Não pode aspirar

Conseguem recordar aqueles empresários sempre com o credo na boca a pedir mais um apoio, mais uma barreira à concorrência, mais um ajuste directo, para evitar a bancarrota?

Conseguem recordar os políticos adeptos do cronyismo sempre prontos para uma ajuda pedo-mafiosa a empresas em dificuldades?

Comparem com a realidade dos números:

""Amazon will go bankrupt," he continued. If you look at large companies, their lifespans tend to be 30-plus years, not a hundred-plus years."
...
The average US public company is dying younger than ever, around age 30,
...
Another startling statistic: Reeves says 32% of companies won't exist 5 years from now, whether they're acquired or they flat-out fail."

Já agora recordar outros números de 2008:

 E

"Remember that 96% of all business start-ups in the US fail within 10 years"

Uma sociedade que deseja e valoriza o apoio extra-mercado a entidades que operam no mercado não pode aspirar a tirar o maior partido das vantagens do mercado.

"Deciding where to focus companies' scarce resources"

"most companies have very similar strategies and business objectives (e.g.,  growth, expansion, product innovation, market leadership) but just a few succeed in achieving them. What do these successful companies do differently?
...
Up to the late 1970s, an organization's main focus was on core activities reflected in the traditional value chain described by Michael Porter
...
Deciding where to focus companies' scarce resources is one of top management's most important challenges.
...
Improving operations is easier than improving projects. Often, operational processes can be mapped, analysed and finally improved by automating or simply removing the inefficient parts. This is not possible with projects: mapping them is very complex, and they are very difficult to improve m most of the time they are one-off.
...
although very few companies succeed in implementing their strategies, there are a few whose strategy execution is successful.
...
To my surprise, some of these successful organizations were not just reaching but were also exceeding their strategic objectives. While their formula included great leadership and maturity, what made all the difference in their ability to exceed their expectations was the fact that they were highly FOCUSED.
.
What I realized is that in todays world most companies and many employees are highly unfocused. As a result, top management has difficulty setting a dear strategy and communicating a ranked list of priorities; and most staff members end up deciding on their own where to concentrate their efforts; most likely on easy and irrelevant task, This lack of focus results in much wasted money and resources, the inability to execute the strategy, project failures, and unhappy and uncommitted employees. Successful individuals are highly focused, and the same applies lo organizations. In fact, every business is focused when it is just starting up but only those companies that manage to stay focused will likely succeed and remain in business."

Trechos retirados de "The Focused Organization - How Concentrating on a Few Key Initiatives Can Dramatically Improve Strategy Execution" de Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez

O meu radar

• Tem radar? (parte II) (Maio de 2017)
• Cuidado com a absolutização do que a nossa empresa produz (Março de 2017)
• No caminho da "magia" (Março de 2015)
• Conseguem imaginar os job-to-be-done? (Fevereiro de 2015)
• O tempo é a variável mais escassa que temos (Junho de 2011)

E agora "The first dexterous and sentient hand prosthesis has been successfully implanted"... como não relacionar com "It’s Ecosystems, Not Inventions That Truly Change the World" e sentir no ar um cheiro a "instantaneous phase transition".

Análise do contexto no calçado

"Há "uma fusão de várias tempestades perfeitas" no ar, a abalar a indústria do calçado à escala global e, também em Portugal.
...
No diagnóstico do quadro atual, a afetar Portugal, mas também os outros países produtores, pesam fatores vários, das alterações climáticas, à retração do consumo na Europa ou ao "novo comportamento dos clientes", com as vendas online e diretas ao consumidor a trazerem alterações de peso à cadeia de retalho e ao modelo habitual de negócio. E é ainda preciso considerar a viragem nas tendências de moda para o calçado desportivo, quando a indústria nacional ganhou fama internacional nos modelos mais clássicos.
...
as mudanças em curso no padrão do retalho, por força do mundo digital, tenderão a acentuar-se com a chegada dos consumidores mais jovens ao mercado, alerta.
.
Na resposta, as empresas têm de ajustar-se e tornar-se cada vez mais ágeis. "Esta realidade não é surpresa para ninguém na cadeia de retalho e o sector do calçado está a dar grandes passos para que, num futuro muito próximo, a maioria dos sapatos sejam adquiridos online", diz o presidente da FDRA.
...
Flexibilidade e tiragens limitadas, podem ajudar as empresas a responder à nova conjuntura de consumo.
...
Quanto aos sapatos a fazer, o presidente da FDRA não tem dúvidas de que independentemente do estilo, cor ou forma, "terão sempre de ser confortáveis"."

Trechos retirados de "Calçado. Uma indústria debaixo de “várias tempestades perfeitas”"

To break through marketing clutter

"To break through marketing clutter, companies need to understand customer processes and the processes of their customer’s customer.
...
Value chain marketing requires marketers to develop an enhanced understanding of their industry, including activity at successive steps throughout the value chain, and to apply marketing tools to maximize effectiveness of the marketing programme up and down the value chain. New analytic tools to understand the industry must be deployed, and new tools to maximize marketing effectiveness must be developed. Value chain marketing challenges marketers to step into a broader framework where the dividing line between business strategy and market development is sometimes blurred.
...
The basic building block for understanding any industry is the macro business system. It includes all industry participants, connected in a successive chain of value added, from raw material production to OEM customers, wholesalers, retailers, retail customers and in some cases recycling. As in macroeconomics, where macro denotes the behaviour of the economy as a whole, the term ‘macro business system’ applies to an entire industry and all players upstream and downstream from a given competitor.
...
No industry business system is likely to resemble another.
...
Upstream component and material suppliers
...
Downstream manufacturers and processors
...
Secondary users or OEMs
...
Wholesalers
...
Retailers
...
Consumers and end users
...
Recyclers"

Trechos retirados de "Value Chain Marketing" de Jean-Pierre Jeannet

"Thinking about the future"

"If somebody tells you they can predict the future, don't believe them. Nobody can predict large socio-technical transformations and what exactly these are going to look like.
...
So, if no one can predict the future, why think about it? Because doing so helps you to inoculate yourself. In the medical field, inoculating yourself prevents you from falling ill. In futures thinking, if you've considered a whole range of possibilities, you're kind of inoculating yourself. If one of these possibilities comes about, you're better prepared.
...
Thinking about the future is also about imagining. It's about transforming how we think. It's about creating a map to the future and looking for the big areas of opportunity. We like to think about transformations, for example, in learning and work, and how they get connected and intertwined in various ways. And then we start thinking about zones of opportunity. How can we shape the future to make it more equitable? How can we amplify learning outcomes? What do we need to do to achieve these outcomes?
.
The future doesn't just happen to us. We have agency in imagining and creating the kind of future we want to live in, and we can take actions to get us there.
...
I said earlier that there is no data about the future; the only data we have is about the past. While we cannot fully rely on past data to help us see the future, there are larger patterns in history that we tend to repeat over and over again. Thus, we need to look back to see forward.
...
At its best, futures thinking is not about predicting the future; rather, it is about engaging people in thinking deeply about complex issues, imagining new possibilities, connecting signals into larger patterns, connecting the past with the present and the future, and making better choices today. Futures thinking skills are essential for everyone to learn in order to better navigate their own lives and to make better decisions in the face of so many transformations in our basic technologies and organizational structures. The more you practice futures thinking, the better you get. The five principles outlined above—not focusing on predictions, uncovering signals, understanding historical trajectories, weaving together larger patterns, and bringing diverse voices into the conversation—should help you on your journey of making futures thinking a way of life for you and your community."

