Não é um "nice to have"

"Define What Your Strategy Is — And What It Isn’t.
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Good strategy is ultimately about choices: it is as much about what not to do, as what to do. Most organizations don’t lose their way due to a lack of ideas, but by frittering away their focus and attention among thousands of seemingly useful but ultimately draining pursuits. This comes from a lack of clarity around your reason for being in existence, and the inability to draw bold lines separating ‘what will keep us on track’ vs. ‘what will lead us astray’. Next time you help create a big idea, initiative or strategy, do your company a favour and write down what it is, and in even bigger letters, what it isn’t. This includes things that customers or the media may be clamouring for. The effort needed to say no to seemingly legitimate options enforces the strategic discipline of clarifying the unique value your organization brings to people and to the market."

Enquanto lia este trecho senti logo click das peças a encaixarem-se:

A importância de se concretizar o que não se é, para reduzir o perigo da deriva da opinião dos clientes que Alan Klement tão bem relacionou com as causas especiais de Deming e que referi em "Acerca da variabilidade dos clientes".
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Sistematizar o que não se é não é um mero "nice to have" é um verdadeiro must para nos guiar e evitar a deriva que desfoca e torra valor.

Curiosidade do dia

Mongo no ensino, também.

"He says he has been complaining to ministers for many years about skills shortages in engineering.
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"We are taking matters into our own hands," said Sir James, who added that he wants the project to develop into a fully fledged Dyson University, with its own degree-awarding powers.
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Students will be paid a salary while studying and will not have to pay tuition fees - and Sir James says a key benefit will be that students will be working on "live projects" alongside mentors and research staff."

Trechos retirados de "Inventor Sir James Dyson sets up college to tackle skills shortage"

"next time you're imprisoned in a tower"

"people were faster and more creative when they tackled the problem on behalf of others rather than for themselves.
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Polman and Emich build upon existing psychological research showing that when we think of situations or individuals that are distant – in space, time, or social connection – we think of them in the abstract. But when those things are close – near us physically, about to happen, or standing beside us – we think about them concretely.
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Over the years, social scientists have found that abstract thinking leads to greater creativity. That means that if we care about innovation we need to be more abstract and therefore more distant. But in our businesses and our lives, we often do the opposite. We intensify our focus rather than widen our view. We draw closer rather than step back.
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Think about that next time you're imprisoned in a tower. Actually, don't. Instead, have someone else think about it for you."

Trechos retirados "Daniel H Pink: employees are faster and more creative when solving other people's problems"

Para os registos

Li algures que o peso das exportações portuguesas no PIB representava pouco mais de 21% em 1985, ano anterior à adesão à CEE.
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Em 2008 as exportações representavam 31% do PIB.
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Ou seja, em 23 anos o peso das exportações no PIB cresceu cerca de 10 pontos percentuais.
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Agora, ao consultar o Boletim Económico do Banco de Portugal de Outubro último, verifico que o número em 2015 chegou aos 40,6%.
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Ou seja, em 7 anos o peso das exportações no PIB cresceu cerca de 10 pontos percentuais.
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Notável!!!
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Claro que aqueles 23 anos não deverão ter tido uma evolução linear, a primeira década do século XXI deve ter sido sempre a cair por causa do efeito China e da orgia do não-transaccionável.

"Strategy is Not a To Do List, It Drives a To Do List"

"“You stupid x?!x. These strategies are mutually exclusive. Executing both of them would put us out of business.  You don’t have a clue about what the purpose of marketing is because all you are doing is executing a series of tasks like they’re like a big To Do list. Without understanding why you’re doing them, you’re dangerous as the VP of Marketing, in fact you’re just a glorified head of marketing communications.”
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Strategy is Not a To Do List, It Drives a To Do List
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Once I understood the strategy, the To Do list became clear. It allowed me to prioritize what I did, when I did it and instantly understand what would be mutually exclusive."

Por isso é que a última actividade na sequência é: o que vamos fazer na próxima segunda-feira?


Recordar "Strategy is not a to do list"

Trechos retirados de "Strategy is Not a To Do List"

As marcas da Amazon

"The bottom line for brands is they can no longer view Amazon as solely a channel and need to acknowledge them as a competitor.""

