"Once escalation takes hold ..."

Deve ter sido isto que aconteceu recentemente com a entrada do Estado no capital do SIRESP:

"Once escalation takes hold, it can be difficult to reverse, but you can reduce the chances of falling into that trap.
...
Escalation of commitment is deeply rooted in the human brain. In a classic experiment, two groups of participants were asked whether they would be willing to invest $1 million to develop a stealth bomber. The first group was asked to assume that the project had not yet been launched and that a rival company had already developed a successful (and superior) product. Unsurprisingly, only 16.7% of those participants opted to commit to the funding.
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The second group was asked to assume that the project was already 90% complete. Its members, too, were told that a competitor had developed a superior product. This time 85% opted to commit the resources to complete the project.
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These results underscore the fact that people tend to stick to an existing course of action, no matter how irrational. The project’s likely outcome was identical for both groups. Because a competitor had beaten the company to the market with a superior product, the new product was almost bound to fail. The only difference between the two situations was the timing of the question: before commitment to the project versus when it was nearing completion."

Cuidado com a relação entre humanos e custos afundados. Boa para manter os laços na tribo, má para a racionalidade das decisões de gestão.

Trechos retirados de "Stop Doubling Down on Your Failing Strategy"

"get to the point quickly"

Gosto de ir directo ao assunto e evitar "testamentos" quando se trata da documentação de um sistema de gestão. Recordar a importância que dou aos verbos, por exemplo,:

• A abordagem por processos (parte I) (de Novembro de 2008); e
• 10. Designar um processo (de Maio de 2017)

Como digo tantas vezes, por exemplo em "the art of focusing on what’s important and ignoring the rest":

"Ao modelar o funcionamento de empresas, não sejam como os franceses, não tentem incluir, não tentem contemplar tudo;"

Como não sorrir em cumplicidade com:

"1. GET TO THE POINT
When you get to the point quickly, your messaging becomes instantly clearer. Clarity makes your writing easier to understand, easier to retain, and more enjoyable to read. ...the “lard factor”. These are the unnecessary words in a sentence that aren’t doing a job, have the tendency to confuse rather than explain, and generally get in the way of your message..
According to Lanham, “Business prose ought to be verb-dominated prose, lining up actor, action and object in a causal chain, and lining them up fast”. Or put even simpler, business communications should be action-oriented, clear about what action it wants to take place, and quickly explain what that is."

Trechos retirados de "Intercom on Customer Engagement"

O poder da interacção

"increasingly emphasized operant resources like knowledge and skills as the basis for value creation...as traditional manufacturing companies have increasingly invested in services due to the increase in competition in traditional markets, the need for differentiation and the possibility of earning higher margins. These companies eventually become solution providers, which offer ‘a comprehensive bundle of products and/or services, that fully satisfies the needs and wants of a customer related to a specific event or problem’. ... Consequently, scholars have emphasized identifying competences and processes that enable companies to co-create solutions with the customer ...Simultaneously, the customer’s role has evolved in value-creation literature from a pure recipient of goods into the determining party in the relational value-creation process ... ‘value is always uniquely and phenomenologically determined by the beneficiary’. ... ‘value is best defined as value-in-use’ because it can only emerge or be created through the recipient’s use. Following that logic, the provider is a potential value facilitator and co-creator only through the relational nature of the joint solution creation process....Although extant literature addresses value creation from many perspectives, three commonalities emerge. First, researchers agree that the customer’s role has evolved to the locus of value creation. Second, value creation occurs as a relational process. Third, value is perceptual and the result of the customer experience."

Trechos retirados de "Hunting for Value: How to Enable Value-in-use? A Conceptual Model" de Jan Petri e Frank Jacob, publicado por Journal of Creating Value 3(1) 1–13, 2017 

"é para aí que vamos novamente"

A escola pública foi criada para servir o modelo económico do século XX. Agora, no século XXI, com o modelo de Mongo a entranhar-se e com uma demografia completamente oposta. A escola pública não consegue ajustar-se a um mundo que precisa de pessoas diferentes e não de autómatos todos iguais.