Trechos retirados "Five Principles for Thinking Like a Futurist"

"Why Hypotheses Beat Goals"

"companies should focus organizational energy on hypothesis generation and testing. Hypotheses force individuals to articulate in advance why they believe a given course of action will succeed. A failure then exposes an incorrect hypothesis — which can more reliably convert into organizational learning.
...
A hypothesis emerges from a set of underlying assumptions. It is an articulation of how those assumptions are expected to play out in a given context. In short, a hypothesis is an intelligent, articulated guess that is the basis for taking action and assessing outcomes.
...
Hypothesis generation in companies becomes powerful if people are forced to articulate and justify their assumptions. It makes the path from hypothesis to expected outcomes clear enough that, should the anticipated outcomes fail to materialize, people will agree that the hypothesis was faulty.
.
Building a culture of effective hypothesizing can lead to more thoughtful actions and a better understanding of outcomes. Not only will failures be more likely to lead to future successes, but successes will foster future successes."

Aposto que o meu colega das conversas oxigenadoras vai apreciar a técnica usada pela cadeia de lojas japonesas Seven-Eleven Japan:

"Each week, Seven-Eleven Japan counselors visited the stores and asked salesclerks three questions:

• What did you hypothesize this week? (That is, what did you order?)

• How did you do? (That is, did you sell what you ordered?)

• How will you do better next week? (That is, how will you incorporate the learning?)

By repeatedly asking these questions and checking the data for results, counselors helped people throughout the company hypothesize, test, and learn. The result was consistently strong inventory turnover and profitability."

Trechos retirados de "Why Hypotheses Beat Goals"

"Customers expect your attention to be on them"

Um excelente texto que recomendo para reflexão, sobretudo para os adeptos de Dick Dastardly, "The New Retail: Sell to Me in a Me2B World":

"Jeff Bezos said, “If we can keep our competitors focused on us while we stay focused on the customer, ultimately we´ll turn out all right.”
.
Many retailers today seem to do exactly this and try to compete with Amazon.com. It's not rare that I have conversations with retailers about implementing strategies to compete with, or even leapfrog, Amazon. I usually provocatively ask the question, “which part of Amazon would you aim to overtake?”
.
Focusing on competing with Amazon isn't a winning strategy. Retailers, instead, need to laser-focus on their customers and not primarily on the competition.
...
Consumers say, “Treat me like a person, not as a sales opportunity. Don´t just sell products. Sell to me!” [Moi ici: Pensar nos inputs do cliente e não nos outputs]
...
Consumers are willing to pay more for positive experiences. Making individual consumers happy will be the ultimate driver for loyalty and differentiation. However, companies must first be able to see their own business through the eyes of the customer,
...
How you sell what you sell is important! Customers expect your attention to be on them, not your competitors. It's all about more empathy, more fun and less friction, which results in happy customers for life."

Acerca da data de chegada

"Time is one of the major characteristics of projects in that, unless there is an articulated compelling, official and public announced deadline, there is a good chance that the project will be delivered later than originally planned. Delays in project mean, besides extra costs, a loss of benefits and expected revenues, both having a tremendous negative impact on the business case of the initiative. A project without a deadline should not be considered a project - better call it an experiment, an exploration or daily business activities."

Trecho retirado de "The Project Revolution" de Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez

"their business model is fundamentally broken"

O mundo está em permanente mudança, mudança que acelerou nas últimas décadas com a disseminação da internet. Enquanto as mentes dominadas pelo locus de controlo externo apelam ao papá-estado e ao seu apoio pedo-mafioso, a minoria, com o locus de controlo interno, olha as coisas de frente e procura construir uma alternativa.

Em "Perilous Times" encontramos um bom exemplo dos que experimentam coisas novas e dos que esperam que o mau tempo desapareça, por artes mágicas, como aquela empresa em 2007:

"But the real challenge facing many colleges and universities at the moment is that their business model is fundamentally broken. “Business model” isn’t a popular phrase in higher education, either, but all colleges have one. When we use the term, we are referring to the revenue that an institution must take in to support the resources and processes it uses to deliver on its value proposition.
.
Many colleges and universities are increasingly unable to bring in enough revenue to cover their costs.
...
What makes this even worse is that the natural pressure in higher education is for costs to increase -- thanks to the lack of economies of scale and the complexity of higher education operations. A major reason for the complexity of those operations is that many colleges and universities have multiple value propositions with multiple business models for multiple stakeholders. Managing that complexity has driven up the cost of administrative overhead over time.
...
First, in the competition to attract students, colleges and universities will continue their arms race. For many, that will mean adopting copycat sustaining innovations -- more faculty, more extravagant facilities, more administrative positions -- that add cost. But this will further strain their business model, because they are already struggling to bring in enough revenue from a mixture of tuition, government funding, endowment returns and donations. For those institutions that are largely dependent on tuition for revenue and have small endowments, they will be in big trouble.
.
Second, for those that can’t keep up and those that experience enrollment declines, their large fixed costs -- thanks to tenured faculty, debt payments associated with financing their many buildings, and associated building-maintenance costs -- place them in peril without an easy ability to adjust.
...
But standing still, avoiding innovation and trying to be many things to many people is a nonstarter. We look forward to many individual colleges innovating, defying the odds and proving our predictions wrong."

Quem pensa no depois de amanhã concentra-se nisto:

“Against this backdrop, it is true that the emergence of the first disruptive innovation in education since the printing press -- online learning -- will also play a role as more students enroll in online learning experiences. The full impact of disruption in higher education will take at least a generation to be felt, however, not overnight. … the opportunity to carve out a specific focus around a meaningful “job to be done” -- the progress that an individual is trying to make in a particular circumstance -- in the lives of its students.” 

E imagina um mundo de oportunidades muito para lá dos estudantes, pensa num mundo que exige mais informação e formação, pensa num mundo onde essa informação até está disponível gratuitamente, mas pensa na curadoria necessária para filtrar o trigo do joio, pensa na necessidade de confiança e de experiência, pensa na necessidade de interacção. Será, no entanto, um mudo que não vai ser para professores de carreira, formados em pedagogia e sem experiência da vida...

