quarta-feira, novembro 02, 2016

Curiosidade do dia

A propósito de:
"A taxa de desemprego situou-se em Setembro nos 10,8%, segundo a estimativa provisória divulgada pelo Instituto Nacional de Estatística (INE), que reviu em baixa os valores de Agosto para 10,9%, face à estimativa inicial de 11%."
Há dias estive em empresa industrial que teve de recorrer a trabalho temporário, não porque quisesse mas porque era a maneira mais rápida de contratar trabalhador que pretende integrar nos quadros.
.
Hoje estive em empresa que colocou anúncio no jornal para contratar trabalhador. O entrevistado que mais gostaram e queriam contratar teve de recusar porque a empresa de trabalho temporário com a qual tem contrato actualmente o "ameaçou" (algo estúpido, porque seria sinal de que um trabalhador temporário teria mais dificuldades em se despedir que um trabalhador contratado) (parece outra versão do mundo das taxas negativas) mas suficiente para amedrontar o tal trabalhador).
.
Acrescentar "Turn, turn, turn" e cenas como esta "Spain Runs Out of Workers With Almost 5 Million Unemployed".
.
Ouvem alguém nos media tradicionais a relatar estas coisas?
.
Pois, convém não estragar a narrativa de alguns.

"taking responsibility for making it a success"

"I also knew that most people in large organizations like ours would have a hard time joining movements like the one we started. It’s not that they don’t want to. It’s just that most of the time, executing today’s strategy using current information is the more comfortable path. That’s what we all learn to do in school, after all. But using yesterday’s information to execute yesterday’s strategy is a terrible excuse for not moving forward. All of the information in the world will not guarantee success if it’s based on yesterday. Sure, you can hire third parties to design your vision and strategy for you. But then you’re not taking responsibility for making it a success."
Trecho retirado de "Design a Better Business: New Tools, Skills, and Mindset for Strategy and Innovation"

"This is called value‐based pricing"

"Value‐engineered firms focus every aspect of their deliverables to customers on what adds value in excess of the costs to produce and then execute against that mandate.
.
That is, in value engineering, the firm works backward from the customer’s needs and value to define the firm’s actions. [Moi ici: Como não recordar a Viarco] Value engineered firms strive to understand their customers’ willingness to pay for different benefits in defining the target price of the offering. From this target price, a target cost is identified that ensures profitable customer interactions. Using the target cost and the target need to be addressed, all attributes of the offering are redefined to ensure market goals are met.
.
In drilling down on the issue of value engineering, we confront a simple fact of competitive free markets: customers have alternative choices. Customers can buy from the firm, its competitors, or do nothing at all. Hence, it isn’t enough to deliver value to customers; value‐engineered firms focus on delivering value in excess of their competitors for their select customer segment.
.
In setting prices, rather than focusing on costs and markups, value engineered firms work from an understanding of their customers willingness to pay. This is called value‐based pricing. In value‐based pricing, a firm identifies those prices that most closely match customers’ willingness to pay without leaving money on the table nor entering into unprofitable or unhealthy transactions.
.
Value‐based pricing is not cost‐plus pricing. It does not always start from the costs to produce and add a markup. This is a good thing. Too often, cost‐plus pricing either (1) sets prices far below a customer’s willingness to pay and therefore leaves money on the table or (2) sets prices so high that few, if any, customers will purchase at that price.
.
Starting with an understanding of what customers value - from their perspective, not the firm’s  - results in a culture of value‐based pricing.
.
As for competitors and competitive pricing, value engineering positions competitive offerings as an alternative choice for the target customer. It doesn’t ignore competitive prices. Instead, it accounts for their role in engineering the value proposition itself. It suggests that if firms want to outdo their competitors, they have to out‐serve their customers—profitably."
Trechos retirados de "Pricing Done Right"

“Manufacturing bootstraps people out of poverty.”

