O fim da globalização (parte V)

O fim da globalização (parte IV) + Parte I, parte II  e parte III.

O autor prevê o colapso do comércio intercontinental por causa da ascenção da pirataria. Uma perspectiva interessante que nos obriga a pensar no que tomamos como garantido:

"Long-haul transport is what brings everything from areas of high supply to high demand, regardless of participant. For any product that is concentrated in terms of supply or demand, expect market collapse.

...

The Western Hemisphere is fine for foodstuffs and energy but will need to build out its manufacturing capacity for products as wildly varied as laptops and shoes. The German bloc’s manufacturing capacity is largely in-house, but the raw inputs that enable it to operate are wholly absent. The Japanese and Chinese are going to have to head out to secure food and energy and raw materials and markets. It’s a good thing that Japan likes to manufacture products where it sells them, and fields a potent long-reach navy. It’s a bad thing that most of China’s navy can’t make it past Vietnam, even in an era of peace

...

First and most obvious are the pirates. Any zone without a reasonably potent local naval force is one that is all but certain to host Somalia-style pirate harassment. Second and less obvious are the privateers, in essence pirates sponsored by an actual country to harass their competitors, and who have been granted rights to seek succor, fuel, and crew (and sell their *ahem* booty) in allied ports.

...

The third security concern isn’t likely to be constrained to the no-man’s-lands: state piracy. We’re moving into a world where the ability to import anything—whether it be iron ore or diesel fuel or fertilizer or wire or mufflers—will be sharply circumscribed.

...

Everything we’ve come to expect about transport since 1946 dies in this world. Bigger, slower, more specialized vessels are little more than tasty floating buffets for whatever privateer or pirate (state or otherwise) happens to be in the area. Larger vessels might maximize efficiency in a unified, low-threat world, but in a fractured, high-threat environment they also concentrate risk.

...

That’s a massive problem for German manufacturing, as many of its suppliers are from beyond the horizon and roughly half of its customers aren’t even in Europe."

Trechos retirados de "The End of the World is Just the Beginning" de Peter Zeihan. 

Curiosidade do dia

 Não percebo a comoção:

O Guardian pública hoje uma extensíssima investigação sobre o modo como a Uber se impôs no mundo, em particular na Europa, quebrando leis, aliciando políticos e promovendo violência. Macron não sai nada bem do filme revelado por mais de 120 mil e-mails a que o jornal teve acesso. pic.twitter.com/RCokYczW3c

— Carlos Vaz Marques (@cvazmarques) July 11, 2022

Recordo daqui:

"É claro que muitos olham para hoje e vêem as Uber e as AirBnB e adivinham um futuro dominado por essas mega-plataformas. Prefiro considerá-las como entidades transitórias, úteis para dinamitar as grilhetas criadas pelos governos para proteger os incumbentes do Normalistão. Depois? Depois, virão as plataformas de 2ª geração ou cooperativas, porque existe estratégia em todo o lado, às vezes é só uma questão de tempo." 

O fim da globalização (parte IV)

Recently leaked China's population data confirm my estimates: births began to decline in 1991, with no peak in 2004 or 2011; Population is now less than 1.28 billion, not the official 1.41 billion; Population began to shrink in 2018, not 2031 as officially predicted. pic.twitter.com/xCge7cTRFS

— 易富贤YI Fuxian《大国空巢》 (@fuxianyi) July 9, 2022

Parte I, parte II  e parte III.

"The average grocery store today has about forty thousand individual items, up from about two hundred at the dawn of the twentieth century.

...

Take this concept of utter availability, apply it to absolutely everything, and you now have a glimmer of the absolute connectivity that underpins the modern, globalized economy. The ingredients of today’s industrial and consumer goods are only available because they can be moved from—literally—halfway around the world at low costs and high speeds and in perfect security. Phones, fertilizers, oil, cherries, propylene, single-malt whiskey . . . you name it, it is in motion. All. The. Time. Transportation is the ultimate enabler.

...

The East India Company traded about 50 tons of tea a year at the start of the nineteenth century and 15,000 toward the end of it. Today that same 15,000 tons is loaded or unloaded somewhere in the world every forty-five seconds or so.

...

In the age of globalization, everyone could get in on global access, manufacturing, and mass consumption. No longer was value-added work sequestered to the Imperial Centers. Manufacturing elsewhere required fuel and raw materials. Expanding industrial bases and infrastructure elsewhere required the same. Expanding middle classes elsewhere demanded even more.

...

In a world "safe" for all, the world's "successful" geographies could no longer lord over and/or exploit the rest. A somewhat unintended side effect of this was to demote geography from its fairly deterministic role in gauging the success or failure of a country, to something that became little more than background noise. Those geographies once left behind could now bloom in safety.

...

The ability to diversify supply systems over any distance means it is economically advantageous to break up manufacturing into dozens, even thousands of individual steps. Workers building this or that tiny piece of widget become very good at it, but they are clueless as to the rest of the process. The workforce that purifies silicon dioxide does not and cannot create silicon wafers, does not and cannot build motherboards, and does not and cannot code.

This combination of reach and specialization takes us to a very clear, and foreboding, conclusion: no longer do the goods consumed in a place by a people reflect the goods produced in a place by a people. The geographies of consumption and production are unmoored."

Segundo o autor de "The End of the World is Just the Beginning", Peter Zeihan, a globalização está a descarrilar pelo descalabro demográfico nos países produtores e consumidores, e pelo fim da Ordem Americana. Há muito que escrevo sobre a desglobalização, mas por causa de Mongo. A demografia é uma variável que raramente é considerada como refiro na parte III. 

Alguns flashes sobre o futuro

Alguns flashes sobre o futuro:

• The rental washing machine arrives: Haier revolutionizes laundry

Pay-per-wash com manutenção e consumíveis incluídos. 