"Successful businesses know exactly who their target customers are"

"Successful businesses know exactly who their target customers are. They strive to cater to specific and strategic customer needs. They focus on the most important customers to the business, and sometimes even refocus on a more lucrative target market. But it’s not uncommon for even successful businesses to become unfocused as they seek to grow by catering to a broadening spread of customer demands. And even with a conscious refocusing there are pitfalls; changing target customer isn’t easy and it doesn’t always go to plan.
...
Of course, it is quite possible to shift customer focus without disastrous results. Some years ago, I was CEO of a company that made trusses and frames for houses. The company was losing money and I had to confront a key business question: Who is our target customer? We had all sorts. Large companies that built hundreds of homes a year; mid-size builders who constructed several homes per annum; and “mums and dads” doing small projects who shopped mainly on Saturday mornings.
.
After some agonizing we narrowed our target customer down to “the professional builder.” Out went the mums and dads. They were a distraction. As a result, our product range shrank beautifully. I say “beautifully” because this refocus enabled us to reduce the stock of timber in our warehouse, thereby releasing cash and cutting our expenses. This refocus was one of the key ingredients in the turnaround’s success.
...
when you shift target customer you also shift the competitors you confront.
...
Identifying the target customer is a key part of strategic planning. The choice determines how what you sell, how you brand it, what price you charge, and whom you’re competing with. And as your strategy evolves, you may well discover that the customer focus of your business has shifted as well. It can happen without knowing. You cater for this acquisition here, you adapt to those regional markets there, and soon you’re trying to be all things to all customers. Or, ... you may make a change in customer focus without carefully considering the ramifications, and end up losing a packet because the strategy that goes with your new target doesn’t fit the new market you’re in. Either way, not paying attention to your choice of customer and what it implies is a recipe for strategic failure."

Trechos retirados de "Are You Ready to Change Your Target Customer?"

"Warns of Margin Threat as Niche Brands Disrupt Industry" (parte II)

Há um mês a parte I.

Agora, outro texto sobre os nichos e sobre o seu poder em "Niche is the New Black in China’s Luxury Landscape":

"Over the last few years, a quiet but steady shift has been taking place among Chinese luxury shoppers. Big logos are no longer a priority, and in their place, niche high-end labels and boutique products have been reshaping the retail landscape and are now becoming the new signifiers of luxury consumption.
.
This swing has been propelled by changes within the market itself, which has become younger and increasingly more sophisticated.
...
they’re also looking for authenticity, originality, and a sense of personality. Niche brands often capture all that.”
...
“The smaller you are the easier it is to have a one-to-one conversation,” she said. “As a niche brand, you have to be better than the larger brands at placing the consumer first. [Moi ici: Trabalhar para a miudagem versus trabalhar com o Miguel ou Maria] The more consumer-centric the better. The other very important attribute of being niche is the team you build and how their passion translates into a more special experience for the consumer. [And then there is] the power of the consumers themselves. They have become our most important ambassadors. From the day they discover us, they learn and engage until they become part of who we are.”
...
“Many of the major brands have started looking similar, and innovation has slowed,” she explained, “while smaller labels are offering something novel and exciting to the market. They have a story to share and are captivating customers with that story or journey. Shoppers want more, and niche brands are able to connect on an intimate level with them.” [Moi ici: Este sublinhado final faz-me lembrar este postal ""-Tu não és meu irmão de sangue!""]

Animador

"A study by PwC that reviewed 10,640 projects from 200 companies in 30 countries and across various industries found that only 2.5% of the companies successfully completed 100% of their projects.
McKinsey & Company studied over 5,000 projects and found that 56% delivered less value than expected, 45% were over budget and 17% unfolded so badly that they threatened the company's very survival.
According to Gartner, 85% of big data projects fail to move past preliminary stages." .
A study published by the Association of Spanish Geographers estimates that between 1995 and 2016 Spanish government agencies spent more than €8I billion on "infrastructure that was unnecessary, abandoned, underutilized or poorly programmed". And this figure could surpass €97 billion in the near future, factoring in the amounts that have already been pledged. The report says: "All of it was done without a proper cost/benefit analysis, and often on the basis of estimates of future users or earnings supported by a scenario of economic euphoria that was as evident as it was fleeting." 

Não, não é primeiro de Abril.

Trecho retirado de "The Project Revolution" de Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez

Para reflexão

Pensar a sério na mensagem deste postal de Seth Godin, "Busy is not the point":

"No points for busy.
.
Points for successful prioritization. Points for efficiency and productivity. Points for doing work that matters."

Value Chain Marketing (parte II)

Parte I.

Quando faz sentido aplicar o value chain marketing?

Em "Value Chain Marketing - A Marketing Strategy to Overcome Immediate Customer Innovation Resistance" de  Stephanie Hintze pode ler-se:,

"In order to target downstream customers, a supplier firm must offer added value. That is often the only way to create downstream customers’ preferences. If supplier products have no positive differentiation value compared to available alternatives or competition, the prerequisite to pursue VCM is not fulfilled. This implicates that supplier firms would have no ‘sales’ arguments, and downstream customers would have no reason to prefer final products that contain a particular supplier’s material. More to the point, products sold on price like commodities do not provide innovative attributes or distinguishing characteristics which can be promoted down the value chain. By contrast, specialty goods like coatings and sealants often provide a benefit for downstream customers by improving the performance of final products. Still, this benefit must be communicable to relevant end applicators. It implicates that only if they are convinced that using a specific supplier’s material is particularly advantageous, they are willing to change their buyer behavior. To overcome this problem, suppliers can present prototypes, delivers samples, or results of product tests to demonstrate the benefit of their products. Also, suppliers have to ensure the identification of their materials at subsequent stages."

Em "Which types of multi-stage marketing increase direct customers' willingness-to-pay? Evidence from a scenario-based experiment in a B2B setting" de Ingmar Geiger, Florian Dost, Alejandro Schönhoff, e Michael Kleinaltenkamp, publicado por Industrial Marketing Management pode ler-se:

"1) A supplier's offering has to offer superior value compared to competitors or substitutes to some actors down the value chain.
(2) This value needs to be communicable.
(3) The supplier's offering needs to be identifiable in downstream
market stages.
(4) The supplier needs to possess a minimum of relevant marketing
know-how.
(5) There need to be a sufficient degree of certainty that the desired
demand pull cannot be obstructed by opposing measures by intermediate market stages." 

"Sorry folks, but not even one of these responses is a strategy"

"At the start of my public seminars on strategic planning I ask attendees, who rank from board members and CEOs to middle management, to write down an example of a strategy on a sheet of paper. They look at me quizzically at first as they realize that this is a tough assignment. I reassure them that this is indeed a hard question and they plow ahead.
.
The results are always astonishing to me and them. Here are some of the responses from the list I received at my most recent session: actions (“launch a new service”; “review our suitability to the retirement business”); activities (“marketing our products through the right channels”); objectives (“achieve $100m net revenue”) and broad descriptions of what goes on (“planning process from beginning to end of product”; “working for your stakeholders”).
.
Sorry folks, but not even one of these responses is a strategy."

Trecho retirado de "Your Strategic Plans Probably Aren’t Strategic, or Even Plans"

"One must first understand the main source(s) of value"

"One must first understand the main source(s) of value; only then is it possible to have the real value reflected in the price. This statement does not imply that the general model of value leads directly to a pricing decision or that there is some formulaic relationship between value and price, only that once one truly understands the value provided, the pricing potential becomes much more apparent."

Trecho retirado de "Understanding Value Beyond Mere Metrics" de E. M. (Mick) Kolassa

Não é nem roubo nem desigualdade

Recomendo uma reflexão baseada em dois textos de Niraj Dawar.

O primeiro texto é "The Critical Role Of Context In Building Brands" e parte do vídeo com alguns anos, que muitos terão visto, de um reputado violinista a tocar anonimamente no metro de Washington, quando dias antes tinha enchido o Symphony Hall de Boston com os bilhetes a $100. A mensagem de Dawar é: o contexto é tudo.

