"You don’t win by focusing on your competition" (parte II)

A propósito da parte I.

Esta mensagem sintoniza-se bem com a mensagem deste blogue:

“Finally, you need to let go of beliefs about your competitors that get in your way when it comes to selling effectively. Believing that your competitors lie and that their approach or pricing model is responsible for your losses is unhealthy. It is disempowering because it absolves you of the responsibility of knowing how to position yourself, your company, and your solution as creating the kind of differentiated, compelling value that would have beaten them. [Moi ici: Recordam o choradinho dos que se queixavam dos centros comerciais? E o choradinho dos que se queixavam dos chineses? E o choradinho dos que se queixavam dos ...  ] It’s your job to get the client to perceive the value you create, and it is that perception that allows you to win. If you hold yourself responsible for a loss, you can change your approach and improve. If you blame your competitors, you absolve yourself of responsibility—and you continue to lose. [Moi ici: Locus de controlo no interior!!! ]

You cannot do anything about your competitor. Nothing you say or do will make them change their behavior, their approach, or their pricing. Even when you start to win their clients by creating greater value, your competitors are likely to respond by doubling down on their existing practices, so your focus has to shift to improving how you sell.”

Excerto de: Anthony Iannarino. “Eat Their Lunch”. 

"You don’t win by focusing on your competition"

"Most of us work in mature industries that are overcrowded, where we are perceived as commodities (even when we are not), and where competition is ferocious. We work in industries where growth requires capturing market share from our competitors, and in many cases requires that we take their clients from them while they attempt to take our clients from us. How else do you grow by 12 percent in an industry that is growing by 2.7 percent annually?...
Your company goes out into the market to win new clients. You believe that what you sell—and how you sell it—is better than what your competitors sell. Your intention is to better serve those companies and customers that are not getting what they really want or need.
...
You don’t win by focusing on your competition. What makes you a dangerous competitor is how you play the game. Let’s start by eliminating the things that your competitors routinely do in an attempt to cause you problems and take your business, the things that make them weak competitors.
Some of your competitors compete on price alone, offering a poorer service than you do at a lower price point, while falsely promising the same results you can offer. They will win the most price-sensitive customers in the market, many of whom will live with their shortcomings for much longer than you might imagine. While these competitors usually win clients who perceive only the lowest price as value, they will occasionally win good clients, clients who will stick with them until you find a way to displace them. Know that you cannot do anything about a competitor with an irrational pricing structure. It doesn’t change your pricing model or strategy, so your only response should be to compete in a way that allows you to win with a higher price."

Trechos retirados de “Eat Their Lunch” de Anthony Iannarino.

2020 vai ser interessante

Há dias sugeria: "Agora imaginem que as exportações de automóveis se constipam..."

Hoje: "Protesto portuário ameaça fazer parar a Autoeuropa"

Esta semana:

• Economia alemã contrai pela primeira vez em três anos
• Itália rejeita exigências de Bruxelas e mantém Orçamento do Estado
• Aterrissagem suave ou pouso forçado? O que esperar da alta dos juros nos EUA
• Governo reduz défice à custa do PIB, juros e dividendos, diz Conselho das Finanças Públicas

"nearly impossible to predict"

"Understand and exploit the link between local behaviors and macro-outcomes. It is no surprise that the process of emergence in a complex adaptive system cannot be described precisely. It is for this reason that the outcomes of these systems are nearly impossible to predict—and that the mechanical management of them is therefore often unwise. For instance, no degree of micromanagement of researchers’ behaviors can guarantee higher productivity in R&D departments. Controlling lower-level processes, no matter how precisely, cannot guarantee innovation.
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Nevertheless, this does not imply that there are no useful links to be exploited between local behaviors and macro-outcomes. Rather, it implies that business leaders should look for these links using the right statistical approaches."

Trechos retirados de "Think Biologically: Messy Management for a Complex World"

"they want what it will do for them"

"People don’t want what you make; they want what it will do for them. They want the way it will make them feel. And there aren’t that many feelings to choose from.
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In essence, most marketers deliver the same feelings. We just do it in different ways, with different services, products, and stories. And we do it for different people in different moments.
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If you can bring someone belonging, connection, peace of mind, status, or one of the other most desired emotions, you’ve done something worthwhile. The thing you sell is simply a road to achieve those emotions, and we let everyone down when we focus on the tactics, not the outcomes. Who’s it for? and What’s it for? are the two questions that guide all of our decisions.
The good news is that we don’t need to rely on the shiniest, latest digital media shortcut — we have even more powerful, nuanced, and timeless tools at our disposal. We tell stories. Stories that resonate and hold up over time. Stories that are true, because we made them true with our actions and our products and our services."

