Acerca de valor para o cliente (parte VII)

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

"Focus on relationships.
When facing notions like interaction and integration, it becomes obvious that relationships play an important role within value creation, ... Both interaction and integration can be considered a means to the end, which is relational value. This is due to the important role of interactions in facilitating relationships.  ...  Relationships are a source of value, but they also provide companies with a good understanding of the customer and his/her needs. A multitude of studies have connected relationships with the customers’ willingness to provide information ... Hence, more accurate information can be gained concerning what customers value considering their life and experiences. Therefore, we propose that the relevance of relationships can also be considered as an important part in fitting the companies actions and offers to the customer’s life, stressed by the C-D logic."

Por isso, recusei:

 "Quem não aposta no "cheaper" e no "cost", aposta na interacção, aposta na co-criação, aposta noutro mindset... eu diria, "Every visit customers have to make are an opportunity for interaction and co-creation"
.
Nunca esquecer, Golias pode apostar e ganhar com a automação porque está no seu ADN; contudo, David não tem qualquer vantagem em seguir esse caminho, tem muito mais a perder do que os euros que poupa."

Como diz um empresário com que estou a trabalhar: Vai-te ganho que me trazes perda!!!

Trechos retirados de "Reframing customer value from a dominant logics perspective" de Tobias Schlager e Peter Maas e publicado por International Journal of Marketing (2012) 51:101–113

Balanço

Ontem durante uma acção de formação recordei, de forma imprevista, o gráfico de Marn e Rosiello ("E o burro era eu!") e conversámos um pouco sobre a concentração na redução de custos (agora nestes tempos de exuberância económica muitas empresas estarão a cometer os exageros que terão de ser resolvidos no tempo das vacas magras).

Entretanto, esta manhã, encontrei este desabafo "You Can't Cost-Cut Your Way To Innovation":

"There’s nothing wrong with finding ways to reduce costs, the problems is ONLY focusing on that."[Moi ici: Quem se deixa dominar pelos problemas não tem tempo para apreciar oportunidades]

E pensei em Marn e Rosiello e recuei a uma das primeiras leituras que comentei no blogue, Março de 2007, "Subir na escala de valor" de onde sublinho:

"You cannot shrink to greatness"

E pensei em Hermann Simon e no truque alemão, "We are not cost cutters".

BTW, das coisas que mais me orgulho neste blogue é poder recuar a textos de 2006 e 2007 e continuar a poder defender a m;esma linha de orientação para as PME, apostar na concorrência imperfeita, apostar nos monopólios informais, subir na escala de valor, cuidado com o eficientismo. Independentemente dos acidentes da conjuntura, independentemente do governo de turno e da oposição e situação, independentemente a evolução estrutural que ocorreu (quem é que em 2005 ou 2008 acreditava nisto). Entretanto, imaginem as piruetas que tantos e tantos "famosos" por cá mudaram de opinião: acerca do défice; acerca do euro; acerca da China; acerca dos sectores tradicionais... Pois, anónimo engenheiro da província:

• 2012;
• 2013;
• 2015;

Acerca da evolução - físico + online (até na universidade)

Um artigo interessante acerca do que pode ser a evolução futura do ensino universitário:

"Similar to e-commerce firms, online-degree programs are beginning to incorporate elements of an older-school, brick-and-mortar model.
...
As online learning extends its reach, though, it is starting to run into a major obstacle: There are undeniable advantages, as traditional colleges have long known, to learning in a shared physical space. Recognizing this, some online programs are gradually incorporating elements of the old-school, brick-and-mortar model—just as online retailers such as Bonobos and Warby Parker use relatively small physical outlets to spark sales on their websites and increase customer loyalty. Perhaps the future of higher education sits somewhere between the physical and the digital.
...
He wouldn’t be surprised if universities start fusing the best of the online experience with the best of the physical experience,
...
Of course, blending learning experiences in this way is not always a smooth, or even feasible, process for many traditional colleges. Most of them are not designed to allow students to take just one course at a time or to toggle between online and face-to-face classes; taking a class on most campuses requires enrolling as a student in a full-fledged degree or certificate program and then choosing to participate exclusively in either online or in-person classes. “While universities have all these resources for lifelong learning, we also have all the constraints in how the model currently works,”
...
Take Xerox, for example. In the 1970s, the company opened a sprawling campus in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., to train its workforce. Some 1,800 employees came through the facility in any given week for classes. But Xerox sold the campus in 2000, when it began to move its professional-development courses online. It now mixes face-to-face training with more than 10,000 short online videos and other on-demand reference materials. John Leutner, the longtime head of global learning at Xerox who retired in 2016, told me that this arrangement saves the company money and also improves retention because workers can learn on their own time and at their own pace."

Trechos retirados de "The Future of College Looks Like the Future of Retail"

Acerca de valor para o cliente (parte VI)

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

"Integration.
Closely connected to, but still distinct from, interactions as source of CV is the integration of resources. This includes the integration of the customers’ resources which refers to providing customers with the opportunity to participate within the companies processes. Integrating the resources of customers and companies is treated as prerequisite for interactions.
...
“An inherent aspect of inter- action is connectivity”, i.e., the parties involved are in some contact with each other. With the term ‘connectivity’, the authors emphasize the integration of the companies’ and the customers’ resources. The importance of the integration of the companies’ and customers’ resources in the value creation process is strongly emphasized by the S-D logic.
...
customer processes which are not controlled by a company are considered as a highly relevant part within value creation. Hence, the challenge that needs to be addressed is discovering the underlying issues which cannot be easily recognized by a company. When the customer’s life is brought into the focus of value creation, an in-depth knowledge of the customer becomes necessary.
...
One way to gain this depth of understanding of the customer is integrating customers into the company’s processes. The aim of integration may therefore not only be the creation of interactions, but also the achievement of profound customer insights that go beyond insights gained by traditional marketing research methods. Hence, integration can also be considered a way for getting deep customer insights regarding what the C-D logic describes as ‘value-in-life’.
.
We conclude by stating that the benefits of customer integration are twofold. On the one hand, interactions are generated, which in turn, are considered a source of CV. On the other hand, it has the ability to generate in-depth knowledge of the customer, which may provide insights regarding value-in-life considerations and, as a result, for aligning future company actions."

Trechos retirados de "Reframing customer value from a dominant logics perspective" de Tobias Schlager e Peter Maas e publicado por International Journal of Marketing (2012) 51:101–113

Não basta inovar

Leio texto atrás de texto em que os autores, às vezes até mesmo académicos, confundem variedade com variabilidade:

"Classic management science dictates that stable, repeatable processes keep companies in business. Innovation, by definition, disturbs equilibrium, threatening what has gone before, he said. “You are causing disruptions to a system that has an immune response to repair those disruptions.”"

Inovação está relacionada com variedade. Eficiência com variabilidade. Claro que quando se está numa competição pelo preço quem faz contas olha para as dicas de Terry Hill e pensa:

A posição vermelha é indefensável, tentar jogar em todos os tabuleiros não é bom conselho. Assim, opta pela posição azul e mergulha na competição pela eficiência e procura reduzir a variedade e a variabilidade.

Quem opta pela posição preta mergulha na competição pela inovação e não têm medo da variedade, mas continua a querer reduzir a variabilidade embora deixe de ter a eficiência como prioridade.

