Nassim Taleb says the financial crisis was a "white swan," not a black one

Onde isto já vai...

- Com que então Portugal não precisa de recorrer ao Fundo Europeu de Emergência?

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- Não, não somos como os espanhóis!

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"EU rüstet sich für Spanien-Pleite"

Actividades versus resultados

"Many companies confuse activities and results. As a consequence, they make the mistake of designing a process that sets out milestones in the form of activities that must be carried out during the sales cycle. Salespeople (Moi ici: e muito mais gente) have a genius for doing what's compensated rather than what's effective. If your process has an activity such as "submit proposal" or "make cold call," then that's just what your people will do. No matter that the calls were to the wrong customer or went nowhere. No matter that the proposal wasn't submitted at the right point in the buying decision or contained inappropriate information. The process asked for activity, and activity was what it got. Salespeople have done what was asked for. "Garbage in, garbage out" they will delight in telling you. "It's not our problem, it's this dumb process.""

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"It is more important to know where you are going than to get there quickly. Do not mistake activity for achievement." (Mabel Newcomber)

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Primeiro trecho de Neil Rackham em "Rethinking the Sales Force - Redefining Selling to Create and Capture Customer value".

Acerca da motivação das pessoas

A nossa exportação mais importante

"700,000 New Emigrants":
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"During the research for a forthcoming book, I started to think about the impacts of our prolonged stagnation on the job market. Interestingly, in spite of low job creation, until recently unemployment never rose to really high levels. Therefore, I was left to wonder what could cause such a phenomenon. The answer was relatively obvious: emigration. We all know that Europe exhibits a low degree of job mobility, but we also know that, historically, Portugal has been a country of heavy emigration"
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BTW, "Ter memória" e "The world doesn't owe us a living"

Mudança de discurso

"Este contrato de coesão nacional passa também por uma maior solidariedade territorial e geracional: “Não podemos deixar que sejam os dois extremos da pirâmide etária, os mais velhos e os mais novos, a suportar os encargos sociais mais pesados das dificuldades do presente”."

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Há 36 anos os discursos eram sobre a guerra de classes...

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Hoje os discursos são sobre a guerra das gerações ...

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"Cavaco Silva quer um "contrato de coesão nacional"" e "This is the age of war between the generations"

O triunfo das ideias do Grande Planeador

"According to the views now dominant the question is no longer how we can make the best use of the spontaneous forces found in a free society. We have in effect undertaken to dispense with the forces which produced unforeseen results and to replace the impersonal and anonymous mechanism of the market by collective and "conscious" direction of all social forces to deliberately chosen goals."

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Hayek em "The Road to Serfdom"

Quem vier atrás que feche a porta (parte II)

"Portugal já paga juros mais altos do que a Grécia no plano de ajuda financeira"

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"As medidas de austeridade (Moi ici: austeridade para as pessoas com o aumento do saque impostado. Porque não há maneira do Estado reduzir despesa a bem.) que o Governo português aprovou não estão a salvar o país da pressão dos mercados, que ontem, pela primeira vez, exigiram, numa emissão de obrigações realizada pelo Estado, juros mais altos do que o valor a pagar pela Grécia no plano de ajuda financeira da União Europeia (UE) e do Fundo Monetário Internacional (FMI)."

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A primeira vez que o escrevi foi a primeira vez que o li "E se for a Alemanha a ter de sair da zona euro?"

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Pois bem, o que propõe Edward Hugh em "British blogger unlikely economic sage":

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"So I put forward this idea is that maybe the simplest and quickest solution is for Germany to go back to the mark," he said.

Germany abandoned the Deutschemark in 2002 when it joined the single currency.

The theory is that Germany's exit would prompt a steep fall in the euro, which would go some way to restoring the competitiveness of Germany's debt-strapped neighbors including Spain, Portugal, Greece and Ireland. Exports would rise, allowing them to put money aside to pay their debts and to service the future needs of their ageing populations.

In time, he said, Germany could consider rejoining the euro after a correction in the region's economic imbalance."

