"We are living in a time when the designer is everything"

O Miguel Barbot mandou-me este texto "The tables are turning" com o comentário:

"Tem uma série de lições interessantes nas entrelinhas..."

Concordo perfeitamente, vamos à primeira:

"What he has realised is that the designers under his wing have enormous goodwill and likability with press and public, and that is the key to success in modern-day furniture design. He doesn’t need an astronomic marketing budget – the designers “are their own marketing. We are living in a time when the designer is everything – he or she is the most important person in the industry right now; people are attracted to their work in the same way they buy art – the authenticity of a product needs to be traced to its author.”" 

Não percebo como as escolas não conseguem perceber e meter isto na cabeça dos seus alunos...
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Recordar "Tão novos e já tão velhos..."
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E não percebo como é que Rifkin continua preso ao mundo da eficiência e dos custos... o "jogo" vai para lá disso...
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ADENDA: Engraçado como Mongo me faz recordar cada vez mais a mensagem da ICAR acerca da primazia das pessoas... não como povo, mas como indivíduos únicos, não como número socialista, mas como identidade muito pessoal. Os eficientistas vão ter as suas fábricas a trabalhar às escuras, com os seus robots, mas não vão ter clientes...

Acerca da falta de crédito

Assim que li este título "Falta de crédito é obstáculo à recuperação económica" fiz logo a ponte para "The Capitalist's Dilemma".
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Quanto daquela falta de crédito tem um paralelismo com a experiência americana?

"One phenomenon we’ve observed is that, despite historically low interest rates, corporations are sitting on massive amounts of cash and failing to invest in innovations that might foster growth. That got us thinking: What is causing that behavior? Are great opportunities in short supply, or are executives failing to recognize them? And how is this behavior pattern linked to overall economic sluggishness? What is holding growth back?"

 Como é que os projectos onde o crédito pode ser aplicado são avaliados?

"Our success metrics determine what we can and cannot invest in. We have allowed a minority to dictate those metrics to the majority. Over and over, the higher value placed on return on net assets, internal rate of return, and earnings per share over other metrics has led to innovations that squeeze costs and noncash assets. As a result, investing to create growth and jobs is a third-best option, behind efficiency innovations (first) and doing nothing (second)."

E no caso português, ainda é mais grave, dado que as PMEs não podem competir pela eficiência.

Curiosidade do dia

"When YouTube first emerged, Disney saw it as little more than a vehicle for mass piracy. As recently as two years ago, Disney’s online and interactive efforts were widely seen to be floundering. And, of course, despite the proliferation of explicitly unauthorized Disney content on YouTube, Disney certainly still takes copyright seriously. It was a backer of the unsuccessful Stop Online Piracy Act in 2012 and it dramatically flexed its muscles in the 1990s at getting the Copyright Act extended another 20 years, just before Mickey Mouse was about to enter the public domain.
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But in 2014, Disney’s cagy marketing of “Frozen,” loose reins on fan-created content, and purchase of Maker Studios all seem to indicate that the company is figuring it out. And surprise, surprise, in the second financial quarter of 2014 Disney recorded record earnings. Probably all the evidence anyone might need to prove that letting go of your fans is the best business strategy possible."

O poder da plataforma... a plataforma não se controla. Recordar:

"The basis of executive power is shifting from being in charge to being connected. New leaders understand that power with people is much more effective than power over people. It is about integrating the best of networked thinking and leveraging the new platforms for value creation."

