"a flash in the pan is no basis for a long-range strategy"

"Success will not always breed success. In fact, it may be harder to manage a team that has reached a peak — particularly a peak that virtually nobody predicted. Big football clubs such as Spain’s Real Madrid, or England’s Chelsea, have over time created a culture of success that allows them to maintain momentum. But a flash in the pan is no basis for a long-range strategy. Research into the results of decades of US basketball playoff games has confirmed what is often obvious: that victories sometimes lead to overconfidence and failure, “whereas failure at earlier tasks can motivate individuals toward greater achievement in the future”.
...
By exposing flaws, failure often teaches more than success, which glosses over errors. So business schools should now redouble their efforts to enlist Mr Ranieri for a lecture series. Provisional title: “How the laurels of victory contain the seeds of disappointment: my part in Leicester’s rise and fall.”

Trechos retirados de "Leaders can learn more from Ranieri’s failure than his success"

Biologia e economia

"One particularly memorable set of meetings we had involved a CEO who represented the third generation of his family to run a major public company which his grandfather started. When we met with him he was nearly always focused on macroeconomic issues like Federal Reserve interest rate policy and forecasts about the economy. Talking about these macro issues seemed to make him feel better. He never seemed to know much about his actual business. Over the years that business has declined to a point where all that is left today is the brand. It is a tragic story that negatively impacted not only him and his family, but tens of thousands of people. Of course, startup founders can fail for essentially the same reason at this CEO when they spend too much time on macro, attending industry conferences and shows and posing for photo shoots.
.
The CEO I am referring to attended one of the most well-known business schools in the world where he was taught that the systems his company had to deal with could be explained by concepts borrowed from physics like “equilibrium.” This was both unfortunate and fatal since the reality is that a capitalist economy is an evolutionary system and the best metaphor for how it works is biology rather than physics. Charlie Munger agrees: “I find it quite useful to think of a free-market economy – or partly free market economy – as sort of the equivalent of an ecosystem.” Unfortunately for people like this CEO there is no formula that will tell someone like him what to do. People who claim to have such a formulas are never right more than once in a row. The good news is that there are processes which can be followed that will greatly increase the probability of success. One process that killed the huge business was customer development. The pace at which new products were developed at his company was so ponderous and expensive that they were unable to react with sufficient speed when customer demand changed."

Como não recordar o que já escrevemos aqui acerca da relação entre a biologia e a economia e os ecossistemas.

• Biologia e economia - cuidado com as "leis universais" (2016)
• Biologia e economia
• Outra vez os ecossistemas
• Não confundir com perigosa propaganda neoliberal, é só a biologia a funcionar
• Biologia e economia
• Tanto a aprender com a biologia...
• Mongo is everywhere I look
• Diversidade e complexidade
• Economia e biologia, o mesmo desafio evolutivo (2008)

Como não recordar o que aqui critico na academia que ainda está no século XX a pensar o Normalistão quando já estamos no Estranhistão. Ah! Mt 11, 25

Como não recordar a superioridade da micro-economia face à macroeconomia quando trabalhamos num mundo repleto de tribos e pleno de idiossincrasias.

• Acerca da tríade
• Não há boleias da macroeconomia ...
• A microeconomia é mais importante que a macroeconomia

Trecho inicial retirado de "Why has the level of business competition levels been turned up to 11? Or: Why is the lean customer development process important?"

Aceleração

Ao ler:

"The world has been fundamentally changed by digital networks and software. Businesses and customers which are connected by networked digital systems create amplified network effects which means the velocity of business and the level of competition and innovation are higher than they ever been ever been. To survive in this new environment every business, from the largest enterprises to the smallest sole proprietor, must accelerate and fundamentally change their customer development processes. Increasing the ability of a business to adapt to a changing world has never been more important."

Lembrei-me logo da citação de Jack Welch:

“If the rate of change on the outside exceeds the rate of change on the inside, the end is near.”

O que me fez fazer a ponte com uma daquelas conversas de circunstâncias que se têm enquanto se espera que a escritura de uma casa seja redigida. Ouvi alguém dizer:

- Já compararam a velocidade, a quantidade de estímulos visuais, entre um episódio de desenhos animados de 1980 com um de 2010? Uma criança de hoje não tem pachorra para o ritmo de caracol dos anos 80.