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Saliento este ponto:

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"If these countries -- like Spain, Portugal, Greece, Ireland -- can't find a way to get back to growth then the debt is just going to mount and mount and mount on them.

"There's no future for any country that is in the sort of mess that these countries are in -- they need the protection of the eurozone," he said.

"It is much more feasible for Germany to say, 'Hey guys 28 percent of our GDP -- and it is growing as a percentage now - is in exports that go outside Europe or outside of the eurozone. (Moi ici: Para empresas que operam no quadrante D o preço é um qualifier não um order-winner) So what do we have to lose by coming out?'"

And remember that German debt is in euros so if the Germans went back to the mark it would be much cheaper for them to pay," he added."

Governos que se dão ao respeito são mais previsíveis daí que os governados confiem no seu comportamento futuro. Portanto, os 80 mil milhões de euros de poupanças que a Alemanha resolveu fazer, cortando na despesa do Estado nos próximos anos, em vez de um efeito recessivo vão ter um efeito expansivo "CAN SEVERE FISCAL CONTRACTIONS BE EXPANSIONARY? TALES OF TWO SMALL EUROPEAN COUNTRIES"

Quem vier atrás que feche a porta

Os tansos que ficarem por cá que se amanhem...

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"Portugal was forced to pay yields on Wednesday for new debt at levels that could force the country to turn to the eurozone’s new emergency funding body.

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It paid 5.225 per cent to raise €816m in 10-year bonds, higher than some analysts expect to be charged by the newly created European Financial Stability Facility, which has €440bn at its disposal to help eurozone members facing difficulties issuing debt."

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"Portugal‘s 10-year debt costs rise"

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Em Espanha a coisa está, também, cada vez mais negra "UPDATE 2-Spain small lenders struggling for funding"

Ah!!! É um sector de ponta, alta-tecnologia, um nicho longe dos competidores asiáticos...

Atenção ao artigo "Primeiro trimestre foi o melhor da década para o sector do calçado" onde se pode ler:

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"O primeiro trimestre de 2010 foi o melhor da última década para a indústria portuguesa de calçado, com a produção, emprego e encomendas a melhorarem, mas o “aumento brutal” das matérias-primas e as medidas de austeridade preocupam os empresários.

Segundo a análise trimestral de conjuntura da Associação Portuguesa de Calçado (APICCAPS), que inquiriu perto de 10 por cento das 1.300 empresas do sector, praticamente metade (49 por cento) dos empresários afirmaram que a produção estabilizou e 28 por cento diz ter aumentado.

Este facto permitiu uma recuperação na utilização da capacidade produtiva, que já está “a níveis normais para a época do ano” para cerca de dois terços das empresas.

Esta melhoria reflectiu-se também positivamente no emprego, com uma tendência de aumento do número de pessoas ao serviço na indústria: “Embora quatro em cada cinco empresas afirmem que ele permaneceu inalterado, as que dizem que aumentou são mais do que as que dizem que diminuiu”, nota a APICCAPS.

Relativamente ao estado dos negócios, pela segunda vez nos últimos três trimestres são mais as empresas que entendem que é “bom” do que as que pensam que é “mau”, sendo esta proporção a mais elevada desde 2001. Ainda assim, três em cada quatro empresas consideram que o estado dos negócios é “suficiente”.

No que respeita à evolução da carteira de encomendas, 43 por cento das empresas diz ter estabilizado, 27 por cento afirma ter aumentado e 29 por cento refere ter diminuído, notando-se um melhor desempenho das empresas com maior peso de colecção própria nas suas vendas. (Moi ici: as que estão no quadrante D)

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Ah!!! É um sector de ponta, alta-tecnologia, um nicho longe dos competidores asiáticos...

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Este artigo devia fazer pensar todos aqueles que falam na incapacidade de competir com a Ásia, que falam na necessidade de proteccionismo.

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Não há sectores obsoletos ou em que as empresas portuguesas não possam competir. Há sim estratégias obsoletas.

