"e somos nós que não dissecámos até ao fundo"

Na maioria das empresas há sempre muita resistência a alguma organização na área do desenvolvimento de produtos.

Recolhem-se alguns requisitos que o cliente explicitou, adivinham-se os restantes e começa-se a trabalhar, rapidamente, para mostrar que não se está parado. Depois, o cliente refere um pormenor do contexto em que o produto vai ser usado, e começam os "entorses", no limite até se deita fora o que se começou e recomeça-se do quase zero.

Ontem numa empresa ouvia pai e filho:

“- Falta sempre alguma coisa. É o cliente que não diz, e somos nós que não dissecámos até ao fundo”

A ISO 9001 bem recomenda alguma organização na recolha das entradas para o desenvolvimento, mas é mais fácil picar o cartão do que ser exigente connosco próprios. Quanto mais exigente no princípio de um projecto maior a probabilidade de não haver surpresas durante o projecto, de cumprir o prazo e ganhar dinheiro.

O mercado é sempre heterogéneo

"When a company takes a more detailed view of its activities, it shines a spotlight on areas that senior management has never before seen clearly. As aggregation and consolidation give way to precision, it becomes easier to identify previously hidden parts of the organization that are performing strongly—as well as those that are not. This can be an uncomfortable experience for senior executives, as it often has profound implications for the organization’s structure, people, and processes.
...
A more-precise understanding of company performance and market potential will lead to resource reallocation, both within and across businesses. The goal, of course, is to target pockets of higher market momentum, thus increasing the growth rate for the company as a whole."

O mercado é sempre heterogéneo, e em Mongo essa dispersão está a aumentar!
Cuidado com as generalizações.


Trechos retirados de "Is Your Growth Strategy Flying Blind?"

O que protegerá Portugal dos robôs?

Mensagem e conclusão errada em "O que protege Portugal dos robôs? Os salários".

A ser verdade teríamos aqui uma motivação forte para manter salários baixos.

Recordo as evoluções na Toyota e na Mercedes e postais como:

• Um mesmo processo automatizado é demasiado rígido para Mongo (Abril 2014)
• Mongo e a automatização... pois! (Fevereiro de 2016)
• Cuidado com a automatização (Abril de 2017)

O que protegerá Portugal dos robôs? Modelos de negócio baseados na minúcia, na interacção, na rapidez, na proximidade, na co-criação, na personalização. Ou seja, Mongo.

Sem estado o que seria de nós?

Teríamos milhares de pequenos e grandes exemplos como este "Grupo no Twitter fez durante o Leslie "o que a Proteção Civil devia fazer"".

A Somália não é uma inevitabilidade sem o papá-estado:

Ainda estamos longe da Somália, que tem 365 dias livres de impostos https://t.co/ZZyNkw32AP

— Joao Galamba (@Joaogalamba) June 16, 2018

Influenciar comportamentos

“Who the groups of similar actors are and how they interact with other groups who have different levels and sources of power.
 The real goals these groups have, be they explicit or implicit.
 Their resources, which are not only physical (such as money, equipment) but mental or moral (such as authority or the expectation of mutual support).
 Their constraints (time limits, other demands, limits to power and authority, including the ability to influence others, and problems they face in achieving their goals).
.
In order to influence the resulting behavior, managers can change the system either directly (by changing the actors, setting new goals, giving more resources, or removing some constraints) or indirectly (by, for example, changing reporting lines, processes, information, training, and so on),”

Recordar:

• "It’s a human behavior one." (parte II) (Janeiro de 2017)
• BSC vs ISO 9001 (parte VII) (Janeiro de 2016)
• Parte III - Relacionar processos e pessoas (Janeiro de 2009)

Excerto de: Bungay, Stephen. “The Art of Action: Leadership that Closes the Gaps between Plans, Actions and Results”. iBooks.

Alterar preços

"2. Changing prices uniformly across your product catalog
Different products or categories have different price elasticities and require different pricing strategies. Demand for some products will change when a competitor changes their price, but not always. Pricing is more complex than that; while competitive pricing is an important component, it’s not the only one.
.
Sometimes it doesn’t make sense to match a competitor’s low price and you may even find opportunities to raise prices instead! For example, Amazon does not have the lowest price on everything—they have some loss leader products or categories but make up the margin in other areas."

Trecho retirado de "Six reasons why your retail pricing strategies aren’t working"

Proximidade, interacção e co-criação

"As demands for higher value and creativity are the norm today and the complexity of offerings has grown, we have begun to see that the division of labor has reached its point of diminishing returns. What managers have learnt is that the division of labor always implies a scheme of interaction by which the different divided activities are made to work together. The lines between the boxes are starting to matter more than the boxes! Complex value creation is impossible without interaction. This is because any higher-value activity involves complementary, often parallel, contributions from more than one person or one team. In fact, the more complex the offering is and the more specialized the resources needed, the greater the demand for the amount, quality and efficiency of communication, because of the inherent interdependence of the activities."

 "Complex value creation is impossible without interaction" - recordar a importância da proximidade para a interacção por trás da co-criação:

• "para lidar com tribos aguerridas é preciso proximidade e interacção, co-criação" (2018)
• "A interacção e a necessidade da proximidade para a co-criação requererão empresas mais pequenas e ... "every laptop will be a corporation"" (2017)
• "Não esquecer o aumento da importância da proximidade produção-consumo, por causa da interacção e da co-criação que acabam por exigir rapidez, flexibilidade e customização." (2016)
• "Apostar na rapidez, na flexibilidade, na proximidade, na autenticidade, nas pequenas séries, na customização, na co-criação, na interacção" (2014)

Trecho inicial de "Interactive value creation"

“We should stop trying to make things so mass appealing”

"“If you’re a marketer or a brand representative, or if you’re trying to build a business, you need to understand that we are talking about feelings most of the time,” said Saint John. “And that’s what we in the 21st century modern world need to figure out: how to connect to our consumers through feelings.”
...
In fact, Saint John said that feelings are comparably important to business models and strategies as data and statistics. Instead of relying solely on hard numbers and analyses, she recommended the audience to assess how their customers react to their products and services as these reactions are what would resonate with them and ultimately market the brand.
...
A feelings-driven brand also has to move away from trying to appease everyone and making it more personal. She recommended treating the business as if it were a person with its own feelings, behaviors and reactions.
“We should stop trying to make things so mass appealing,” said Saint John. “Make them (the customers) connect to someone in a way that if they were your friend, they would understand.”

Na linha de:

• Aproveitar tudo para fugir do lado racional
• "in the future they’ll be about the heart"
• E porque não somos plankton (parte VII)
• "Giants invariably descend into suckiness" (parte XV)
• Plankton?

Trechos retirados de "Feelings, Not Logic: Insights from Bozoma St. John in Digicon 2018"

"Um outro olhar sobre os números das exportações" (parte II)

Estão a ver a superfície de um rio?

Uma suave ondulação eleva uma molécula de água para cima e para baixo incessantemente. De repente, passa um barco no rio e a ondulação aumenta para depois voltar a uma variação incessante, mas menos brusca.

A economia também é assim, com essas constantes subidas e descidas. Em 2013, porque o so-called "jornalismo" estava contra o governo anterior, ou pior, porque era ignorante e não estudava os números, o desempenho das exportações era menosprezado. Por isso, escrevi na altura "Um outro olhar sobre os números das exportações". Os jornalistas desprezavam o desempenho das exportações porque o atribuíam ao combustível e ao ouro.

Agora porque os so-called "jornalistas" têm um governo da sua cor, ou por ignorância, ou por preguiça, olham para as exportações e tecem loas.

