all types of workers. But wage declines for low-education workers have been the norm not the exception over the past 30 years in the US labor market. [Moi ici: Acredito que grande parte desta tendência deveu-se à deslocalização?] In particular, the real wages of workers with less high school, high school or some college have all fallen sharply since the early 1970s. The inability of this conical framework to account for the pervasive phenomenon of declining real wages of certain groups of workers is one of its most jarring shortcomings.
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In particular, wages at the bottom, median and the top move very differently over different time periods. Most notably, in contrast with simple skill-biased technological change view, we do not see an opening of the gap between median and bottom wages.
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there is an extended period from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s where wages at the bottom are increasing more rapidly than wages in the middle of the distribution.
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In contrast to a view based on enabling technologies helping the most highly skilled workers, we see rapid employment growth at the bottom of the wage distribution both in the 1990s and 2000s. The picture that emerges is thus one in which the economy is generating considerably more employment in lower- paid occupations than in occupations in the middle of the wage distribution.
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Finally, we can also verify that this is not just a US phenomenon. The middle-paying occupations have contracted in every European country between 1993 and 2006, strongly suggesting that the employment patterns we are witnessing in the United States are due to common technological trends rather than idiosyncratic US factors.
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In contrast to the standard framework based on enabling technologies, replacing technologies can reduce wages. This contrasts with the predictions of the canonical model we discussed in the previous section. The key is the difference between enabling and replacing technologies.
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• Even with a single type of labor competing against technology or capital, a set of tasks shifting from labor to capital can reduce wages. This effect is further strengthened if there are multiple types of labor, and new technologies directly take away some of the tasks performed by a specific type of labor (for example, semi-skilled manufacturing workers or operators).
• For the same reasons as articulated in the previous bullet point, replacing technologies displace workers, and may cause unemployment.
• If new technologies replace tasks in the middle of the pay distribution, they will cause polarization of employment. Intuitively, these new technologies will take away the middle paying occupations, and thus the overall wage distribution will have a smaller, in some sense ‘hollowed’ middle, causing wage polarization. Interestingly, because workers dislocated by technology from the middle of the pay distribution will compete with others, changes in employment structure may be divorced from wage growth patterns. As a result, we may expect to find faster growth of employment in lower- paying occupations as those dislocated by technology also seek employment in these occupations, which is confirmed by the changes in employment structure shown in the figure below, but this does not necessarily imply faster wage growth in these expanding occupations."

Trechos retirados de "Daron Acemoglu on: Will robots take our jobs?"

Fiquei com curiosidade ...

Ao ler "Inovafil apresenta Nidyarn" fiquei a pensar sobretudo nas implicações deste trecho:

"«A estratégia é não sermos só moda, é passarmos também a ser desporto e técnicos»"

Despedi-me do meu primeiro emprego, trabalho que adorava pois tinha a melhor tarefa do mundo, engenheiro de produto, porque estava mergulhado no mundo técnico (fornecer a VW, super racional) e fui transferido do dia para a noite para o mundo da moda (o mundo do toque, do brilho, da subjectividade).

Fiquei com curiosidade em saber o que é que a Inovafil vai fazer a nível a nível do lado direito do canvas de Osterwalder:

A proposta de valor vai ser diferente porque o job to be done vai ser diferente. Os clientes-alvo procuram e valorizam coisas diferentes, têm mindsets diferentes, estão em ecossistemas diferentes, têm ritmos diferentes, vão a feiras diferentes, estão susceptíveis a coisas diferentes, visitam prateleiras diferentes.

Que alterações vão fazer a nível comercial?

Vão ter pessoas diferentes a fazer o desenvolvimento para cada área do negócio ou vão ter uma só?

"People want a story behind what they buy"

A propósito de "Yoplait Learns to Manufacture Authenticity to Go With Its Yogurt" saliento:

"“For consumers today, food isn’t just about sustenance, it’s about an experience,” said Darren Seifer, a food analyst at the NPD Group, a market research company. “People want a story behind what they buy. That’s why craft beers and small organics are doing so well. They’re selling authenticity. The big companies want that.”
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But the most powerful story, according to current and former Yoplait executives who described their research, was that consumers simply thought Chobani was cool. It was easier to believe it was authentic and healthy because it had an exotic name, a founder who embodied rags-to-riches success and lots of buzz.
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Executives needed to study the science of manufacturing genuineness.
So they began passing among themselves studies showing that people get a neurological rush when they buy something they believe is authentic, like clothing made by hand instead of a machine. But to make authenticity seem genuine, the research indicated, products needed some kind of story."