• Grupo de Braga constrói hotel em Guimarães, com seis pisos, em 10 meses

Isto para mim é voltar a 2004-2008 e a um projecto industrial nesta vertente. (Uma harmonia de propostas de valor recíprocas). Destruído por um suicidio na Alemanha na sequência do VW short squeeze.

Por que é então uma das [regiões] mais pobres de toda a UE?

Ouvi o elogio de JMF ao Norte a partir da perspectiva que concordo. Deixo no entanto aqui o desafio: sendo uma região tão bem sucedida em termos económicos, porque é então uma das mais pobres de toda a UE?

— pvsalvador (@pvsalvador1) July 6, 2022

Uma excelente pergunta.

Julgo que a razão está ilustrada nesta figura:

Figura usada em:

• Mea culpa (parte II) - Novembro de 2021
• Competitividade sem competitividade? Mas o que é ser competitivo? - Junho de 2022

Muitas empresas da região Norte conseguem ser competitivas, mas não são produtivas (aqui no sentido de produtividade que gera margens superiores). Conseguem ser competitivas porque os clientes não compram simplesmento de acordo com o preço mais baixo, também valorizam a rapidez, a flexibilidade e algum design. No entanto, como estão em sectores tradicionais, os preços conseguidos nunca conseguem libertar margens superiores porque o preço unitário nunca pode atingir um valor que os consumidores não são capazes de suportar em loja. O que José Manuel Fernandes e muitos economistas defendem é que estas empresas precisam de crescer para serem mais produtivas, só que isso não é possível. Empresas maiores nestes sectores tradicionais já não competem com base na flexibilidade e rapidez, mas no preço custo puro e simples. Isso requer outro tipo de organização interna, outro tipo de hardware da produção, outro tipo de actividade comercial para outro tipo de clientes.

Por mais que se pressione estas empresas tradicionais a aumentarem a sua produtividade, os ganhos possíveis serão sempre baixos e não permitirão colmatar o gap com a média europeia. Porque os ganhos necessários dependem do crescimento do numerador na equação da produtividade (recordar o Evangelho do Valor).

Quer dizer que estamos condenados a estes níveis de produtividade? Não, mas para mudarmos de paradigma temos de ter outros agentes económicos, temos de, sem atacar as empresas existentes, criar as condições para que outras apareçam para que esta evolução ocorra:

Recordar, por exemplo este postal - The "flying geese" model, ou deixem as empresas morrer!!! de Novembro de 2021.

Reparar que o Japão não ficou mais rico porque porque criou empresas têxteis maiores, ficou mais rico porque fizeram o mesmo que os franceses e alemães nos anos 70, as empresas têxteis incapazes de competir com os salários praticados por outros sectores emergentes migraram para outros países. Não digo que se matem empresas, digo simplesmente: deixem as empresas morrer, ponto!!!

Como é que podemos promover esta transformação? Portugal não tem capital, nem know-how, ... devíamos aprender a lição irlandesa - Tamanho, produtividade e a receita irlandesa.

Qual o grande risco que Portugal pode correr? Fazer tudo para manter artificialmente as empresas de um sector, por exemplo "industrializando" a importação massiça de trabalhadores asiáticos.

Recordar:

• Mais bofetadas e a turbulência em curso - Novembro de 2019
• Bofetadas e locus de controlo - produtividade é que não. - Novembro de 2019 (Estávamos no mundo pré-covid, com o turismo a bombar ... recuem a esse tempo. O que tínhamos? "Sector a bombar como nunca esteve, sector com falta de pessoal para trabalhar e pede que os contribuintes os apoiem com dinheiro para manter a empregabilidade!!!"
• Uma bofetada que recebo como um aviso - Agosto de 2019 

A escolha com os pés

 

"With the world’s consumption-led economies taking responsibility for more and more of their own production and becoming more and more insular, there simply won’t be many economic opportunities for working-age adults living in export-led systems, much less postgrowth systems. Even if such weakening countries survive, their workers will have a choice between steadily higher tax rates to support their aging populations, or leaving. Expect a lot of the world’s remaining labor—especially its high-skilled labor—to soon be knocking on America’s door."

Relacionar com o que por cá já acontece, "FMI quer mexidas no sistema de pensões e Governo concorda".

O problema não é o irs, o problema sãos os trinta e tal % que o ponzi da segurança social come

— Carlos P da Cruz 🇺🇦 (@ccz1) October 22, 2021

Trecho retirado de "The End of the World is Just the Beginning" de Peter Zeihan.

Imagem retirada de "Ide, ide"

 

O fim da globalização (parte III)

Parte I e parte II. 

Na parte II ilustro como o autor aborda o tema do colapso demográfico. Nesta parte III sublinho os trechos que se seguem:

"More products. More players. Bigger markets. More markets. Easier transport. More interconnectivity. More trade. More capital. More technology. More integration. More financial penetration. More and bigger and bigger and more. A world of more.

Ever since Columbus sailed the ocean blue, human economics have been defined by this concept of more. The world's evolution within the idea of more, this reasonable expectation of more, is ultimately what destroyed the old economies of the pre-deepwater imperial and feudal systems. 

...

Geopolitics tells us the post–World War II and especially the post–Cold War economic booms were artificial and transitory. Going back to something more “normal” by definition requires . . . shrinkage. Demographics tells us that the number and collective volume of mass-consumption-driven economies has already peaked. In 2019 the Earth for the first time in history had more people aged sixty-five and over than five and under. By 2030 there will be twice as many retirees, in relative terms.

...

Combine geopolitics and demographics and we know there will be no new mass consumption systems. Even worse, the pie that is the global economy isn't going to simply shrink; it is being fractured into some very nonintegrated pieces, courtesy of American inaction.

...

We aren't simply looking at a demographically induced economic breakdown; we are looking at the end of a half millennium of economic history.

...