Os trechos que se segues fazem-me sorrir ao pensar nos laboratórios da academia que exasperam porque os seus resultados não despertam interesse comercial:

"once prototypes are deemed commercially viable, Mr. Sheldon and his team seek executive sponsors in business units that could make money or better serve customers with the invention.
...
Companies must make sure their labs aren’t a dream factory but a central part of how strategic advancement happens, said Steve Hill, vice chair of strategic investments and innovation at KPMG. “Companies have been disintermediated and taken out because they weren’t agile enough to respond to it,”"

Outro tema aqui abordado ao longo dos anos, PME para irem buscar apoios comunitários entram em parceria em projectos que têm como resultado o desenvolvimento de produtos inovadores. Depois, os produtos atém vêem a luz do dia, até são inovadores, mas as PME não os aproveitam porque não têm trabalhada a rede comercial, não têm modelo de negócio adaptado. A maior parte das vezes não se vendem os produtos inovadores aos mesmos clientes que se têm porque esses preferem o produtos de preço, os produtos mais clássicos ou maduros, são outros clientes que frequentam outras "prateleiras" que são atraídos por uma proposta de valor diferente.

Trechos retirados de "At Innovation Labs, Playing With Technology Is the Easy Part"

À atenção do mundo do calçado

"For the luxury industry, future growth may be at its feet.
.
Footwear is the product category thought to have the greatest potential for rapid expansion.  It has certainly attracted the interest of some of America’s biggest fashion players.
...
On the other side of the Atlantic, Europe’s biggest mega-brands have reason to be just as enthusiastic about the category. At Gucci, for example, shoes drove 19 percent (€1.2 billion) of the brand’s 2017 revenue, up from 13 percent (€409 million) in 2011. And Louis Vuitton, which has also enjoyed traction in shoes, invested more than €30 million on building a footwear product-development facility near Venice's Riviera del Brenta.
.
The wider market for luxury shoes hit €18 billion in 2017, up 10 percent year on year, according to Bain & Company. In terms of percentage growth, it was matched only by jewellery.
...
And even though there are plenty of shoes priced over $1,000, like handbags, footwear has lower cost-per-wear and higher margins than apparel.
...
Consumers are also spending more on shoes than ever, averaging $248 on shoes in 2016, up from $212 in 2006, according to data from the American Apparel and Footwear Association. And they're buying more pairs, too, at least in the US: Americans purchased an average 7.6 pairs of shoes in 2016, up from 5.9 pairs in 1996. “In the past you only needed three or four pairs of shoes and you were sorted,” said Sagra Maceira de Rosen, non-executive chairperson of Naga Group and co-author of The Towering World of Jimmy Choo. “Now, there are so many more categories. Fashion is driving the market more than ever before.”
...
One challenge is that a shoe’s success is predicated on the temporal relevance of its silhouette, even more so than fashion or handbags. If a creative director is not able to master the current look — all while maintaining a distinctive brand identity — it’s difficult to sustain momentum.
...
the category continues to hold the interest of investors and luxury groups, in part because of the expertise needed to produce a quality shoe. “It is the most difficult category in terms of product development and manufacturing,” says Franco Pené, chairman of Onward Luxury Group, which acquired a controlling stake in London-based label Charlotte Olympia in 2017 for its manufacturing expertise. “A one-millimetre difference can be a pain for your feet. It’s not a product that is so easy to manage.”
...
Consumer appetite for luxury sneakers — which generated €3.5 billion in 2017, up 10 percent year-over-year — is also fuelling the footwear fire.
...
 “Whatever happens, the trend of tomorrow is that shoes will become more and more technical and support the physical needs of individuals.”"

Trechos retirados de "Capitalising on the Footwear Opportunity"

Um mundo polarizado (parte VI)

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

"It’s six years later and a similar malaise poisons the broader retail industry. Everyone is talking about the need for disruption, innovation and change, yet most stop well short of actually doing anything about it. Many retail brands talk about game-changing innovation but what we see are lukewarm iterations of existing concepts and old ideas. Retailers, it seems, lack the will or sense of urgency to effect significant and radical change.
.
Adding to the numbness is a continuous chorus of bloggers and retail pundits saying the “retail apocalypse” is overblown. They acknowledge that 8,642 retail stores will close in 2017 in North America alone, but somehow always work their way back to telling us the sky isn’t falling and we need not be overly concerned. Well, I’m here to tell you that the time for concern has passed. We’re well into “shit-yourself” territory.
...
E-commerce will soon drive the majority of sales.
You don’t need to multiply a small number by a big number too many times before the result is a huge number. Online retail is currently compounding globally at a rate somewhere between 12 and 35 percent, depending on where you do business. In the US, for example, even if nothing else changes, e-commerce will comprise 25 percent of total retail within 6 short years. In the UK that figure may exceed 30 percent. Perhaps most staggering of all is that within 3 years, three companies — Amazon, Alibaba and eBay — will control 40 percent of planet earth’s e-commerce. And this is just a warm-up. Within 15 years, e-commerce will overtake conventional retail sales in developed nations, as a new wave of pervasive technologies take hold."

Posso estar enganado, mas acredito fortemente no texto que se segue:

"Physical retail will no longer be a channel for buying
With the vast majority of our daily and weekly needs simply coming to us as necessary, the role and purpose of retail space will no longer be principally to sell products. Rather, these spaces will act as living, breathing physical portals into brand and product experiences. They will become places we go to learn, be inspired, see and try new things, experiment and co-create. Beyond mere consumption, we’ll go to these spaces for entertainment, education, connection and community. This is not to suggest that there will be no products for sale in these physical spaces, only that the emphasis will not be sales but rather on catalysing a relationship with the consumer that transcends the store. The way these spaces are planned, built, staffed, managed and measured will look and act nothing like the retail operations of today. My advice to retailers is to stop thinking “stores” and start thinking stories. Stop thinking “product” and start thinking productions."[Moi ici: Como não recordar as imagens do artigo] 

Trechos retirados de "To Save Retail, Let It Die"

Acerca de valor para o cliente (parte V)

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

"Interaction [Moi ici: Uma palavra muito usada neste blogue, essencial para a co-criação].The recent literature concerning the S-D logic and value-in- use places a special emphasis on company-customer interactions as source of CV. Although interactions have already been acknowledged as source of value by other frameworks, the notion is further enhanced. Emphasizing interactions as a crucial concept from a S-D logic perspective, Grönroos and Ravald define interactions as “[...] a mutual or reciprocal action where two or more parties have an effect upon each other”. On this basis, it is argued that through interactive processes, companies can get actively involved in creating experiential value. Other contributions confirm this by seeing interactions as having the ability to promote experiential and phenomenological value..Similarly, scholars assess that interactions provide the basis for forming the customers’ preferences. The importance of the company-customer interaction is underlined by the ability to facilitate value and to influence CV perceptions. As a result, it is broadly accepted that the customers’ creation of value is catalyzed through interactions. Although the difference between services and goods environments is still discussed, it appears that interactions being especially important in a service-context is an accepted concept. From the companies’ perspective, this is due to the multitude of opportunities for co-creating value with the customer when acting within the customer’s sphere..One other issue that comes into play is the superior ability to sense the customers’ needs within interactions. Although interactions per se are especially considered by the S-D logic, they may also provide a source of in-depth knowledge about the customer and his/her life, which is rather emphasized by the C-D logic."