• Acerca do poder da autenticidade 
• Acerca do poder da autenticidade 

A mecânica newtoniana não serve para a economia (parte II)

Para reflexão, recomendo a leitura de "The Seattle Minimum Wage Study":

"This paper not only makes numerous valuable contributions to the economics literature, but should give serious pause to minimum wage advocates. Of course, that’s not what’s happening, to the extent that the mayor of Seattle commissioned *another* study, by an advocacy group at Berkeley whose previous work on the minimum wage is so consistently one-sided that you can set your watch by it, that unsurprisingly finds no effect. They deliberately timed its release for several days before this paper came out, and I find that whole affair abhorrent. Seattle politicians are so unwilling to accept reality that they’ll undermine their own researchers and waste taxpayer dollars on what is barely a cut above propaganda.
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I don’t envy the backlash this team is going to face for daring to present results that will be seen as heresy. I know that so many people just desperately want to believe that the minimum wage is a free lunch. It’s not. These job losses will only get worse as the minimum wage climbs higher, and this team is working on linking to demographic data to examine who the losers from this policy are. I fully expect that these losses are borne most heavily by low-income and minority households."

Recordo este postal "Para reflexão" sobre como actuam as empresas que defendem o aumento do salário mínimo.

Pessoalmente sou contra a existência de salário mínimo porque a economia é muito heterogénea. Um salário mínimo de 600€ é aceitável em Lisboa e se calhar mortífero em Pinhel.

Ainda acerca destes estudos quero deixar um reparo: "A mecânica newtoniana não serve para a economia"

A economia é situacional. Aquilo que funciona hoje, aquilo que se conclui hoje, deixa de funcionar amanhã, deixa de se concluir amanhã. Tudo depende do momento.

Comparar este momento actual "Juntar as peças" com este outro momento de 2009 "Acham isto normal? Ou a inconsistência estratégica! Ou jogar bilhador como um amador!"

BTW, já depois de escrito este texto encontrei isto "A Higher Minimum Wage Is Not Doing The Bad Things Critics Said It Would Do"

Curiosidade do dia

Fonte.

Originação de valor vs valor acrescentado

"What Is Value Creation and How Is It Different?Take a look at this table to better understand the differences between value, added value and created value. Give yourself and your company a quick evaluation – what value are you delivering and which type of value could you increase?"

Trecho e imagem retirada de "What Is Value Creation? Is It Just another Name for Added Value?"

Para reflexão

Imagem retirada de "White Space Revisited: Creating Value through Process"

SDCA e PDCA

Encontrei este esquema nos slides de uma multinacional. O clássico PDCA.

Olhei para aquela caixa "Improvements" no lugar do "Act" e pensei logo o quanto prefiro antes o CAPD:

• PDCA vs CAPD

Check - Avaliar o desempenho
Act - Decidir o que melhorar
Plan - Planear o que experimentar
Do - Realizar a experiência

Mas melhor ainda a proposta de Shoji Shiba, relacionar o SDCA com o PDCA:

Standard - Ter um padrão de operação
Do - Actuar de acordo com o standard
Check - Avaliar o desempenho
Act - Decidir o que melhorar
Plan - Planear o que experimentar
Do - Realizar a experiência
Check - Avaliar o desempenho
Act - Actualizar o standard


Faz muito mais sentido.

• Não-conformidades, acções correctivas e preventivas (Dezembro de 2007)
• Exemplo de acção preventiva (parte IX) (Maio de 2009)

Juntar as peças

Há umas pessoas que defendiam défices mais elevados ao mesmo tempo que defendiam níveis de dívida mais baixos sem perceberem a contradição. Lembro-me do grande Ortega y Gasset falar dos que lançam ideias sem a capacidade de idear, quando deparo com textos escritos por quem não tem capacidade de reflectir nas incoerências que transmite.

