"Because if nobody hates it, nobody loves it"

O @armando_moreira chamou-me a atenção para um artigo de Ray Algar no número de Outubro da revista "Health Club Management". Escreverei amanhã sobre ele.
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Hoje, sublinho um trecho que capturou a minha atenção:

"Mobile devices will be used for sign-up and access, and membership is fully flexible: pay per use or pay on a weekly basis — and even with the latter, if you want to leave, you only have to give that week plus one more week's notice. It's designed to give power to the consumer. We're trying to create the ultimate, flexible, user-friendly fitness experience for this target market.
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It's a risk, because only about 800,000 people in Denmark belong to a health club — and of those 800,000, we're expecting a significant number will come into our gym and think it's the worst place they've ever been. In fact, if that isn't happening, we won't have done our job properly. Because if nobody hates it, nobody loves it.
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I come back to clothing. Obviously you can make something that will fit almost everybody and look OK on them — but it wouldn't make a statement Not about the person developing it, nor the person wearing it. We're definitely making a statement with our clubs."

Como não recordar:

• Assim, talvez ter inimigos entre os clientes ou ex-clientes seja bom sinal (Parte I e parte II)
• Justin Bieber e o preço da diferença

Humanos e máquinas

"In his 2013 book, “Average Is Over,” Mr. Cowen briefly mentioned how two average human chess players, working with three regular computers, were able to beat both human chess champions and chess-playing supercomputers.
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It was a revelation for Mr. Work. You could “use the tactical ingenuity of the computer to improve the strategic ingenuity of the human,” he said."

Trecho retirado de "The Pentagon’s ‘Terminator Conundrum’: Robots That Could Kill on Their Own"

Conjugar com "Man and machine: The new collaborative workplace of the future":

"At Ford's factory in Cologne, Germany, a new kind of robot is sitting by the assembly line helping manufacture the legendary automaker's cars. But these collaborative robots, or co-bots, aren't replacing their human counterparts at this Ford Fiesta plant. Instead, they're working side by side with 4,000 Ford factory workers, and not for them.
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"It's not just the use of co-bots — it's the reduction of industrial robots," said Frank Tobe, a robotics expert and publisher of "The Robot Report." "The traditional caged robot at auto factories is becoming obsolete, because every car is different from every other car."
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Manufacturing precisely configured vehicles where customers choose details like the trim of the dash or the caps of tire valves is not a task for large industrial robots, which have trouble adapting to an age of mass customization in part because they constantly have to be reprogrammed."

Recordar:

• Para recordar ...
• "humans and machines will work together"

Curiosidade do dia

Recordo muitas vezes a palavra histerese quando penso no desemprego.
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Usava-a muito em Fenómenos de Transferência, sobretudo associada à adsorção.

Quando o fenómeno corre no sentido da adsorção tem um comportamento diferente de quando corre a dessorção.
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Por que penso agora em histerese?
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Por causa do desemprego e do salário mínimo.
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Ao longo da década de 90 do século passado tivemos uma evolução dos custos de mão-de-obra no sector do têxtil e vestuário que pode servir de avatar para o que se passou nos outros sectores da economia transaccionável:

À medida que o país adoptava um modelo mental que considerava os sectores tradicionais como obsoletos e incapazes de se ajustarem ao mundo novo, e os sectores não-transaccionáveis como a nova última Coca-Cola no meio do deserto, os salários iam subindo muito acima da produtividade e as fábricas iam fechando. Quem não se lembra da facilidade com que se dizia que se uma fábrica não consegue pagar o novo salário mínimo deve fechar.
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Nessa altura, mesmo que os salários não tivessem subido, mesmo que os salários tivessem baixado, o resultado final teria sido o mesmo, a única coisa que variaria seria a velocidade de destruição de emprego e das fábricas como resultado da adesão da China à Organização Mundial do Comércio (ver tabela acima). Como não recordar o choque de 18 de Fevereiro de 2008, foi o ponto onde começou o comeback.
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Depois da travessia do deserto, no início de 2008  escrevi aqui que o pior para os sectores transaccionáveis tinha passado. O sector do calçado é um exemplo paradigmático dessa evolução.