First, everything is going to change. Whatever new economic system or systems the world develops will be something we're unlikely to recognize as being viable today. We will probably need far higher volumes of capital (retirees absorb it like sponges), but we'll have far less of it (fewer workers means fewer taxpayers). That suggests economic growth and technological progress (both of which require capital as an input) will stall out.

...

Second, the process will be the very definition of traumatic. The concept of more has been our guiding light as a species for centuries. From a certain point of view, the past seventy years of globalization have simply been "more" on steroids, a sharp uptake on our long-cherished economic understandings. Between the demographic inversion and the end of globalization, we are not simply ending our long experience with more, or even beginning a terrifying new world of less; we face economic free fall as everything that has underpinned humanity's economic existence since the Renaissance unwinds all at once."

Já repararam que no discurso ambiental este tema não é referido? No cenário central, até 2080 Portugal perde 2 milhões de habitantes. Ao mesmo tempo que o número de idosos crescerá mais um milhão de pessoas e a população em idade ativa (15 a 64 anos) diminuirá de 6,6 para 4,2 milhões de pessoas. O tipo e quantidade de consumo vai cair.

O autor, americano, julgo que vítima da doença anglo-saxónica foca-se muito na produção em massa. Teremos menos produção em massa e mais Mongo. Por isso, este capítulo designado "The end of more". Teremos menos globalização e mais blocos económicos.

Trechos retirados de "The End of the World is Just the Beginning" de Peter Zeihan. 

Curiosidade do dia

No mesmo dia em que leio "Costa diz a empresários alemães que Portugal é de confiança com estabilidade política e contas certas", leio também:

We are proud of our 🇪🇪 tax system. Simple, transparent and with few exemptions. https://t.co/EetSMXWbAZ

— Kaja Kallas (@kajakallas) July 6, 2022

Sim, 35º em 37 países (corporate tax rank)

 

O fim da globalização (parte II)

Part I.

O autor faz uma descrição do rápido envelhecimento das sociedades industrializadas. Aponta para um tipo de economia em que nunca vivemos no passado. No passado, "much of the economic growth comes from a swelling population". Agora, com a paragem do crescimento primeiro e, depois, com o colapso populacional que começará durante esta década, entraremos em "terra incógnita".

"Globalization was always dependent upon the Americans’ commitment to the global Order and that Order hasn’t served Americans’ strategic interests since the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. Without the Americans riding herd on everyone, it is only a matter of time before something in East Asia or the Middle East or the Russian periphery (like, I don’t know, say, a war) breaks the global system beyond repair . . . assuming that the Americans don’t do it themselves.

...

A central factor in every growth story that accompanies industrialization is that much of the economic growth comes from a swelling population. What most people miss is that there's another step in the industrialization cumurbanization process: lower mortality increases the population to such a degree that it overwhelms any impact from a decline in birth rates . but only for a few decades. Eventually gains in longevity max out, leaving a country a greater population, but with few children. Yesterday's few children leads to today's few young workers leads to tomorrow's few mature workers. And now, at long last, tomorrow has arrived.

...

No matter how you crunch the numbers, China in 2022 is the fastest-aging society in human history.

...

The country's demographic contraction is now occurring just as quickly as its expansion, with complete demographic collapse certain to occur within a single generation. China is amazing, just not for the reasons most opine. The country will soon have traveled from preindustrial levels of wealth and health to postindustrial demographic collapse in a single human lifetime. With a few years to spare. Nor will China die alone. The time-staggered nature of the industrialization process-from Britain to Germany to Russia and northwestern Europe and Japan to Korea to Canada and Spain combined with the steadily accelerating nature of that process, means that much of the world's population faces mass retirements followed by population crashes at roughly the same time. The world's demographic structure passed the point of no return twenty to forty years ago. The 2020s are the decade when it all breaks apart.

For countries as varied as China, Russia, Japan, Germany, Italy, South Korea, Ukraine, Canada, Malaysia, Taiwan, Romania, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Austria, the question isn't when these countries will age into demographic obsolescence. All will see their worker cadres pass into mass retirement in the 2020s. None have sufficient young people to even pretend to regenerate their populations. All suffer from terminal demographics. The real questions are how and how soon do their societies crack apart? And do they deflate in silence or lash out against the dying of the light?

...

Economic development, quality of life, longevity, health, and demographic expansion are all subject to the whims of globalization. Or rather, in this case, deglobalization."

Trechos retirados de "The End of the World is Just the Beginning" de Peter Zeihan.

O fim da globalização (parte I)

"Globalization brought development and industrialization to a wide swath of the planet for the first time, generating the mass consumption societies and the blizzard of trade and the juggernaut of technological progress we all find so familiar. And that reshaped global demographics. Mass development and industrialization extended life spans, while simultaneously encouraging urbanization. For decades that meant more and more workers and consumers, the people who give economies some serious go. One outcome among many was the fastest economic growth humanity has ever seen. Decades of it.

...

The American-led Order is giving way to Disorder. Global aging didn't stop once we reached that perfect moment of growth. Aging continued. It's still continuing. The global worker and consumer base is aging into mass retirement. In our rush to urbanize, no replacement generation was ever born.

Since 1945 the world has been the best it has ever been. The best it will ever be. Which is a poetic way of saying this era, this world-our world-is doomed. The 2020s will see a collapse of consumption and production and investment and trade almost everywhere. Globalization will shatter into pieces. Some regional. Some national. Some smaller. It will be costly. It will make life slower. And above all, worse. No economic system yet imagined can function in the sort of future we face.

...

The coming global Disorder and demographic collapse will do more than condemn a multitude of countries to the past; it will herald the rise of others."

"The End of the World is Just the Beginning" de Peter Zeihan.

Os trouxas engolem tudo

O que nos disse Welch em 2006 quando veio a Portugal? Lembram-se disto?

"Afirmou também que« os gestores que apenas gostam de números e que não querem saber de pessoas – mas elas existem na empresa! – são uns idiotas»."