Trecho retirado de "How Disney learned to stop worrying and love copyright infringement"

Acerca da ISO / DIS 9001 (Secção 4 - parte I)

Sessão 4 - Contexto da organização
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4.1 - Compreender a organização e o seu contexto

A organização deve determinar, monitorizar e analisar, os temas internos e externos que são relevantes para o seu propósito e direcção estratégica e, afectam a capacidade de atingir os resultados pretendidos

4.2 - Compreender as necessidades e expectativas das partes interessadas

A organização deve determinar, monitorizar e analisar, as partes relevantes para o sistema e os seus requisitos

4.3 - Determinação do âmbito do sistema de gestão

Que produtos e serviços estão incluídos no âmbito e justificação de qualquer exclusão

4.4 - O sistema de gestão da qualidade e os seus processos

Isto faz todo o sentido, não sei se faz sentido para o âmbito de uma norma como a ISO 9001.
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Em 4.1:

• Qual o propósito da organização?
• Qual a direcção estratégica?
• Análise PESTEL e SWOT

Em 4.2:

• Quem são as partes interessadas?
• Qual é o ecossistema da procura?
• O que é que cada um procura e valoriza?

Em 4.3:

• Qual o âmbito do sistema?

Em 4.4:

• Qual o modelo da organização, com base na abordagem por processos, que vamos manipular para atingir os objectivos?

Continua.

Numerador versus denominador

Interessante, muito interessante, em Junho de 2014, poder ler-se isto na revista Harvard Business Review, "The Capitalist Dilemma":

"Because they were taught to believe that the efficiency of capital was a virtue, financiers began measuring profitability not as dollars, yen, or yuan, but as ratios like RONA (return on net assets), ROIC (return on invested capital), and IRR (internal rate of return). These ratios are simply fractions, comprising a numerator and a denominator, but they gave investors and managers twice the number of levers to pull to improve their measured performance. To drive RONA or ROIC up, they could generate more profit to add to the numerator, of course. But if that seemed daunting, they could focus on reducing the denominator—outsourcing more, wiping more assets off the balance sheet. Either way, the ratio would improve. Similarly, they could increase IRR either by generating more profit to grow the numerator or by reducing the denominator—which is essentially the time required to get the return. If they invested only in projects that paid off quickly, then IRR would go up.
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All of this makes market-creating innovations appear less attractive as investments. Typically, they bear fruit only after five to 10 years; in contrast, efficiency innovations typically pay off within a year or two. What’s worse, growing market-creating innovations to scale uses capital, which must often be put onto the balance sheet. Efficiency innovations take capital off the balance sheet, however. To top it off, efficiency innovations almost always seem to entail less risk than market-creating ones, because a market for them already exists. Any way you look at it, if you measure investments using these ratios, efficiency innovations always appear to be a better deal."

Podemos recuar, neste blogue, até Outubro de 2006 para encontrar esta linguagem em "Ainda a produtividade" ou até Novembro de 2007 para encontrar "Mitos, mitos e frases feitas. Alguém Já fez um roteiro para uma empresa em particular?"

Acerca do aumento dos preços

O meu conselho para as PMEs, muitas vezes, passa pelo aumento dos preços ("").
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Às vezes é só mesmo aumentar os preços, dada a disparidade entre a procura e a incapacidade de a satisfazer em quantidade.
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Mais vezes passa por aumentar preços como contrapartida de algo mais, sob pena da PME não ter futuro. Para estas últimas aplica-se:

"Getting a price premium for providing superior value is fine so long as customers feel that it is fair. As a senior manager in our research sagely concluded: “Value-based pricing is not about squeezing as much money out of customers as you can, but building customer relationships.” Customers that feel good about doing business with a supplier are more willing to give that supplier a larger share and a more profitable mix of their business. They are more willing to collaborate with the supplier, to generate and share data on the performance of its offerings relative to the alternatives and what that is worth in monetary terms. They are more willing to work together to “tweak” present offerings to enhance their value and to develop new offerings that will deliver superior value."