"But ultimately, where does context reside? In the mind of the customer. By creating context, marketers play with the customers’ mind. They shape it to create the most receptive setting for the brand and the product."

O meu ponto de vista é: não podemos servir todo o tipo de clientes e para alguns, ainda que o nosso produto ou serviço seja de topo, não seremos a melhor solução pois o resultado que procuram obter nas suas vidas pode ser conseguido com uma oferta alternativa, ou mais barata, ou mais fácil, ou mais luxuosa, ou mais amizade genuína, ou mais ...

O segundo texto é "Brands And The Consumer Hourglass Theory" e vai de encontro a muitos desabafos que faço quando vejo empresas a deixarem dinheiro em cima da mesa - Damn! It's not about the price!!!

"Citigroup calls it the Hourglass Theory. As income inequality increases, consumers are polarizing into two groups – the few looking for high-end, highly differentiated and high value-added products, and the many looking for value, and sometimes extreme value.
.
The middle, which was the staple target market of consumer goods companies since at least the mid-twentieth century, has shrunk, and continues to shrink." [Moi ici: Isto faz-nos recuar a 2005 e à polarização dos mercados]

O ponto de Dawar, com o qual estou totalmente de acordo, é que isto, o desaparecimento do mercado do meio termo, não acontece por causa do aumento das desigualdades económicas. Quantas pessoas conhecem com um bruto carrão, e que não têm onde cair mortas com dívidas? Quantos estudantes não querem gastar um cêntimo em livros e propinas, mas não hesitam em ir à discoteca da moda derreter dinheiro? [Apesar desta linguagem não faço julgamentos de valor, cada um é livre de decidir onde e como gastar o seu dinheiro, a menos que depois eu tenha de contribuir para fazer o bail-out de uns quaisquer lesados-[colocar nome dos maus de turno]]

"But while the data on income inequality are incontrovertible, there is another explanation for the hourglass that marketers should not rule out: attention scarcity.
.
What if the scarce commodity at the source of the hour glass is not so much consumer income or spending, but consumer interest and attention?
.
Consider for a moment that consumers now make thousands of purchase decisions in hundreds of product categories every year. They can’t possibly be experts in all of these product categories, nor do they have an interest in optimizing their choice in each product category. They just want something that will do the job."

Acredito profundamente nisto que se segue:

"for most of the thousands of choices consumers make, they merely want a reasonable product – give me something that works at a price that makes sense. This is the very definition of value.
Some consumers are willing to spend the time to learn about product categories about which they are passionate, and are usually also willing to spend more money on the better products in those categories. For all other product categories, they couldn’t care less.
...
So the bifurcation of the market into what looks like an hourglass occurs, but due to attention disparity, not income disparity.
.
If it is interest and consumer attention that are creating the hourglass"

Por isso, tento convencer os empresários que quando um concorrente conquista um cliente que entra num mercado pela primeira vez, o mais certo é que esse cliente ainda não esteja no patamar [de atenção] que os torna como a oferta mais adequada. O seu interesse e conhecimento vai ter de aumentar porque, por exemplo, querem subir na escala de valor, só nessa altura estarão maduros para uma outra oferta.

E no seu caso, como é?

Value Chain Marketing

O que tenho feito nos últimos 15 anos com tantas empresas, quando trabalhamos o ecossistema da procura.

"To deal with the consequences of derived demand, he argues that B2B sellers need to consider not only the next immediate customer in their marketing plans but also aim their marketing activities at subsequent stages.
...
VCM goes beyond traditional marketing, missionary selling, as well as primary demand stimulation. It represents a holistic marketing strategy which covers the entire marketing mix and thus encounters the complexities of the value chain in which a firm operates. As mentioned before, the pull strategy is frequently limited to the promotional part of the marketing mix. The author uses the term VCM “to refer to the practice of influencing an entire industry value chain for the benefit of the marketing function”. The ultimate goal of VCM is to develop comprehensive marketing intelligence and to promote innovations across all levels of the value chain. To stay competitive in the market, B2B marketers have to cover a broader framework to analyze the chain. They “must understand not only the cost and revenue dynamics of its intermediate target buyer firms, but also the cost and revenue dynamics facing the buyers’ buyers, from whose demand the demand of the immediate market is derived”. [Moi ici: Recordar "aplicar a análise Value Stream Mapping o fizessem à utilização do produto durante o ciclo de vida do utilizador final,"]
...

This mapping process requires a high degree of market orientation. [Moi ici: O trecho que se segue parece tirado aqui do blogue. Basta recordar a figura deste postal] Also, they should integrate influencers like procurement and engineering consultants, industrial designers, experts for complementary products, lawyers, or architects when mapping the value chain. Their special characteristic is to influence both the buying decision of immediate and downstream customers. They are well- informed on present upstream and downstream marketing projects and are open to innovative ideas. Furthermore, influencers establish relationships to manufacturers and applicators and are able to get them interested and to induce them to stimulate demand for supplier innovations.

...
Instead of relying on just one marketing strategy, VCM comprises push and pull marketing equally and covers the whole marketing mix. It includes the kind of product, how it is promoted to customers in a value chain, the method for distributing products to customers, and the amount the customers are willing to pay for a product. The crucial point is that in VCM the adapted and tailored marketing activities of the push and the pull strategy complement each other and are incorporated into one universal marketing strategy.
...

...
First, VCM reduces the risk of substitutability of suppliers’ materials or product inputs by demonstrating their importance for the end product. This means that suppliers no longer operate anonymously and address customers down the value chain directly. They create problem awareness among downstream customers by presenting the distinguishing features of their innovative products. As VCM allows a two-way communication, it increases the efficiency of the entire marketing mix. It implies that suppliers receive unfiltered feedback from downstream customers and the chance to better solve their problems in real time. As a result, suppliers gather valuable market information and translate this information into product improvements or innovations. If suppliers succeed in positioning and differentiating their products in a favorable way, substitutability becomes less likely. By creating preferences at the stage of downstream customers, VCM assures suppliers’ sales-political independence in the vertical production and distribution process. VCM allows suppliers to strengthen their position in a value chain and motivate downstream customers to invest in long-term partnerships. In consequence, suppliers are able to enhance control over different value-chain activities and anticipate fluctuations in demand more readily."

Trechos retirados de "Value Chain Marketing - A Marketing Strategy to Overcome Immediate Customer Innovation Resistance" de  Stephanie Hintze,

"creative destruction means that low productivity plants are displaced by high productivity plants"

O Nuno enviou-me um artigo que me pôs a pensar. Vários tópicos positivos e um sinal de preocupação.