Um exemplo recente, fabricante de máquinas nacional visita potencial cliente e observa o tempo que demora a desmontar parte de máquina para limpeza, antes de poder avançar para a cor seguinte. Logo ali, propõe solução que transforma o tempo de limpeza de cerca de 20% do tempo disponível para operar em menos de 5%. A máquina que vai fabricar fará o mesmo serviço que a outra, mas demorará menos tempo a ser preparada para a produção seguinte, aumentando a produtividade do cliente.

Tudo porque foi visitar o cliente e a interacção permitiu "in-depth knowledge about the customer and his/her life".

Trechos retirados de "Reframing customer value from a dominant logics perspective" de Tobias Schlager e Peter Maas e publicado por International Journal of Marketing (2012) 51:101–113

Acerca de valor para o cliente (parte IV)

Parte I, parte II e parte III.

"Experience-based facet.
Contrary to the experiential and phenomenological nature, the facet of CV that we term ‘experience-based’ refers to the past experiences of customers. ... the starting point is the customer’s reality and life”. Value is therefore regarded as part of the dynamically-constructed and multi-framed reality of each customer. Although earlier contributions also recognized similar aspects, the focus on the customer’s history, and thus, the experience- based nature of CV was especially emphasized by the C- D logic. In this light, value is termed ‘value-in-life’, which better explains the holistic view of the customer’s life than value-in-context. With this focus on the internal context, it is emphasized that value formation is extended beyond the interactive processes and the visibility of companies and includes the customer’s mental processes, resulting in an increase in complexity as now the customer’s history is also considered.
.
A facet of the experience-based nature of value is its dynamic aspect, which expresses the constantly changing and adapting evaluations of what customer’s value."

Trechos retirados de "Reframing customer value from a dominant logics perspective" de Tobias Schlager e Peter Maas e publicado por International Journal of Marketing (2012) 51:101–113

A oportunidade de fazer a diferença

"What in the world should be done about that? The simplest, most obvious, and most direct answer? Pursue pleasure. Follow your impulses. Live for the moment. Do what’s expedient. Lie, cheat, steal, deceive, manipulate— but don’t get caught."(1)

"Choosing to develop character is difficult, because it requires avoiding the shorter, more direct path. It can be slow, expensive and difficult work.
.
And rewarding character is difficult as well, because someone is probably offering you an alternative that's cheaper or faster. A sure road to a quick payday.
.
But...
.
Every time we avoid the easy in favor of what's right, we create ripples. Character begets more character, weaving together the fabric of our culture, the kind of world we'd rather live in."(2)

"Now we can smell bullshit a mile off. According to a recent report, only 23% of consumers in the USA believe that “brands are open and honest,” and that number dips to just 7% in Western Europe."(3)

(1) Trecho retirado de "12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos" de Jordan Peterson
(2) Trecho retirado de "Character matters (if you let it)"
(3) Trecho retirado de "Unbranding Is Dumb"

"Torna-se um mito"

"uma afirmação falsa, ainda que muitas vezes repetida, não se torna verdadeira. Torna-se um mito, uma explicação mágica que é inverosímil, mas que influencia o modo como a sociedade interpreta os acontecimentos. ... Para sobreviver nesta nova época das notícias falsas, é imperativo romper as bolhas de ilusão, procurar o que se esconde atrás das notícias falsas, para que a força das coisas não tenha de se impor pela via das catástrofes.
...
na base do poder político está a legitimação dos eleitores, que não podem ser vistos como ingénuos enganados."

Trechos retirados de "Os mitos em política"

Acerca de valor para o cliente (parte III)

Parte I e parte II.

"Context-specific facet.
Following the notion of multiple relationships, the literature acknowledges the important role of the customer’s external and social context in the assessment of CV [Customer Value]. In doing so, the idea of the customer, just like the company, being embedded in a system of other actors is expressed. In this complex system, the customer acts as a resource integrator, simultaneously combining various resources for value creation. This implies that the customer uses his/her own resources (i.e., knowledge and skills) and the resources of other actors. Hence, CV is dependent on a network of competences and resources.
...
“Value has a collective and intersubjective dimension and should be understood as value-in-social- context” and “[...] the way in which resources are assessed depends on the social context”. It can be concluded that research efforts begin to adapt a more differentiated point of view, which includes the social context as an important variable for the determination of value.
.
The C-D logic argues in a similar manner, stating that the dyadic approach that was historically used is not enough to display the complex construct of CV. Hence, this logic also highlights that the customer is socially-embedded, interacting with other groups, such as other customers. Compared to the S-D logic, the C-D logic more strongly emphasizes the customer’s point of view. An even higher focus is laid on the customer, and thus, on his/ her speci c context."

Trechos retirados de "Reframing customer value from a dominant logics perspective" de Tobias Schlager e Peter Maas e publicado por International Journal of Marketing (2012) 51:101–113

Não é sobre sexo!

Algo me diz que o futuro das redes sociais passará por algo deste tipo, "What is Switter? What you need to know about the growing sex-workers network".

As marcas e os políticos, que querem despejar as suas mensagens genéricas ao maior número possível de pessoas, adoram facebooks et al. No entanto, as tribos de Mongo preferem redes mais pequenas e direccionadas para a sua realidade específica.

Conquistastes-me logo quando ao princípio

Nos filmes há aquela cena em que alguém faz um longo monólogo na tentativa de seduzir outra pessoa. Quando termina o monólogo a outra pessoa diz:

- Conquistastes-me logo quando ao princípio disseste "Bom Dia!"

Comigo aconteceu-me o mesmo, bastou-me ler a primeira skill: "Craft compelling stories":

Game-changing #leaders:
1. Craft compelling stories
2. Build a collective #leadership capability
3. Install disciplined processes to drive innovation and growth
4. Align promises made with metrics and rewards.
5. Build vibrant talent factories
https://t.co/UFFNrMLumD

— MITSloan Mgmt Review (@mitsmr) April 7, 2018

Acerca de valor para o cliente (parte II)

Parte I.

Quem quiser abordar a temática do pricing a sério tem de obrigatoriamente começar pelos clientes e pelo que é valor para eles

"Phenomenological and experiential facet...
Both terms, ‘experiential’ and ‘phenomenological’, emphasize the co-creation role of the customer. From this understanding, ‘experience’ does not refer to the customer’s past experiences, it rather describes the perishability inherent to CV. This underscores that value cannot be inventoried and is not created solely by the company which is, however, not new to the literature.
...
Although both terms are still discussed, ‘phenomenological’ has recently been preferred, as ‘experiential’ implies several other meanings, such as a focus on the past. In contrast, phenomenological emphasizes the idiosyncratic determination of value without implying a focus on the past.
...
the phenomenological nature of CV as context-specific, interactive, and attached with meanings. The C-D logic accepts that interactions facilitate the creation of value, however, contrary to the S-D logic’s supplier-oriented approach, it emphasizes that it is the customer who ultimately determines the value created. In doing so, the C-D logic stresses that other processes not directly related to interactions also need to be considered.
...
Seeing the customer in a constant and interactive process with other actors, such as companies and other customers, bolds the increasing focus on relational aspects, which is therefore underpinned in the S-D and C-D logic. Hence, an increasing focus on relationships, rather than on transactions, is suggested. According to both logics, the customer is engaged in multiple relations- hips, also to actors other than the company. The old-fashioned view on relational aspects as being dyadic does not seem to be supportable anymore. Intuitively, the customer now appears as being embedded within a context of other value determining resources and actors.[Moi ici: Outra vez algo que ajuda a perceber o valor que pode ter uma utilização criteriosa da cláusula 4.2 da ISO 9001:2015]"