Trecho retirado de "Why the Highest Price Isn’t the Best Price"

Acerca da formulação da estratégia

"All too often strategy meetings devolve into pitched battles over who is right and who is wrong about the company’s future direction. How can you reshape the discussion to produce collaboration rather than discord?
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The key is to switch the fundamental question you consider from what is true to what would have to be true.
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What is true provokes arguments, causes proponents of a possibility to dig in, and minimizes the collaborative exploration of ideas. Let’s imagine you put forward a possibility for a strategic direction and, upon hearing the idea, I focus on what I think is true. With this mindset, it is quite likely that I won’t be confident that your idea is valid and I’ll probably start by saying something like “I don’t think that will work,” words that will instantly turn the meeting into a battlefield. When I then raise an alternative strategic direction, you, smarting at my treatment of your idea, will be equally dismissive of me. And so on, back and forth.
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If instead we can focus from the outset on what would have to be true, the conversation can head in the direction of collaboration and mutual exploration of ideas. How? If an idea or possibility strikes you as less than compelling, resist the urge to declare it “not true.” Instead, ask yourself, what would have to be true for me to feel that is a great option? If you identify the features that would have to be true, you can explore whether those really hold true and learn something about that possibility. The process of exploration may well help you modify and enhance the best idea currently in your head."

Trechos retirados de "A Simple Nuance that Produces Great Strategy Discussions"

Não é a agilidade que interessa

"We found that 80 percent of the value destruction in the world’s biggest losers was a result of strategic blunders. It wasn’t fallout from natural disasters or major market shifts, but the decisions and actions made and controlled by the companies themselves that got them in the most serious trouble. In other words, companies succeed when they move in the right strategic directions, not when they move opportunistically.
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So we started to look at the winners.
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We studied them and realized that their greatest strength wasn’t agility—in the sense of always responding quickly to external events. They were proactive, but also very measured and consistent about the big, strategic choices they made.
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Five things in particular stood out that made these companies capable and successful. We call them “unconventional acts” because they contradict the assumptions that many businesspeople make about management success:
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1. These companies stay true to who they are. You might hypothesize that the most dynamic, agile strategy is the best strategy, but that’s not what these companies followed. They commit to an identity and play the strategy long game...
3. They translate their strategic intent into the everyday. You might think that success is driven by adopting the best practices of a company’s industry or by developing functional excellence, but that’s not their focus. They build the capabilities that matter most and execute relentlessly and flawlessly.
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4. They put their culture to work. You’d assume in today’s fast-changing market companies should be able to reorganize on a dime. These enterprises celebrate what is already great about their culture, leveraging their existing behaviors to make themselves more powerful and effective...
If agility is chasing opportunities presented to you by a chaotic market, then agility is not a recipe for success. It’s a guarantee of incoherence and volatile performance. But if you stay true to your identity, aware of your unique strengths and where your capabilities add the most value over time, then you won’t just be agile. You’ll be “smart agile.” Yours will be a truly capable company that will win in the market: today and over time."

Trechos retirados de "Becoming a Capable Company"

Acerca do curto-prazismo

Impressionou-me a leitura de "The Trouble With IBM"
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Impressionou-me como o curto-prazismo continua a destruir empresas cheias de massa cinzenta...

"To make earnings rise while revenue is falling, Rometty has cut costs, sold business lines, fired workers, figured out ways to lower IBM’s tax rate, bought back shares, and taken on debt. Of the 25 analysts tracked by Bloomberg, nine predict that IBM will indeed hit the $20 target. The question is what type of company Rometty will have left when she gets there.
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That phrase, financial engineering, is a catchall used by critics for the variety of ways IBM has made earnings per share go up even as revenue goes down. The spectrum of maneuvers starts with common practices like dividend increases and share buybacks, and extends to more esoteric tactics like designating major costs as “extraordinary” and devising ways to pay lower tax rates. The most transparent companies present their performance according to generally accepted accounting principles, or GAAP. IBM’s 2009 annual report didn’t use the phrase “non-GAAP” at all; the 2013 report used it 125 times.
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Wall Street analysts have been warning, louder and louder, that IBM can’t keep cutting its way to profits forever."

Aplicável a investidores e a PMEs

"Individual investors are constantly being exhorted to try beating Wall Street at its own game of trading like crazy to chase whatever is hot. But why should you bother trying to play a game that even most professional players can’t win?.
Instead, take a page from Mr. Spier’s book and play by your own rules. The faster Wall Street runs, the more you should slow down and step back from that madness. Buy and hold an index fund forever, or study a few stocks with all the peace of mind you can muster.
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That way, you exploit the true advantages of individual investors that most professionals would kill to have: patience, independence and the ability to ignore the braying of the crowd."