"A TrimNW foi criada em Março de 2015 na sequência do fecho da antiga Ipetex do Cartaxo, que abriu insolvência nesse ano. Vários trabalhadores acreditaram na mais-valia de uma das áreas de negócio – a do sector automóvel – e avançaram por sua conta e risco, sendo bem sucedidos.[Moi ici: Este parágrafo faz-me lembrar Maliranta e Taleb. A empresa fechou e foram os trabalhadores num novo projecto, com skin in the game, que encontraram uma resposta para o aumento da produtividade necessária]

...
A empresa produz para nichos de mercado e tem vários clientes importantes, incluindo marcas de automóveis de luxo do Reino Unido, para quem chega a produzir séries limitadas de até 10 mil peças por ano.
.
A experiência e conhecimento adquiridos ao longo dos anos, juntamente com a qualidade dos seus produtos e da prática de preços competitivos, fazem da TrimNW um nome forte na Europa na produção daqueles materiais. [Moi ici: Este é o trecho que me deixa alguma preocupação. Se trabalham para nichos e fazem séries limitadas o preço não devia ser um factor crítico]
...
Os negócios fazem-se desde que a gente corra atrás deles. Se ficarmos aqui quietos à espera que venham ter connosco eles não vêm. O nosso material é muito específico, temos de procurar os nossos clientes, procurar as oportunidades que eles nos possam dar."[Moi ici: Proactividade, uma postura tão necessária nos tempos que correm]

Nunca esquecer:

"It is widely believed that restructuring has boosted productivity by displacing low-skilled workers and creating jobs for the high skilled."Mas, e como isto é profundo:"In essence, creative destruction means that low productivity plants are displaced by high productivity plants." Por favor voltar a trás e reler esta última afirmação. Pensem nos teóricos que dizem que a produtividade só cresce com mais educação académica.

Trechos retirados de "TrimNW é uma empresa de Santarém à conquista do mercado europeu"

"suppliers are in a weak position in the value chain and operate anonymously"

Há cerca de 15 anos que comecei a ajudar empresas a fugir do push marketing:

Há cerca de 15 anos que comecei a trabalhar o conceito de ecossistema porque acredito que é fundamental para subir na escala de valor, para aumentar preços, para aumentar a produtividade sem ser pela via cancerosa do crescimento a todo o custo.

Ontem, ao ler os trechos que se seguem, retirados de "Value Chain Marketing - A Marketing Strategy to Overcome Immediate Customer Innovation Resistance" de  Stephanie Hintze, estava sempre a pensar: está aqui muita da razão porque temos uma produtividade tão baixa. Como não temos marcas somos fornecedores de materiais ou produtos que outros vão ainda processar e/ou vender e continuamos anónimos, sem capacidade de intervenção e com pouco reconhecimento:

"By solely relying on immediate customers, suppliers are faced with the problem of limited and distorted information and are also confronted with a loss of control over their product quality. More to the point, immediate customers withhold information about application trends and needs. They act as gatekeepers by controlling the types of information the supplier receives. Their aim is to remain the channel of communication between the supplier and the end applicator and thus stay in control of the business relationship. For that reason, supplier firms are unable to anticipate change and plan product improvements or new ideas. Due to isolation from the application market, suppliers are in a weak position in the value chain and operate anonymously. Even if they develop innovations, these rest with the intermediaries, i.e. the manufacturers, as the former are often unwilling to promote supplier innovations aggressively. That is why suppliers cannot demonstrate the importance of their product inputs for the final product. Manufacturers prefer to wait until they receive strong signals from their customers indicating the need for an innovation. They do not want to jeopardize their goal of efficiency. As a result, only standardized and highly substitutable materials that restrict suppliers’ profits and margins are sold in the value chain. Instead of pursuing a proactive product innovations management, suppliers are forced to be reactive. Due to the absence of suppliers’ contact with end applicators, the distance to the application market remains big. Suppliers have no chance to build long-term relationships with downstream customers which could reduce their dependence on manufacturers."

Curiosidade do dia

Dois exemplos de como Mongo vai ser um mundo de diversidade:

• Book sales are up this year over last year, and physical books are thriving
• Back to the future: cassettes launch comeback tour

From pull to Value Chain

"In pull marketing, the second dominant marketing strategy for dealing with derived demand, suppliers no longer restrict their marketing activities to those who apparently make the procurement decision. By stimulating downstream customers, suppliers try to pull their innovative products through the entire value chain. They bridge the gap to the application market and gather valuable information regarding downstream customer needs. This supports a supplier’s proactive innovations management. As a result, the supplier is able to reduce his dependence on the manufacturer.
.
In this marketing strategy, the role of the manufacturer tends to be passive but the applicator’s role becomes very active. The supplier tries to generate demand at the stage of applicators through extensive advertising and personal selling activities...
Thus, applicators become more informed about the available products and solutions that might be applicable to their business. Instead of pushing the product to immediate customers, suppliers make downstream customers request it.
...
With a pull strategy, the supplier does an end-run, circumventing the more direct value-chain actors, concentrating on those further down the value chain.
...
the objective of a pull strategy is to establish a bottom-up demand base so that the immediate customer has little choice but to adhere to these demands and to place orders with the respective supplier
...
Involving downstream customers like in pull marketing leads to another marketing strategy that addresses an even bigger audience. This strategy is called Value Chain Marketing (VCM) and describes the practice of influencing the entire value chain to succeed in marketing innovative products. It requires a firm to have a deep and complete understanding of the value chain in order to maximize marketing effectiveness."   

Trechos retirados de "Value Chain Marketing - A Marketing Strategy to Overcome Immediate Customer Innovation Resistance" de  Stephanie Hintze.

"value, like price, should be deduced, and not calculated" (parte II)

Parte I.

"The most important questions the pricer can ask are, “What problem does my product solve, and who owns that problem?” Answering those questions is the first step in understanding and clarifying value. For any new product or service, the value will be determined in the context of current options. I argue that value is comprised of multiple components, including both negative aspects of value (such as risk in use) and positive aspects (such as the incremental benefits of the product) that drive the value of the product.
...

...
Put another way, value is determined by the interaction of the utility of the product (as defined in the model) moderated by the risk (also defined in the model) in using it; ... The implications of this relationship are fairly straightforward: increasing the utility of a product or decreasing the risk in its use can both result in increased value, which can translate into either a higher price or an enhanced value proposition in which the buyer understands that the price paid is far below the value received.
...
The positive aspects (or sources) of value begin with a determination of the need for the product or service, which is driven, or moderated, by the criticality of the situation in which it is needed or used and the number and quality of alternatives that are available.
Criticality is the urgency of the need for the outcomes of the use of the product. This urgency is not strictly temporal but also captures the likelihood and severity of the negative consequences if the product is not used or acquired. Higher levels of criticality will positively affect the level of need. Criticality is moderated by a number of alternatives in that the level of criticality of the situation is a key driver of value, while the availability of alternatives can mitigate the level of need."

Trechos retirados de "Understanding Value Beyond Mere Metrics" de E. M. (Mick) Kolassa

"you have to find a niche market and work to be the best at it"

Leiam o que se segue e comparem com o que este anónimo da província escreve por aqui há milhares de anos:

"The economy is changing and we will see increasing market fragmentation. The only ones who will win in mass markets will be the big platform owners.
...
It seems that to be successful in the network era you have to find a niche market and work to be the best at it. Ross Dawson makes a strong point by stating that “in a connected world, unless your skills are world-class, you are a commodity“. Expertise, relationships, and innovation will mark the successful people in the emerging network era economy according to Ross.
...
It’s not easy finding new market niches but that seems to be the only option for most of us who are not in Silicon Valley building the next social media platform. The only way to make our talent profitable in the network era is to turn it into a highly specialized capital asset. Feeding crowd-milking platforms is not a sane small-business operating model. It’s better to find your own cow than be milked by someone else."