Trechos retirados de "Reframing customer value from a dominant logics perspective" de Tobias Schlager e Peter Maas e publicado por International Journal of Marketing (2012) 51:101–113

Acerca de valor para o cliente (parte I)

"Within the past few decades, there has been a broad shift from searching for sources of competitive advantage within a company, to investigating external sources of competitive advantage.
...
Arguing so, the C-D logic even goes further in positioning the customer in the center by shifting the focus from the company’s processes to the customer’s reality and history.
...
Broadly discussed and commonly accepted is the shift from value-in-exchange to value-in-use.
...
Value-in-use expresses the idea that value is created by using a product or service, rather than by producing the product or service, which constitutes one key assumption of the S-D logic.
...
This idea is advanced by value-in-context, which lays an emphasis on the role of “[...] other market-facing, public, and private resources [...]”. In line with this, a notable article emphasizes the customers’ embeddedness into a social context by applying social construction theories [Moi ici: Malta da ISO 9001:2015 estão a ver aqui alguma relação com a cláusula 4.2?]
...
The C-D logic recognizes this by emphasizing the highly dynamic and multi-contextual reality and life of the customer, implying a significant emphasis on the customer’s experiences and history, especially in service settings. As a result, the notion of value-in-life is proposed. Whether value-in-context or value-in-life is more appropriate is not yet commonly agreed upon."

Trechos retirados de "Reframing customer value from a dominant logics perspective" de Tobias Schlager e Peter Maas e publicado por International Journal of Marketing (2012) 51:101–113

Algures, estes sintomas vão começar a cobrar portagem (parte III)

Parte I.

Isto "Sozé mandou 130 trabalhadores para férias e fechou a fábrica" talvez seja mais um sinal de que a maré mudou.

Interessante aquela nota:

"Fonte oficial da associação portuguesa dos industriais de calçado (APICCAPS) lamentou o desfecho de "uma das 30 maiores empresas do sector""

We're not in Kansas anymore!

• "The Italian-made shoe craze continues with footwear startup Bells & Becks"
• ""This women’s suiting startup mixes Italian fabrics, silk linings, and U.S. manufacturing"
• "Adidas encerra lojas e aposta na duplicação das vendas ‘online’"

Em meia-dúzia de minutos, sem exagero, uma série de artigos com algo em comum: marca e venda online.

É claro que o retalho físico não vai morrer até porque marcas que nasceram online continuam a abrir espaços físicos. No entanto, é preciso pensar a sério sobre que marcas conseguirão fazer a transição para uma nova geração de retalho físico.

Imaginem uma empresa que pretende organizar eventos de canyoning:

Será que faz sentido chegar a toda a gente? Claro que não!

Apenas precisa de chegar dos potenciais interessados, que são uma tribo minoritária.

Cada vez mais penso que muitas marcas que não podem ser de massas, continuam a pensar, sem o saberem, que a única forma de sobreviver ou prosperar é trabalhar como as marcas feitas para o mercado de massas. We're not in Kansas anymore!

Chamo a atenção para o tamanho médio da empresa italiana de calçado. Tem de ser um referencial diferente.

Mais peças para construir um futuro em Mongo

 Mão amiga fez-me chegar "Blockchain Agriculture Will Change Farming & Food" de onde retirei:

"How do you know the organic produce you purchased is really organic?
.
Last year, the U.S. Inspector General found that potentially millions of pounds of fake organic produce are entering American supermarkets every year. This isn’t just a problem for consumers. It also cheapens the efforts of farmers who are producing real organic produce.
.
Consequently, there has been rising interest in systems that can verify the authenticity of a product’s supply chain. Blockchain is an excellent choice for this application. Farms could use blockchain to add verified organic products to the ledger. Then, consumers could use a mobile app to check the history of a piece of produce in the store in real time.
...
Multinational corporations dominate the current agriculture industry. They are often the largest buyers on the market, so they can set prices and tell farmers what to grow in a given season. However, blockchain agriculture could make small enterprises and community-sponsored farming more prevalent.
...
Blockchain agriculture can solve some of the governance, distribution, and shareholding challenges of operating a community-sponsored agriculture initiative. With tokenized shareholding and smart contracts-based distribution, community-sponsored agriculture could scale much more effectively, connecting farmers to consumers directly. This whole community-supported agriculture transition could even be automated, with ownerless farmshares around the world.
...
The more transparent food production becomes, the more information consumers will have to make smart food decisions. Blockchain agriculture could make food cheaper, but it will also make it easier to track where our food is coming from. Blockchain could be the key to making real, organic, locally-sourced produce affordable and available to everyone."

A convergência da tecnologia com a procura e valorização crescente da proximidade e autenticidade, a possibilidade de desenvolver novos modelos de negócio. Mais peças para construir um futuro em Mongo.

Para reflexão

"If you make a product or provide a service, you invariably want more customers. If you’re a nonprofit, your instinct is to care for more people in need. And if you’re a city, you often have a very tangible incentive for your population to expand because federal funding is linked to size.
.
Serving more folks, in turn, requires higher headcounts, fatter budgets and added infrastructure. And it brings a certain luster to those executives in charge. Who doesn’t want to lead a giant?
.
Yet growth doesn’t always make sense. Sometimes, in fact, getting bigger is precisely the wrong thing to do.
.
The headlines are replete with stories of organizations that have pursued higher volume at the expense of quality. (Think, for instance, of the rough patch Toyota hit in 2007.) Such behavior “confuses fat with muscle, and busy-ness with economic accomplishment,” Peter Drucker wrote.
...
“Neither ‘big is better’ nor ‘small is beautiful’ makes much sense,” Drucker explained. “Neither elephant nor mouse nor butterfly is, in itself, ‘better’ or ‘more beautiful.’ Size follows function.”
.
Done right, shrinking can be immensely beneficial. Like a fruit tree that needs to be pruned, some organizations must get smaller in order to grow the right way."

Trechos retirados de "Shrinking your way to success"

"customers’ active role in value creation"

"A business logic is a strategic mindset, or a mental model, of a company and its business activities, and thus, it guides conscious and unconscious decisions made in companies. Contemporary academic discussions on business logics that focus on the identification and creation of customer value and the actual business logics that companies apply in practice seem to differ significantly. Traditional thinking about value creation in business sees every company as occupying a position in the value chain, adding value to inputs and then passing the output to the next actor in the chain. In a value chain, value creation takes place inside a company through its own activities, and companies act autonomously with little or no interference from customers. Consequently, the value-added is equalised with the cost incurred by the supplier company. This traditional business logic based on goods-dominant logic (GDL) suggests that value is embedded in the units of output (value-in-exchange), and the outputs present the fundamental units of exchange. Interaction takes place mostly at the end of the value chain, and the value chain stops when the end-customer has bought a product or service. GDL highlights the supplier company’s process as primary, and the role of a customer is to fulfil scripts defined by the supplier.
.
During the past decade, the academic discussion has strongly shifted away from GDL and the traditional thinking about the sequential value creation process to new business logics that emphasise customers’ active role in value creation. The service-dominant logic (SDL), service logic and customer-dominant logic (CDL) have dramatically changed the understanding of business thinking and value creation. However, most businesses continue to operate in terms of GDL, and the reason for this may not always be ignorance of the new thinking, but lack of managerial approaches and tools."