Em 2012 escrevia:

"Frequentei o 7º, 8º e 9º ano de escolaridade na Escola Comercial Oliveira Martins no Porto, uma escola criada algures no final do século XIX pela iniciativa de comerciantes para formar e preparar os seus trabalhadores. Recordo isto porque sinto que é para aí que vamos novamente, em vez de uma escola obrigatória destinada a formar legiões de robots necessários para operar acriticamente as sociedades do século XX, em vez de uma escola que pretende eliminar as nossas diferenças de idiossincrasia  e nos tenta enformar para sermos cidadãos "normais", em vez de uma escola que prepara as crianças de Pousafoles do Bispo para serem iguais e trabalharem como as pessoas de Lisboa, o que só as levará a detestar, ou ignorar, ou nunca equacionar que um futuro também é possível em Pousafoles do Bispo, vamos precisar de escolas sem programa definido em Lisboa, escolas destinadas a reviver as sociedades locais, as economias locais, os orgulhos locais."

Agora começo a encontrar com cada vez mais frequência isto:

• Faltam 28 mil trabalhadores para a indústria metalúrgica;
• Fabricante de eólicas dá formação para resolver falta de operários

Num país com outra cultura talvez a solução passasse por uma solução muito simples, os empresários em torno de uma associação sectorial pagavam a formação profissional e o governo cortava um valor equivalente nos impostos a cobrar.

Familiar?

Imaginem este modelo a funcionar:

Um modelo dedicado a servir clientes que continuam a comprar grandes séries de produção. Encomendas grandes permitem aumentar o poder negociar junto dos fornecedores porque se encomendam grandes quantidades de matérias-primas, algo que ajuda a reduzir os custos variáveis.

Um trabalho comercial forte apoiado num preço competitivo permite conquistar encomendas grandes que alimentam uma utilização intensiva dos activos e permitem ter custos fixos baixos.

Quanto mais baixos os custos fixos e variáveis mais baixo pode ser o preço e mais fácil é conquistar encomendas grandes. Preços baixos a praticar na produção de produtos simples, o que reduz os custos variáveis e cobrar por extras não previstos na opção-base.

O modelo tem tudo para ser sustentável, tem 4 ciclos que se auto-alimentam e reforçam o momentum da empresa.

Agora imaginem que o trabalho comercial decai, as encomendas caem, os custos fixos aumentam, os preços têm de subir. Então, a empresa começa a receber com cada vez mais frequência encomendas de outros clientes que não se importam de pagar um preço unitário superior porque fazem encomendas mais pequenas e artigos mais complexos. Encomendas mais pequenas, mais variedade, reduz a produtividade do trabalho via eficiência, reduz o poder negocial junto dos fornecedores. Artigos mais complexos implicam custos variáveis superiores...

A empresa até pode achar interessante o aumento do preço médio, a empresa até pode achar interessante a manutenção das vendas. No entanto, o perfil da produção está a alterar-se. A empresa, que estava "formatada" para as encomendas grandes começa a ter de lidar em simultâneo com encomendas grandes e pequenas, encomendas com exigências muito diferentes. Basta recuar a 2008  e ao que aprendi com Terry Hill:

A empresa deixou de ser representada pelas bolas azuis e passou a ser representada pelas bolas vermelhas.

A estrutura da empresa, de mão de obra intensiva, começa a ficar sobre-dimensionada porque está a produzir cada vez menos unidades a um preço superior. Esse sobre-dimensionamento traduz-se em custos fixos superiores o que se repercute em preços mais altos e acelera a transição da empresa para o outro modelo. Contudo a infra-estrutura está preparada para servir o modelo anterior.

Os prejuízos começam a aparecer, as pessoas correm, correm e parece que não saem do sítio porque os problemas surgem com cada vez mais frequência.

Familiar?

Não se pode ficar como um tolo no meio da ponte!

Recordar Skinner e "The Focused Factory", recordar o PWP.

Alteração da lógica do mercado e dos seus ritmos

Ontem em "Acelerar o time to market" sublinhava o como a tecnologia permite reduzir o tempo, desde a ideia até à prateleira, e reduzir os custos para produzir pequenas séries.