Trecho retirado de "What Your Dog Knows About Marketing"

Mongo, tribos e política

As consequências políticas de Mongo aqui e em "Nascidos numa civilização, morreremos numa tribo?" e ainda em "What Gives the Logo Its Legs".

De hoje, este "Pegar a tourada pelos cornos" tem um lado interessante, como escreve Fukuyama, mostra como as tribos se dividem mesmo dentro daquilo que eram os partidos tradicionais.

Para reflexão

Para imaginar, para especular sobre as potenciais consequências e oportunidades em torno desta evolução:

"Wind and solar technologies have extended their lead over fossil fuel generation on costs of new plant, and are now as cheap, or even cheaper, than existing coal, gas and nuclear power plants – even compared to existing and fully-depreciated fossil fuel generators.
...
“As alternative energy costs continue to decline, storage remains the key to solving the problem of intermittency and we are beginning to see a clearer path forward for economic viability in storage technologies.”
...
since 2009 solar has fallen in cost by 88 per cent and wind has fallen by 69 per cent."

Trechos retirados de "Lazard hails “inflection point” as wind, solar costs beat new and old fossils"

Trabalhar? Até os burros trabalham, e muito!

A descrição do evento desenvolvido pela Lactaçores:

"Há menos de dois meses, a Lactaçores organizou um evento para promover o queijo São Jorge. E em que consistiu a coisa? Numa torrente de discursos (alguns penosos) de meia-dúzia de figuras das ilhas e do continente especialistas em repetir o óbvio (até o presidente da Câmara de Vila Franca de Xira falou, valha-nos Deus) e, em seguida, na degustação de queijos com compotas, bom pão e vinho do Pico (isso deve ter dado uma dor de cabeça ao chefe responsável pelo catering que nem imagino...).
.
Houve alguém para falar do terroir de São Jorge? Não. Houve alguém capaz de descrever, com prova didáctica, quais são os aromas e os sabores elementares de um queijo São Jorge? Não. Houve alguém para explicar como evolui o queijo ao longo dos anos? Não. Apareceu alguém para contar alguma história sobre este queijo com centenas de anos? Não. Algum chefe - estavam uns quantos presentes - fez sugestões sobre a degustação do queijo? Clássicas ou mais arrojadas? Nada."

Faz-me lembrar aqueles que desenvolvem acções para picar o cartão. Como não recordar os monumentos à treta: Trabalho, muito trabalho. Resultados? Vão no Batalha!

- Trabalhar? Até os burros trabalham, e muito!

 Trecho retirado de "Desabafos sobre o mundo do queijo"

"Uber", Mongo e a educação (parte II)

Parte I.

Mais uma peça para a construção de uma reflexão sobre o futuro da educação em Mongo em "Young Americans need to be taught skills, not handed credentials":

"One recent survey found that 43 per cent of college grads are underemployed.
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This certainly mirrors what I hear from chief executives, many of whom tell me they cannot find the skills they need either at the top or the bottom of the socio-economic ladder. Ivy League colleges are great for those who can afford them but most education has become completely disconnected from the needs of both students and the labour market.
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There are plenty of MBAs who can read a balance sheet but have neither operational nor soft skills. Four-year business administration graduates are settling for low wage gigs, while $20-an-hour manufacturing jobs go unfilled because employers can’t find anyone with vocational training.
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Desperate companies are trying to plug the gap — telecoms group AT&T has set up an internal online course to train the 95 per cent of those in its own technology and services unit that have inadequate ability in Stem subjects — Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths. Walmart Academy has trained thousands of workers, including in basic skills they should have learnt in high schools.
...
Perhaps the most successful and scalable bridging of the skills and credentials gap thus far has been the P-Tech high school, initially started by IBM as a way to create a middle-market talent pool and now said to run with 500 other industry partners in 110 schools in eight states."

Voltaremos ao século XIX? A escola pública existe para servir os funcionários,

2/2 voltaremos a ver a genuína escola comercial oliveira martins no porto, suportada pelo sector e independente do ministério da educação?

