Como se recompensam os sobreviventes? Com mais impostos

Não estou de acordo com muito do que se escreve em "¿Qué aplauden exactamente? La primera etapa del optimismo es el realismo." sobretudo acerca das soluções, mas estou de acordo com a descrição crua e brutal do que aí virá.

Não, senhor ministro, o pior não passou:

"Lo peor vendrá en dos oleadas. Una cuando el mercado laboral deje de estar dopado y otro cuando venzan los créditos públicos que se han ido otorgando a empresas con dificultades de liquidez. Si me apuras hay otra tercera oleada que será más sutil. Las prórrogas tributarias y los retrasos concedidos a los pagos se irán actualizando y cumpliendo. Cuando eso pase, todo a la vez, el agujero será de tal calibre que cabrá toda la economía productiva española y, potencialmente, la de algunos países de nuestro entorno."

Macroeconomicamente, vivemos a calma que precede a tempestade. Por isso, gostei deste título, "‘Calm before the storm’: UK small businesses fear for their future":

"Economists warn that the UK could see more than 3m people unemployed — a level it has not witnessed since the deep recession of the 1980s.
...
more than four months after the start of lockdown, it is the small business sector that is under the most intense pressure and where many companies are being forced to consider their future.
...
a fifth of small firms had less than one month of cash reserves left in May. A quarter of owners had been forced to use their savings to stay solvent; almost a fifth said they were likely to cease trading or may not survive.
...
estimates of 3m unemployed were not unrealistic as the government winds down the schemes in the autumn.
“Small firms are the backbone of the economy. It is a more domestically focused part of the economy and the bedrock for our towns and cities, which make them socially and economically important.”"

Voltando ao artigo inicial, não acredito em soluções gerais que passem pela automatização e inovação. Não se pode criar um modelo de desenvolvimento independente das pessoas que arriscam e trabalham no dia-a-dia.

Se macroeconomicamente vivemos a calma que precede a tempestade, microeconomicamente vivemos uma realidade em turbulência. Vivemos milhares de batalhas diárias em que o futuro de cada empresa se decide. Se algumas estiveram protegidas e adormecidas pelos apoios, outras fecharam, mas muitas outras procuram adaptar-se a um mundo novo em evolução ainda mais rápida do que é costume. 

Comecei esta série, "Quantas empresas?" em Fevereiro de 2020 quando, apesar do Covid-19 ainda não ter caído sobre nós, já antevia a importância do sector do calçado se refundar. Com o confinamento, o que era importante passou a ser importante e urgente. Como escrevi em Abril passado, agora todas as PMEs são startups que têm de fazer o percurso:

Por isso, gostei do artigo "Covid-19 Shuttered More Than 1 Million Small Businesses. Here Is How Five Survived.". Descreve 5 realidades distintas, descreve diferentes opções, sugere regras que podem ser seguidas. Cabe a cada gerência avaliar o que faz mais sentido no caso da sua empresa em particular.

"Eden Park Illumination Inc. had one product to sell before Covid-19: an ultraviolet light that distinguished real diamonds from fakes. The spread of a deadly virus across the globe shifted the focus of the tiny Champaign, Ill., startup to another ultraviolet light application that it had not planned to introduce for at least two years. This one would disinfect crowded spaces. Within weeks, the 10-person company began shipping prototypes. Eden Park has since delivered more than 1,000 of the lights and added a dozen workers, including a head of manufacturing. “We have pivoted and put all our attention on this,”
...
The coronavirus pandemic is creating new opportunities for some small businesses even as it raises costs and devastates sales for others. It is prompting many to re-examine their strategies and make tough decisions about how to adapt.
One seller of professional and college team sports apparel stuck to what it did best, gambling that gear with logos would still sell during a sports drought. A decades-old furniture maker ramped up efforts to sell online instead of largely relying on its showrooms. A restaurant supplier boosted production of tamper-evident labels for home deliveries. An insurance brokerage sold smaller policies that are less profitable, but easier to get done.
“Firms that are changing now are making changes to survive,”
...
What they do after the pandemic ends, she said, “will tell us whether they pivoted or just fought the fire and survived.”
Nearly one-quarter of small businesses have added products or services they believe will sustain long-term growth,
...
Here is a look at the choices made—and the lessons learned—by Eden Park and four other small U.S. businesses trying to navigate through the crisis.
...

• Focus on what sells

• Stay Focused on What You Know

• It’s Not Too Late to Go Digital

• All Hands on Deck (The struggles reinforced the need to diversify. The company is looking at selling signs and other items to plant nurseries and hospitals. “This has taught us we need to look outside restaurants,” Ms. Smith said. “I think we will come out of this a different company.”)

• Get Simpler and Go Small"

Os milhões da esmola de Bruxelas serão aplicados nos negócios sexy para o governo e famiglia, nos negócios sexy para as universidades. Duvido da sua rentabilidade, pois serão geridos por gente habituada a dinheiro fácil e, por isso, habituada a não fazer contas. Depois, serão milhões que terão de ser pagos através de impostos futuros. Impostos que serão mais um peso às costas dos outros.

A lição da clorofila

Estudar a biologia para perceber a economia é uma das lições que há muito aprendi.

"Their findings point to an evolutionary principle governing light-harvesting organisms that might apply throughout the universe. They also offer a lesson that — at least sometimes — evolution cares less about making biological systems efficient than about keeping them stable."

Como não recordar a lição dos nabateus:

"A máxima eficiência leva à rotura frequente das tubagens." 

Como não relacionar com as cadeias de fornecimento super-eficientes, mas longas e inflexíveis.

Trecho retirado de "Why Are Plants Green? To Reduce the Noise in Photosynthesis."

Curiosidade do dia

Outro exemplo da forma como a informação é manipulada em favor dos queridos:

Isto é tão mau, tão mau!