Eu vejo o reverso da medalha daquele postal de 2013. Olhem para os números que sigo aqui há anos:

Comparem com os números do passado:

Comparem Parciais I que representavam mais de 50% do total que eu seguia com os Parciais I do mês de Agosto de 2018 (5%).

As exportações de combustíveis e automóveis estão a esconder uma mudança importante, para quem só olha para o número total, para o agregado e, desconhece o granular.

Outros sintomas "Quase 600 empresas fecharam portas em setembro", "Constituição de empresas em Portugal recua 4% para 2.676 em agosto - Informa D&B"

Teoria conspirativa

Estes tweets:

O alojamento local já é amplamente regulado em Portugal. O que vai acontecer é diferente: a limitação da actividade em algumas freguesias de Lisboa. São coisas muito diferentes. https://t.co/Y4JrxPizkU

— Bruno Faria Lopes (@bfarialopes) October 12, 2018

 

Fizeram-me lembrar este trecho de Meses:

"The driving force of the market process is provided neither by the consumers nor by the owners of the means of productions-land, capital goods, and labor-but by the promoting and speculating entrepreneurs . . . Profit-seeking speculation is the driving force of the market as it is the driving force of production."

Uma teoria conspirativa defenderá a tese de que os legisladores estarão ao serviço dos especuladores para criar toda uma variedade de barreiras que geram lucro. Se não houvesse barreiras, o lucro seria muito menor. Os incumbentes esfregarão as mãos com estas alterações legislativas.

There will be surprises!

"At the individual level Austrians have taken sharp exception to the manner in which neoclassical theory has portrayed the individual decision as a mechanical exercise in constrained maximization.
.
Such a portrayal robs human choice of its essentially open-ended character, in which imagination and boldness must inevitably play central roles. For neoclassical theory the only way human choice can be rendered analytically tractable, is for it to be modeled as if it were not made in open-ended fashion, as if there was no scope for qualities such as imagination and boldness. Even though standard neoclassical theory certainly deals extensively with decision making under (Knightian) risk, this is entirely consistent with absence of scope for the qualities of imagination and boldness, because such decision making is seen as being made in the context of known probability functions. In the neoclassical world, decision makers know what they are ignorant about. One is never surprised. For Austrians, however, to abstract from these qualities of imagination, boldness, and surprise is to denature human choice entirely."

Como anónimo engenheiro da província, apaixonado pelo mundo do turnaround, sobrevivência e sucesso das empresas, sempre me espantei com o "basicismo" da abordagem económica do mainstream ao mundo da concorrência. Recordo, por exemplo, "muitas vezes escandalizo-me com a forma como os economistas tratam a economia real" o que me leva logo a um clássico deste país: o Senhor dos Perdões. Recordo, por exemplo. Recordar também um clássico de 2010, "Realidade e teoria".

Trecho retirado de "Entrepreneurial Discovery and the Competitive Market Process: An Austrian Approach" de Israel Kirzner, publicado por Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. XXXV (March 1997), pp. 60-85

Riscos e oportunidades (parte II)

Parte I.

“How to Discover OpportunitiesYou may not have a clue whether you have an opportunity or not. You do not know what you do not know. Verifying whether your firm has present strategic problems is relatively easy. You only have to look for performance gaps. Uncovering “present strategic opportunities generally requires more work. Your stakeholders may already have ideas about potential opportunities but you may also have to search for potential sources of new opportunities for your firm.
Although you may know that your firm has a problem, you may only imagine you have an opportunity. An opportunity gap is not about a decline of the realized performance but about an increase of the objective, that is potential performance. ... You cannot measure the opportunity gap right away, like a problem gap. You need to explore the opportunity by starting to investigate its potential sources: Why would there be an opportunity? Potential sources of opportunities are a firm’s strengths and external opportunities. Here you use components of your SWOT analysis. In an opportunity exploration, you may even start with an exploration of your firm’s potential strengths and potential external opportunities.
...
“How to Use a SWOT to Discover OpportunitiesHow to use your SWOT to identify opportunities for your firm? You create a two-by-two confrontation map. You map the strengths and weaknesses on one axis against the opportunities and threats on the other. Next you search for matches of internal components (strengths and weaknesses) and external components (opportunities and threats). By pairing internal and external components you create four quadrants in the map. [Moi ici: Recordar a análise TOWS] Two quadrants point to opportunities. The other two quadrants point to potential explanations for problem gaps.
Matches between strengths and opportunities are high-priority opportunities because they offer the biggest upside potential for the firm.
Matches between weaknesses and opportunities are low-priority opportunities because your firm (at present) lacks the potential to seize the opportunities.
Matches between weaknesses and threats are high-priority problems because they present the biggest downward risk for your firm.
Matches between strengths and threats are low-priority problems because your firm has the potential to counter these threats and thus solve these problems.”

Excerto de: Marc Baaij. “Mapping a Winning Strategy”.

O futuro do trabalho em Mongo

Como escrevemos aqui há anos e anos sobre Mongo e o futuro do trabalho: "Detlef Gürtler “A revolução digital vai desconstruir a organização social atual”":

"Comecemos pelas más notícias [Moi ici: Más?]: esta revolução digital irá desconstruir a organização social formada na era industrial. A sociedade como a conhecemos tem sido, em grande parte, uma conquista da primeira revolução industrial."

Título alternativo

Leio o título "Empregadores portugueses são os menos escolarizados da UE" e vem-me logo à cabeça um título alternativo "Mais escolarizados de Portugal são os menos empreendedores da UE".

Generalidades versus granularidade

Via FB do Hélder F. cheguei a esta tabela "Industries with the fastest growing and most rapidly declining output".

Não pude deixar de recordar o que tinha lido durante a caminhada matinal:

"A company formulating its growth strategy needs to develop insights into trends, future growth rates, and market structures at much greater depth than the aggregate industry level. Insights into sub-industries, segments, categories, and micro-markets are the building blocks of portfolio choices. They are indispensable for companies seeking to make the right decisions about where to compete.
...

...
Granularity level G0
The Earth—or, in our context, the global marketplace—is the highest level of aggregation with the least granularity: the ultimate segment of one. The world economy is growing by roughly 6.2 percent a year in nominal terms.
...
Granularity level G1
If we want to investigate why some companies grow at a rate that is faster or slower than about 6 percent, the first step is to divide up the economy. The Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS) carves it up into 24 broad industry groups ranging from telecommunications services to energy to biotech.
...
Granularity level G2
Frankly, decisions at the G1 level (such as whether to be in telecommunications, energy, or biotech) are not within the ambit of most companies, so we need not dwell on them here. To get to a deeper level of granularity, we can break down the 24 groups into 151 industries by using other readily available GICS statistics. For instance, the “food, beverages, and tobacco” group breaks down into the component industries “food,” “beverages,” and “tobacco.”
...
Granularity level G3
Each industry can then be divided up again both by sub-industry and by market (country or region). Within the food industry, for instance, two examples of sub-industries might include frozen foods or savories, oils, and dressings.
In analyzing companies’ performance we found that it was usually possible to reach the G3 level of granularity by taking the finest level of data that companies report to the markets. Provided we have access to enough information, we can zoom in on individual sub-industries in individual markets: frozen foods in China, say.
...
Granularity level G4
Sometimes it is possible to use proprietary databases and internal company data to dig deeper than the level at which companies normally report. The definition of the G4 level of granularity varies slightly from industry to industry, but, in essence, it’s the level of categories within sub-industries (such as ice cream within frozen foods) or customer segments within a broad product or service category (such as weight-conscious snackers). The G4 level is important: it represents the minimum level of granularity at which companies need to operate when setting growth priorities and making decisions about resource allocation.
...
Granularity level G5
This is a view of the world at the level of individual customers and transactions —the ultimate segment of one, numbering many billions. [Moi ici: Levar ao extremo o B2I (2018 e 2013)]

