Mercados e jardineiros

Estranho, leio artigo que avança que o mercado não é perfeito, não é eficiente e, por isso, precisa de um jardineiro, o governo, que trate do jardim, a economia.

.

Estranho que os autores do artigo não ponham em causa a perfeição e a eficiência de um governo, qualquer que ele seja. 

.

E quando me lançam a deixa de que o mercado deixado a si próprio gera monopólios e injustiças não deixo de acreditar que esses monopólios e injustiças foram fruto de algum conluio prévio entre governos e alguns actores no mercado.

"Amazon didn’t kill traditional commerce; it helped shift it"

Via @armando_moreira cheguei a "Fitness is getting disrupted?!?! Not so fast, my friend...":

"So yes, disruption is here and it’s real and it’s happening in a lot of industries.
.
But … the way we think about it is often wrong.
...
Some health club industry leaders will claim that nothing can replace human interactions, so clubs and trainers can’t be threatened by these new business models. I’d have to disagree. It is true that there is no replacement for human beings, but technology is enabling business models to do things in ways that humans on their own can not at scale.
.
Many of the most successful brands will blend human interaction with technology tools to create even higher levels of service -- and trainers can support hundreds of clients with a combination of digital and physical delivery.
...
By 2020, you’re going to see a global wellness community of over 1B on traditional brick-and-mortar health clubs, wearables, and apps. Each aspect of the ecosystem is going to inform the others. It’s not that MyFitnessPal or a newer, cooler FitBit is going to “kill” the traditional health club industry. It’s going to be a partnership where each side informs the other.
.
That’s what we often get wrong about disruption. Amazon didn’t kill traditional commerce; it helped shift it. [Moi ici: Recordar este exemplo recente] Uber hasn’t killed yellow cabs, but it’s made them think differently about their business models. When we view disruption in terms of “X will destroy Y,” we create fear-based, short-term thinking in traditional executives -- and that’s bad for everyone.
.
The fitness industry is about living your best life and being your best self -- with a few people making some money along that arc. There are disruptive technologies reshaping how the industry thinks about and presents itself, yes, but ultimately these technologies will help to create a massive global ecosystem rooted in an omni-channel approach to delivery."

Uma mensagem na linha da de Suzanne Berger em 2006:

“… there are no “sunset” industries condemned to disappear in high wage economies, although there are certainly sunset and condemned strategies, among them building a business on the advantages to be gained by cheap labor” 

Mongo em todo o lado

Mais um exemplo de como Mongo, o Estranhistão, anda por aí a entranhar-se em todas as áreas da economia e da vida das pessoas.

.

As pessoas, os clientes, não querem ser tratados como plancton!

""Beauty is a very personal thing," says Finding Ferdinand founder Nhu Le. "People don't want to be told. They want to choose what looks good."
.
As Le sees it, customization is what today's consumers desire of all industries, not just cosmetics. "There's definitely a subset of the market that wants customization, especially with millennials and the 'selfie generation,'" she says. "They want to dictate what's [personally] looking good."
...
The ability to compose a unique product versus pacing a store floor has inspired a new generation of startups to take aim at the beauty industry. These companies are reimagining how we purchase everything from nail art to hair products.
...
"We believe [customization] is the new form of luxury, which is really a return to the old form of luxury in the idea of having something made just for you,"
...
Consumer involvement can create strong bonds. Like the do-it-yourself "maker" movement, people increasingly want to create. "From start to finish, you feel like you're involved and getting a product that you like,"
...
"If you look at any other industry, from social media to fashion, from technology to food, you will notice that customization is definitely the trend and the future,""

Trechos retirados de "Is Customization The Future Of The Beauty Industry?"

Outro sinal, outro sintoma

"Benetton aposta no “made in Italy”
.
A marca de moda Benetton deverá lançar uma nova linha “made in Italy” este ano, numa tentativa de trazer a empresa de volta às suas raízes e «recentrar no seu principal know-how». A coleção, que deverá ser produzida em Treviso e chamar-se “TV 31100”, o código postal da cidade, deverá estrear-se em novembro, com os primeiros designs a serem uma série de malhas superleves, feitas com uma mistura de lã merino e caxemira. De acordo com o WWD, a empresa terá investido 2 milhões de euros para o projeto, tendo adquirido 36 teares Shima Seiki para fazer as malhas e empregado mais cerca de 50 pessoas extra para a produção. Os primeiros produtos feitos em Treviso vão chegar às lojas europeias no próximo mês, a que deverá seguir-se a Índia e o México, e serão consistentes com os preços da marca, ficando abaixo dos 80 euros."

