Democratização da produção

"Just as the democratization of information through personal computers was a key advance of the 20th century, the democratization of production through improvements in fabrication technologies will be a pivotal development in the 21st century.
...
personal fabrication systems are beginning to allow individuals access to these same technologies.
...
early access and opportunities to practice are the keys to success in any field involving complex tasks.
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We believe the advent of personal fabrication will affect society in unexpected ways, just as the advent of personal computing did. This will likely extend to the humanities as well as science and engineering.
...
Personal fabrication offers the opportunity to democratize innovation. Schools must provide early access to the tools needed to develop skills required to take advantage of this opportunity."

Duas notas:

• quando escrevi este "Para reflexão" (parte I e parte II) era sobre isto mesmo:

 "O caminho faz-se caminhando... em vez de esperar e entrar mais lá à frente, quanto mais cedo se entrar mais cedo se identificarão novas oportunidades de negócio, novos nichos, novas fontes de receita."

Quantas PME estão a "brincar" e a acumular experiências que darão origem a intuições sobre o futuro?

• quantas escolas estão a proporcionar este acesso a estas tecnologias? Quantos alunos têm oportunidade de simplesmente brincar com estas ferramentas?

Trechos retirados de "The Democratization of Production"

Let be careful out there

"A separate but equally indicative failing is to incessantly cite Apple and Steve Jobs to any and all clients as a paragon of excellence and instruction for brand building. If you find yourself sitting through a ninety-minute sermon on the power of Apple’s branding and its relevance for your portable toilet business it may be time to press the escape button."

Recordar "Cuidado com o título" e "Pensamento contrário"

"First, any mention of millennials means you are dealing with a marketing moron and should lead to immediate cessation of all discussions. I’m serious about the “moron” tag. Anyone dumb enough to think that the 14 million British millennials qualify as a segment needs their head examined. They fail every possible test of segmentation and anyone who refers to them in any context other than to point out that they are a total load of clichéd bollocks should not be trusted."

Recordar "Voltar ao Lugar do Senhor dos Perdões"

Trechos retirados de "Mark Ritson: The seven unmistakable signs of a shit brand consultant"

Acerca de Mongo e do poder das empresas grandes

Quando penso em Mongo vejo o crescimento da diversidade de tribos e da democratização da produção a corroer o poder das empresas grandes para dar lugar a um mundo económico muito mais diversificado, povoado por PME, povoado por plataformas cooperativas, povoado por relações p2p.
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Interessante como já hoje estão no terreno tantos sintomas que facilitam a corrosão do poder das empresas grandes. Um excelente artigo a merecer reflexão "Branding in the Age of Social Media":

"Businesses have invested billions pursuing this vision. Yet few brands have generated meaningful consumer interest online. In fact, social media seems to have made brands less significant.
...
While the rise of crowdculture diminishes the impact of branded content and sponsorships, it has greased the wheels for an alternative approach that I call cultural branding."

A cultura de Mongo é esta Babel de tribos e interesses:

"Today you’ll find a flourishing crowdculture around almost any topic: espresso, the demise of the American Dream, Victorian novels, arts-and-crafts furniture, libertarianism, new urbanism, 3-D printing, anime, bird-watching, homeschooling, barbecue. Back in the day, these subculturalists had to gather physically and had very limited ways to communicate collectively: magazines and, later, primitive Usenet groups and meet-ups.
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Social media has expanded and democratized these subcultures. With a few clicks, you can jump into the center of any subculture, and participants’ intensive interactions move seamlessly among the web, physical spaces, and traditional media. Together members are pushing forward new ideas, products, practices, and aesthetics—bypassing mass-culture gatekeepers. With the rise of crowdculture, cultural innovators and their early adopter markets have become one and the same."

BTW, o que um amador pode fazer "The Star Trek Fan Film That Went Too Far"

Acerca da monitorização (parte II)

Parte I.
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O CTCP vai promover o Workshop formativo “Indicadores de Monitorização de Processos”- no dia 24 de maio em São João da Madeira.

Curiosidade do dia

Um artigo a merecer leitura e reflexão "Why Uber and Apple Won’t Save The Economy", acerca do problema da financeirização da economia.