Trechos retirados de "The Granularity of Growth - How to Identify the Sources of Growth and Drive Enduring Company Performance" the P. Viguerie, S. Smit e M. Baghai 

Teste

Daqui a um ano, a 9 de Outubro de 2019, revisitaremos este postal para tirar dúvidas:

• OCDE: Economia portuguesa dá sinais de aceleração
• FMI vê Portugal a crescer pouco em 2019 e mais desequilibrado
• “Portugal devia ter vergonha de não ser um país de topo mundial”, diz economista dinamarquês Steen Jakobsen

"there are two very different types of optimism"

"The practical insight is that there are two very different types of optimism. Complacent optimism is the feeling of a child waiting for presents. Conditional optimism is the feeling of a child who is thinking about building a treehouse. “If I get some wood and nails and persuade some other kids to help do the work, we can end up with something really cool.”
.
What the theory of endogenous technological progress supports is conditional optimism, not complacent optimism. Instead of suggesting that we can relax because policy choices don’t matter, it suggests to the contrary that policy choices are even more important than traditional theory suggests."

Faz-me recordar:

"O presidente de uma associação não pode e não deve falar impunemente. Deve ser consequente, deve ser responsável. Não deve mentir mas deve dar esperança. Não esperança cor de rosa, não esperança mágica mas esperança com base nas oportunidades que possam existir." 

Trecho retirado de "Conditional Optimism about Progress and Climate"

Aproveitar tudo para fugir do lado racional

Ontem em conversa com um empresário de Felgueiras, ele falou-me de Nadim Habib, por causa de uma conferência a que assistiu em Coimbra. Tal como eu em 2013, gostou muito e deu por bem empregue o ter levado consigo alguns colaboradores.

Umas mensagens que guardou foi:

• dantes os clientes ou eram ricos ou eram pobres;
• agora nunca sabemos se se vão comportar como pobres (e regatear tudo), ou se se vão comportar como ricos (e não discutir o preço).

Eu acredito que muitas vezes os clientes comportam-se como pobres porque quem vende não os consegue convencer do valor que vão experienciar. Certo que algumas vezes esses clientes ainda estão numa fase de desenvolvimento tal, que não lhes permite experienciar o tal valor em toda a sua extensão. Por isso, faz sentido que regateiem o preço.

Recordei-me desta conversa ao ler este artigo "Olive oil gets a modernist makeover":

"Most olive oil looks like it belongs in your grandma’s kitchen. Brightland makes beautiful bottles, full of pure, hand-crafted oil by California farmers."

Há dias citava esta frase que acreditó sintetiza a transição para Mongo:

“In the past, jobs were about muscles, now they’re about brains, but in the future they’ll be about the heart.” 

No mundo do século XX azeite é azeite, deve ser "puro", estar "graduado", e ser entregue numa garrafa económica que permite embalamento rápido e seguro. Tudo pode ser explicado de forma muito racional.

Em Mongo há os que vendem azeite e há os que vendem mais do que azeite. E os que vendem mais do que azeite têm de aproveitar todas as oportunidades para fugirem da classificação racional e entrar no mundo do coração:

"Iyer wanted the bottles to look attractive enough that people would want to display them in their kitchens, rather than hiding them away in the pantry."

Riscos e oportunidades

“We define two kinds of strategic issues (problems and opportunities) [Moi ici: Riscos e oportunidades na linguagem da ISO 9001] in terms of a substantial and structural gap between your firm’s overarching performance objective and its realized performance. A firm’s overarching objective is generally profit, but firms can also aim at objectives related to people and the planet. A strategic problem is a negative development or event that substantially and structurally prevents your firm from achieving its overarching objective, if your firm does not adapt its strategy. For example, the consumer trend to use less sugar reduces the profit of a bottler of sweet soft drinks. A strategic problem negatively affects your firm’s realized performance and hence creates a so-called performance gap between that performance and your firm’s overarching performance objective...
The potential causes of strategic problems are your firm’s weaknesses and/or external threats. We acknowledge that these causes are components of a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis. Such analysis can support the exploration of your firm’s present problem but not as a start. You do not start with the causes of present problems but with their consequences: underperformance. For present problems, you begin with measuring the performance gap. But when you need to explain the gap, then you may use the SWOT analysis, in particular, the weaknesses and threats.
...
Besides strategic problems, we distinguish a second type of issue: strategic opportunities. We define a strategic opportunity as a positive development or event that may allow your firm to substantially and structurally raise its overarching performance objective. For example, the development of a new drug is an opportunity for a pharmaceutical company. Such opportunities also create performance gaps: difference between your firm’s old objective and its new, raised objective. Opportunities require new strategies for your firm to realize its raised overarching objective. Whereas problems create performance gaps by reducing your firm’s realized performance, opportunities create gaps by raising your firm’s objective. Both types of issues require exploring a performance gap for developing insights into how best to close your firm’s gap.”

Excerto de: Marc Baaij. “Mapping a Winning Strategy”

Transformar organizações

Dedicado a uma empresa bem sucedida que procura focar-se ainda mais nos clientes-alvo.

"Inspire people by presenting a compelling vision for the future. During times of uncertainty, people experiencing change want a clear view of the path ahead. It’s important to share what you know – including what’s changing, when, and how. But for most change initiatives, it is also helpful to start with a narrative or story that clearly articulates the “big picture” – why change is important and how it will positively affect the organization long-term.
...
Keep employees informed by providing regular communications. Change communications is never a one-and-done event; keeping employees informed is something that you will have to do throughout every step of the change process.
...
When thinking about how to communicate, keep the following in mind:
.
Be clear and consistent: All of your communications should tie back to the narrative that you developed, reiterating the case for change and presenting a compelling future vision.
.
You will not have all the answers: Often times, you will not have all the answers employees are looking for, and that breeds anxiety and uncertainty. It’s important to focus on what you know, and be candid about what you don’t. If you do not have an answer, say so. When this occurs, it’s important to let employees know you are committed to communicating openly and transparently, and will follow-up as soon as you know more.
.
Don’t forget to articulate “What’s in it for me?”: One of the most important phrases you may come across in change communications is “what’s in it for me?” If your employees understand what’s in it for them personally, you’re more likely to see individuals commit to and own the change. Failing to articulate “what’s in it for me” will only hinder your efforts.
...
Empower leaders and managers to lead through change. Major changes or transformations often require asking employees to adopt specific behaviors or skillsets in order to be successful. And when senior leaders model the behavior changes, transformations are five times more likely to be successful.
...
Find creative ways to involve employees in the change. When planning for major change events, it is important to solicit feedback and engage people in the process. This helps build ownership in the change, and makes employees more likely to support the change and even champion it."

Trechos retirados de "Don’t Just Tell Employees Organizational Changes Are Coming — Explain Why"

"everyone to be acting rationally"

“Traditionally, economists considered everyone to be acting rationally, which led to rigorous-seeming curves that were easy to comprehend but in the real world rarely predicted actual behavior. It turned out that people don’t view their lives as a series of utility curves.”

Excerto de: Chris Bradley. “Strategy Beyond the Hockey Stick”

"in the future they’ll be about the heart

Excelente resumo de uma das mensagens deste blogue:

“In the past, jobs were about muscles, now they’re about brains, but in the future they’ll be about the heart.”

Mongo é isto!

