"why some countries grow faster than others"

Mais uns trechos de "Windows of Opportunity: How Nations Make Wealth".

Recordar Irlanda e João Duque:

• Tamanho, produtividade e a receita irlandesa
• A caminho da Sildávia, portanto.
• Ah! Claro que os macacos não podem faltar. Eles não voam, trepam às árvores. 

"If we want to know why some countries grow faster than others, it is also important to understand that there is a ladder of economic development, the rungs of which represent different types of industry. It is a ladder developing countries have to climb in order to be successful - no developing country tries to start growing by creating a pharmaceutical industry, and no country has ever achieved a high GDP per capita by having a cheap garment industry. 

...

perhaps a more useful way of thinking about the rungs of the ladder of economic development is to see them as representing industries which require increasingly complex organisational and technological capabilities. On the bottom rungs are simple industries involved in, for example, the production of cheap clothes, the assembly of electronic components and the making of simple toys. On the top rungs are industries requiring complex organisational and technological capabilities that can only be acquired experientially, cumulatively and collectively; such as the aerospace, pharmaceutical and semiconductor industries. In simple industries, such as the production of cheap clothes or the assembly of electronic components, it is difficult for any firm to gain a competitive advantage. Consequently, the value-added per capita of firms is low, and the wages and salaries they can pay is also low.

...

Knowledge involves understanding the relationships or linkages between entities, and being able, therefore, to predict the outcome of events without having to act them out. 

...

Knowhow is different, as it involves the capacity to perform tacit actions; that is actions that cannot be explicitly described.

...

Before knowledge and knowhow can be used to make new products and services, they have to be embodied in individuals and organisations. The knowledge and knowhow that a single individual can acquire is limited, as an individual can only absorb so much information. Therefore, the knowledge and knowhow to make complex products and services have to be embodied in a number of different individuals and co-ordinated by a firm's organisation.

...

This point about the difficulty of accumulating the knowledge and knowhow to make products and services is important for two reasons. Firstly, neoclassical economists tend to assume that demand and incentives are enough to stimulate the production of a product or service anywhere in the world, and if they don't it must be because the system of allocating resources is not working efficiently. However, while incentives and demand may be enough to motivate intermediaries and traders, the people who produce goods and services also need to know how to make them.

Secondly, if the ability to accumulate the knowledge and knowhow to make products and services is difficult, it is likely that countries will have accumulated varying levels of knowledge and knowhow on their economic history, and therefore the complexity of the products and services they can produce will vary.

...

products requiring a large input of knowledge and knowhow would tend to be exported from only a few countries. Some of the products exported by a large number of countries include simple garments, such as underwear, shirts and pants; while some of the products exported by a relatively few countries include optical instruments, aircraft and medical imaging devices. Such a simple scan suggests that industries requiring less knowledge and knowhow are present in more places, as one might expect."

"man’s near- God- like quality of being able to create new things"

 

"Schumpeterian elements are deeply embedded in the German economics tradition. A focus on learning and progress, very clear in Leibniz and Wolff, is based on the Gottesähnlichkeit of man: man’s near- God- like quality of being able to create new things. Being born in the image of God meant that it was man’s pleasurable duty to invent. At its most fundamental level, the contrast between English and German economics lies in the view of the human mind. To John Locke, man’s mind is a blank slate — a tabula rasa — with which he is born, and which passively receives impressions throughout life. To Leibniz, man has an active mind that constantly compares experiences with established schemata, a mind both noble and creative.

Of Adam Smith’s ideas, the one most repudiated by German economists was that man is essentially an animal that has learned to barter. In the tradition that followed Smith, ideas and inventions have been produced outside the economic system. Karl Menger, the founder of the Austrian School of Economics, dedicated a whole chapter in his Grundrisse to refute Smith’s view on this point. In the German tradition, including Marx and Schumpeter, the view is that man is an animal who has learned to invent. Nietzsche later added the point that man is the only animal that can keep promises, and therefore creates laws and institutions. Putting these elements together, we have an impressionistic picture of what differentiates English from German economics — barter and ‘metaphysical speculation’, on the one hand, and production and institutions, on the other."