Muitos Sarumans, do alto das suas colunas de marfim, quase todos lesboetas (naturais ou emigrados), desprezam as PME industriais dos sectores tradicionais, não lhes dão pica, não são boas para eles aparecerem em reportagens ou em revistas de social travestido de economia.
.
Como ocupo a posição oposta, gostei muito de ler "Small Factories Emerge as a Weapon in the Fight Against Poverty":
"What altered Mr. Branch’s fate? There was his own discipline, of course, like completing a two-year course in metalwork between his shifts at Popeyes. Or getting up at 3:45 a.m. and taking three buses to avoid being late for his first factory job.
.
But his success is also because of the unlikely survival of Marlin Steel, a rare breed: the urban industrial manufacturer.
.
Marlin is a thriving factory in a place where, over the last half-century, factories have fled — first to the South, and later to Asia. That flight haunts the United States perhaps most in its urban areas — especially neighborhoods that once housed the nation’s working class — and helps explain why many African-Americans in particular today live in poverty in metropolises like Baltimore, Detroit, Newark and St. Louis.

small manufacturers like Marlin are vital if the United States is to narrow the nation’s class divide and build a society that offers greater opportunities for everyone — rich and poor, black and white, high school graduates and Ph.D.s.
.
The closing of factories has taken the rungs out of the ladder for reaching the middle class in urban areas,”

Many service jobs do not pay as well, nor do they offer the same opportunities for advancement. And as the service sector has expanded in recent decades, less-educated workers in big cities have largely been bypassed as demand has grown for well-compensated professionals in what Mr. Johnson calls F.T.E., or finance, technology and electronics.
.
“Manufacturing jobs involve a skill base that you develop over time, and that fortifies your negotiating strength,” Mr. Johnson said. But in lower-skilled jobs, the competition is with someone who will do the same work for less. “The marketplace doesn’t give you any leverage,” he said.

Today, smaller plants are particularly important to job creation in factory work, … “Small manufacturing is holding its own — and you are seeing some interesting developments in urban centers.”
.
Out of 252,000 manufacturing companies in the United States, only 3,700 had more than 500 workers. The vast majority employ fewer than 20.

While they may not rival the scale of 1950s assembly lines, these smaller “craft type” producers hold out hope for cities, Mr. Paul said, particularly as some companies look to move jobs back from overseas to be closer to customers and more nimble to supply customized, small-batch orders.
.
What is more, these jobs pay people more.”"
Depois, uma queixa que este blogue percebe bem a discriminação dos governos contra os pequenos a favor dos grandes:
"In addition to uniquely local challenges like these, Marlin — along with plenty of other small manufacturing companies — faces a forbidding landscape simply because of its size. “I’m not Under Armour. I can’t get concessions,” Mr. Greenblatt said, referring to the giant sports clothing company that received hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks and other subsidies as part of a plan to build a new headquarters here."
A propósito da Marlin Steel, fábrica citada no artigo, recomendo a leitura de:

É interessante que uma fábrica que serve de base à demonstração empírica de como funciona a minha abordagem com as PME sirva, por sua vez, de exemplo para ilustrar como estas PME são muito importantes e necessárias para o funcionamento de uma economia com espaço para todos, mesmo os que abandonaram a escola.

"People, not businesses, buy products"

Julgo que esta é a última citação decorrente da leitura de "When coffee and kale compete" e é acerca de um tema relevante para o meu trabalho nas empresas: os ecossistemas da procura:
"People, not businesses, buy products. Some are tempted to treat B and D differently than A and C. The case is made that there are differences between what is called business to business (B2B) and business to customer (B2C) markets. I don’t make any such distinction. From a JTBD point of view, there’s not much difference between children asking their parents to take them to Disneyland and employees asking their bosses to get them better equipment.
.
What matters to us are: (1) do multiple people have varying degrees of influence on the decision and (2) what kind of progress is everyone trying to make with a particular product – regardless if they are using it, buying it or both.[Moi ici: Recordar o Gabinete de Arquitectura deste postal]
.
When multiple systems interact. Instead of segregating B2B markets from B2C markets, I suggest we make the distinction between products that interact with one system of progress (what we’ve studied thus far and what most call B2C products), and those that interact with multiple systems of progress 
Everyone expects a product to help them make progress, regardless if they don’t buy it or use it directly.

Study the system, not just “users” and “choosers”. One of the most important principles of JTBD is solutions and Jobs should be thought of as parts of a system that work together to deliver progress to customers."
Recordar este postal e a figura:
 Recordar também "Ecossistemas dentro de um cliente", "O ecossistema da procura das parafarmácias", "Acerca do ecossistema da procura" e "Como é o ecossistema da sua organização?"


terça-feira, novembro 01, 2016

Curiosidade do dia

Continuem com a eucaliptação desenfreada e depois digam que a culpa é do clima, "Península Ibérica pode transformar-se num deserto até ao final do século".