Comparar laranjas com maçãs e com melões para que se conclua que Espanha esteve tão bem quantio a Alemanha e melhor que a França e a Itália, ainda que para isso se faça batota.

Ah! Deve ter sido um bloguista qualquer sem carteira profissional... já imagino as diatribes de JPP e MST contra as redes sociais... Oh! Wait! Afinal foi a RTVE ...

«Portugueses merecem o que vão ter em agosto»

O governo celebrava, e os comentadeiros do regime apoiavam:

- Portugal está a crescer mais do que a média da UE.

Agora, até os "espertos" do Polígrafo são obrigados a reconhecer "Portugal está a ser "ultrapassado no PIB 'per capita'" pelos 10 países que aderiram à UE em 2004?"

A caminho da Sildávia, agora movidos a hidrogénio, para acelerar ainda mais.

Cada vez mais verdade: «Portugueses merecem o que vão ter em agosto»

Desformatando

"The erosion of barriers to forming and pursuing a business venture [Moi ici: A democratização da produção levará a um mundo muito diferente daquele que o século XX formatou] will lead to increasing fragmentation in certain parts of the economy.
...
For individuals and small entities, the barriers to forming and pursuing a business venture are rapidly being dismantled. As barriers fall, many small yet viable players will emerge, with increasing influence on the economy, via three primary pathways:

• Freelancers, empowered by online staffing platforms, will begin as individual contractors, but will quickly transition to forming flexible teams—colloquially called “hives”—comprised of other freelancers with complementary skill sets. Gradually, these hives will move from just accepting work from other businesses to collectively creating their own products and services, and ultimately forming their own small companies.

• Hobbyists will transition from “moonlighting”— working full-time for someone else while pursuing their passion projects during off-hours—to being fully dedicated business owners.

...

• “Star” performers within big companies— confident of their value and frustrated by a lack of autonomy—will increasingly choose to leave employers in favor of building businesses that use their full range of talents.

...
Fragmentation (within a domain) is defined by the following characteristics:

• Each player within the domain has a small, addressable market and is focused on a specific niche

• Collectively, players address a diverse spectrum of customer and market needs

• Both players and niches are proliferating within the domain

• No single player has enough market share to influence the direction of the domain long term

• A relatively modest level of investment is sufficient to enter and sustain position

• “Diseconomies of scale” are in play—it is more challenging for large players to stay in business"

Trechos retirados de "The hero’s journey through the landscape of the future" do Deloitte Center for the Edge" de 2014.

Curiosidade do dia

À atenção dos escravos obrigados a suportar uma companhia aérea sobredimensionada para gáudio da classe política:

"I asked travel veterans for predictions on what the future of travel will be.
...
Most foresee a lasting decline in business travel, but think leisure travel will bounce back robustly. That means airlines and hotels will have to change their business plans, being unable to rely as much on rich revenue from corporate travelers. Expect higher ticket prices and room rates for vacationers to cover the costs with fewer high-dollar customers to subsidize bargain-seekers. [Moi ici: Vantagem para as companhias aéreas focadas no low-cost e nos turistas]
“The airline industry is going to have to examine its business plan,” [Moi ici: Excepto as companhias que vivem penduradas nos impostos cobrados aos saxões] says Robert Crandall, former chief executive of American Airlines. “You are never going to see the volume of business travel that you’ve seen in the past.” [Moi ici: Se a UE não nos proteger teremos de torrar uns 4 mil milhões de euros a alimentar o monstro nos próxios dois anos]
He estimates one-third to one-half of business travel will go away. More meetings will take
place electronically. Trips once thought necessary will be seen as superfluous. “Everybody who depends on business travel is going to have to rethink their game plan,” Mr. Crandall says.
The pandemic has forced widespread, rapid adoption of videoconferencing technology. The technology is mature, easy to use and available on any device.
“Will it be as necessary to send road warriors out? I have serious doubts about that,” says David Tait, a founding architect of Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic Airways. “The business market is seriously endangered.”

Trechos retirados de "Predicting The Future Of Travel" publicado no WSJ de hoje.

Organizem-se!

Por um lado:

• Pedro Siza Vieira: “Ponto mais crítico da contração económica já ficou para trás”

Por outro lado:

• Siza Vieira: "Temos de estar preparados caso os números do desemprego não estabilizem"

Organizem-se!

• Vamos ficar todos bem! - Pandemia custou em média 1.700 empregos por dia desde março

Para mim é  claro, a situação vai piorar antes de começar a melhorar 

Mongo e a paisagem competitiva do futuro

Descobri este texto "The hero’s journey through the landscape of the future" do Deloitte Center for the Edge" de 2014 e até arrepia. Parece retirado deste blogue sobre o tema de Mongo. Por exemplo, nas conclusões finais pode ler-se:

"1.Which parts of the economy are fragmenting?With fragmentation, we see a proliferation of small players in a domain, each with a small addressable market within a specific niche. Collectively, these players address a diverse spectrum of client and market needs. Crucially, both the number of players and the number of niches are increasing within the domain. No one player has enough market share to influence the direction of the domain over the long term, and only a modest level of investment is required to enter the market and maintain a viable business. These players are marked by “diseconomies of scale”: The bigger they get, the more challenging it is to stay in the business. Where is this happening? We expect increased fragmentation in those areas of the economy that are focused on product innovation and  commercialization. It should be especially prevalent in markets and industries where technological advances and public policy liberalization have reduced barriers to the means of production, commercialization, and learning.
2. Which parts of the economy are concentrating?Concentration refers to the emergence of large-scale players that are focused on a single business activity or function. Because of significant economies of scale and scope as well as the potential for network effects, certain business roles will tend to become concentrated: infrastructure providers, aggregation platforms, and agent businesses. Concentration will occur in areas of the economy focused on infrastructure and customer relationship businesses where scale and scope provide an advantage."