Ontem passei-me quando confrontei o título deste artigo, "Falta mão de obra ao líder das exportações nacionais", com uma boa parte do seu conteúdo:

"o setor metalúrgico assume-se como o grande setor da economia portuguesa. Entre os maiores problemas está a falta de mão-de-obra qualificada.
...
Por falar em estabilidade, o que pensa o presidente dos metalúrgicos sobre a subida do salário mínimo?
.
Terá reflexos na indústria? Aníbal Campos sublinha que “as pequenas e médias empresas são afetadas pela subida do salário mínimo, mas há também empresas estrangeiras que estão em Portugal e que vão ser afetadas”. Sobretudo se a comparação for feita “com o que se passa na antiga cortina de ferro que tem salários muito mais baixos”. Ainda assim o presidente da principal associação do setor refere que está “à vontade” porque para além da sua empresa Silampos “não praticar salários mínimos”, também na AIMMAP, desde que está à frente da associação, “o salário do setor sempre foi superior ao mínimo nacional”. Uma regalia que, adianta, é dada “em troca de outras condições, como são a flexibilidade e o banco de horas”.
.
“Andamos sempre à frente do salário mínimo, mas esta subida é considerável não podemos ir à frente”. E deixa o alerta: “Se não houver bom senso isto vai ter consequências para a economia”."

E segue-se um trecho extenso sobre a falta de mão-de-obra no sector:

"“O setor não tem número de formandos necessários e isto é uma tragédia e com a taxa de desemprego a baixar, este é um problema que se vai agudizar”, sublinha." 

E a jornalista não juntou as peças?

Como é que é a curva da oferta e da procura?

Se o sector está a bombar, se a procura por mão-de-obra está a crescer e se a oferta de mão-de-obra é insuficiente... o que manda é o mercado, de nada adianta estar preocupado com o salário mínimo.

Ecossistemas em economia

Há mais de 10 anos, em "Subir na escala de valor" usei aqui no blogue pela primeira vez a palavra ecossistema aplicada a uma empresa e às partes interessadas com que interage.

Desde então já a usei o marcador "ecossistema" quase 200 vezes.

Ultimamente comecei a encontrar textos interessantes sobre a vantagem de pensar na maximização do valor criado a nível de ecossistema:

• "The market is a goal collective"
• Propostas de valor, ecossistemas e pivôs
• Plataformas e ecossistemas

Esta semana, parece que a palavra ecossistema está a pegar:

• Introducing Ecosystem Thinking
• What Exactly Do We Mean by Systems?

Como criar valor?

Há pouco tempo eliminei do meu arquivo um artigo sobre o que se pode fazer com o Big Data relativamente à publicidade. Essa era a minha grande crítica ao artigo, quando se escreve sobre Big Data, escreve-se quase sempre como refere este título "Use Big Data to Create Value for Customers, Not Just Target Them".

Há tempos numa empresa dei comigo a ouvir alguém a sugerir como usar o Big Data para criar valor para um cliente, para o ajudar a ganhar dinheiro, para o ajudar na sua relação com os seus clientes:

"in the rush to uncover and target the next transaction, many industries are quickly coming up against a disquieting reality: Winning the next transaction eventually yields only short term tactical advantage, and it overlooks one big and inevitable outcome. When every competitor becomes equally good at predicting each customer’s next purchase, marketers will inevitably compete away their profits from that marginal transaction. This unwinnable short-term arms race ultimately leads to an equalization of competitors in the medium to long term. There is no sustainable competitive advantage in chasing the next buy.
...
To build lasting advantage, marketing programs that leverage big data need to turn to more strategic questions about longer term customer stickiness, loyalty, and relationships. The questions that need to be asked of big data are not just what will trigger the next purchase, but what will get this customer to remain loyal; not just what price the customer is willing pay for the next transaction, but what will be the customer’s life-time value; and not just what will get customers to switch in from a competitor, but what will prevent them from switching out when a competitor offers a better price.
.
The answers to these more strategic questions reside in using big data differently. Rather than only asking how we can use data to better target customers, we need to ask how big data creates value for customers. That is, we need to shift from asking what big data can do for us, to what it can do for customers.
...
Every company should ask three questions to examine how its big data can create customer value:
.
What types of information will help my customers reduce their costs or risks?
...
What type of information is currently widely dispersed, but would yield new insight if aggregated?
...
Is there diversity and variance among my customers such that they will benefit from aggregating others’ data with theirs?"

Um desafio que muitas mais empresas deviam assumir de forma deliberada: como criar valor?

JTBD vs cliente vs produto

Algo que julgo que já aqui se abordou no blogue numa perspectiva próxima: Em vez de identificar os clientes-alvo, identificar o job to be done.