Os piores do mundo

Para os que acham que os empresários portugueses são os piores do mundo:

Turn, turn, turn

Ontem o @nticomuna chamou a atenção para "China as Factory to World Mulls the Unthinkable: Price Hikes" que descreve uma tendência já há muito antecipada neste blogue:
"China’s factories may be on the cusp of delivering a new shock to the global economy after years of undercutting rivals with cheaper costs. This time, increases in prices could reverberate around the world."
Recordar:

Há um tempo para tudo, o eterno retorno.

"The value is in the experience"

"It is all about the customer experience these days. That is where the value lies for any businesses wanting to attract and to serve customers.
...
“The value is in the experience: it won’t go down in price, and no one can steal it.” It is more than a wrapping; the customer experience is now very much a part of the product. The how has become part of the what."
Trechos retirados de "The end of the captive audience: why airports need to develop their value chain"

Vantagens e desvantagens comparativas

Para os que acham que que temos de ser auto-suficientes em pleno século XXI, custe o que custar, eis um cheirinho da coisa em "That Boom You Hear Is Ukraine’s Agriculture".
.
Recordar David Ricardo e o vinho português conjugado com os têxteis ingleses.

segunda-feira, outubro 31, 2016

Curiosidade do dia

"Fazer parte desse país-Estado ou conseguir ser tratado por ele de uma forma diferenciadamente privilegiada gera um sentimento de casta. E se essa diferenciação choca no momento da atribuição de poderes, então que termo usar para descrever a absoluta tolerância para com a ineficácia e a irresponsabilidade, desde que praticadas em nome do Estado?
...
Denominador comum a todos estes casos: um país em que o Estado não se coíbe de legislar a seu favor, cria excepções que isentam os seus protegidos dos deveres, razoáveis ou injustos, que impõe aos demais e sabe que no fim pode sempre lançar mais uma taxa ou alterar um imposto para ir buscar o dinheiro que está em falta. Na verdade a casta a si perdoa quase tudo. Só não perdoa que lhe toquem no que chama seu, a saber o Estado mais os seus regimes especiais, as suas excepções, as suas parcerias privilegiadas, os seus estatutos únicos…"

Trechos retirados de "A casta"

Oportunidades e ISO 9001 (parte II)

À hora a que este postal é publicado estarei numa empresa a discutir, entre outros temas, o esquema da figura que pretende representar a primeira ronda de caracterização de um processo.
.
Fusão de duas empresas, crescimento muito forte e introdução de um novo ERP foram os motivos para repensar o processo "Subcontratar produção".
.
A caracterização ainda está muito "verde". A preto aquilo que parecem ser as etapas fundamentais. A azul as actividades realizadas e a vermelho algumas chamadas de atenção a considerar na reunião de hoje.
.
No final pergunto:

  • O que está mal?
  • O que falta?

Depois, num outro registo:

  • O que pode correr mal?
  • O que devemos melhorar?
  • Que oportunidades de melhoria?

Isto saiu-me naturalmente, sem pensar:
  • O que pode correr mal? (estamos a falar de riscos)
  • O que devemos melhorar? (estamos a falar de oportunidades)

"fazer emergir o que já funciona bem"

Recordei logo este postal, "A ideia é um resultado, não um começo", e os outros postais nele referidos, quando li "Need a strategy? Let it grow like a weed in the
garden":
"1.Strategies grow initially like weeds in a garden; they are not cultivated like tomatoes in a hothouse. In other words, the process of creating strategies can be over-managed. Sometimes it is more important to let ideas emerge than to force a premature consistency on the organization. Allow those strategies to form, as patterns, not having to be formulated, as plans. The hothouse, if needed, can come later.
2. These strategies can take root in all kinds of strange places, virtually wherever people have the capacity to learn and the resources to support that capacity.
...
3. Ideas become strategies when they pervade the organization.
...
4. The processes of proliferation may or may not be consciously managed.
...
Of course, once strategies are recognized as valuable, the processes by which they proliferate can be managed, just as plants can be selectively propagated. Then it may be time to build that hothouse - make that emergent strategy  deliberate going forward.
.
5. There is a time to sow strategies and a time to reap them.
...
Managers have to appreciate when to exploit an established crop of strategies and when to encourage new strains to replace them.
.
6. Hence to manage this process is not to preconceive strategies but to recognize their emergence and intervene when appropriate."
Formalizar uma estratégia para uma PME passa muito pelo ponto 4, pesquisar, investigar, fazer emergir o que já funciona bem, o que pode ser a base para uma estratégia sustentável com base no que a empresa já faz de melhor mas pode estar escondido por muita tralha.