Trecho retirado de "Giving Yourself an Investing Makeover"

Acerca da desigualdade

"In no other period of history have so few institutions wielded so much economic power over the lives of so many people.
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This unprecedented - and unimaginable - concentration of economic power was not just happenstance or a byproduct of man's insatiable avarice. Nor can it be rationalized away by simply blaming deregulation or finding fault with political ineptitude or, worse still, political collusion and enablement - although these were all contributing factors to its growth. Rather, on a more fundamental level, it flowed inexorably from the communication/energy matrices that were the foundation of the First and Sec-ond Industrial Revolutions.
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Like it or not, giant, vertically integrated corporate enterprises were the most efficient means of organizing the production and distribution of mass produced goods and services. Bringing together supply chains, production processes, and distribution channels in vertically integrated companies under centralized management dramatically reduced transaction costs, increased efficiencies and productivity, lowered the marginal cost of production and distribution, and, for the most part, lowered the price of goods and services to consumers, allowing the economy to flourish. While those at the top of the corporate pyramid disproportionately benefited from the increasing returns on investment, it's only fair to acknowledge that the lives of millions of consumers also improved appreciably in industrialized nations."

Mongo vai também mexer com isto, ao rebentar com esta concentração eficientista. Claro que não vai ser pacífico, os gigantes incumbentes vão oferecer luta, muitas vezes travestida de defesa de qualquer outra coisa:

"A Associação da Hotelaria de Portugal (AHP) propôs ao Governo a criação de uma licença especial para o alojamento local, que inclui a obrigação de uma autorização prévia do condomínio para quem quer alugar o seu apartamento a turistas.
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os hoteleiros não exigem o mesmo tipo de regras, mas sim restrições quanto ao número de camas e quartos e o cumprimento de regras de segurança e higiene. “Defendemos transparência fiscal e a publicitação online. Não faz sentido que um alojamento que serve para turistas não esteja obrigado a estar legalizado e seja intermediado em sites sem estar legal, nem transparente do ponto de vista fiscal”,"

Trecho inicial retirado de "The Zero Marginal Cost Society" de Jeremy Rifkin.
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Trecho final retirado de "Hotelaria quer condicionar aluguer de casas a turistas à autorização do condomínio"

Interacção - uma oportunidade para as empresas portuguesas

Nos últimos anos a evolução da cotação do euro face ao dólar americano foi:

Um fortalecimento contínuo do euro desde 2012.
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O que dirão os teóricos sobre o impacte dessa evolução na capacidade de Portugal exportar para os EUA?
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UM HORROR!!!
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O que dizem os números?
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Segundo o Boletim Mensal da Economia (nº 04/2014) as exportações portuguesas para os EUA, nos últimos 12 meses terminados em Fevereiro de 2014 cresceram 11,2%.
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Mais interessante ainda:

"As exportações de mobiliário português para os Estados Unidos subiram 47% em 2013, tendo a quota de mercado do país nas vendas ao exterior globais duplicado no mesmo período."

Como é que os teóricos explicam isto?
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Uns vão começar a dizer que as empresas estão a perder dinheiro e a esmagar margens, outros vão dizer que é por causa da IKEA, outros vão dizer que é um engano nas contas, outros vão assobiar para o lado...

