"the pandemic’s squeeze on margins is the push"

"Saitex says it can boost LA manufacturing in a way that benefits both brands and the local economy. Its new factory is highly automated, equipped with all the latest tech, from 3D cutting to auto-sewing to a “dancing box” that requires only 0.6L of recycled water to wash each garment. 

...

while it takes 250 people to make 1,000 pairs of jeans in Vietnam, in Vernon it takes less than 100.

We’re creating a hybrid manufacturing model that could be a formula for the industry.

“There is always a point in time when technology is ready,” Bahl said. “We’re creating a hybrid manufacturing model that could be a formula for the industry.”

...

For a start, making jeans at the facility will allow brand partners to burnish their ethical credentials and signal their support for American jobs. But it could also make smart commercial sense. With small-batch production options and proximity to American consumers, Saitex’s Vernon plant enables brands to quickly replenish inventory, responding to consumer interest for particular products rather than placing big bets upfront. That means better aligning supply and demand, with the hopes of significantly reducing excess inventory.

Plus, there’s a test-and-learn opportunity. For instance, a brand can send the factory a new denim design and have just 500 pairs produced for trying out with consumers. Based on hard data, the brand can then choose whether or not to scale up production. In traditional apparel manufacturing, it can take up to a year for a product to go from concept to sales floor. Working with the new Saitex facility, it could be as little as three weeks. For e-commerce orders, Saitex offers brands a service that also ships their products directly to the consumer, further speeding up the process.

“This factory will allow for real-time data and real-time ROI,” Bahl said. “Think 90 days versus 270 or 365.”

Some believe the launch of factories like this mark a tipping point in the way clothes are made.

...

Interest in responsive, or “just-in-time,” manufacturing — successfully deployed by Spain’s Inditex, parent of fast-fashion giant Zara, which famously moves product from concept to sales floor in two-to-three weeks — has gathered steam in the US over the past decade.

As a result, the US has experienced a small-but-steady uptick in local apparel and shoe production. In 2019, 98 percent of shoes and 97 percent of clothes bought by Americans were imported, but the number of these products manufactured locally increased by 72 percent over the previous 10 years, according to the American Apparel and Footwear Association (AAFA), a trade group.

“These aren’t bringing back jobs that left decades ago,” said Stephen Lamar, president and chief executive of the AAFA. “Instead, it’s creating jobs that are driven by technology.”

[Moi ici: Segue-se um trecho com novidades interessantes] Scaling these efforts has been challenging, however, in part because many retailers have a vested interest in the old way of doing things. For some, cheaply produced, large-inventory volumes can help to weave a growth narrative for investors, where retailers claim they are manufacturing more products in order to open more stores and fuel top-line sales. The success of the off-price channel has shown that this approach can work, allowing brands to increase sales for years while maintaining slim margins.

But now, brands have so much excess inventory — especially after 2020 hit consumer demand and forced many to shut down their physical stores — that prices often can’t go any lower, nor discounts any deeper, without resulting in losses.

“That growth has either disappeared or is highly uncertain,” Thorbeck said. “Without that engine of growth, the formula for cheap inventory is an unsustainable burden.”

Even so, convincing brands that produce en masse to implement on-demand manufacturing remains an uphill battle. For one, it requires upfront investment. It also costs more per item to manufacture in small batches, a hard hump to get over, even though items made this way are more likely to be sold at full price, resulting in increased profits.

Brands like Nike and Adidas, which have opened on-demand manufacturing facilities in recent years only to close them, often aren’t willing to take the risk, even if it means a leaner, more efficient business in the medium to long term.

...

“It became clear that the company would be unable to reach a commercially viable solution,” Flex said at the time.[Moi ici: Faz-me lembrar a VW e as carrinhas eléctricas para a Deutsch Post]

...

Thorbeck is convinced that the pandemic’s squeeze on margins is the push that retailers needed to modernise their operations.

The alternatives have been exhausted.

“I’m optimistic because honestly, the alternatives have been exhausted,” he said. “Companies have not dramatically improved retail performance, and their only growth channel, which online, is inherently more expensive.”"

Trechos retirados de "Is a New Model for Manufacturing Finally Here?" 

"intra-industry differences are sometimes far more dramatic than those among sectors"

"Uma das coisas que aprendi em 2008 foi a da variabilidade da distribuição de produtividades. Existem mais variabilidade da produtividade entre as empresas de um mesmo sector de actividade económica do que entre sectores de actividade económica. Percebem as implicações disto? No mesmo país, com as mesmas leis, com o mesmo povo, dentro de um mesmo sector, a variabilidade da produtividade é enorme. E isto quer dizer que o factor mais importante para a produtividade é o ADN que está numa empresa." (fonte)

Uma mensagem clássica deste blogue, a primeira vez que usei o marcador "distribuição de produtividades" foi em Maio de 2010.

Ontem, li um texto de 2006, "A long-term look at ROIC", onde aparece escarrapachada esta verdade desconhecida por muitos:

"historical ROICs can vary widely by industry. In the United States, the pharmaceutical and consumer packaged-goods industries, among others, have sustainable barriers, such as patents and brands, that reduce competitive pressure and contribute to consistently high ROICs. Conversely, capital-intensive sectors (such as basic materials) and highly competitive sectors (including retailing) tend to generate low ROICs.

...

we found that the median or mean returns of general, broadly defined industry groups can be downright misleading. Executives who look at the mean or median ROIC of an industry without understanding the distribution of ROIC performance within it may not have sufficient information to assess a company or to project its ROIC accurately.

.

Indeed, intra-industry differences are sometimes far more dramatic than those among sectors (Exhibit 3). Take the software and services industry. Its median ROIC from 1963 to 2004 was 18 percent, but the spread between the top and bottom quartile of companies averaged 31 percent. In fact, the industry’s performance was so uneven as to render this metric meaningless. These wide variations suggest that the industry comprises many distinct subgroups that have very different structures and are subject to very different competitive forces."

 

Turquia - Portugal em 144 horas

Sábado fez 10 anos que publiquei "Pregarás o Evangelho do Valor", depois fui para Arrifana onde fui trabalhar com os amigos Paulo e Pedro. Julgo que foi ao final dessa manhã que me apresentaram o amigo António.

Sábado ao princípio da noite o amigo Pedro mandou-me esta imagem via WhatsApp:

Portugal -> Turquia e Turquia -> Portugal com entregas em 144h (6 dias).

Como não recordar um texto publicado fez ontem três meses ""Come on! Esta gente não analisa os números?"" onde escrevi:

"O que ressalta é a evolução turca e albanesa. Em 2010 a Turquia exportava cerca de 75 milhões de pares de sapatos, em 2019 exportou 275 milhões de pares a um preço médio de 3.29 USD. A Albânia em 10 anos duplicou as suas exportações. Presumo, pelo preço médio de cada par, que há ali mão de know-how italiano."