"The Fed has pumped $4 trillion of money into the markets, but we are still in the longest, slowest recovery of the post‑war era.
.
I believe that the reason for that is that our system of market capitalism is broken. The capital markets and Wall Street are no longer serving business or the Main Street economy that you and I live in.
...
But only 15 percent of all the money flowing through financial institutions today ends up in businesses. The rest of it is staying within the closed loop of the market itself. It’s being traded.
...
It seems amply evident that the right thing to do is to focus your company on the business of business, and not the business of financialization. However, all of the incentives, and all of the policy, seem to be pushing companies in the opposite direction. It’s almost as if you can’t blame them for doing what they do, because that’s how they’re being incented.
.
Right. One of the things I wanted to do in this book was get away from a culture of blaming the bankers, blaming the CEOs, blaming the one percent. I cover these people on a daily basis. Nobody’s venal here. They really are doing what they’re incentivized to do. It’s just that over the long haul, it doesn’t happen to work.
...
One of the most telling statistics that I came across in researching the book was a difference in how much investment a company made in CapEx, R&D, factories, and in worker training when you compared private companies with similar public ones. The private companies made twice the investments into the real economy as public companies did.
...
Private companies are out there investing under the same tax and regulatory frameworks. They see plenty of opportunities. But the public markets make it impossible for CEOs to take these long-term decisions."

“Industrialism has changed from creating value to extracting value. Need to find new models.” @EskoKilpi #OSFest16

— Paul Mackay (@pmackay) May 20, 2016

Acerca da monitorização

Um exemplo do uso de sparklines no excel para ilustrar, num espaço muito curto, a evolução mensal de 20 indicadores e a comparação com o desempenho homólogo. Recordar os 3 erros mais comuns na apresentação de resultados (segundo Mark G. Brown no livro “Keeping Score - using the right metrics to drive world-class performance”):

• Usar tabelas em vez de gráficos;
• Apresentar apenas o último resultado; e
• Não ter um referencial, uma meta, para a tomada de decisões.

Agora, complementar a informação dos gráficos com números e comparar com uma meta:

Recordar:

• Factos vs retórica (Outubro de 2007)
• Sugestões para elaborar painéis de indicadores por processo (parte I) (Junho de 2010)

Compreender o contexto

Consideremos uma empresa de vestuário em Portugal e a implementar um sistema de gestão da qualidade segundo os requisitos da ISO 9001:2015.
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Que tipo de factores externos listará ao abrigo da cláusula 4.1?
.
.
.
Quantas registam coisas como esta, "The rise of athleisure is eating into the profits of regular clothes"?

"Shoppers are spending less on clothes and looking for discounts when they do. Amazon and fast fashion are stealing their customers.
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But there’s another factor hitting these businesses, according to a comprehensive research note by Deutsche Bank. Athletic clothing is taking a bite out of regular clothing’s sales.
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“We see athletic apparel boosting the industry, up 4.1% from 2008-2015 on average,” the authors write. “Meanwhile, non-athletic apparel was up only 0.2% during that timeframe and lagged overall apparel in seven of the past eight years."

Que impacte é que isto vai ter no negócio dos clientes dos seus clientes?
Que consequências nos negócios da empresa?
.
Como remediar esta tendência?
Como aproveitar esta tendência?
Que implicações para a estratégia?
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Se não considera estas coisas como é que o sistema de gestão da qualidade é relevante para o negócio?

Promotores da concorrência imperfeita, dos monopólios informais e das rendas excessivas (Parte II)

Parte I.

"Several broad forces, most of them peculiar to our times, are combining to create advantageous conditions for small companies. A market segment known as “selectionists,” who constitute 30 percent of consumers, are seeking greater variety and new tastes in the food and drinks they buy—and sometimes care deeply about factors such as the origins of a product and how far it has been shipped. Some traditional supermarkets are catering to this trend as a way to differentiate themselves from Walmart and big price clubs. The fragmentation of media and the generally lower cost of digital platforms are giving small players new outlets to reach customers in more targeted, cost-efficient ways. But what should most concern large players is how technology is eroding their scale-driven advantages. Small players are increasingly able to outsource invoicing, HR systems, and logistics, as well as other back-office SG&A functions. Retail consolidation is further chipping away at scale advantage. The preference among bigger retailers is to work with a broad range of manufacturers—both large and small—to keep large consumer packaged goods companies from gaining too much leverage."

Em vez de choradinho, pensamento estratégico.
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Em vez de mais do mesmo, novidade, diferenciação, proximidade, autenticidade.
.
Em vez da aposta na eficiência e no denominador, aposta na eficácia e no numerador.

