Um mundo novo

"Ecommerce in Greece is expected to be worth 4 billion euros at the end of this year. That would be an increase of over 8 percent, compared to the 3.7 billion euros the Greek ecommerce industry was worth last year.
...
ecommerce in Greece is gaining ground, with 85 percent of internet users in this Southeastern European country making regular purchases online. For comparison: this figure was at 65 percent in 2016.
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Currently, 85 percent of online shoppers in Greece make a major part (80 percent) of their purchases at domestic online stores.
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The most popular payment method in Greece seems to be cash on delivery, as this makes up for 54 percent of online payments.
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Nowadays, over 7,000 businesses in Greece have digital outlets."

Ontem voltaram a repetir-me uma afirmação:

- Os 10 maiores clientes da DHL não existiam em 2008

Trechos retirados de "Ecommerce in Greece: €4 billion in 2019"

Mongo é esta capacidade de aprendizagem colaborativa

Mongo é esta capacidade de aprendizagem colaborativa, é esta predisposição para o DIY referida em "The backyard mechanic who is taking on Tesla":

"It was the ultimate DIY project, with no guidance from Tesla.
...
He is preparing to open the first repair shop on the East Coast dedicated to electric vehicles, with the goal of servicing vehicles while teaching owners how to care for the cars themselves."

"Ecosystems require a shaping strategy"

"Ecosystems are attractive partly because of the new possibilities they create for products and services spanning traditional boundaries — often using digital platforms, APIs, internet of things technology, and new tools for data gathering and analysis.
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The essential characteristics of business ecosystems are the following: They are multi-entity, made up of groups of companies not belonging to a single organization. They involve networks of shifting, semipermanent relationships, linked by flows of data, services, and money. The relationships combine aspects of competition and collaboration, often involving complementarity between different products and capabilities (for instance, smartphones and apps). Finally, in ecosystems, players coevolve as they redefine their capabilities and relations to others over time.
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In order to make use of ecosystems, organizations need to shift from using a traditional, static, company-centric perspective, and instead apply new ways of thinking about strategy from an ecosystems perspective. This perspective is distinctive in multiple ways:
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Dynamic: Based on a coevolutionary rather than a static view of relationships and capacities.
Collaborative: Driven by crafting novel product combinations drawing on complementary offerings.
Influence based: Shaped by partial influence rather than full ownership or control.
Indirect: Profits from system transactions or involves cross-subsidies, as often monetization occurs indirectly.
Emergent: Generates and embraces unanticipated shifts, reversals, and unintended consequences.
Network oriented: Involves overlapping networks, rather than discrete, linear value chains.
Externally focused: Focuses strongly on activities beyond individual company borders.
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Ecosystems require a shaping strategy, which refers to collaborating with others using indirect influence (including being influenced by others), being responsive to unpredictable changes, and evolving the ecosystem for mutual benefit. Enacting such a strategy can feel counterintuitive, as we are likely much more familiar and adept with the practices of a classical “plan and execute” strategy.
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The shift to ecosystems thinking challenges the very idea of “industry” that we inherited from the industrial revolution — a discrete set of broadly similar players competing to produce a common end product in a vertically integrated fashion. The coming decades will likely see the further spread of ecosystems, with companies coevolving in temporary clusters of semifluid relationships, spanning traditional industry boundaries. We should therefore be wary of inadvertently applying assumptions from more classical environments or overgeneralizing from a handful of well-known precedents. Instead, we should adopt an ecosystems perspective and consider the specific strategic choices we face, based on our particular situation, aspirations, and capacities."

Trechos retirados de "The Myths and Realities of Business Ecosystems"

O actor, o seu problema e o valor (parte III)

Parte I e Parte II.

"For the buyer and seller an exchange contains several sources of potential benefits and costs:
• The sales contract or agreement describes the performance requirements for each party and is therefore a source of benefits and costs for each side. We will refer to them as the benefits and costs of the contract.
• The negotiation and carrying out of a transaction is not without costs. We refer to these as transaction costs.
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• A transaction is not carried out in isolation from other transactions and processes in the environment. Almost every transaction has external effects of one sort or another. Hence we distinguish between the benefits and cost that arise directly from the exchange, and side effects that only become apparent in other exchanges. We refer to these side effects as side benefits and side costs from the perspective of the parties involved in the focal exchange.
...

The Buyer’s PerspectiveIf a product or service is provided as contractually specified, the buyer receives the contract benefits. These are the benefits the product provided contribute to solving a particular problem ... The meaning of the term “Product” in this context has to be interpreted in the broadest sense as a means of producing value, of solving problems: it comprises all the elements defined in the agreement including hardware, software, services, and ownership and usage rights. From the buyer’s perspective, a product is not a physical object but a means of solving a problem, with the associated perceived benefits. It is not the machine that constitutes the product but the availability of manufacturing capacity; the consulting process is not the product but the resulting ability of the buyer to deal with a problem in a better way.
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The potential transaction benefits for a buyer arise independent of the emergence of an agreement during the buying process. One example is the know-how the buyer may gain from the seller as a result of their interactions, which may assist the buyer in later use of the product. Another is the positive experience the buyer has during the exchange process, from their own activities or those of the seller. The seller’s efforts to facilitate the buyer’s decision making, such as consulting advice, comparisons of alternatives, advertising, inspection tours, and test operations are yet another potential source of benefits that can increase the buyer’s trust in the seller and hence lower its transaction costs."