E o bolbo raquidiano deixou-se tocar e fez-me recuar aos anos 80 e à série documental na televisão onde Alvin Toffler visitava uma fábrica abandonada, onde na sua juventude tinha trabalhado, e tentava mostrar como as instituições políticas nascidas no século XIX teriam dificuldade em adaptar-se à velocidade de Mongo.

E fecho com uma recordação dos primeiros tempos da minha vida profissional no final dos anos 80 do século passado. Ainda não se usava fax mas usava-se o telex e o telefone. Em visita com o meu chefe, o director técnico da empresa onde trabalhava, a um cliente. Um deles, ás tantas, diz com saudade:

- Lembra-se de quando as encomendas eram feitas por carta?

 Como é que a sua empresa evolui para aproveitar este aumento da velocidade?

Trecho inicial retirado de "Why has the level of business competition levels been turned up to 11? Or: Why is the lean customer development process important?"

Curiosidade do dia

"O mundo ocidental está hoje extraordinariamente endividado, mas há democracias que têm crescido e sem tanta dívida.Há excepções, sim, mas quase todos os governos fazem défices e mais défices, acumulam mais e mais dívida, e muitos fazem­-no porque acham que é a maneira de crescer mais e, por essa via, de manter a paz social. É preciso travar essa corrida para o fundo.
.
Porque "fazer" crescimento com défices desta maneira é fazer batota. Os défices são a diferença entre despesas superiores às receitas. É impossível dizer que parte da despesa fez o défice. Eu defendo muito o Estado Social, não estou a pô-lo, de todo, em causa. Mas quero muito contas equilibradas, quero défices zero. Quero que, a cada ano, cada governo encontre as receitas necessárias para financiar as despesas sem recorrer a mais dívida."

Trecho retirado de "Tomas Sedlacek: Temos de confiscar aos governos o poder de emitir dívida"

Dúvida sincera

Há um ano vivia-se a incerteza de um novo governo. Muitos, a começar por mim, não acreditavam que o novo governo resistisse.

Agora, temos um governo com um ano, temos o ministro da Economia a falar de uma aceleração do crescimento.

Pessoalmente, acompanho cerca de 50% da economia do país, a economia do sector transaccionável, e essa está muito bem.

Ao olhar para os números do desemprego do IEFP fiquei com uma dúvida sincera:

Nota sincera: estranho q a oferta de emprego em Janeiro de 2017 tenha sido inferior à de Janeiro de 2016 e Janeiro de 2016 era a incerteza

— Carlos P da Cruz (@ccz1) February 25, 2017

Por que será?

A importância do contexto do cliente

Quem lê este blogue com alguma regularidade sabe que:

• prevejo um futuro paradigma económico a que metaforicamente chamo de Mongo, habitado sobretudo por makers, prosumers, PME e muito poucas empresas grandes;
• à conta da democratização da produção e do armazenamento não vejo grande futuro para empresas carregadas de dívida como a EDP

Acontece que ontem fiz a escritura da minha nova casa e à tarde resolvi passar o contrato da energia e do gás para meu nome.

Tentem perceber o contexto de uma pessoa, de manhã faz a escritura, carregam-no de obrigações em termos legais com prazos curtos, como a alteração do cartão de cidadão, mantém uma checklist de coisas a fazer, desde limpar a nova casa, fazer a mudança, alterar os contratos da água, gás e electricidade, comprar alguns electrodomésticos, tratar dos CTT, fazer uma proposta até terça-feira, fazer e enviar relatório de auditoria até domingo, preparar sessão de trabalho de quarta que vai ser particularmente exigente, ir buscar o mais novo a Albergaria que vem passar o Carnaval a Estarreja, ainda.

Recordem o esquema:

Onde fica a EDP Comercial em Vila Nova de Gaia? É lá que está registado o contrato dos anteriores proprietários da casa. Procura-se na internet.

Chega-se a um site que não é da EDP mas de alguém que os representa, imagino eu e encontro que posso alterar a titularidade do contrato por telefone: sem deslocações, sem espinhas, ... POR TELEFONE!!! Assim ainda consigo fazer a água e a electricidade e gás tudo no mesmo dia.

Experimentei e funcionou mesmo!!!

Pelo menos durante um ano a EDP Comercial ganhou um cliente que não o previa fazer só pela facilidade concedida num contexto de stress.

Recordar o caso da Rodonorte, depois da primeira viagem a inércia entra em campo. 