Sem arte ...

Sem arte, o produto fabricado pela sua empresa será apenas mais uma commodity que pode ser substituído por este ecossistema "UPS teams with SAP to invest in 3-D printing":

"Customers will be able to place 3-D printing orders on the Fast Radius website, which will send them to one of UPS' more than 60 stores outfitted with 3-D printers, or Fast Radius' production facilities in Louisville. Where the order is sent will depend on speed, geography and the product quality the customer requires.
.
SAP customers will be able to use the system to digitize and simplify the production part approval process.
...
According to a study published in April by the Manufacturing Institute, 71% of U.S. manufacturers are using 3-D printing technology in some way. While the majority still use it mainly for prototypes, almost 7% are using it to produce end products."

E de "3D Printing Comes of Age in U.S. Industrial Manufacturing":

"While roughly the same percentage of US manufacturers are currently adopting 3DP in some way (roughly two-thirds) a higher percentage (51%) are using it for prototyping and final-products than two years ago (35%); meanwhile, fewer are simply “experimenting” to determine how they may use the technology (17% vs 29% two years earlier).
...
3D printing seen to disrupt supply chain, threaten intellectual property Manufacturers are equally split on what will be 3DP’s most disruptive effect, with 22% saying it will be in restructuring supply chains, and another 22% that it will be threats to intellectual property, and 18% believe that it will be changed relationships with customers. Two years ago, the stand-alone, number-one concern was supply chain disruption."

E de "3D printing industry to triple in four years to $21B":

"This year, the 3D printing industry, which includes machines, materials and printing services, will reach $7.3 billion. By 2020, it is expected to grow to $21 billion,
...
3D printing can speed development and delivery for customized products and bring increased flexibility through better inventory management and real-time production of wares that have variable demand.
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Other advantages named in the report: Manufacturing advantages for small batches, cost advantages based on efficiencies for certain applications and unprecedented flexibility in new markets. 3D printing also can improve quality through lighter parts, better ergonomics and more design freedom."

Matéria-prima para fazer emergir um novo tipo de economia, até que ponto voltaremos ao modelo pré-industrial?

Curiosidade do dia

Interessante a evolução relatada em "The fad for the Andean staple has not hurt the poor—yet".
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O sucesso foi tão grande que fez com que os profissionais da agricultura intensiva se interessassem pelo que deixou de ser um nicho.
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Até que ponto a diferenciação e autenticidade pode funcionar como barreira contra a commoditização?

A concorrência imperfeita a funcionar

Enquanto o governo, o presidente e a oposição se digladiam acerca das exportações, mais exemplos do que é a concorrência imperfeita a funcionar:

• "Exportações de mobiliário para EUA crescem 30 por cento"
• "Exportações de Vestuário Crescem 4,6% no Primeiro Trimestre"
• "Exportações de frutos e hortícolas portugueses cresceram 24% em 2015"

"A produção de fruta e produtos hortícolas em Portugal está cada vez mais direcionada para o exterior, tendo registado em 2015 um forte crescimento de 24% nas exportações face ao ano anterior, com um valor de 570 milhões de euros, de acordo com o estudo setorial ‘Frutas e Produtos Hortícolas’ da Informa D&B. Se recuarmos até ao início da década, este crescimento das exportações é de mais de 80%, já que o setor exportou 313 milhões de euros em 2010."

• "Vinhos de Lisboa aumentam exportações" 

"Os Vinhos de Lisboa aumentaram as suas exportações em 2015, apesar de Angola ter deixado de ser o principal mercado e ter baixado de 20% para 2,5% o peso que tinha nas vendas ao estrangeiro.
...
Vasco Avillez, presidente da Comissão Vitivinícola Regional (CVR) de Lisboa, disse que de 2014 para 2015 as exportações «aumentaram 35% em volume e 50% em valor», com o preço médio por garrafa a subir de 2,70 para 3 euros."

• "Portugal importa vinho para exportar"

"Em 2015, as exportações portuguesas de vinho crescerem 1,6% em valor, para atingirem o sexto recorde consecutivo, e caíram 1,2% em volume, com o preço médio por litro a subir 2,8%, para €2,63."

