Como é na sua empresa?

Pesquisando o marcador "abordagem por processos" pode ter-se uma ideia do que penso sobre o tema e como a uso. Sinto que a uso de uma forma bastante diferente da maioria.

Por exemplo, num projecto em curso:

Entrevistei duas pessoas que identificaram algumas dores da empresa, falhas, que associei a dois processos. À medida que entrevistar mais gente vou associar outras dores a estes e outros processos. Assim, quando chegar a hora de desenhar os projectos de transformação da empresa todos saberemos, por exemplo,  que o novo referencial para o processo "6. Comprar materiais" terá de evitar/minimizar a frequência de ocorrência destas falhas.

Entretanto, com a leitura de "Value First Then Price" editado por Andreas Hinterhuber e Todd Snelgrove encontrei este exemplo:

"We recently completed a pricing project with a German B2B company with sales in excess €5 billion. As part of the diagnosis, we mapped the key processes where pricing decisions were made. The key process in B2B is, as mentioned, the offer development process - most industrial companies have a similar process in place that covers 

The client illustrated ... had an offer development process in place, but the analysis revealed that profitability suffered as a result of a poor design on nearly all elements in this process.
.
Customer insights, for example, were not shared between sales managers and regions, so the salesforce was perceived, as out of sync by some customer segments. Likewise, executives did not systemically collect, let alone share, information on price levels or offer configurations of competitors.
.
Sales managers responded passively to request for proposals rather than actively developing new markets and cross-selling new products to existing customers.
.
Sales managers used revenues and not gross margins to evaluate market opportunities, meaning that the company's best available technical talent was regularly assigned to large but unprofitable deals.
.
Also, the offer development reflected what salespeople thought customers wanted instead of taking customer insight to develop the value proposition; ...."

 Estes trechos dão uma ideia de como a abordagem por processos pode ser usada com cabeça, tronco e membros conjugada com a abordagem baseada no risco.

Como é que a sua empresa usa a abordagem por processos?

"killing products is a necessary component of good management practice"

"The other, equally important observation is that killing products is a necessary component of good management practice. Most companies do this too late. Many companies make the mistake of carrying a large product porfolio, which of course also carries the risk that salespeople focus then on the wrong products. And so it takes courage to ask "Where am I truly competitive? In which areas am I able to deliver outstanding value?" It takes courage to then say, "Okay. I withdraw from products or segments A, B, and C because this is not where I want to be in the future and instead I do something else."

Ler isto e conseguir visualizar logo duas ou três empresas onde isto ainda acontece. E na sua?

Ler isto e recordar uma experiência de 1997 ou 98, em que uma empresa têxtil com marca própria, produzia cerca de 200 referências por época. 12 referências apenas representavam cerca de 90% das vendas.

Um excelente trecho retirado de "Value First Then Price" editado por Andreas Hinterhuber e Todd Snelgrove.

"increasingly doing their own buying"

Parte I.

Continuando a leitura de "CBI Understanding European Buyers: Footwear".

"Retailers and brands are increasingly doing their own buying
.
Players on the European footwear market can be roughly divided into two categories: large retailers and brands on the one hand and wholesalers, or importers, on the other. Due to the aforementioned pressures, the former category in their search for lower-cost production opportunities, are increasingly sidestepping the intermediaries in the supply chain, i.e. wholesalers and/or importers. Instead, they are seeking to do business directly with low-cost suppliers, or, in some cases, developing their own production facilities in low-cost countries.
.
Considerations for action

• Importers or wholesalers are no longer your only or most likely, point of connection with European markets: you might just as successfully establish a direct relationship with a major EU retailer or brand. Which of these you choose, depends on your strategy.

• 􏰀If you are aiming for direct sales to brands and/or retailers, be prepared for a steep learning curve. Make sure your staff have the willingness and ability to learn and adapt in order to keep in step with your target group.

• Make sure your company is visible and easy to find on the Internet, at trade fairs et cetera.

• Make sure you meet all the basic criteria for the particular segment or market you are focussing on.

• If you have a successful partnership with a brand or retailer, approach similar players, using your client as a reference. Success fuels success."

Privilegiar os inputs sobre os outputs (parte IV)

Parte I, parte II e parte III.

Cuidado com a leitura. Ela deve ser feita calçando os sapatos do cliente, simulando uma entrada na sua mente e vendo o mundo através da sua perspetiva:

"Price is a simple number. How much money do I need to hand you to get this thing?
.
Cost is more relevant, more real and more complicated.
.
Cost is what I had to give up to get this. Cost is how much to feed it, take care of it, maintain it and troubleshoot it. Cost is my lack of focus and my cost of storage. Cost is the externalities, the effluent, the side effects.
.
Just about every time, cost matters more than price, and shopping for price is a trap."

Nem sempre é suficiente, o cliente pode não fazer contas, o cliente pode não ter informação, o cliente pode ser preguiçoso, o cliente pode não saber como fazer as contas, ....

Então, faz sentido fazer o "upframing", subir a um ponto mais alto, para ter uma perspectiva diferente e desenhar um novo ecossistema. Um ecossistema onde, por exemplo, um prescritor ou um influenciador possa actuar sobre os clientes.

O que é que o actor (cliente, influenciador, prescritor, ...) procura ou valoriza? De que fogem? De que têm medo? O que é dor para eles?

Trecho retirado de "Price vs. Cost"

"Small brands are stealing share from big brands" (parte IV)

Parte I, parte II e parte III.

"HOW GOLIATH CAN SPRING BACK TO LIFE
.
David may have won a few battles, but Goliath is still Goliath. Large FMCG companies must go back to their roots and rediscover what made them great in the first place—understanding their customers’ needs, creating products that meet those needs, and building brand engagement. In the process, they will need to learn to manage complexity rather than eliminate it and to break down functional silos, which stand in the way of agility and speed. These are not new goals, but—given the new competitive dynamics—the urgency to achieve them has never been greater. Doing so requires coordinated action on four fronts."

Confesso que tenho dúvidas na capacidade de fazer este "comeback".

• Porque acredito que os consumidores mudaram mesmo, uma premissa que a BCG não aceita;
• Porque as multinacionais estão atoladas num pântano de guerras civis entre capelas;
• Porque as multinacionais são lentas num mundo que precisa de agilidade.

Autópsia

No início deste ano trabalhei com uma empresa que na sequência de uma metodologia de actuação para melhorar eficiência adoptou umas ferramentas de comunicação para as operações a que chamou "Lições-ponto-a-ponto".

Há dias, numa outra empresa verifiquei que tinham aplicado uma metodologia parecida e também tinham adoptado as tais ferramentas de comunicação chamando-lhes "One-point-lesson" (OPL).

Nesta segunda empresa a metodologia foi agarrada pelos encarregados de forma muito positiva. Por isso, a empresa não se quer ver livre dessa ferramenta de comunicação e de autonomia ("empowerment"?) dos encarregados. E bem.

Então, uma voz fez-se ouvir nesta empresa: Por que é que existem instruções de trabalho e OPL?