E o que praticava? Ver "How Jack Welch Revolutionized the American Economy":

"He “instituted a series of mass layoffs,” and enthusiastically industrialized even this process by rating every employee and then each year firing the lowest-rated 10 percent."

Recordar:

• Apologia da flexibilidade - Junho de 2010
• Passou-lhe completamente ao lado ... no fim MacGyver vence a Sandy - Abril de 2011

Continuam a querer que comamos gelados com a testa

Em 2009 escrevi aqui no blogue sobre as espécies que vivem à boca das fumarolas - Fake recoveries, os 3 amigos e a linguagem de carroceiro. Há dias em "Expert opinion" citei este trecho:

"The scholar, of course, had an answer. Scholars always have an answer. To him, the greatness of an idea should be judged by a panel of experts who opine on whether the idea is “novel” and “technically brilliant.” However, in the business context, “well executed” means commercially successful. When I pointed out that there is no known correlation between expert opinion on novelty or technical brilliance and commercial success"

Agora, encontro mais um exemplo da Big Man Economy tão querida das elites portuguesas, "Banco de Fomento vai capitalizar 12 empress de "interesse nacional", incluindo a de Mário Ferreira". Empresas tão boas, ou com projectos tão bons que nem têm acesso a capital da banca comercial.

Lembram-se das campeãs nacionais e as empresas PIN? 

• Os PIN
• Fiem-se nos PIN's e nos campeões nacionais e não corram não, que eu não quero
• Campeões nacionais versus campeões escondidos
• Comemos gelados com a testa!!!

 

Já lhe falaram? (parte II)

Parte I.

Interessante encontrar este exemplo dos dias de hoje, "Falta de stock, el mayor freno en la compra online para el 43% de los consumidores", relacioná-lo com este artigo do mês passado, "A “globalização” morreu. Viva a “blocalização!", com a possibilidade desta política por mais 5 anos, "Alarm in Beijing after announcement zero-Covid policy may last five years".

Com estas forças em movimento como é que nos podiam prometer nem há 1 mês que a inflação alta era transitória? Por que tivemos inflação baixa nas últimas décadas? Por causa da globalização. Se ela está a acabar ...

Entretanto, começo a ler "The End of the World is Just the Beginning" de Peter Zeihan:

“Perhaps the oddest thing of our soon-to-be present is that while the Americans revel in their petty, internal squabbles, they will barely notice that elsewhere the world is ending!!! Lights will flicker and go dark. Famine’s leathery claws will dig deep and hold tight. Access to the inputs—financial and material and labor—that define the modern world will cease existing in sufficient quantity to make modernity possible. The story will be different everywhere, but the overarching theme will be unmistakable: the last seventy-five years long will be remembered as a golden age, and one that didn’t last nearly long enough at that.

The center point of this book is not simply about the depth and breadth of changes in store for every aspect of every economic sector that makes our world our world. It is not simply about history once again lurching forward. It is not simply about how our world ends. The real focus is to map out what everything looks like on the other side of this change in condition. What are the new parameters of the possible? In a world deglobalized, what are the new Geographies of Success?

What comes next?”

Já lhe falaram?

Governo alemão reactiva o uso de centrais a carvão. - Fonte.

Governo alemão fala em racionar o consumo de energia. - Fonte.

Governo alemão regressa a austeridade, cortando pessoal e orçamento de 7 ministérios. - Fonte.

E Portugal, já ouviu alguma coisa acerca do futuro a médio prazo?

Já lhe falaram sobre as implicações da ferramenta anti-fragmentação do euro para Portugal? - Fonte

Já percebeu que Mário Centeno gostaria que o prazo do PRR fosse ampliado? - Fonte

E em cima do PRR ainda se constrói um aeroporto e um TGV? 

"Expert opinion"

E termino a leitura de "A New Way to Think" de Roger Martin com:

“The scholar, of course, had an answer. Scholars always have an answer. To him, the greatness of an idea should be judged by a panel of experts who opine on whether the idea is “novel” and “technically brilliant.” However, in the business context, “well executed” means commercially successful. When I pointed out that there is no known correlation between expert opinion on novelty or technical brilliance and commercial success, he simply restated the proposition in a different way: “Creativity is the potential of an idea, and execution is the extent to which that potential is realized.” Of course, there was no definition of potential or how it would be measured in his response. I gave up trying any further.”

Curiosidade do dia

 

"Value Conversations "

"Value Conversations are, well, valuable. This is the best way I've seen to estimate how much value someone receives from a solution. The point of value-based pricing is to charge what a buyer is willing to pay, and the more value they receive, the more they're willing to pay. It has always been hard for a salesperson to estimate a buyer's value from a solution. Here's what's funny. It's often tough for a buyer to know how much value they will receive from a solution. Value Conversations helps you and the buyer understand the R part of ROI.

Great salespeople master this technique. They clearly understand many problems and desired results typical in the industry they serve. They know what's important to their buyers and how they make money. But even though they have all this knowledge in their head, they shouldn't spew it out. Instead, they must guide the buyer while the buyer provides the answers."

Trecho retirado de "Selling Value: How to Win More Deals at Higher Prices" de Mark Stiving

Curiosidade do dia

"Raising labour productivity"

"one problem fills the screen: the country’s anaemic growth rate. A healthier economy would raise people’s living standards; faster growth is the way to square the circle between lower taxes and better public services. Yet the oecd, a club of rich countries, reckons that only heavily sanctioned Russia will fare worse in the g20 in 2023. And whereas average annual gdp growth over the decade preceding the 2007-09 financial crisis was 2.7%, the Office for Budget Responsibility (obr), a fiscal watchdog, predicts the new normal is closer to 1.7%.

...

Zoom out again, and it is clear that Britain’s growth problem is long-standing and getting worse.

In the coming months we will publish a series of articles on how to get Britain growing again. But first it is vital to understand how bad things are. That means focusing on one issue—productivity.