Hoje, mais um exemplo, desta feita sobre a alteração da lógica do mercado e dos seus ritmos:

"Many shoe designers put out new collections only twice a year–perhaps launching strappy sandals in the spring, and boots in the fall. M.Gemi, a direct-to-consumer luxury shoe startup, has totally nixed that model. It drops a new pair every single Monday. This week, for instance, it debuted a $198 slip-on sneaker made from crushed velvet, a material that seems to magically change color under different lights.
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The idea is for customers to wake up on a Monday morning to an email featuring the latest shoe. If a customer likes it, she can get it in time for a party or a date that weekend. “We don’t expect our customers to buy a new shoe each week,” Cheryl Kaplan, M.Gemi’s president, said at an event today at the Fast Company Innovation Festival. “But it gives them something to look forward to and keeps our conversation with them going.”

Trecho retirado de "M.Gemi Feeds Our Luxury Shoe Addiction With Cheaper, Italian-Made Heels"

Às vezes "it sucks" ter razão

Recuo a 2010 e 2008 em "Sobre a impossibilidade de prever o futuro e o paradoxo de Zenão (parte I)" depois de ver esta reportagem.

Estava escrito nas estrelas, com 10 anos de antecedência estas escolas poderiam ter tomado certas medidas para mudar de vida, enquanto existiam graus de liberdade.

Mais do que uma treta

Ao dar de caras com esta figura:

Pensei logo na cláusula 7.1.6 da ISO 9001:2015.

O bloco 1 aplica-se a:

"A organização deve determinar o conhecimento necessário para a operacionalização dos seus processos e para obter a conformidade dos produtos e serviços.
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Este conhecimento deve ser mantido e disponibilizado na medida do necessário."

Este é o conhecimento que se pode estudar e o conhecimento que se transmite pela experiência.

O bloco 2 aplica-se a:

"Ao enfrentar novas necessidades e tendências, a organização deve ter em consideração o seu conhecimento atual e determinar como adquirir ou aceder a qualquer conhecimento adicional necessário e atualizações requeridas." 

Quando vamos a formação, quando visitamos para ver a experiência e o exemplo de outros, estamos a trabalhar para colmatar "gaps".

Quando falo em "radar" penso naquele quadrante "discoveries". O que nem imaginamos que não sabemos.

O conhecimento em que se tropeça quando se observam clientes, não-clientes, ex-clientes, revistas técnicas, seminários, livros, conferências, patentes, ...

Quem dá atenção ao quadrante das "discoveries"? Como é que a sua empresa pensa estas coisas? Limita-se a cumprir mínimos olímpicos ou procurar ser exigente consigo própria?

A ISO pode ser mais do que uma treta quando se trata como sendo mais do que uma treta.que

Privilegiar os inputs sobre os outputs (parte VIII)

Parte I, parte II, parte III, parte IV, parte V, parte VI e parte VII.

"servicification. This means that the emphasis, when we look at offerings, is no longer on the production process that historically created them as outputs, but in their property as inputs in the value creating process of the customers system. This shift of emphasis from production to use, from output to input, from the past to the future, immediately widens the scope of what an offering is, what kinds of characteristics a company needs to build into its offerings, and what competences are required of the company. It also automatically shifts the emphasis from the transaction to more long-term relationship with the customer…
experiencification. By this I mean that offerings are now increasingly designed to be linked also into the mental and symbolic processes of customers including the meaning and purpose of their value-creating activities. In fact, many offerings which seem like products are simply artefacts which fulfill the function of bringing to the customer a context, a story even, which is somehow meaningful to him. Artefacts link a more general, external reality with and inner, personal, reality into a whole characterized by the pursuit of meaning and purpose."

Escrever sobre este título "Privilegiar os inputs sobre os outputs" e recordar uma linguagem muito usada em empresas industriais:

- "A expedição é o cú da fábrica!"

Trechos retirados de "Reframing business" de Richard Normann.

Acelerar o time to market

"The impetus to use automation is not just about costs: it is also trying to keep up with consumers. Across the board, the most successful retailers are now those with a constant stream of new products to meet rapidly changing tastes and shopping habits. Yet companies have been slow to adapt footwear, with its more complicated manufacturing process, to so-called fast fashion trends — at least until now.
...
Traditional shoe production has required as many as 200 different pieces across 10 sizes, often cut and glued together by hand. The new manufacturing process being developed by Flex has introduced two ideas once thought impossible: the gluing process has been automated and lasers are used to cut the Flyknit material.
Lead times in the shoe industry once ran to several months: Flex has promised to help Nike speed up lead times, which can be three to four weeks for a customised pair of sneakers.
...
Moving production closer to its key markets will help satisfy some of that demand."