"What’s wrong with product managers? The word “product” gives away the problem. The product manager role is anchored in the product–which in our opinion contributes to a myopic view of the market. Since a primary function of the company is innovation, this key role should have a broader orientation than just the company’s products (see our prior article on this). This role should take on a market perspective that fosters new thinking, discovery and development that extends well beyond today’s products. To revolutionize this important role, we believe it should be anchored on the customer’s “job-to-be-done”, not the product.
...
A company that is focused on the customer’s job-to-be-done instead of the company’s products is much more likely to take a broader view of the market. This would include an expanded view of the competition and potential opportunities for growth.
...
A traditional product manager has a solid understanding of the products they create and sell. Job Managers, on the other hand, have an intimate knowledge of their customer’s job-to-be-done and the metrics that customers use to measure success when getting the job done."

Trechos retirados de "Product Managers Are Obsolete; Focus on the Job-to-be-Done"

Objectivos e a lavagem das mãos

Gosto destas relações, "Reset your brain by washing your hands":

"Researchers at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management conducted four experiments that showed that when participants cleansed their hands with a wipe, they viewed the previous goals they made as less important. However, they tended to view the goals they made AFTER cleansing as more important.
...
That’s because cleansing actually helps people psychologically separate themselves from previous ideas and goals, Dong explained."

Recordar:

• A última preparação do trabalho
• Acerca das infecções hospitalares 
• Outro tipo de oração, e o mesmo resultado

Curiosidade do dia

"Nações menos infantis não descansariam até varrer os demagogos que celebram glórias imaginárias e fintam as desgraças autênticas. Portugal, não. Portugal respeita os mortos, leia-se espera que os vivos não perturbem a “estabilidade”. Portugal observa prioridades, leia-se deixa arrefecer o assunto. Portugal não cede à baixa política, leia-se permite a impunidade geral. Portugal está unido, leia-se criou-se um ambiente hostil a questões desagradáveis. Portugal, repete-se, é uma nação muito forte, leia-se um recreio de oportunistas, desnorteados ao primeiro assomo da realidade."

Trecho retirado de "Morrer entre brutos é triste"

Para reflexão

Um texto dedicado a muita gente, "Austerity is dead. Long live austerity":

"Britain can choose to raise spending, but that will mean higher taxes.
...
The British public is tired of austerity. So even supporters of the government have concluded from the unexpected success of Jeremy Corbyn’s new old Labour, which promised much higher spending and fiscal deficits than the Conservatives in last week’s general election But is it safe to give the public what it wants? Brexit is likely to bring economic disappointment. To add fiscal destabilisation to the mix would seem highly unwise.
.
The UK will remain an open trading economy dependent on the confidence of strangers, as investors and workers. It would be idiotic to jeopardise its reputation for sound management further in return for a brief high of larger fiscal deficits and debt. Yet this does not rule out different choices over revenue and spending. That is perfectly legitimate.
...
It makes sense to run a still smaller deficit when debt is high and the economy is close to full employment. The aim would be to insure against any shocks that lie ahead, by reducing the debt ratio.
...
Furthermore, note that taxes will probably have to rise to mitigate the effects on public services of an ageing population.
.
What is needed is honesty: the country can choose to raise spending. But, if it wants to run a sound fiscal policy, this will mean substantially higher taxes. Labour has broken the taboo on the latter. But it has dishonestly suggested that a substantial increase in spending can be financed solely at the expense of the rich and corrupt. Yet even taxes on corporations do not fall solely, or even mainly, on the rich.
...
So should austerity be over? If we mean that it is safe to leave the fiscal deficit where it is, the answer is no. If we mean that it is possible to avoid lowering the share of public spending in GDP any further, the answer is yes. The argument that the UK has chronically underfunded public services is respectable. But higher spending means higher taxes. That additional taxation also needs to be well targeted and designed. The extra money raised needs to be well spent, too. Otherwise, the effort would be a huge waste. That would be quite senseless."

 Recordar "Agora é que vão começar as decisões políticas"

Quando poupar é pecado

Ler "The Fallacy of Cost Savings":

"The direct way to reduce costs is not very often the best choice when what you cut costs of things that are strategic, and where reducing costs actually takes money out of the outcomes you are trying to improve.
...
By spending more on one line, you can drive down costs on other lines. For this to be true, you must be able to justify the delta between your price and the price your prospective client is paying now—and you have to convince them that price and cost are different, and that lowering the price often has the opposite effect of what they’re trying to accomplish."

Muitas PME mudaram, deixaram de seguir a via do preço mais baixo mas nem todas prepararam os seus comerciais para a necessidade de vender de outra forma.

Do lado dos compradores (no B2B) é aquilo que há anos classifico como: o pecado de poupar:

"don’t go after potential cost savings that might reduce a product’s attractiveness (Moi ici: Pois, a minha guerra contra o eficientismo puro e duro... quando identificamos as actividades críticas de uma empresa em que o negócio não é o preço mais baixo e digo "Poupar nestas actividades é pecado!") "(Novembro de 2012)

Sem rede

A vida real é assim: sem rede.