Na passada semana achei deliciosa a conversa numa empresa. Um seu potencial cliente compra máquinas na Europa Central. A empresa olhou para a forma como o cliente usa a máquina e conquistou-o, não pelo o que a máquina faz, mas por olhar para as preocupações e desafios colaterais que o cliente tem ao usar a máquina.

Trecho retirado de "Service Logic Business Model Canvas" de Jukka Ojasalo e Katri Ojasalo, publicado por Journal of Research in Marketing and Entrepreneurship.

Shift happens (parte II)

Interessante esta evolução:

"Em 2016, a faturação da fileira têxtil e vestuário subiu 6,6%,face a 2015, um desempenho que supera as restantes industrias transformadoras e é o valor mais elevado desde 2012. O crescimento foi transversal a todos os segmentos de negócio.
...
A análise regista que naquele período foram mais as empresas que encerraram do que as que foram criadas. Por isso, o universo têxtil encolheu 1,2% no biénio 2015/16. Por cada 10 empresas que cessaram atividade, foram criadas oito, revela o estudo do BdP.
...
Em 2016, a rentabilidade da fileira têxtil atingiu os 10%, o valor mais alto desde 2012 e superior à média nacional (8%).
.
No resultado de exploração (EBITDA), o setor também está acima da concorrência: a subida de 10% compara bem com os 2% da indústria transformadora e 7% de média nacional.
...
O crédito concedido pelo sistema bancário às empresas têxteis caiu 2,5% de 2015 para 2016. Mas, registou uma subida de 1,1% em 2017.
.
No final de 2017, estava em incumprimento 11,6% do crédito concedido, em linha com a média da indústria.
.
O passivo do tecido têxtil subiu, em 2016, 4%, com a dívida remunerada a representar 47% do total do passivo."

Um texto que devia ser lido pelos crentes no monolitismo sectorial económico, incapazes de perceber a importância das idiossincrasias.

Trechos retirados de "Têxtil representa 2% das empresas e 5% do emprego"

"people celebrate their space with prototypes they've worked on"

"At IDEO people celebrate their space with prototypes they've worked on, found art, and clever mechanical toys. One of my favorite corners looks like something out of a bike shop. There's a hat rack full of cycling helmet prototypes, a plywood pendulum with a heavy metal ball to test them, a phenomenally light carbon racing wheel, and a clever folding bike lock of hardened steel. At nearly every corner, mobile steel Metro shelves are brimming with foam prototypes or parts. If someone's got a hobby or interest, you'll find it in his or her space, everything from cell phone collections to the mishmash of horribly designed toys and gizmos. As for the bizarre, IDEOer Roby Stance! favors a Styrofoam dress shop model's head to store and display his electrical components (sort of a cyberpunk hairdo). There are also plenty of surprises: quirky wall cutouts and window slits that afford unexpected views and provide amusing displays for knickknacks. Look around your office. Do workers have places for impromptu meetings? Is them a comfortable blend of openness and privacy? And equally important, are workers encouraged to celebrate their work and hobbies in their space? If you can't tell when you're moving from one neighborhood to another, you probably don't have neighborhoods."

Ainda na semana passada numa PME, enquanto aguardava no hall de entrada e, olhava para um velho quadro pregado na parede e pensava como podiam substitui-lo por esquemas dos protótipos que fabricam.

Trecho retirado de "The Art of Innovation" de Tom Kelley

Fomentar uma rede

Descobri este fim de semana um artigo de 2004, "Key network management" de  Jukka Ojasalo na Industrial Marketing Management 33 (2004) 195–205. Interessante porque também foi em 2004 que comecei a trabalhar este conceito sem qualquer suporte teórico, simples fuçar em busca de uma alternativa. A linguagem está um bocado datada, mas o essencial está lá:

"the actors of a key network provide relevant capabilities to contribute towards achieving the goals of the key network [Moi ici: Hoje diremos que todos são egoístas e procuram o melhor para si, mas sabem que podem ganhar mais colaborando com outros para maximizar o valor gerado pelo todo] and the necessary capabilities and activities (not all) of these actors can be controlled by the focal firm.  [Moi ici: Outra vez a linguagem datada. Faz-me recordar uma leitura do "Principe" de Maquiavel comentada por Napoleão] The actors of a key network are likely to belong to the company’s external value chain. In other words, they are the company’s customers, suppliers, or organizations that have the role of both a customer and supplier. However, in addition to customers and suppliers, there can be many other actors that can help achieve the goals of a key network, such as financiers and investors, opinion leaders, government bodies, labor unions, trade commissions, universities, media, etc.
...
Once an opportunity has been discovered, the company has to find a way to take advantage of it. For this purpose, the company may either use its own resources or establish [Moi ici: Ou fomentar, ou facilitar] a key network. Indeed, the strategy is not necessarily the one that creates value but mobilizes different actors to create value for each other through a network managed by the company. [Moi ici: Muito melhor esta linguagem, claro que influenciado por Normann] This is characterized by the general transition from value chains to weblike value constellations. In value constellations, the key strategic task is the reconfiguration of roles and relationships among a constellation of actors, in order to mobilize the creation of value in new forms and by new players.
...
the strategy for managing an actor depends on the extent to which the actor is capable of contributing to the goals of the key network and the extent to which the key network is capable of contributing to the goals of the actor [Moi ici: O esquema que se segue pode ser útil para quem quiser abordar a cláusula 4.2 da ISO 9001:2015 de uma forma interessante para o negócio em vez de para cumprir calendário]

...

Mateus XI:25

"Naquele tempo, respondendo Jesus, disse: Graças te dou, ó Pai, Senhor do céu e da terra, que ocultaste estas coisas aos sábios e entendidos, e as revelaste aos pequeninos."

Pois:

"History teaches that innovation does not come about by central planning. If it did, Silicon Valley would be nearer to Moscow than to San Francisco. Working on thousands of projects has taught us a simple but critical element that every team or company should come to expect: the unexpected.
Chance offers insights you didn’t anticipate. It’s a well-accepted truth that inventions and discoveries often result from random accidents or experiments that went awry."

É isto que falta à tríade.

Trecho retirado de "The Art of Innovation" de Tom Kelley

A economia não é um jogo de soma nula.

Recordo o que escrevi sobre o alvarinho de Monção e Melgaço:

• Curiosidade do dia (Março de 2015)
• "raising the bar" (Outubro de 2016)
• Salvar o "brand value" (Setembro de 2016)

Depois de ter lido esta semana "Vendas de Monção e Melgaço subiram 32% desde a liberalização do alvarinho":

"Nos primeiros três anos da aplicação da nova lei que permitiu o alargamento a toda a região da possibilidade de comercializar vinhos verdes da casta alvarinho, que era um exclusivo dos municípios de Monção e Melgaço (MM), as vendas deste valioso produto naquela sub-região afectada pelo acordo subiram 32,3% em volume, de 1,41 para 1,87 milhões de litros, sobretudo no mercado nacional.
...
Os dados divulgados esta quarta-feira, 4 de Abril, pela Comissão de Viticultura da Região dos Vinhos Verdes (CVRVV) comparam com o aumento de "apenas" 5% nas vendas globais da região durante este mesmo período de três anos. "Quando se pensava que o acordo era a grande derrota de Monção e Melgaço, verifica-se que eles são os grandes vencedores", sublinhou ao Negócios o presidente deste organismo com sede no Porto, Manuel Pinheiro.
.
"Ao fim de três anos, sendo possível fazer uma primeira avaliação, a grande surpresa é que os grandes vencedores foram os produtores de MM e não os outros. Aumentam as suas vendas muito acima da média do vinho verde.
...
Como há escassez de matéria-prima – o vinho verde está a vender toda a produção –, os produtores [fora de Monção e Melgaço] estão a plantar outras castas mais produtivas."