E fez-se luz na minha mente. Vamos aos dois ciclos de Shiba:

O ciclo 1 é o ciclo do quotidiano, o ciclo do controlo do processo.

Temos uma(s) instrução(ões) de trabalho (S) que regula(m) a execução de uma(s) tarefa(s). As pessoas trabalham (D) de acordo com essa(s) instrução(ões). Verificamos (C) os resultados, o desempenho e decidimos agir (A).

Quando não gostamos do desempenho actual saltamos para o ciclo 2, o ciclo da melhoria. Planeamos uma experiência (P), uma forma diferente de trabalhar, e criamos uma OPL para regulamentar como iremos trabalhar excepcionalmente durante a experiência. Depois, realizamos a experiência (D), verificamos os resultados (C) e decidimos agir (A). E quando a experiência resulta, a decisão deverá ser alterar as instruções de trabalho actuais afectadas à luz das alterações incluídas na OPL e sancionadas pelos resultados da experiência.

Assim, a OPL deveria desaparecer. Acontece que nas empresas as OPL eternizam-se e ganham categoria de documento do sistema da qualidade a par das instruções de trabalho. Tem o seu lado positivo inequívoco. No entanto, também revela outras coisas menos positivas.

Privilegiar os inputs sobre os outputs (parte III)

Parte I e parte II.
                   

"A second implication of looking at our customer offering as an input into the customer's value creation rather than as an output of our own system is that we most look at other inputs on the customer side.
…
Seeing the offering to the customer as an input in the customer's value-creating process it is often useful to distinguish between two types of effect. The first is related to the customer's internal efficiency, mainly as manifested in the customer's cost structure. If the cost of various inputs to the customer's process can be made lower, or if we can create inputs which make the customer's internal processes more efficient, the customer will have the benefit of a cost advantage as a result of our intervention. However, there is also the possibility that the input we provide to the customer has a direct effect on the customer's own customer offering, i.e. the offering to our customer's customers. In this case our intervention will be directly visible (although not necessarily possible to directly attribute to our intervention) to the customer's customer. Our customer's ability to develop his market position as a result of offering innovation will he enhanced. We may say that his external effectiveness has been enhanced."

Interessante esta referência às duas palavras eficiência e eficácia. Não esquecer o quanto a palavra eficaz pode ser relevante na estratégia das PME. Recordar "if the customer don't care about the price, the retailer should not care about the cost" - eficácia mais importante que eficiência.

Percebo muito bem porque é que Normann (na Parte II) fala em "upframing". Abraçar esta abordagem é como subir a uma montanha, e olhar para a planície onde se costuma estar e ver as coisas familiares de uma outra perspectiva e conseguir desenhar padrões de interacção que nunca tinham sido considerados.

Continua tremendo este Richard Normann e o seu "Reframing Business"!!!

"have the courage to say no"

Mão amiga fez-me chegar uma cópia de um documento do ministério dos negócios estrangeiros holandês intitulado "CBI Understanding European Buyers: Footwear".

Enquanto por cá um ministério dos negócios estrangeiros pode pensar em apoiar as empresas a exportarem, na Holanda o mesmo ministério cria documentos para ajudar as empresas de países de mão de obra barata a saberem como chegar aos compradores holandeses que depois revenderão para o resto da Europa.

Reparem no primeiro conselho:

"Buyers expect you to choose a specific market and strategy.
The pace and complexity of today’s markets have increasingly forced players up and down the supply chain to make deliberate choices, narrowing down their market to sometimes no more than a single segment, niche or product. Suppliers suggesting they can deliver ‘almost anything’ will not be taken seriously by European buyers. A clear and honest perception of one’s company and its strengths and limitations as well as one’s market is seen as an indispensable ingredient of success.
.
Considerations for action􏰀 Perhaps the most crucial decision you can make as an exporter seeking access to European markets is to define a specific market and strategy to the sharpest of your ability. Invest in your strategy and have the courage to say no to what is not in line with it.
.
􏰀 Make sure your choice is firmly grounded in market research and a thorough analysis of your organisation, products, strengths and limitations.
􏰀 Be aware of the fact that accessing EU or USA markets means you will face the toughest requirements – both legislative and non-legislative – in the world. Make sure this fits your strategy."

Uma mensagem em linha com a mensagem deste blogue. Formular uma estratégia e aplicá-la de forma obececada. E não tentar ser tudo para todos. E ter em conta o ADN.

"Small brands are stealing share from big brands" (parte III)

Parte I e parte II.

"Supply Economics.During the 50-year rule of big media, big retailers, and big brands, the FMCG playbook focused on scale in order to reduce unit costs in sourcing, manufacturing, brand marketing, trade spending, and overhead. Lower costs allowed companies to invest in innovation, key account management, and global functions, thus reinforcing their advantage over smaller players..Scale created superior economics and barriers to entry, but those advantages are now eroding. Small companies are increasingly able to access or even surpass the economics of much larger competitors in four key areas..Asset-Light Production. Small FMCG companies no longer need to own the means of production; they can effectively rent scale from a large comanufacturer. Through outsourcing, smaller companies can trade massive capital spending for more manageable variable costs at low volumes. [Moi ici: Como não recordar um nome e o que já aqui escrevemos: Font Salem]...Expanded Distribution Options. Small FMCG companies used to be stymied by a limited number of big retailers that carried a limited number of brands, plus their own private labels. Today, they find willing customers in fast-growing new retail formats, especially premium, convenience, and online. ... At Amazon and other online stores, shelf space is unlimited: small brands often have the same visibility as large ones..Some of these new channels offer small FMCG companies access to marketing and commercial tools and insights that were once the exclusive preserve of their larger peers. ...Variable-Cost Marketing. Social and digital media have given small companies the opportunity to build their brands and attract new customers without large upfront commitments to media spending. Unlike global consumer brands, smaller companies are not necessarily trying to reach a mass audience through paid media, such as TV advertising. Rather, they are trying to make personal and targeted connections, which social and digital media facilitate with variable-cost marketing..Ease of Coordination. The small attackers can often act more quickly and creatively than global companies in bringing brands to life. As founder-led companies, they are focused and efficient and do not bear the coordination and governance costs of large organizations. Their agility and simplicity allow them to outmaneuver large, siloed FMCG companies." [Moi ici: Ainda há dias exasperado, transmitia a uma multinacional uma mensagem dura para ver se acordam, se aceleram a tomada de decisão e se se focam. São presas tão fáceis nos tempos que correm]

Trechos retirados de "How Big Consumer Companies Can Fight Back"

Privilegiar os inputs sobre os outputs (parte II)

Parte I.