Analisemos o conteúdo em mais pormenor

Conseguem imaginar ...

Uma surpresa!

Conseguem imaginar em Portugal um jornal mainstream, até um jornal económico, capaz de ter um artigo deste tipo, "Wanted: brave minister to deal with runaway public sector pensions"?

Conseguem imaginar em Portugal um jornal mainstream, até um jornal económico, capaz de ter um artigo preocupado com os contribuintes líquidos portugueses?

"Every WGA [whole government accounts] release is a reminder of how expensive they are, how the young are having to mortgage their futures to pay for benefits most will never enjoy, and how reform is vital. The latest update, for 2018-19, has some startling revelations. For the first time, the payroll cost of the 5.3 million public sector workers is the largest single government expense. At £256 billion it is bigger than the £230 billion social security bill for state pensions and welfare. Two fifths of that, £96 billion, is the cost of servicing the 5.3 million pensions.

...

[Moi ici: Depois vem um trecho completamente alien para a cultura portuguesa] There is no pot of money to cover the cost; taxpayers will simply have to pick up the bill. What makes the schemes so expensive is that they tie pensions to salaries. [Moi ici: Em Portugal ainda é pior, todos os anos são dadas benesses a pensionistas e reformados que não descontaram para as ter]

...

An employer may pay 10 per cent of an employee’s salary towards their pension but, the WGA reveals, the promises to public sector workers are equivalent to 40 per cent of their wage. For a worker on £30,000, that’s an extra £9,000 a year. An unrecognised wage top-up for the public sector worker. All covered by future taxpayers."

Leite - o negócio do preço por excelência

Há dias num outro postal escrevi:

"Algumas vezes é-me penoso visitar uma empresa. Um outsider consegue abstrair-se da espuma dos dias e, numa atitude racional, olhar para aquela azáfama e perceber que são como perús na antevéspera do Natal. E escrevo isto sem arrogância, até com algum melindre. Basta-me olhar para os produtos que fabricam, para o seu valor acrescentado, para a dependência das quantidades, quando o contexto é de encomendas mais pequenas e de salários mais altos."

Hoje, ao olhar para a primeira página do Wall Street Journal sinto que estou a ler um texto dedicado a este blogue, "Grocers Bottle Their Own Milk And Shake Up Dairy Industry.

Um texto sobre a indústria do leite nos Estados Unidos que ilustra tudo o que aqui vamos escrevendo ao longo dos anos sobre um produto comoditizado. Se os clientes não valorizam a diferenciação o que conta é o preço. E o cúmulo da race-to-the-bottom é quando os supermercados começam a montar as suas próprias fábricas. Se colocarmos as regras do jogo num quadro branco e começarmos a fazer combinações com o propósito de maximizar o lucro para os donos das pratleiras de braço dado com as benesses para os consumidores facilmente chegaremos ao que aparece neste artigo e neste blogue:

"Americans’ thirst for cheap milk—and grocers’ rush to provide it—are remaking the centuries-old dairy industry. [Moi ici: Recordar "Milk is the ultimate low-involvement category"] When supermarket shoppers reach for white gallon jugs these days, most of the time they grab a low-priced store brand. To expand those offerings, major grocery retailers, including Kroger Co., Walmart Inc. and Albertsons Cos., have built their own milk bottling plants.
Grocers’ move into the bottling business is threatening some of the biggest operators in the $40 billion U.S. milk industry, the purveyors of national brands.
Dean Foods Co., which until last year was the largest U.S. milk processor by sales, and Borden Dairy Co., another big producer, were sold this year after filing for bankruptcy in November and January. Executives of both had blamed some of their struggles on grocers’ focus on cheap milk, often used as a loss leader.
...
Adding to the industry’s pressures, milk’s luster has been slowly fading for years in an increasingly crowded beverage market. Many consumers have switched to bottled water and juice, or dairy alternatives made from almonds or oats; breakfast cereal has fallen out of favor. At the farmer level, about 3,300 dairy-cow herds disappeared in 2019, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, following low milk prices, tensions with export customers and processing plant closures across the
country. Wisconsin alone lost about 600 herds over the 12 months up to June 1, the cows typically either sold to another farmer or sent to slaughter.
Although overall dairy demand, factoring in products such as yogurt, butter and cheese, continues to grow, annual per capita U.S. milk consumption has dropped about 40% over four decades.
...
Bigger farms all the while, the dairy farms and milk cooperatives that supply milk to the processors were getting bigger and more professional. [Moi ici: Recordar a vacaria com mais de 33 mil vacas numa exploração] By 2017, the eight largest dairy cooperatives were marketing 54% of the country’s milk. To Walmart, buying milk directly from them, then processing and bottling the milk itself, started to look like a feasible cost-saving move. Walmart announced in March 2016 it would build a milk-processing plant of its own in Fort Wayne, Ind., to supply more than 600 Walmart and Sam’s Club stores in the eastern Midwest."

Acerca do erro

Esta manhã quando li isto no Twitter, "Intel couldn't shrink to 7nm on time – but it was able to reduce one thing: Its chief engineer's employment", fiquei a pensar em todos os gurus que falam na importância de aprender com os erros e na criação de ambientes mais tolerantes ao erro. Fiquei a pensar no impacte destes eventos na cultura futura da empresa.

Trabalhar para um futuro

Em Abril passado neste postal sublinhei este tweet:

for at least the next couple months every organisation in the world is a startup


1/n— Richard D. Bartlett (@RichDecibels) April 6, 2020


E escrevi isto:

Em Fevereiro e Março passados, ao reflectir sobre o futuro do calçado em Portugal escrevi uma série de nove postais intitulados - Quantas empresas?