Nas sociedades pré-industriais o sucesso passava pelo músculo. O século XX foi o apogeu da economia baseada no cérebro, na racionalidade, no planeamento a régua e esquadro tão ao gosto de Taylor, ou Sloan.

O século XXI, será o século de Mongo, das tribos, do pessoal, do único, do coração.

"at too high a level"

Este texto, "O puzzle da produtividade portuguesa: que caminho tomar?", fez-me recordar este trecho:

"performance is granular, by which we mean driven by growth in the sub-segments and categories of industries in which a company competes as well as by the revenues that it acquires through M&A activity. We will also show that these drivers are generally much more important than market-share gains in determining how fast you grow.
.
This seemingly counterintuitive finding has important implications. A typical management team needs to change the way it thinks about company resources, not least its own time. It needs to pay more attention to which businesses the company is in, and particularly the sub-segments in which it competes."

 E sobretudo este:

"“A granular world,” we show that when you are searching for growth, analyses of industries and megatrends are usually pitched at too high a level [Moi ici: É este o ponto. Argumentação demasiado generalista, cheia de boas intenções, mas que não se compromete como o porco, só como a galinha - num pequeno almoço inglês] to offer you any help. In order to identify growth opportunities, you need to get well below the industry level."

Trechos retirados de "The Granularity of Growth - How to Identify the Sources of Growth and Drive Enduring Company Performance" the P. Viguerie, S. Smit e M. Baghai

Reformar mete medo

“As Daniel Kahneman and Dan Lovallo explained in their work on the human tendency toward bold forecasts and timid plans, we’re inclined to see exceptional growth in sales, earnings, and other metrics but won’t make the big moves that could generate those results. They published their paper 25 years ago, but we keep making the same errors. In essence, we are saying: “We’re going to do a ton better next year by doing the same things we did this year, or maybe just a little more.”"

Excerto de: Chris Bradley. “Strategy Beyond the Hockey Stick”.

Para reflexão

Sempre relacionei Mongo com a ascensão de múltiplas tribos com interesses assimétricos que levam ao choque com as empresas grandes habituadas a trabalhar para o meio-termo: Tu não és meu irmão de sangue! Ou não somos plankton!

Nunca tinha pensado nas consequências políticas de Mongo:

"Globalization has brought rapid economic and social change and made these societies far more diverse, creating demands for recognition on the part of groups that were once invisible to mainstream society. These demands have led to a backlash among other groups, which are feeling a loss of status and a sense of displacement. Democratic societies are fracturing into segments based on ever-narrower identities, threatening the possibility of deliberation and collective action by society as a whole. This is a road that leads only to state breakdown and, ultimately, failure. Unless such liberal democracies can work their way back to more universal understandings of human dignity, they will doom themselves—and the world—to continuing conflict."

Jesus disse para dar a outra face, mas a palavra de Jesus chega a cada vez menos gente. Por isso, é natural que à medida que "they get bitter and bitter" deixem de dar a outra face e ripostem.

E isto:

"Economic distress is often perceived by individuals more as a loss of identity than as a loss of resources. Hard work should confer dignity on an individual. But many white working-class Americans feel that their dignity is not recognized and that the government gives undue advantages to people who are not willing to play by the rules."

Parece que estou a ouvir conversas num café de Cesar, ou de Felgueiras - "they get bitter and bitter"

"Multiculturalism has become a vision of a society fragmented into many small groups with distinct experiences."

"Today, for example, merely using the words “he” or “she” in certain contexts might be interpreted as a sign of insensitivity to intersex or transgender people. But such utterances threaten no fundamental democratic principles; rather, they challenge the dignity of a particular group and denote a lack of awareness of or sympathy for that group’s struggles." 

Trechos retirados de "Against Identity Politics: The New Tribalism and the Crisis of Democracy"

Universidades e estratégia

Eclesiastes 3:1-8

É este eterno retorno, eterna maré que vemos quando olhamos para o fluxo das estratégias ao longo do tempo. É a tradução das subidas e descidas dos montes e vales na paisagem competitiva enrugada.

Em Fevereiro de 2007 escrevi "Formular uma estratégia, é a actividade mais sexy da gestão (1)":

"Durante anos, anos de excesso de alunos, face ao número de vagas nas universidades públicas, áàs universidades privadas bastava existirem, terem vagas para assegurarem a sua subsistência.
.
A demografia minou este modelo de negócio, o número de alunos baixou e, em simultâneo, o número de vagas no ensino superior público subiu…"

É preciso pensamento estratégico para outro nível do jogo:

"Nos tempos que correm, não basta ter a porta aberta e esperar que os alunos venham a correr matricular-se, é preciso seduzi-los, é preciso convidá-los a vir, porque existe concorrência, quer de universidade privadas, quer de outras instituições públicas.
.
Assim, há que “calçar os sapatos” de um potencial “cliente” e perguntar:
.
“Porque é que deverei optar por essa Escola? O que é que eu ganho pessoalmente, se preferir essa Escola, em detrimento das outras?” "

Agora, em Outubro de 2018 temos "Porque é que há cada vez mais universitários a preferirem as privadas?" onde encontramos a resposta: diferenciação, bolsas para os melhores alunos, empregos dentro da universidade.

"Qualquer empresa privada, minimamente organizada, passa por este desafio várias vezes ao longo da sua existência. Formular uma estratégia, escolher o terreno onde pretende combater, escolher o nicho onde pretende prosperar."

Interessante, o governo decidiu cortar lugares nas universidades públicas no litoral para canalizar alunos para as universidades públicas do interior e... os alunos foram para as privadas do litoral que ficam mais baratas depois de considerados todos os custos... faz-me lembrar "The Predator State"

Nem uma palavra sobre subsídios

Há anos que o @paulojsvaz prevê uma injecção de 2 milhões de portugueses na economia nacional com os retornados da Venezuela e da África do Sul.

Lembrei-me logo disso ao ler "A tragédia da Venezuela está a tornar-se a riqueza de Estarreja". Entre 1993 e 2017 vivi em Estarreja. Por isso, desde cedo me habituei a ouvir o sotaque castelhano nas ruas e lojas. Por isso, durante anos os cachitos eram uma compra para levar para casa para os miúdos.

Algo interessante no texto, nem uma vez se fala de subsídios ou de apoios. Gente que chega pronta para trabalhar e não para esmolar.

Outra tendência que noto há cerca de dois anos, mas que no último mês se tem agudizado é a presença de brasileiros no Grande Porto. Viajar no metro ou nos STCP é sinónimo de ouvir brasileiros. Ontem fui a uma lavandaria e atendeu-me uma jovem brasileira, hoje no local onde tomo café quando fico no escritório fui atendido por uma cara nova ... brasileira.

A coisa fica mais interessante no El Corte Inglês de Gaia, atrás dos balcões vozes de jovens brasileiras. Do lado de cá do balcão, dezenas de turistas endinheirados brasileiros.

BTW, Estarreja era terra de venezuelanos. Murtosa terra de amaricanos. Era comum estar na fila para comprar frango de churrasco no Intermarché e ouvir os velhotes reformados a discutir entre si qual a offshore que dava melhores condições para receberem as suas pensões. Foi interessante ouvir emigrantes no café Miranda, nas eleições Bush-Gore, entre si preferirem Gore porque não esqueciam que o pai dele tinha prometido não aumentar impostos e depois aumentou-os.

Contra a academia, marchar, marchar! (parte III)

Parte I e parte II.

"80 percent of the variance in revenue growth is explained by choices about where to compete, according to research summarized in The Granularity of Growth, leaving only 20 percent explained by choices about how to compete. Unfortunately, this is the exact opposite of the allocation of time and effort in a typical strategy-development process. Companies should be shifting their attention greatly toward the “where” and should strive to outposition competitors by regularly reallocating resources as opportunities shift within and between segments."