"Prime Movers, by reconfiguring, draw new boundaries thereby erasing old system definitions. ... moving from narrow and traditional competences to mobilizing broader (and developing new) competences, and from accepting the existing business definitions and rules of the game to imposing new rules of the game that transcend traditional industry boundaries and business system definitions.
…
Prime Movership not only as a set of objective, observable behaviors, but also as a mode of being, a mind-set.
…
Companies with a strong identification with their product (or production process) rarely become reforming Prime Movers although it is not uncommon for them to think of themselves as such. Those who do typically have a mental orientation more related to a broader notion of value creation. They look at the overall functioning and the larger, overall system in which they themselves are a part. We will refer to this as upframing.
…
A company that wants to expand its notion of the Value-creating System in which it works may start by systematically looking at the life cycles of the products and the total value-creation contexts of the customers with which it works.
…
A particularly fruitful way of reframing, in our experience, is to focus on the customer of the company as the major stakeholder, and to mentally frame oneself as part of the customer’s business. [Moi ici: Pensar nos inputs em vez de começar pelos outputs] … A major conceptual implication of doing so is to move away from the traditional industrial view of the customer offering as an output of one’s production system to a view in which the customer offering is seen as an input in the customer’s value creating process.  [Moi ici: Tremendo insight!!!] This requires the company to understand the customer’s business and value-creating process and use that as the basic framework within which one defines one’s business."

Tremendo este Richard Normann e o seu "Reframing Business"!!!

Mensagem deste Verão

"Value over volume"

Há dias criticavam a União Europeia por esta querer relacionar o aumento do número de professores com a melhoria dos resultados dos alunos.

Onde é que já se viu tamanha enormidade?! (Estou a ser irónico)

Eis o futuro na saúde, também:

"Doctors and hospitals are increasingly being paid not for the quantity of care they provide, but for the outcome or quality of care patients receive. The emerging trend in health care is about rewarding value, rather than volume. This is the future, where there is less focus on the number of tests or treatments a patient receives and more focus on whether a patient’s health is improving.
...
Roughly 20 agreements have been announced in recent months, and each is developed with differing details. For example, some result in larger rebates or lower prices if a drug does not lead to its intended results. Other arrangements let patients “try before you buy” and only require payment if the therapy works. Still others promote “pay for performance” in which a drug’s cost is tied to its effectiveness....While nearly 90 percent of all drugs on the market are low-cost generic medicines, roughly 5 percent of patients take so-called “specialty” drugs to treat serious or life-threatening diseases. These drugs represent one-third of all drug spending, and this trend is expected to continue with the discovery of new treatments for rare diseases and other highly personalized medicines."

Trechos retirados de "The future of drug pricing: Value over volume"

Privilegiar os inputs sobre os outputs

Pessoalmente uso o termo "pivô". Recordar "Primeiro, quem é o pivô da vossa procura?"

"I will reserve the term ‘Prime Movers’ for reconfigurers who do not just base themselves on a historical imperfection, and where the reconfiguration does not only come as a result of technological breakthroughs.
…
Prime Movers create cases of reconfiguration which seem to stem from a new design vision of an 'industry' or broader system of value creation. The design vision seldom is clear-cut from the start; rather, it has emergent characteristics. Prime Movers rend to envision a broader Value-creating System (as opposed to a technological innovation, a new product, or the simple exploitation of an economic imperfection) as the outcome of their strategy.
…
Prime movers … they move away from focusing on the competences required to manufacture and sell a product to a focus on the much broader set of competences related to the design and functioning of a Value-creating System. [Moi ici: Outra forma de dizer, privilegiar os inputs sobre os outputs]
…
The Prime Movers listen to the war cries and live up to them in the sense that they have only a limited number of competences and activities inside themselves. Instead, they develop another specific competence, namely the competence to mobilize and manage external actors and their competences which are outside the Prime Mover company.
…
While retaining and nurturing their own specific generic competences which they add to the totality of the Value-creating System, each of these Prime Movers adds a unique competence to the whole: a vision-based network pattern, and the ability to actually bring players with disparate assets and competence, together into forming a new, functioning Value-creating System. The end result is that Prime Movers move from focusing on a traditional and narrow (often production- and commodity-based) set of competence, to a much broader and partly new set of competences and users, which they are able to mobilize and coordinate (but not necessarily or even generally own) to that the result becomes a shift of focus from a product or service to a Value-creating System."

Gosto de despertar esta capacidade em empresários e gestores.

Fugir da armadilha afuniladora do "old focus" e abrir a mente para o manancial de oportunidades criativas que se podem abrir com o "new focus".

Ver o mundo através de um novo ponto de vista.

Trechos retirados de "Reframing Business" de Normann

"Small brands are stealing share from big brands" (parte II)

Parte I.

"WHY DAVID IS WINNING [Moi ici: Curiosa este recurso à metáfora de David e Golias. Quem estará a fazer o papel de Saúl?]
.
For the past five decades or more, multinational FMCG companies strengthened their brands, expanded their portfolios, steadily increased share and revenues, and created strong shareholder value. It was an era of big media, big retailers, and big brands. [Moi ici: E depois ...] But about five years ago, smaller companies and brands began to take share from their much larger rivals for the first time.
...

...
[Moi ici: Segue-se algo com o que não concordamos] Consumer Demand.
The belief that consumers’ preferences have shifted is understandable but misplaced. On the basis of our research in this area and our work over the past five years with global FMCG companies competing against smaller rivals in more than 20 categories, we have concluded that the fundamental drivers of consumer demand have remained consistent over time. [Moi ici: Continuem a laborar nesse erro para que as PME possam continuar a aproveitar]"

No caminho da "magia" (parte II)

Parte I que cita "Conseguem imaginar os job-to-be-done?".

Apreciar esta inovação:

This glove can give the disabled working hands pic.twitter.com/kuEbPArfXL

— Vala Afshar (@ValaAfshar) October 15, 2017

Não consigo deixar de pensar nos Golias do sector, mais interessados em aumentarem a quota de mercado através de aquisições e fusões, mais interessados no output do que no input, incapazes de calçarem os sapatos do cliente e verem o mundo de oportunidades a partir dessa perspectiva. Recordar também este postal, "Cuidado com a absolutização do que a nossa empresa produz".

"it took a holistic approach towards how to play"

Retirei a figura que se segue do livro "Reframing Business" de Richard Normann:

Figura fácil de relacionar com esta estória:

"Where to play: Instead of thinking about existing customers, Pro 7 asked itself, who is not buying TV advertising and why not? The answer: Start ups and small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Why don’t they buy? They usually don’t have the money. If they have the money, they don’t want to spend it on something like TV advertising with an uncertain outcome. And even if they were interested in buying TV advertising, they didn’t have the experience and skills to plan and execute a TV media campaign.
.
How to play: Instead of simply thinking about how to make the existing product, TV advertising, available to start ups and SMEs, Pro 7 took a more holistic approach, thinking about the products, services, the customer experience, but also the business and revenue models required to turn these noncustomers into customers, while at the same time making sure Pro 7 would not sacrifice its margins. The initial answer was to give away advertising minutes for free and in turn receive a share of the revenues created by its advertising. Along with this new revenue model, Pro 7 took care of media strategy and planning, spot production and execution, offering the new customers a holistic customer experience. Since its origins in 2012, the model has evolved into media-for-revenue-share and media-for-equity, making Pro 7 the first company in the world investing with its media power into start ups.
.
How to win: The change in the revenue model occurred only after some time. The initial media-for-revenue-share model made a lot of sense for the customers, but not for Pro 7. Only after offering media-for-equity did the new strategy create value not only for the customers, but also for Pro 7, and other equity partners, who had complained about the revenue-share model, as Pro 7 was taking cash out of the business.
.
So in other words, Pro 7 asked about noncustomers and what their barriers to consumption were; it took a holistic approach towards how to play, crafting a comprehensive offering, business model, and revenue model; and it thought about how to create value not only for its customers, but also itself, and its ecosystem partners."