Só nos media portugueses ainda se toleram os académicos e outros cheios de certezas e de fórmulas infalíveis

"How do you know you’re on the right strategic path? And are you making changes as you go?
.
Oh, goodness, have I made changes! It’s important to have deeply held beliefs about the vision. But then you have to look at the results.
...
What’s positive is that the plan is proceeding as we believe it should, with the growth of large new businesses that are adjacent to our core franchises. IBM will grow again. But we need to grow in the right ways. We’re moving into areas that have value and shedding ones that don’t. We could have higher growth rates, but we made a bold decision to divest commoditizing businesses before they commoditize further. The new areas are higher margin, but we have to invest in them and then scale them up.
...
It doesn’t matter if you’re an insider so long as you don’t try to protect the past. Then you have the freedom to reinvent yourself for the long term.
...
What’s the hardest thing about trying to take this transformation through to the other side?
.
You have to have passion. And you have to have clarity. But I think the most difficult thing is perseverance. This is a large, highly profitable company that continues to do mission-critical work serving clients around the world—and at the same time reinventing itself. As the familiar metaphor has it, that’s like changing the wheels while you’re driving. And we’re doing it all in the public eye. Above all, we need to stay focused on our clients and keep moving forward. I think the team has done a super job at this."

Trechos retirados de  "don’t try to protect the past"

Para lá da eficiência (parte II)

Parte I.

"“At one point, one of my sons was deeply into scheduling and efficiency. One day he had a very tight schedule, which included down-to-the-minute time allocations for every activity, including picking up some books, washing his car, and "dropping" Carol, his girlfriend, among other things.
.
Everything went according to schedule until it came to Carol. They had been dating for a long period of time, and he had finally come to the conclusion that a continued relationship would not work out. So, congruent with his efficiency model, he had scheduled a ten- to fifteen-minute telephone call to tell her.
.
But the news was very traumatic to her. One-and-a-half hours later, he was still deeply involved in a very intense conversation with her. Even then, the one visit was not enough. The situation was a very frustrating experience for them both.
.
Again, you simply can't think efficiency with people. You think effectiveness with people and efficiency with things. I've tried to be "efficient" with a disagreeing or disagreeable person ”
.
“and it simply doesn't work. I've tried to give ten minutes of "quality time" to a child or an employee to solve a problem, only to discover such "efficiency" creates new problems and seldom resolves the deepest concern."

Excerto de: Stephen R2. “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People Powerful Lessons in Personal Change.” iBooks.

Curiosidade do dia

"Nos critérios de classificação, a pontuação será atribuída e majorada em função de os investimentos se realizarem em espaços “maioritariamente inseridos em zonas de intervenção florestal”, terem um “certificado de gestão florestal”, usarem “plantas melhoradas de Eucalyptus globulus”, de não estarem em zonas de Rede Natura 2000, se inserirem em “zonas críticas” ou nos tais “concelhos de primeira prioridade” – precisamente as zonas do país com maior susceptibilidade à ocorrência de incêndios florestais.
.
“São elegíveis as áreas ocupadas pela espécie Eucalyptus globulus em que esta representa no mínimo 75% dos exemplares arbóreos existentes e encontra-se em subprodução”, lê-se ainda no documento."

E vêm os técnicos para a TV falarem de evitar a monocultura e zonas barreira e ...

"Governo está a financiar renovação do eucaliptal em zonas como a de Pedrógão"

Para reflexão

Ontem o Filipe Garcia publicou um gráfico que contribui e muito para a compreensão das alterações em curso na Europa e que tenho acompanhado em:

• À atenção do ministro da Economia;
• O tempo que agora vivemos
• Nunca esquecer esta longa série de cromos
• "Se a conjuntura explicasse tudo, a aceleração não seria apenas em Portugal"

Agora comparem os salários portugueses com os daquela facha dos Cárpatos até ao Báltico:

Calçado: estratégias competitivas

Tabela interessante retirada de "A inovação e competitividade na cadeia de valor da moda: parte II" que mostra como diferentes empresas do sector do calçado recorrendo a diferentes estratégias e vantagens competitivas têm resultados diferentes (facturação por trabalhador).

Para lá da eficiência

"In a world of commoditised expertise, “Being human,” becomes a real hope for continued differentiation!”