Outro sinal do reshoring em curso um pouco por todo o lado. Não admira que as exportações do têxtil e vestuário português estejam a crescer mais de 6% face a 2015.

Pense nisto

“Stop trying to turn bad customers into good ones. Focus on good ones and finding millions of those.” Prof. @ebradlow #wcaiconf pic.twitter.com/SM4WDjGtHG

— The Wharton School (@Wharton) October 14, 2016

Mongo e o século XXI precisam de outra abordagem

Em "Estratégia na agricultura" referi "The Dizzying Grandeur of 21st-Century Agriculture" e comentei que é antes o modelo nascido no século XX e que começa agora a apresentar sinais de esgotamento traduzido em:

• "America’s Dairy Farmers Dump 43 Million Gallons of Excess Milk"
• "USDA to Buy Additional $20 Million of Cheese"

A mentalidade gringa é esta de competir pela escala, pelo preço e crescer eliminando os concorrentes.

.

Mongo e o século XXI precisam de outra abordagem, "Learn to compete peacefully".

.

Precisam de fugir do granel, precisam de fiambreiras e precisam de segmentos onde possam coexistir, precisam de deixar de apostar na redução do custo unitário para se concentrarem no aumento do preço unitário.

Keith Jarreth e as PME (parte II)

Parte I.
.
Por causa das limitações do piano, Keith Jarrett teve de sair da sua zona de conforto e teve de tocar de forma diferente.
.
Quando o mundo muda, as empresas com gente adulta à sua frente também mudam, também se reinventam.
.
Como não associar esta actuação de Keith Jarrett ao desempenho das empresas, como as de calçado, que vendiam sapatos a 30 euros e deixaram de ter clientes, e tiveram de se reinventar para terem clientes e alcançarem um novo patamar de sucesso a vender sapatos para outro universo a 230 euros.
.
Como não recordar o sector do leite e a sua resistência a repensar o modelo de negócio.

Não soube dar resposta?

"“A estagnação não é inevitável”, afirmou Pedro Braz Ferreira, do Núcleo de Estudos de Conjuntura da Economia Portuguesa, esta quinta-feira. Mas “2016 foi um ano perdido”. O investigador da Católica Lisbon School of Business and Economics considerou que Portugal foi vítima da globalização porque não soube dar resposta."

O que é que isto "Portugal foi vítima da globalização porque não soube dar resposta."" quer dizer?
.
Isto é conversa de lesboeta, longe da realidade micro-económica portuguesa, e que só conhece e trabalha aglomerados estatísticos.
.
Eu, anónimo engenheiro da província, conheço um outro país, um país longe dos holofotes mediáticos que sofreu um choque profundo com a globalização, um país que foi ao tapete, enquanto a  elite vivia a orgia do não-transaccionável.
.
Esse país que eu conheço, levantou-se e aprendeu, por sua conta, muitas vezes por tentativa e erro, a forma de dar resposta à globalização.
.
É mais fácil seguir a onda do mainstream do que fazer contas. Por isso, pedi: "Façam as contas comigo" e cheguei a:

Um país tão competitivo quanto a Alemanha, traduzido no crescimento das exportações, e vêm dizer que o país não soube dar resposta à globalização...
.
Trecho retirado de "Fórum para a Competitividade: “2016 foi um ano perdido”"

Curiosidade do dia

"…Não tivemos assim tanta austeridade?
Se olhar para os números do défice público primário, tirando as despesas com juros, a descida do défice público primário em Portugal entre 2012 e 2014 é menor do que a que houve nos EUA. E nos EUA não se falou de austeridade. Há uma descida grande entre 2011 e 2012, mas depois…
...
A austeridade, é preciso compreender… Não quero de forma alguma ser citado como dizendo que não houve austeridade em Portugal. Houve austeridade em Portugal, com certeza. Houve uma redução das finanças públicas, com certeza. Agora quando dizem que foi de uma violência brutal… Olho para o historial do que são os programas do FMI, em termos do ajustamento do saldo primário, e Portugal não está sequer no top dos 30 dos últimos 30 anos de [maiores] ajustamentos fiscais do FMI. Não está, em termos do que foi a variação do saldo primário das contas públicas."