Trechos retirados de "Crowd-milking"

"value, like price, should be deduced, and not calculated"

Em Maio de 2007 - "Value is a feeling not a calculation, o poder de perguntar porquê?".

"I first wish to assert that value is not a simple monetization of the benefits of a product, but, in fact, encompasses much more. Value cannot be reflected totally in dollars and cents, despite what many may prefer or even claim. Attempts to calculate value solely in monetary terms ignore important aspects of human behavior, as well as the various ways price influences purchases, regardless of value. Many aspects of value defy monetization: no useful metric exists that can be applied directly to the happiness or emotional fulfillment that a buyer receives from certain purchases. This statement applies equally to consumer purchases as well as many B2B situations. Rather than attempting to measure precisely the value of a product or service and then set a price based on that information, we must first seek to identify and understand the sources and importance of the many facets of value, without economic blinders, and understand how that will enhance or support pricing decisions.
...
“Mathematics has given economics rigor, but alas, also mortis.” The economist or pricer who believes that value can be understood through mere mathematical calculation and the manipulation of sets of numbers misses the subtlety of value, and its many forms, by foregoing the rigor of investigation and relying on the mortis of metrics.
...
value, like price, should be deduced, and not calculated.
...
The most important questions the pricer can ask are, “What problem does my product solve, and who owns that problem?” Answering those ques- tions is the first step in understanding and clarifying value."

Trechos retirados de "Understanding Value Beyond Mere Metrics" de E. M. (Mick) Kolassa

Curiosidade do dia

The Crab of Europe pic.twitter.com/CtOKkNCiGe

— Antonio N Leite (@AntNLeite62) March 24, 2019

Remember 2008 - A caminho da Sildávia do Ocidente, 2010, 2018

Fábricas flexíveis, fábricas para Mongo

O meu parceiro das conversas oxigenadoras chamou-me a atenção para este artigo "Inside Toyota's Takaoka #2 Line: The Most Flexible Line In The World":

"Ever since the first cars rolled down Ford’s assembly line a little more than 100 years ago, a Gordian knot strangulated carmakers the world over: Assembly lines are fast, but inflexible. After pulling a few strings to get into the Takaoka plant, you will see the Gordian knot become untied.
...
Why would you want a flexible car plant? Isn’t it enough that the damn thing spits out cars in ever increasing numbers?
.
Did we just hear “ever increasing numbers?”
.
Assembly lines are great at building cars in great numbers and at relatively high speed. At the same time, assembly lines abhor change. Assembly lines pretty much have two speeds: On, or off. They hate to go much faster, or much slower, than their rated speed. Try introducing a new car model to the assembly line of old, and you sometimes face months of retooling. When demand for the car increases, customers sometimes must wait months for the long-tailed assembly line beast to catch up. When demand slackens, plants often must be idled. Takaoka is a marvel of production engineering that solves all that, and then some.
...
“Alright,” you say, “you replaced a robot with a human, but how does this make the line flexible?”...
For other automakers, substantial increases or decreases in capacity often mean building new factories, or idling current ones. At Toyota, it can be done over the weekend. Workers lay down cable trays on a flat shop floor. Instead of a mess of cables, only one fat cable is connected. Where cables must cross the line, a gate shaped cable tray on casters is rolled into place. Platforms are set down left and right to guide motorized dollies for cars in nascent state. Formerly fixed stations are rolled in place down the line, and on Monday, the plant has a completely different capacity than what it was on Friday. In the course of a year, this magical capacity conversion can happen several times."

Bem na senda de "O que protegerá Portugal dos robôs?"

Os artistas, os paraquedistas, os feiticeiros e os malabaristas (parte II)

Ao ler o título "Canis cada vez mais sobrelotados após lei que proíbe abate de animais saudáveis. Bastonário critica pouco combate ao abandono" sorri.

Há muitos anos que detectei a tendência dos políticos espertos para darem cada vez mais ênfase aos temas em que as consequências das suas decisões só podem ser avaliadas muito mais tarde, para não apanharem surpresas.

Por exemplo, a preocupação com as alterações climáticas.

Este caso dos cães e dos canis foi uma argolada que cometeram pois foge da regra. Rapidamente os factos da realidade emergem como uma parede contra a qual a argumentação dos políticos esbarra violentamente.

Quando um cidadão ou um opositor diz que uma dada medida está errada é uma opinião, quando a mesma medida aparece esmagada no pós-choque com a realidade ... não há desculpas.

Imaginem a malta que faz asneiras deste calibre, que acredita que a transmutação do ouro é possível, que acredita que o TGV serve para transportar carvão ou madeira de eucalipto, que acredita que os comboios de mercadorias devem circular a 300 km/h, que acham que um TGV pode funcionar como metro de superfície, que diziam que a Portela estava esgotada. E não esqueçam os copos menstruais. E já agora a falta de noção da realidade.

Como não se pode duvidar da capacidade intelectual das pessoas que acreditam nestas petas, "A revitalização do território e o papel da indústria". As pessoas reais, as que não estão nas listas de ajustes directos dos governos e autarquias, e as empresas sem ligações aos corredores, carpetes e biombos do poder, sabem que tudo o que vem das mentes destes seres na assembleia, são mais um escolho que vão ter de considerar no caminho árduo que trilham diariamente.

BTW, João Cravinho teve azar, disse e defendeu as SCUTs com argumentos que poucos anos depois caíram sobre ele como uma bomba... o que o deve ter salvo no carrossel das nomeações políticas foi o ter informação comprometedora sobre alguém, só pode.

Mateus 13:9

Recordo "Mongo a bater à porta. Tão bom!!!" e:

"O artigo é um exemplo da tendência que enquadramos no fenómeno a que chamamos de Mongo. Os gigantes, emaranhados com o seu umbigo, muito preocupados com a eficiência e os custos, tentando ser tudo para todos, abrem as oportunidades a novos actores."

Agora encontro "When Patients Become Innovators":

"Patients are increasingly able to conceive and develop sophisticated medical devices and services to meet their own needs — often without any help from companies that produce or sell medical products.
...
Unlike traditional producers, who start with market research and R&D, free innovation begins with consumers identifying something they need or want that is not available in the marketplace. To address this, they invest their own funds, expertise, and free time to create a solution. Rather than seeking to protect their designs from imitators, as commercial innovators do, we found that more than 90% of consumer innovators make their designs available to everyone for free.
...
The ability of patients to develop new medical products to serve their own needs is growing, and we expect the system to become stronger over time for several important reasons. First, the DIY design tools that patient innovators need are becoming cheaper and increasingly capable. People with fairly rudimentary engineering skills can acquire powerful design software that can run on an ordinary personal computer either for free or for very little money. Second, the materials and tools used to build products from DIY designs are also becoming both cheaper and increasingly capable."

Recordo também "Os humanos são todos diferentes":

“There is no perfect product, because there is no perfect patient” and “It’s a good product, but it’s not right for everyone.”

Recordo também esta leitura de 2007:

"In 1970, 5% of global patents were issued to small entrepeneurs, while today the number is around one-third and rising. When P&G realized this, it saw that its old model of purely internal innovation was suboptimal. Why not tap these entrepeneurs and scientists?"

