Como os países se tornam ricos

"Os países não se tornam ricos por fazerem mais do mesmo. Fazem-no por alterar o que produzem e a forma como produzem. Crescem ao fazerem coisas que são novas para eles; em resumo, inovam."

Claro que a tríade prefere pensar e pregar que o crescimento se faça à custa da redução dos custos.
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Trecho retirado de "O caminho para o crescimento dos conglomerados"
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BTW, a propósito de conglomerados, no final do artigo fiquei a pensar na Altri... está num sector exportador? Está! Será que os seus concorrentes na Europa, estão sujeitos ao mesmo escrutínio e libertinagem legal que existe em Portugal? Será que existe mais algum país europeu em que em 25 anos o perfil florestal tenha sido alterado por completo para fomentar a produção de pasta de papel?
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BTW2, um conselho para os guardiães da Altri na Wikipedia, isto:

"A Altri tem assentado o seu crescimento numa estratégia de aquisições transformadoras (Celtejo em 2005 e Celbi em 2006), e na maximização do retorno ao accionista."

Está tão datado e obsoleto!!!
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Então não lêem o que o mainstream já adoptou?

“On the face of it, shareholder value is the dumbest idea in the world. Shareholder value is a result, not a strategy...your main constituencies are your employees, your customers and your products" 

Sonhar com Mongo

Basta ler "small, independent and traditional", por tradicional traduzo, artesanal, autêntico, proximidade... fico logo a sonhar com a possibilidade de o mesmo acontecer noutros sectores.
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E este trecho, "To ensure that the craft brewery distinction stands for quality - and not merely market share - breweries cannot cut costs by relying on cheaper ingredients", 100% Mongo!!!

• "The Craft Beer Movement" (interessante também a referência aos 3 modelos de negócio associados. Off-topic, é difícil perceber como os estados, dentro dos Estados Unidos, podem ser tão diferentes, pelos vistos, em alguns, é o Estado, como na Suécia, que distribui as bebidas alcoólicas)
• "Craft beer movement comes to a head"

"Sales are up 15 percent, and nearly 1 million more barrels than last year were sold by small and independent craft brewers, from 6.4 million to 7.3 million barrels, the report says. The number for 2009 was 4.4 million.
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This comes at a time when the association reports that the overall sale of beer in America is down 2 percent."

• "THE FARM BREWERIES ARE COMING!" 

Isto, para já não falar desta cena:

• "A computerized beer machine takes the legwork out of home-brewing"

Big data, pois!

Como eu aprecio estas histórias, sobretudo agora que leio tanto sobre os amanhãs que cantam baseados no big-data

"Imagine that you are a subject in the following experiment, conducted by pioneering behavioral economist Richard Thaler and his colleagues. You are told that you are in charge of managing the endowment portfolio of a small college and investing it in a simulated fi nancial market.
The market consists entirely of just two mutual funds, A and B, and you start with a hundred shares that you must allocate between the two. You can put all of your shares into A, all of them into B, or some into A and the rest into B. You will be running the portfolio for twenty-five simulated years. Every so often, you will be informed of how each fund has performed, and thus whether your shares have gone up or down in value, and you will then have the opportunity to change how your shares are allocated. At the end of the simulation, you will be paid an amount that is proportional to how well your shares have performed, so you have an incentive to do as well as you can. Before the game begins, however, you have to choose how often you would like to receive the feedback and have the chance to change your allocations: every month, every year, or every fi ve years (of simulated time).
The correct answer seems obvious: Give us information, and let us use that information, as often as possible! Thaler’s group tested whether this intuitive answer is right— not by giving people the choice, but by randomly assigning them to receive feedback monthly, yearly, or every five years. Most people initially tried a 50/50 allocation between the funds since they knew nothing about which might be better. As they got information about the per for mance of the funds, they shifted their allocations. Since the simulated length of the experiment was twenty five years, the subjects in the five- year condition got feedback and could change their allocations only a few times, compared with hundreds of times for the subjects in the monthly condition. By the end of the experiment, subjects who only got perfor mance information once every five years earned more than twice as much as those who got monthly feedback.
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How could having sixty times as many pieces of information and opportunities to adjust their portfolios have caused the monthly- feedback investors to do worse than the five-year ones?"