Trecho retirado de "Ricardo Reis: “Não tivemos assim tanta austeridade” como se diz"

"It was the customers’ situation that determined why they bought."

"WHAT’S THE JTBD?
.
From the data Morgan has given us, I’d say that the struggle for progress is:
.
More about: My family having quality food, taking away the stress from grocery shopping, more family time, convenience
Less about: Grocery shopping online / supermarket / local shop, supporting the local community
.
Again, any kind of task or activity associated with grocery shopping is just a solution for a JTBD - it's not part of the JTBD itself.
...
The progression of solutions in this case study helps us understand what customers do and don’t value. In the beginning, parents were fine visiting multiple shops. They were willing to trade convenience for food quality. But when their family grew, saving time and reducing stress became more important to them. This is how we know that their struggle, their JTBD, is heavily related to finding a way to solve that stress and to save time.
.
This case study also demonstrates how customer needs or wants change over time, and don't belong to the customer. We may think we’re measuring a need, but we’re really just measuring what a customer does or doesn’t like about a particular solution. We must keep in mind that a “need” is represents an interaction between the customer, their struggle, and whatever product they’ve hired for their JTBD. If one of those parts changes, then customers’ needs will change along with it.
...
Don’t depend on demographics. At first, Morgan thought he was making a product for young, urban professionals. This demographic certainly did represent some of his customers. However, it turned out that his most dedicated customers were families. Not only that, they almost always had two or more young children.
.
We can learn from this that demographic thinking can be misleading. It was the customers’ situation - not personal characteristics - that determined why they bought.
...
Know the difference between customers who switch because they are unhappy with your solution and those who switch because changing life circumstances prompt a redefinition of progress."

Trechos retirados de "When coffee & kale compete" de Alan Klement.

Outro exemplo do ataque das fiambreiras

"Jobs [Moi ici: Jobs-to-be-done] can also help predict when an offering is likely to become unbundled. Clay uses the example of the New York Times, which at one point provided solutions to jobs such as looking for employment, selling your car, providing information about the weather, and of course providing news. When focused entrants such as Craigslist or Monster.com do those jobs better, more simply, or less expensively, the bundled offer starts to disintegrate."

Amanhã vou fazer uma apresentação para um grupo de empresas intitulada "Granel, fiambreiras e rouxinóis". A certa altura vou referir o exemplo de Bruce Jenner (aka The New York Times). Medalha de ouro nos Jogos Olímpicos de Montreal em 1976 no decatlo (uma disciplina para generalistas) com as marcas de:

• 10,94 s nos 100 m
• 15,35 m no lançamento do peso
• 68,52 m no lançamento do dardo

Entretanto, nos mesmos Jogos Olímpicos, os especialistas que ganharam a medalha de ouro tiveram as seguintes marcas:

• H. Crawford com 10,06 nos 100 m
• U. Bayer com 21,05 m no lançamento do peso
• M. Némete 94,58 m no lançamento do dardo

Muitas empresas, como relata o trecho com o exemplo do jornal, estão habituadas a serem generalistas. O problema é que cada vez mais aparecem empresas-especialistas, empresas-fiambreiras, as salami slicers que se especializam a servir um tipo específico de oferta para um segmento específico da procura.
.
E a sua empresa, é fiambreira ou generalista?

Trecho retirado daqui.

Sair da frente e não estorvar

Por um lado, lido ao final do dia de ontem:

"existem nos 28 países da União Europeia dois grupos distintos: a) os que optaram por pequenos ou nulos deficits orçamentais, por dívidas públicas inferiores a 60% do PIB, e por oferecerem às suas empresas condições favoráveis de competitividade, nomeadamente com uma legislação laboral flexível, com impostos baixos, e com apoios às despesas de investigação e inovação. Estes países alcançaram, por regra, taxas elevadas de crescimento.
...
b) os países que optaram por grandes deficits orçamentais e elevadas dívidas públicas, ignorando, em boa medida, os factores de competitividade das empresas. Registaram, por regra, taxas de crescimento reduzidas ou mesmo nulas."