Reconhecimento merecido

Nem sempre estou de acordo nas soluções, mas totalmente de acordo com o diagnóstico, Edward Hugh "The Blog Prophet of Euro Zone Doom"

Gostava de saber

Era tão interessante saber os valores monetários por detrás destes fluxos. A que preço a energia é colocada na rede, qual a percentagem desse preço paga pelos contribuintes em subsídios vários e, depois, a que preço a energia está a ser vendida aos operadores de bolsa de energia.

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"Exportações deste ano já superam 2009"

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Talvez Jacinto Nunes percebesse a incongruência em protestar contra o aumento do preço da energia ao consumidor final quando se elogia a política de renováveis.

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Se as pessoas percebessem as enormidades (não são ilegalidades) que se escondem por detrás de coisas como esta "Energia está mais barata na bolsa ibérica mas isso não se sente no bolso do cliente" revoltavam-se.

Ser diferente

Ontem, ao final de um dia de auditoria, enquanto aguardava "boleia" para atravessar a área produtiva, junto à máquina de café encontrei o número de 31 de Março de 2008 da revista Fortune com este interessante artigo "Target's inner circle" de onde saliento este trecho:

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"“when Wal-Mart first made inroads into Target country. With its everyday-low-price strategy, Wal-Mart began eating into Target's sales while spending far less on marketing than Target, which produced colorful - and costly - Sunday advertising sections. Alarmed, Ulrich approved a test in 1985, converting 50 Target stores in Albuquerque and Knoxville, Tenn., to emphasize low prices. Quickly, Target found that it did okay in new stores but abysmally in places where people were trained to expect that circular. "We realized that we wouldn't ever be able to convert the entire chain," says Jones. "And we couldn't really run a bifurcated strategy." (Moi ici: Ninguém pode!)

Target faced a choice - one that easily might have put it in the same spot as doomed chains like Caldor or Bradlees. "Some people tried to do the dance on both sides," says Ulrich. "As Wal-Mart got bigger and bigger, [other rivals] started emulating them more, but they were still trying to appeal to an upscale guest. They'd pile shit in the middle of their aisle and then throw in some merchandise that wasn't the right quality for the store level. It's the classic mistake." (Moi ici: Don't try to compete with China on cost and wal-Mart on price)

Instead, Ulrich's team saw an opening: If Wal-Mart was striving to be the king of logistics, with enough muscle to force vendors to deliver on price, Target could deliver on a great store experience and a product that was exciting and unique. "Wal-Mart's strategy is in many ways more simple than ours," says Ulrich. "It's more about price and more about mass quantities. It's a hell of a competition, but ours is more dependent on innovation, on design, and on quality." (Moi ici: Não combater no campo que dá vantagem ao adversário! Sun-Tzu no seu melhor.)

What Target did have, thanks to its department store sisters, was access to people who anticipated desires. So Ulrich started a trend department, bringing over fashion scouts from Dayton Hudson, who started by expanding the color palette for T-shirts. "I can remember all the skepticism," says Jones.”"

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Arnoldo Hax ajuda à festa com este raciocínio retirado de "The Delta Model - Reinventing Your Business Strategy":

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"Until now, the prevailing view – shared by most practicing managers and academics – has been to define the goal of strategy as achieving sustainable competitive advantage. Most, if not all, of the most respected and popular frameworks that guide the strategy development process are anchored in this concept. This is a mindset likely to cause severe problems moving forward.

First, it puts our competitors at the center of our management process. Competitors become our driving force, our relevant benchmark. We look at strategy, and consequently at management, as rivalry. In order for us to succeed, we have to beat someone. Strategy is destructive; strategy is war.

Second, and equally troublesome, using our competitors as a way to define our course of action basically anchors us in the past. On reflection, this is an approach that seems counterproductive in a time of revolutionary change, when we want to create discontinuities, not reaffirm old practices. Is this what we should be aiming at in today’s turbulent environment, when change is virtually mandatory? We must challenge our previous state of business. We must have the ability to be creative and separate ourselves from the herd, to find a new and unique way of conducting business.