Trecho retirado de  "The Visionary Realism of German Economics: From the Thirty Years' War to the Cold War".

"blamed the "Amazon effect""

Interessante esta cascata de consequências: 

"A more than 10-fold rise in the price of cardboard since the start of the pandemic is raising concern among small UK companies that they will be unable to source boxes to send out products and parts to customers.

Demand from Amazon and other online sellers, along with border disruption and stockpiling caused by Brexit, has led to a national cardboard shortage.

"You cannot get hold of new cardboard," said Mandy Ridyard, finance director at aerospace component manufacturer Produmax. "We are holding on to the boxes we have."

Quack Snacks, which sells food pellets for wildfowl, first experienced shortages in December. "Where suppliers had always previously offered a next-day service, some box sizes were being listed with mid-January dispatch dates," said founder Andrew Hemmings.

Simon Ellin, chief executive of the Recycling Association, which represents cardboard-makers, blamed the "Amazon effect".

"There is a monumental increase in demand caused by the surge in online deliveries during the pandemic," he said. "It's a global shortage - not just the UK or EU - given huge demand from China. People are going around stealing cardboard."

Figures from letsrecycle.com, the industry database, reveal prices of old cardboard used to make new boxes rose from as low as £10 a tonne in January last year to up to £118 a tonne last month. But they have risen further since then, according to Ellin, reaching £140-£150 a tonne this month."

Trecho retirado de "Amazon effect sends cardboard prices soaring" publicado no FT do passado dia 15 de Março.

"a science based on experience"

A minha formação de base é engenharia química, não é economia. No entanto, ao longo de mais de 32 anos de experiência de contacto com empresas fui desenvolvendo o meu próprio pensamento, muitas vezes ao arrepio daquilo que é o pensamento económico do mainstream.

Algumas dessas reflexões são acerca do truque alemão e da doença anglo-saxónica. Ver, por exemplo, aqui:

• O truque alemão e não só ou 
• Portanto, cuidado com pedintes que ameaçam sair da União Europeia
• Consequências da radioclubização ou os muggles à solta

Entretanto, em "The Visionary Realism of German Economics: From the Thirty Years' War to the Cold War" encontro:

"While English economists tended to see the world through the lenses of long-distance traders, German economists often saw the world through the lenses of tax collectors of small states. The English emphasis on trade and barter, rather than on production, still today continues to be a key characteristic of mainstream economics.

...

David Ricardo’s 1817 Principles of Economics— with an even more extreme focus on barter rather than production as the determining factor in the international economy — moved economics to a much higher level of abstraction. As opposed to the German language tradition right, left and center— Joseph Schumpeter, Karl Marx and Rudolf Hilferding, respectively— Ricardo did not separate the financial sector from the real economy. This came to limit today’s understanding of financial crises. 

Ricardo’s foundation of international trade theory as represented by the barter of qualitatively identical labor hours, void of any qualities, is in my opinion perhaps the largest barrier to our present understanding of two main problems in the world economy today: poverty and large- scale migration.

...

from its very inception, German economics was that of a backward nation attempting to catch up with its wealthier neighbours.

...

Second, German economics has consistently, through the centuries, seen the economy from a different vantage point with different metaphors: essentially from the point of view of production rather than trade, and operating at a much lower level of abstraction than today’s mainstream economics and its predecessors. Third, the scope of economics in the German tradition has been much wider than in the Anglo- Saxon mainstream. Factors such as geography and history, technology and technical change, government and governance, and social problems and their remedies, have all been central to the approach since its very inception.

...

German economics is above all an Erfahrungswissenschaft — a science based on experience. There is little metaphysical speculation and high abstractions; many considered the economic theories of David Ricardo to be an example of ‘metaphysical speculation’. Strukturzusammenhänge — structural coherence and connections — among economic factors, and between the economy and the rest of society, are not only obvious, understanding such connections is also most important for both economic theory and policy. Synergies would be one example of this. Compared to Anglo- Saxon economics, the German approach has therefore always been holistic.