Por outro lado, o que ouvi na caminhada matinal:

"Managers at every level in organizations also populate a range, from rank amateurs to reflective artisans. The former, when they go looking for the new insights that will take their companies’ plans or performance to the next level, tend to seize on shiny objects. They chase trends. They look at game-changing work by others — breakthroughs that in hindsight seem inevitable — and just as they look at great photographs, they assume they were the result of fast reflexes and the luck of being in the right place at the right time.
.
More deliberate leaders believe great opportunities must be made, and work at building the layers of creative insight from the back
...
spending most of his energy on setting the stage for his organization to recognize a good idea when it surfaces. Instead of declaring a particular innovation he wants to pursue, he constantly poses key, cornerstone questions. [Moi ici: Como não recordar o tweet recorrente do meu amigo @icyView "obsessão socialista: picking winners and losers"] Two of his favorites are: How can we delight consumers when they buy our products? How can they be more delighted when using them? Everything else builds forward from that.
...
they are framing the background conditions that will allow creative thinking to flourish and be heard — in large part by tamping down their own impulses to be hard-charging, full of answers, and quick to intervene.[Moi ici: Como não recordar Nassim Taleb e os fragilistas ingénuos] Then they attend to the next layer, encouraging questions from themselves and others that will break down outdated assumptions and open up new realms of problem-solving. Having composed those steady-state layers deliberately, they can then wait — impatiently perhaps, but with the confidence that some fleeting, highly valuable insight will materialize. Most important, when that compelling element does cross their line of sight, they will see it for what it is: a flash of brilliance that deserves to be captured, and that will justify all the background work that gave it a proper setting."[Moi ici: Como não recordar a ganância com que os governos portugueses saltam para o saque impostal a tudo o que parece estar a ter sucesso, secando a possibilidade de capitalização tão necessária à subida na escala de valor]

Como não recordar Bloomberg e a mesa:

"You don't get to be in charge, really. You can help set the table, and then get out of the way and let the village/city function the best you can."

Primeiros trechos retirados de "É urgente uma política que promova o crescimento económico"
.
Segundos trechos retirados de "What Great Leaders Can Learn from Great Photographers"

Keith Jarreth e as PME

Na passada quarta-feira, enquanto descia o Marão, literalmente, resolvi espreitar o último livro de Tim Harford, "Messy: The Power of Disorder to Transform Our Lives".
.
O autor sabe como captar o interesse do leitor, começando com uma estória:

"On the 27th of January, 1975, a seventeen-year-old German girl named Vera Brandes stepped out onto the vast stage of the Cologne opera house. The auditorium was empty, and lit only by the dim green glow of the emergency exit sign, but this was the most exciting day of Vera’s life. She was the youngest concert promoter in Germany, and she had persuaded the Opera House to host a late-night concert of improvised jazz by the American pianist Keith Jarrett. The concert was a sellout, and in just a few hours, Jarrett would stride out in front of 1,400 people, sit down at the Bösendorfer piano, and without sheet music or rehearsal would begin to play.
.
But that afternoon, Vera Brandes was introducing Keith Jarrett and his producer Manfred Eicher to the piano—and it wasn’t going well.
.
“Keith played a few notes,” recalls Brandes. “Then Eicher played a few notes. They didn’t say anything. They circled the instrument several times and then tried a few keys. Then after a long silence, Manfred came to me and said, ‘If you don’t get another piano, Keith can’t play tonight.’.
Vera Brandes was stunned. She knew that Jarrett had requested a specific instrument and the Opera House had agreed to provide it. What she hadn’t realized was that, caring little for late-night jazz, they’d failed and didn’t even know it. The administrative staff had gone home, the piano movers hadn’t been able to find the Bösendorfer piano that had been requested, and so they had instead installed, as Brandes recalls, “this tiny little Bösendorfer, that was completely out of tune, the black notes in the middle didn’t work, the pedals stuck. It was unplayable.”
.
Brandes tried everything to find a replacement. She even rounded up friends to push a grand piano through the streets of Cologne, but it was raining hard, and the local piano tuner warned her that the substitute piano would never survive the trip. Instead, he worked to fix up the little instrument that was onstage already. Yet he could do nothing about the muffled bass notes, the plinky high notes, and the simple fact that the piano —“a small piano, like half a piano”—just didn’t make a loud enough sound to reach the balconies of the vast auditorium.
.
Understandably, Jarrett didn’t want to perform. He left and went to wait in his car, leaving Brandes to anticipate the arrival of 1,400 soon-to-be furious concertgoers. The best day of her life had suddenly become the worst; her enthusiasm for jazz and her precocious entrepreneurial spirit brought the prospect of utter humiliation. Desperate, she caught up with Jarrett and through the window of his car, she begged him to play. The young pianist looked out at the bedraggled German teenager standing in the rain and took pity on her. “Never forget,” Jarrett said. “Only for you.”
.
A few hours later, as midnight approached, Jarrett walked out to the unplayable piano in front of a packed concert hall, and began.
.
“The minute he played the first note, everybody knew this was magic,” recalls Brandes.
.
That night’s performance began with a simple chiming series of notes, then quickly gained complexity as it moved by turns between dynamism and a languid, soothing tone. It was beautiful and strange, and it is enormously popular: the Köln Concert album has sold 3.5 million copies."

Quando cheguei aqui parei e fiquei maravilhado.
.
Há cerca de 10 anos o meu amigo Eduardo apresentou-me Keith Jarreth e foi amor à primeira vista. E o Köln Concert é pura magia que aprendi a apreciar como companhia durante muitas horas de trabalho ou de viagem.
.
Ontem de manhã bem cedo, durante uma caminhada matinal debaixo de chuva miudinha junto aos esteiros de Estarreja, fiz uma ligação entre esta estória e as PME.
.
Continua.

Curiosidade do dia

"Não importam os factos, pouco interessa o que é verdade, acredita-se, quase por fé, naquilo que se deseja que seja verdade. É o sentimento que conta, tal como nos mercados. Não é mentira, mas também não é verdade mas é aquilo que queremos que seja a realidade, seja porque assim pensam os nossos amigos, a nossa tribo seja o partido ou clube de futebol, ou aqueles a quem damos maior credibilidade que não são – e esta é a grande diferença – especialistas.
.
Na era dos factos, basta verificar com estatísticas, frases ou relatos para se fazer ou desfazer uma declaração. Nesta nova era é mais importante quem diz, a que “tribo” pertence e especialmente, num mundo de imagem, a forma como se afirma."

Trecho retirado de "Os desafios da economia na era dos pós-factos"

Dúvidas

"Christensen introduced his theory of disruption, which explains how established, successful companies leave themselves vulnerable to competition from upstarts by abandoning the lower end of the market. Transistor radios, for example, were sold cheaply to teenagers and eventually overtook the expensive, high-quality vacuum-tube radios that once dominated the market. A more recent example might be AirBnb’s assault on the hotel industry."

Este exemplo da AirBnb deixa-me dúvidas...
.
Por certo, alguns clientes da AirBnb eram clientes overserved pela indústria hoteleira tradicional. No entanto, sem Airnb talvez a maioria dos seus clientes nunca pudesse fazer a experiência turística de todo. Ou seja, tal como os ginásios low-cost, talvez a entrada destes players acabe por fazer crescer o mercado para todos, mesmo para os incumbentes.

Trecho retirado de "Innovation guru Clayton Christensen’s new theory is meant to protect you from disruption"

"Don’t focus solely on functionality"

"Here are some suggestions to help you get started today with applying JTBD thinking. Ask customers about what they’ve done, not just what they want. Confirm it if you can. Customers will often tell us what we want to hear, even if it’s partially (or completely) untrue. Customers may tell you that they use your product “all the time,” but they really use it only intermittently. Also, people build easy-to-remember narratives between themselves and the products they use. Phenomena like this are why it’s tricky to ask customers, “What do you want?” and “How can we make things better?”
.
The answer for these problems is to talk with customers about what they actually did, not just about what they say they want. What were their revealed preferences, not just their stated preferences? Even the answers about actual action taken won’t be 100 percent accurate, but they will be a great deal more reliable than their answers to what-if questions.
.
Understanding how customers have solved problems is a crucial part of understanding their JTBD. Not only does it help you understand what customers expect from a product, it also helps you design features for new products.
...
Learn what kind of progress customers are seeking. What’s their emotional motivation (JTBD)? Use that to segment competition.
...
Focus on delivering emotional progress (getting a Job Done). Don’t focus solely on functionality."