E chamei a atenção para a transitoriedade do status quo no sector privado exportador. A base do sucesso do modelo nos últimos 10 anos posta em causa por dois países próximos do centro da Europa com custos de produção muito baixos. Por isso:

"finding a sustainable competitive advantage may not be that important. What is important, however, is that companies have a contingency plan to deal with the upcoming prospects for an expansion of available resources or possible constraints created by other actors in the market." 

E isto joga bem com a mensagem do lucro como uma ilusão, parte significativa dele é para pagar os custos do futuro, como aprendi com Schumpeter. Há que estar sempre focado no amanhã, recordo esta série "Quantas empresas". Recomendo a parte X dessa série.

E já agora, na sequência dessa parte X, voltar ao postal de ontem sobre "The search for a profitable niche market"

"The search for a profitable niche market"

"Niche markets are distinct from mass-markets in two important ways. First, niche markets are, by definition, focused and serve consumers with specialized preferences.

...

The search for a profitable niche market begins with the search for less-than-satisfied customers-those whose needs are not being met by existing offerings. In their book, Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind, Al Ries and Jack Trout argue that understanding the customer is the first-step in the battle to create a position in the customer’s mind: “…you have to get off your pedestal and put your ear to the ground. You have to get on the same wavelength as the prospect.”

If listening is hard, making sense of what one hears may be even harder. 

...

What do prospective customers value and why will they buy (and not buy) your product? Theory cannot provide conclusive answers to these questions. The answers must be discovered by experience, experimentation and evidence."

Trechos retirados de "Strategy in Niche Markets"

Lucro? E para quê e para quem?

O amigo João mandou-me este vídeo por Messenger.

Comentar vídeos destes numa rede social é meio caminho andado para equívocos e extremar de posições. Meia dúzia de caracteres de cada vez não chegam. Assim, aqui vai via blog uma tentativa de expressar a minha opinião.

1º O lucro é vital para as empresas. As empresas têm de ter lucro, ponto!!!

Não é só no Portugal socialista que esta ideia tem de ser defendida e proclamada. Até na Alemanha é preciso fazê-lo. Daí que está agora a fazer um ano que um dos meus heróis, Hermann Simon, publicou um livro com o título "Am Gewinn ist noch keine Firma kaputtgegangen". Já li algures Hermann Simon, numa entrevista, referir que o título tem a ver com um ditado alemão. Algo como, nunca ninguém ficou pobre por ganhar dinheiro.

Quantas vezes, desde 30 de Julho de 2006,  já escrevi aqui no blogue aquela expressão?

"Volume is Vanity

Profit is Sanity"

Por exemplo, em Portugal os economistas estão sempre a falar na necessidade imperiosa das empresas crescerem, para serem mais rentáveis, para serem mais produtivas. Hermann Simon diz-nos:

"In Germany people believe that the net profit margin, after all costs and all taxes, is 23%. The real margin over many years is 3.4%. Similar in the US. The believe is 32% net profit margin, the reality is 4.9%. The record holders are the Italians. They think that the margin is 38%, the reality is 5%. There are two messages: Real net margins are 5% or less, typically. Furthermore, people overestimate profit margins by 600%. That’s unbelievable."

E:

"large corporations are not more profitable. The median of the net margin of the Fortune Global 500 is 4.49%. This tells us that half of these giants earn less than 4.5%. Most likely they don’t make an economic profit, meaning that they don’t recover their cost of capital. That’s the case for half of the Fortune Global 500. The public perception is misguided by a few profit stars.

...

profit always depends on the combination of three profit drivers and there are only those three: price, volume and cost." 

Sem lucro as empresas são como Portugal, um país sem autonomia, sempre a passear-se pelos areópagos internacionais como pedinte profissional.

2º Para que servem os lucros?

A maior parte das pessoas pensa que o lucro é importante para remunerar os accionistas. Sim, o lucro serve para remunerar o risco de quem empreende. No entanto, as empresas que se ficam por isso não têm futuro.

Final dos anos 80(?) estava eu em Valongo, numa sala à espera de uma entrevista de emprego na UTA e lia um dos livros de Peter Drucker. Não recordo o título, tenho e li tudo o que encontrei dele, mas nesse livro Drucker apresentou-me a mim, engenheiro com formação básica de gestão, mais um austríaco que eu não conhecia: Joseph Schumpeter.

Com Schumpeter aprendi que o lucro é fundamental para pagar os custos do futuro! Ainda esta semana sorri e recordei esta ideia. A trabalhar numa empresa, estivemos a sistematizar a metodologia de qualificação inicial de subcontratados. A empresa referia-se a eles como fábricas, contudo também recorrem a outros subcontratados que não podem ser apelidados de "fábricas". Então, apostarm no termo "unidade de produção". Gente mais nova não tem essa memória, mas eu tinha mais de 10 anos quando foi o 25 de Abril de 1974, na minha cabeça apareceu logo a expressão "unidade colectiva de produção". Tinham um pecado original, focavam-se na gratificação imediata e nunca acumulavam capital para pagar os custos do futuro. Recordar que este Schumpeter é o mesmo que nos apresentou a destruição criativa. Quem não quer ser destruído tem de investir no seu futuro.

3º Como se obtém o lucro?

Associada a esta pergunta está uma outra: A parte do lucro que se distribui, por quem sem se distribui? Pelos accionistas ou pelos stakeholders (partes interessadas)?

E aqui, no vídeo, refere-se a ideia do Milton Friedman sobre a importância do lucro e da sua maximização. Esta ideia de Milton Friedman expressa em “The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits” está ultrapassada. Ao longo dos anos que escrevo sobre isso, mas sem criticar Friedman. Há muitos anos que uso esta imagem aqui no blogue:

A economia é muito diferente da física ou da química. Acho que Friedman escrevia para um tempo que já passou. Recordo que a Economia não é como a Física newtoniana ou galilaica.

Começo o meu livro:

Com uma explicação sobre a grande revolução ocorrida no mundo ocidental algures na década de 70 do século passado. Por essa altura, a oferta passou a ser maior que a procura. E quando isso aconteceu... foi mesmo uma revolução.

Quando a procura é maior do que a oferta quem manda é quem produz. Quem produz pode concentrar-se em ser eficiente porque tudo o que "vomitar" tem saída garantida.

Quando a procura é menor do que a oferta quem manda é quem compra. Então, não basta produzir! Há que orquestrar um ecossistema de parcerias, de partes interessadas, para que todos ganhem:

"Quanto mais crescer o interesse e vantagem em trabalhar a nível de ecossistema, em que os ecossistemas que ganham são os que maximizam o valor a ser criado pelo conjunto dos actores, e não por um em particular."

Acredito que Friedman hoje pensaria de forma diferente. Hoje, o lucro tem de ser visto como um objectivo obliquo. É tão absurdo, aos meus olhos, eleger o lucro como um objectivo directo como ouvir um político eleger como objectivo directo a redução do desemprego. Dá sempre asneira.