Como não recordar a série sobre o tecto de vidro.
Trechos retirados de "Have you tested your strategy lately?"

Sempre Mongo

"Small independent bookstores, however, are thriving. In fact, a study at Harvard Business School found that while the number of independent bookstores plummeted 43% between 1995 and 2000, during the heyday of Barnes & Noble and Borders, it soared by 35% between 2009 and 2015.
.
Part of the reason for this trend is that book sales data tends to be shallow. Even a successful book may only sell one or two copies per location per month. That makes it difficult for algorithms to predict demand effectively. An independent bookstore with an attentive staff, however, is much closer to its customers and can often make better judgments.
.
The Harvard study found that independent bookstores thrive through a formula of community, curation and convening. Because independent bookstores are embedded in their community’s fabric, they are well placed to curate titles that appeal to their customers and convene events that strengthen those bonds, drive sales and increase their ability to curate."

Trecho retirado de "The Retail Business Is Dead. Long Live The Retail Business!"

Contra a academia, marchar, marchar! (parte II)

Parte I.

"Ultimately, strategy is a way of thinking, not a procedural exercise or a set of frameworks.
...
For a company to beat the market by capturing and retaining an economic surplus, there must be an imperfection that stops or at least slows the working of the market. An imperfection controlled by a company is a competitive advantage. These are by definition scarce and fleeting because markets drive reversion to mean performance
...
Good strategies emphasize difference—versus your direct competitors, versus potential substitutes, and versus potential entrants.
...
To beat the market, therefore, advantages have to be robust and responsive in the face of onrushing market forces. Few companies, in our experience, ask themselves if they are beating the market—the pressures of “just playing along” seem intense enough. But playing along can feel safer than it is. Weaker contenders win surprisingly often in war when they deploy a divergent strategy, and the same is true in business
...
The need to beat the market begs the question of which market. Research shows that the unit of analysis used in determining strategy (essentially, the degree to which a market is segmented) significantly influences resource allocation and thus the likelihood of success: dividing the same businesses in different ways leads to strikingly different capital allocations.
.
What is the right level of granularity? Push within reason for the finest possible objective segmentation of the market"

Trechos retirados de "Have you tested your strategy lately?"

Contra a academia, marchar, marchar!

“At its heart, business strategy is all about beating the market, or in other words defying the power of “perfect” markets to push economic surplus back to zero. Economic profit—the total profit after the cost of capital is subtracted—measures the success of that defiance by showing what is left on the table after the forces of competition have played out”

A concorrência imperfeita é vista como uma coisa tenebrosa a abater, como uma chatice que impede usarem-se umas formulas-maravilha, e dá azo ao lado irracional dos humanos ao fazerem escolhas. Chamberlin era um economista americano que até queria acabar com as marcas, porque elas são a base para animar a imperfeição dos mercados.

Aqui, este consultor, não quer outra coisa: fomentar, promover a concorrência imperfeita. Criar monopólios informais na mente dos clientes. Alavancar a chegada de Mongo!

Excerto de: Chris Bradley. “Strategy Beyond the Hockey Stick”.

Nesse dia o meu tempo cresceu.

“Experience suggests that managers who have the courage to let go are often surprised by just how much their subordinates are capable of achieving when given good direction. It exploits and develops human potential. Making a start is simply a matter of having faith that the potential is there. It is remarkable how seldom that faith is disappointed.”

Aconteceu comigo. Sempre com medo de delegar. Sempre com a mania de que ninguém faria melhor do que eu. Até ao dia em pressionado pela quantidade de trabalho arrisquei, e fui surpreendido pelo Carlos Ramos com um trabalho de qualidade... melhor do que eu teria tempo para fazer.

Nesse dia o meu tempo cresceu.

Excerto de: Bungay, Stephen. “The Art of Action: Leadership that Closes the Gaps between Plans, Actions and Results”.

"an escalation of commitment"

"an escalation of commitment – sticking with a once-successful strategy for too long. So how can companies avoid making a similar mistake when facing disruption? They must challenge mutually reinforcing biases that see people being influenced by a prior commitment to a particular course of action.
.
This happens for six reasons:"

As seis razões são listadas em "Why leaders invest so much in failing strategies" e são uma chamada de atenção para os que crêem incondicionalmente na racionalidade humana.

Pequenas experiências

Em defesa da descentralização, da desconcentração, da experimentação, das pequenas tentativas:

“A bold decision always looks good—until it is wrong. To facilitate evidence-based decision making, managers must carry out frequent experimentation to diminish the dark space of ignorance and to arrive at conclusions with the required level of familiarity. Critical assumptions must first be identified and then proved right through rigorous experiments.
...
took an evolutionary approach, ran numerous experiments, before hitting a pivotal moment. This is how the strategy process under uncertainty should be managed: create enough opportunities so that relevant evidence can emerge—but once clear, full steam ahead.
...
THE REFRAIN “IF YOU DON’T KNOW WHERE YOU’RE GOING, ANY road will take you there” captures the importance of managers developing a point of view about the world. But awareness is not the same as commitment, so insights alone never suffice. Because strategy and execution are inextricably linked, “unless ideas are translated into everyday actions and operational tactics, a pioneer is still at risk of being displaced by copycats. More often than not, the role of a CEO needs to go beyond strategic visioning and into the substance of strategy implementation, particularly during turbulent times.” [Moi ici: Interessante fazer a ponte para o que os prussianos aprenderam: estratégia é uma intenção geral que tem de ser executada no terreno por gente perante situações concretas impossíveis de prever à partida]

Interessante esta nota:

“The Japanese don’t use the term ‘strategy’ to describe a crisp business definition or competitive master plan. They think more in terms of ‘strategic accommodation,’ or ‘adaptive persistence,’ underscoring their belief that corporate direction evolves from an incremental adjustment to unfolding events.”

Excerto de: Howard Yu. “Leap”.

"a framework for decision making is gaining ground"

“The order is critical: first the strategy, then the plan.
.If the notion of strategy as a plan is moribund, the notion of it as a framework for decision making is gaining ground
...
strategy as “simple rules” which guide decision making
...
the keys to success are “an overall sense of direction and an ability to be flexible.”
...
more successful companies are developed through this sort of planful opportunism than through the vision of an exceptional CEO
...
We are extraordinarily reluctant to admit that luck plays a part in business success. [Moi ici: Nunca esquecer o que é a "luck" - "Be prepared: "luck" is where preparation meets opportunity"]
...
Strategy, then, demands a certain type of thinking. It sets direction and therefore clearly encompasses what von Moltke calls a “goal,” “aim,” or “purpose.” Let us call this element the aim. An aim can be an end-point or destination, and aiming means pointing in that direction, so it encompasses both “going west” and “getting to San Francisco.” The aim defines what the organization is trying to achieve with a view to gaining competitive advantage. How we set about achieving the aim depends on relating possible aims to the external opportunities offered by the market and our internal capabilities.
...
A good strategy creates coherence between our capabilities, the opportunities we can detect, and our aims. Different people have a tendency to start with, and give greater weight to, one or other of these three factors. Where they start from does not matter. Where they end up does. The result must be cohesion. If any one of these factors floats off on its own, dominates thinking at the expense of the others, or is simply mismatched, then in time perdition will follow.
...
The task of strategy is not completed by the initial act of setting direction. Strategy develops further as action takes place, old opportunities close off, new ones arise, and new capabilities are built. The relationship between strategy development and execution is also reciprocal. Doing strategy means thinking, doing, learning, and adapting. It means going round the loop. The reappraisal of ends and means is continuous.”