No nono postal escrevi:

"As empresas de calçado devem manter e tirar o máximo partido da actividade que conseguem ter através do modelo de negócio actual. Paralelamente, devem criar uma empresa, ainda que virtual, dedicada a desenvolver o negócio do futuro. E para desenvolver o negócio do futuro essa empresa tem de se comportar como uma startup: sem clientes, sem negócios, apenas com hipóteses de produtos e de clientes."

No entanto, tenho encontrado poucas empresas a pensar num futuro algo diferente. A maioria confia no lay-off para se desculpar de um esforço doloroso de reinvenção, outras avançam para outras áreas de negócio e sectores de actividade. Poucas apostam nas dores de um parto incerto que resulte na reformulação do negócio sem o abandonar. Entretanto, ontem recuperei este texto com mais de 10 anos, mas tão actual que até dói:

"Most writers and bloggers take the music industry as a prime example for an industry that failed to innovate its core business model. But there are many other industries where failure to innovate its core business lead to their decline.
...
[Moi ici: Uma reacção típica que aqui chamo de "defender o passado em vez de abraçar a mudança"]  Instead of rejuvenating its business model or finding new business ideas the old business model is defended and by consolidating the industry even reinforced.
...
[Moi ici: O trecho que se segue é precioso e certeiro] The next lesson is that all activities at corporate level like selling non-core assets do not solve your problems of an ailing business model. The solution must be found on the business level not on a corporate level. If you cannot fix it, than sell or close it early. Success in business is not defined on corporate level but by its business model!...
The retail market is perfect example for Schumpeter’s creative destruction. While entrepreneurs with creative solutions gain in the markets old business models fail and disappear.
...
[Moi ici: O trecho que se segue relata outra reacção típica. A crença de que mais eficiência vai salvar o actual modelo de negócio] When the market for department stores deteriorated, a typical behavior could be observed in saturated, stagnating or even declining markets. Instead of reinventing the business managers defended the traditional business model and optimized it. Their focus shifted towards process innovation particularly into more efficient purchasing."

Trechos retirados de "Karstadt: Death of a legend (business model)"

Cooperativas, eficientismo e Mongo

Há anos que aqui no blogue escrevo sobre as cooperativas associadas a Mongo e sobre a loucura do eficientismo.

A ideia das cooperativas surgiu-me na sequência da democratização da produção e da fuga à proletarização "uberiana". Alguns postais ao longo dos anos sobre o tema foram:

• Acerca do pós-Uber ou não, uma aposta (Fevereiro de 2016)
• Isto é só o começo... (Abril de 2016)

Mongo é um tema recorrente aqui no blogue.

Ontem em "From the Gig Economy to the Guild Economy" encontrei os mesmos três temas relacionados:

"there’s a problem – actually, many problems. Efficiency is a diminishing returns proposition. The more efficient we become, the longer and harder we need to work to get the next increment of efficiency. Diminishing returns is a problem on its own, but it’s compounded by the fact that we live in a Big Shift world of mounting performance pressure – competition is intensifying, change is accelerating, and extreme disruptive events occur with increasing frequency.
...
We’re already starting to see some of that start to happen in the gig economy. Individual workers are discovering that there are others who share their passion and coming together so that they can work on projects as a group, rather than individuals.
...
On the other side, institutions are going to begin to see that the real value of contract workers is the diversity of experience and expertise that they bring to the work. These contract workers can help the institution’s employees to learn faster by exposing them to different perspectives and approaches to addressing work. These institutions will begin to expand their focus beyond just cost savings and see gig workers as an opportunity to learn faster.
...
We’re going to begin to see impact groups forming and coming together into broader networks that will help them to learn even faster.
That’s where guilds come in.
...
As independent workers become more aware of the imperative for accelerating learning, they will tend to affiliate into guilds that will help to connect them with others who might become part of their impact group and, more broadly, with other impact groups that share their passion for increasing impact in a particular set of activities. These guilds can help to knit together larger and larger networks of impact groups, generating something that I call “creation spaces,” to help scale and accelerate learning."

Acerca de Mongo, no mesmo artigo, algo que parece retirado aqui do blogue acerca da profusão de tribos e do bailado entre oferta e procura:

"Beyond the gig economy, there’s another area that will see the re-emergence of guilds. That’s in product and service businesses that will increasingly fragment as customers demand more and more tailored products and services to serve their specific needs. The participants in these small, but very profitable, product and service businesses will see value in connecting with others in their particular domains so that they can all learn faster and create even more value with less resource. For example, think of a guild for craft chocolate companies that are serving very specific customer niches.
...
To address the opportunity to help participants to learn faster, these guilds need to find a way to move beyond fear of competition and foster the excitement that can come from addressing the exponentially expanding opportunities created by the Big Shift. Rather than embracing a scarcity mindset, these guilds need to cultivate an abundance mindset. They need to recognize that, the more people that come together, driven by a commitment to learn faster, the more opportunity there will be for value creation. It’s a very different heartset and mindset from the ones generated by the fear that is engulfing more and more of the world’s population.
The bottom line
The imperative to learn faster is going to motivate individuals to come together in very different ways. In at least one dimension, our future may represent a return to the past, when we see the re-emergence of guilds. Rather than isolated individuals driven by fear as they confront mounting performance pressures, we are likely to see people coming together, excited about the opportunity to learn faster and embrace exponentially expanding opportunity."