...

Praxisnähe — closeness to reality [Moi ici: Como não recordar Anteu e a sua perdição] — and relevance have been key criteria for academic quality in this tradition. There is also a fundamental understanding that important economic factors are irreducible to mere figures and symbols. A frequent criticism is that standard economics often produces qualitätslose Grössen, quantities that are devoid of any qualitative understanding. Even the most accurate and comprehensive description of a human being by all his or her quantifiable aspects — height, weight, percentage of water and trace minerals — would leave out the key factor in economic development, what Friedrich Nietzsche called Geist and Willenskapital: the wit and will of mankind."

Um escândalo

Imaginem ter professores deste calibre num país de carneiros como o nosso:

"One day, an eighth grader complained that the reading assignment from a history textbook was inaccurate. If you’re a teacher, that kind of criticism could be a nightmare. Using an outdated textbook would be a sign that you don’t know your material, and it would be embarrassing if your students noticed the error before you did.

But Erin [the teacher] had assigned that particular reading intentionally. She collects old history books because she enjoys seeing how the stories we tell change over time, and she decided to give her students part of a textbook from 1940. Some of them just accepted the information it presented at face value. Through years of education, they had come to take it for granted that textbooks told the truth. Others were shocked by errors and omissions. It was ingrained in their minds that their readings were filled with incontrovertible facts. The lesson led them to start thinking like scientists and questioning what they were learning: whose story was included, whose was excluded, and what were they missing if only one or two perspectives were shared?

After opening her students’ eyes to the fact that knowledge can evolve, Erin’s next step was to show them that it’s always evolving."

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

"struggling to meet demand"

 

"Sales at Honey-Can-Do International LLC are soaring, as homebound Americans snap up the Chicago-area company’s clothes racks, shelves and other housewares.

But the company’s contract manufacturers in China and Southeast Asia are so busy that they are struggling to meet demand, company founder and Chief Executive Steve Greenspon said.

Moreover, the scramble for goods produced overseas has created bottlenecks in shipping. Orders to Honey-Can-Do’s manufacturers in China that took 30 days a year and a half ago now take up to three months, while shipping costs are 50% higher, Mr. Greenspon said.

“Ships can sit offshore for weeks at a time in the U.S.,” waiting to dock at busy ports, Mr. Greenspon said. “There doesn’t seem to be any relief.”

Successful vaccination campaigns in the U.S., accumulated savings and pandemic-relief legislation are turbocharging consumer demand. That is straining the supply chains companies rely on to deliver everything from toys to cars.

....

But surveys of manufacturers indicate that lengthening delivery times—a sign that capacity is under strain—are now a near ubiquitous problem. Data firm IHS Markit reported that global delivery times were the second longest on record in February,

...

The cost of moving a 40-foot steel shipping container of toys from China to a West Coast port is now $4,500, up from $2,500 to $3,000 a year ago, Mr. Freman said. At that rate, the company’s transportation costs will increase by about $1.8 million a year, he said. Rising transportation costs have affected businesses everywhere."

Trechos retirados de "Factories Struggle To Meet Demand" no WSJ de ontem. 

"we do not live in a world of perfect competition" (parte III)

Parte I and part II.

Mais uns trechos de "Windows of Opportunity: How Nations Make Wealth".  

"Finally, I will argue that there is a ladder of economic development, the rungs of which represent products that require increasing amounts of organisational and technological capability, and which produce increasing amounts of value-added per capita due to fewer companies being able to produce them.

...

How, then, do firms increase their value-added per capita? Assuming they are not overmanned they can do it in two ways. They can increase their production efficiency by innovation or they can create a competitive advantage over their rivals based on a capabilities/market-opportunity dynamic. The first will reduce the denominator, and the second will increase the nominator in the calculation of value-added per capita.[Moi ici: Olha, olha, a minha referência ao denominador e ao numerador.] 