Often, companies seem obsessed with their competition, studying and watching it intensely to detect anything that could signal a way to operate more effectively.

This might not be a very smart way to manage. I tell my students, “Study your competition deeply, but do not imitate them.” I believe that strongly. It is a meaningful challenge. To separate ourselves from our competitors, we must offer our customers something that is truly unique and distinctive. How do we do that?

Third, the excessive concern about competitors can lead us, consciously or otherwise, into imitating their behavior. Our products begin to take on similar characteristics of those of the leaders. The development of our new products adheres to the prevailing standard of the industry, the channels of distribution that access our customer base are indistinguishable – in other words, the industry begins to converge into a well-established set of norms and standards. The result of this congruency leads toward the commoditization of our business, which is the worst possible outcome for all players."

Para comparação

"Los funcionarios en España y en Europa"

Velhos tempos

Este título "Portugal, Espanha e França assinam acordo para captar fundos para o TGV" fez-me regressar a 1990...

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A empresa onde trabalhava estava em expansão e eu estava, juntamente com outros colegas da mesma idade e experiência, encarregado de pedir propostas e fazer mapas comparativos de componentes necessários para a expansão: bombas, válvulas, tanques, ...

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Recordo uma experiência interessante com as bombas centrifugas . Pedimos cotações a empresas como a EFACEC, a SULZER, a KSB e mais uma outra que não recordo o nome.

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No mapa comparativo púnhamos o preço inicial numa coluna, noutra coluna púnhamos os custos de funcionamento durante um ano, quanto custava a energia necessária para operar esses monstros, e numa terceira coluna púnhamos a soma das duas colunas anteriores.

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Recordo que à altura, as bombas mais caras eram as da EFACEC... mas mais interessante do que isso era constatar que mesmo que fossem dadas, as bombas da EFACEC, ao fim de um ano eram mais caras que as outras, dado a brutal diferença no consumo de energia.

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Mesmo que o TGV seja dado... vai ter um custo de operação e peras...

Retratos de Portugal

Ontem de manhã em Mortágua, nas estradas as cerejeiras carregadas do fruto vermelho, nas empresas a madeira sempre presente. E o dilema do interior, empresa em expansão não consegue convencer técnicos no desemprego a mudarem-se para o interior.

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Hoje de manhã na localidade de Avelar, no caminho, na zona de Penela, o verde das muitas nogueiras com o fruto em formação. O concelho de Ansião devia ser premiado por ter mantido, por ter poupado uma interessante mancha florestal de vegetação autóctone de vários tipos de Quercus.

The Delta Model

Isto parece retirado deste blogue:

"Task 1 Customer Segmentation and Customer Value Proposition
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We begin by segmenting the customer base so that we can identify subsets of customers sharing similar needs, to which we will be providing distinct value propositions. We cannot overemphasize the importance of this task. It is the true foundation of a well laid out strategy.
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Task 2 The Existing and Desired Competencies of the Firm

The previous task allows us to understand the demand side of our business in a creative way. This task forces us to deeply focus on the supply side, on our own capabilities.
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Task 3 The Mission of the Business

The previous two tasks – customer segmentation and customer value proposition; and existing and desired competencies – are the foundation of our overall diagnosis.
What emerges is a clear understanding of where we are and what changes will be required to improve our existing circumstance. The true purpose of the mission statement is to capture and clearly articulate our intent. It is a critical task because it integrates the strategic tasks that we have conducted into a sole statement that defines the purpose of the organization and the challenges we face to move it in the desired direction. The mission is a fundamental vehicle to communicate our sense of direction, both inside and outside the organization.

Task 4 The Strategic Agenda
The strategic agenda attempts to identify and lay out in very pragmatic and concrete terms the specific tasks that we must undertake in order to serve our customers, define our new capabilities, and move the organization forward into the desired state of leadership. It should not only spell out the tasks but also identify who is accountable for their execution, as well as how to establish the necessary organization, information, and control mechanisms for its proper implementation.