"É assim Portugal. Podia não ser assim? Podia"

"Não seria melhor guardar os sete mil milhões de euros de fundos comunitários que estão destinados a este projeto da economia não transacionável - a maior parte dos quais voltará para os cofres da Holanda e da Alemanha, países que nos vão vender a tecnologia do hidrogénio e assim conseguem o retorno dos fundos que cederam – não seria melhor guardar esse dinheiro para ajudar os exportadores de frutos vermelhos de Trás-os-Montes, os exportadores de móveis de Paços de Ferreira, os produtores de tomate e hortaliças do Ribatejo e do Alentejo, os produtores de moldes da Marinha Grande, os produtores de vinhos do Dão e do Alentejo, todos os que trabalham na economia transacionável e fomentam as exportações?
Não seria melhor destinar esses sete mil milhões a atividades de exportação de bens transacionáveis, agora que o turismo praticamente desapareceu e será muito difícil recompor-se a curto prazo?
O plano do Governo é desviar esse dinheiro da economia transacionável para a economia protegida dos amigos das rendas garantidas.
Aos meus colegas jornalistas e analistas económicos e políticos deixo um desafio: procurem na lista dos nomes de empresários e empresas já posicionados para se candidatar ao mega projeto do hidrogénio em Portugal os nomes de empresários e grupos de empresas que ficaram a dever centenas e milhares de milhões de euros ao Novo Banco, CGD, BCP e outros grandes bancos nacionais. Não são poucos os que lá estão, à espera de nos sugar de novo os bolsos, desta vez através das faturas da eletricidade.
Daqui a poucos anos estaremos todos a abrir a boca de espanto com as notícias sobre indícios de corrupção no mega projeto do hidrogénio. Os suspeitos, alguns políticos atuais e empresários corruptores do regime, estarão novamente a recorrer aos dez maiores escritórios de advocacia em Portugal para se proteger. Um qualquer juiz de instrução estará a subscrever uma duríssima acusação do Ministério Público.
E os comentadores habituais, completamente desfocados, estarão a atacar o juiz de instrução por ser um radical, quando alguns políticos corruptos e os empresários corruptores já estarão ricos, provavelmente a gozar os milhões no estrangeiro.
É assim Portugal.
Podia não ser assim?
Podia. Se o Presidente da República e o líder da oposição impedissem de imediato este crime económico do hidrogénio alegadamente verde e obrigassem os promotores do projeto, o Governo, o ministro do Ambiente e o secretário de Estado da Energia a reduzi-lo à sua justa dimensão: a de um projeto piloto que só deveria crescer futuramente em função dos resultados obtidos noutros países mais ricos da Europa.
Infelizmente, Presidente, Governo e Oposição, estão todos muito mais preocupados com taticismos eleitorais do que com o futuro de Portugal."

Trecho retirado de "O Crime Económico do Hidrogénio"

A importância das margens

Quando escrevi a série "Quantas empresas?" procurei chamar a atenção para a urgência de aumentar margens, de subir preços. Não um aumento de preços numa negociação, num braço de ferro com os clientes, mas porque se sobe na escala de valor, porque se aumenta a diferenciação da oferta, porque se cria mais valor potencial para os clientes.

Normalmente, este tipo de aumento não se compadece com a empresa actual... e aí é que está um dos problemas: a dificuldade em encolher a empresa, a dificuldade em mudar de vida.

Algumas vezes é-me penoso visitar uma empresa. Um outsider consegue abstrair-se da espuma dos dias e, numa atitude racional, olhar para aquela azáfama e perceber que são como perús na antevéspera do Natal. E escrevo isto sem arrogância, até com algum melindre. Basta-me olhar para os produtos que fabricam, para o seu valor acrescentado, para a dependência das quantidades, quando o contexto é de encomendas mais pequenas e de salários mais altos. Por vezes ainda consigo identificar "pontos quentes" que poderiam ajudar a criar a empresa do futuro, mas implicariam uma de duas coisas: o encolhimento da empresa actual, ou a autonomização de unidade de negócio para se focar nesses "pontos quentes".

No entanto, para a maioria dos empresários isso é como pedir a um pai que mate um filho.

Entretanto, este texto, "Put Value Creation at the Center of Your Transformation", chama a atenção para a importância da focalização no aumento das margens:

"The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically raised the stakes for corporate transformations. Many companies will need to launch a transformation to remain competitive, yet the risks associated with failure are now higher. Unfortunately, transformation outcomes vary widely; ... Our research shows that companies must accomplish three goals to create superior value from a crisis transformation: deliver near-term improvements to profit margins, strengthen the core operating and business models, and rigorously manage the change.
...
Margin improvement is measured as the average growth rate of the EBITDA margin over the three-year period.
...
But not all change can be measured in terms of financial performance and stock price movement. That’s where the third and most critical aspect comes in: transformations require rigorous execution and change management.
...
Set a clear vision, and keep the communication simple and straightforward. Getting all employees to have the same understanding of the vision and objectives for the transformation is crucial, and companies can accomplish this through clear and vivid communication.
...
Launch a formal, structured program. Because a large-scale transformation is complex and has multiple interdependencies, it can succeed only if it is structured as a formal program with well-defined work streams and initiatives."

Curiosidade do dia

Prof. Lero-Lero: "Eu tenho o vício de pensar em tudo". pic.twitter.com/i4fGPxsIMF

— Telmo A Fernandes (@ordemespontanea) July 23, 2020

Ver isto, quando esta manhã tinha lido:

"We live in a world of radical uncertainty in which our understanding of the present is imperfect, our understanding of the future even more limited, and in which no one person or organisation can hold the range of information required to arrive at the ‘best explanation’. Narrative reasoning is the most powerful mechanism available for organising our imperfect knowledge. Understanding the complex world is a matter of constructing the best explanation – a narrative account – from a myriad of little details and the knowledge of context derived from personal experience and the experience of others.
...
There is no more salutary example of the need to ask ‘What is going on here?’, or of the wilful blindness which fails to look behind reported numbers. If it seems too good to be true, it generally is.
...
Decision-making under radical uncertainty requires a multiplicity of skills, and rarely will all these skills be found in a single individual. Successful leaders have benefited from advisers who could assist in problem framing.
...
Successful decision-making under uncertainty is a collaborative process. Having arrived at the best explanation, it is important to open that explanation to challenge and be ready to change the guiding narrative when new information emerges. The mistakes made by people who enjoyed the flattery of supportive sycophants"

Sintomas de que nada de bom virá por aí. Preparem-se para mais uma vez terem de suster a respiração.