Como objectivos oblíquos, o lucro ou a redução do desemprego são consequências de outras coisas. O lucro é uma consequência de clientes que se ganham, clientes satisfeitos e de clientes que continuam a trabalhar connosco. 

Ganhar, satisfazer e desenvolver a relação com os clientes é fruto de se trabalhar bem a montante: E quem trabalha?

"Cada vez mais, o sucesso de uma empresa exige que se tenha em consideração as necessidades e expectativas de outras partes interessadas que podem contribuir para a sustentabilidade do desempenho. É claro que os clientes são uma parte interessada, afinal são eles que nos dão o dinheiro com que pagamos as contas, preparamos o futuro e suportamos a impostagem. No entanto, podemos identificar outras partes interessadas:" 

O conceito de ecossistema é-me muito caro, uso-o na consultoria desde 2004, não porque li, mas porque emergiu no meu trabalho.

Primeiro postal sobre o tema em Março de 2007

Afinal sou um arquitecto de paisagens competitivas.

Portanto, concluo que o vídeo acaba por ter uma mensagem demasiado simplificada, talvez mesmo simplista.

Curiosidade do dia

Portugal é isto!

Seja qual for a justificação, ilegalidade ou provincianismo parolo, Portugal é isto, é esta falta de decoro nos gastos públicos.

• Portugal’s ‘ghost’ EU presidency racks up in-person expenses
• Os oito milhões em ajustes diretos da Presidência da UE que incluem fatos, bebidas e chocolates. Há empresas com 15 dias a faturar milhares

"it becomes frozen in time"

 "In performance cultures, people often become attached to best practices. The risk is that once we’ve declared a routine the best, it becomes frozen in time. We preach about its virtues and stop questioning its vices, no longer curious about where it’s imperfect and where it could improve. Organizational learning should be an ongoing activity, but best practices imply it has reached an endpoint. We might be better off looking for better practices."

Trecho retirado de “How to be Strategic” de Fred Pelard.

O problema de usar o pensamento científico para resolver desafios estratégicos (parte II)

Parte I.

"To be strategic, first be creative, then be analytical. Since strategic thinking deals with the future, you will have very little quality data available to you, and starting with analysis would be a mistake.

The more strategic the issue you face, the less data there will be. Which is why you should keep your powder dry, and use whatever data there is to validate or kill ideas, not to generate them. An additional benefit to this approach is that the dataset you need to test an idea is much smaller than the dataset you need to generate an idea.

...

So ‘Down’ [Moi ici: Na figura acima] is about diving from a great height into the world of data to identify the likelihood that an idea you’ve already had will be successful or not. Not uncommonly, data will prove sparse, unreliable and contradictory. Unsurprisingly, you might feel at that moment that you’re further away from Completion than at any point since the start of the project. 

...

The Helicopter of Creative Discovery is brilliant at tackling the future. The future can’t be analysed, it can only be created. Generating many creative options with limited data is what many people naturally do when they envisage future holidays or entrepreneurial ventures. This takes no time. The vertical way is exciting, light and free. The rest of the time is dedicated to slowly maturing the options, through discussion and reflection, until reaching an answer that feels right. The Helicopter approach, however, is too reliant on subjective matters of personal taste to be entirely convincing in a business context."[Moi ici: É preciso massacrar as opções criativas iniciais com dados obtidos de pequenos testes iniciais que rapidamente validarão ou rejeitarão hipóteses]

Trechos retirados de “How to be Strategic” de Fred Pelard.

O problema de usar o pensamento científico para resolver desafios estratégicos

Um texto sobre o problema de usar o pensamento científico para resolver desafios estratégicos. Recordo o exemplo da Viarco e o exemplo dos muggles:

• "Nós fazemos as contas ao contrário" (Setembro de 2014)
• Acerca do optimismo não documentado (Novembro de 2017)
• Em que lado do teste do lápis está a sua empresa? (Março de 2020)

"where do the key facts of strategic thinking reside? In the future.

Of course, solving strategic issues relies on facts from the past and the present too, but the most critical data you need for resolution does come from the future. And that’s why, the more strategic the issue we are trying to solve, the less likely the [Submarine of] Analytical Research is going to work. The more strategic the problem you are dealing with, the less applicable the Submarine route becomes.

The horizontal route relies heavily for its success on the availability of data, in both quantity and quality. And when you look to the future, which is where most of strategic thinking operates, data is going to be scarce and often highly unreliable. We’ll see shortly how the third route to Completion compensates for that.

...

So the horizontal, Submarine route is the preferred problem-solving method of smart, analytical people. And strategy and strategic thinking are commonly held to be some of the smartest problems around. Yet the horizontal route doesn’t work very well to solve such strategic issues. How ironic. The problem-solving method most beloved of eggheads doesn’t work for the most egghead of problems!

That’s because it’s impossible to solve the future using just hard facts, since there are no hard facts in the future, just hidden possibilities. The future can’t be analysed; it can only be created."

Trechos retirados de “How to be Strategic” de Fred Pelard.

Resistir versus abraçar

A propósito deste postal de Seth Godin: 

"The windmills aren’t the problem, it’s the tilting.

In Cervantes’ day, ’tilting’ was a word for jousting. You tilted your lance at an enemy and attacked.

Don Quijote was noted for believing that the windmills in the distance were giants, and he spent his days on attack.

Change can look like a windmill.

When we say, “the transition to a new place is making me uncomfortable,” we’ve expressed something truthful. But when we attack a windmill, we’ve wasted our time and missed an opportunity to focus on what matters instead.

When my dad taught at the University of Buffalo, the heart of his MBA classes was teaching about the ‘change agent’. This is the external force that puts change into motion. The change agent, once identified, gives us an understanding of our options and the need to respond, not to react.

Every normal is a new normal, until it is replaced by another one."

Recordo a quantidade de líderes de associações empresariais mais preocupados em resistir à mudança do que em a "abraçar":

• Abraçar a mudança - Maio de 2013
• As associações e o status quo - Dezembro de 2020

"The tendency to obsess over revenues rather than profits"

Gosto desta sistematização que procura ilustrar o quanto o one size fit all não serve:

"A practice’s ability to deliver value to clients rests on the skills of its professionals, and the skill set of those professionals affects the choice of clients. In turn, the clients being served affect the development of the professionals’ skills. The strategy of a practice therefore is tightly linked to its clients and the professionals serving them. Whom a practice hires affects the clients it can serve, the clients it serves affect how the skills of its professionals evolve, how the skill set evolves affects the clients the practice can acquire in the future, and the cycle keeps repeating."

"To achieve superior performance, a practice has to manage both its capabilities and its client portfolio systematically.

A useful way to examine portfolios is to determine where clients fall in the four quadrants formed by comparing the cost to serve clients (CTS) with clients’ willingness to pay (WTP)."