"Uma das empresas presentes, a KOKET, existe há quatro anos e tem sido muito bem aceite no mercado norte-americano.
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"Portugal tem tido uma presença muito forte e respeitada no que diz respeito à qualidade e ao 'design' de produto. A sua qualidade é reconhecida", explicou à Lusa a diretora criativa da marca, Janet Morais.
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Janet Morais diz que a empresa "faz questão que a produção seja feita em Portugal por artesãos e joalheiros exímios e com grande experiência, garantindo assim alta qualidade."
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A diretora de marketing da Brabbu, Rita Rodrigues, explicou que a empresa decidiu investir nos Estados Unidos porque "é um mercado com uma forte cultura a nível de 'design', com líderes de opinião conhecidos mundialmente e onde as tendências são ditadas."
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Rita Rodrigues explicou que "nos Estados Unidos mesmo o mobiliário de luxo é produzido em grande escala e, como tal, as oportunidades de fazer peças à medida e com materiais e acabamentos personalizados são menores."
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Esta realidade acaba por ser uma oportunidade para as empresas portuguesas.
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"O mobiliário português é visto como aquele que permite dar um toque personalizado e especial a cada peça; ou seja, o cliente tem a possibilidade de escolher o aspeto final", adiantou a responsável da Brabbu."

Novidade para este blogue? Claro que não!!!
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O poder da co-criação; da co-produção; da customização, da interacção. ´
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Trechos retirados de "Exportações de mobiliário português para os EUA sobem 47% em 2013"

O uso do BSC em PMEs

"formalized a model where five different stages of decline are described. (1) In a blinded stage, a company is unable “to recognize internal or external changes that may threaten its long-term survival”. (2) In a stage of inaction, a company can see clear signs of downturn but they do not make any reconstructive actions. (3) In a faulty action stage, a company acts but actions are too small or incorrect. (4) In a crisis stage, a company can not manage its obligatory payments. (5) In the last stage, company can appeal to legal reorganization process or go bankrupt. Aim of the legal reorganization is to return a company’s financial health."

Ao ler isto, lembrei-me logo disto "Banco de Portugal vai criar alertas para empresas em risco de falir"

"Aim of the study is to deepen the use of the BSC concept in the small companies’ reorganization process."

Foi assim que comecei a usar o BSC em PMEs, em empresas à beira do precipício.

Trechos retirados de "Balanced Scorecard as a Tool for Small Business Reorganization" de M. Hakola.

Acerca da evolução das exportações

"As exportações portuguesas registaram uma subida de 2,6% no primeiro trimestre do ano, segundo o boletim estatístico do Banco de Portugal, divulgado nesta quinta-feira.
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Feitas as contas com os dados disponíveis na base de dados estatística do Banco de Portugal, o ritmo de crescimento das exportações é superior ao do primeiro trimestre do ano passado, período em que a subida tinha sido de apenas 1,3%. A média anual de 2013 foi de 5,7%."

Trecho retirado de "Exportações de bens e serviços cresceram 2,6% no primeiro trimestre"

Fará sentido?

Como é que as empresas portuguesas podem subir na escala de valor e aproveitar este fenómeno "“Dos tercios del consumo de lujo en España lo realizan los turistas”" ?
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Fará sentido dinamizar exposições nos espaços dos hotéis?
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Fará sentido imiscuir-se nos circuitos de visita mais frequentados?
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Fará sentido desenvolver parcerias com o ecossistema em torno do ciclo de vida da visita turística?
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Ou ter funcionários de turismo, ou polícias, no aeroporto a ...

Acerca da formulação da estratégia

Recordar "Transformar Ameaças em Oportunidades":

"- Por que é que isso (uma contribuição anterior de alguém) é uma Ameaça? Por que é que não é uma Oportunidade?"

E, depois, ler "Three Quick Ways to Improve Your Strategy-Making" de Roger Martin:

"A strength is a strength only in the context of a particular where-to-play and how-to-win (WTP/HTW) choice, as is the case for any weakness, opportunity and threat. So attempting to analyze these features in advance of a potential WTP/HTW choice is a fool’s game.
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The time to do analyses of the sort that typically turn up in SWOT analyses is after you have reverse-engineered a WTP/HTW possibility. [Moi ici: Daí que faça sentido, primeiro caracterizar o panorama, ]That will enable you to direct the analyses with precision at the real barriers to making a strategy choice — the exploration will then be a mile deep and an inch wide."