— @bill_fischer pic.twitter.com/ZQZTXhu31w

— Alex Osterwalder (@AlexOsterwalder) June 22, 2017

"Innovation by definition is inefficient, because you make prototypes, because you try stuff that fails, that doesn’t work. Exploration is inherently inefficiency. Art is not efficient. Human relationships are not efficient. These are all the kinds of things we’re going to gravitate to, because they’re not efficient. Efficiency is for robots.» "

Trecho retirado de "Efficiency Is For Robots", a relacionar com "When we understand"

"What won’t you be?" (parte II)

Parte I.

"Almost nothing in our daily lives is actually a winner take all competition.
Somewhere, there's someone fitter, faster, thinner, quicker, smarter, more popular or richer than you. And there's someone else fitter, faster, thinner, quicker, smarter, more popular or richer than they are. And you're (far) ahead of someone else who is busy looking at you from behind.
And yet we see people angry because someone's passing their car, or gaining more followers online. They mistakenly believe it's a race. It rarely is.
If you can use your situation as fuel, fuel to dig in and care more and do better, by all means.
But if not, ignore it. Do your work, not theirs."

Trecho retirado de "Winner take all"

Curiosidade do dia

"Please note !!...this is not my house...I stated that my house is surrounded by native trees with eucalyptus 800 metres away...not as close as the picture shown !!....I was just making an observation and used a picture which I stated was of a Portuguese farm...but have given another good example of another property similarly affected this past weekend with bad fires at Figueiró dos Vinhos. Most people understood this and I have been contacted by journalists who were very interested on the angle of the story ~ I have passed them onto the people who have had this happen in the past few days
.
Original Post ~ Our house is surrounded by native oak with the nearest eucalyptus about 800 m away...on our land we have olive, oak and fruit trees....all native to Portugal unlike the eucalyptus...it would seem according to studies that this would make us safer as these trees act as natural fire breaks, especially due to the Oak...A photo illustrating how Portuguese farms with indigenous trees are far more fire resistant than the eucalyptus plantations"

Trecho retirado de "Quinta rodeada de carvalhos e castanheiros escapou ao fogo"

Strategy it's about what you will do

"You can only deliver a truly differentiated client experience if you design one and do it in accordance with your strategy. Strategy isn't about what you can do -- it's about what you will do."

Trecho retirado de "Why You Shouldn't Go the Extra Mile for Customers"

Lemingues (parte IV)

Parte I, parte II e parte III.

"If you have the ability to generate greater results than anyone else, a strategy called “customer intimacy,” then you have to make the necessary investments to deliver that level of value. Look, your competitors aren’t stupid. If they have a lower price, they know that they are giving up something when it comes to customer intimacy. Maybe they decided not to make the investment in the additional people. Maybe they don’t want or intend to make the investment in leadership. To reduce their price, they have to give up something.
.
You have to pick a lane on these things. You can have the very best product, but you are going to have to sell at a price that allows you to deliver the very best product. If your product is your intimate knowledge of the client and the ability to work creating high trust, high value, and high caring, then you are going to have to give up low price to deliver those things."

Trecho retirado de "You Have to Pay for Your Competitive Advantage"

À atenção do ministro da Economia

O impacte do fim da China como fábrica do mundo no FT de ontem:

Recordar estas palavras:

"Se a conjuntura explicasse tudo, a aceleração não seria apenas em Portugal, seria um fenómeno europeu e isso não é a realidade", acrescentou."

Segundo o ministro da Economia de Portugal só Portugal é que está a crescer...

Macacos não voam

Recordando Porter e os seus conselhos a Portugal durante o consulado de Cavaco Silva.

Recordando "Os macacos não voam, trepam às árvores, um exemplo".

Cuidado com os investimentos de alta tecnologia suportados por generosos apoios estatais se não há tradição no sector.

Curiosidade do dia

Dizem-me que é ruído.

"What won’t you be?"