Trechos retirados de “Radical Uncertainty” de John Kay e Mervyn King

Beware of discounting

"Each time I take the stage at a conference or sales summit, I can pretty much count on someone telling me how their business is different. They feel they are the only people who face pricing pressure. They often tell me that it is OK to discount a deal if it gets them the sale.

...

Remember that if you discount without changing the deliverable, then every amount you offer as a discount would have been profit. If you run a 30% profit margin, and you discount by 10%, then you are discounting 33% of your profit.

...

"The biggest fear of procurement people is not overpaying. Rather, our biggest fear is purchasing something that does not deliver the desired results.

...

No matter how much the client pays, it's not a good deal if they don't get results.

Once you know that results matter most, then when faced with pricing pressure, counter with a discussion about results. If procurement is treating you like a commodity, it's your job to illustrate what makes you worth the additional investment.

...

I see a common line of questioning that leads to pricing discussions. Professionals will often enter a competitive situation, and ask questions like, "How much are you currently paying?" Or they might ask, "What's your budget?" In both cases, these questions open a dialog that is centered on price."

Trechos retirados de "Why Customers Focus on Price (and How to Fix it)"

Curiosidade do dia

"Políticos e banqueiros trabalham com o dinheiro dos outros, uns extraindo os impostos da sociedade, outros aplicando os depósitos dos clientes. Se os primeiros não conseguem formular políticas de crescimento económico e políticas sociais que sejam financiadas sem terem de recorrer ao endividamento e se os segundos não conseguem gerar margem financeira sustentada no tempo, haverá sempre o risco do abraço de cumplicidade entre a dívida pública e a dívida privada, uma circularidade que é uma ilusão de desesperados."

Trecho retirado de "Revisão da matéria dada" no JdN de hoje. 

"Pricing is an undervalued discipline"

"Even in a historic downturn, Buffett’s instinct is worth keeping in mind. Many managers underestimate the power of pricing, and the unanimous advice from pricing experts in this troubled economy is to price with courage and creativity. In businesses where demand has plunged, slashing prices may be a terrible idea—and it may not be necessary at all.

...

For the vast majority of businesses—those facing strapped customers and shrunken demand—the No. 1 imperative is to avoid cutting prices if at all possible, what experts in the field call “maintaining price integrity.” In the B2B world, “you get a lot of pressure back from your customers to reduce price, which can manifest itself as hesitancy to move forward with the purchase,” says Ron Kermisch, a Bain consultant who leads the firm’s global pricing practice. “Companies too quickly move to price as the lever, without really understanding what’s driving the customer hesitancy.”

...

If you cut prices 20%, you have to sell 25% more units just to maintain revenue. In a severe downturn, how likely is that? And if a competitor matches your price cut, the pain will be much worse. The economics of every business are different, but McKinsey research has found that in a typical S&P 1500 company, a 5% price cut would have to spark a 19% volume increase just to pay for itself, and that hardly ever happens. Even if holding prices steady reduces sales and profits, price cuts may reduce them even more.

The long-term effects can be more harmful. Price cuts, even temporary ones, train customers to behave badly, always waiting for the next sale. Perhaps worse, they destroy brand equity."

Trechos retirados de "Why slashing product prices is usually a terrible idea" 

Análise do contexto

"The American economy is in a double bind. On the one hand, Covid-19 has made it necessary to reduce American dependence on China’s economy, and Chinese manufactured imports in particular. The alarm over China’s stranglehold on America’s access to important pharmaceuticals and health-care goods like ventilators is only the leading edge of this concern.

According to the Los Angeles Times, there are no fewer than 62 bills pending in Congress to alter one aspect or another of our economic relationship with China. Yet at the same time, if the U.S. isn’t prepared to deploy a reshoring strategy to restore itself as a manufacturing and industrial power, decoupling won’t do any good. In the 1960s, manufacturing made up 25% of U.S. gross domestic product. It’s barely 11% today. More than five million American manufacturing jobs have been lost since 2000."

Que impactes é que estas alterações irão provocar na sua empresa? 

Como é que estas alterações podem ser transformadas numa oportunidade?

 

Trecho retirado de "Bringing the factories home" 

Curiosidade do dia

"The European Union Recovery Fund cannot be used as an excuse to perpetuate bloated political spending and create a transfer union where governments use taxpayers’ money to increase bureaucracy, because it would be the end of the European project.

A union based on excess spending, debt and extractive policies would be destroyed in a few years. The strength of a unified group of countries comes from diversity and responsibility.

...

If we want a united Europe we must listen more to the most dynamic countries and stop using the bureaucratic steamroller to turn all the member states into interventionist satellites.

The European Union faces a deep crisis. It cannot become a depression by using important funds that should boost competitiveness and strengthen the recovery to finance massive political transfer plans that serve as a political tool to keep bloated administration and political budgets."

Trechos retirados de "The European Recovery Fund Is Not A Solution For Structural Problems"

Torrar dinheiro em hidrogénio e outras cenas não me assiste

Esta manhã durante a minha caminhada matinal li algo que veio ajudar a dar corpo a um sentimento acerca do que penso sobre os milhões da UE.

Pessoalmente sou um frugal, primeiro por educação familiar e, segundo por querer ser independente. Quando se tem um negócio por conta própria acredito que se deve ser fail-safe porque é impossível ser safe-fail, sobretudo numa economia socialista.

Na semana passada ouvia o comentário de Camilo Lourenço no FB sobre a importância da condicionalidade associada aos dinheiros da UE para evitar a sua má aplicação, para minimizar #famiglia e #ComPrimos. Ouvia Camilo Lourenço e pensava: 

- Mas alguém sabe como aplicar o dinheiro?