O nosso mantra

 O nosso mantra de há muitos anos: diferenciação e flexibilidade para fugir do preço como order-winner
"O “fabricado em Portugal” é muito apreciado e não é por acaso que os grandes grupos têm cá produções.
...
As nossas quantidades não são as mesmas de quem tem cinco ou seis mil lojas no mundo. Temos é de desenvolver produtos diferentes, com uma qualidade diferente. Ninguém nos vem dizer que não compra por causa da qualidade – não quer dizer que não haja reclamações, há e estamos cá para as atender. O desafio é recuperar a marca. Quando há diferenciação, o preço não é a chave. Quando fazemos coisas diferentes, as peças esgotam.
.
Os clientes pagam mais por peças diferentes.
.
Sim, não é pelo preço. Quer queiramos, quer não – e sou o primeiro a elogiar todo o grupo Inditex – a verdade é que é um mass market. Encontrar duas mulheres vestidas de igual é normal. Temos a noção de que, ao fazermos 100 peças, a probabilidade de isso acontecer é muito menor. Na área da criança tem corrido mesmo bem porque nos diferenciámos muito bem. Não é o mais barato, mas não somos iguais a uma Zara.
...
“Queremos desenvolver competências ainda maiores, ser mais flexíveis e com capacidade de abastecimento”"

Trechos retirados de "“O ‘fabricado em Portugal’ é muito apreciado lá fora”" e "Lanidor regressa às origens com investimento de 1,8 milhões"

BTW, o problema de quem não segue os nossos conselhos de by-pass ao país:
"As lojas ficaram sem clientes. Funcionárias públicas, professoras, juízas, a “base sólida” da marca deixou de comprar ou comprou muito menos. As vendas foram “caindo, caindo”. “Houve alturas em que nos questionávamos onde iríamos parar porque cada mês era pior do que o anterior”"