Ainda tenho de fazer a proposta e o relatório.

Ideia a copiar?

Mal li o título "Escolas de Turismo emprestam cozinhas a empreendedores" a primeira coisa que me veio à cabeça foi: e as PME? Até que ponto PME poderiam fazer o mesmo e disponibilizar activos para empreendedores?

Seria uma forma de criar condições para algum spillover, seria uma forma de estar atenta às tendências mais fora da caixa.

Hoje em dia há muita capacidade produtiva ociosa. O mundo mudou e Mongo implica um tipo de produção diferente do modelo herdado do século XX. Por outro lado, muitas das empresas criadas neste século e bem sucedidas lutam com falta de capacidade.

BTW, há alguma plataforma que ligue estas duas partes? Produtores com capacidade ociosa e produtores com falta de capacidade produtiva? (operação de corte no calçado, por exemplo). Também poderia relacionar com agentes, com empreendedores, com universidades, com ...

"calçar os sapatos do outro"

É muito difícil calçar os sapatos do outro e procurar ver o mundo sob a sua perspectiva.

Por exemplo, foi muito fácil dizer mal dos finlandeses no tempo da troika sem cuidar perceber a crise tremenda que estavam, e estão, a viver, tendo eles de fazer sacrifícios que por cá consideramos inconstitucionais.

Um outro exemplo é o pensamento mainstream nos media e inteligentsia portuguesa acerca do sistema fiscal irlandês para as empresas. Até lhe chamam uma offshore plantada em plena UE. O que dirão essas sumidades acerca desta offshore em pleno Portugal "Suécia queixa-se a Centeno das condições dadas aos reformados"?

Por isto, encontramos comunidades de holandeses na zona de Tábua, de franceses um pouco por todo o país, de ...

É um bom investimento, dinheiro gasto capilarmente na base da economia. Por exemplo, na zona entre Tábua e Arganil há um restaurante modesto no meio do nada, usado por trabalhadores e que conheço por motivos profissionais há quase 15 anos. Durante 12 anos, sempre que lá fui nunca tive fila e havia mesas vazias apesar da freguesia regular. De há 3 anos para cá, ao almoço, fila e mais fila (se chover) por causa de uma comunidade de holandeses reformados que escolheu aquele restaurante para almoçar praticamente todos os dias.

BTW, a notícia da queixa não liga muito em com outra notícia do mesmo jornal "Suécia queixa-se de receber demasiado dinheiro em impostos"

"reasonable-seeming people are often totally irrational"

"“Once formed,” the researchers observed dryly, “impressions are remarkably perseverant.”
...
Even after the evidence “for their beliefs has been totally refuted, people fail to make appropriate revisions in those beliefs,” the researchers noted. In this case, the failure was “particularly impressive,” since two data points would never have been enough information to generalize from.
.
The Stanford studies became famous. Coming from a group of academics in the nineteen-seventies, the contention that people can’t think straight was shocking. It isn’t any longer. Thousands of subsequent experiments have confirmed (and elaborated on) this finding. As everyone who’s followed the research—or even occasionally picked up a copy of Psychology Today—knows, any graduate student with a clipboard can demonstrate that reasonable-seeming people are often totally irrational."

"Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds"

Build on Your Strengths

"2. Build on Your Strengths
Your company has capabilities that set it apart, things you do better than anyone else. You can use them as a starting point to create greater success. Yet more likely than not, your strongest capabilities have been obscured over the years. If, like most companies, you pursue opportunities that crop up without thinking much about whether you have the prowess needed to capture them, you can gradually lose sight of what you do best, or why customers respond to it.
.
Take an inventory of your most distinctive capabilities. Look for examples where you have excelled as a company, achieving greatly desired outcomes without heroic efforts. Articulate all the different things that had to happen to make these capabilities work, and figure out what it will take to build on your strengths, so that you can succeed the same way more consistently in the future.
...
The more knowledge you have about your own capabilities, the more opportunities you’ll have to build on your strengths. So you should always be analyzing what you do best, gathering data about your practices, and conducting postmortems. In every case, there is something to learn — about your operations, and also about the choices you make and the value you’re able to deliver."

Trecho retirado de "10 Principles of Strategy through Execution"

VRIO (parte II)

Parte I.