Trechos retirados de "Robotics in the running for Nike’s factories of the future"

"estrutura possibilidades para atingir objectivos compatíveis com essas possibilidades"

O que se segue também serve para as empresas, e de que maneira, em vez de ser levado pela maré, escolher um caminho:

"O exercício do poder é a gestão de um campo de possibilidades, é o desenho de uma trajectória que leva do presente, com os recursos que existem, para um alvo no futuro, gerando e organizando os recursos necessários para se chegar a esse objectivo. Quem não souber que a política é a gestão de um campo de possibilidades não é político - e se exerce uma função política é por razões que não são políticas. Quem não souber desenhar uma estratégia para o futuro poderá ocupar o poder, mas não exercerá o poder, apenas se resignará à inércia das correlações de forças. [Moi ici: Quantas vezes sinto isto em algumas empresas, servas da inércia] A política é uma vocação, que identifica e estrutura possibilidades para atingir objectivos compatíveis com essas possibilidades."

Trecho retirado de "Poder e possibilidade"

Uns fazem, outros queixam-se!

Uma notícia interessante, "Castanha da Beira Alta lança marca própria", leio no Caderno de Economia do semanário Expresso de 7 de outubro último:

"Este ano, com uma novidade: a empresa, gerida por dois irmãos e que fatura anualmente 11 milhões,  vaira lançar uma marca especifica, a Saudade, para diferenciar a martainha, produzida em Sernancelhe e em todos os concelhos limítrofes que constituem a área geográfica com classificação Castanha dos Soutos da Lapa, de Denominação de Origem Protegida (DOP). "Nos últimos anos, percebemos que esta variedade estava a ser muito valorizada, no mercado nacional mas sobretudo nos países para onde exportamos, pelos distribuidores e assadores. O problema é que, na hora de comprar, não há nada que diga a estes clientes o que estão a comprar, que diferencie este produto sazonal, de alta qualidade, de outras variedades. Uma castanha parece-se sempre com outra castanha.
...
A insígnia Saudade — Sabores do Coração, que será apresentada em Madrid, durante a Fruit Attraction, uma das principais feiras empresariais de frutas e legumes da Europa
...
Além de querer ir ao encontro do consumidor português, "que vai passar a ir ao supermercado e a saber o tipo de castanha que está, de facto, a comprar", a insígnia pretende comunicar diferenciação deste produto a mercados como Alemanha, França, Suíça, Luxemburgo, Itália, Espanha, Estados Uni-dos e Canada—geografias onde a Frusantos, que exporta mais de 50% da sua produção, está presente, O lançamento de uma marca própria faz parte do projecto de internacionalização..."

Um exemplo interessante: criação de uma marca, aposta na diferenciação, internacionalização e participação em feiras.

Uns fazem, outros queixam-se!

"influence the formation of sense making and meaning"

"The idealistic view of a manager as one who is in control is not consistent with our practical experience, or with modern science. From the point of view of the sciences of complexity, an organization is not even a system, but should be understood as a pattern, or as interconnected patterns in time. [Moi ici: Um ponto de vista interessante que reforça o papel e importância da comunicação]
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These interconnected patterns are the results of self-organizing processes across the network forming the organization. Many events, local interactions generate emergent outcomes that cannot be traced back to any specific management action. Looking towards the future, we create what happens next, without knowing what will happen next.
...
The organization, then, is no longer self-regulating in a cybernetic sense, but self-influencing in a complex sense. Self-influence as a concept is not necessarily positive, it can lead both to self-sustaining and self-destructive behaviors.
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The key management capability is not being in control, but to participate and influence the formation of sense making and meaning. It is about creating a context that enables connectedness, interaction and trust between people. [Moi ici: Outro insight poderoso, "influence the formation of sense making and meaning". Como desesperei interiormente há tempos, quando um empresário interpretava o meu conselho sobre a criação de um ecossistema da procura, como um convite para ligações pouco transparentes e até ilegais com outros actores]
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Most people believe that the role of leaders is to choose strategic directions and then persuade others to follow them. A modern view of strategy is about exploration and experiments, a search process of trial and error. [Moi ici: Não sou tão radical assim embora perceba a importância ads experiências. Recordo os "arbustos"] The openness to the possible through the search process leads to having to live with anxiety and not knowing. Work needs to equal learning."