Trecho retirado de "the invisible gorilla - And Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us" de Christopher Chabris e Daniel Simons.

Uma outra linguagem, precisa-se

Como eu percebo esta afirmação:

" Defende uma nova abordagem externa para os vinhos portugueses para os libertarem do rótulo de "entrada de gama"."

Esse rótulo é reforçado com este tipo de linguagem:

""Actualmente são exportados cerca de 300 mil litros de vinho por ano e o objectivo é duplicarmos esse valor e chegar aos 600 mil litros durante os próximos três anos", disse hoje à Lusa o presidente da CVR Tejo, José Pinto Gaspar."

Parece que estamos a falar de uma commodity vendida a granel. Parece que vinho é vinho!

"we're not in Kansas anymore"

"we're not in Kansas anymore" ou "Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place."

""Now! Now!" cried the Queen. "Faster! Faster!" And they went so fast that at last they seemed to skim through the air, hardly touching the ground with their feet, till suddenly, just as Alice was getting quite exhausted, they stopped, and she found herself sitting on the ground, breathless and giddy. The Queen propped her against a tree, and said kindly, "You may rest a little now."
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   Alice looked round her in great surprise. "Why, I do believe we've been under this tree all the time! Everything's just as it was!"
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   "Of course it is," said the Queen: "what would you have it?"
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   "Well, in our country," said Alice, still panting a little, "you'd generally get to somewhere else -- if you ran very fast for a long time, as we've been doing."
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    "A slow sort of country!" said the Queen. "Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!""

É disto que me lembro, e da malta da Centromarca, ao ler "Groceries Are Cleaning Up in Store-Brand Aisles" ... quando as empresas, com as marcas de fabricante, com as marcas tradicionais, se concentram no marketing... (btw, recordar isto) e, mais ou menos rapidamente evoluem para um estado em que têm uma linda carapaça, suportada num marketing excelente, mas têm um interior, a oferta, ôca, morta, envelhecida...

"Over the last three years, sales of store brands grew 18.2 percent, accounting for $111 billion in sales, according to Nielsen. That is more than twice the rate of growth for national brands — 7.9 percent to $529 billion — over the same period.
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“We expect private brands will continue to grab share year over year because of investments they’ve made in enhancing quality, innovation and hiring more people with brand experience to help them with marketing and promotion,” said Todd Hale, vice president for consumer and shopper insights at Nielsen.
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Last month, Consumer Reports published taste tests comparing store brands to national brands. The organization found that 33 of the 57 private-label products sampled were as good as or better than the national brand version.
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Consumer Reports said such brands accounted on average for about one-quarter of the products in a supermarket and could save customers as much as 30 percent. (While branded food manufacturers suggest a retail price, grocery stores set the actual prices they charge.)"

Acerca da diferenciação

Este artigo "You Can Win Without Differentiation", do qual discordo profundamente, fez-me logo associar a isto "Falso artigo científico aceite para publicação por mais de 150 revistas de acesso livre".
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Quando falamos em diferenciação não nos referimos exclusivamente ao produto, referimos-nos a tudo.
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Ainda ontem, numa empresa, discutíamos a possibilidade de começar a criar a diferença a partir dos bancos da escola, oferecendo histórias sobre casos fora do comum e como foram solucionados.