...

Where there is perfect competition, as in neoclassical growth theory, it is not possible for firms to gain a competitive advantage over their rivals, enabling them to raise the willingness of their customers to pay for their product or service. The entrepreneur cannot influence the price of what he produces. He or she sees or reads on their mobile phone what the market is willing to pay and is a price-taker rather than a price-maker. This situation, however, is only found in a few commodity markets for agricultural or mining products. Business-people will often refer to a product becoming a commodity, meaning it should be avoided because it is not possible to create a competitive advantage and achieve a high level of value-added.

In most markets, however, competition is not the perfect competition of neoclassical economics, and in any country at any one time, opportunities will exist in specific industries for a firm to create a competitive advantage by differentiating its product or service andmaking it more attractive to its customers.

It should be noted, however, that when an entrepreneur creates a competitive advantage, and increases value-added per capita for a firm, he also creates a disequilibrium, which as soon as it is established sets in motion the competitive process that leads to its destruction.

...

Standard textbook economics to understand economic development in terms of frictionless "perfect markets" totally misses the point. Perfect markets are for the poor."

Um mundo com concorrência perfeita

Ao ver este pequeno filme "System Error" e estas imagens:

Não pude deixar de pensar no paraíso dos crentes ou defensores da concorrência perfeita, seguidores de cromos como Chamberlin que queria proíbir as marcas.

"we do not live in a world of perfect competition" (parte II)

Parte I.

Mais uns trechos de "Windows of Opportunity: How Nations Make Wealth". 

"Very few countries have ever developed by means other than innovation, learning [Moi ici: The race to the top] and the growth exceptions to this rule have been of industrial production.

...

it is the production-capability school of thought that has proved most to policy-makers trying to increase the growth rates of their countries; while a harsh assessment would conclude that the market-efficiency school of thought, including neoclassical economics, proved most useful to policy-makers trying to stop other countries from catching them up and competing against them.

...

Starting at the beginning of the twentieth century, neoclassic economists came to view the economic problem as being the optimal allocation of scarce resources rather than one of generating productivity to overcome conditions of scarcity. [Moi ici: Era outro tempo. Recordar isto] 

...

The premise of neoclassical theory is that, if the investments are made, the acquisition and mastery of new ways of doing things is relatively easy, even automatic. [Moi ici: Recordar isto acerca do plano de recuperação e resiliência. Macacos trepam, não voam] 

...

[neo-classical economic theory] It does not see production as it in the observable world; that is, as a complex process which involves innovation and the creation of competitive advantage, and which needs an entrepreneeur to make it happen.

Secondly, it underestimates heterogeneity of production activities within and across production sectors. It ignores the issue of both what is being produced (i.e. the product) and how it is being produced i.e. the technologies and organisation used). [Moi ici: Este foi um dos temas que sempre me fez espécie, ninguém fala da variabilidade intersectorial]

...

The third element is the capability of a firm, which enables it to apply the activity-specific technology to producing the product or service in order to meet market demand, thus creating a capability/market-opportunity dynamic.  [Moi ici: É sempre mais fácil culpar o contexto externo]

The fourth element is the institutions of the country where the firm is located, which enable the capability/market-opportunity dynamic to operate effectively.  [Moi ici: Recordar "Why Nations fail". Recordar que o futuro tem um custo, se as empresas não se podem capitalizar, não podem enfrentar o futuro de forma séria e proactiva... viram zombies]

...

Because neoclassical economists have not been able to quantify these four elements and so include them in their mathematical models, they have not been able to explain why different sectors in an economy have different levels of value-added growing at different rates. 

...

the growth rate of country depends on what is happening to the value-added per capita in each of its different sectors as a result of the capability/market-opportunity dynamic, and on any shift in the distribution of economic activity across sectors. [Moi ici: Racional perfeito para fugir aos mitos]

...