"Today’s economy, he notes, is “replete with winner-take-all effects [Moi ici: Sabem que acredito que isto é passageiro, uma espécie de doença infantil das plataformas "Estratégia em todo lado - não é winner-take-all (parte V)"] and huge advantages that accrue to the biggest and best-run organizations, to the detriment of upstarts and second-fiddle players.”
...
But is the only strategy in our winner-take-all era to get as big as possible, to aspire to eventually serve everyone, and to meet their every need?...
We’re not trying to meet all needs. So, Amazon’s business strategy is super broad. Meet all needs. I mean, the stuff that will be in Prime in five or ten years will be amazing, right? And so we can’t try to be that — we’ll never be as good as them at what they’re trying to be. What we can be is the emotional connection brand, like HBO or Netflix. So, think of it as they’re trying to be Walmart, we’re trying to be Starbucks. So, super focused on one thing that people are very passionate about.
...
Michael Porter would approve. “The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do,” he writes in his 1996 classic “What Is Strategy?” In Porter’s view, sustainable competitive advantage depends on trade-offs, including the fact that it’s difficult for one company to serve all customers across a wide range of needs.
...
In an era where a small number of huge companies have unprecedented reach and control, Porter’s central question seems more important than ever: What won’t you be?"

Trechos retirados de "How Can Companies Compete with Amazon? Netflix Has the Answer"

Lemingues (parte III)

Parte I e parte II.

A propósito deste texto de Tim Harford "The age of the Microsoft and Amazon economy". Os teóricos acreditam nisto:

"One of my first economics lessons contrasted perfect competition, which was judged to be a good thing, with monopoly, which was not."

Concorrência perfeita significa igualdade, significa que só resta o preço como factor diferenciador. Claro que um adepto e promotor da concorrência imperfeita não podia estar mais em desacordo com a suposta beleza da concorrência perfeita. VIVAM os monopólios informais.

A Lego entrou no vermelho por causa da concorrência perfeita e saiu dela quando promoveu a concorrência imperfeita e o monopólio informal mental na mente dos seus fãs.

"This is surprising. As the world economy grows, one might expect markets to become more like the perfectly competitive textbook model, not less. [Moi ici: Em Mongo ...não será esta a via] Deregulation should allow more competition; globalisation should expose established players to pressure from overseas; transparent prices should make it harder for fat cats to maintain their position. Why hasn’t competition chipped away at the market position of the leading companies? The simplest explanation: they are very good at what they do. Competition isn’t a threat to them. It’s an opportunity."

Os números e a tendência de concentração citada por Tim Harford é ainda um sintoma do estertor do século XX porque foi neste período que se deu o êxodo industrial para a Ásia. A globalização não foi feita por empresas chinesas a entrarem no Ocidente, foi feita por empresas do Ocidente a montarem fábricas na China ou a aproveitarem fábricas incipientes na China para substituírem a produção nos mercados de consumo.

Efeito de rede?

"“A nossa expectativa para 2017 é entre o melhor ano de sempre e o muito melhor ano de sempre”, afirma a presidente executiva da Associação da Hotelaria de Portugal (AHP), Cristina Siza Vieira."(1)

E isto apesar do sucesso do turismo de alojamento local.

Os gananciosos acreditam que a economia é um jogo de soma nula e que o que uns ganham é o que os outros perdem. Por isso, querem proibir ou restringir essa suposta concorrência.

“What’s made them successful over the past 10 years is their ability to create new entities, movies, TV shows, by partnering with brilliant people. They’ve said: ‘We might not make as much money if we outsource it, but the product will be better.’ That mentality is very Danish. It comes from saying: ‘We’re engineers. We know what we’re good at. Let’s stick to our knitting.’ That’s a very brave thing to do and it’s where a lot of companies go wrong. They don’t understand that sometimes it’s better to let go than to hang on.”(2)

Será que estamos perante um efeito de rede?

Porque muitos turistas vêm através do turismo local criam um buzz e uma dinâmica que atraem outros para o alojamento turístico tradicional?

Recordar "O poder das associações e nas associações"

(1) - Trecho retirado de "Hotelaria rumo ao melhor ano de sempre"
(2) - Trecho retirado de "How Lego clicked: the super brand that reinvented 

Formação: Gestão por processos

Interessados em participar numa formação sobre Gestão por processos com a duração de 25 horas podem consultar a informação em Formação: Gestão por processos.

Temas a abordar em torno de:

• 15. Quantos processos?
• 14. Abordagem por processos e riscos
• 13. Processos, funções, competências
• 12. Caracterizar um processo
• 11. Razão de ser de um processo
• 10.Designar um processo
• 9. SG um portfolio de iniciativas
• 8. Contexto e críticos
• 7. Função objectivo
• 6. I’ll be back!
• 5. Eliminar as estruturas sistémicas conspirativas (parte II)
• 5. Identificar as estruturas sistémicas conspirativas (parte I)
• Não há acasos!
• Uma empresa: uma caixa negra
• Pergunta venenosa
• "algo não bate certo nesta abordagem"
• Acerca dos processos
• Transformar, apesar do travesti (parte I)