"Most practices discover that their clients are spread across all four quadrants. That indicates that they have no clear strategy and are trying to be everything to everyone. This happens mainly because they can’t say no to clients. Irrational confidence about being able to turn any situation around makes it hard to pass up opportunities. And a lot of practices will undertake any task a client puts forward rather than allow a competitor to develop a relationship with it. The tendency to obsess over revenues rather than profits, moreover, fosters an “any business is good business” mentality."

Trechos retirados de "What Professional Service Firms Must Do to Thrive" 

Para reflexão - um travo do que aí vem

"O número de insolvências empresariais no concelho de Braga disparou em janeiro de 2021 cerca de 300 por cento face ao período homólogo. E o número de novas empresas criadas caiu mais de 40 por cento face a janeiro de 2021. 

...

O concelho de Braga iniciou o ano de 2021 com uma forte derrocada no tecido empresarial, que sinalizou um forte impacto da pandemia na destruição de empresas e, por erxtensão, dos postos de trabalho.

Durante o mês de janeiro deste ano, a maior economia do Minho perdeu 147 empresas para as insolvências, revela um relatório que acaba de ser publicado pelo Instituto Nacional de Estatística (INE).

...

À escala da região do Minho, o mês de janeiro de 2021 fica marcado por 583 empresas declaradas  insolventes, ou seja, mais 245 por cento que as 238 que entraram em processo de falência em janeiro do ano passado.

Contas feitas, nos distritos de Braga e de Viana do Castelo faliram, em média, 19 empresas por cada dia do mês de janeiro.

O número de insolvências de empresas minhotas no primeiro mês do ano corresponde a mais de 36 por cento de todas as falências de 2020, que foram de 1607.

...

Os números avançados pelo INE dão conta que os oito concelhos que integram a sub-região do Ave acumulam a maior destruição absoluta de empresas e o maior agravamento das insolvências empresariais face ao período homólogo.

A maior área industrial do Minho acumulou, em janeiro último, 260 insolvências, mais 283 por cento que em as 92 registadas em janeiro de 2020."

Trechos retirados do artigo "Falências sobem 300 por cento entre as empresas de Braga" publicado no Diário do Minho de ontem.

Criar a organização do futuro

"The imagery of a ship navigating to discrete waypoints for the purpose of reaching a destination aligns well with the activity of a company plotting and carrying out strategic initiatives. It is observed therefore that the development and implementation of strategy may be conceived as a series of discrete activities that may be managed as projects. Although the refining of strategy often occurs on an annual cycle, the macroenvironment changes as does the internal situation of the business. For this reason, every strategic planning cycle includes elements that are unique. Since the strategic planning process is unique in every planning period, and the activities carried out in each of the strategic planning phases are temporary, often complex, and involve the application of resources, the process of strategic planning is an ideal candidate for the use of project management practices."

Como não relacionar com o que tenho escrito nos últimos 16 anos neste blogue:

"Como não existem acidentes nem acasos, se aspiramos a resultados futuros diferentes dos resultados actuais, temos de transformar a realidade. Temos de criar a organização do futuro através de um somatório de projectos de transformação: as iniciativas estratégicas."

Trecho retirado de “Project-Led Strategic Management” de James Marion.

Cuidado com as crenças cientificas

"Scientific progress has been stifled many times over the years because the gatekeepers who established and enforced orthodoxy believed they knew all the answers ahead of time.

...

Consider that in 1894, the prominent physicist Albert Michelson argued, after surveying the great advances in physics realized during the late nineteenth century: “It seems probable that most of the grand underlying principles have been firmly established. . . . An eminent physicist remarked that the future truths of physical science are to be looked for in the sixth place of decimals.” In contrast, over the subsequent several decades, physicists witnessed the emergence of the theories of special relativity, general relativity, and quantum mechanics, theories that revolutionized our understanding of physical reality and thus disproved Michelson’s forecast.

...

Similarly, in August 1909, Edward Charles Pickering argued in a Popular Science Monthly article that telescopes had reached their optimal size, fifty to seventy inches, and there was thus little point in building instruments with larger apertures. “Much more depends on other conditions, especially those of climate, the kind of work to be done and, more than all, the man behind the gun,” Pickering wrote. “The case is not unlike that of a battleship. Would a ship a thousand feet long always sink one of five hundred feet? It seems as if we had nearly reached the limit of size of telescopes, and as if we must hope for the next improvement in some other direction.”

Pickering was mistaken, of course; telescopes with larger apertures collect more photons, allowing scientists to see farther out into the cosmos and deeper into the past. Pickering directed the Harvard College Observatory from 1877 to 1919, and his unfortunate words therefore carried a lot of weight, especially on the East Coast. As a result, the West Coast became the center of observational astronomy in the United States for decades to come.

...

Pickering had erred due to his arrogance. Not personal arrogance, but professional arrogance. He thought what his generation of scientists observed, understood, and determined was of interest was the peak of discovery; he didn’t appreciate that the ascent of science is one false peak after another."

Trechos retirados de "Extraterrestrial" de Avi Loeb

Mais publicidade descarada

Publicado por Carlos Pereira da Cruz em Quarta-feira, 24 de fevereiro de 2021

 

"A company must also adapt its sales model as it pursues new customer segments"

"In recovering from the crisis, the effectiveness of sales efforts will be of strategic importance for companies. 

...

Few companies have adequately adapted their sales models to fundamental shifts in the way customers make purchase decisions. Buying has long been framed in terms of a hierarchy-of-effects model in which customers move from awareness to interest to desire to action. However, the AIDA formula and its variants—the basis (often unconsciously) for sales activities in most firms—is becoming less relevant as buyers work through their own parallel activity streams in making a decision. 

...

Effective selling requires an understanding of where customers are, how they navigate between various streams of activity, and when to interact with them. 

...

Despite technology advances, most sales models are the ad hoc accumulation of years of reactive decisions made by multiple managers pursuing different goals.

...

Like perishable goods in grocery stores, any sales model has a sell-by date. Across a market life cycle, customers typically start as generalists and over time become more discriminating.

...

Decisions about scope, or where you play in a market, are central to any business strategy and sales model... But in practice, scope is determined by sales call patterns—where reps’ time and expense are allocated. Scope must also take into account opportunity costs. Money and time allocated to accounts A and B are not available for accounts C, D, and so on. Executives know that you can’t be all things to all people, yet they fail to make this an explicit and managed part of their sales models. They basically tell salespeople, either directly in meetings or implicitly through compensation plans, to “go forth and multiply.” With an eye to meeting their volume quotas, salespeople then sell to anyone, often at discounted prices, leading to lost revenue and damaged brand positioning. Profitable growth requires clarity about how to “separate the suspects from the prospects.”

Most sales models are the ad hoc accumulation of years of reactive decisions made by multiple managers pursuing different goals.