É a ficção científica a entrar-nos pela quinta

Tirei esta foto durante o meu jogging no passado dia 3 de Setembro.
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Infelizmente, não coloquei nada que permita comparar dimensões e, servir de referência para mostrar que o milho está com mais de 2,10 m de altura.
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Este ano a produção vai ser muito boa! Vê-se nos campos pela altura do milho, os tipos da Dupont, da Monsanto e da Maisadur este ano acertaram... e, pelas conversas que tenho com alguns produtores. Um, em particular, duplicou o rendimento por hectare face ao ano passado.
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São hectares e hectares de milho que visualizo enquanto corro. Vejo os lavradores a colherem o milho de uns campos e a deixarem para mais tarde o de outros e, interrogo-me, muitas vezes, sobre qual o critério que seguem.
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Até imagino potencial para serviços de consultoria agrícola onde, há base de sensores simples, conjugando informação sobre o estado das plantas, da terra e as previsões do tempo, os agricultores pudessem ser aconselhados sobre a melhor altura para colherem ou o impacte do nível de rega que estão a dar. Depois, acabo por pensar que é tudo ficção científica e desligo.
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Hoje, descubro isto "'Drones Might Be the Future of Food'":

"Drones are going to be one of the biggest sources of big data in one of the biggest industries in the world, which is agriculture. What they do is they take cameras and they put them over fields, and what that gives the farmer is information about water and chemicals and growth patterns. Once upon a time, farmers were able to walk their fields and know what was going on. Then big ag and the consolidation of agriculture created these massive farms. They don't know what's going on in the middle of the field.
You can now see fields through these infrared lenses, which shows the health of the plant, which gives them information that allows them to use water more efficiently and use fewer chemicals."

OK, apesar de extensos, os campos de milho de Estarreja e da Murtosa não são "big ag", mas quem disse que têm de ser propriedade do agricultor? Por que não podem ser propriedade de consultores que viajam pelo país a lidar com proprietários ou cooperativas?
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É a ficção científica a entrar-nos pela quinta.

Acerca do planeamento estratégico

Um artigo "Is Strategic Planning Too Focused on the “Negatives”?", uma reflexão que vem de alguém que está no terreno e que já me passou pela cabeça. No entanto, a minha conclusão é diferente.

"I run up against the sentiment that strategic planning is a process that, at its core, is focused on the negatives in business. (Moi ici: Não creio que assim seja, é impossível para uma PME melhorar olhando só para o lado negativo, sobretudo quando é preciso mudar de estratégia) ... Why, I get asked, doesn’t strategic planning focus more on identifying, recognizing and celebrating, and leveraging the successes and strengths an organization has?
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 “Is the strategic planning process too focused on gaps and should strengths play a bigger role in the process?” (Moi ici: Claro que sim, claro que uma estratégia com possibilidade de contribuir para a melhoria dos resultados tem de começar sempre, sublinho, SEMPRE, pela conjugação das Oportunidades existentes no exterior com as Forças que a PME tem no seu interior, na sua experiência, no seu ADN)
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this approach is simply an outgrowth of some fundamental beliefs including (1) ALL organizational strengths are good (and should therefore be maintained), and (2) that they will somehow continue to remain our strengths over time. And, furthermore, (3) to move forward, companies need to put more energy into focusing on identifying and closing critical strategic and operational gaps. (Moi ici: Acerca dos pontos 1 e 2. As Forças e as Fraquezas de uma empresa são sempre uma classificação subjectiva. Quantas vezes, com a mudança do entorno, aquilo que era uma Força passa a ser uma Fraqueza e vice-versa. Por exemplo, um país como Portugal, bem posicionado na Fortaleza Europa, para ser muito competitiva como centro de produção low-cost, viu tudo isso cair por água abaixo com a entrada da China no campeonato. Uma coisa é apostar em subir na paisagem competitiva enrugada, escalando o pico actual, outra coisa, é perceber que se tem de competir noutro pico, até porque por vezes o pico que se estava a escalar... abateu-se)
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While it makes sense to put a focus on closing key gaps, I have come to the conclusion that not giving due consideration to strengths translates into a flawed strategic planning approach.
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So perhaps, based on this initial assessment, the feeling that strategic planning focuses too much on the negatives is actually an incorrect perception. (Moi ici: Estratégia, consiste em percorrer o caminho entre a realidade actual e o futuro desejado. Se a situação actual não coincide com a situação futura desejada, algo vai ter de mudar)
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 The thinking is that weaknesses must be effectively addressed to move forward. Rarely are strengths considered at this point, primarily because talking about organizational strengths simply does not fit into a gap closing paradigm. (Moi ici: Quem, como eu, aplica a Theory of Constraints, sabe que temos de "atacar" os gargalos. De nada serve reforçar uma Força se temos gargalos a impedir a optimização do desempenho.)
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The bottom line is that, as it is with most things, focusing attention and efforts too far on either end of the strengths-weaknesses continuum is a sub-optimal place to be. To ensure a sound business strategy, both strengths and weaknesses must receive equal treatment and fair consideration through the strategic planning process." (Moi ici: Não creio que tenham de receber tratamento igual... cada caso é um caso; que tenham de receber "fair consideration" sem dúvida)