Trechos retirados de "When coffee & kale compete" de Alan Klement.

"Learn to compete peacefully"

Naquilo que foi uma primeira conversa sobre a orientação estratégica de uma jovem empresa a chegar a um mercado, com players muito fortes instalados e a trabalhar bem, uma ideia que me veio logo à mente foi o segundo capítulo de "Managing for Profit not for Marketshare", intitulado "Learn to compete peacefully".
.
Em vez de entrar a matar, gerar uma guerra de preços em que todos perdem e criar inimigos...

Desenhar uma oferta para um tipo de cliente numa dada geografia sem interferências.
.
BTW, passa logo o teste da estupidez da autoria de Roger Martin.
.
Recordar "Forget Market Share; Go for the Profits":

"Peaceful competition. Sounds like an oxymoron, doesn’t it? In fact, it’s the key to increasing profits. And it’s the polar opposite approach to the one most managers take – pursuing market share with an almost war-like mentality that includes “attacking” the competition and “defending positions.”
.
In contrast, peaceful competitors “base their behavior on profit, restraint, and differentiation,”"

Coisas que me fazem espécie

Coisas que me fazem espécie:

"A produção automóvel em Portugal está em queda há nove meses consecutivos. De Janeiro a Setembro, foram produzidos 109.489 veículos, o que representa uma quebra homóloga de 10,3%.[Moi ici: Um facto, um resultado visível]
...
"Estas quebras são justificadas pela ausência de mecanismos na lei portuguesa que permitam uma maior flexibilização dos ritmos de trabalho."

Que racional mais estranho o da Associação Automóvel de Portugal (ACAP), autora da frase: como é que a lei portuguesa gera as quebras?
.
.
.
A lei portuguesa pode não ajudar as empresas a amortecer uma parte das consequências da quebra mas não será certamente a geradora da quebra.
.
Quando muito, a lei portuguesa é um constrangimento à operação. Este nível de quebra é justificado por um primeiro semestre de fraco consumo na Europa que compra automóveis.
.
Trechos retirados de "Produção automóvel nacional cai há nove meses"

Balanço, precisa-se

"Successful leaders in today's world understand this simple truth of business: without a vision and understanding of the bigger picture, failure is always just around the corner. This is true because, in order to understand the incremental steps and all of the variables creating the shifts, you have to be able to see everything, all the way down the line, into the future... the whole picture, not just one piece.
.
While the big-picture vision allows you to understand the future and where you are going, the incremental gains allow you to continue winning, with forward momentum. Too often in business we are looking for the big win and have overlooked all the small ones, to the point that we didn't even realize we were losing."

Trecho retirado de "Checkmate: How Top Leaders Beat the Competition"

"products as part of a system"

Gostei deste exemplo retirado de "When coffee & kale compete" de Alan Klement.

"Grill manufacturer Weber understands the idea of products as part of a system. Weber doesn’t sell only grills. It offers educational materials, recipes, party-planning guides, grilling accessories, and even a free phone hotline for grilling advice. Weber offers all these additional products because it understands that the customers’ JTBD isn’t about owning a grill that functions to cook things; it’s about being someone who can use a grill to make tasty food and becoming a better griller. For many grillers, the JTBD is also about entertaining friends and family with cooking theater, as well as tasty food. In this case, it’s about becoming a better host and entertainer. Weber understands that no matter how well its grills function, if customers can’t use them to make progress against their JTBD, the grills are worthless.
The understanding that customers are buying a better version of themselves is why Weber delivers a constellation of products that work together—as a system—to help customers make progress. This is why Weber has been a successful, profitable company since 1893."