Over the long run productivity growth, or the ability to produce more with less, is all that really matters for rising living standards. Although in theory economies can grow when people work longer hours, at some point that strategy is limited by employees’ health and the number of hours in a day. Raising labour productivity, or the amount workers can produce in an hour, can happen with investment. Or it can happen with greater total factor productivity (tfp), a measure of the overall efficiency with which capital and workers are used. tfp can be traced to factors like better management practices or stiffer competition."

Trechos retirados de "Britain’s productivity problem is long-standing and getting worse"

Isto está tudo relacionado

Isto está tudo relacionado.

"Europe’s productivity problem is partly due to the rise of zombie firms that crowd out growth opportunities for others." [Moi ici: É preciso salvar as empresas, segundo o mantra português]

"On the supply side, the tight labor market may raise productivity growth, providing an extra boost to the economy." [Moi ici: É preciso importar mão-de-obra barata para que se salvem as empresas, é o que se ouve e lê nos jornais]

"Os numeros mostram que 47% dos nossos empresários não terminaram o ensino secundário e isso é chocante." [Moi ici: Alguém impede os que terminaram o ensino secundário de empreender? Por que não empreendem?]

"The talented and more productive choose entrepreneurship. (Asymmetric Information is when one party has more or better information than the other.) In this case the entrepreneurs know something potential employers don’t – that nowhere on their resume does it show resiliency, curiosity, agility, resourcefulness, pattern recognition, tenacity and having a passion for products." [Moi ici: Quem não termina o secundário e sente que tem capacidades que o seu CV não revela ...]

"If resources flow from low-productivity firms to firms with high productivity, reallocation will be productivity-enhancing even if average firm productivity does not change. If resources flowed instead to low-productivity firms, resources become misallocated. Several studies report increasing misallocation of resources since before the Global Financial Crisis." 

A solução é dar formação

A solução é dar formação grita o coro das carpideiras do costume. Então, qual é a causa do problema? Então, quais os temas dessa formação? Então, quem são os animadores dessa formação? Então, quais são as experiências formativas para essa formação?

Where the rubber meets the road?

Uma fonte: 

"The go-to response for organizational issues is typically some form of reactionary training. The mantra goes like this: Design the training. Deliver it. Move on.

Unfortunately, successful training doesn’t actually work that way. Although it might make you feel like you’re doing something, this method rarely solves the underlying problems. Rather, it becomes an expensive line item. 

...

Still, training remains many organizations’ first line of defense because it’s easier for senior leaders to authorize it instead of spending time evaluating core issues or mentoring colleagues. But a Band-Aid isn’t a long-term solution. Without proper ongoing treatment, the wound won’t heal — and your problem will persist.

...

1. What is the gap you think training will bridge?

Typically, training occurs due to a difference between a desired and actual performance or behavior. You’ll want to define that gap before searching for solutions. For example, if the gap has been caused by new processes, upgraded equipment, or revised policies, formal training could solve the issue.

Just remember that people need to want training for it to be effective. If they’re not affected by the gap you point out, they won’t be invested in fixing anything. [Moi ici: Costumo escrever aqui no blogue que o papel dos empresários não é aumentar a produtividade do país, mas o sucesso do seu negócio] The participants must be curious and want to learn. When they are, they’re more apt to listen carefully, ask questions, and apply knowledge." [Retirado de "More Training Won’t Solve Your Company’s Problems"]

Outra fonte:

"Training has become the panacea for every corporate ill, the default answer to improving productivity, retaining talent, and even taming the wage-price spiral. But it increasingly feels like a substitute for good management. I keep meeting people who are being forced to attend workshops which aren't relevant to their job, or seem like virtue-signalling. As one weary charity worker said to me, "we always have to say the course was wonderful, or we get treated like s**t".

...

An article in Harvard Business Review claims that most organisations don't measure how effective their training is. One trainer describes his sessions as "spray and pray: we don't know what will stick"." [Retirado de "Better management, not endless training, will solve our corporate ills"]

Formas de ver o mundo que se excluem

"continuam centrados na ideia de que o aumento dos gastos é a solução para todos os problemas“, critica a ex-presidente do Conselho das Finanças Públicas, assinalando que “custo de oportunidade dos diferentes gastos é ignorado, implicitamente considerado nulo”. Em suma, em Portugal “os recursos continuam a ser tidos por infinitos”.

Isso também é visível, segundo a ex-quadro do Banco de Portugal, na falta de estudos sobre os “os resultados reais desses gastos”, cuja avaliação “raramente está disponível”.

...

“Quando os problemas continuam, apenas se apela a ‘mais recursos’, a mais impostos, mais dívida e, mais recentemente – pressão europeia oblige – a cortes contraproducentes em áreas que escapam ao escrutínio até os resultados se tornarem ostensivos. Ou até à próxima crise“, finaliza Teodora Cardoso."

Entretanto, na semana passada, durante a leitura de "A New Way to Think" de Roger Martin sublinhei o que ele escreveu sobre os custos e os proveitos das empresas:

"Costs lend themselves wonderfully to planning, because by and large they are under the control of the company. For the vast majority of costs, the company plays the role of customer. It decides how many good or service, and so even severance or shutdown costs can be under its control.

...

The bottom line, therefore, is that the predictability of costs is fundamentally different from the predictability of revenue. Planning can't and won't make revenue magically appear, and the effort you spend creating revenue plans is a distraction from the strategist's much harder job: finding ways to acquire and keep customers."

 Duas formas de ver o mundo que se excluem.

Trechos retirados de "Em Portugal, "aumento dos gastos ea solução para todos os problemas", critica Teodora Cardoso" 

good strategy is ...

"All executives know that strategy is important. But almost all also find it scary because it forces them to confront a future they can only guess at. Worse, actually choosing a strategy entails making decisions that explicitly cut off possibilities and options. An executive may well fear that getting those decisions wrong will wreck his or her career.