"The VRIO Model: The acid test of differentiation
.
Instead of burdening you with a complex process you would never use anyway, I recommend a set of four questions as the means to begin defining and quantifying your value. This is an excellent discussion starter that also yields insightful answers to help you recognize and appreciate your own value. Pick what you think is an important feature of one of your best-selling products. Can this feature pass the following four-question test?
.
• Is it Valuable to the customer? Customers should be able to tell why they want it, what pain point it addresses, or what gains it enables. The feature is clearly something that makes customers better off, and you have dear, ready answers to describe why.
.
• Is it Rare? The fewer options the customer has, the rarer your feature is. You have something customers want, and few others (if any) offer the same feature.
.
• Can it be Imitated? In other words, if you gave a competitor a few months, could they perform that same function just as easily as you do, and thus offset or neutralize your advantage? Ideally you would have a sustainable advantage, which means it would take considerable resources—if not a strategic decision—for one or more competitors to challenge you on it. Here we touch on switching cos., which may be technical, marketing, or relationship-based.
.
• Are you Organized to exploit this differentiation? Sometimes companies have too much of a good thing. They have the potential to offer superior value, but they can't exploit it, either because they lack the processes to market and support the feature, or they lack the talent or the means to exploit its full potential. Sometimes a company is just plain had at executing. They have breakdowns in execution excellence and spend their time fixing their issues.
.
If you can honestly answer "yes" to all of these questions, you are truly differentiated. But most companies will answer at least one question with "no." 

Trechos retirados de Stephan M. Liozu. em "Dollarizing Differentiation Value: A Practical Guide for the Quantification and the Capture of Customer Value"

Custo de oportunidade (parte II)

Parte I.

Recordar:

"Estratégia a sério é isto! Decisões dolorosas. Decisões que invertidas (não esquecer o teste de Roger Martin) não são estúpidas."

Ao ler "Borba baixa exportações de azeite para apostar no mercado nacional" detecto outro exemplo de opção estratégica:

"A Cooperativa de Olivicultores de Borba, no Alentejo, exporta cerca de 30% da produção de azeite engarrafado para vários países, mas, por estratégia, aposta mais no mercado nacional"

Pessoalmente, eu que estou de fora não tomaria este tipo de opção, pelo contrário, recomendaria o que recomendo às PME há muitos anos, façam o by-pass ao país, fujam de uma situação fragilista, avancem para mercados que suportam preços mais altos.

Posso não concordar com este tipo de decisão mas não posso classifica-la como estúpida, nem a ela nem o seu contrário... estratégia a sério!!!

Curiosidade do dia

"Francisco Louçã e Murteira Nabo no Conselho Consultivo do Banco de Portugal"

Murteira Nabo?

Murteira Nabo???

O mesmo Murteira Nabo que provocava arrepios?????

Sim, esse mesmo de "Outro arrepio... e revolta."

"Price is the last refuge for the businessperson without the imagination, heart and soul to dig a bit deeper"

Como é que este texto de Seth Godin me escapou?

"Maybe your customer isn't trying to save money
.
Perhaps she wants to be heard instead.
.
Or find something better, or unique.
.
Or perhaps customer service, flexibility and speed are more important.
.
It might be that the way you treat your employees, or the side effects you create count for more than the price.
.
The interactions in the moment might be a higher priority.
.
Or it could even be the sense of fairplay and respect you bring (or don't bring) to the transaction.
.
Price is the last refuge for the businessperson without the imagination, heart and soul to dig a bit deeper."

E volto outra vez a Adria.

Trecho retirado de "Maybe your customer isn't trying to save money"

VRIO (parte I)

"Value does not exist in a vacuum. Your value - the value that will underpin your value-based pricing (VBP) - is always specific to a well-defined customer segment. Value is also relative to what your competitors offer to customers in the segment. By now your thinking should have moved away from generalizations (large markets, one-size-fits-all thinking) to focus on these narrower definitions, because these are the keys to your success with VBP.
...
Consider the following questions about what you deliver to your customers, day-in and day-out. What makes you special? What makes you unique as a whole? What makes your products unique? Can you be easily imitated? And how well are the answers to these questions expressed explicitly in your value proposition? The answers describe your competitive advantage, and these in turn provide the raw material for your value propositions. Competitive advantage takes three forms: measurable product and service differentiation, market position, and cost/price. The sum of these is your overall competitive advantage, as figure 5.1 shows. You will never be strong in all three, although combinations are possible.