Acerca dos arbustos:

“Typical strategic planning processes focus on chopping down the branches of the strategic decision tree, eliminating options, and making choices and commitments. In contrast, an evolutionary approach to strategy emphasizes creating choices, keeping options open, and making the tree of possibilities as bushy as possible at any point in time. Options have value. An evolving portfolio of strategic experiments gives the management team more choices, which means better odds that some of the choices will be right” … “The objective is to be able to make lots of small bets, and only make big bets as a part of amplifying successful experiments when uncertainties are much lower.” 

Trechos iniciais retirados de "The Future of Management"

Privilegiar os inputs sobre os outputs (parte VII)

Parte I, parte II, parte III, parte IV, parte V e parte VI.

"Customers in B2B markets are becoming increasingly sophisticated about purchasing. Recognizing that most products and services they buy are not strategic to their businesses, they begin by simply seeking suppliers that will meet their basic specifications at a competitive price. Then, after they’ve winnowed down the contenders, they often ask the finalists to offer “something more.”
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Many suppliers misunderstand this request. They’ll respond with the well-worn tactic of stressing features their offerings have but competitors’ lack, and when that doesn’t work, they propose price concessions. But it turns out that customers are looking for neither of those things.
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During a three-year research project, we discovered that when purchasing managers ask for something more, they are actually looking for what we call the justifier: an element of an offering that would make a noteworthy difference to their company’s business. A justifier’s value to the customer is self-evident and provides a clear-cut reason for selecting one supplier over others, effectively breaking the tie among the final contenders.[Moi ici: O artigo está cheio de bons exemplos, em vários sectores, destes "justifiers"]
...
The justifier, or tiebreaker, helps the purchasing manager demonstrate to senior leadership that he or she is making a contribution to the business. [Moi ici: Outra vez um exemplo de deixar de pensar nos outputs para concentrar a atenção nos inputs. Basta pensar no que vem a seguir] That is no small thing. People responsible for nonstrategic purchases have difficult, often thankless, jobs. They’re under pressure to complete these transactions as quickly and efficiently as possible. Whenever anything goes wrong with what they’ve bought, they get blamed. But their diligence and understanding of the business typically get little recognition.
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Tiebreaking sellers coach their salespeople to explore this topic with customers and engage them in a conversation about their concerns.
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With value selling, suppliers build a case to prove that their offerings provide greater worth to customers than competitors’ do. But when purchases aren’t strategic, that approach is ineffective, and suppliers need something extra whose value is self-evident to win the sale.

...
The top yearly goals of a customer’s senior management can be a great source of ideas for justifiers. By visiting a customer’s website or perusing its annual report, a supplier can learn about initiatives aimed at improving safety in specific areas, reducing waste, and the like. Yet purchasing managers told us that salespeople rarely conduct such rudimentary background research or put in the time to learn about their customers’ objectives.
...
we discovered demonstrate that with enough determination, even a supplier of a nonstrategic offering can persuade its customers’ purchasing managers and leadership that it is something special."

Trechos retirados de "Tiebreaker Selling"

Mais um exemplo de Mongo

Este artigo, "These Fancy Vinegars Are the Ones to Prioritize in Your Pantry", é mais um exemplo do fenómeno de entranhamento em Mongo.

No passado quantos azeites havia na prateleira? No passado quantos vinagres havia na prateleira? E agora?

Curiosidade do dia

Estórias da carochinha para enganar tótos, com sucesso: “As pessoas estão à frente do défice”.

Política é fazer escolhas. Política é optar por beneficiar certas opções em detrimento de outras, com legitimidade.

Os "preceitos neoliberais" que terão provocado os incêndios, de que fala Catarina Martins, serão estes? pic.twitter.com/ce05XJfZSj

— Paulo Ferreira (@pauloferreira1) October 22, 2017

Privilegiar os inputs sobre os outputs (parte VI)

Parte I, parte II, parte III, parte IV e parte V.