...

A company must also adapt its sales model as it pursues new customer segments."

Trechos retirados de "Selling After the Crisis" 

"In a stagnant economy, economic policy becomes zero-sum"

 "In a stagnant economy, economic policy becomes zero-sum: the situation of some can only be  improved by worsening that of others. This is a recipe for conflict. [Moi ici: Só esta citação já vale pelo artigo todo. A aposta portuguesa no socialismo, à esquerda e à direita, tem promovido acima de tudo políticas distributivas cada vez mais caras, mais caras porque suportam cada vez mais gente, suportadas em cada vez menos riqueza criada proporcionalmente] It is essential to generate sustainable economic growth, instead. 

...

Why has UK growth slowed to a crawl? The best analysis I have seen of the determinants of growth is in Windows of Opportunity by David Sainsbury,

...

As Sainsbury states, neoclassical economics does not have a theory of growth, because it does not have a theory of innovation. He does: it is driven by innovative businesses. This he calls the “capability/market-opportunity dynamic”. There are four conditions for success: demand for new products and services; activity-specific technological opportunities; firms capable of exploiting those opportunities; and institutions able to support those firms. Growth then is an evolutionary process characterised by trial and error, uncertainty, economies of scale and scope, network externalities, temporary monopolies [Moi ici: Os meus monopólios informais] and cumulative advantage. Historical experience confirms that growth is a race to the top. [Moi ici: Nunca esquecer esta regra - race to the top, subir na escala de valor. Mudar de clientes!!! Mudar de produto/serviço!!!] It means exploiting new opportunities that generate enduring advantages in high productivity sectors and so high wages.

...

Sainsbury argues that there are four possible strategies towards innovation: leave it to the market; support the supply of relevant factors of production (science and skilled people); support key industries and technologies; and pick specific firms/technologies/products. He argues that governments should do the second and third, but not the last. [Moi ici: Quanto à segunda, não posso estar mais de acordo, é o "set the table" de Bloomberg. Quanto à terceira, tenha dúvidas. Não basta privilegiar um sector, isso não pode ser feito em abstracto. E quem é que vai aproveitar esse privilégio? Pois, os macacos não voam, trepam as árvores. Quanto à quarta, é típica dos governos socialistas, de direita e de esquerda, picking winners, promovendo o chamado "crony capitalism", o capitalismo da "famíglia", dos amigalhaços, dos donos disto tudo] That can be better left to bankers or venture capitalists. But governments can and must fund science and the development of scientific and other skills and should promote a few broad industries and technologies."

Trechos de Martin Wolf publicados ontem no FT em  “Why once successful countries get left behind”

Mudar de modelo de negócio

Num projecto em curso com uma empresa de informática tem-se repetido que o modelo de negócio está a mudar, da venda de software para a venda de assistência.

Recentemente usei com eles um esquema de Bob Moesta:

Quis alertar para as alterações de contexto em curso, e como elas podem despertar novos desafios para os seus clientes actuais ou potenciais. Quis que abrissem a mente para as oportunidades a construir.

Entretanto, leio na Harvard Business Review de Março de 2021 este artigo "How to Shift from Selling Products to Selling Services":

"In my classes, I teach that most sales strategy and management decisions revolve around three issues: how to sell what to whom. The shift from selling products to selling services requires leaders to rethink not just the what (services instead of products) but also the who (the types of customers the sales force pursues) and the how (the way salespeople engage with customers before and after the sale, the new skills necessary for the job, and how they are trained and compensated). That’s a tall order, and many tech firms have seen waves of sales force reorgs and downsizings as they struggle to fill it.

...

Although tech companies are the most prominent examples, the guidance applies to any organization making this leap. Daimler Trucks, for instance, is shifting from leasing vehicles to large companies, such as UPS, for set periods of time to charging them for miles driven. The prescriptions—which involve resegmenting the customer base, rethinking the sales organization’s structure, and changing the way salespeople interact with customers and targets on a day-to-day basis—enable companies to transform their sales forces to most effectively support the new strategy.

...

To effectively shift to selling a service, salespeople and their managers must rethink the metrics that identify a potential enterprise client. This is more difficult than it may seem. 

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Rethinking customer segmentation focuses on the question: Who are the company’s target customers? Once they are identified, the sales organization must focus on how to sell to them. The traditional sales process typically involves generating leads, qualifying prospects, demonstrating products, and closing sales. Many salespeople have spent decades learning and implementing that routine. A consumption-based model requires a different process. “Closing the deal” becomes an interim step because the contract will generate substantial revenue only if the client subsequently uses the service at high volume. The industry’s euphemistic term for this is “customer success,” and it has begun to dominate the way companies think about selling. As Microsoft’s chief financial officer, Amy Hood, puts it, “Ultimately, in a consumption-based business, customer success is all that matters, because it builds on itself over time.”

Although salespeople still must be skilled at building relationships, the new approach requires them to have far more technical expertise.

To drive that success (that is, to increase customer usage), salespeople must stay engaged after the contract is signed. They become quasi consultants to their clients, helping them grow adept at using (and finding new ways to use) the metered technology. Although salespeople still must be skilled at building relationships, the new approach requires them to have far more technical expertise. Many companies, including Microsoft, have supplemented their sales teams’ technical prowess by creating “customer success teams” and “technical sales teams” to drive consultative work after a customer signs a contract. Companies have always provided after-sales service as a cost of doing business; these new functions illustrate how this unglamorous task has become a vital part of generating revenue.

The benefits of having highly skilled cloud engineers as part of the sales organization go beyond increasing revenue, however. One result of the shift from selling products to selling services is that the relationship with customers becomes both closer and more continuous. That gives sales teams deeper, ongoing insights into customers’ pain points, product features that might add value, and new ways to use products. This is valuable feedback that companies can use to spark innovation—a source of information that was rarely tapped in the old “see you in three years” model.

...

In developing a new offering, a company needs to first identify the potential customers’ pain point. Only then can it determine whether the customers’ pain is sufficient to make the company’s value proposition viable. These calculations are important, but they are not enough to create sustainable profit: The firm must also find the right sales strategy to effectively pair with the innovation to engage customers.

Descongelar não é o inverso de congelar - histerese

Lembro-me no meu Foust, no meu McCabe, velhos manuais de "heat & mass transfer", do fenómeno da  histerese.

A histerese acontece quando o estado de um sistema não é independente da sua história. A viagem de ida de A para B é diferente da tentativa de regresso de B para A.

Ontem escrevi sobre a missiva de António Saraiva... a certa altura ele diz:

“No final da crise, outros vão partir da pole position, porque tiveram ajudas reforçadas às suas estruturas empresariais, e nós partimos atrás.”

Isto significa que ele acredita que quando a economia descongelar vamos estar no ponto em que a começamos a congelar. Não o creio!