E esta outra de 2011:

"The mass market — which made average products for average people was invented by organizations that needed to keep their factories and systems running efficiently.
.
Stop for a second and think about the backwards nature of that sentence.
.
The factory came first. It led to the mass market. Not the other way around."

 E deixo-vos com os industrialistas e a sua tendência para a suckiness.

E chegamos a isto: uma espécie de Ponzi pelo emprego?

Na sequência de:

• Cheira-me a tiro no pé (Julho de 2013) 
• Cheira-me a tiro no pé (parte II) (Julho de 2013) 
• Cheira-me a tiro no pé (parte III) (Agosto de 2013)
• O poder de uma marca (Fevereiro de 2014)
• Cheira-me a tiro no pé (parte VIII) (Março de 2016)

Agora "Sport TV usa trabalhadores para travar queda de clientes".

Sublinho de "Fundamentals of Business-to-Business Marketing - Mastering Business Markets" editado por Michael Kleinaltenkamp, Wulff Plinke, Ian Wilkinson e Ingmar Geiger.:

"When analyzing benefit differences, we need to focus on the meaning of differences in competencies, processes, and programs for the buyer. A seller’s competitive strength is its ability to offer greater benefits or lower costs, i.e., greater net benefits, to the buyer compared to competitors.
...
Whereas, it may have been sufficient to pursue a policy of customer orientation to gain a lead, it is now the relative position of the supplier compared with its competitors that is critical. In the first chapter, we described this position as a customer advantage from the point of view of the customer. Since customer advantage describes the net difference in benefit between two suppliers, competitor analysis becomes part of customer analysis: the supplier—competitor—customer orientation triangle is the paradigm, which we term market orientation
...

...
 The marketing triangle illustrates this. Whereas focusing on the supplier’s own functions dominated initially (supplier orientation), as competition became more intense and markets shifted from sellers’ to buyers’ markets, it was the turn of the second corner of the triangle—customer orientation. The marketing triangle is complete when the third corner is included: we then speak of market orientation. The marketing concept with its market orientation is the answer to predatory competi- tion and forces management to gear all the processes of the supplying firm to generating customer advantage. Markets are thus developing to the point that customers ultimately dictate the offer. Or, in other words, suppliers who fall behind their competitors in the eyes of the customers will fail without any regret on the part of the customers. The fact that competition is evolving in this way is not based on the behavior of the suppliers alone—customers also contribute to this. Due to competition with regard to innovation, performance, and price, customers are learning that they can continuously demand more. This spiral has no foreseeable end."

 Chamar aos clientes "parque", avaliar a qualidade da oferta sem considerar a comparação com o concorrente e a opinião do cliente... tão... sem palavras.

Quando é que vão parar de cavar?

O artigo publicado ontem é doentio...

"no longer operate anonymously and address customers down the value chain directly"

"VCM [value chain marketing] is the marketing strategy that describes the practice of influencing the entire value chain to succeed in marketing innovations. This strategy requires a firm to have a deep understanding of the value chain in order to maximize its marketing performance. Adopting VCM implies at first that firms must cover a broader framework to map the value chain. They have to analyze and properly understand the players and their relationships at each level. This also includes identifying industry developments and drivers as well as government regulations.
...
firms intending to practice VCM should adapt and tailor their marketing mix. This includes the type of product, how it is promoted to customers, the method for distributing it to customers, and the amount the customers are willing to pay for it.
...
Customer intimacy is not only essential to understand the value chain and its processes but also to reduce the distance to downstream players. Therefore, a supplier no longer has to be separated from the stage of his downstream customers through his given position in the value chain. In fact, the value chain converts more and more into a value network and the distinction between immediate and down- stream customers becomes less clear cut. By acquiring knowledge in the surrounding fields, suppliers are able to increase the overlap between their knowledge base and that of the downstream actors. They learn about applicators and develop communication strategies to reach them and to persuade them. This enhances interpersonal interaction and the applicators’ feeling about the suppliers’ competence to discuss on innovative topics."

"VCM reduces the risk of substitutability of suppliers’ materials or product inputs by demonstrating their importance for the end product. This means that suppliers no longer operate anonymously and address customers down the value chain directly. They create problem awareness among downstream customers by presenting the distinguishing features of their innovative products. As VCM allows a two-way communication, it increases the efficiency of the entire marketing mix. It implies that suppliers receive unfiltered feedback from downstream cus- tomers and the chance to better solve their problems in real time. As a result, suppliers gather valuable market information and translate this information into product improvements or innovations. If suppliers succeed in positioning and differentiating their products in a favorable way, substitutability becomes less likely. By creating preferences at the stage of downstream customers, VCM assures suppliers’ sales-political independence in the vertical production and distribution process. VCM allows suppliers to strengthen their position in a value chain and motivate downstream customers to invest in long-term partnerships. In consequence, suppliers are able to enhance control over different value-chain activities and anticipate fluctuations in demand more readily."

Trechos retirados de "Value Chain Marketing - A Marketing Strategy to Overcome Immediate Customer Innovation Resistance" de  Stephanie Hintze.

Compras em segunda-mão

Tantas coisas ...

Há tempos numa empresa prestadora de serviços à indústria perguntavam-me como se explicaria o abaixamento na actividade das PMEs, as suas clientes.

Falámos da economia das experiências, falámos do efeito Norte de África, Turquia e Leste da Europa, ... nunca me passou pela cabeça este factor:

• Thanks, Marie Kondo! The resale market is becoming bigger than fast fashion

"The 2019 thredUp Resale Report, in conjunction with GlobalData, analyzed the trends and drivers pushing this revitalized sector. Researchers found that 56 million women bought secondhand products in 2018, an increase of 12 million new secondhand shoppers from the year prior. And they’re not done yet: 51% of resale shoppers plan to spend even more on thrift in the next five years.
...
ThredUp reports that increased growth can be credited to millennials and gen-Z, who adopt secondhand items 2.5 times faster than the average consumer. This is partially because they prefer to wear the latest styles, meaning last season’s fads get quickly deposited through the thrift cycle. According to the report, it’s why secondhand, rental, and subscription are the top three fastest-growing retail categories.
...

• As consumers partake in the resale market, they now own 28 fewer items, on average, than two years ago.

• The resale market grew 21 times faster than apparel retail over the past three years.

• 72% of secondhand shoppers shifted spend away from traditional retailers to buy more used items.

• The secondhand clothing industry is expected to grow 1.5 times the size of fast fashion within 10 years.

• One-third of consumers polled by ThredUp said they would spend more with their favorite retailers if those retailers also sold secondhand apparel."

• Fast-fashion retailers like Zara and H&M have a new threat: the $24 billion used clothes market

"How long should a long-term strategy be?"

"I find that giving strategy an a priori time frame is the wrong way around. Instead, the time frame should depend on the strategy. To be clear, “What time frame should we have for our strategy?” is the wrong question. The better question is, “What changes does our strategy need, and how much time do we need to implement them?” In other words, leaders have a five-year strategy if the changes they want to make to their strategy will take five years to implement.
...
The ideal time frame depends more on what changes leaders want to make to their strategy than on the business they are in.
...
Great strategies are, among other things, highly specific about a company’s target customer, value proposition, and leading capabilities. It’s impossible to know with much specificity what these should be a decade from now. Imagine how much water will pass under the bridge between now and then, let alone over the next century. Yet it’s also impossible to change overnight the essential elements of a strategy in any meaningful way. Choosing a time frame that’s too short will force leaders into a mode of incremental strategy, and that is a recipe for failing to keep pace with a changing world."