[the dynamic capability school] does not assume the market economy is one of perfect competition, in which every firm is selling the same product at the same price as its competitors. This is a completely unrealistic view of the world, as can be seen by a quick trip to any shopping centre or car showroom. Instead, the dynamic capability theory assumes that, in a competitive market economy, firms compete by trying to gain a competitive advantage over their rivals, [Moi ici: Aqui torço o nariz a este trecho. Sim, mas! É outra vez o fenómeno da obliquidade, mas mais ainda. A economia não é necessariamente um jogo de soma nula. A economia não é uma guerra para eliminar o advsersário, o sucesso das empresas passa por satisfazer os clientes. Cuidado com o Dick Dastardly] as this is what enables them to grow and their profitability. It also assumes that this same type of competition exists between firms in different countries and is what determines in the long term what goods and services a country exports and imports.

The essential question that economic growth theory raises, therefore, is how do firms gain a competitive advantage over their rivals? There are two ways they can do this. Firms can either reduce the cost of their product or service through innovations in their production methods, or use innovation to make their product more attractive to their customers by better meeting their needs through enhanced performance, more functionality or improved design." [Moi ici: Recordar as três regras]

Para reflexão

"um poder sem política"

"O poder aritmético que se forma por adição e subtracção de votos parlamentares é um poder sem política, é uma sucessão de oportunismos, sem estratégia, sem crescimento económico e sem justiça social, tendo de recorrer à hipoteca do futuro através do endividamento para encobrir a sua incapacidade para construir e concretizar uma estratégia para o futuro, que é a condição de legitimação do poder político."

Trecho retirado de "Poder e política"

"we do not live in a world of perfect competition"

Apesar do pouco tempo livre, comecei a ler "Windows of Opportunity: How Nations Make Wealth". Está a ser uma excelente leitura e dá para fazer várias pontos co o que fui escrevendo aqui no blogue ao longo dos anos.

"We also need to understand that there is no economic law that says that all advanced countries will see their economies grow indefinitely, especially when they are being challenged by the rise of countries such as China today.

...

The market-efficiency school of thought includes the Physiocrats, Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Alfred Marshall, Paul Samuelson and Paul Krugman. The production-capability school of thought includes such figures as Alexander Hamilton, Friedrich List, the German Historical School and Joseph Schumpeter.

...

According to the production-capability school, however, wealth originates from innovation and creativity, with the accumulation of assets taking place as a result of discoveries and innovations changing people's stock of knowledge and their tools.

...

Secondly, the analytical focus of the two schools of thought is different. In the market-efficiency school, the focus of analysis is on barter and men and women as traders. In the production-capability school, the focus is on production and men and women as innovative producers.

.

Thirdly, because the market-efficiency school of thought was based on the trade and commerce conducted by the English, the English economists who played a large part in developing it came to see all economic activities as being qualitatively alike.[Moi ici: BINGO!!! Recordar o lead deste postal]

...

As a result, while the production-capability school of thought sees different economic activities as offering different 'windows of opportunity' for achieving national welfare, the market-efficiency school of thought sees all economic activities as having the same potential.

...

Finally, the production-capability school of thought sees no limits to progress, believing in the 'never-ending frontier of human knowledge.

...

[Friedrich] List also understood that innovation is the engine of economic growth

...

[Schumpeter] saw competition as a dynamic process of moving from one disequilibrium to another, rather than a process of moving towards equilibrium.

Secondly, he understood that we do not live in a world of perfect competition,  [Moi ici: BINGO!!!] and that the traditional theorist's focus solely on price is wrong. As he said:

In the capitalist reality as distinguished from its textbook picture, it is not [price] competition that counts but the competition from the new commodity, the new technology, the new source of supply, the new type of organisation (the largest-scale unit of control for instance)."

Thirdly, he saw the process of innovation as the engine of economic growth, remarking, "without innovation, no entrepreneurs, without entrepreneurial achievement, no capitalist returns and no capitalist propulsion?"

"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"