Excerto de: Bungay, Stephen. “The Art of Action: Leadership that Closes the Gaps between Plans, Actions and Results”. iBooks.

Curiosidade do dia

"They tend to be naïve. They assume that cooperation should be the basis of all social transactions, and they avoid conflict (which means they avoid confronting problems in their relationships as well as at work). They continually sacrifice for others. This may sound virtuous— and it is definitely an attitude that has certain social advantages— but it can and often does become counterproductively one-sided. Because too-agreeable people bend over backwards for other people, they do not stand up properly for themselves. Assuming that others think as they do, they expect— instead of ensuring— reciprocity for their thoughtful actions. When this does not happen, they don’t speak up. They do not or cannot straightforwardly demand recognition. The dark side of their characters emerges, because of their subjugation, and they become resentful.
...
You might think, “if they loved me, they would know what to do.” That’s the voice of resentment. Assume ignorance before malevolence. No one has a direct pipeline to your wants and needs— not even you. If you try to determine exactly what you want, you might find that it is more difficult than you think. The person oppressing you is likely no wiser than you, especially about you. Tell them directly what would be preferable, instead, after you have sorted it out. Make your request as small and reasonable as possible— but ensure that its fulfillment would satisfy you. In that manner, you come to the discussion with a solution, instead of just a problem. Agreeable, compassionate, empathic, conflict-averse people (all those traits group together) let people walk on them, and they get bitter. They sacrifice themselves for others, sometimes excessively, and cannot comprehend why that is not reciprocated. Agreeable people are compliant, and this robs them of their independence."

Peterson, Jordan B.. "12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos"

"manage value in order to make a profit " parte III

Parte I e parte II.

"Increase your firm’s bargaining ability In addition to securing a higher added value, firms may also improve the share of created value that they appropriate by improving their bargaining ability towards buyers and suppliers. In essence, this includes different strategies for increasing price without raising the firm’s added value. This may be accomplished by investing in pricing capability, and commercial decision resources, such as IT-based systems, commercial organization, control systems, and commercial experience that improve the quality of commercial decisions made under uncertainty. It may also be accomplished by the development of particular persuasion resources that allows the firm to negotiate more successfully, and ultimately strike a better deal with buyers and suppliers."

Trecho retirado de "What Is Value and How Is It Managed?" de Niklas L. Hallberg, publicado em Journal of Creating Value 3(2) 173–183, 2017.

Fazedores de experiências - a alquimia do futuro

Acho esta estória uma mina de oportunidades para os que tiverem olhos para ver. Diz-se que vamos a caminho de uma economia de experiências:

“When Doug Dietz set out to visit a local hospital that had recently installed a new magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine, he had little idea of what life was like inside a children’s ward. [Moi ici: BTW, a sua empresa faz isto? Vê os produtos ou serviços a serem usados no contexto pelos seus utilizadores?] A soft-spoken midwesterner with a wry, endearing smile, Doug is a twenty-four-year veteran of General Electric (GE). He works as an industrial designer at GE Healthcare, where he is responsible for the overall machine enclosures, controls, displays, and patient transfer units.
.
“I see this young family coming down the hallway, and I can tell as they get closer that the little girl is weeping. As they get even closer to me, I notice the father leans down and just goes, ‘Remember we talked about this, you can be brave,’” Doug recalled. As the MRI began to make a terrible noise, the little girl started to cry. Doug later learned that hospitals had routinely resorted to sedating young patients because they became too scared to lie still for long enough. As many as 80 percent of the patients had to undergo general anesthesia.
.
After witnessing the anxiety and fear his life-saving machine had caused, Doug resolved to redesign the imaging experience. His boss at GE, who had visited Stanford’s d.school while working at Procter & Gamble, suggested that Doug fly to California for a weeklong workshop. Doug knew he couldn’t launch a big research and design (R&D) project to redesign an MRI machine from scratch. But at d.school, he learned a human-centered approach to redesigning the experience. Over the next five years, with a new team, Doug would elicit the views of staff from a local children’s museum, hospital employees, parents, and kids and create many prototypes that would allow his ideas to be seen, touched, and experienced. Testing and evaluation with young patients and interviews with their parents then revealed what worked and what didn’t, helping Doug to generate even more ideas in a continuous cycle.
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The result was the Adventure Series, through which young children were transported into an imaginary world where the scanning process was part of an adventure. Hospital wards included “Pirate Island,” “Jungle Adventure,” “Cozy Camp,” and “Coral City.” in one of them, children would climb into the scanner’s transfer unit, which had been painted like a canoe, and then lie down. The normally terrifying “BOOM-BOOM-BOOM” noise of the scanner became part of the adventure—it was the sound of an imaginary canoe taking off. “They tell children to hold still so that they don’t rock the boat, and if you really do hold still, the fish will start jumping over the top of you,” Dietz said. Children loved the experience so much that they begged their parents to let them do it again. Sedation rates went down by 80 percent, while parent satisfaction rose by an astounding 90 percent. A mother reported that her six-year-old daughter, who had just been scanned in the MRI “pirate ship,” came over, tugged on her skirt, and whispered, “Mommy, can we come back tomorrow?”"

Fiquei a pensar, com um pouco de contextualização, com algum investimento no cenário conseguiram aquele:

“Mommy, can we come back tomorrow?”

Em quantos outros sectores um "human-centered approach to redesigning the experience" pode fazer milagres?

Esta manhã, a caminho da camioneta para Bragança passei pela Confeitaria do Bolhão e juro, quase 12 anos depois, ainda me recordei desta cena e deste título: "I'm not an order taker. I'm an experience maker!"

Excerto de “Leap”. de Howard Yu.

Curiosidade do dia

"Finanças não sabem quantos funcionários públicos temos"

Um estado que aspira a controlar todos os aspectos da vida das pessoas e que não sabe tratar da sua própria casa é uma anedota trágica.

"a strategy is a framework for decision making"

“A business is a collective enterprise that has to prosper in a competitive environment. Before the 1970s, business success was widely regarded as a matter of participating in attractive markets. As everybody followed this precept, competition within these markets increased, making them less attractive, and returns became mediocre. To sustain good returns, each business had to work out not only which markets to participate in but how it was going to prevail against the others who were trying to do the same thing. Strategy had arrived.
...
How are we going to compete?” A good strategy is derived from insight into the basis of competition.
...
Because it involves preparation, we tend to identify strategy with a plan.
...
Doing strategy is a craft which, like all practical skills, can only be mastered through practice, by learning from our own and others’ experience.
...
Rather than a plan, a strategy is a framework for decision making. [Moi ici: Recordar van den Steen] It is an original choice about direction, which enables subsequent choices about action. It prepares the organization to make those choices. Without a strategy, the actions taken by an organization degenerate into arbitrary sets of activity. A strategy enables people to reflect on the activity and gives them a rationale for deciding what to do next. A robust strategy is not dependent on competitors doing any single thing. It does not seek to control an independent will. Instead, it should be a “system of expedients” – with the emphasis on system.
...
“So strategy becomes “the evolution of an original guiding idea under constantly changing circumstances.” A strategy is thoughtful, purposive action.”

Excerto de: Bungay, Stephen. “The Art of Action: Leadership that Closes the Gaps between Plans, Actions and Results”.