A treta do leite

Um reforço do sintoma do quão mau é o jornalismo em Portugal.
.
Em Março passado escrevemos "Os Trump do leite e a preguiça dos media (parte II)" acerca do grito dos produtores de leite por causa de um suposto dumping dos preços dos produtos lácteos que, segundo eles, chegam a Portugal.
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Entretanto, descubro estes números "Comércio intracomunitario - Janeiro de 2016". o texto remete para um pdf onde podemos ver a evolução das exportações intracomunitárias portuguesas de manteiga (+41%), queijo (-6%), leite em pó desnatado (+ mais de 300%) e leite em pó inteiro (+5%).
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Relativamente aos tais preços do leite que chegam a preços de dumping e que desmontámos aqui, números recentes aqui.
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Tudo indica que os elementos mais conservadores do sector fazem barulho e os políticos vão atrás cheios de medo e os jornalistas servem de megafone.

Promotores da concorrência imperfeita, dos monopólios informais e das rendas excessivas

Às vezes encontramos artigos tão em sintonia com o que pensamos, com o que prevemos, com o que sentimos...

"Small consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies in the U.S. are steadily gaining market share these days, often at the expense of larger competitors. Booz & Company recently analyzed the food and beverage industry and found that small players (those with sales of less than US$1 billion) are outperforming the competition in 18 of the top 25 categories, including the largest and most consolidated ones, such as bakery, dairy, snacks, and ready meals (see Exhibit). From 2009 to 2012 in packaged foods and from 2008 to 2011 in beverages, small players grew revenue about three times faster than the overall category.
...
Along with market share gains, small players enjoyed price premiums in many categories.
...
Small players also showed pricing strength over private label manufacturers. From 2011 to 2012, the price premium for small players over private labels jumped 5 percent for butter, olive oil, and packaged/industrial bread."

Como não recordar logo o texto deste ex-economista "Monopoly’s New Era":

"In today’s economy, many sectors – telecoms, cable TV, digital branches from social media to Internet search, health insurance, pharmaceuticals, agro-business, and many more – cannot be understood through the lens of competition. In these sectors, what competition exists is oligopolistic, not the “pure” competition depicted in textbooks. A few sectors can be defined as “price taking”; firms are so small that they have no effect on market price."

Claro que existem monopólios, sobretudo protegidos pelos Estados, onde o crony capitalism floresce viçosamente.
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No entanto, os trechos iniciais são acerca de um outro tipo de monopólio.
.
O tipo de monopólio que defendemos e incitamos as empresas a criarem com o nosso mote:

Promotores da concorrência imperfeita, dos monopólios informais e das rendas excessivas.

Joseph E. Stiglitz ainda pensa a economia como um mundo povoado por econs?
.
As pequenas empresas CPG dos trechos iniciais:

• crescem mais;
• crescem mais depressa;
• praticam preços superiores; e
• são menos sujeitas à erosão dos preços por causa da concorrência.

Falcatrua? Cronysmo? Ilegalidade? Não! Apenas estratégias de diferenciação. Recordo que Edward Chamberlin, estava contra a existência de marcas, porque elas permitem a diferenciação dos produtos. A diferenciação dos produtos permite que mais monopólios, "informais"  acrescento eu, sejam criados e, por isso, as empresas, pelo menos algumas, tenham retornos superiores.

.

Trechos iniciais retirados de "The Big Bite of Small Brands".

Mistério esclarecido?

Em Fevereiro passado comentei:

Deve haver 1 esquema qualquer com cabras. Este ano, tanta gente em Estarreja a começar a criar chibas

— Carlos P da Cruz (@ccz1) February 22, 2016

Entretanto, descubro isto "Leite de cabra precisa-se!" de Setembro de 2015

Curiosidade do dia

"A dívida do Estado tem como efeito inevitável o aumento dos impostos - o Estado funciona com o dinheiro dos outros. Os agentes económicos privados, pelo contrário, terão de aumentar a eficiência dos seus investimentos e das organizações empresariais para poderem pagar o serviço da dívida - e as alternativas são a venda dos seus activos ou a falência.
 .
Nesta singularidade do Estado, em democracia como em ditadura, esconde-se uma realidade perversa, uma prática que ninguém quer admitir: no interior do Estado proliferam as redes de interesses e de protecção, com um mercado próprio de compras e de vendas, com o poder de eliminar os concorrentes mais eficientes e com a garantia de proteger os fiéis, mesmo que incompetentes ou delinquentes."

Trecho retirado de "Redes de influência e protecção"

E na sua empresa, como é?