Lembram-se do dinheiro europeu aplicado em Portugal no primeiro mandato de Cavaco? Quanto desse dinheiro poderia ter sido validado como bem aplicado, para depois não valer de nada porque o mundo mudou. 

Recordar:

Quando o mundo muda, o que era verdade passa a mentira e vice-versa.

O que é que eu li esta manhã? Isto:

“Effects on travel and tourism, hospitality, entertainment, retail, aerospace and even the automotive industry [Moi ici: Turismo, aviação e automóvel. Nos primeiros 5 meses de 2019 o sector aeronáutico aumentava as exportações em 70%, o automóvel em 17% e o turismo batia recordes por cá]

The ways in which consumers interact with each other as well as what and how they consume have been significantly affected by the pandemic. Consequently, the ensuing reset in different industries will vary fundamentally depending on the nature of the economic transaction involved. In those industries where consumers transact socially and in person, the first months and possibly years of the post-pandemic era will be much tougher than for those where the transaction can be at a greater physical distance or even virtual. In modern economies, a large amount of what we consume happens through social interaction: travel and vacations, bars and restaurants, sporting events and retail, cinemas and theatres, concerts and festivals, conventions and conferences, museums and libraries, education: they all correspond to social forms of consumption that represent a significant portion of total economic activity and employment (services represent about 80% of total jobs in the US, most of which are “social” by nature). [Moi ici: 80% nos Estados Unidos!!! Quanto será por cá?]

...

Industries that have social interaction at their core have been hit the hardest by the lockdowns. Among them are many sectors that add up to a very significant proportion of total economic activity and employment: travel and tourism, leisure, sport, events and entertainment. For months and possibly years, they will be forced to operate at reduced capacity, hit by the double whammy of fears about the virus restraining consumption and the imposition of regulations aimed at countering these fears by creating more physical space between consumers.

...

In many of these industries, but particularly in hospitality and retail, small businesses will suffer disproportionately, having to walk a very fine line between surviving the closures imposed by the lockdowns (or sharply reduced business) and bankruptcy. Operating at reduced capacity with even tighter margins means that many will not survive. The fallout from their failure will have hard-felt ramifications both for national economies and local communities. Small businesses are the main engine of employment growth and account in most advanced economies for half of all private-sector jobs. If significant numbers of them go to the wall, if there are fewer shops, restaurants and bars in a particular neighbourhood, the whole community will be impacted as unemployment rises and demand dries up, setting in motion a vicious and downward spiral and affecting ever greater numbers of small businesses in a particular community."

Acreditar em planos de iluminados, de esquerda ou de direita, seria um sacrilégio para um fanático como eu, segundo o ministro (por ter votado Iniciativa Liberal) por acreditar no "Deixem as empresas morrer". Então, o que fazer com o dinheiro da UE? Eu não decidiria o que é melhor ou pior, eu usaria o dinheiro para baixar impostos, para baixar as barreiras à entrada de quem se quer estabelecer em Portugal, seja nacional ou estrangeiro.

Torrar dinheiro em hidrogénio e outras cenas não me assiste.

Trechos retirados de “COVID-19: The Great Reset” de Klaus Schwab.

Mongo na medicina

Mongo na medicina, a velha lição dinamarquesa. 

“We are in a race to the holy grail of precision medicine—bringing the right treatments to the right patients at the right time. Progress is being made on so many fronts—life sciences companies are developing cell therapies in cancer, artificial pancreas device systems in diabetes, apps that help battle neurodegenerative diseases and optimize nutrition, and wearables that can track everything from heart disease to fertility. Technology companies are creating algorithms to select cancer treatments.

...

We are at the intersection of biological and technological revolution, at a point where the digitization of health and medicine is becoming a reality at the same time that medical innovation is catching up with—and possibly even exceeding the speed of—growth in computational capacity.

...

The convergence of these digital and biological revolutions means that the next breakthrough cure—or treatment that turns a fatal condition into a chronic disease—will come from computers and algorithms working in concert with patients, physicians, and scientists.”

Recordar a Coloplast:

• Um antropologista entra num bar... (parte II) (Fevereiro de 2014) 
• Os humanos são todos diferentes (Fevereiro de 2019) 
• Uma parte importante da revolução económica do futuro vai passar por aqui (Abril de 2020)

Trechos retirados de “The Patient Equation” de Glen de Vries.

The alternative

When I write here about Mongo, about the Mongo metaphor, or the Estranhistão (Weirdistan), it’s because of this that Seth Godin wrote in "Commercial vulnerability":

"The question for most of us is: What if the work you do is:

• compliance-based
• standardized
• repetitive
• not based on innovative or flexible customer interaction…

If it is, it’s pretty likely that you’ll be replaced by a combination of robots, AI and outsourcing.

If they can find someone or something cheaper than you, they’re going to work overtime to do so.

The alternative is to be local, creative, energetic, optimistic, trusted, innovative and hard to replace."

Mongo, land of the weird

The 20th century - Land of mass 

Some say that the 20th century in economic terms started in October 1913 with the opening of the first Ford assembly line.

 

"On October 7, 1913, the production of the model that was to become the classic of the classics moved to Highland Park."

 

The Ford founder said that the customer could choose the color of the car as long as it was black, but more, it was not just any black, it had to be Japan Black, because it was the color that dried faster.

 

"it was the ability of japan black to dry quickly that made it a favorite of early mass-produced automobiles such as Henry Ford's Model T. The Ford company's reliance on japan black led Henry Ford to quip" Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black ".

While other colors were available for automotive finishes, early colored variants of automotive lacquers could take up to 14 days to cure, whereas japan black would cure in 48 hours or less. "

 

The twentieth century, in economic terms, was a time when demand was greater than supply.

And when demand is greater than supply, the boss is the one who produces. Who produces is who establishes what is produced, what is put on the market and with what specifications. In this type of competitive universe, the critical success factor is price. Therefore, everything is done to be efficient, to increase the production rate, to reduce unit costs.