Sim, sexta-feira estive com empresários em Felgueiras que estão muito animados com as perspectivas, com as encomendas que têm caído. Eu não estou tão optimista.

Entretanto, ontem li este artigo no WSJ de quinta-feira passada, "Future Europe Task: Unlocking Economy":

"For nearly a year, large swaths of Europe’s economy have been in a deep freeze. Trillions in state-backed subsidies and inexpensive loans have kept businesses alive, while governments pay millions of furloughed workers to stay home. In much of Europe, layoffs or forced bankruptcies are banned. In pursuing such policies, European leaders have bet that, once the pandemic subsides, they can defrost the region’s $18 trillion economy, allowing businesses to fire up quickly and bring back workers. It’s an intentional effort to slow an economic deep clean, dubbed by many economists creative destruction.  This reflects a political choice: Europeans are generally less tolerant of the brutal adjustments required by the U.S. model of capitalism.

But as the pandemic drags on and Europe’s vaccine rollout is expected to stretch through the year and beyond, some policymakers, economists and business executives worry that mothballing the economy for so long will leave it struggling to adapt to the seismic business and social changes the crisis is driving. That could stall an economic recovery.

“Trying to freeze work where it was and how it was is in many cases a profound mistake, because it delays the corporate reorganizations, new investments and new hires that are necessary,” [Moi ici: Este é o meu grande receio. O contexto muda brutalmente e ninguém se prepara para o que aí vem embalados que estão nas canções dos governos e no "soma" chamado "lay-off"] said Carlo Bonomi, chairman of Confindustria, the Italian employers’ federation. While Europe keeps the economy in suspended animation, the U.S. is already creating new jobs and businesses.

...

Bankruptcy gap [Segundo o última Barómetro Informa, nos últimos 12 meses a criação de empresas caiu 26,5%, o número de encerramentos caiu 22% e o número de insolvências manteve-se igual. Numa crise temos turbulência, há empresas novas a aparecer, empresas estabelecidas a falir ou encerrar, mas neste período estamos num aparente ponto morto. Aparente, porque entretanto o capital vai-se esvaindo. As empresas não morrem, mas viram zombies. E os zombies são perigosos, destroem o mercado das empresas saudáveis]

Europe registered far fewer business bankruptcies last year than in the previous five, while bankruptcies in the U.S. remained within the pre-pandemic range, according to data from the Bank for International Settlements. Applications to start new businesses in the U.S. rose 42% in the six months through September but declined slightly in France and Germany, according to Oxford Economics.

Worker productivity has risen in the U.S. but been flat or down in Germany, France, Italy and Spain, according to Deutsche Bank. Eliminating unviable jobs and businesses is responsible for about half of long-run productivity growth, some economists say. [Moi ici: A velha lição finlandesa que aprendi com Maliranta em 2007 "In essence, creative destruction means that low productivity plants are displaced by high productivity plants" e sintetizado por Nassim Taleb em 2018 com este vintage "Systems don’t learn because people learn individually – that’s the myth of modernity. Systems learn at the collective level by the mechanism of selection: by eliminating those elements that reduce the fitness of the whole, provided these have skin in the game." Reparem no paradoxo. Os governos apoiam as empresas para que elas se tornem mais produtivas, mas elas, ao receberem os apoios, agem como as raposas na Austrália. As raposas foram introduzidas na Austrália para acabarem com a praga de coelhos, também eles introduzidos pelos humanos. As raposas rapidamente perceberam que havia uma quantidade muito mais interessante e fáceis de apanhar que os coelhos. Assim que as empresas recebem os apoios o seu negócio passa a ser captar mais apoios - OK, conheço excepções]

The pandemic is accelerating a shift toward new digital business models and automation of processes. Some habits may stick, such as working and shopping from home, permanently reducing demand for certain services. If the economy looks very different in a couple of years, anything that delayed the adjustment would be costly. [Moi ici: O mundo descongelado será diferente do mundo pré-congelamento]

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At Germany’s Recaro Aircraft Seating GmbH, which makes seats for European, U.S. and Chinese airlines, sales fell 60% last year to about €300 million ($360 million). CEO Mark Hiller doesn’t expect sales to return to pre-crisis levels for five years.

Recaro cut about 30% of jobs at its factories in the U.S. and China, but in Germany it hasn’t reduced its workforce of roughly 1,100. Instead, it has tapped the government program, which pays its workers up to 87% of their salary, to a maximum of almost €5,000 a month, to stay home. Almost all of Recaro’s workforce is on furlough, working 40% fewer hours than normal.

Recaro has agreed not to lay off employees until at least mid-2023. The high cost and legal complexities of doing so in Europe deter many companies from cutting staff.

But job-retention schemes “can only bridge the gap until we’re back on a higher level,” Mr. Hiller said. “If we need to adapt to €300 million [sales] forever, it won’t work.”

Meanwhile, U.S. defense group Raytheon Technologies Corp. cut a fifth of the workforce in its commercial aerospace division after sales at a unit that competes with Recaro fell 26% last year. It doesn’t plan to hire all of the people back.

...

Half of German companies have halted or delayed transformation and innovation projects because of furlough programs, according to a survey by Boston Consulting Group.

Job-retention schemes are “a little bit too easy. You can delay decisions and remain in your comfort zone as a manager,” said Karl Haeusgen, president of the German Mechanical Engineering Industry Association, a lobby group for a sector that employs around 1.3 million people.

Economists and business executives also say business subsidies could increase the share of “zombie” companies that struggle to earn enough over time to cover their debt servicing costs, and that can undercut prices charged by healthier competitors. In Germany, the share of zombie companies could increase to 20% of all businesses this year from 7% before Covid, according to research by Creditreform, a German credit agency.

Alexander Alban, managing partner at German mechanical parts manufacturer Walter Schimmel GmbH, hustled last year to keep his business in the black—cutting staff, putting workers on furlough and canceling plans for a new factory— as he coped with a 25% decline in sales.

Price reductions 

Though demand fell, a third of that revenue drop was due to a roughly 12% fall in market prices, Mr. Alban said, as struggling local competitors using government support offered low prices to stay afloat.

“These zombie companies... run their business for a couple of months below costs,” Mr. Alban said. “They ruin the market. Afterwards, it’s very hard to get this business back. Usually it’s good if the market is cleaned.” 

In Italy, widespread use of job-retention schemes hurt labor productivity growth during the 2008-09 financial crisis, according to a 2018 paper by Giulia Giupponi of Bocconi University in Milan and Camille Landais, a professor at the London School of Economics. The least productive firms were three times more likely to tap the job-retention scheme than their stronger peers, the researchers found.

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Germany’s sweetened job furlough scheme has “crazy consequences,” said Friedrich Merz, a senior politician in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic party. “Employees are kept in businesses even though they are needed in other places.” Still, some businesses say the European model is better in the long run."

"You'll walk alone!"