...

important truth about planning: it is no substitute for strategy. Planning may be an excellent way to cope with fear of the unknown, but fear and discomfort are an essential part of strategy-making. In fact, if you are entirely comfortable with your strategic plan, there's a strong chance it isn't very good. ... You need to be uncomfortable and apprehensive: true strategy is about placing bets and making hard choices. The objective is not to eliminate risk but to increase the odds of success.

In this worldview, managers accept that good strategy is not the product of hours of careful research and modeling that lead to an inevitable and almost perfect conclusion. Instead, it's the result of a simple and quite rough-and-ready process of thinking through what it would take to achieve what you want and then assessing whether it's realistic to try. If executives adopt this definition, then maybe, just maybe, they can keep strategy where it should be: outside the comfort zone of planning."

Trechos retirados de "A New Way to Think" de Roger Martin.

Depois do hype: O mastim dos Baskerville!

Agora que passou o hype e que as carpideiras já se recolheram, acrescento o meu comentário sobre o relatório do estado da nação publicado pela Fundação José Neves.

 Começo por este trecho que encontrei em “Carlos Oliveira. "Temos empresas demasiado preocupadas com o Estado, com os apoios, com os incentivos"” (BTW, este título remete-me para uma série de postais publicados aqui no blog ao longo dos anos, como este: “O by-pass” ao estado e ao país):

O que faz o governo de turno quando as empresas (como a Sonae, ou a Aquinos) não podem suportar os salários mínimos? Lança um apoio. Recordar “No país do Chapeleiro Louco (parte II)” em 2022, ou “Acham isto normal? Ou a inconsistência estratégica! Ou jogar bilhador como um amador!” em 2009. Recordo “Aspirar por objectivos sem ter coragem para a disciplina que requerem”.

O trecho acima faz-me voltar ao postal da semana passada “Competitividade sem competitividade? Mas o que é ser competitivo?” e à figura:

Enquanto escrevo estas linhas, mão amiga envia-me pelo Twitter este artigo “Grandes marcas de calçado desportivo desviam encomendas da Ásia para Portugal”. Isto é mau? Claro que não, claro que é bom ponto.

No entanto, volto ao tema dos “flying geese”:

Em “The "flying geese" model, ou deixem as empresas morrer!!!” é possível ver o exemplo da história do sector do calçado na cidade de St. Louis nos Estados Unidos. 

Um país com níveis de produtividade superior não pode ser construído com base em sectores competitivos, mas com baixa produtividade.

Estão a ver a consequência imediata desta conclusão? Mata o que se segue:

Este tweet é representativo de parte das conclusões do referido relatório. Se os empresários e os trabalhadores tiverem mais qualificações as empresas alcançarão níveis de produtividade superior. Mais qualificações não permitem mais produtividade? Claro que sim, mas são aquilo a que chamo as melhorias de engenheiro. Recordo de 2009 “Actualizem o documento por favor”. 

A produtividade é um rácio entre entradas e saídas, ou um rácio entre os recursos utilizados e o valor gerado, como ilustro em “Acerca do Evangelho do Valor”:

 

Quando o relatório refere:

“e não há produtividade sem qualificações, pelo que é essencial apostar na formação ao longo da vida, na reconversão e aquisição de competências.

...

Há ainda o problema das qualificações dos gestores, em que quase não se tem visto investimento, com o país a apresentar a maior percentagem de empregadores que não terminou O ensino secundário. "Em 2021, era o caso para 47,5% dos empregadores, praticamente o triplo da média europeia (16,4%).”

Podemos acreditar que a produtividade cresce com mais qualificações, mas esse crescimento é pouco para o que o país precisa, esse crescimento é baseado sobretudo na melhoria da eficiência, na redução das entradas. As melhorias de produtividade que o país precisa são aquelas que são baseadas em brutais aumentos do valor criado. Mais valor criado traduz-se em preços mais elevados. As melhorias de produtividade que o país precisa são baseadas no gráfico de Marn e Rosiello como explico em “Para aumentar salários ... (parte IV)”:

 

E isto leva-nos à lição dos finlandeses que aprendi em 2007:

"It is widely believed that restructuring has boosted productivity by displacing low-skilled workers and creating jobs for the high skilled."
Mas, e como isto é profundo:
"In essence, creative destruction means that low productivity plants are displaced by high productivity plants."

E isto leva-nos a um pedido que faço aqui no blogue há muitos anos: DEIXEM AS EMPRESAS MORRER!!!

Mais formação para os trabalhadores actuais ou futuros não resolve o problema porque o problema não está na oferta do mercado de trabalho, o problema está na falta de procura para trabalhadores mais qualificados. Mais formação dos trabalhadores num país sem procura por ela promove a emigração. Recordar o postal “Lerolero”: 

“In my experience, well-educated Haitians are very easy to find as taxi drivers in the French-speaking part of Canada. An estimated 82 per cent of Jamaican medical doctors practise abroad. Seventy per cent of all inhabitants of Guyana with a university education work outside the country. North American hospitals vacuum up poor English-speaking countries like Trinidad for nurses, while in many places in the Caribbean Cuban nurses are the ones that keep the health sector functioning.”

Mais formação para os trabalhadores actuais é um tema que sigo no blogue desde a primeira década deste século com as promessas de amor de Sócrates. Recordar o tema da caridadezinha em “Caridadezinha strikes again”:

"The problem is that poverty and unemployment are not much influenced by the qualities and qualifications of the workforce. They depend, rather, on the state of demand for labor. They depend on whether firms want to hire all the workers who may be available and at the pay rates that firms are willing, or required, to offer, especially to the lowest paid."