Ao olhar para a conjugação das Oportunidades com as Forças, uma empresa estabelece a base para a narrativa sobre como vai ter sucesso, descrever o funcionamento da empresa e do seu ecossistema da procura no futuro desejado.
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Depois, ao confrontar a realidade actual com o futuro desejado, uma empresa tanto aposta em colmatar gaps das Fraquezas, como na minimização das Ameaças. O plano operacional que implementa e executa a estratégia, tem de actuar a este nível; contudo, tem também de melhorar aquelas Forças alinhadas com a estratégia e que contribuem para chegar ao futuro desejado. Por exemplo, empresa que já tem uma marca pode decidir potenciar ainda mais essa marca

A mensagem há-de passar,

A mensagem há-de passar, embora não à velocidade desejada...

"Investing in efficiency innovations can lead to a cycle of increased profits and re-investing in more efficiency. But that cycle vastly decreases investment in the kinds of research-and-development toward longer-term, potentially disruptive innovations--therefore decreasing overall economic growth and job creation. Here, Christensen says, is where America faces a capitalist dilemma. "Because of the way we measure things, it doesn't make sense to do what makes sense," he said.
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"My sense is over the last 20 years the American economy has generated about one-third the number of empowering innovations as was historically the case," he said. What's the potential toll of all this lost innovation on the future of the country? Christensen hypothesized: "If you want to know what the future of America looks like, just look at Japan. You can feel the same thing happen in the United States, and I worry a lot about that.""

Recordar "Sobre a paranóia da eficiência e do eficientismo"

Trecho retirado de "Clay Christensen: The Wrong Kind of Innovation BY Christine Lagorio-Chafkin"

No país da espiral recessiva

"Economia portuguesa terá crescido no terceiro trimestre"

"Os dados oficiais só serão conhecidos em meados de Novembro, mas o Governo diz à SIC que o produto interno bruto (PIB) nacional voltou a crescer no terceiro trimestre do ano."

"Economia da Zona Euro registou em Setembro a maior aceleração em 27 meses"

""Os últimos dados PMI assinalam o mais forte crescimento da actividade da zona euro em 27 meses no terceiro trimestre de 2013." 

Para reflexão

Em "How China Lost Its Mojo: One Town's Story" pode ler-se:

""The export sector doesn't have a long future," says Deng Zerong, Yantian's new Communist Party secretary, and—according to local legend—a distant relative of the late Deng Xiaoping, the former leader known for opening China's economy to the outside world after years of isolation.
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Yantian's challenges offer a microcosmic view of the problems today facing China.
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Rising wages and a Chinese currency that has gained 34% against the dollar since 2005 have both taken a toll.
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Hideo Aoyagi, the general manager of a Japanese firm that employs close to 4,000 workers in the town, has felt the economic tremors. Wage costs, he says, are up 40% since 2007."