"to shift our attention from production to utilization, from product to process, from transaction to relationship. It enhances our sensitivity to the complexity of roles and actor systems. In this sense the service logic clearly frames a manufacturing logic rather than replaces it. Creative business thinking comes from applying the service logic mode of thought, recognizing that within that overriding logic there are islands of a manufacturing logic. In other words, the service logic encourages us to think in terms of value creation and Value-creating Systems. It moves us from the oversimplified view that 'producers' satisfy needs and desires of 'customers' to the much richer but more complex view that they together form a Value-creating System. Within that system the provider has to find a way to position himself, and enhance and leverage the value creating process of the customer. It helps us move from the traditional industrial notion of products as outputs to the value-creation economy notion that offerings should he seen as inputs in a value-creating process."

Trecho retirado de "Reframing Business: When the Map Changes the Landscape" de Richard Normann

"Gaming the system" - está-nos no sangue

"What determines what a company can do actually is less what an executive thinks ought to be done,  but rather that decision right there makes determines what this happens, and that determines what this is.
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This is actually more powerful, and an executive decision, I think and it's interesting that these metrics we assume that that's the way it should be done but we never think about it just as a general rule.
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When we decide we're going to measure it this way, people, all of us, cheat and try to game the system so that the the metric goes up"

Trecho retirado de "Harvard Professor – Clayton Christensen The Process of Strategy Formulation and Implementation"

Para reflexão

Recordo Abril último:

"A evolução do retalho é um tema que me interessa porque é super importante para as PME com que trabalho. A maioria das PME portuguesas não tem marca própria relevante. Ou produzem para marcas de outros ou produzem componentes que serão incorporados nas marcas de outros (B2B2C ou B2B2B2C).
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Assim, o seu futuro depende em larga escala, segundo o modelo de negócio actual, do sucesso da última interacção da cadeia, aquele ...B2C. Se esta última interacção falhar, tal como falharam em massa as sapatarias de rua quando chegaram os centros comerciais, as nossas PME terão um problema em mãos."

Ao ler:

Factory work does not take place in factories any more but in retail

— Esko Kilpi (@EskoKilpi) October 22, 2017

"It's not lupus"

Há tempos realizei uma auditoria interna a uma empresa e deixei a Oportunidade de Melhoria que ilustro acima.

Na cláusula 6.2.1 da ISO 9001:2015 as empresas são convidadas a definir os resultados que esperam para o seu sistema de gestão da qualidade. Segundo a cláusula 6.2.2 as empresas devem planear como vão atingir os desafios de desempenho referidos anteriormente.

Noto que algumas empresas certificadas (e, por isso, com esta abordagem validada pelas entidades certificadoras) listam actividades genéricas já incluídas na descrição de processos. Por exemplo, na ilustração acima a empresa quer reduzir desperdícios, quer ser mais eficiente, quer reduzir custos. A empresa acredita que a principal acção a desenvolver para ser mais eficiente passa por "executar os trabalhos segundo o planeamento estabelecido". A empresa já planeia os trabalhos. A empresa já procura executar os trabalhos segundo o planeado. A empresa planeia e executa de forma perfeita?

Claro que não! E esse é o ponto. A ISO 9001:2015 na cláusula 6.2.2 a) refere "o que será realizado".

Não adianta repetir o que está escrito de forma geral e genérica no procedimento sobre a execução dos trabalhos.

Quantas obras executaram?
Com quanto é que cada obra em particular contribuí para o indicador "Proveitos vs Custos"?

O que nos diz um histograma sobre a distribuição dos resultados de cada obra?

Faz sentido analisar diferentes tipos de obra, tendo em conta a sua duração ou âmbito dos trabalhos?

Faz sentido distinguir os desvios, mão de obra, tempo, materiais?

A ideia é fazer o mesmo que a "equipa" do Dr. House:

Analisar os sintomas sob várias perspectivas e ângulos. Depois, usando o princípio de Pareto, reduzir o âmbito do problema. Por exemplo, deixar de ser "reduzir os desperdícios (custos)" e passar a ser "reduzir a disparidade entre a mão de obra realmente utilizada (horasxhomem) versus a mão de obra planeada nas obras do tipo X.

Só nessa altura, depois de bem delimitado o principal contribuinte para o problema, é que faz sentido começar a pesquisar as causas mais prováveis. Por exemplo:

• deficiente planeamento?
• deficiente preparação?
• má coordenação?
• mau acompanhamento?
• condições atmosféricas?
• ...