Calçar os sapatos do cliente, ou do não cliente, e ver o mundo pelos seus olhos. O truque é deixar de pensar em despachar os outputs que se produzem e pensar nos inputs na vida do cliente. Como ele pensa, como ele opera, que medos, que preocupações, que aspirações...

Há dias li este trecho:

"Think “input before output”"

E dei-lhe uma outra interpretação, mais em linha com este slide:

 Pensar em output é pensar em despachar o que se produz, o que no limite significa tentar impingir o vómito que se produz, o "old focus" da 1ª figura.

Pensar em input é pensar no "new focus" da 1ª figura e perceber que o que damos numa relação B2B é um input para ser processado na relação que interessa ao cliente, a sua relação com o seu cliente.

Trecho retirado de "What’s the focus of your strategy conversations?"

Acerca da globalização

"According to Mr. Ghemawat, a globalization strategy should be based on three interrelated options: adaptation, aggregation, and arbitrage.
.
Adaptation means responding to differences among countries by tailoring products and services to suit local tastes and needs. However, each such local variation adds costs and complexity, thus reducing the benefits of aggregation and economies of scale. Smart adaptation requires limiting the amount of local variations as well as finding the most efficient ways of introducing such variations. [Moi ici: Conversa para entreter Golias... presos entre a espada e a parede. Por um lado a eficiência, o querer aproveitar a vantagem da escala, por outro a incapacidade de servir todas as tribos] Platforms offer a good way forward, offering the aggregation benefits of a common platform foundation, while each country or region can develop its own ecosystem of platform partners, whose product and services are adapted to local requirements.
.
Aggregation is used to deliver economics of scale and scope by expanding operations across national borders. Aggregation drives efficiencies and productivity and is one of the most common justification for having a global R&D, manufacturing and logistics strategy. “Those advantages normally have to be pretty large in order to overcome the home court advantage of local competitors… Companies that have operations in markets where they’re only marginally successful, on the other hand, may need to retrench.”
.
Arbitrage leverages economic differences between national and regional markets, such as labor costs and tax incentives. Arbitrage opportunities have somewhat narrowed in recent years, given the rising prosperity of several emerging markets.
...
Companies should consider regional strategies, as a reasonable compromise between a one-size-fits-all global strategy that ignores local differences, and an inefficient and costly highly localized strategy. Such strategies would allow them to take advantage of similarities between neighboring countries in the same region.  “An analysis of 29 distance variables shows that in almost all cases countries from the same region average higher similarity scores than countries from different regions – and often by very wide margins.” Another pragmatic variant is to localize the customer-facing, front end parts of the strategy, while centralizing the back-end platforms that support R&D, production and other operational functions.[Moi ici: Golias a avançarem para plataformas de produção por grandes regiões económicas]
.
The article points out that “the backlash against globalization is also, in part, a backlash against big business.
...
What went wrong? Part of the problem is that global firms have generally responded to this challenging economic environment by focusing primarily on reducing their overall operational costs. Despite dramatic advances in technology, companies have mostly ignored the opportunities to pursue growth through innovative new products and markets."

Trechos retirados de "The True State of Globalization: Not Dead, Not Completely OK"

Ver também "Globalization in the Age of Trump"

"Small brands are stealing share from big brands"

"Small brands are stealing share from big brands. [Moi ici: Em linha com a nossa metáfora de Mongo]
...
Conventional wisdom says that today’s consumers want healthy, natural food and personal-care options, and millennials, in particular, prefer authentic to mass-produced goods. To win back this new breed of consumer, the thinking goes, fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies have few options. Either they can launch small brands, at the risk of fragmenting attention and resources, or they can try to increase earnings through deep cost cutting, emulating the approach the private equity firm 3G Capital has taken in its acquisitions of large consumer brands. In short, many believe organic growth from the core is over.
.
We disagree. Goliath can defeat David. Consumers’ tastes have changed, but their underlying needs and desires have not.  [Moi ici: Não consigo concordar com esta afirmação. Os consumidores já não sãos os mesmos, já não estão prisioneiros do que o industrialismo criou para eles. Em vez de massa passiva e obediente, tribos cada vez mais apaixonadas e intransigentes] What has fundamentally changed is the economics of supply. [Moi ici: Só isto é muito pouco, é verdade mas não é tudo] Scale was once all important. On its own, however, it no longer guarantees competitive advantage. [Moi ici: Verdade que muitos Sarumans na academia por cá ainda não descobriram] Even so, large FMCG companies can prevail over their supposedly nimbler foes. But they need a new playbook.
...
they need to engage with consumers in new ways, accelerating adoption of the viral, personalized, and experience- based methods that small brands have exploited.
.
Third, rather than fearing the complexity that comes with creating and marketing a wider variety of brands and products, they need to embrace it strategically. In a fragmenting world, the ability to serve a wide range of demand effectively and efficiently can be a competitive advantage.
.
Finally, they need to emulate the focus, coordination, and speed of their upstart rivals. Those companies rely on the agile principles, popular in entrepreneurial hubs around the world, of rapid prototyping, testing, and learning in continual cycles."

Acredito que é muito mais do que uma alteração na estrutura económica do fornecimento. Acredito que é muito mais radical e profundo e não creio que no longo prazo a maioria das empresas grandes subsista como tal. Mesmo que queiram mudar estão prisioneiras da necessidade de grandes séries para justificar as taxas de retorno exigidas pelos accionistas.

Trechos retirados de "How Big Consumer Companies Can Fight Back"

ISO 9001 e ecossistemas

O @pauloperes remeteu-me para esta apresentação onde entre outras coisas fixei este ecossistema:

Quem trabalha com a ISO 9001:2015 pode facilmente identificar um, ecossistema da procura, conjunto de partes interessadas relevantes e dos seus requisitos relevantes.

Acerca das exportações YTD - mês 8 (2017)

Com base nos dados das exportações que o INE publicou na semana que agora termina é possível perceber algumas coisas boas.

O acelerar das exportações das máquinas eléctricas.
O bom desempenho da agricultura, a começar pela fruta.

Bom motivo para recordar um tweet desta semana:

A competitividade da economia nacional melhorou muito nos últimos anos e a economia está mais aberta. pic.twitter.com/e6ysmwkv4C

— Alvaro SantosPereira (@santospereira_a) October 12, 2017

Por onde andarão os que acusavam o euro de nos impedir de ser competitivos?