Related to my comment above, I am tired of hearing the word commodity. Except for standardized items that are traded on international exchanges, such as a barrel of oil or a bushel of wheat, there is no such thing as a commodity. The frequency with which I hear that word usually correlates well with how beat up an organization is. They have given up on value, and they fight aggressively in bare-knuckled price wars instead of making the effort to find and extract their true differentiation. Please let me repeat: If you are still in business today, you are doing something right. You are adding value, and it goes beyond the product. It is therefore your responsibility to find your true differentiation, extract it, quantify it, and communicate it. No one else is going to do that for you. Your competitors are certainly not going to do so. And your buyers are not going to volunteer it!

Continua.

Trechos retirados de Stephan M. Liozu. em "Dollarizing Differentiation Value: A Practical Guide for the Quantification and the Capture of Customer Value"

Acerca da estratégia (parte I)

"In fast-paced industries, companies should think of strategy as an iterative loop with four steps: making sense of a situation, making choices, making things happen and making revisions.
.
In an ideal world, managers could formulate a long-term strategy, methodically implement it and then sustain the resulting competitive advantage. Reality, however, is rarely so neat and tidy. Technologies evolve, regulations shift, customers make surprising choices, macroeconomic variables fluctuate and competitors thwart the best-laid plans. Thus, to execute strategy as circumstances change, managers must capture new information, make midcourse corrections and get the timing right because being too early can often be just as costly as being too late. But how can managers implement a strategy while maintaining the flexibility to roll with the punches?
...
planners craft their strategy at the beginning of the process, precisely when they know the least about how events will unfold. Executing the strategy, moreover, generates new information — including the responses of competitors, regulators and customers — that then becomes difficult to incorporate into the prefabricated plan.
...
When companies view strategy as a linear process, they sprint to beat rivals. But rushing to execute a flawed plan only ensures that a company will get to the wrong place faster than anyone else. Instead, managers need to notice and capture new information that might influence what to do and when to do it, including the possibility of delaying as well as accelerating specific actions.
...
There is an alternative. Instead of thinking of strategy as a linear process, why not consider it as inherently iterative — a loop instead of a line? According to this view, every strategy is a work in progress that is subject to revision in light of ongoing interactions between the organization and its shifting environment. To accommodate those interactions, the strategy loop consists of four major steps: making sense of a situation, making choices on what to do (and what not to do), making those things happen and making revisions based on new information."

Trechos retirados de "Closing the Gap Between Strategy and Execution"

Desempenho impressionante

Tendo em conta a dimensão de Portugal impressiona este desempenho:

Em 2015 Portugal foi o 8º exportador de moldes a nível mundial e o 3º em termos europeus.

A indústria de moldes portuguesa exporta 90% da sua produção. E há cinco anos consecutivos que bate recorde atrás de recorde.

Curiosidade do dia

"A dívida é o sintoma, a doença está no crescimento. O défice orçamental - pequeno, médio ou grande - é apenas o indicador conjuntural de que a doença continua activa, a dívida só poderia ser resolvida se o crescimento económico e a contracção da despesa pública permitissem gerar os excedentes que iriam absorver os défices acumulados no passado. Dizer que o défice orçamental é o mais baixo em mais de quatro décadas de regime democrático não quer dizer nada, pois enquanto houver défice, por baixo que seja, continuará a crescer a dívida, numa eterna repetição do mesmo. A doença tornou-se crónica: a economia, a sociedade e a política habituaram-se à dívida porque esta é agradável e euforizante, é uma droga.
 .
Quem alimenta o vício é o Banco Central Europeu e as instituições europeias com os programas comunitários, servindo-se dos bancos como passadores de droga na função de canais transmissores das políticas monetárias. Mas é o viciado que constitui o centro do dispositivo. Quanto mais invoca o princípio da sua soberania, mais reforça a sua dependência de quem o sustenta no seu vício. Pode esperar que o milagre da reestruturação da dívida faça desaparecer o sintoma, mas a doença continua e o sintoma voltará, mais doloroso porque esse é o modo de a doença revelar que tem de ser tratada."