— Carlos P da Cruz (@ccz1) October 6, 2015

"Então, veio-me à mente a conversa deste mês de Agosto com estudante da FCUP do curso de Ciências de Computação. Segundo ele, o curso foi objecto de reformulação há dois anos. No entanto, continua a não dar toda uma série de linguagens de programação que as empresas precisam mas que os professores não dominam, nem têm motivação para aprender (esse estudante passou parte do mês de Agosto a estudar programação para Android nos cursos da Udacity).
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Se a FCUP optasse por contratar professores para darem aulas sobre essas linguagens os professores incumbentes sofreriam."

Daqui, de onde também recordo:

"Há uma frase feita qualquer acerca das organizações que se aplica como uma luva neste caso:
Quando a velocidade da mudança no exterior, no contexto, no entorno de uma organização, é muito maior que a velocidade a que essa organização consegue mudar... temos outra Torre de Babel:"

Acerca das exportações YTD - mês 9 (2018) (Parte II)

"Há um novo recorde de criação de empresas no horizonte - mas, pelo caminho, ficam cada vez mais empresas encerradas, assinala o Barómetro da Informa D&B no balanço que faz até Outubro.
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Desde Abril de 2018 que o número de empresas a fechar as portas tem vindo a crescer. Nos primeiros dez meses do ano, Portugal assistiu ao encerramento de 14.322 empresas, um crescimento de 25,4% face ao período homólogo, "acompanhando assim o aumento do número de empresas no tecido empresarial ocorrido nos últimos anos", observa a Informa D&B.
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Esta tendência é comum a todos os sectores, embora os serviços e o retalho se destaquem com o maior número de negócios a desaparecer. Nos sectores grossista e das indústrias transformadoras, que têm "elevada importância nas exportações", os encerramentos dispararam mais de 40%."

Relacionar com a Parte I e com a evolução subterrânea dos dados.

Trecho retirado de "Encerramentos de empresas aumentam há sete meses"

“Globalization is becoming regionalization, and regionalization is becoming intra-national,”

A propósito de "More Factories Crop Up Closer to Customers":

"The largest share of manufacturers in at least a decade is spending to expand facilities, as companies look to build plants closer to their customers to offset record-high trucking costs and seek out pockets of available workers in a tight labor market.
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Twelve percent of U.S. manufacturers that invested in added capacity at domestic factories in the second quarter did so through building expansions, according to the Census Bureau, the highest proportion in the decade that metric has been released. Manufacturing construction spending hit a 16-month high in September, according to the Census Bureau. Executives are making some of those investments in new factories to alleviate rising transport bills and supply-chain bottlenecks.
...
as the company seeks to make its products as close to customers as possible to speed up delivery times and cut logistics costs.
...
Companies building plants nearer to customers say the investment costs can be made up in faster turnaround times and increased orders.
...
Some companies also are trying to source more parts locally to mitigate the impact of U.S. tariffs on some foreign goods, said executives at Flex Ltd., which makes and ships products—including shoes and personal electronics— for other companies.
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“Globalization is becoming regionalization, and regionalization is becoming intra-national,” said Tom Linton, Flex’s supply-chain officer.""

A mim ninguém me tira a ideia de que Mongo tem um dedo importante nesta evolução: proximidade, rapidez, flexibilidade, interacção, co-criação

Evolução do retalho

Interessantes estes números:

"The British high street suffered 2,692 store closures in the first half of 2018, according to analysis of the UK's top 500 towns compiled by the Local Data Company for PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). In contrast, there were 1,569 store openings, a decline of a third year-on-year.
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The findings equate to an overall net loss of 1,123 stores disappearing from the UK’s streets during this period. (In the same period a year prior, there were 2,564 store closures to 2,342 openings — an overall net loss of 222 stores.) “Openings simply aren’t replacing closures at a fast enough rate,” said Lisa Hooker, consumer markets leader at PwC.
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10 percent of store closures were fashion retailers, making it the largest business category affected. According to PwC, 269 fashion stores closed in the first half of 2018, while 165 opened.
...
“The British high street is in urgent need of new ways of thinking and new forms of retail,”"

E o tema da economia das experiências:

"clothing retailers’ troubles reflected a shift in consumer preference for online shopping and at-home leisure, as well as a change in culture towards enjoying experiences rather than buying products. While the shift has resulted in an increase of “experiential” store openings such as beauty salons, it hasn’t been enough to offset the closures of more traditional businesses." 