Acerca da medição da satisfação dos clientes

Ao longo dos anos tenho referido aqui algumas das dúvidas existenciais que sinto sempre que se fala de medição da satisfação dos clientes no âmbito dos sistemas de gestão da qualidade segundo a ISO 9001.
.
Recordo:
"Na minha humilde opinião, uma organização deve avaliar a opinião dos seus clientes, para ter acesso a informação privilegiada sobre o que é prioritário: onde agir, onde investir, para melhorar o desempenho da organização aos olhos de quem a sustenta, de quem lhes paga as facturas."
"Cada vez mais, estou convencido de que o que devíamos perguntar aos clientes era outra coisa. Não somos perfeitos, não há empresas perfeitas. Por outro lado, quando olhamos para a relação entre a nossa empresa e os clientes não conseguimos descalçar os sapatos de fornecedor e calçar os de cliente. Assim, como não somos perfeitos, por que não usar os inquéritos e entrevistas para pedir aos clientes, em primeira mão, opiniões sobre onde devemos melhorar, onde devemos investir os nossos esforços de melhoria? Onde é que a nossa posição de fornecedores impede que vejamos lacunas, pontos fracos, indutores de aborrecimento?"
"Mas qual é o objectivo de uma empresa, ter pontuações elevadas nas avaliações da satisfação dos clientes, ou ganhar dinheiro de forma sustentada?
...
Mandar às malvas a satisfação geral e apostar nos pontos que ajudam a "fazer batota", que ajudam a criar e alargar a diferenciação? "
Ao chegar ao capítulo 20, "Interviewing customers" de "When Coffee and Kale Compete" de Alan Klement encontro matéria para continuar a remoer:
"Our investigation’s just cause determines whom we interview, how we interview them, and what data we get from them.
...
Habits change our brains and invalidate data we gather from observational studies. Ethnography is a research philosophy designed to study the behaviors of people as they are. There is no intent to gather data for the purposes of affecting cause systems. For this reason, ethnography’s data are helpful to anthropologists but not suited for innovation.
...
our brains change when we develop habits.
In the beginning, most of the brain activity occurs as we execute the task. This is the “sense-making” part where our brains are figuring things out. This includes situational analysis, mental simulation of options, visualizations of future states and outcomes of actions, investigating discrepancies, what to do, what not to do, what’s important, and what’s not important.
.
These data contain a cornucopia of insights that help us understand customer motivation. Embedded in them are data that tell us what customers do and don’t value, what their struggle is, and how they imagine their lives improving when they find the right solution. These are the data we need to help customers make progress.
.
As we execute the task more and develop habits, our brains “go to sleep” as we execute those activities. Our brain activity shifts from areas that focus on evaluation and decision-making to areas that look for queues to start the task and predict the outcome.
.
What are the implications? Investigations that involve a study of customers’ habits are unable to access data that give us the greatest insights into customer motivation. Such studies are focusing on the “asleep” part of our brains.
...
Moreover, they do not account for and distinguish between the different types of variation.
.
For these reasons, I recommend that innovation efforts do not incorporate data from techniques such as contextual inquiry, diary studies, ethnography, or any type of longitudinal research. When you conduct any study that involves the habits of customers, you are studying the asleep part of their brain. At best, your data will be incomplete; at worst, they will be misinformation—and misinformation leads to bad changes to a product,
...
I recommend these techniques only when you are monitoring the relationships between customers and the system of progress. The goal here is to ensure that the system is operating as you intend. You will observe variations due to common causes, but you should rarely act on them. But when you detect a variation due to a special cause, there is a good reason to explore a just cause for investigation.
...
The intent is to gather data about why the old way wasn’t working, why the new way was so appealing, and how the transition happened."
Há aqui algo a merecer reflexão...
.
Medir só por medir não parece útil.
.
BTW, recordar a Spirits Airline e "Focus on What Users Do, Not What They Say" e ainda "First Rule of Usability? Don't Listen to Users".






domingo, outubro 30, 2016

Curiosidade do dia

"O engraçado é que, com meros 17 ou 18 anos, a Maria pensa como um português crescido, convencido de que compete ao Estado providenciar-lhe uma vida. Erro seu, minha cara, e dos portugueses crescidos. A solitária competência do Estado consiste em humilhar cidadãos e subtrair-lhes dinheiro. O resto, por cá, em Espanha ou na Quirguízia, é consigo e com o acaso. Perceber esta evidência é alcançar a responsabilidade que a Maria inclui entre as virtudes dos melhores médicos. E das melhores pessoas."
Trecho retirado de "Carta à jovem que escreveu uma carta ao prof. Marcelo"

Who murdered strategy?" (parte II)

Parte I.
1. Leaders will stop underestimating the implementation challenge and realize that it is tougher than they ever anticipate.
2. We will recognize that every implementation is unique and it has to fit the organization’s culture.
3. Strategy is about making the right choices and implementation is about the right actions.
4. We will recognize and share that implementation at the end of the day, means more work for staff members.
5. Staff members will be treated as the ‘‘Strategy Customers’’ and implementation will no longer be forced upon them.
6. When starting the rollout implementation will be targeted at the 20 per cent of staff members who will support it and that leader must actively support this 20 percent in return.
7. Strategy cannot be implemented if it cannot be understood and explained. We will become even better at communicating strategy.
8. Organizations will brand their strategy by giving it an image so as to win over both the hearts and minds of their Strategy Customers.
9. Leaders will conduct more implementation reviews so as to resolve small problems before they become big problems.
10. These reviews will be conducted every two weeks.
11. Made the promise? Now deliver. We will equally focus on strategy and implementation."

Trechos retirados de "Who murdered strategy?", Strategic Direction, Vol. 27 Iss 9 pp. 3 - 5, Robin Speculand, (2011).