Mongo: "a kind of reversion to the pre-industrial world"

Um texto que parece retirado deste blogue. Tudo acerca de Mongo:

"the distinction between B2C and B2B is no longer useful. Instead, we should begin thinking about “B2I,” in which the I stands for individual. Companies succeed or fail these days based on their ability to build and maintain lasting relationships with individuals. We have to earn our customers’ trust or those relationships will not grow.
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This reality represents a kind of reversion to the pre-industrial world, when most purchases were personal. In many clothing purchases, for example, the maker was also the seller. Through continued measurements and alterations, the tailor or seamstress came to know the customers: their build, the fabric they preferred, and the way they wanted to look. Mass production and retailing changed all that. Customization disappeared from most purchases as people bought clothing off the rack, with sizes and styles designed to fit many people.
.
Today, companies are once again shaping their selling experience to fit each customer individually. That means constantly modifying the standard product or service, like the tailors of a bygone era, but now companies add that type of craftsmanship at scale. No matter what their industry, businesspeople are learning to measure and outfit many customers every day, one individual at a time."

Trecho retirado de "Forget B2C and B2B — We Need B2I"

Validar conteúdos - negócio de futuro

Ontem ao ver este tweet:

Pensei logo neste artigo "Is content validation the next growth industry?".

Mas atenção, isto não é exclusivo das redes sociais. Recordo sempre: "O FMI já não vem".

"manage value in order to make a profit " parte II

Parte I.

Esta parte II serve só para reforçar uma mensagem clássica deste blogue, mas que muita gente ainda não descobriu.

Há dias fiz este comentário no Twitter:

Não quero entrar em polémica, até porque IMPOSTO É ROUBO, mas o exemplo foi mal escolhido. O sector da metalomecânica, excluindo produção automóvel, teve mais de 10 anos de crescimento pornográfico. Só este ano está a decair um bocado face a 2017, o que até é saudável.

— Carlos P da Cruz (@ccz1) September 17, 2018

A parte I refere quatro alternativas para a reforçar a procura pela oferta de uma organização:

1. Diferenciação;
2. Reduzir o valor da oferta dos concorrentes;
3. Ter o custo mais baixo; e
4. Aumentar o custo dos concorrentes.

Competir pela redução do custo da nossa oferta é só uma das possibilidades. E como escrevi aqui há muitos anos, competir pelo preço mais baixo não é para quem quer, é para quem pode.

Qual é a identidade?

Há anos que escrevo aqui que Mongo, um mundo de tribos apaixonadas, não vai ser fácil para as empresas grandes. Recordo, por exemplo:

• "-Tu não és meu irmão de sangue!"
• Uma novela sobre Mongo (parte X)
• Sou de outra opinião

Uma empresa grande que queira servir a tribo vermelha, vai descobrir que não vai ser bem vista pela tribo azul, e vice-versa. E Mongo não aprecia a simetria: Não é imponentemente que se muda.

Ontem, em linha com isto, descobri este texto "No Matter Your Game, Ultimately This 1 Thing Separates You From The Pack":

""The toughest thing is to have an identity."
.
It was an insight with implications and value reaching far beyond a single team, pursuit, or time. His point was this - no matter your assets or the odds, there is something deeply powerful about knowing and consciously seeking to cultivate who you are, an investment that pays dividends in how you show up to do whatever it is you do.
...
The New 21st Century Game Plan: Cultural Clarity
Ever-shifting conditions now characterize every environment in which we work, play, and live, and because they do, adaptability is what we most need. What enables it? While many things certainly come into play, at the heart of any successful team is a strong and clear culture. And at the heart of a robust and vibrant culture is identity, both individual and collective. It sounds simple, but somehow we are missing it.
.
A 2017 study found that 70 percent of companies will eventually face the impediment of unengaged employees. In that study, a lack of transparency and unclear goals and roles were identified as culprits. But think further, beyond the stats and the typical commentary. Each of these reasons is a symptom of the larger issue of unclear identity."

"absolute clarity of purpose"

“Experience suggests,” he wrote, “that every order which can be misunderstood will be.” The intention should convey absolute clarity of purpose by focusing on the essentials and leaving out everything else. The task should not be specified in too much detail. Above all, the senior commander was not to tell his subordinate how he was to accomplish his task, as he would if were to issue an order. The first part of the directive was to give the subordinate freedom to act within the boundaries set by the overall intention. The intention was binding; the task was not. A German officer’s prime duty was to reason why.
...
It recognized that battle quickly becomes chaotic. It emphasized independence of thought and action, stating that “a failure to act or a delay is a more serious fault than making a mistake in the choice of means.” Every unit was to have its own clearly defined area of responsibility, and the freedom of unit commanders extended to a choice of form as well as means, which depended on specific circumstances. The responsibility of every officer was to exploit their given situation to the benefit of the whole.
The guiding principle of action was to be the intent of the higher commander. ”

Excerto de: Bungay, Stephen. “The Art of Action: Leadership that Closes the Gaps between Plans, Actions and Results”.

"manage value in order to make a profit " parte I

"Entrepreneurs who seek to manage value in order to make a profit should focus on three key items: increasing the added value of the firm, investing in bargaining ability and improving their bargaining position relative to internal stakeholders.
.
Increase your firm’s added value in the vertical chain. As a base rule, no firm can appropriate more value than its added value. Raising the firm’s added value is, therefore, crucial. There are four basic strategies by which a firm can increase its added value and, thus, its prospect for appropriating value and making a profit. First, the most straightforward strategy is simply to increase the firm’s V by means of differentiation, improving product quality and the match between product attributes and the subjectively perceived needs of consumers (segmentation). Second, a firm may also improve its added value by lowering the V of its competitors. This slightly less intuitive strategy may for example involve creating switching costs for buyers by building platforms with strong network effects. Third, a firm may also increase its added value by being more cost efficient than its competitors (lower C). This may, for example, involve establishing value-based partnerships with suppliers that reduce transaction costs and increase trust and transparency (traditional value-based management). The fourth and final strategy for managing added value is to increase the cost of competitors. Symmetrical to the previous point, this may involve disrupting competitors’ supplier relationships by making upstream supplier industries less efficient. This can, for example, be accomplished by increasing supplier-switching costs by locking them into a certain platform or ecosystem."

Trecho retirado de "What Is Value and How Is It Managed?" de Niklas L. Hallberg, publicado em Journal of Creating Value 3(2) 173–183, 2017.

"Competitive Advantages Are Transient"

“Competitive Advantages Are Transient.
When industry knowledge matures, copycats will catch up. Because latecomers often inherit a lower cost structure without the legacy assets, they exert competitive pressures on industry pioneers.
...
It Is Possible to Maintain Your Competitive Advantage
To avert this trajectory requires executives to reassess a firm’s foundational or core knowledge and its maturity. Circumventing the seemingly inevitable begins by acknowledging where we are. Managers must therefore ask themselves what knowledge discipline is the most fundamental to their company. What is the core knowledge of your business? And how mature or widely available is it?
...
How likely will the core competencies of your business be devalued, and how soon?.
If Leaping Is So Important, When Is the Best Time to Leap?
.
A performance crisis, whether perceived or real, legitimizes top leaders’ push for an abrupt reorientation. In breaking the grip of the existing organization, top management may simultaneously announce a new strategy and centralize resource allocation to make major investments in new areas or to force divestiture of unpromising projects. But such an abrupt change with such a wide scope also incurs huge risks because it leaves no margin for errors. It is therefore better to experiment, making small bets, while time is still on our side. In fact, one doesn’t need to be a super-forecaster to know where to leap next. The inevitable is often quite apparent. Companies just need to leap while time is still on their side.
...
Successful executives often exhibit a bias for action. But it’s even more important to separate the noise from the signal that actually pinpoints the glacial movement around us. Listening carefully to the right signals requires patience and discipline. Seizing a window of opportunity, which means not necessarily being the first mover but the first to get it right, takes courage and determination.”