Trechos retirados de "UK Retail Apocalypse Deepens"

BTW, pode ser coincidência, mas:

"As vendas anuais no retalho alemão baixaram de forma acentuada em setembro, ao contrário das expetativas dos economistas, que previam um crescimento. Os gastos dos consumidores alemães diminuíram cerca de 2,6% em setembro, quando comparado com igual período do ano anterior, revela o Gabinete Federal de Estatística (Destatis) alemão, sendo que se previa um crescimento de 0,9%. Esta foi a maior quebra desde junho de 2013.
...
Os sinais de quebra foram particularmente claros no sector têxtil e vestuário, onde foi registada uma descida de 9,6% nas vendas, enquanto na alimentação, bebidas e tabaco estas desceram 3%."

Acerca das exportações YTD - mês 9 (2018)

As exportações de "Mobiliário" entre Janeiro - Setembro de 2017 e Janeiro - Setembro 2018 cresceram 11 milhões, cerca de 1%, as exportações de Máquinas, ...

E queixava-me eu do panorama em Novembro de 2017, mal podia adivinhar esta desgraça:

Já olharam bem para a evolução?

Agora imaginem que as exportações de automóveis se constipam...

Trabalho, muito trabalho. Resultados? Vão no Batalha!

"Activity metrics are receiving lots of attention.  Activity metrics can be very useful, at the same time, they can stimulate a lot of, well … wasted activity.
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Too often, we focus on the wrong things as we put activity metrics in place.  We focus on the “what and how many,”  for example, “You need to make 150 dials today,” or “You have to send out 200 prospecting emails,”  As a result, the activities become “ends” in themselves, and not means to achieve certain goals."

Isto continua a ser um cancro em algumas organizações privadas e em quase todas as organizações estatais ou sem fins-lucrativos.

Ainda há dias escrevia (descer foi a tradução do corrector de algum erro que fiz ao querer escrever "de ser"):

Qual a razão descer da Santa Casa? Acabaram os pobres e desvalidos em Portugal? https://t.co/cKjxuHj3dV

— Carlos P da Cruz (@ccz1) November 6, 2018

Organizações que deixam de servir a sua causa, a sua razão de ser e passam a ter como razão de ser o serviço dos funcionários.

Ainda ontem alguém me dizia que na sua terra, no Alto Minho, se costuma dizer:

- Trabalhar? Até os burros trabalham, e muito!

Um tema com barcas aqui no blogue, por exemplo: "Mais um monumento à treta - parte II"

Trecho retirado de "Going Beyond The “What” Of Activity Metrics"

Debaixo da roupa ...

GDP Growth Forecast for 2019 by country (%)

🇲🇹4,9
🇮🇪4,5
🇸🇰4,1
🇷🇴3,8
🇵🇱3,7
🇧🇬3,7
🇨🇾3,5
🇭🇺3,4
🇸🇮3,3
🇱🇻3,2
🇱🇺3,0
🇨🇿2,9
🇪🇪2,8
🇱🇹2,8
🇭🇷2,8
🇳🇱2,4
🇪🇸2,2
🇫🇮2,2
🇬🇷2,0
🇦🇹2,0
🇸🇪1,8
🇩🇰1,8
🇵🇹1,8
🇩🇪1,8
🇫🇷1,6
🇧🇪1,5
🇮🇹1,2
🇬🇧1,2#ECForecast

— Pablo Pérez 🇪🇺 (@PabloPerezA) November 8, 2018

Para reflexão

Qual o impacte económico a nível mundial desta tendência, "China's middle class tightens its belt"? No mínimo são tantos quantos todos os habitantes da UE.

BTW, o que faz um país que não está afundado em dívida quando a economia ruma a sul?

"The belt-tightening narrative has been strongly disputed by Beijing, which has made a long-term bet that consumption will fuel China's future growth. To encourage citizens to spend more, Chinese leaders recently announced the country's first income tax cuts in seven years, reducing the income tax bill by an estimated 320 billion yuan this year."

A paisagem enrugada

Esta imagem é uma boa metáfora sobre o que acontece em Mongo.

De olhar para um sector económico como um bloco homogéneo, até a uma paisagem enrugada com muitos e diversos picos.