·      "economics of scale;

·      large, physically and temporally concentrated production facilities;

·      long production runs;

·      mass markets;

·      task specialization; and

·      standardization. "

 One of the biggest enemies of efficiency is variety, because long production runs are wanted. The 20th century didn't want variety, it wanted blockbusters, it wanted big sellers, it wanted best sellers, it wanted market share. And the customers?

 

Customers agreed to exchange variety for uniformity because they were able to access goods at a lower price. Seth Godin uses admirable metaphor to portray this world. The world in which producers treat consumers like plankton, an indistinct and homogeneous mass, without individual wishes.

 

When the deal is price, when the deal is dictated by efficiency, when everything produced has a way out, then it is enough to look inside, it is enough to measure performance based on financial results. So I call the 20th century economic model Magnitogorsk or Levittown.

 

The city of Magnitogorsk in the USSR was rebuilt during Stalinism:

 

"In Magnitogorsk, there were two types of apartment, named 'A' and 'B'. They were the city’s sole concession to variety."

 

I read somewhere that the difference between type A and type B lay in the color of the lamps, white or orange. Do not think that the Magnitogorsk were a hallmark of the communist world. No, they were a consequence of an industrial model based on mass production and with little or no care with what users intended or valued. The United States also had its version, Levittown:

 

"In July 1947, on potato fields 20 miles from Manhattan, William Levitt pioneered the mass production of affordable homes. Variations in the 17,477 houses were minor; each had two bedrooms, a bath, living room and kitchen on a 750-square-foot By standardizing the units, Levitt eventually was able to put up more than two dozen a day, helping fill the enormous postwar demand. Over the years, innumerable changes to the homes have transformed the community. But even now, Levittown remains a kind of shorthand for the sameness of mass production that's starting to give way to mass customization. "

 

When the competitive landscape begins to ripple

 

As the twentieth century progressed, the imbalance between supply and demand was reduced until it passed to the other side: supply became bigger than demand.

 

When this happens, a real epistemological shock occurs. It is not enough to produce, power passes to those who buy, not to those who produce. And that changes everything. What is the use of being very efficient if the product does not leave the warehouse?

 

The more the imbalance accentuated, the more power passed to the buyer, the more the producer had to get off the pedestal and try to seduce the buyer. 

 

And it is in this context of increasing competition, increasing variety, the growing power of choice for customers and consumers translates into a growing complexity and variety with a more uncertain, faster world, with many variants, with many more strategies.

 

I like to use the image of a landscape that ripples over time to illustrate what happens in the economic world as we abandon the 20th century paradigm:

While the twentieth century could be represented by a landscape with a single peak, and the further up the peak, the more return organizations had. And they were all looking for the same, to climb as high as possible and as quickly as possible to the top of the same peak. Whoever climbs faster will have a competitive advantage over the rest, given the virtuous mechanism of the effect of scale in a scenario governed by efficiency. The 21st century economy, on the other hand, is progressively wrinkling and generating more and more peaks. More and more companies, despite appearing to be operating in the same economic sector, do not compete with each other, as they specialize in serving different types of customers in different circumstances. One of the phrases I often repeat is that economics is a continuation of biology. And biology gives us great lessons that can be translated into economics. One of the stories I most like to tell is that of doctoral student Robert MacArthur who discovered that five different species of warblers could feed on the same tree without competing with each other, each species fed on a different area:

An example of what the Russian biologist G. Gause published in 1934 in the book “The struggle for existence”, where he reported the conclusions of a set of experiments, he carried out with paramecia and from which I quote the principle of exclusive competition:

 

"Two species cannot coexist indefinitely if they feed on the same type of scarce nutrient."

 

Making the parallelism for organizations; in a world bursting with variety, companies cannot be managed in the same way. Different "species" serve different types of customers. So, they need to be managed differently. 

 

I use the label Mongo to describe this world of increasing variety where effectiveness is much more important than efficiency.

The 90% economy"

"IN MANY THINGS 90% is just fine; in an economy it is miserable, and China shows why. The country started to end its lockdown in February. Factories are busy and the streets are no longer empty. The result is the 90% economy. It is better than a severe lockdown, but it is far from normal. The missing bits include large chunks of everyday life.

...

Discretionary consumer spending, on such things as restaurants, has fallen by 40% and hotel stays are a third of normal. People are weighed down by financial hardship and the fear of a second wave of covid-19. Bankruptcies are rising and unemployment, one broker has said, is three times the official level, at around 20%.

.

If the post-lockdown rich world suffers its own brand of the 90% economy, life will be hard

...

Many businesses will emerge from lockdown short of money, with strained balance-sheets and facing weak demand.

...

The longer the world has to endure a 90% economy, the less likely it is to snap back after the pandemic."

Trechos retirados de "Life after lockdowns"

Plano de reflexões

Ainda esta semana numa empresa começámos a preencher um Plano de Comunicação. Um documento que irá crescer ao longo do tempo, em função das necessidades que irão emergir tendo em conta diferentes propósitos e audiências.

Ontem li este artigo, "Four ways to reflect that help boost performance" onde encontrei esta interessante tabela:

Que reflexões são feitas na sua empresa? Com que propósito e com que participantes?

Nestes tempo após a 1ª vaga COVID-19 julgo tão importante aquele "Scanning the horizon"... e no entanto, tenho apanhado tantas surpresas negativas... venha ou não venha esmola da UE, os próximos tempos vão piorar antes de melhorar. E o que vejo? Gente confiando que o layoff os vai proteger da necessidade de se reconfigurarem. Gente que acha que isto de reflectir sobre o contexto é treta para a ISO 9001.

Fará sentido desenhar um Plano de Reflexões para a sua empresa?

Repugnante

Não saímos deste modo de vida... pedintes profissionais.

🤬😢