A imagem do Dr. House acima diz respeito a esta fase. Listar as possíveis causas e depois mandar fazer umas análises, umas verificações, recolher dados históricos, que permitam validar/corroborar uma ou mais causas.

E só depois de identificadas e validadas as causas mais prováveis é que faz sentido pensar na resposta a 6.2.2 a).

"Violations of rational choice principles in pricing decisions"

"We are interested in how customer purchase decisions exhibit behavioral patterns that are inconsistent with rational choice models. As we will see, violations of rational choice can take many forms: demand that increases with price increases, choices that are influenced by the addition of irrelevant options, preferences that are unstable, and a willingness to pay that is fluid and subject to contextual influences. In this context we thus summarize how firms can influence customer perceptions of value and price without changing the price. Second is the manager. Managers set prices and in this process are equally susceptible to violating fundamental principles of rational choice. These violations can take the following forms: conformity bias, competition neglect, competitor obsession, simple heuristics, and underpricing for new product introductions.
...
This refers to the tendency to pursue competitor-oriented goals—such as market share—to the detriment of one's own profitability. When comparative profits are provided, managers show a consistent tendency to price below optimal levels in order to hurt competition, as opposed to maximizing their own profits. Field studies suggest that competitor orientation and market share goals are detrimental to profitability. ...  “The use of market share as a measure of corporate or executive performance is at best a waste of time; at worst, it is totally misleading. We recommend that you never make the market share calculation. If you emphasize competitive goals, you are letting the competition define your business and its success.” Competitor obsession leads to lower prices and lower profits. This effect is well documented in industrial markets.

Trechos retirados de "Violations of rational choice principles in pricing decisions" de Andreas Hinterhuber

Comparar o primeiro truque, "price quality effect", com:

"Why did Apple push the limits of pricing on the highly anticipated device? A key reason involves using a premium price to set an expectation of excellence in consumers’ minds."

Trecho retirado de "The Psychology Behind the New iPhone’s Four-Digit Price"

"Strategy is not planning"

"I must have heard the words “we need to create a strategic plan” at least an order of magnitude more times than I have heard “we need to create a strategy.” This is because most people see strategy as an exercise in producing a planning document. In this conception, strategy is manifested as a long list of initiatives with timeframes associated and resources assigned.
.
Somewhat intriguingly, at least to me, the initiatives are themselves often called “strategies.” That is, each different initiative is a strategy and the plan is an organized list of the strategies.
...
To make strategy more interesting — and different from a budget — we need to break free of this obsession with planning. Strategy is not planning — it is the making of an integrated set of choices that collectively position the firm in its industry so as to create sustainable advantage relative to competition and deliver superior financial returns. I find that once this is made clear to line managers they recognize that strategy is not just fancily-worded budgeting and they get much more interested in it.
...
Obviously you can’t execute a strategy without initiatives, investments, and budgeting. But what you need to get managers focused on before you start on those things is the strategy that will make these initiatives coherent.
.
That strategy is a singular thing; there is one strategy for a given business — not a set of strategies. It is one integrated set of choices: what is our winning aspiration; where will we play; how will we win; what capabilities need to be in place; and what management systems must be instituted?
.
That strategy tells you what initiatives actually make sense and are likely to produce the result you actually want. Such a strategy actually makes planning easy. There are fewer fights about which initiatives should and should not make the list, because the strategy enables discernment of what is critical and what is not."

Não é fácil passar esta mensagem. Não é fácil raptar a gestão de topo dos atractores do dia-a-dia e conseguir que encontre tempo, que encontre disposição para subir na escala de abstracção, para fazer o tal "upframing" e olhar para a paisagem competitiva de uma forma diferente.

Trechos retirados de "Don’t Let Strategy Become Planning"

Será o efeito de Mongo?

Recordar:

• Porque não somos plankton (parte V)
• E porque não somos plankton (parte VII)
• Plankton?

Para enquadrar a continuação do fenómeno:

• Procter & Gamble Puzzled by Decreased Consumer Spending -- Update
• Shoppers desert family brands as P&G shares fall

Será o efeito de Mongo?