"Incumbents are still segmenting almost exclusively by value, which leads sales teams to stack-rank customers on the basis of revenues and operating margins"

E na sua empresa, como é feita a segmentação dos clientes?
.
Em "Small Customer Today, Revenue Giant Tomorrow" uma sugestão que talvez mereça reflexão na sua empresa:

"With a new approach to segmentation, incumbents can find their “growth hot spots,” those high-potential customers obscured by more traditional methods. Sales leaders need to consider two critical but often overlooked factors when assessing their current and future customers: need and behavior." 

Um passo em direcção à consideração dos clientes-alvo e ao seu comportamento, uma espécie de journey mapping.

Um conselho aplicável a muitas empresas

Um conselho aplicável a muitas empresas e não só às grandes:

"on the basis of our recent analysis of 12 major U.S. packaged food and non-alcoholic beverage companies, we believe management can drive comparable shareholder returns by deploying an alternative formula that has three key components. The first is cost reduction. Companies must reduce costs sufficiently to offset the margin erosion inherent in their businesses, create enough savings to allow for reinvestment in the business, and raise operating margins by 400 basis points. Second, companies must rationalize their portfolios so that they retain only businesses in which core capabilities create unique advantage. [Moi ici: Recordar a série sobre o tecto de vidro] Third, and most significant, they must create new avenues for step-change profitable growth that build upon current capabilities."

Trecho retirado de "The Shareholder Value Triple Play"

Execução e alinhamento

"At its heart, execution is about organizational alignment—making sure the people, the formal organization, and the culture support the execution of the strategy. 

provides a model that illustrates this. In this model, if I am clear about my strategy and objectives, then I can identify the key success factors that need to be accomplished to achieve the objectives (e.g., what the three or four things are that I have to accomplish over the next twelve to eighteen months if I am to be successful at implementing my strategy). Once I have these specified, I can then think about aligning the people, formal organization, and culture in a way that ensures that the organization will achieve these. For each of these elements (people, formal organization, and culture), I can ask a set of diagnostic questions:
...
Answers to these questions will help determine whether the organization is aligned in a way to execute the strategy. Misalignments (e.g., not having the right skills or using the wrong metrics) decrease the chances of successful execution."

Figura e trechos retirados de "Lead and disrupt : how to solve the innovator’s dilemma" de Charles A. O’Reilly III e Michael L. Tushman

Não há certeza de nada

Daqui:

"in strategy there is no single right answer to find. Strategy requires making choices about an uncertain future. It is not possible, no matter how much of the ocean you boil, to discover the one right answer. There isn’t one."

Daqui:

"What was the best strategy in the end? What Lindgren found was that this is a nonsensical question. In an evolutionary system such as Lindgren's model, there is no single winner, no optimal, no best strategy. Rather, anyone who is alive at a particular point in time, is in effect a winner, because everyone else is dead. To be alive at all, an agent must have a strategy with something going for it, some way of making a living, defending against competitors, and dealing with the vagaries of its environment.
…
Likewise, we cannot say any single strategy in the Prisoner's Dilemma ecology was a winner. Lindgren's model showed that once in a while, a particular strategy would rise up, dominate the game for a while, have its day in the sun, and then inevitably be brought down by some innovative competitor. Sometimes, several strategies shared the limelight, battling for "market share" control of the game board, and then an outsider would come in and bring them all down. During other periods, two strategies working as a symbiotic pair would rise up together—but then if one got into trouble, both collapsed."

E em "Doing Everything Right Still Won't Make You a Winner":

"Just because you do everything right doesn’t mean that you’re still going to win.
.
Doing what is right doesn’t mean that nothing wrong is going to come into your life.
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You don’t get an automatic entry to the podium just because you gave it your all."

Julgo que isto é muito difícil de perceber por pessoas com ideias feitas ainda que não tenham capacidade de idear, como dizia Ortega Y Gasset. Isto é o que torna a estratégia interessante, não há certeza de nada. O que é verdade hoje no mundo de hoje pode ser mentira amanhã no mundo de amanhã.

Curiosidade do dia

A narrativa mudou, os malvados foram embora. Pena que a realidade seja tramada:

• Contenção de custos na ADSE ainda é para continuar;
• Marcelo pede que não haja “alarmismo” se houver novas previsões económicas;
• 35 horas. Enfermeiros acusam Centeno e o PS de “brincar com a saúde das pessoas”;
• Conselho de Finanças Públicas: Há mais de 2.000 milhões em medidas por especificar