Acerca do futuro das universidades

"Increasingly, we believe university leaders will challenge the university as a whole, and individual departments, to answer the question, ‘What’s so special about you?’. In other words, universities and departments will need to justify their existence – just ticking over won’t be good enough.
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4. Much of the value added won’t be content
As content becomes ubiquitous and, in each area, the world’s leading universities or authorities become its providers, the content of a course will cease to be a decisive factor. Instead, it will be a matter of what a university and its faculty build around the content – for example, the quality of teaching  and mentorship, the nature of facilitated dialogue between students (which could be global), or indeed the type of assessment and the path from university into the labour market. There is tremendous room here for innovation which universities can embark on right away, with limited risk.
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8. As the monopoly over awarding degrees breaks down, universities need to consider their true value
Generally-speaking, universities were founded to be regional or national institutions, but they find themselves operating, thanks to the mobility of talent and the ubiquity of technology, in a global market. The power to award a degree is conferred by state or national governments and the restrictions on access to this power have enabled universities to protect their position – until now. With students shopping globally, with online degrees – which might be offered from any country – becoming widely available and with commercial organisations seeking the power too, this protection is weakening, perhaps vanishing.
As a result, universities will have to look at what they offer"

Trechos retirados de "An Avalanche is Coming"

Sintomas da espiral recessiva

A espiral recessiva continua a apertar "Portugal lidera subida nas vendas a retalho na União Europeia":

"As vendas a retalho em Portugal aumentaram 4,8% em Portugal no mês de Agosto, face a Julho deste ano, o que representa o maior aumento entre todos os países da União Europeia, de acordo com o relatório divulgado esta quinta-feira pelo Eurostat.
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Depois de ter registado o maior crescimento no PIB do segundo trimestre, a economia portuguesa tem dado sinais de que a recuperação da recessão se manteve no terceiro trimestre, com vários indicadores a darem sinais positivos."

Criatividade e 6 sigma

"Insight is the opposite of predictable. Insights are disruptive. They come without warning, take forms that are unexpected, and open up unimagined opportunities. They are disorganizing. Insights disrupt progress reviews because they reshape tasks and even revise goals. They carry risks —unseen pitfalls that can get managers in trouble.
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Creativity was connected in the participants’ minds with uncertainty. When people were motivated to reduce uncertainty they gave lower evaluations to creative ideas. Managers dislike uncertainty and unpredictability, and therefore distrust creativity. (Moi ici: Impossível não relacionar logo com o que aconteceu à 3M quando se meteu com os 6 Sigma)
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The perfection trap is to try to reduce or eliminate errors. Organizations naturally gravitate towards reducing errors. Errors are easy to define, easy to measure, and relatively easy to manage.
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The quest for perfection, error-free performance, is right up there with the quest for predictability. These are both inherent in running an organization that depends on managing people and projects. In well-ordered situations, with clear goals and standards, and stable conditions, the pursuit of perfection makes sense. But not when we face complex and chaotic conditions. (Moi ici: A vantagem dos latinos sobre os anglo-saxónicos está aqui)
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Managers know how to spot errors. They don’t know how to encourage insights other than hanging inspirational posters on the walls.
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Unfortunately, the actions that organizations take to reduce errors can actually impede insights. They drain the attention and energy of the employees into error-reduction rituals that crowd out the mindset needed for insights."

Trechos retirados de "Insights Vs. Organizations"

Século XX versus século XXI

Um texto tão ao gosto deste blogue:

"A series of breakthrough technologies and new business models are destroying the old rule that bigger is better.  ...  The global business environment is decomposing into smaller yet more profitable markets, (Moi ici: A caminho do Estranhistão) so businesses can no longer rely on scaling up to compete, but must instead embrace a new economies of unscale.
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These new economies of unscale will be good for job growth, because they open up thousands of new market niches for exploitation.
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 in a world with economies of unscale, we are empowered to take advantage of an extensive array of new, amazing services to build sustainable companies.  The coming world is a world of fragmented niches, many with immense profit potential, as we start to discover products that better meet the needs of this varied world."