A economia não é um jogo de soma nula.

"Giants invariably descend into suckiness" (parte XI)

Mais uma achega sobre porque Mongo não é amigável para gigantes:

"the artisan is someone like me: You cannot be a promiscuous entrepreneur if you're an artisan. And also, you know where to stop. The problem is Steve Jobs stopped at the product line. The typical artisan knows where to stop.
.
Food is artisinal. And every single successful restaurant owner I know goes past the first restaurant and opens a second restaurant -- they go to the point of bankruptcy, typically. And I've seen that happen. Artisans typically have the instinct to stop. They say, "OK, I'm satisfied with this."
.
Whereas if you hire someone [like] McKinsey, they'll end up making you keep going beyond and doing shit. They want you to expand until you end up in bankruptcy.
.
Stoffel: So an artisan is someone who knows when to stop. That's one of your filters.
.
Taleb: Exactly.
...
Stoffel: Because you're producing to produce, and not because of something you love?.
Taleb: Exactly. You're going beyond your hobby point. You see, an artisan, as you notice, it becomes a hobby. So the distinction between hobby and work is blurred for an artisan. What happens sometimes is a hobbyist starts out, is doing OK, and then it turns into work."

"Giants invariably descend into suckiness" (parte X)

Trechos retirados de "Motley Fool Interview: Nassim Nicholas Taleb"

A nova deslocalização?

Há dias ao ler esta notícia, "Relojoaria suíça abre fábrica de braceletes e cria 100 empregos em Santa Maria da Feira", a ideia passou-me pela cabeça.

Ontem ao ler "Maia acolhe a única fábrica de relojoeira suíça no estrangeiro" e:

""Contrariamente à imagem transmitida, a Suíça é confrontada com numerosos problemas industriais", que decorrem da "crescente desindustrialização que marca o nosso país", começou por explicar o COO da Azurea maiata quando questionado sobre a internacionalização industrial do grupo.
.
"O franco forte, a evolução demográfica, os custos [sobretudo laborais] e o desenvolvimento do sector terciário em detrimento do secundário obrigou-nos, pouco a pouco, a procurar soluções alternativas", explicou Vincent Skrzypczak. Como para a Azurea "não era concebível" instalar-se "num país europeu com as mesmas tendência que a Suíça, como, por exemplo, a Alemanha, ou, até certo ponto, a França", escolheu o nosso país."

O que é que me passou pela cabeça?

Interrogar-me sobre se esta movimentação para Portugal representa a versão dos anos 20 deste século daquilo que foi a deslocalização de empresas francesas e alemãs para o têxtil e calçado em Portugal nos anos 70 e 80 do século passado?

Ontem estive numa empresa portuguesa que está a tirar partido desta deslocalização actual, fazendo uso da proximidade para apostar na co-criação.

"Giants invariably descend into suckiness" (parte X)

Se reflectir um pouco. consigo relacionar "Anónimo engenheiro da província, mas à frente" que de certa forma lida com o fenómeno a nível agregado, com postais que mostram sintomas numa forma mais granular:

• "Giants invariably descend into suckiness" (parte IX) (grande título que roubei de um tweet de Tom Peters)
• Acerca da lealdade às marcas
• E porque não somos plankton (parte VIII)
• Grandes marcas e marcas grandes em Mongo (parte II)
• Um exemplo
• Mongo não é um mundo gigantes-friendly (parte III)
• Leu aqui há vários anos...

Caro Paulo, lembra-se da nossa conversa sobre as ideias de Simondson?

Ao contrário de Simondson, acredito na frase acima. Agora isto não quer dizer que as marcas dos gigantes têm a mesma força que no tempo pré-Mongo. As tribos não são massa e as tribos não são amorfas.

Recomendo vivamente a leitura e pesquisa de "P&G is in trouble" (recordo logo dois postais escritos em Agosto de 2014 na "veranda" de um bungallow na Sierra de la Colebra)

A crescente procura pela customização

"Organizations are naturally inclined to routinize things, and that isn't necessarily a bad thing. Through experience, they develop stable ways of working that coordinate and combine the efforts of various people and specialists. When an IVF clinic follows the standard protocol for a regular patient, for example, everybody knows exactly what to do and when, and the organization executes this task without much effort or disruption. It makes production fast, efficient, and reliable. Obviously, there's nothing wrong with fast, efficient, and reliable. But if you want to innovate, you'll need to disrupt this routine, and develop new solutions and new ways of working.
.
To put it bluntly, your team needs to makes its own life difficult. This is exactly what IVF clinics did when they didn't turn away difficult cases. By treating patients with complex etiologies, they experienced more valuable learning opportunities than if they concentrated exclusively on higher-probability cases. By experimenting, reflectively communicating about the results, and codifying their newfound knowledge—the three critical components of team learning behavior—the clinics were able to improve their practices in the long term.
...
You can't innovate without ever trying something new. This may sound quite obvious - and, frankly, it is - but many organizational processes and practices are precisely aimed at not doing this. Process management techniques (such as ISO 9001), for instance, are aimed at making processes more reliable and secure. In general, organizations are inclined to try to rule out variability and instead concentrate on what works best."

Li isto e relacionei logo com "The Great Strength and Debilitating Weakness of Modern Medicine… and Management" e:

"The great strength of modern medicine lies in the fits that work. The patient enters the hospital with a diseased heart and leaves soon after with a repaired one. But where the fit fails can be found modern medicine’s debilitating weakness. Fits fail, more often generally realized, beyond the categories, across the categories, and beneath the categories.
...
Dr. Atul Gawande, in a New Yorker article entitled “The Bell Curve” (6 December 2004), reported on his observation of a renowned cystic fibrosis physician. He wrote the protocols that others used, yet had much better results. Meeting a young woman, and seeing a reduced measure of lung-function, he asked if she was taking her treatments. She said that she was. But he probed further, to discover that she had a new boyfriend and a new job that were getting in the way of taking those treatments. Together they figured out how she could alter her schedule.
.
Here, then, lay the good doctor’s secret: he treated the person and not just the patient, by delving beneath the medical context, to her personal situation."

Escrevi há anos um postal, que agora não consigo recuperar sobre uma empresa de dispositivos médicos que era muito eficiente e muito bem sucedida, mas quando quis dar um salto descobriu o poder da "to makes its own life difficult" ao começar a trabalhar no aprofundamento da customização.

Trechos iniciais retirados de "Breaking Bad Habits" de Freek Vermeulen.