Em sintonia com o que escrevemos em Um adepto e promotor incondicional da concorrência imperfeita (parte III).
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Voltando a Roger Martin:

"Strategy making is not about unearthing and implementing a causal chain from the first principles of market conditions and existing capabilities towards the one right market position. It’s about making choices and taking gambles to get where you want to be." [Moi ici: As relações de causa-efeito vêm depois das escolhas]

Mais do que o custo é a experiência, é a autenticidade

Jeremy Rifkin em "The Zero Marginal Cost Society" escreve:

"Getting to near zero marginal cost and nearly free goods and services is a function of advances in productivity. Productivity is “a measure of productive efficiency calculated as the ratio of what is produced to what is required to produce it.”[Moi ici: Uma definição muito pobre, uma definição arcaica, estilo engenheiro da AEP]. If the cost of producing an additional good or service is nearly zero, that would be the optimum level of productivity.
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Here again , we come face-to-face with the ultimate contradiction at the heart of capitalism. The driving force of the system is greater productivity, brought on by increasing thermodynamic efficiencies. The process is unsparing as competitors race to introduce new, more productive technologies that will lower their production costs and the price of their products and services to lure in buyers. The race continues to pick up momentum until it approaches the finish line, where the optimum efficiency is reached and productivity peaks. That finish line is where the marginal cost of producing each additional unit is nearly zero. When that finish line is crossed, goods and services become nearly free, profits dry up, the exchange of property in markets shuts down, and the capitalist system dies."

Rifkin chama sistema capitalista a um modelo em que quem trabalha não detém os factores de produção e em que quem detém o capital não gere, o dia-a-dia das empresas.
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O que eu critico nesta abordagem de Rifkin é a concentração no custo, como se quem compra só valorizasse o custo como factor de escolha.
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Quem conhece a cascata de preços pode facilmente encontrar exemplos em que:

• o custo de fabrico é de 1,95 €
• o preço à saída da fábrica é 3,95 €
• o preço de de venda às lojas pelo distribuidor é 7 €
• o preço na prateleira é 14,95€

O que vejo facilmente acontecer, com o advento de Mongo, é o fim do distribuidor e da loja. O produtor pode, ele próprio, vender na internet ou na sua loja, com essa evolução, as quantidades para atingir o break-even serão menores, a variedade aumentará, os preços de quem compra para utilização baixam e abre-se a porta para a co-produção e co-criação.

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Um exemplo de que não é só o preço que conta em "Approach to food sets artisans apart" não esquecer o recente "Nichos e nichos e mais nichos". Mais do que o custo é a experiência, é a autenticidade:

"Today's artisan culture is focused on quality with an appreciation for traditional methods and flavors, she said. Artisan producers have a sense of community, like to share and exert great control over their products.
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"Most artisans have small operations that started simply and have stayed simple," Langley said. "They are into food. They have learned the craft. They have taught themselves. They roll up their selves and get their hands dirty.""

As 3 partes de um BSC (parte IV)

Parte I, parte II e parte III.
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Se o mapa da estratégia representa o pano de fundo, o tal "background" que representa a evolução no médio-longo prazo, as empresas precisam de acção, precisam de actividade para efectuarem a transição entre o que são hoje e o que pretendem ser no futuro desejado. É o nosso "O que começamos a fazer na próxima 2ªfeira?"
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O imediato, o "foreground", o que temos de fazer, é outra parte do BSC da 3ª geração, as iniciativas estratégicas. Voltando a "The Only Sustainable Edge", sobre as iniciativas estratégicas temos:

"While the company is developing and refining this shared understanding of longer-term direction [Moi ici: O mapa da estratégia], senior management must focus on a different time horizon, which is shaped by a second key business question: What can we do in the near term (six to twelve months) that will help us accelerate movement toward this longer-term direction? in part, this question forces executives to identify and focus on the most promising two to three operational initiatives that can deliver tangible near-term performance impact and significantly move the  company in the longer-term direction. In answering this questiot executives should be careful to avoid the trap of focusing solely on operational initiatives within the enterprise. Certainly, the most powerful near-term operational initiatives increasingly require the effective mobilization of complementary resources in relevant process networks [Moi ici: Ecossistemas da procura]. 

