domingo, junho 13, 2010
Pobre Freddy Krugman
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Nicely, nicely isn’t working. Time to get tough."
Segmentar os vários tipos de clientes
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First, in the process of making lubricants, Castrol had accumulated a remarkable degree of knowledge about plant maintenance. (Moi ici: algo que demora anos a atingir) This is not surprising, since the purpose of a lubricant is to improve the productivity of machinery and equipment of the plant. Rather than using this knowledge strictly for the development of new products, the idea that emerged was that it could be transferred to select customers with consequences that were far more important than merely delivering lubricants.
The second realization was that services were much more critical than products to fight a commoditization syndrome. Product can seldom, if ever, be massively customized; services, on the other hand, are inherently customizable.
They considered three Tiers.
- Primary Target Segment – Productivity-Conscious Customers.
reduce total costs, and promote higher sales.
- Secondary Target Segment – Cost-Conscious Customers.
does not necessarily yield higher sales or economies of scale.
- The Least Desirable Segment – Price-Conscious Customers.
price."
The reason behind that, most of the time, is that they are self-sufficient. The other two tiers offer opportunities for customization and uniqueness of delivery with different degrees of value added. The Support tier expects some help, normally in cost reduction. The Relationship tier seeks as full and complete assistance as it can be given, hoping that this will result in increases of revenues and profitability, as well as cost and productivity improvements."
sábado, junho 12, 2010
Lidar com as prateleiras
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In addition to focusing on value for the customer, suppliers need to rethink their role in ensuring channel performance, especially when it comes to intermediary channels - those that are not supplier owned. One of the major mistakes most suppliers make is to treat intermediary channels as self-managing and to assume that the channel doesn't need the management time and attention that it would get if it were a direct, owned sales force.
Relações profundas não se quantificam
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Jensen's counter-intuitive advice to the superior is not to apologize for the qualitative nature of the feedback but rather to tell the subordinate that if he could actually be evaluated using purely quantitative measures, his job should be outsourced. That is because if everything important about his work could be defined quantitatively, it would be easy and more efficient to design a contract with clearly defined service level agreements with an outsourced provider."
This runs against the prevailing view of customer understanding. Quantitative customer analysis with a large statistically significant sample and multiple choice questions that enable quantitative analysis of the answers is deemed 'rigorous'. Qualitative customer research that uses small samples and conversational and/or observational approaches is considered by many to be lax and/or shoddy — and certainly unscientific."
sexta-feira, junho 11, 2010
Fim ao deboche do endividamento
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O problema que enfrentam muitas democracias avançadas, na Europa e em outras partes do mundo, é o crescente nível dos gastos públicos, dos impostos e da dívida pública. Em conjunto, estes factores afectam seriamente o crescimento económico. Em resposta a esta tendência, o Fundo Monetário Internacional apela a um regresso aos rácios da dívida pública que existiam antes da crise. De outra forma, a explosão da dívida pública vai permanentemente diminuir o crescimento do rendimento per capita em um terço ou mais nas economias avançadas - uma estagnação permanente surpreendente - e afectaria a capacidade dos governos de enfrentar a próxima recessão.
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As principais lições do fiasco da dívida grega não são novas: 1) os governantes eleitos ignoram, sistematicamente, os custos de longo prazo para alcançaram benefícios no curto prazo; 2) esperam para agir quando são forçados a fazê-lo; 3) as políticas governamentais não podem evitar as leis da economia; 4) os governos não podem anular as leis da aritmética; e 5) a política orçamental não é mera contabilidade.
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Quando um Governo pede um euro emprestado (ou um dólar, libra, peso ou yuan), compromete-se a pagar este euro ao valor actual do pagamento de juros futuros e à eventual devolução do capital.
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Esse dinheiro deve ser proveniente de impostos mais elevados, de uma erosão do valor real dos balanços monetários e da dívida pública através da inflação. Ou directamente de um incumprimento de pagamentos e da reestruturação da dívida. Os eventuais custos de qualquer destas acções são severos.
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Além disso, o problema não é apenas a dívida pública. Um rácio mais elevado entre impostos e produto interno bruto apenas troca o problema do défice por um crescimento económico mais lento. Nas últimas décadas, as grandes economias avançadas com impostos mais elevados cresceram muito mais lentamente. E as economias com impostos mais elevados nem sequer registaram défices orçamentais mais pequenos do que os Estados Unidos, uma economia com impostos mais baixos; impostos mais elevados apenas permitiram maiores gastos.
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Assim, será melhor que cada país aplique sérias limitações legais à autoridade orçamental dos seus legisladores. Restrições aos défices orçamentais são um início mas não são suficientes. O imenso crescimento do estado social e a subida dos défices e das dívidas públicas tornaram-se nas maiores fontes de riscos económicos sistémicos tanto a nível nacional como global. Por isso, é preciso aplicar restrições simultâneas aos gastos, impostos e dívida para evitar crises económicas e financeiras futuras.
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O problema não é que os governos tenham falta de recursos para gastar mas que o aumento dos gastos, impostos e da dívida pública estão a afectar negativamente o crescimento económico e os padrões de vida futuros. Este futuro parece estar no horizonte não apenas na Europa, mas em todo o lado, a não ser que os governos restrinjam os seus gastos."
Onde isto já vai...
Actividades versus resultados
quinta-feira, junho 10, 2010
A nossa exportação mais importante
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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
O triunfo das ideias do Grande Planeador
Quem vier atrás que feche a porta (parte II)
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."
"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."
quarta-feira, junho 09, 2010
Quem vier atrás que feche a porta
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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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...
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)
Reconhecimento merecido
Gostava de saber
Ser diferente
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."
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."
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?