Curiosidade do dia

"Edmund Burke saw society as a partnership between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are yet to be born. A failure to understand this relationship underlies a disturbing global tendency in recent decades, in which the appropriation of future wealth and resources for current consumption is increasingly disadvantaging future generations. Without a commitment to addressing this inequity, social tensions in many societies will rise sharply.
Central to the issue is that the rapid rise in living standards and prosperity of the past 50 years has been largely based on rising debt levels, ignoring the costs of environmental damage and misallocation of scarce resources.
A significant proportion of recent economic growth has relied on borrowed money -- today standing at a dizzying 325 percent of global gross domestic product. Debt allows society to accelerate consumption, as borrowings are used to purchase something today against the promise of future repayment. Unfunded entitlements to social services, health care and pensions increase those liabilities. The bill for these commitments will soon become unsustainable, as demographic changes make it more difficult to meet.
...
This growing burden on future generations can be measured. Rising dependency ratios -- or the number of retirees per employed worker -- provide one useful metric. In 1970, in the U.S., there were 5.3 workers for every retired person. By 2010 this had fallen to 4.5, and it’s expected to decline to 2.6 by 2050. In Germany, the number of workers per retiree will decrease to 1.6 in 2050, down from 4.1 in 1970. In Japan, the oldest society to have ever existed, the ratio will decrease to 1.2 in 2050, from 8.5 in 1970. Even as spending commitments grow, in other words, there will be fewer and fewer productive adults around to fund them.
...
Future generations will bear the ultimate cost of present decisions or inaction. As in Francisco Goya’s famous painting, “Saturn Devouring His Son,” today, the old are eating their children."

Entretanto por cá reformaram a Segurança Social por cem anos... pois, balelas:

 "In 2006 for every 100 persons aged 55-64 there were 117 persons aged 20-29, a value that decreased to 80 in 2016."

Trechos retirados de "The Old Are Eating the Young"

Fuçar, em directo

Em muitos sectores de actividade vemos os seus actores, quando a paisagem competitiva muda, a pedirem apoios do Estado. A maior parte desses apoios serve para adiar o inevitável. Recordar Spender.

O que tenho lido sobre a reacção de alguns centros comerciais à evolução do retalho electrónico é interessante e revelador do que acontece em qualquer sector económico quando o mundo muda e os actores mais activos fuçam em busca de uma nova oportunidade.

Quando um encontra uma combinação vencedora começa o spill-over que dissemina o novo conhecimento.

Alguns exemplos:

• Retail Isn’t Dead, But It Does Need To Adapt;
• A New Model for Shopping Malls
• The Rise of Luxury Strip Malls

Volume vs Lucro

"Thankfully, today’s data visualization from Ishtyaq Habib shows the top 100 biggest companies by market value, but uses circles to represent both the revenue and profit for each company.
...
The first noticeable difference in this version?
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It’s that Apple is unparalleled in its ability to make money. In fact, Apple’s 2016 profit of $45 billion is far bigger than any other company, including Berkshire Hathaway ($24 billion), JPMorgan Chase ($24 billion), Wells Fargo ($22 billion), Alphabet ($19 billion), Samsung ($19 billion), Toyota ($17 billion), Johnson & Johnson ($16 billion), or Walmart ($14 billion).
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The only companies that can compare with Apple were Chinese banks like ICBC, Agricultural Bank of China, or China Construction Bank, but in many ways these state-owned enterprises are on an entirely different playing field, anyways.
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Also impressive: Apple’s profits are bigger than the revenues of massive companies like Coca-Cola ($41.5 billion) or Facebook ($27.6 billion).
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Other organizations need to rely on razor-thin margins and volume to make things work. Walmart only brought in $14 billion of profit off of a whopping $485 billion of revenue – a margin of just 2.8%. Meanwhile, fast-growing Amazon was in a similar boat with margins of 1.7%, largely provided by its wildly successful AWS service.
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Lastly, it is also worth noting that some on the list did not make a margin at all. These are mostly companies that are suffering from the challenges of down cycles in natural resources. Chevron and mining giant Glencore, for example, were two of the Top 100 Companies that both lost money in 2016, while BP essentially broke even."

Trechos retirados de "The Top 100 Companies: Revenue vs. Profit"

Trabalhar para subir na escala de valor

Um sintoma bom: "“Portugal, o outro país do design”, diz o Le Monde"

Uma fama a ser alimentada, sustentada, trabalhada, para subir na escala de valor.

BTW, "Importância do design em debate"