Task 5 Monitoring the Strategy Execution

What happens after we have formulated what we hope is a winning strategy? The answer is obvious: we need to assure its proper implementation. In other words, we need to “manage by strategy” – so that strategy becomes the compass that directs the myriad tasks that are part of the routines of management.
Two important elements are required to assure proper implementation of the strategy, in addition to the unbounded attention that managers have to devote to its proper execution. The first is the development of an “intelligent budget.” ... The second vehicle required to assure proper implementation is the use of the Balanced Scorecard, both at the business and individual customer tier. This allows us to continue to focus on how we deliver the differentiated value propositions for each individual customer group."

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Trechos retirados de "The Delta Model" de Arnoldo Hax e em sintonia com a nossa metodologia.

Posicionamentos estratégicos

Interessante esta forma de identificar e sistematizar posicionamentos estratégicos.
O autor tem uma abordagem diferente sobre a forma como classifica o que é "Best Product":

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"Best Product positioning builds upon the classical form of competition. The customer is attracted by the inherent characteristics of the product itself – either through low cost, which provides a price advantage to the customer – or through differentiation, which introduces unique features that the customers value and for which they are willing to pay a premium.

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It is an inward-looking approach. Attention is centered on the product economics, the value chain, and the abilities to develop the capacities to deliver the best product."

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Trechos e figura retirada de "The Delta Model - Reinventing Your Business Strategy" de Arnoldo Hax.

Acerca do falhanço, da ousadia, do empreender

Graças ao Tiago (@tgs1982):

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Celebrating Failure on Prezi

O choque chinês num país de moeda forte (parte V)

Continuado daqui: Parte I, Parte II, Parte III e Parte IV.

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Mais uma achega para o tema "Survival of the Best Fit: Exposure to Low-Wage Countries
and the (Uneven) Growth of U.S. Manufacturing Plants"

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"U.S. firms respond to the pressures of international trade by altering their product mix
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We focus on US trade with low-wage countries.
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Given their high relative wages, it is virtually impossible for U.S. firms to earn profits producing labor-intensive goods.
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labor-intensive plants are relatively more susceptible to low-wage country imports than are capital- and skill-intensive plants in the same industry. As a result, within-industries, activity should shift towards relatively capital- and skill-intensive plants. (Moi ici: Basta recordar o exemplo da Tema Home para ver a quantidade de novas funções na empresa parte I e parte II)
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We find evidence of reallocation in three dimensions. At the industry level, exposure to low-wage country imports is negatively associated with plant survival and employment growth.(Moi ici: Coincide com o exemplo do calçado português) Within industries, the higher the industry’s exposure to low-wage country imports, the bigger is the relative performance difference between capital- and labor-intensive plants. (Moi ici: empresas que sobrevivem como subcontratadas no quadrante A e empresas no quadrante D) Finally, there is a positive association between exposure to low-wage country imports and industry switching. Plants that switch industries shift into industries with less exposure to low-wage country imports and greater capital- and skill-intensity than the industries left behind. Together, these results support the view that U.S. manufacturing is moving away from comparative-disadvantage activities and towards comparative advantage industries via exit, growth and industry switching. (Moi ici: este abandono, sem explorar as oportunidades de negócio no sector, como tão bem explica Suzanne Berger, não há sectores obsoletos há é estratégias obsoletas, depois gera situações que levam ao descrédito das marcas, por exemplo aqui a propósito de "The triple-A Supply Chain”, da autoria de Hau L. Lee, publicado pela Harvard Business Review em Outubro de 2004, sob o subtítulo “The perils of efficiency”.

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Por tudo isto que escrevi nesta série e por muito mais que tenho escrito neste blogue, não posso deixar de pensar que há sempre uma solução, há sempre uma alternativa, há sempre forma de fugir ao insucesso, pode é não estar à vista de forma clara. Não podemos é querer combater no terreno que dá vantagem ao concorrente, nem podemos colocar o poder de resolver o problema no exterior.