Trecho retirado de "Sintoma e doença"

O velho ditado

Há um velho ditado que aprendi com uma boutique de vinhos australiana em 2006:

"e que tal uma “boutique small winery”. Um gestor da "boutique" diz mesmo que é um negócio “high end fashion retailing”, em vez de inundar o mercado com produtos banais, e desesperar numa guerra de preços, atacar nichos específicos. É um prazer ver uma actividade ligada ao sector primário transpirar pensamento estratégico, demonstrar capacidade de distanciamento e de se situar no mercado."

Ou seja:

"Volume is vanity, profit is sanity" 

Ao longo dos anos tenho chamado a atenção para a curva de Stobachoff que tanto atrai os nórdicos a este blogue. Aprendi com Byrne aquela frase:

"in a typical company, 30 to 40% of revenues are actually unprofitable, while another fraction of revenues — often more like 20 to 30% — accounts for most of the organization’s profitability."

E ainda a relação 20/80/30 de Kotler:

"80% dos lucros de uma empresa são gerados pelos 20 clientes mais rentáveis.
E os 30? O que querem dizer?
Os 30 clientes menos rentáveis provocam um corte de metade dos lucros de uma empresa."

Assim, como não sorrir com este artigo "HTC only wants to make high-end phones, should be worrying for Sony":

"Sony doesn’t often get credit for for their strategic vision as they more often than not skate to where the puck is, with a delay, rather than to where the puck is going to be. With smartphones this was no different but with their mobile division in disarray, the company did something many pundits thought to be suicide – they exited the entry market and instead focused on high-end devices like the Xperia Z5, Xperia X, and now Xperia XZ. The results? A division that was once reporting over a billion dollars in losses is now recording profits.
.
Now mind you there is a lot Sony could be doing to better the situation for themselves but their initial vision was correct – to put aside the volume driven mentality that drove the PC business and many Android makers into the ground and instead focus on profitability."

Cães, gatos e estratégia

Ando a ler  "Dollarizing Differentiation Value: A Practical Guide for the Quantification and the Capture of Customer Value" de Stephan M. Liozu e enquanto não o acabar não compro mais nenhum livro. No entanto, já sei qual vai ser a minha próxima compra.

Reparem no título "If You're in a Dogfight, Become a Cat!: Strategies for Long-Term Growth". Já aqui confessei muitas vezes a minha fraqueza de cair facilmente num bom soundbite. O título agarrou-me logo porque intuí sobre qual era a sua mensagem.

E assim foi, bastou-me ler o Prefácio para concluir que a minha percepção estava correcta.

Por um lado, algo que vai ao encontro de quase um quarto de século como consultor e que os membros da tríade ainda não perceberam:

"While I have been a beneficiary of the insightful strategy thinking contributed by Michael Porter, Bruce Henderson, Clay Christensen, C. K. Prahalad, Paul Nunes, Youngme Moon, Rita McGrath and others that will be reviewed in this book, I have also come to appreciate that effective business strategy is inherently dynamic and context sensitive. No one universal framework or management prescription fits all business circumstances. What works well for one company may actually be quite harmful if applied by another company operating in a different market and competitive environment. And what works well for a company at a given point in time may be counterproductive after its business circumstances change."

Por outro, a abordagem à la David:

"The curious title of this book metaphorically captures the competitive challenge eventually faced by all businesses, as well as the management mindset required to overcome the odds against sustained profitable growth. Consider the mental image conjured up by a dogfight, where rival dogs (firms) scratch and claw for territorial dominance (market share), often battling with largely similar tactics (products and services). In business terms, such conditions generally refer to mature, commodifized markets characterized by slow growth, slim margins, and intense competition, making it difficult for any one firm to effectively break away from the pack. In dogfights, as in business, strong players may gain a temporary advantage, but the ongoing fight for dominance usually takes a heavy toll on all combatants, and the prospect for renewed battles remains a constant threat. Cats are a different breed of animal—clever, solitary hunters who are more inclined to explore new territory and to redefine the game on their own terms than to engage with the pack ht a no-win dogfight. Cats are agile and innovative, and seek their prey (customers) with tactics that dogs cannot easily replicate. Throughout this book, I will feature many firms that emulate cat-like behavior to break away from the pack, even in industries known for intense competition and unfavorable economics. Exemplars can be found in virtually every industry, from high tech (Apple) to low (Yellow Tail wine), selling either products (LittleMissMatched socks) or services (citizenM hotels). In business terms, these firms avoid competitive dogfights and break away from the pack by embracing the three strategic imperatives required to drive sustained profitable growth."