Trechos retirados de "The Market Process" de Wulff Plinke e Ian Wilkinson, capítulo incluído no livro "Fundamentals of Business-to-Business Marketing - Mastering Business Markets" editado por Michael Kleinaltenkamp, Wulff Plinke, Ian Wilkinson e Ingmar Geiger

Não há receitas (parte II)

Parte I.



Kevin O'Leary com as suas ideias tem tido muito mais sucessos que insucessos. Só quero sublinhar que não acredito que a maioria das PMEs possa ter sucesso seguindo estas ideias.

Kevin O'Leary segue as ideias do Normalistão, segue as ideias do século XX, trabalha para criar gigantes.

Trabalhar em Mongo é trabalhar num outro mundo, é trabalhar para ganhar clientes, não para esmagar concorrentes.

O actor, o seu problema e o valor (parte II)

Parte I.

A motivação de um potencial cliente por uma interacção será tanto mais forte quanto mais forte for a pressão para resolver o seu problema. Três factores podem afectar essa pressão:

"The consequence of success or failureThe pressure to solve a problem will vary according to the perceived importance of fulfilling a task. If the execution of a task promises significant contributions to goal achievement, the exchange partner will try harder to solve the problem. ... The more important are the anticipated consequences of failing to solve the problem, the greater is the pressure for solution.
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Complexity of the task and the availability of means of solution
The more complex the task is perceived to be, the greater the pressure and effort required to find a solution.
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Limits on the resources available, financial or human, also increase the difficulty and pressure involved in finding a problem solution. This is because compromises have to be made with respect to budgets or the quality of the problem solution.
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Time pressure
The shorter the time available to solve a problem, the greater the pressure to find a solution. Time pressure may mean some options are not available, as when the time to submit a tender expires due to unexpected technical problems in tender preparation, or when costs will increase significantly if overtime rates have to be paid to extend working hour to complete a job on time."

Recentemente num projecto balanced scorecard onde a estratégia passa por subir na escala de valor trabalhando a interacção com um decisor vários níveis acima do cliente no ecossistema da procura, apareceu um tema como relevante para cativar esse decisor: "Prazos curtos".

O tema ainda não está resolvido, mas deixa-me cheio de dúvidas... associo prazos curtos a produtos padronizados. Produtos padronizados são um negócio de preço, prazos curtos não são compatíveis com tempo para interagir e criar algo novo. Também podemos estar a falar de "prazos curtos" não no sentido literal, mas curto no sentido de rapidez na criação de algo novo.

Trechos retirados de "The Market Process" de Wulff Plinke e Ian Wilkinson, capítulo incluído no livro "Fundamentals of Business-to-Business Marketing - Mastering Business Markets" editado por Michael Kleinaltenkamp, Wulff Plinke, Ian Wilkinson e Ingmar Geiger

A preparar os actores de Mongo

E as sementes em "São João da Madeira aposta no turismo industrial"

O actor, o seu problema e o valor

"The value of something depends on its potential to make a positive or negative contribution to the solution of a particular actor’s problems. Thus, value depends upon the relationship between the good and an actor and their problems. Theoretically, perceived value is defined as the difference between the situations of a person without the good compared to the situation of a person with the good. The amount of value depends on the perceived difference in goal achievement resulting from the acquisition or disposal of the good, service, or resource in question.
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The nature of any exchange is determined by certain driving forces. These stem from the interests and motives of the parties involved, who, through exchange, try to solve their problems. But problems cannot be solved in any old way. Instead, a solution needs to be perceived as more favorable and better than alternatives.
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 (1) In the search for problem solutions the parties are self-interested, and they seek advantages for themselves through exchange; (2) The pursuit of advantages is a particular feature of problem solving behavior; (3) When people search for solutions to their problems, they try to avoid or reduce risk and uncertainty.
Basically, the search for problem solutions is the major driving force behind exchange and the excess of benefits over costs, as well as the reduction of uncertainty, determine the extent of problem solution.
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Exchange is motivated by expectations that it will bring about an appropriate solution to a problem. Each exchange partner sees the exchange as means for the accomplishment of a particular task or the achievement of a particular goal. But what really is a ‘problem’?
Each potential exchange partner is in a state they perceive as unsatisfactory or incomplete. It is their intention to change their state of affairs from a less to more preferred situation with the help of exchange. If this were not so they would not engage in exchange. The discrepancy between the current and less satisfactory state and the desired future state is referred to as the “problem” if the following condition applies: the transformation of an initial state into a desired final state requires a process of search, selection, and implementation of appropriate means promising a possible problem solution. Figure 1.5 depicts the structure of a problem.
A gap between starting and target conditions, with as yet unknown means of reaching the target, creates a condition of stress or disequilibrium.

we can describe a problem as a task combined with the perceived pressure to find a solution."