"António Saraiva pede estratégia ao Governo “para lá da crise”"

Este é o título que o caderno de Economia do Expresso de ontem usa num comentário a uma carta do líder da CIP aos empresários associados. Portanto, é o governo que tem que dar a estratégia às empresas para que elas encontrem o El Dorado?

"“Portugal não pode conformar-se com o crescimento anémico das últimas duas décadas, em que ano após ano somos ultrapassados no ranking europeu do produto interno bruto (PIB) per capita.” [Moi ici: Nunca o ouvi comentar as proclamações do governo com a baboseira de que estávamos a crescer mais do que a média europeia] Por isso, defende que 2021 “é a oportunidade para darmos um ‘abanão’ ao nosso modelo de crescimento, à forma como é visto o mundo dos negócios e nos tornarmos um país mais competitivo”, [Moi ici: Será que ele faz ideia do que é isto de um país mais competitivo? Os países não competem, escrevia o velho e são Krugman. As empresas é que competem. Como é que a economia de um país (somatório das suas empresas) fica mais competitiva? Ah! Se Saraiva estudasse o ressurgimento finlandês após a queda da União Soviética... aprenderia aquela frase na coluna das citações ali ao lado "In essence, creative destruction means that low productivity plants are displaced by high productivity plants."  Imaginam Saraiva dizer aos associados da CIP que um país mais competitivo significa que alguns, (Poucos? Muitos?) dos associados têm de ser expulsos do mercado por concorrentes mais competitivos. Imaginam mesmo?] frisando que “a ambição está  muito longe de ser o regresso ao passado: o objetivo é um novo ciclo de desenvolvimento sustentado”,

...

“Tão ou mais importante do que avaliar a situação e propor medidas no imediato é o futuro. É preciso ter uma estratégia de desenvolvimento [Moi ici: Portanto, uma estratégia de desenvolvimento para o país tem de ser top down, uma espécie de master plan elaborado por uns iluminados lesboetas, sem contacto com a realidade para lá do ecossistema das carpetes e biombos dos escritórios. E tem de ser um documento único? ... E o que é válido para o sector A também é válido para o sector B? E dentro do sector C, o que é válido para a empresa i também é válido para a empresa ii e para a empresa iii? Isto parece-me conversa de gente perdida que não tem a minima noção de como sair do buraco e pede a outrém uma corda para o tirar de lá] e olhar o país para lá da crise”"

...

"a CIP está a “preparar um documento estratégico que convoque a todos para a necessidade de  assumirmos, de uma vez por todas, a necessidade de o país ganhar competitividade, prosseguir o desenvolvimento, ter mais e melhor investimento e emprego”, [Moi ici: Catequese... prometer um mar de rosas... e os sacrifícios? Toda a gente quer ser rica e ter saúde, ninguém quer ser pobre e doentio. Azar, ter estratégia é fazer sacrifícios. Onde é que Saraiva escreve sobre a necessidade de os fazer? Onde escreve sobre a necessidade de fazer escolhas dolorosas?] escreve na missiva aos empresários. 

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Saraiva defende “um pacto social para o crescimento, que inclua a política de rendimentos, os eixos da competitividade a política fiscal, revisitando a política fiscal e dando-lhe previsibilidade”.[Moi ici: Às segundas, terças e quartas pede apoios ao governo, às quintas, sextas e sábados protesta contra o nível da carga fiscal. Blahblahblahblah só lugares comuns. Por que terá escrito a carta? Para comunicar estes lugares comuns?]  E remata: “Temos de fazer o caminho de uma nova especialização do nosso modelo de desenvolvimento. Isto exige estratégia e a aposta na diversificação de sectores. Não podemos assentar num único sector, como tem acontecido com o turismo. Queremos que o ministro da Economia seja o arquiteto da recuperação e as empresas farão, como têm feito, o seu trabalho.”" [Moi ici: O quê? O ministro da Economia? Arquitecto da recuperação? E o trabalho das empresas é seguir as orientações desse suposto iluminado? Acham isto normal? O que é isto? É isto a liderança da CIP? Portanto, o que as empresas precisam é de pactos... Eu tenho uma visão muito mais cínica da coisa. As empresas têm de se amanhar elas próprias. Os governos são como os Hunos, uma incomodidade que se traduz no pagamento forçado de um tributo. Até podemos pedir aos Hunos que baixem o tributo porque o ano foi mau, mas não esperem que sejam eles a arquitectar a recuperação de coisa nenhum. O negócio deles é extrair, não é criar.]

Eu se fosse jornalista, depois de ler a carta, perguntaria a António Saraiva que vestisse o papel de arquitecto da recuperação e que listasse três medidas concretas que ajudassem o país a ser mais competitivo.

Aposto que não conseguiria fugir de generalidades. 

Não! Por favor, ponha o trem de aterragem, quero sentir o chiar dos pneus, quero sentir o cheiro da borracha dos pneus a tocar na pista do aeroporto. Três medidas concretas que supostamente ajudem o país a ser mais competitivo.

Lamento, a minha missiva para os empresários seria outra. Até podia começar com a canção dos adeptos do Liverpool:

"When you walk through a storm

Hold your head up high

And don't be afraid of the dark

At the end of the storm

There's a golden sky

And the sweet silver song of a lark"

Mas o refrão seria outro: "You'll walk alone!" 

Não confiem em apoios pedo-mafiosos do governo de turno. Não confiem em estratégias elaboradas por quem não vos conhece, nem conhece os vossos clientes, não externalizem a tomada de decisões sobre o futuro da vossa empresa. 

O quanto António Saraiva podia aprender com as toutinegras de MacArthur ou as paramécias de Gause.

Eucaliptos - dois pesos duas medidas

Não podia estar mais de acordo com estas palavras do ministro do Ambiente escritas no Expresso de ontem ao abrigo do direito de resposta:

"Falou-se da plantação da pera-abacate no Algarve. A minha opinião, tão negativa sobre esta cultura, não mereceu dúvidas a quem, na TVI, destaca frases dos entrevistados. O destaque foi: “A pera-abacate, que existe desde 2007, é uma tontice.” Foi esta a frase no rodapé do ecrã. Na entrevista, atribuo a sua plantação a mecanismos perversos de financiamento da Política Agrícola Comum (PAC) e defendo que, revista esta política europeia, a agricultura seja adaptada ao território, mormente no que respeita aos consumos de água das culturas. Depois, afirmo que “se não houver água, ela não pode ser regada”, o que só reforça a ideia de que esta é uma cultura inadaptada. Por isso, sendo correta, a citação é evocada de má-fé.

Que fique claro: é inaceitável a promoção e financiamento de atividades económicas que não respeitem os limites dos sistemas naturais

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A atividade agrícola não tem licenciamento ambiental. Isto não invalida a defesa intransigente da promoção de cadeias curtas de produção e de consumo que, naturalmente, combatem a monocultura."