Imagem retirada de "Think Biologically: Messy Management for a Complex World"

Pedofilia empresarial, beware

"O mais recente relatório, com base nos dados recolhidos entre maio e agosto de 2018, revela que mais de 20% dos fornecedores indicaram ainda que menos de 80% dos pedidos recebidos de retalhistas ou marcas apresentavam preços que cobriam os requisitos sociais, ambientais, de qualidade e outros.
...
Um terço dos fornecedores (27,3%) afirma que os clientes não pagaram o preço total indicado na nota de encomenda. Além disso, quase 10% dos fornecedores referem que menos de 20% dos pedidos de compra dos seus clientes foram pagos na totalidade. Os fornecedores adiantam que as razões mais comuns apresentadas para o não pagamento na totalidade foram os atrasos ou reclamações, sem fundamentação, de defeitos de qualidade do produto. Outras razões incluem a obrigação de contribuir para a abertura de uma nova loja, a remodelação de uma loja existente ou o lançamento de uma nova marca."

Recordar "A prova do tempo... tudo por causa de um Pingo Doce"


Trechos retirados de "Sourcing sob alta tensão"

Partir do cliente e da sua situação

"Lead your audience to what makes you special rather than leading with what makes you special.
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Get it?   All of the storytelling ideas start with the customer and their world, acknowledging the things they are dealing with.   From there, you share how you can help.  You lead them to it.
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The converse, leading with, puts all the burden on the customer to figure out why they should care.   Even if they are already looking for products in a category, you should still lead them to what makes you special.  You may do that through Situation-Impact-Resolution models, or Commercial Insights, or by demonstrating a point of view, etc. etc. etc."

Recordar "you need to enter their personal story" e "Mambo jambo de consultor ou faz algum sentido?"

Trechos retirados de "Lead to, Not with, Differentiation and Capabilities"

Algo para fermentar

Volta e meia repito uma frase que aprendi em São João da Madeira:

"O boi cresce mais com o olhar do dono do que com a erva do pasto"

Ainda ontem de manhã, em Felgueiras, a usei para resumir o que me estavam a contar. Fui com um controlador da qualidade de calçado visitar várias pequenas empresas que trabalham como costuras subcontratadas. Contou-me como em algumas costuras, a patroa olha para um modelo e visualiza logo a sequência de trabalho, alterando o posicionamento das máquinas para minimizar operações e tempos sem acrescento de valor.

No dia anterior tinha lido mais uma porção de "Reinventing Organizations: An Illustrated Invitation to Join the Conversation on Next-Stage Organizations" de Frederic Laloux:

"Self-management has proven itself in many industries. There are, for instance, a number of very successful factories that operate in this way. One of them is FAVI, a five hundred-person brass foundry in the north of France that produces gearbox forks for the automotive industry, among others."

Estas pequenas unidades não têm nada a ver com o conceito de "self-management", mas é interessante como conseguem que muitas decisões cheguem mais próximo da trabalhadora da linha do que na produção de uma empresa de maior dimensão.

Entretanto, encontrei esta reflexão, "We need to shift our focus from competencies to agency":

"In mass-production, work corresponds mainly with what has been planned and budgeted. But today, knowledge work is understood as creative work we do in interaction. Unlike the repetitive business processes we know so well, where inputs are acted on in some predictable, structured way and converted into outputs, the inputs and outputs of knowledge work are problem definitions and exploration for solutions. Even more, there are no predetermined task sequences that, if executed, would guarantee success.
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Due to the variety of contexts people link to and work in, work requires interpretation, exploration and negotiation, work requires a new kind agency. What defines most problems today is that they are not isolated and independent. To solve them, a person has to think not only about what she believes the right answer is, but also about what other people think the right answers might be. Work, then, is exploration both what comes to defining the problems and finding the solutions.
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The industrial make-and-sell model required categorical skills, as we still know them. The decisive thing was your individual knowledge and individual education. Today, in new creative spaces you work more from your presence and network than your explicit skills. Agency is more important than education.
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The most important reason why we need a new concept of agency insted of competences is because the workers and their contributions in the post-industrial world are contextual and, at best, too diverse to rank. They are, and should be, too qualitatively different to compare quantitatively.
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Instead of talking about generic competences we need to focus on continuously developing agency."

Decididamente algo para fermentar.