E, acerca dos recursos e infraestruturas:

"On the same six- to twelve-month time horizon, executives must ask what organizational barriers are preventing companies in their relevant process networks from moving even faster in the near term. They can then determine a set of near-term organizational initiatives designed to strengthen the capability to support even more aggressive, near-term operating initiatives."

Continua.

Curiosidade do dia

Aproveitei uma aberta sem chuva, ao final do dia, para fazer 6 km, entre os futuros campos de milho, e ler mais umas 20 páginas de "The Zero Marginal Cost Society" de Jeremy Rifkin.
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Embora não concorde com alguns pontos, estou positivamente agarrado pela sua leitura... é um livro sobre Mongo, como nunca li nada sobre Mongo.
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A certa altura tive de parar para tirar uma foto:

Eis os famosos rebentos verdes!!!
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Sorri ao pensar na cena: se ali estivessem:

• Portas diria: "Graças a mim!"
• Seguro diria: "Graças a mim!"
• Mário Cortes diria: "Graças ao Estado!"

O essencial é co-criar à medida de cada um, a sua experiência

Em 2010, em "Mais uma sugestão de modelo de negócio" propus este modelo de negócio para desenvolver o turismo no Douro Internacional para birdwatchers endinheirados:

Lembrei-me logo dele quando, ao ler "The Power of Co-Creation", descobri o caso do Club Tourism, uma empresa japonesa que se especializou a desenvolver programas turísticos baseados em experiências. A sua metodologia é interessante:
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Chamo a atenção sobretudo para o desenvolvimento da "Customer relationships":

"The simplest form of engagement platform is the meeting where people congregate with a specific purpose and a structured process through which they will co-create, thereby playing a central role in defining the product or service experience. A good example of this approach is Club Tourism. A division of Japan's second-largest tourist agency, Kinki Nippon Tourist, Club Tourism has more than 7 million community members avid exemplifies the power of building such thematic communities.' Club Tourism not only sells tours, it also co-creates experiences with its customers, employees, and travel partners, which include airlines and hotel chains. The enterprise has generated more than two hundred different theme-based clubs for people with a common interest—say, tea drinking.
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At Club Tourism, specially designated employees called "Friendly Staff" constantly interact with the clubs to brainstorm ideas about new trips, modifications to existing trips, and desirable new experiences. Through this process, the company generates early ideas of new potential trips and related activities. Now, imagine being invited by Club Tourism to a large Tokyo or Osaka office building with ten or fifteen people who share your passion for tea. With the help of a Friendly Staff facilitator, the Tea Drinking Club designs a trip, identifying activities of potential interest such as visiting tea plantations or learning about the medicinal virtues of tea. Club Tourism taps expert resources like tea connoisseurs and specialists relevant to the club's theme. The Club engages customers who have been on previous related trips, encouraging them to contribute photos and other content. One of the authors attended just such a club meeting, at which a member and a staff person shared photos in a slide show, while other members began conversing and offering ideas about how to enhance future trips, for instance by sampling different types of tea and activities involving the rituals of tea drinking.
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Club Tourism is an example of the co-creative power of live, face-to-face interactions with consumers. While some conventional travel agencies do some of these activities as well, Club Tourism's uniqueness is that it also focuses attention on the before- and after-travel experiences. The company describes the travel experience as a cycle that starts with an imaginative design, carries through the actual trip, involves a formal debrief of the trip, and eventually gen-erates memories. Employees view their business as supporting the entire cycle, not simply organizing the trip in the middle. Club Tourism has been successful because it has redefined its role as that of a "nodal" company-connecting customers with travel partners and community resources - which allows it to escape the commodity dynamics of the travel business."

Nos tempos que correm, com o que a tecnologia disponibiliza, o antes e o depois da experiência, a interacção, a co-produção e a co-criação podem ser facilitadas pela Internet, pelas redes sociais, pelas aplicações, ...

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O essencial é co-criar à medida de cada um, a sua experiência.