Neste podcast, “Formação e salários: não podemos nivelar por baixo”, João Ferreira do Amaral pede estudos, sector a sector, para comparar as empresas mais produtivas de outros países com as empresas portuguesas, para retirar ensinamentos. E regresso a 2011 e a uma tarde de Verão em Guimarães a fazer horas para entrar numa empresa, e ao que aprendi com mais uns nórdicos em “Acerca da produtividade, mais uma vez (parte I)”. Comparar sector a sector é, inconscientemente, assumir que as saídas de cada empresa são semelhantes e que as diferenças estão na forma de gerir as entradas para produzir as saídas. O que os nórdicos me chamaram a atenção é que não faz sentido comparar a produtividade de quem faz sapatos que saem de uma mini-fábrica-ateliê a 600 euros o par com quem faz 2000 pares de sapatos por dia a 25 euros o par. Recordo de 2010, “As anedotas”. 

Percebo que a Fundação José Neves e outras entidades se foquem na formação porque é algo que se pode planear e porque é algo que agrada a uma vasta fauna de partes interessadas instaladas no terreno e habituadas a viver da formação.

Então quem vai dar formação aos empresários? Daniel Bessa? Alguém de entre estes outros 24 cromos?

Deixem os empresários que estão a trabalhar em paz. Saúdem o seu esforço. Concentrem-se no que chamo o mastim dos Baskerville. Concentrem-se nas empresas e nos empresários que não existem. As melhorias de produtividade que o país precisa dependem das empresas e dos empresários que não existem. Recordo “Empresários e escolaridade ou signaling”. 

Por fim, volto ao exemplo irlandês. Acredita que o brutal salto de produtividade na Irlanda foi conseguido à custa dos empresários irlandeses? Se acredita que sim, pense outra vez. Recordo, “Tamanho, produtividade e a receita irlandesa”. 

Lembre-se do mastim dos Baskerville.

 

"you must organize around projects"

"a different way of thinking about knowledge work: you must organize around projects, not jobs.

...

Knowledge workers don’t manufacture products or perform basic services. But they do produce something, and it is perfectly reasonable to characterize their work as the production of decisions: decisions about what to sell, at what price, to whom, with what advertising strategy, through what logistics system, in what location, and with what staffing levels.

At desks and in meeting rooms, every day of their working lives, knowledge workers hammer away in decision factories. Their raw materials are data, either from their own information systems or from outside providers. They produce lots of memos and presentations full of analyses and recommendations. They engage in production processes—called meetings—that convert this work to finished goods in the form of decisions. Or they generate rework: another meeting to reach the decision that wasn’t made in the first meeting. And they participate in postproduction services: following up on decisions"

...

Knowledge work actually comes primarily in the form of projects, not routine daily tasks. Knowledge workers, therefore, experience big swings between peaks and valleys of decision-making intensity”

Fez-me recuar a:

• Avaliar projectos (parte II) 
• Provocação para empresas certificadas  complementada com a parte II 
• Tenho de testar isto ...

"A ideia de fazer de cada ano um espécie de projecto, algo único e irrepetível, em vez de uma continuação da rotina de sempre, é capaz de ser útil para mudar mentalidades em muitas empresas."

Trechos retirados de "A New Way to Think" de Roger Martin.

"individuals work with one another"

Dedicado ao meu colega das conversas oxigenadoras:

"Culture. You can only change it by altering how individuals work with one another.

...

So, what is culture and why is it so persistent and limiting to strategy?

There are as many definitions of culture as there are for strategy, but I think of it primarily as a book of rules residing in the minds of employees that guides how they interpret situations and decisions. Culture is what helps a manager understand "how things get done around here,' "what I should do in this situation," and "who must I pay attention to." The rules making up the culture are developed by each person's observations of how people around them react to and explain situations and decisions, particularly those involving extreme outcomes with significant impact for the people involved, even if such decisions or events are unusual.

The strength of a company's culture is determined by the similarity of the mental rule books of the employees. A culture is weak or diffuse if the rule books vary across peopleso that employees' interpretations of a given situation or decision are heterogeneous. Cultures are powerful when the people all have a very similar rule book and consequently interpret and react to the same decision or situation in the same way.

...

Somewhat like a neural network in the brain, culture emerges from the interaction between the environment (the formal mechanisms) and individual behaviors (the interpersonal mechanisms). Because of that, little can be done to change the culture of the organization directly by fiat, and CEOs who make the attempt usually lose their jobs.

...

For a culture to align with changes to the formal mechanisms of the organization, changes are required in the way members of the organization interact.

...

When executives try to change an organization's culture, they often bring the wrong tools to the task-changes to formal processes and systems along with righteous admonition. This approach is doomed to failure because culture depends not on systems and processes or a leader's beliefs but on how individuals react to each other in the context of their rules and relationships. To achieve real culture change, executives should focus on and show discipline in how they structure the human interactions that make up an organization's working day. That requires investing time and committing to repetition. People won't change their ways overnight, but when they do, the consequences are profound and durable."

Trechos retirados de "A New Way to Think" de Roger L. Martin.

Anónimo da província muito à frente

Em Junho de 2011 escrevi Cuidado com a pedofilia. Em Outubro de 2012 escrevi Fornecer a Autoeuropa não é necessariamente uma boa decisão para uma PME portuguesa-tipo.

A mensagem desses postais é:

"Por que é que uma PME-tipo há-de trabalhar com uma multinacional só interessada no preço se tem mais hipóteses de ser bem tratada e ganhar mais dinheiro trabalhando com outras propostas de valor para outro tipo de clientes?

.

As multinacionais do ramo automóvel não são flor que se cheire, contratos leoninos com cláusulas que impõem respeito e medo.

.

O meu conselho genérico para as PMEs é sempre o mesmo: "Fuja dessa gente. Não se iluda com as quantidades... quantos cêntimos é que vai ganhar por peça? Qual o risco que vai correr? Compensa?""

Em Março de 2016 escrevi Um optimista sem ser cor de rosa onde usei esta imagem:

O mundo 1 é para os pandas (chineses, ou empresas grandes capazes de lidarem com margens apertadas e quantidades grandes).