Curiosidade do dia

"A globalização actual, como as anteriores, não tem um autor nem é uma opção que possa ser rejeitada. É uma dinâmica que se estabelece entre factores e estes são independentes das vontades - em especial, não podem ser travados pelas escolhas dos eleitores. Quando os responsáveis políticos permitem que os eleitores confundam o que é um processo com o que pode ser determinado por uma opção dos eleitores, abrem o caminho para o fracasso estratégico."

Trecho retirado de "As escolhas dos eleitores"

Agricultura por gente com skin-in-the-game (parte II)

Interessante esta evolução "Febre dos frutos secos contagia planície alentejana".

Como não recordar os tweets deste postal "Agricultura por gente com skin-in-the-game":

Pena os actores ainda não terem tomado consciência a sério de que têm de assumir o futuro por si e não ficar à espera do papá-Estado. Por um lado temos os produtores que estão a fazer a parte inicial no terreno. No entanto, já poderiam estar a movimentar-se para subir na escala de valor e, por exemplo, equacionar a produção de manteiga de amêndoa. E já poderiam estar a criar uma marca para a região para fugir do granel comoditizado e vender a marca Portugal.

Para reflexão

Há dias ao conversar com o director comercial experimentado de empresa que está a fazer o caminho das pedras para convergir para o omnicanal apanhei um pormenor interessante.

A empresa tem uma vasta gama de clientes que que colocam os seus produtos em lojas onde os consumidores de todo o mundo, literalmente, vão comprar no retalho físico.

A empresa também tem vendido através da internet directamente ao consumidor final, embora em quantidades que não se comparam.

Os lojistas, ou porque são muito conservadores, ou porque as cores escuras ficam melhor nas lojas, preferem encomendar artigos em preto e cinza. Os consumidores, talvez porque seja a sua preferência, ou porque a prateleira virtual saliente mais a cor, preferem de muito longe as cores garridas.

Um choque!

Um choque!

Perceber que na Alemanha e no todo poderoso sector da engenharia também se verifica, e com números impressionantes, o fenómeno dos clientes não rentáveis:

• "To what degree are suppliers aware of the profitability of customer relationships?

• Are unprofitable customer relationships a common phenomenon among business-to-business suppliers?

• To what degree does profitability influence customer management strategies?

• Are suppliers ready to terminate unprofitable customer relationships or are there differences in their willingness to make the final move?

...
Empirical data were gathered among sales managers in the German mechanical
engineering industry.
...
Still, being in charge of managing customer relationships, we expected our respondents to at least intuitively know, which relationships are profitable, regardless of the measurement techniques they apply. On average, respondents estimated 75 per cent of their customer relationships to be profitable. As shown in Figure 2, unprofitable relationships are a common phenomenon among the responding firms. Nearly a fifth of respondents (17.5 per cent) claim that more than half of their customer portfolio is not profitable.
It appears that few firms have a systematic approach to managing unprofitable customers. Only a third (33.7 per cent) uses minimum requirements concerning the profitability of customers such as minimum gross margins. Only a fifth (21.2 per cent) claims to have guiding principles on the handling of unprofitable customers.

...

In order to learn more about suppliers’ motivation not to end unprofitable customer relationships, the respondents were asked to rate several predefined statements on a Likert-type scale ranging from 1 to 7.
...
The vast majority of respondents regard possible future contributions of the customer as a main reason not to terminate currently unprofitable relationships (statement 1). The fact that the majority of respondents agree with the statement that “it is always more expensive to attract a new customer than to keep an old customer” (statement 10) suggests that they have a rather cautious or passive view concerning the issue of ending unprofitable business relationships.
...
Information on customer profitability is scarce in the industry and the methods we examined to measure it are not commonly applied. As knowledge of methods to evaluate customers and their implications is incomplete, firms and their staff have only modest or no reliable knowledge about the value and profitability of their customers. ... very few marketing practitioners are able to provide meaningful estimates of the profitability of their individual customers.
Most respondents confirm that unprofitable relationships are a common feature of the market. Nearly a fifth of respondent firms have to cope with a customer base more than half of which is not (yet) profitable. This means that the other half has to cover up for losses to ensure the supplier’s overall profitability. This might be particularly difficult to achieve during an economic downturn. Given the striking number of unprofitable customer relationships, we have to consider the possibility that industries such as mechanical engineering might often be faced with relatively low profitability. This industry revolves around high capital investments, high costs to serve individual customers, and the need to establish long-term relationships."

Como será por cá? Quando uma empresa não tem uma estratégia clara, quando uma empresa não comunica essa estratégia, quando uma empresa não tem uma estrutura de capital saudável cai nesta armadilha da incapacidade para dizer não, para receber no curto prazo algum dinheiro para se manter à tona e, acaba por se enterrar ainda mais no médio prazo.


Trechos retirados de Sabrina Helm Ludger Rolfes Bernd Günter, (2006),"Suppliers' willingness to end unprofitable customer relationships", European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 40 Iss 3/4 pp. 366 - 383

"achieving strategic resonance"

"Whilst it has been argued by others that manufacturing strategy is the ‘missing link’ in corporate strategy, the gap between the two has widened, rather than narrowed since it was identified. This gap in the literature is true both in mainstream strategy (where manufacturing strategy remains an undeveloped theme and is lost in its critical importance to resource-led and competence based literature) as well as within manufacturing strategy where the root cause of exclusion of manufacturing personnel in the main stream strategy process has not been developed.
.
The reasons for this gap, we suggest, have not been explored sufficiently to date. We suggest the key issue is that, although the change from craft production has often been explained in terms of changes within manufacturing processes, this transition has not been developed in terms of the fundamental impact upon the strategic decision process within firms. Strategic resonance is difficult to achieve in the internal strategy process of the firm whose processes often remain rooted in hierarchical settings fraught with conflicting demands between top levels (strategic) and lower levels (operations) of management. The growth of large, multi-divisional enterprises, particularly within the United States during the emergence of mass production, brought with it the creation of increased levels of hierarchy within the firm. The exclusion of operations personnel from the strategic direction of the firm had enormous impact because now, in contrast to craft enterprises, there could be conflict and tension between conflicting goals within the firm resulting in strategic dissonance.
However, whilst achieving strategic resonance is a profoundly difficult task, it will be a necessary requirement in the continuing highly competitive arena."

Trechos retirados de "Aligning Manufacturing Strategy and Business- Level Competitive Strategy in New Competitive Environments: The Case for Strategic Resonance" de Steve Brown e Kate Blackmon, publicado por Journal of Management Studies · June 2005

"Focus on Problems, Not Ideas"

"1. Don’t Get Trapped in Your P&L
For any business to succeed over the long term, it must earn a return that exceeds its cost of capital. That’s why good managers put so much focus on measuring and managing return on investment (ROI) as a basic operational practice. It is through continuously making incremental progress in lowering costs and increasing revenues that firms achieve competitive advantage in their industry.
.
Yet every enterprise is essentially a square-peg business waiting for a round-hole world. Unexpected changes in technology, customer preferences, and regulation can disrupt even the best-run operation. When that happens, traditional practices will only lead to getting better and better at things people care about less and less.
...
2. Focus on Problems, Not Ideas
Another common misconception about innovation is that it is about ideas. It’s not. The truth is nobody cares about what ideas you have. They care about what problems you can solve.
.
While brainstorming about ideas can be helpful in an operational context, because problems are front and center, for innovation identifying a meaningful problem is half the job."