"especially in the hands of underdogs"

"Having observed that tidy organisational schemes – scripts, targets, filing cabinets – are sometimes great ways to approach the world, we make the mistake of applying them in all kinds of situations where they’re dysfunctional.
.
In those cases, a looser, vaguer, or more improvised approach works much better – even though it often makes us anxious.
...
nothing I’ve seen has changed my view that mess can be a very powerful weapon – especially in the hands of underdogs"
E o que são as nossas PME senão crónicos underdogs?
.
Somos todos alemães, jogamos o mesmo jogo, mas não podemos competir com eles de igual para igual no mesmo terreno.
.
Há dias visitei empresa que recebeu encomenda grande, vai ter um prazo muito curto para produzir e instalar, vai ter de receber o material, vai ter de contratar e formar muita gente em zona do interior e ... finalmente produzir a um ritmo que nunca teve.
.
Quando saí de lá virei-me para quem me acompanhava e disse-lhe algo que agora refino como:
- Se fossem alemães teriam agora as pernas a tremer!

Trechos retirados de "Tim Harford: Why the world needs to be a lot more messy"

"raising the bar"

Mais um exemplo da direcção do futuro, o caminho para diferenciação, "raising the bar":
"Mendoza knows the soils and microclimates of his native region as well as anyone.
...
These young men and women want the right to print the name and location of their vineyards on their wine bottles. In that, they’re part of a wider movement. In November 2015, a group of 15 wine professionals wrote what they called the Club Matador manifesto, signed by Spanish producers, merchants, sommeliers and wine journalists
...
The manifesto was aimed at the broader Spanish wine industry, but it had particular implications for Rioja, a region in which it is illegal to use the names of vineyards and villages on labels. [Moi ici: Por que razão terá aparecido esta proibição? Quem terá sido beneficiado com esta proibição e porquê?] (Imagine if all the domaines of Burgundy sold their wines only as Bourgogne rouge or blanc .) Instead, the majority of wines in the appellation are simply classified as joven (young), crianza (matured), reserva (aged) or gran reserva (extra aged), according to the amount of time they do—or don’t—spend in oak barrels.
...
“Rioja’s soils are very complicated, but we’re not allowed to talk about them. It’s crazy. There are four different soil types in San Vicente alone, but most Rioja is sold like Coca-Cola.” All of his wines are labeled as Rioja, with no mention of cask aging. His focus is on the quality of his grapes, which makes him part of the global trend toward wines based on the unique properties of their vineyards of origin. Setting the desire for self-expression aside, there is an economic reason for this, as acknowledged by the manifesto: “ We believe that by raising the bar…we will be capable of better explaining the reality of our country’s wines, which would help sell our wines more effectively.”
Uma aspiração ao contrário da verificada recentemente por cá na zona do Alvarinho (recordar a minha receita para os produtores genuínos).
.
Recordar a diferença entre o vinho português e o espanhol (aqui também)

Trechos retirados de "Grapes of Wrath: Rioja Rebels Changing the Way Wine is Sold"

Job stories

"We can think of Job Stories as microstruggles or microjobs. These are the individual situations that prompt a customer to seek a solution for a JTBD.
...
Two helpful formats for a Job Story are:
.
When _____, I want to _____, so I can _____.
.
When _____, I want _____, so that _____.

.
Job Stories answer questions. I find it helpful to think of Job Stories as addressing three questions:
1. The customer goes about life as usual, and then a problem arises. What is the trigger or situation?
2. Customers create mental pictures of effects that the solution should and shouldn’t have as they use it. What are these effects?
3. Once customers do find a solution and use it, how has life changed for the better? What can they do now that they couldn’t do before?
.
Where do Job Stories come from? Before designing a feature or new product, you must talk with real people and uncover all the anxieties and contexts that were in play when they used your product or a competitor’s product. Then, you write your Job Story.
...
Different customers, same Job Story.
...
Situations and context—not demographics, tasks, activities, or solutions.
...
Undoubtedly, we could use countless other attributes to describe these customers; however, describing who the customers are and their various attributes won’t tell you why they struggle. As I’ve mentioned, customers don’t have to share demographic features or attributes to experience the same struggles.
The other thing to notice is how this Job Story does not describe a task, activity, or solution.
...
Job Stories contextualize the JTBD."
Recordar "uma oportunidade tremenda de se diferenciar"

Trechos retirados de "When Coffee and Kale Compete"