Tudo o que pregamos aqui há vários anos!!!
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Já ouviram algum membro da tríade falar sobre isto?
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Não, continuam embalados na testosterona, por exemplo:

"diz que com esta fusão há a ambição de estar ... também "entre os maiores"."

Ou, por exemplo "Mas claro, eu só sou um anónimo engenheiro da província"

Trechos retirados de "Economies of Unscale: Why Business Has Never Been Easier for the Little Guy"

Congelado?

A propósito de "Poupar sem ser por medo".
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Até parece que o dinheiro poupado fica congelado numa conta bancária...

Acerca da diferenciação

"BEING IN THE MARKETPLACE today is easy, but being found and selected is not.
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Too many businesses think they are distinct because they see themselves as different.
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1. First and foremost, how a business sees itself or wants to be seen is irrelevant. It’s the customer’s perspective that matters. 

1. Second, and just as important, being different is not the same as having a distinctive presence. Difference in and of itself is polarizing. Emphasizing what makes a company “different” immediately invites competitive comparisons. Consumers measure and evaluate so-called differences against their other options.

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When a business is truly distinctive—by being solely customer-focused—customers flock to it."

Trecho retirado de "The Power of Why" de Richard Weylman

Por que é que eles continuam a ser não-clientes?

Identificaram os clientes-alvo, traçaram o seu perfil e, contudo, eles continuam a ser não-clientes.
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Por que é que eles continuam a ser não-clientes?
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Uma boa ajuda para reflexão pode começar aqui:

"The key is to segment according to reasons for not buying products in your category.   In my experience, these typically fall into one of six categories:
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Economic:  People lack access to cash or credit
Functional:  The product does not help people achieve what they want to achieve
Educational: People don’t know how to use the product or even what it can do
Access: People can’t buy the product because it is not readily available to them
Social: The product doesn’t conform to religious or social norms
Emotional: The product triggers negative emotions."

Trecho retirado de "Implementing Innovation: Segment Your Non-Customers"

Mongo e a Saúde

Já por várias vezes aqui referi a que é que nos leva a ausência de pensamento estratégico na saúde pública, e privada também, por exemplo aqui, "Monho e a Medicina"

"Os eficientistas e as corporações apreciam o fenómeno da concentração da medicina em mega-instituições... tão ao jeito do século XX"

Por isso, é com um sorriso que encontro este texto tão ao jeito de Mongo e das sociedades que vão prosperar no século XXI:

"The attempts to “fix” the U.S. healthcare system have taken at least one well-worn market-based path: strive for economies of scale. Hospital consolidation is on the rise, a trend that shows no signs of abating as providers try to streamline back-end operations and deploy big data analytics in hopes of improving outcomes and lowering costs. Businesses try this every day.
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However some primary care physicians are looking at the exact opposite approach: de-scaling and taking cost out by radically simplifying their practices as a way to make them clinically, financially, and personally sustainable. (Moi ici: Profissionais liberais, não funcionários, Isto é tão Mongo!!!)
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What makes these practices different?  1) Each is based on relationship quality rather than production volume; as a result, each is smaller than the average U.S. practice; 2) Visits are longer and the doctor may provide a broader range of services with minimal support staff; 3) They have business plans that demonstrate how their model can be financially sustainable; and 4) Each used their variation on the general model to offer greater satisfaction to their patients as well as to their own personal and professional lives."

Interessante este ponto:

"Patient experience is the critical variable for both controlling costs, improving outcomes, and keeping physician caseload manageable." 

Trechos retirados de "Reimagining Primary Care: When Small Is Beautiful"
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BTW, a Educação vai pelo mesmo caminho com a fusão de universidades e a constituição dos agrupamentos escolares.

"A very important lesson for all of us"

"Giants are not as strong and powerful as they seem, and some times a shepherd-boy has a sling in his pocket"