A loja como concorrente das marcas dos fabricantes. É o cúmulo!!! E as marcas dos fabricantes que se queixavam do aperto nas margens, de repente, ficam sem prateleiras!
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Em mercados comoditizados as marcas dos fabricantes concentram-se tanto no seu umbigo, na eficiência, que deixam de ser marcas para os consumidores.
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A memória recua a 2007, a leituras na estação do Carregado, e faz-me ir buscar:

"Manufacturer brands seem to be moving in the wrong direction. While industries with higher advertising intensity tend to have lower private label share, companies are increasingly diverting money away from advertising to promotions.
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Diverting money from communicating with customers to retailer support is the beginning of a vicious cycle for manufacturer brands. As manufacturer brands spend less building their brands with end consumers, they lose brand equity with the ultimate arbiter in the marketplace. This increases the relative power of retailers and their negotiating power. As a result, manufacturer brands are subject to even greater concessions by retailers. In order to fund these concessions to retailers, manufacturer brands divert more money from consumer communications to retailers.
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As reseller equity goes up, to maintain balance, manufacturer brands have to spend more rather than less money communicating with customers."

No limite, o dono da prateleira interroga-se: por que devo dar margem a outros quando posso colocar à venda um produto tão bom ou melhor?
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Amazon a caminho de tornar-se uma espécie de Decathlon ou IKEA.

Trecho inicial retirado de "Amazon’s private label brands are killing it"

Trechos retirados de "Private Label Strategy" 

Curiosidade do dia

"Para muitos especialistas, Portugal deve aproveitar para apostar em produtos onde já é muito  competitivo, nomeadamente, o vinho, o azeite e o queijo."

Uma pessoa fica logo elucidada acerca dos ditos "especialistas" quando:

• a economia de Portugal é resumida à agro-indústria;
• acham que somos competitivos no queijo (LOL);

Farto deste voluntarismo e desta ignorância.

Trecho retirado de "CETA. Uma lança para Portugal aumentar as vendas para o Canadá"

O mundo a mudar

Ontem ao final da tarde na minha caixa de correio electrónico caiu um convite para uma acção de demonstração:

Agora reparem no teor da demonstração:

"A KYAIA - Fortunato O. Frederico, Lda. implementou em consórcio com a FLOWMAT - Sistema Industriais, Lda., Silva & Ferreira Lda., Creative Systems, Lda., CEI - Companhia de Equipamentos Industriais, Lda, INESC TEC- Instituto de Engenharia de Sistemas e Computadores, Tecnologia e Ciência, FEUP - Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto e CTCP - Centro Tecnológico do Calçado de Portugal o projeto de I&D HSSF - High Speed Shoe Factory.
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Este projeto teve como objetivo conceber, desenvolver e implementar um novo modelo de fábrica de calçado para resposta ágil em 24 horas, orientado para a produção unitária par a par, capaz de responder sem stocks, às vendas pela internet, às pequenas encomendas e reposições de produtos em loja e ao fabrico rápido das amostras."

O mundo a mudar, as tentativas para ir encontrando resposta, respostas que por sua vez permitem mais mudança num bailado de co-evolução.

"It was just what the 20th century was about: mass production"

 Daqui "Сhristos Passas (Zaha Hadid Architects): It is interesting to work in Russia, but the approval process is complicated here" sublinho este trecho que parece retirado aqui do blogue:

"we do not have any ready-made solutions. We do not believe in mass produced architecture. We believe in mass customization, making everything unique, not making everything the same. Of course, the idea of repetition has something to do with the mode of production we had at the beginning of the 20th century, with machines that would repetitively do the same job, so that you got standard, high-quality products — but it was the same from one to the other. It was just what the 20th century was about: mass production — and if you wanted to have something individualized, you could change the colour, or, say, the buttons.
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Christos Passas: “We do not believe in mass produced architecture. We believe in mass customization, making everything unique, not making everything the same”
Nowadays, I think, the mode of production is changing. It is very important, because the machines we are using today for fabrication, for construction, are so agile that they can produce unique objects in every case."

Recordar:

• Magnitograd versus Mongo
• O século XX começou há  100 anos
• A marca do século XXI

Um tema que tem tudo a ver com "Budweiser's Battle for Beer Market Dominance Hinges on the U.S.":

"“Small brewers have been growing in market share since the late ’70s and early ’80s, but for a long time they were too tiny to pose any threat to the bigger brands,” he says. “Only in the past 10 years have they really made themselves known, with more than 20 percent of the market in dollar sales.” By volume, their share also is going up, with craft beers representing 12.2 percent of the U.S. market in 2015, he says, and they will likely hit a peak this year.
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Craft concoctions can do many things the big beers can’t, like offer greater variety, fuller flavor and snappier names (Pepperation H, Apocalypse Cow and Citra Ass Down) or humorous mottos appealing to locals and tourists, like Utah’s Polygamy Pale Ale (“Try one and you’ll want another, and another, and another...”). Watson says craft brewers also tend to be deeply involved with their communities and are highly philanthropic, bolstering brand loyalty in a way the monster beer makers cannot."

"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.