Trechos retirados de "Strategy talk: How long should a long-term strategy be?"

Para reflexão

“The purpose of price is not to recover cost, but to capture the value of the “product” in the mind of the customer” (Dan Neimer)

A alternativa ao eficientismo

Mais um exemplo retirado de "Fundamentals of Business-to-Business Marketing - Mastering Business Markets" editado por Michael Kleinaltenkamp, Wulff Plinke, Ian Wilkinson e Ingmar Geiger. Mais um exemplo do uso de linguagem que uso aqui no blogue há muitos anos, basta recordar eficientismo versus eficácia.

Há alternativas ao eficientismo como vantagem competitiva.

Curiosidade do dia

"Navigator procura terras com eucalipto em Espanha. Já tem um projeto na Galiza" e "Odemira já mal respira sob o plástico das estufas" são sintomas da aplicação do mesmo modelo de negócio baseado no volume.

Em vez de subir na escala de valor, a única forma de aumentar o rendimento é continuar a crescer, a crescer, a fomentar a monocultura.

Mais do que o custo

"The ability to create an advantage for the buyer is dependent on a seller’s competitive strength. This strength is reflected in its ability to offer better exchange ratios.
...
At equal prices, a seller with a cost advantage will gain greater profits than its competitors. At lower prices, the seller will increase its market share and strengthen its cost advantage, creating the basis for higher profits in later periods. A seller that provides its buyers with a greater net benefit is valued more highly by them; it strengthens its reputation, and buyers satisfied with its performance will become repeat customers. These are the conditions for profits being greater than competitors’ and for increased market share.

Profits that are the outcome of an advantageous position can be used by the seller as additional investments that competitors can only finance from other sources. The effects are as follows: a competitive advantage facilitates investment and thereby it helps to protect existing advantages and/or create new ones. Hence, it is vital for every competitor to create, find, or extend its competitively advantageous position. It is the very nature of competition that success or failure depends on the firm’s competitive position and every action has to be analyzed in terms of its effects on this position—how it improves or degrades it and how it utilizes it."

Lembram-se dos economistas da Junqueira? Julgo que eles ainda pensam com as redes neurais que foram criadas na sua mente quando aprenderam as regras de funcionamento do Normalistão, afinal o mundo onde nasceram. Para eles só existem duas posições: vantagem de custo ou desvantagem de custo.

Mongo e a liberdade de escolher

"Henry Ford’s first great contribution to America was the Model T, which rolled off the assembly lines at his Highland Park, Michigan, plant at the rate of one every 24 seconds. At the time, it was an amazing display of industrial efficiency. By streamlining automation in his factories, Ford advanced an era of mass production that built his fortune and brought the automobile within reach of an emerging middle class. But while the miracle of mass production delivered the goods, it didn’t adapt easily, so all Model T’s looked alike. Ford’s approach can be summed up in what he said about the car’s exterior: “The consumer can have any color he wants so long as it’s black.”
Ford’s take-it-or-leave-it attitude wouldn’t cut it in today’s economy. 

...

...
This proliferation of products, models and styles isn’t capitalism run amok. Variety shouldn’t be dismissed as a trivial extravagance. It’s a wealthy, sophisticated society’s way of improving the lot of consumers. The more choices, the better. A wide selection of goods and services increases the chance each of us will find, somewhere among all the shelves and showrooms, products that meet our requirements.
...
Until 1914, Model T’s were available in red, blue, green, gray and black. The move to all black was a concession to mass production that made the car a commodity of sorts, but standardization wasn’t a winning strategy in the long run. By 1927, competition forced Ford to rethink variety. The Model A came in several body styles and an array of colors. With each decade, Ford gave consumers more choices,
...
They do it because pleasing the customer isn’t just about producing more stuff. It’s about producing the right stuff.
Just what is the right stuff? It’s more of what we do want and less of what we don’t want. The economy provides more of what we do want by customizing products to our particular tastes.
...
The economy’s progression to customization isn’t a fad. It arises from the free market’s relentless drive to bring what we buy closer to what we want. What we buy yields a lot more utility when it exactly matches our needs, and Americans are reaping enormous benefits as new tools help business cater to markets of one. We’re getting more for less, helping keep inflation in check.
.
There’s just one glitch in this otherwise serendipitous story: traditional measures of the economy may not reflect how much our living standards are improving. Conceived in an era of mass production, the nation’s GDP and productivity statistics may ably count more stuff, but they give little credit for right stuff. Mass customization and prevention—just like variety— deliver their gains in important but subtle ways, so gross domestic product and productivity statistics fail to capture the extent of our progress."

Estes trechos retirados de um texto de 1999, "The Right Stuff", foram escritos antes da entrada da China no mercado mundial, algo que atrasou a tendência de Mongo, a tendência para esta variedade de produtos.

Interessante conjugar isto com:

• "Corbyn fails yet again to grasp the magic of competitive markets"

"What Corbyn doesn’t understand is that competition is what makes the economic world go round.
.
It is what has given us civilisational wonders like iPhones and Teslas and the Greggs vegan sausage roll. It is what makes companies work in your interests, rather than their own. It is why Pret a Manger can’t charge you £10 a sandwich – because it knows that there’s an Eat down the road.
.
And here’s the big problem. Across America, Britain and Europe, competition is falling and market concentration is increasing, as big firms get remorselessly bigger."

• "Freedom of Choice—Not Competition—Is What Sets Capitalism Apart"

"Capitalism is not “a system of competition” any more than any other system. Capitalism (at least in its free-market, laissez-faire ideal) is a system of the voluntary exchange of goods and services in the absence of physical coercion, theft, compulsion or fraud, predicated upon the fundamental right to own and accumulate property.
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The miraculous wonder we miss when we focus our attention upon the competition, which derives from choice, is the ability to choose, itself.
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The primary feature of free-market capitalism is not competition, but choice.
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Because people make choices with scarce resources and limited time, competition will be an inherent part of any economic system so long as there is scarcity. The primary feature of free-market capitalism is not competition, but choice. Rather than moderate the amount of competition in an economy, state intervention will replace competition to serve customers and convince them to voluntarily spend their money on a wide array of ever-expanding goods and services. We can contrast this with other systems in which competition rages over who can gain the favor of those who control the levers of government. That is where the real “tooth and nail” begins."

Curiosidade do dia

A propósito disto:


Vejam e revejam os frames entre os 58-59 e 60 segundos.

tão bom, tão paradigmático da bola, da política, da economia, da ... https://t.co/tb9PwL5Ul2

— Carlos P da Cruz (@ccz1) March 18, 2019

Portugal é isto, Portugal é esta leviandade com que se fala de tudo sem preparação, sem estudo, sem escrutínio, sem consequências. Assim se explica o sucesso de Cravinho depois do que disse sobre as SCUTs, apesar de nunca se ter retratado.