Só é pena que o mesmo ministro apoie a monocultura do eucalipto.

• Julho de 2018 
• Outubro de 2019

Floresta. Programa de ordenamento florestal privilegia eucaliptos na Peneda Gerês https://t.co/U4LnpV34cV

— Carlos P da Cruz (@ccz1) May 6, 2019

BTW, por estes dias em que vejo imagens de inundações no Algarve tenho-me lembrado muitas vezes da pera-abacate. Vamos ver se este Verão se ouvem vozes a dizer que as barragens algarvias estão sem água. 

Debates e negociações (parte II)

Parte I.

"We won’t have much luck changing other people’s minds if we refuse to change ours. We can demonstrate openness by acknowledging where we agree with our critics and even what we’ve learned from them. Then, when we ask what views they might be willing to revise, we’re not hypocrites.

Convincing other people to think again isn’t just about making a good argument—it’s about establishing that we have the right motives in doing so. When we concede that someone else has made a good point, we signal that we’re not preachers, prosecutors, or politicians trying to advance an agenda. We’re scientists trying to get to the truth. “Arguments are often far more combative and adversarial than they need to be,” Harish told me. “You should be willing to listen to what someone else is saying and give them a lot of credit for it. It makes you sound like a reasonable person who is taking everything into account.”

Being reasonable literally means that we can be reasoned with, that we’re open to evolving our views in light of logic and data.

...

When I asked Harish how to improve at finding common ground, he offered a surprisingly practical tip. Most people immediately start with a straw man, poking holes in the weakest version of the other side’s case. He does the reverse: he considers the strongest version of their case, which is known as the steel man."

Trechos retirados de “The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know” de Adam Grant.

Pensar no futuro

O covid só veio acelerar as mudanças que já estavam em curso.

Interessante o que se lê sobre o Bangladesh: 

"The pandemic is not the only pressure point on fashion’s traditional supply chain. The rise of ultra-fast, online-only fashion companies is playing havoc with manufacturers’ business model, and the changing retail landscape is likely to feel long-lasting and far-reaching consequences.

Where traditional retailers would make large orders of each style, their more nimble, digital competitors have found success in a test-and-repeat model, ordering limited runs and swiftly doubling down on styles that sell. For factories, it’s a costly planning nightmare; the pivot to smaller, quicker inventory restocks could make sourcing from countries like Bangladesh and Pakistan — where lead times are longer and order minimums are relatively high — less attractive to buyers.

Manufacturers are caught shouldering much of the cost of uncertainty, with inventory volumes and associated labour requirements increasingly difficult to predict. “Those components of supply chain which have historically been much more formulated ... are now going to change, [with] speed being the name of the game,”

...

Others see opportunity in adapting to the fast-paced needs of ascendant, digitally native brands. Sean Coxall, a former executive at supply chain solutions giant Li & Fung, launched his company, 707, in January to offer supply chain solutions to direct-to-consumer upstarts. [Moi ici: Ao tempo que penso nisto. As marcas online não vão a feiras conhecer potenciais fabricantes]

“We’re changing from supply chain to demand chain,” he said. “If you’re a factory, you need to forget the old way of asking for 100 days’ lead time... you know everything needs to be a lot more flexible and agile right now.”"[Moi ici: Quantas fábricas estão preparadas para dar a volta ao modelo de produção? É mais fácil criar uma de raiz do que dar a volta à cabeça das pessoas] 

Trechos retirados de "In Fashion’s Global Supply Chain, a Ruthless Race to the Bottom" 

Debates e negociações (parte I)

Não fazia ideia de que existem campeonatos europeus e mundiais de ... debate.

"This section of the book is about convincing other people to rethink their opinions. When we’re trying to persuade people, we frequently take an adversarial approach. Instead of opening their minds, we effectively shut them down or rile them up. They play defense by putting up a shield, play offense by preaching their perspectives and prosecuting ours, or play politics by telling us what we want to hear without changing what they actually think.

...

A good debate is not a war. It’s not even a tug-of-war, where you can drag your opponent to your side if you pull hard enough on the rope. It’s more like a dance that hasn’t been choreographed, negotiated with a partner who has a different set of steps in mind. If you try too hard to lead, your partner will resist. If you can adapt your moves to hers, and get her to do the same, you’re more likely to end up in rhythm.

...

In a war, our goal is to gain ground rather than lose it, so we’re often afraid to surrender a few battles. In a negotiation, agreeing with someone else’s argument is disarming. The experts recognized that in their dance they couldn’t stand still and expect the other person to make all the moves. To get in harmony, they needed to step back from time to time.

...

The average negotiators went in armed for battle, hardly taking note of any anticipated areas of agreement. The experts, in contrast, mapped out a series of dance steps they might be able to take with the other side, devoting more than a third of their planning comments to finding common ground.

As the negotiators started discussing options and making proposals, a second difference emerged. Most people think of arguments as being like a pair of scales: the more reasons we can pile up on our side, the more it will tip the balance in our favor. Yet the experts did the exact opposite: They actually presented fewer reasons to support their case. They didn’t want to water down their best points. As Rackham put it, “A weak argument generally dilutes a strong one.

...

These habits led to a third contrast: the average negotiators were more likely to enter into defend-attack spirals. They dismissively shot down their opponents’ proposals and doubled down on their own positions, which prevented both sides from opening their minds. The skilled negotiators rarely went on offense or defense. Instead, they expressed curiosity with questions like “So you don’t see any merit in this proposal at all?”

Questions were the fourth difference between the two groups. Of every five comments the experts made, at least one ended in a question mark. They appeared less assertive, but much like in a dance, they led by letting their partners step forward."

Continua.

Trechos retirados de “The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know” de Adam Grant.

Publicidade descarada

Formação online, via zoom, sobre a implementação da ISO 14001:2015. 

25 horas - Março e Abril

Interessados podem inscrever-se por aqui.

"Business is about pleasing the customer"

"Many motivational speakers and personal coaches with a background in sport insist that sport is a fundamental metaphor for business and that the two are similar in the skills and attitudes needed for success. 

...

Sports are played within a strict and limiting set of codified rules.  If you break them you are disqualified or penalised.  In business the customer is the referee.  You can break almost any rule and get away with it provided the customer likes it (and you stay legal).  

...

Sport is all about beating the competition but if you are working in care for the elderly or a hospital you are not concerned about beating the competition.  You are concerned about collaborating with your colleagues to get the best outcomes for the client.  In business you are focused on the customer – not the competition.  Sport is about beating the opposition.  Business is about pleasing the customer."

Recordar:

• "Acerca da introdução à concorrência imperfeita" (Maio de 2015)
• "Para os que pensam demasiado na concorrência" (Janeiro de 2013)
• "David tem tudo a ganhar em fugir de um confronto directo com Golias" (Dezembro de 2012)

Trechos retirados de "Sports have Limited Lessons for Business"