Acerca da evolução do retalho e da calma de alguns

• Zara owner Inditex ramps up digital assault
• Geração da internet está longe de abandonar lojas físicas
• The Store Is Dead — Long Live the Store
• Why Customer Experience Can't Be All Data Driven

Sintomas de um sector em convulsão e de um futuro que já anda por cá ainda que com uma distribuição muito enviesada.

É nestas alturas que penso naqueles que fornecem o retalho tradicional. Vejo pouca gente preocupada com esta evolução, vejo pouca gente atenta à erosão do seu modelo de negócio... se os seus clientes estão a passar mal e/ou a reformular-se como se estão a preparar para o novo nível do jogo?

Se olharem para o canvas de Osterwalder e o aplicarem a uma fábrica que produz artigos de consumo que se vendem em lojas qual o componente que não sofre alteração?

Pensamento estratégico em todo o lado

É reconfortante encontrar pensamento estratégico em todo o lado, em todos os sectores de actividade económica.

A ISO 9001:2015 começa a secção 4 com a cláusula 4.1 sobre compreender uma organização e o seu contexto, e a cláusula 4.2 sobre as partes interessadas relevantes e os seus requisitos relevantes. Não admira, uma organização inteligente e com skin-in-the-game tem de estar atenta e alinhada com o seu contexto e partes interessadas, e quando estas mudam as organizações têm de mudar, não podem contar com um qualquer direito adquirido a um queijo metafórico.

"When Tom and Mac Ehrhardt took over the seed company from their father in the 1970s, much of their business came from producers like Swieter.
.
“Farmers in pickups would come in and buy soup to nuts,” said Tom Ehrhardt. “They’d buy some oats, alfalfa, corn, a little clover, a little pasture grass, and maybe sweet corn and tomatoes for the garden, so it was a whole grocery list of things.”
...
Now, 40 years later, “lots of those small farms have disappeared, and we don’t see as many individual farmers coming in this time of year as we once did,” he said.
...
Tens of thousands of farmers have patronized the seed company since its founding in 1923. Now in its third generation, Albert Lea Seed House has adjusted with the times, becoming more of a distribution center than general store and surviving by recognizing its changing customers and providing a wide variety of seeds that farmers like Swieter can’t find through co-ops and the agricultural behemoths."

Liderar uma organização é esta busca permanente de ajuste à realidade, e sublinho outra vez Nassim Taleb:

"Gracias a la paranoia, que es la mejor estrategia de supervivencia. El optimismo es malo. Los psicólogos siempre dicen que infravaloramos la posibilidad de que se produzca una catástrofe. Yo te hago una simple pregunta: ¿prefieres que tu piloto de avión sea un pesimista o un optimista?
. . .
Ya respondo yo: necesitamos que nuestros líderes sean pesimistas.
Muchos expertos dicen que la ansiedad es la enfermedad del siglo XXI.
Pues se equivocan. Si no eres ansioso en tu vida personal, te vas a la quiebra. Mira a los animales salvajes: siempre están vigilantes, no asumen riesgos. Yo soy una persona feliz, pero cada mañana me levanto como si fuera a irme a la quiebra ese mismo día.
Curiosamente, este pesimismo existencial de Nassim Nicholas Taleb le lleva a un corolario contraintuitivo. La ansiedad humana, que tantos esfuerzos dedicamos a erradicar, quizá sea el principal motivo para confiar en la supervivencia de la raza a largo plazo."

Trecho retirado de "Albert Lea Seed House still thriving as it adjusts to the same forces changing the farm industry" e citado em "Leaders and Strategies in Real Life: 4/3/18"

Anónimo engenheiro da província, mas à frente

Ontem a meio da tarde fui ao Twitter e não resisti a escrever:

não há rasgo em lado nenhum, sempre os mesmos zombies: louçã, félix, ângelos correias...
uma classe política em circuito fechado há demasiado tempo, gente pré-windows, pré-apple, pré-DOS https://t.co/YU8rXomjyf

— Carlos P da Cruz (@ccz1) April 3, 2018

Esta operação em circuito fechado, gera respostas absurdas para desafios novos. Como não recordar Napoleão:

"Napoleon said: To understand someone, you have to understand what the world looked like when they were twenty." 

Como não recordar Zapatero.

E volto ao postal "Mas claro, eu só sou um anónimo engenheiro da província" de Maio de 2013 sobre os Encontros da Junqueira.

Pensem bem no significado, no alcance e no impacte deste fenómeno: em Maio de 2013 elite que pensa em e a Economia em Portugal continuava embrenhada no século XX, continuava a acreditar na validade das hipóteses que venciam aquando da rodagem do filme Metrópolis por Fritz Lang.

Agora, leiam "The End of Scale":

"For more than a century, economies of scale made the corporation an ideal engine of business. But now, a flurry of important new technologies, accelerated by artificial intelligence (AI), is turning economies of scale inside out. Business in the century ahead will be driven by economies of unscale, in which the traditional competitive advantages of size are turned on their head.
...
Investments in scale used to make a lot of sense. Around the beginning of the 20th century, the world was treated to a technological surge unlike any in history. That was when inventors and entrepreneurs developed cars, airplanes, radio, and television, and built out the electric grid and telephone system.
...
Scale conferred an enormous competitive advantage. It not only lowered fixed costs — it also created a forbidding barrier to entry for competitors. Organizations of all kinds spent the 20th century seeking scale. That’s how we ended up with giant corporations, and universities with 50,000 students, and multinational health care providers.
...
This is the basis of economics of unscale. The winning companies in today’s tech surge are companies that profitably give each customer exactly what he or she wants, not companies that give everyone the same thing.
...
Thus, scaled companies find themselves beleaguered by unscaled competitors.
...
This is a clear indication of what big corporations are facing in an era that favors economies of unscale over economies of scale. Small, unscaled companies can challenge big companies with products or services more perfectly targeted to niche markets — products that can win against mass-appeal offerings. When unscaled competitors lure away enough customers, economies of scale begin to work against the incumbents. The cost of scale rises as fewer and fewer units move through expensive, large-scale factories and distribution systems — a cost burden not borne by unscaled companies.
...
Remember, the corporation hasn’t been around forever. [Moi ici: Como bem sublinhou Seth Godin] It was an invention of the Industrial Age and it was created in response to a unique set of conditions. It makes sense that a new set of conditions needs a new structure. Maybe it will look like something that doesn’t yet exist. But surely some kind of unscaled corporation will emerge in the near future."

Pensem mais uma vez na quantidade de enormidades que oposição e situação deitam cá para fora quando ciclo eleitoral após ciclo eleitoral são comandadas por gente sem skin-in-the game. Não resisto a citar Nassim Taleb:

"Son expertos de pega. Un fontanero sabe de fontanería. Un charcutero sabe de jamón serrano. Pero se ha demostrado que los economistas no saben de economía. Ninguno vio venir la crisis, con honrosas excepciones, y fuimos marginados durante años. Pero lo peor de todo: no han aprendido nada de los últimos 10 años.
Dice Taleb que el negocio de la restauración funciona porque son los clientes, y no otros restauradores, quienes deciden qué locales prosperan y cuáles cierran. Lo mismo ocurre con los médicos, que dependen de su buena reputación entre los pacientes. «Y de no matarlos, claro», bromea.
.
En cambio, otros sectores, como la Universidad o la burocracia, están «envenenados» porque sus profesionales se evalúan entre ellos mismos, con nula transparencia."