Excerto de “Leap” de Howard Yu.

O papel dos individuos

Ontem ao final da tarde encontrei este tweet:

Adam nails this one. As @stanford’s Jim March says, leadership requires plumbing and poetry. I would add that organizations would be in deep shit without skilled plumbers. https://t.co/5aEeArBvXk

— Bob Sutton (@work_matters) September 22, 2018

Isto depois de uma caminhada onde comecei a ler esta tese de doutoramento "Micro-foundations of value- based pricing and selling" de Mario Kienzler, onde sublinhei:

"it is not enough to enable customer value creation, firms also have to take value capture seriously. Value capture is defined as the processes that allow firms to claim some of the value created in exchange relationships. For supplier firms, value capture means making a profit from enabling customer value creation.
...
value-based selling has on average a positive relation with performance at the level of the salesperson and value-based pricing with performance at the level of the product and the firm.
...
since “organizations are systems of coordinated action among individuals and groups whose preferences, information, interests, or knowledge differ”, it is germane to recognize how these differences influence firm performance.
Indeed, evidence suggests that individuals have a sizable impact on firm performance.
...
If one accepts that organizational activities, routines, capabilities and processes tell only part of the story, then the individuals within organizations become an important unit of analysis."

Acerca das mudanças

Volta e meia procuro esta imagem e não a consigo localizar. Agora que a encontrei fica aqui para utilização futura.

"You have to trust in something"

"This, according to Steve Jobs, is the heart of his approach to making decisions:
.

You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something--your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

.
Steve Jobs was aware of something special when he made his decisions: He knew that he didn't know everything.
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As leaders, we often feel pressure to be the smartest person in the room--to know about every move being made, and every piece of information pertinent to our organization. However, this is incredibly unrealistic--no one person can know everything there is to know about an organization in today's increasingly complex and volatile business environment."

 Aquele "You have to trust in something" é aquilo a que há muitos anos aqui chamei, influenciado pelo Paulo Vaz, de "optimismo não documentado", ou que costumo referir nas empresas como: "perder o pé":

• "Algures, para criar o futuro, vai ser preciso perder o pé e começar a nadar."
• "Em qualquer negócio, há uma altura em que um empresário tem de arriscar e perder o pé por algum tempo, se não nunca sai da cepa torta."
• "Claro que os incumbentes já não são empreendedores, são gestores do que existe... são mordomos de Gondor, têm medo de perder o pé, têm medo de arriscar, têm medo ..."

Trecho retirado de "Steve Jobs Used a Remarkably Powerful Decision-Making Strategy That Will Transform Your Business"

Fortnite e Mongo

Pelos títulos, tenho apanhado cada vez a referência ao nome "Fortnite". Como só jogo Sudoku, problema meu certamente, nunca tive curiosidade de ler algo mais sobre o Fortnite, embora os títulos fossem suficientes para me aperceber que se trata de um jogo muito popular.

Entretanto, na semana passada fui levar o meu filho mais novo a Tikrit, para o recomeço dos seus estudos de Cinema, durante a viagem contou-me uma particularidade do Fortnite que me surpreendeu e que logo cataloguei no domínio de Mongo.

- Os criadores do Fortnite têm ganho muito, muito dinheiro.

- O que é o Fortnite?
- É um jogo que as pessoas podem jogar online de forma gratuita!
- Espera aí! SE o jogo é gratuito como é que fazem dinheiro?
- Fazem dinheiro porque as pessoas compram roupas, compram danças, ...
- Ah! Compram "peças" para terem mais chances de ganhar, como mais armas, mais balões de oxigénio, vida extra, ...
- Não! O que as pessoas compram não tem nada a ver com o terem mais ou menos possibilidades de ganhar o jogo. o que as pessoas compram é só para show-off
- Get out of here! Não acredito!

Claro que o moço tinha razão

"Within nine months of its debut last September, the free-to-play game had attracted 125 million registered users, more than 40 million of whom play every month, from sixth graders to pro gamers to NBA all-stars. Meanwhile, users are popping into Fortnite’s in-game Item Shop to buy outfits for their survivalist characters to wear, as well as emotes (funny dances and gestures) for them to perform. As a result, Epic Games has reportedly already generated more than $1 billion in revenue from Fortnite, which—once again—costs nothing to play."

Contou-me o meu filho que volta e meia, Bruxelas entra em campo e proíbe jogo ou aplica multas por causa de ser um jogo e haver muito dinheiro envolvido. Até mencionou um caso recente que não retive. Com o Fortnite é um jogo grátis, ponto. E o que as pessoas compram não é para o jogo ponto! É para alimentar o nosso lado biológico/psicológico assente em danças nupciais.

Lembram-se dos economistas que defendem modelos económicos baseados no pressuposto da racionalidade dos humanos? Gente que nunca ouviu falar da Little Miss Matched, que descobri aqui,  ou do Fortnite. Quanto menos racionais, mais Mongo faz sentido, mais a PME tem vantagem, mais a customização faz sentido e tem mercado.

Trecho retirado de "If you think Fortnite is just a video game, you’re missing the big picture"

"Specifying too much detail actually shakes confidence and creates uncertainty "

Uma delícia estes textos de von Molkte, escritos em 1869 e tão actuais.

“In 1869, von Moltke issued a document called Guidance for Large Unit Commanders. It was to become seminal, laying out principles of higher command which remained unchanged for 70 years, by which time the Prussian Army had become the German Army. Some passages are echoed in the doctrine publications of US and NATO forces to the present day. It contains von Moltke’s solution to the specific problem he identified in the Memoire, and directly addressed the general problem posed by the greatly increased scale of modern warfare: how to direct an organization too large for a single commander to control in person. As such, it is probably the first document of modern times to define the role of the senior executive in a large corporation.
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What is of interest here is the approach to command and control. The emphasis is on the former rather than the latter
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With darkness all around you, you have to develop a feeling for what is right, often based on little more than guesswork, and issue orders in the knowledge that their execution will be hindered by all manner of random accidents and unpredictable obstacles. In this fog of uncertainty, the one thing that must be certain is your own decision… the surest way of achieving your goal is through the single-minded pursuit of simple actions
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There are numerous situations in which an officer must act on his own judgment. For an officer to wait for orders at times when none can be given would be quite absurd. But as a rule, it is when he acts in line with the will of his superior that he can most effectively play his part in the whole scheme of things.
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not commanding more than is strictly necessary, nor planning beyond the circumstances you can foresee. In war, circumstances change very rapidly, and it is rare indeed for directions which cover a long period of time in a lot of detail to be fully carried out.
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Specifying too much detail actually shakes confidence and creates uncertainty if things do not turn out as anticipated. Going into too much detail makes a senior commander a hostage to fortune, because in a rapidly changing environment,
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In any case, a leader who believes that he can make a positive difference through continual personal interventions is usually deluding himself. He thereby takes over things other people are supposed to be doing, effectively dispensing with their efforts, and multiplies his own tasks to such an extent that he can no longer carry them all out.
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The demands made on a senior commander are severe enough as it is. It is far more important that the person at the top retains a clear picture of the overall situation than whether some particular thing is done this way or that.
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The higher the level of command, the shorter and more general the orders should be. The next level down should add whatever further specification it feels to be necessary, and the details of execution are left to verbal instructions or perhaps a word of command. This ensures that everyone retains freedom of movement and decision within the bounds of their authority."

Excerto de: Bungay, Stephen. “The Art of Action: Leadership that Closes the Gaps between Plans, Actions and Results”.