Trechos retirados de "4 Ways Leaders Can Get More from Their Company’s Innovation Efforts"

"impede que mais valor seja gerado"

Engraçado como ainda ontem ao almoço conversamos sobre um tema parecido com este. Gente que tem um script e não foge dele por nada deste mundo. E com isso, algumas vezes, destrói valor, ou impede que mais valor seja gerado.

"most leaders and organizations tend to focus on just one type of performance. But there are two types that are important for success.
.
The first type is known as tactical performance. Tactical performance is how effectively your organization sticks to its strategy. It is the driver of focus and consistency. It allows organizations to increase strength by directing limited resources to the fewest targets. In Precision’s case, good tactical performance required developing rules, checklists, and standard operating procedures and then following them closely. Similarly, when Starbucks baristas make your latte the same way across cafés, or when a software engineer delivers the expected features each sprint, you are witnessing tactical performance.
.
The second type, known as adaptive performance, is how effectively your organization diverges from its strategy. Adaptive performance manifests as creativity, problem solving, grit, innovation, and citizenship. It allows organizations to create value in a world filled with, as the U.S. military says, volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity, where technology and strategy changes rapidly. At Precision, good adaptive performance would have included every line worker coming up with new ideas and then teaching them to their colleagues. If you’ve ever seen a Starbucks barista adapt their greeting to make you feel personally welcome, or an engineer lean over to help a colleague solve an unexpected problem, you’re witnessing adaptive performance.
.
Essentially, tactical performance is how well you stick to your plan, and adaptive performance is how well you diverge from your plan. Every high performer needs both. A great salesperson will operate much more efficiently with a defined process for reaching out to prospects. They will represent the products more consistently. But they must also adapt the standard approach based on each customer’s unique needs. The same is true for any team or organization."

Trecho retirado de "There Are Two Types of Performance — but Most Organizations Only Focus on One"

"algo que a empresa já tem no seu ADN "

Há dias num e-mail tentei descrever de modo sucinto a metodologia que sigo para facilitar a formulação da estratégia numa PME. Escrevi, entre outras coisas, este trecho:

"Normalmente trabalho com PME. E partimos do princípio de que uma PME não tem a veleidade de mudar o mundo nem tem capital suficiente para mudar radicalmente de vida. Assim, procuro que seja feita uma reflexão acerca do ADN da empresa.
.
O que trouxe a empresa até aqui? O que pode servir de ponto de apoio para alavancar uma hipótese de futuro? Onde é que a empresa dá cartas, tem uma vantagem competitiva, pode diferenciar-se? Com que produtos/marcas e clientes consegue melhores margens ou tem menos concorrência?
.
Assim, partindo de algo que a empresa já tem no seu ADN e que a diferencia ou dá potencial de diferenciação peço que desenhemos o ecossistema da procura para a sua oferta futura. Por ecossistema da procura entendo o desenho das entidades externas que a empresa deve privilegiar para criar o futuro modelo de negócio."

Algo que se sintoniza bastante bem com algo que leio em "Strategy is the story":

"Frank Martin, who as a CEO orchestrated the revival of the British model-train maker, Hornby, by turning it from a toy company into a hobby company, put his strategy story in just 15 words. “We make perfect scale models for adult collectors, which appeal to some sense of nostalgia.” He decided to focus on making perfect scale models because that is what collectors look for. Moreover, people would usually specifically collect the Hornby brand because it reminded them of their childhood, and with it a nostalgic, foregone era. Frank Martin’s choices were not just a bunch of disconnected strategic decisions; they hung together, and, combined, made for a logical story.
.
Second, the story must tie to the company’s resources. Importantly, the set of choices has to be clearly linked to the company’s unique resources, those that can give them a competitive advantage in an attractive segment of the market. Although Hornby had been hovering on the brink of bankruptcy for a decade, it still had some valuable resources. First of all, it possessed a valuable brand that was very well-known and appreciated by people who had owned a Hornby train as children.
.
Additionally, the company had a great design capability in its hometown of Margate. However, these resources weren’t worth much when competing with the cheaper Chinese toy makers. The children who wanted a toy train for their birthday didn’t know (and could care less) about the Hornby brand. The precision modelling skills of the engineers in Margate weren’t of much value in the toy segment, where things mostly had to be robust and durable. However, these two resources — an iconic brand and a design capability — were of considerable value when making ‘perfect scale models for adult collectors’. It was a perfect match of existing resources to strategy."

Um bom exemplo do racional que procuro seguir no exercício. O que é que há no nosso CV que possa ser usado para fazer a diferença a trabalhar para outros clientes-alvo com outra proposta de valor?

Acerca do pensamento sistémico

Outro tema relacionado com os ecossistemas da procura:

"The circular economy uses understanding the system to give a better overall result. You can’t ignore the feedback, it’s real. Just because it is not in your model or idea – doesn’t take away the issue. So, systems thinking really is understanding bigger contexts over longer periods and looking at the connections, not the parts, for insights. We are looking for patterns not certainty, because certainty does not exist, but the pattern gives us insight about which direction to move in. A circular economy reflects this more contemporary scientific understanding of how the world works.
...
Lou: So how can people know where to start when it comes to systems thinking? How do we break free from habitual thinking and take things forward?
.
Ken: This indirect causation makes it difficult to know where to intervene in the system, because people expect visible action. They are used to reacting to cause and effect. Having a different perspective on how the world works doesn’t sound like taking action"

Trechos retirados de "What is systems thinking? And why does it matter for a circular economy?"

"dealing with unprofitable customers" (parte II)

Parte I.

Gosto desta linguagem da SDL para explicar o fenómeno dos clientes que destroem valor:

"By identifying and considering a range of stakeholders, firms can gain competitive advantage by engaging not only with customers but also other partners to encourage intergroup engagement [Moi ici: Ecossistema]
...
The SDL literature states that value is created within a service system. The firm uses its operant resources to interact with other actors in the service system and, in particular, engages with customers’ value creation as actor-to-actor. These interactions, providing they are positive, lead to an improvement in the well-being of the service system as a whole, wherein the customer and value co-creation become embedded.
.
Value destruction, however, arises from incongruent elements of practice, which depart from the shared understandings of practice among firm, customer and service system. If these understandings are not shared, value is destroyed rather than created and leads to the decline in the well-being of at least one of the systems and brings about an asymmetry in the service system. Instead of gaining competitive advantage through the action of the actors, the firm and the wider system are placed at a disadvantage.
...
Although it has been suggested that the firm thinks of its consumers as equipped with the full range of operant resources to co-create value, it may only be ‘good’ customers who are able and willing to apply the specialized skills and knowledge to gain value-in-use. The firm has customers or prospective customers who are unwilling to provide reciprocal resources who fail to understand the reciprocity of the value proposition, who are unable to acquire the skills and resources to be effective resource integrators or, who ‘may botch...’. All of these suggest that in terms of value co-creation, customer operant resources may not necessarily interact beneficially with the operand resources of the firm as required by SDL. In these circumstances, these customers may not gain value-in-use so that the firm’s service propositions will have negative value for them, both experiencing a loss. If certain customers are unwilling or unable to use their operant resources to co-create value, they cannot act as the fundamental units of exchange and hence collaborative value-creating partners. The firm may provide opportunities for these customers to learn how to develop their operant resources to co-create, but if it encounters repeated instance of value destruction, it may have to discontinue further investment in that customer and discourage further interactions.
...
The destruction of value is not limited to the firm/customer dyad but resonates throughout the service system."