O futuro da economia é a arte

Há muitos anos que este anónimo engenheiro da província descobriu que o futuro da economia é a arte:

• A ascensão do artesão e da arte na produção (Abril 2017)
• O papel da arte! (Abril 2016)
• Criar valor, através da criação de escassez, por via da arte no trabalho (Maio 2011)
• Há sempre uma alternativa (parte II) (Maio 2011)

Por isso, não deixo passar isto:

• Step Inside the Factory Where Superstars Make Their Art
• The Future of Work: Join the Maker Movement (apesar de não concordar com tudo) 

Pensar e gerir a "experiência do cliente"

Aplicável a tantas empresas em tantos sectores:

"IDEO's architects revealed that patients and family often became annoyed well before seeing a doctor because checking in was a nightmare and waiting rooms were uncomfortable. They also showed that Kaiser's doctors and medical assistants sat too far apart. IDEO's cognitive psychologists pointed out that people, especially the young, the old, and immigrants, visit doctors with a parent or friend, but that second person is often not allowed to stay with the patient, leaving the afflicted alienated and anxious. IDEO's sociologists explained that patients hated Kaiser's examination rooms because they often had to wait alone for up to 20 minutes half-naked, with nothing to do, surrounded by threatening needles. IDEO and Kaiser concluded that the patient experience can be awful even when people leave treated and cured.
.
What to do? After just seven weeks with IDEO, Kaiser realized its long-range growth plan didn't require building lots of expensive new facilities. What it needed was to overhaul the patient experience. Kaiser learned from IDEO that seeking medical care is much like shopping -- it is a social experience shared with others. So it needed to offer more comfortable waiting rooms and a lobby with clear instructions on where to go; larger exam rooms, with space for three or more people and curtains for privacy, to make patients comfortable; and special corridors for medical staffers to meet and increase their efficiency. "IDEO showed us that we are designing human experiences, not buildings," says Adam D. Nemer, medical operations services manager at Kaiser. "Its recommendations do not require big capital expenditures."

Quem tem a responsabilidade de pensar e gerir a "experiência do cliente"?

O mais fácil é pensar que é tudo uma questão de tecnologia:

• Retailers Race Against Amazon to Automate Stores;
• This automated restaurant was supposed to be the future of dining. Until humanity struck back

Trecho inicial retirado de "The Power Of Design"

"candidatar-se a ter de fechar a empresa"

A propósito de "As Their Costs Go Up, Business Owners Weigh Whether to Raise Prices", não existe qualquer relação entre preço e custo.

Custo é o somatório dos custos. Preço é o que o cliente está disposto a pagar.

Se os componentes do custo sobem pode ser que o cliente não esteja disposto a pagar mais.

Assim, independentemente da evolução dos custos, qualquer organização deve continuamente trabalhar em dois vectores:

1. como aumentar o preço unitário;
2. como reduzir os custos unitários

Trabalhar para aumentar o preço unitário implica perceber o que é valor para o cliente-alvo e ser capaz de:

• criar os meios para que o cliente experiencie esse valor acrescido; e
• transmitir a proposta de valor de modo adequado.

Se uma empresa não aposta no aumento do preço unitário só tem um caminho, correr para reduzir os custos unitários, aumentando a eficiência.

Ficar parado sem fazer nada e ser obrigado a incorporar o aumentos dos custos sem os poder transferir para os preços é fazer de alvo e candidatar-se a ter de fechar a empresa.

O que aí vem (parte II)

Parte I.

Ontem, enquanto circulava por estradas do concelho de Penafiel, recordei-me que ainda há alguns anos Braga era a cidade mais jovem da União Europeia.

Convinha que os empresários portugueses começassem a perceber o que significa o envelhecimento da população e o seu impacte na forma como lidam com os seus trabalhadores. Não estamos muito longe da Alemanha em termos demográficos, e por lá já temos isto "Germany Courts Workers With Sausages and Cheap Housing":

"The scramble for qualified workers has become an existential issue for companies across Germany, which are offering enticements ranging from overseas sojourns and ski outings to subsidized housing and sausage platters. After years of robust growth, unemployment has dropped to a record low of 5.4 percent, and the country has 1.2 million unfilled jobs—nearly equivalent to the population of Munich.
...
Recruiting is “a huge challenge—that’s something we have in common with companies across Germany,” says Maren Kroll, head of human resources at Kratsch’s factory in Eisfeld, three hours east of Frankfurt by car. Harry’s, which employs about 550 people at the plant (and lists almost 40 open positions on its website), seeks to keep workers happy with extras such as subsidized lunches, English classes, and a share-distribution program.
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“Talented professionals are hard to find,” says Kroll, “so we have to create conditions that are attractive.”
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“Personnel is our bottleneck,” says Silke Burger, one of four family members who own and run the company. “We’re producing at the limit.”
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For Germany, immigrants have long been a cushion in times of tight labor markets, but that’s changing. The Bundesbank has warned it will become increasingly difficult for businesses to lure workers from neighboring countries as wages in Eastern Europe catch up. Net migration from those places has eased since 2015, and when more Poles such as Foerster decide to stay home, locals like Kratsch will be able to be even choosier."

E as pessoas?

Sintomas

Sou um optimista, mas mesmo um optimista sabe que algures as estratégias vencedores deixam de ter efeito, e têm de ser repensadas. Talvez mais do que optimista não queira ser um fragilista e não é fácil começar a encontrar sintomas de que a maré poderá estar a mudar:

• Portugueses estão a pedir mais empréstimos para ir de férias (isto é do mais weird que há, já não é atrasar a gratificação, base civilizacional importante, é adiantar a gratificação)
• Empresas zombie (o previsível aumento das taxas de juro terá impacte na exigência de rentabilidade das empresas. Por exemplo, na rentabilidade das que empregam pessoas que pedem empréstimos para ir de férias. Quantas empresas serão capazes de fazer a transição?)
• Algures, estes sintomas vão começar a cobrar portagem (parte II) (o chegar ao fim de um ciclo muito bem sucedido: por causa da demografia, por causa do comércio electrónico, por causa do Norte de África, por causa da Europa de Leste, por causa da teimosia em apostar em modelos de negócio baseados na quantidade e no custo unitário)
• Fim do banco de horas individual alarma empresários de todos os setores (quando as empresas mais precisarem de agilidade para fazer face a um período de mudança e ela for considerada ilegal)
• A anatomia do défice de 2017 (ao mínimo deslize na receita do estado vai haver problemas) 

Há a frase que diz que o futuro já cá está, está é apenas mal distribuído. Por isso, a próxima crise económica já cá está, afectando não só as mais fracas como as mais expostas aos modelos de negócio que estavam bem adaptados ao ciclo anterior. O importante é perceber se no agregado há uma maioria de empresas a conseguir fazer a transição para novos modelos de negócio e; se no agregado há novos negócios a entrar para aproveitar o ciclo seguinte. 

Interessante é que cada vez mais vamos ter uma população mais envelhecida, como menos mobilidade profissional e mais direitos adquiridos.

Já analisou criticamente os limites de resiliência do seu negócio? Até onde aguentará um golpe? Tem negócios com o Estado sem amizades políticas? Dupla precaução com os recebimentos!

Claro que quem tem medo compra um cão. A postura de adulto é preparar-se para aguentar o pior e testar hipóteses, fuçar, que funcionem na fase seguinte.

Páscoa