Ontem, li este texto de Roger Martin, "Small is beautiful" onde apanhei:

"This is the typical dynamic in the modern era. There is full price/value discovery, and the goal of big customers is to grind down suppliers to cost plus as tiny a margin as possible through relentless shopping and negotiation. Smaller customers, on the other hand, are more inclined to buy an offer that meaningfully helps them “do more business.”

The problem is that most B2B companies are still in the mode of thinking that big customers are the most important — the key to both growth and profitability. Hence, they still spare no expense to serve them and put their best sales resources against them. However, though they might expect gratitude in return, they get nothing of the sort. Big customers grind down their suppliers and provide zero rewards for the extra resources that suppliers dedicate to them.

Meanwhile, these B2B companies underinvest in SME customers because they think of them as less important than their big customers. 

...

I think the next wave will feature two dynamics. First, B2B companies will figure out that big customers are not good for them and will make the transition to aligning their R&D efforts and their best sales assets behind SME customers."

"The payoff for price increases is massive"

"Sales professionals are ill prepared to talk with customers about price increases because they don't get trained and there are almost no resources to help them develop the skills to do so. 

...

One of the reasons that I hated price increases and believed that I was betraying my customers is that I didn't understand basic business fundamentals. I didn't understand that price increase campaigns are far more effective at generating profit and free cash flow than increasing topline revenue through sales volume increases or acquiring new customers. Nothing else in the business-to-business sales arsenal protects the health of your company like price increases. They protect the enterprise during inflationary periods, produce capital for investment in growth, help improve quality and service delivery, boost stock prices, and protect jobs.

The payoff for price increases is massive. They can drop through as much as 400 percent more profit as increases in sales volume. For example, a l percent increase in sales volume, will produce 3.3 percent in profit. However, a 1 percent increase in price, when sales volume remains stable, delivers an 11.1 percent increase in operating profit. [Moi ici: Recordar Marn e Rosiello]

...

The bottom line is that increasing prices is the single greatest profit improvement opportunity and strategy for B2B enterprises. That is, of course, if you retain your customers along the way."

Trechos retirados de "Selling the price increase the ultimate B2B field guide for raising prices without losing customers" de Jeb Blount. 

Subir preços

"Why Companies Raise Their Prices: Because They Can"

"In 2021, US companies logged their most profitable year since the 1950s, as many took advantage of economies of scale and other more efficient production processes. Yet, firms increasingly held on to the savings they gained from these reduced costs, rather than passing them on to customers in the form of lower prices.

...

markups—the difference between prices charged at checkout and the marginal costs incurred by a company in order to make a product—climbed about 25 percent between 2006 and 2019

...

The researchers came to a startling conclusion: Consumers were 30 percent less price sensitive—meaning less likely to abandon favorite brands and seek cheaper equivalent products—in 2019 than they were in 2006.

...

Meanwhile, company costs have declined over time as firms have squeezed more productivity out of increasingly efficient operations. Since 2006, marginal costs have dropped by 2.1 percent annually on average, the authors estimate. In the latter part of the study period, from 2017 to 2019, firm costs were about 25 percentage points lower versus 2006.

Rising markups come from either price increases or marginal cost reductions."

"Which Companies Can Raise Prices Without Angering Customers?"

"In all, we examined 846 large publicly traded corporations last year through the lens of 34 separate indicators in five categories: customer satisfaction, employee engagement and development, innovation, social responsibility and financial strength.
...
To build our ranking, companies are compared in each of the five areas, as well as their overall effectiveness, through standardized scores with a typical range of 0 to 100 and a mean of 50.

...

In our latest research, prompted by concerns over inflation, we explored the correlation between net profit margin-the percentage of profit a company produces from its total revenue-and customer satisfaction for 2021.

Of the 24 industries we looked at, 11 showed no meaningful statistical relationship between the two. Others, however, stood out. In six industries-household and personal products, autos, telecommunications, consumer services, banks and pharmaceuticals-there was a significant positive correlation between profit margin and customer satisfaction.

This means the two variables move in the same direction.

When one goes up, the other goes up; when one goes down, the other goes down. And it implies that, in general, firms in these industries have a fair bit of leeway to raise prices without making their customers disgruntled.

"We call this pricing power,'

...
At the other end of the spectrum are companies in industries with a negative correlation between profit margin and customer satisfaction. Across these sectors, when net profit margin goes up, customer satisfaction goes down-and vice versa.
...
What's more, any company with low customer satisfaction may well have trouble raising prices-regardless of the industry it's in. "It's a delicate calibration,""

Dedicado aos fans do Big Data

Dedicado aos fans do Big Data: 

"Creating great choices requires imagination more than data.

Underlying the practice and study of business is the belief that business decisions must be driven by rigorous analysis of data. The explosion of big data has reinforced this idea. In a recent EY survey, 81 percent of executives said they believed that "data should be at the heart of all decision-making," leading EY to enthusiastically proclaim that "big data can eliminate reliance on 'gut feel' decision-making.

Managers find this notion appealing.

...

Can management decisions really be reduced to an exercise in data analysis? I do not believe that they can, and this brings me to an important truth about data: creating great choices requires imagination more than data.

...

It's important to realize that the presence of data is not sufficient proof that outcomes cannot be different. Data is not logic. In fact, many of the most lucrative business moves come from bucking the evidence.

...

Moreover, the absence of data does not preclude possibility. If you are talking about new outcomes and behaviors, then naturally there is no prior evidence. A truly rigorous thinker, therefore, considers not only what the data suggests but also what within the bounds of possibility could happen. And that requires the exercise of imagination-a very different process from analysis.

Also, the division between can and cannot is more fluid than most people think. Innovators will push that boundary more than most, challenging the cannot.

Breaking the Frame

The imagination of new possibilities first requires an act of unframing. The status quo often appears to be the only way things can be, a perception that's hard to shake."

Trechos retirados de "A New Way to Think" de Roger L. Martin.