Quando a troika chegou, os políticos e os Sarumans do costume (a tríade) estavam sempre a falar do sector transaccionável, que era preciso baixar salários para o salvar: TRETA!
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Lembram-se de em 2012 andarem todos à nora com um famoso relatório sobre o desemprego? Esse relatório demonstrava, contra a ideia do mainstream que quanto mais um sector económico em Portugal estava aberto ao exterior menos desemprego tinha.
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Regressemos à actualidade. Esta semana escrevi esta "Curiosidade do dia" e hoje mesmo "Um peu partout". Entretanto, no Twitter aparecem muitas bocas acerca da evolução do desemprego e da subida do salário mínimo. Olhando para a força do reshoring em curso, tema que passa completamente ao lado de artigos como este "A Little-Noticed Fact About Trade: It’s No Longer Rising" e que se traduz em números como estes:

Unemployment rates in European Union countries: @EU_Eurostat pic.twitter.com/WKa7FpcvBP

— Alvaro SantosPereira (@santospereira_a) November 3, 2016

Podemos pensar que ainda poderíamos ter uma evolução melhor.
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No entanto, o ponto deste postal é outro: como está a evoluir o emprego nos sectores não-transaccionáveis? Interessante que agora no sector privado quem mais tem falado contra o aumento do salário mínimo seja a Confederação do Comércio e Serviços, precisamente o subsector privadoque mais subiu os salários durante a orgia despesista até à troika.
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Agora o massacre é e será nesta área por causa do comércio online, por causa da demografia, por causa do fraco poder de compra e porque a dinâmica de crescimento actual está nos sectores transaccionáveis. O perfil de criação de desemprego com o aumento do salário mínimo é diferente e é mais do que compensado pela dinâmica do reshoring.

Un peu partout

Um pouco por todo o lado sintomas do reshoring, desta vez até na anquilosada França:

"Ils sont jeunes, fins gestionnaires, passionnés surtout. Prêts à réveiller une vieille industrie qu'on croyait éteinte: la confection. Elle ne représente plus que 10.000 emplois sur les 57.000 de l'industrie textile française. Mais de plus en plus d'entrepreneurs décident de reprendre des ateliers. Grâce à eux, bien des marques de luxe, ou plus accessibles, proposent ou peuvent à nouveau propose un «made in France» de plus en plus en vogue."

Trechos retirados de "Ils réveillent le «mode in France»"

"43% of managers cannot state their own strategy"

Gostei muito deste artigo, "Make Strategic Thinking Part of Your Job":

"How can we implement strategic thinking if we’re not even sure what it looks like? [Moi ici: Tema demasiado importante para um consultor que trabalha a formulação e implementação de estratégias. Se os potenciais clientes não sabem o que é como vão procurar ajuda?]
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44% of managers spent most of their time firefighting in cultures that rewarded reactivity and discouraged thoughtfulness. Nearly all leaders (96%) claimed they lacked time for strategic thinking, again, because they were too busy putting out fires.[Moi ici: Como devem imaginar isto não são números acerca dos empresários portugueses]
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Unfortunately, for many executives, the connection between their role and the strategic contribution they should make is not so obvious.[Moi ici: OMG]
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Roger Martin’s research, which found that 43% of managers cannot state their own strategy. [Moi ici: OMG] Executives with less clarity must work harder to etch out the line of sight between their role and its impact on the organization’s direction. In some cases, shedding the collection of bad habits that have consumed how they embody their role will be their greatest challenge to embodying strategic thinking.
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One study found that only 14% of people understood their company’s strategy and only 24% felt the strategy was linked to their individual accountabilities. Most executives mistakenly assume that repeated explanations through dense PowerPoint presentations are what increases understanding and ownership of strategy.
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Sound strategic thinking doesn’t have to remain an abstract mystery only a few are able to realize. Despite the common complaint, it’s not the result of making time for it. Executives must extract themselves from day-to-day problems and do the work that aligns their job with the company’s strategy. [Moi ici: Não é fácil! O empresário com quem almocei ontem gosta é de estar a aprender técnica e a aplicá-la. Visitar clientes, interagir com eles é um sacrifício] They need to be armed with insights that predict where best to focus resources."

"This is called value‐based pricing" (parte II)

Parte I.