Continua.

Trechos retirados de "Selective demarketing: When customers destroy value" publicado por Marketing Theory 1–18, 2016

Curiosidade do dia

À atenção dos fragilistas, "L’affondo di Schäuble: «Insolvenza automatica per i Paesi in difficoltà
che chiedono aiuto»":

"Era la sua ultima occasione e non l’ha sprecata. Nel gesto, prima ancora che nel suo contenuto, è racchiuso il messaggio che Wolfgang Schäuble ha voluto lasciare al resto d’Europa: io vado, ma le mie politiche restano. Le presento da solo, senza aspettare neppure la Francia. E prevarranno.
...
La differenza è che stavolta il «non paper» di Schäuble ha il pieno appoggio della cancelliera, anche nel prossimo mandato da leader. Washington, sotto Donald Trump, è presa da troppi problemi per notare cosa fa la Germania in Europa. E quel testo uscito ieri dalla cartella di Schäuble non è molto meno radicale di quello che, espellendo la Grecia, avrebbe trasformato l’area euro in un club in cui un Paese può sanzionarne un altro nel modo finanziariamente più duro.
...
L’obiettivo esplicito per la Germania è introdurre un fattore di disciplina che spingerebbe i governi a ridurre i debiti. L’obiettivo implicito sembra invece di ridurre l’esposizione tedesca a futuri salvataggi simili a quelli di Grecia, Spagna, Portogallo, Irlanda e Cipro. Berlino prevede infatti che i rimborsi dei titoli di Stato siano rinviati se un governo chiede aiuto all’Europa. Quindi, «gli investitori dovrebbero contribuire» (cioè subire perdite esplicite sui titoli di Stato) se l’emergenza non passasse."

Um pouco de estratégia na agricultura pode fazer toda a diferença

Há dias aproveitei passar perto de Estarreja e passei pelo casal de lavradores que me vende ovos caseiros de contrabando e sem factura (pica especial por chatear a ASAE e a AT em simultâneo). O lavrador contou-me que este ano foi um ano excepcional para a produção de milho. Há muito milho e, por isso, o máximo que consegue é que o comprem a 0,20 € por kilo. Daí que já tenha decidido usar o milho na alimentação dos seus animais.

Enquanto o ouvia pensei logo que ele deveria optar por outras culturas e abandonar o que não faz sentido para um pequeno produtor de um país com fronteiras abertas. Aposto que há muitas culturas alternativas, não tradicionais, que lhe dariam muito mais rendimento.

Voltei a recordar-me deste episódio quando ontem à noite descobri que o amigo Graça me tinha enviado este texto, "New England Is Cracking the Code to Farming — All Year-Long". Texto que me diz muito porque também faço parte de uma "community-supported agriculture, or CSAs", a AMAP Gaia.

Um pouco de estratégia na agricultura pode fazer toda a diferença:

"The community-focused process is especially fruitful in pastoral New England, which has a higher proportion of small operators and family farms than anywhere else in the country. The region doesn’t have a single representative in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s top 10 agriculture-producing states. “You’re never going to convince really large farmers to get away from the monoculture of planting 1,000 acres of corn,” says Greg Noden, USDA farm operations manager in Geneva, New York. But for a midsize or beginning farmer, it’s a viable shift. And that class of farmer, Noden adds, is “more prevalent in the Northeast than anywhere else.”
.
There are financial benefits for those who change up the typical farming equation. “If you can get people greens in December, not only will you have plenty of demand but you will be able to charge a premium,” says Jim Hafner, executive director of the Keene, New Hampshire–based nonprofit Land for Good. “That’s why you also see people moving into non-land-based farming, such as hydroponics.”"

Estas CSAs permitem:

• assegurar clientes-alvo;
• assegurar prateleira;
• assegurar mecanismo de desenvolvimento da relação;
• mudar de proposta de valor;
• mudar de preço;
• mudar de ecossistema da procura. 

"dealing with unprofitable customers"

Para quem descobriu as curvas de Stobachoff em 2011. Para quem acredita no tecto de vidro, para quem usa o marcador "clientes-alvo" desde 2007, é claro que o desafio de lidar com clientes que destroem valor é aliciante. Não esquecer Byrnes.

"Selective demarketing is a strategic option for a firm to manage customers who are or are likely to be a poor fit with its offering.
...
these customers effectively destroy value by misusing or misunderstanding how to integrate their operant resources with those of the firm.
...
A firm interacts with selected customers to co-construct a consumption experience from which the customer gains value-in-use or co-creates value. The firm directs its marketing efforts at identifying new customers with whom it may be able to co-create value and seeks to extend value co-creation opportunities with existing customers. However, the business environment is far from static; changes occur for the firm, its customers and members of its network. The firm, as a result, may decide to withdraw from existing markets and/or to prioritize new customer groups. Such actions have been labelled selective demarketing, the aim of which is to reduce demand from certain classes of customer. These segments or customer classes may be considered relatively unprofitable or undesirable in terms of their impact on other valued segments of the market, becoming candidates for selective demarketing.
...
some customers effectively destroy value by misusing or misunderstanding how to integrate their operant resources with those of the firm. By destroying value, these customers may be suitable for selective demarketing.
...
Serving some customers may engender high psychological as well as financial costs such as disruptive or aggressive customers encountered by airlines prompting firms to seek ways of encouraging them to go elsewhere. Firms may have up to 30% of their customers making a negative contribution in B2C situations, rising to a half of customers, in a study of German engineering firms.
...
It has been asserted that resource allocation decisions at the market or segment level can result in suboptimal strategies; therefore, firms should allocate resources at the individual customer level instead
...
The firm can then identify those customers who do not generate a desired level of return and may encourage these customers to spend more or reduce the quantity of sales communications
...
By not dealing with unprofitable customers, the firm is failing to optimize its resources. This failure is likely to affect its stakeholders – it has already been noted that serving unprofitable customers raises costs for profitable customers – with costs resonating within the stakeholder system. Although the mandate for selective demarketing is increasingly being accepted, firms are caught in something of a dilemma. On one hand, they have a proportion of customers who generate insufficient revenue and affect stakeholders as well as the firm itself. On the other hand, the repercussions of eliminating these customers either directly or indirectly damages the firm’s reputation. It is, therefore, not surprising that firms may hang back from selectively demarketing but at the same time, the decision not to take action against unprofitable customers is damaging to the firm and its system."