Contribuição

"When you run a company, it’s obviously important to understand how profitable the business is. Many leaders look at profit margin, which measures the total amount by which revenue from sales exceeds costs. But if you want to understand how a specific product contributes to the company’s profit, you need to look at contribution margin."

"Contribution margin". A primeira vez que li sobre esse conceito foi com Peter Drucker, talvez no livro "Managing For Results". Pensamento que me fez chegar a "Managing for Business Effectiveness":

"What is the first duty—and the continuing responsibility—of the business manager? To strive for the best possible economic results from the resources currently employed or available.
...
1. What is the manager’s job? It is to direct the resources and the efforts of the business toward opportunities for economically significant results. This sounds trite—and it is. But every analysis of actual allocation of resources and efforts in business that I have ever seen or made showed clearly that the bulk of time, work, attention, and money first goes to “problems” rather than to opportunities, and, secondly, to areas where even extraordinarily successful performance will have minimal impact on results.
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2. What is the major problem? It is fundamentally the confusion between effectiveness and efficiency that stands between doing the right things and doing things right. There is surely nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency what should not be done at all. Yet our tools—especially our accounting concepts and data—all focus on efficiency. What we need is (1) a way to identify the areas of effectiveness (of possible significant results), and (2) a method for concentrating on them.
...
1. Economic results require that managers concentrate their efforts on the smallest number of products, product lines, services, customers, markets, distribution channels, end uses, and so on which will produce the largest amount of revenue. Managers must minimize the attention devoted to products which produce primarily costs, because their volume is too small or too splintered.
.
2. Economic results require also that staff efforts be concentrated on the very few activities that are capable of producing truly significant business results—with as little staff work and staff effort as possible spent on the others."

Uma grande coincidência desta semana que passou foi auditar uma empresa em que este tema está na ordem do dia, ainda que sem o saberem.

Drucker, o homem que mudou a minha vida.

Trecho inicial retirado de "Contribution Margin: What It Is, How to Calculate It, and Why You Need It"

Agora estou na dúvida... talvez tenha sido o Engº Vergílio Folhadela quem primeiro me deu a conhecer a contribuição.

Privilegiar os inputs sobre os outputs (parte V)

Parte I, parte II, parte III e parte IV.

"the more a supplier's product contributes to creating meaningful differentiation in the customer's products, the more value quantification has to be detailed, collaborative, and customer-specific.
...
There is one golden rule. If you are a lawyer you should not ask what you do for your client. What you should ask is what the client is able to do as a result of working with you [Moi ici: Outra vez a concentração nos inputs que o cliente tem de processar para atingir os seus objectivos] - as opposed to working with your closest competitor. You have to ask what your competitive advantage is incrementally worth to customers in monetary terms."

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

"drilling into that"

"How can you compete? Well, for starters, understand where you fit in.
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Now, some of you will construe what I'm about to say as "niche" or "stay small" but neither is the case at all! No, what you need to do is to understand - and then effectively communicate - the real-time relevance of your business.
.
In other words, you have to be the best for one particular set of scenarios, not a solution for a variety of scenarios that are close to what the customer is looking for.
...
What this is really about is understanding the market for your products or services and, drilling into that. All the different types of customers who buy from you. Too many times, we think only in terms of a specific avatar - the key buyer - but the real world is that there are 7 billion potential customers on this planet (over 10 billion if we're thinking in terms of B to B, also), so a narrow view of who your buyer is (and where they are) can restrict your growth. Of course, you have to balance this, but the key is understanding that casting a wider net with one solution may yield far greater results than throwing a myriad of solutions to the masses and not being able to execute any of them perfectly."

Trecho retirado de "Make More Money (By Selling Less?)"

Mudar de vida ou não

Neste esquema relaciono a ISO 9001:2015 com uma sugestão que me deram para abordar um projecto em curso.

Além de uma abordagem baseada em números, partir da situação actual com as fragilidades e forças da organização. Considerar um conjunto de cenários plausíveis que se podem manifestar no futuro, tendo em conta o contexto da empresa.

Em cada um desses cenários determinar o que podem ser riscos e oportunidades.

Depois, equacionar o que ignorar, o que reduzir, o que evitar, o que assumir e o que aproveitar.

E no todo, avaliar se a empresa precisa de mudar de vida ou não.

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.
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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.
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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".