"Value‐based pricing results from value engineering. As a construct, it works from the premise that in order for the firm to serve customer needs profitably, it needs to understand what those customers need and what they will pay to have their needs met. That is, value‐based pricing seeks to identify the value an offering delivers from the customer’s perspective and then charge accordingly.[Moi ici: Como ontem conversava ao almoço com um empresário, não é cobrar mais porque se consegue dar a volta ao cliente, é cobrar mais porque o cliente reconhece mais valor]
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Value‐based pricing requires approaching pricing challenges through the lens of detecting and understanding value from the customer’s perspective. It requires gathering facts that can be constructed into meaningful information about what needs customers have, how an offer will impact those needs, and how valuable that impact is, all from the customer’s perspective.
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Value‐based pricing isn’t a specific technique or process, but rather a paradigm for managing exchanges between the firm and its customers. As a paradigm, it flows across the firm’s decision‐making process. It defines the context through which all pricing and strategic competitive positioning decisions are made.
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If value‐based pricing relies on understanding value from the customer’s perspective, then what is that value? That is, what value is relevant for pricing decisions?
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The total value a customer receives from a product is the difference between the total benefits the product or service delivers and the total price the customer must pay to receive that bundle of benefits.
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the relevant meaning of value for customers is not an absolute, total value construct but a relative, differentia value construct.
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Differential value is the difference in value delivered to customers by choosing one firm’s offer compared to that delivered by choosing an alternative offer.
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The concept of differential value, ΔV, covers both hard, calculable issues and softer, perceptual issues."

Trechos retirados de "Pricing Done Right"

Context Map Canvas

Quem trabalha com a ISO 9001:2015 vai sorrir ao reconhecer a parte da cláusula 4.1 sobre compreender o contexto de uma organização ao olhar para este "Context MapÒ Canvas"

Consultar:

• How to Understand Your Market (and Crusg the Competition) (que segunda parte do título mais inadequada)
• Get Clarity on the World Around You and Your Business With the Context Map

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.
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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).
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Acrescentar "Turn, turn, turn" e cenas como esta "Spain Runs Out of Workers With Almost 5 Million Unemployed".
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Ouvem alguém nos media tradicionais a relatar estas coisas?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Starting with an understanding of what customers value - from their perspective, not the firm’s  - results in a culture of value‐based pricing.
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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.
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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.
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But his success is also because of the unlikely survival of Marlin Steel, a rare breed: the urban industrial manufacturer.
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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.
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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.
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“The closing of factories has taken the rungs out of the ladder for reaching the middle class in urban areas,”
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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.
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“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.
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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.”
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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.
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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.
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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:

• A receita deste blogue (parte I e parte II)

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.
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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]
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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.
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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?"

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:

• Comparar calçado espanhol e calçado português;
• Comparar vinho espanhol e vinho português;
• Comparar hortaliças espanholas com hortaliças portuguesas.

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:

• "o impacte da "reversão" da maré da globalização" (Setembro de 2016)
• O maior risco (Agosto de 2016) (atenção ao maior risco)
• Tit for tat (Março de 2016)
• Curiosidade do dia (Janeiro de 2016)
• Implicações para Portugal? (Novembro de 2015)
• Passamos ao nível seguinte do jogo? (Fevereiro de 2015)
• “This industry doesn’t have a future in China” (Dezembro de 2013) (Pimenta no XXX dos outros é refresco. Tão fácil ver o que eles precisam de aprender a fazer... subir na escala de valor, seguir a lição de Berger: Não existem indústrias obsoletas, existem sim estratégias obsoletas)
• Curiosidade do dia (Fevereiro de 2013)
• Por que não se fala nisto? (Abril de 2012)
• A re-industrialização do Ocidente (Fevereiro de 2012)

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.
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“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".
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Recordar David Ricardo e o vinho português conjugado com os têxteis ingleses.

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?
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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)

Parte I.

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.
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Fusão de duas empresas, crescimento muito forte e introdução de um novo ERP foram os motivos para repensar o processo "Subcontratar produção".
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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.
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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.
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3. Ideas become strategies when they pervade the organization.
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4. The processes of proliferation may or may not be consciously managed.
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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.
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5. There is a time to sow strategies and a time to reap them.
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Managers have to appreciate when to exploit an established crop of strategies and when to encourage new strains to replace them.
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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.