Continua.

Trechos retirados de "Selective demarketing: When customers destroy value" publicado por Marketing Theory 1–18, 2016

Foco e mosaico de actividades (parte IV)

Parte I e parte II e parte III.

"The final two categories depict companies that are living a coherent identity:
.
10. Coherent companies have a powerful value proposition and a system of a few differentiating capabilities that support that value proposition. Their portfolio of products and services grows successfully because of the strengths they consistently bring to bear.
.
11. Supercompetitors use their coherence to shape their future. They apply their capabilities to a broader range of challenges and loftier goals, serve the fundamental needs and wants of their customers, and ultimately lead their industries. These companies are not just playing the game of business well — they’re changing the rules."[Moi ici: Recordar scripting markets, performativity, mercados como configurações]

Trechos retirados de "11 Types of Strategic Maturity: Which One Describes Your Company?"

"There is no silver bullet"

"That’s the problem with patterns. It is beyond our human capacity to swallow them whole, so we curate them to make them more comprehensible. In doing so, we eliminate important context and overfit selected elements of the past onto the future. That makes for a nice story, but fails to take into account the messy details of reality.
.
The truth is that patterns can never be validated backward, only forward. So it doesn’t matter how many success stories we can database and then squeeze into snazzy little graphs. The ugly little secret of business strategy is that you need to make your best guess in an uncertain context, manage resources wisely and see what works. There is no silver bullet."

Trecho retirado de "Don’t Bet On Someone Else’s Success Story"

Olhar para o ecossistema (parte II)

Parte I.

Pensar a nível de ecossistema passa por perceber que os mercados não existem, os mercados são seres vivos que vão existindo e evoluindo:

"the starting point is to view markets as emerging outcomes best understood by following the process of their practical realization
...
the idea of markets as plastic entities that are continously ‘in the making’
...
markets as ‘on-going socio-material enactments that organize economized exchanges’
...
by conceptualizing markets as continuous enactments rather than ready-made, CMS goes beyond simplistic stage models of market emergence, for example, formation–stability– change–dissolution. It stresses that markets are continuously shaped both by explicit efforts to create new markets or change existing ones, and by the everyday activities of buyers and sellers. This allows us to explore how users exert influence over markets beyond the initial commercialization of an offering."

Por exemplo:

"We conceptualize market shaping as five interrelated subprocesses in which users may be involved as agents: qualifying goods, fashioning modes of exchange, configuring actors, establishing market norms and generating market representations." 

Fundamental perceber que se pode ser um arquitecto de paisagens competitivas.

Trechos retirados de "How users shape markets" publicado por Marketing Theory 1–24, 2016

Foco e mosaico de actividades (parte III)

Parte I e parte II.

"Four archetypes refer to companies that have developed a coherent strategy but struggle to execute it:
.
6. Distracted companies have defined a coherent identity for their company, but they have a hard time resisting diversions. They pursue market opportunities that aren’t in line with their strategy.
.
7. Resource-constrained companies struggle to find the funds to execute their strategy. Building differentiating capabilities is difficult and expensive, and the executives at these companies don’t think their financial situation allows them to make the bold moves they need.
.
8. Capability-constrained companies lack the knowledge, skills, or technology needed to build out their capabilities to a world-class level, or to scale them throughout the organization.
.
9. Overstretched companies have defined a coherent identity for themselves, but it is so far away from the company’s current status — and their ability to enlist customers, employees, and investors on their behalf — that they can’t successfully realize their goals."

4 pecados capitais!

Qual será pior, a incapacidade de ter disciplina, muitas vezes por causa da inveja sobre o que outros estão a conseguir, ou o desenho de uma estratégia que não tem em conta a realidade de uma organização.



Trechos retirados de "11 Types of Strategic Maturity: Which One Describes Your Company?"

Olhar para o ecossistema

E volto a "Strategy for a Networked World" de Ramírez & Mannervik para olhar para esta figura.

Várias unidades de negócio da mesma entidade (Scania, a azul).

Compradores do serviço realizado pelos veículos da Scania.

Operadores do serviço realizado pelos veículos da Scania.

Fornecedores e concorrentes de peças para veículos da Scania.

Oficinas que intervêm nos veículos da Scania.

Distribuidores de veículos da Scania e de concorrentes.

Fabricantes de carroçarias.

...

Tal como Normann escreveu...

"take stock of what (one has), yet distance (oneself) from it and explore new territory"

Olhar para o ecossistema actual ou desenhar um ecossistema potencial para subir na escala do valor.

Está tudo relacionado

Está tudo relacionado.

Este texto, "Starbucks Closes Online Store to Focus on In-Person Experience", tem tudo a ver com "How Not to Fail at Retail" e com perceber o papel das interacções e da co-criação de valor.

Tudo o que, por exemplo, o jornalismo mainstream nunca percebeu.

Se os "chineses" do retalho, as lojas online, têm preços e diversidade de oferta imbatível, não adianta tentar competir com eles nesse campeonato (good old Kasparov), não adianta entrar numa guerra entre cães, mais vale mudar para gato.

"O truque está no jogador reconhecer aquilo que faz melhor. Se é melhor na espera e numa estratégia de paciência, então é esse o caminho que deve seguir; se é melhor num ataque poderoso, deve criar condições para o fazer. O elemento chave para uma estratégia de sucesso é assegurar que, no ambiente que está criado, somos muito melhores do que o nosso concorrente. Trata-se de forçá-lo a cometer erros.
...
é preciso conhecer a nossa natureza e a do nosso adversário. Reconhecer as forças e as fraquezas de cada um. E assegurar que a luta se processa num território no qual as nossas fraquezas são menos importantes, enquanto que as do adversário são flagrantes.
...
Se o meu exército tem cavalaria, convém que a batalha seja num vale; mas se a cavalaria for do adversário é melhor que o confronto seja nos montes. Trata-se de encontrar o campo de batalha que potencia a nossa vantagem competitiva e no qual as potenciais vantagens do adversário encontrem contrariedades. Acredito que a maioria das batalhas - na história militar, nos negócios ou no xadrez - são decididas por manobras prévias e que as grandes vantagens competitivas são acumuladas antes da batalha propriamente dita." [Moi ici: Claro que há que dar um desconto à visão dos negócios como uma guerra ou um jogo. Não devemos ser como o Dick Dastardly e darmos demasiada importância à concorrência. Nos negócios o objectivo não é eliminar o concorrente, o objectivo é  seduzir de forma sustentada um cliente]

Por um lado:

"“Every retailer that is going to win in this new environment must become an experiential destination,” Mr. Schultz told investors in April." [Moi ici: O mais provável é que o máximo que o comércio online possa fazer seja "permutar". O comércio online é muito bom para artigos padrão, é muito bom para artigos permutados, não é bom para quem procura algo à sua medida, para quem procura algo que ainda não existe, para quem não sabe o que procura]