Trechos retirados de "The Market Process" de Wulff Plinke e Ian Wilkinson, capítulo incluído no livro "Fundamentals of Business-to-Business Marketing - Mastering Business Markets" editado por Michael Kleinaltenkamp, Wulff Plinke, Ian Wilkinson e Ingmar Geiger

Curiosidade do dia

"Se Portugal tivesse recursos naturais que lhe permitissem ter assim um fundo soberano, como este seria gerido? Em primeiro lugar não seria gerido, pois as verbas já não existiam. Não haveria já nada para gerir e provavelmente no seu lugar os excedentes dariam lugar a mais dívida pública.
.
Já teríamos mais uns quantos aeroportos, centenas de kms de TGV, mais submarinos e quem sabe naves espaciais. Tudo comprado em nome do desenvolvimento económico do país e dos superiores interesses da nação, sem esquecer as habituais comissões, contratos e concessões atribuídas aos amigos, porque aos inimigos não vale a pena.
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Bastava que os dez habitantes de Vila Nova de Qualquer Coisa reclamassem que demoram 11 minutos a chegar a Vila Nova de Outra Coisa Qualquer, para ser urgente encontrar uma solução para resolver este problema. Uma autoestrada, um TGV, um aeroporto ou algo parecido seria a solução ideal, pois isso criaria oportunidades para os amigos. Principalmente isso, oportunidades para os amigos."

Dolorosamente certeiro.

Trecho retirado de "O Fundo Soberano da Noruega e Portugal"

Não há receitas

Um bom exemplo da variedade de abordagens estratégicas e de como o que pode funcionar perfeitamente num sector pode falhar completamente num outro, "What the Wine Industry Understands About Connecting with Consumers".

Depois recordo a estória do sucesso dos vinhos australianos e complemento a afirmação lá de cima com: O que pode funcionar perfeitamente num sector para uma empresa, pode falhar completamente no mesmo sector, com uma outra empresa com uma diferente proposta de valor para um tipo diferente de clientes-alvo.

Mongo e automatização - tanta treta que se ouve

O meu parceiro das conversas oxigenadoras mandou-me este artigo, "Can There Be Too Much Automation?":

"Much of what you hear about automation focuses on the increased productivity that automation can bring to production lines. You hear about this a lot because it’s a true, measurable reality.
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But is it possible that too much reliance on automation can hinder the overall productivity of a factory? [Moi ici: Um velho tema deste blogue, Mongo e automatização não jogam bem!!! Ver Lista de artigos abaixo]
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At Mitsubishi Electric´s Kani manufacturing facility, which is part of the company’s Nagoya Works in Japan, the company found that, by bringing humans into work cells that were once 100 percent automated, the footprint occupied by the cell itself could be reduced by 84 percent.
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In addition, Mitsubishi Electric notes that the introduction of human workers to previously automated assembly lines is helping the Kani factory react faster to changes in product demand.[Moi ici: Tão Mongo!!!]
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The Kani factory produces motor starters and contactors for Mitsubishi Electric. The vast amount of production variations and possible configurations of these products—14,000—diluted the volumes of each particular product. This amount of variability, coupled with customer demands for even greater choice, highlighted the automation problem for Mitsubishi Electric. [Moi ici: Tão Mongo!!!]
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According to the company, manual production at the Kani factory had given way to totally automated assembly lines, which were ideal for mass production with few product variations where high yields could be realized at high speed. But this required many individual components to be held in stock and ready for the manufacturing process; otherwise, the lines would not be able to run for any appreciable length of time.
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In effect, it became difficult and uneconomical for the factory to produce its products in small batches—which just happens to be the very direction in which industry as whole is headed.
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The company realized that, by restoring some human elements, it could reduce some of the manufacturing problems it was encountering.
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Despite that fact that the new cells, featuring a combination of human workers and automation, cannot produce at the same volume and speed as the fully automated lines, the reduced size of the new cells means the company can deploy up to 6.3 cells in the same space once occupied by one cell. Mitsubishi Electric says this means that total productivity density for the facility is much higher due to three key factors: a wider variety of products can be manufactured in smaller batches; one stoppage does not halt the whole of production; and the total number of production lines has increased."

Como escrevo no postal de Fevereiro de 2018 na lista abaixo:

"Muitas vezes penso que as pessoas quando planeiam o futuro não fazem como Teseu no labirinto, não usam uma corda para unir o hoje com o futuro desejado. Por isso, usam lugares comuns. Por isso, não põem os pés no chão e testam a validade dos pressupostos que estão a assumir." 

1. Estranhistão, autenticidade, imperfeição e automatização (Agosto de 2013) 
2. Um mesmo processo automatizado é demasiado rígido para Mongo (Abril 2014)
3. Mongo e a automatização... pois! (Fevereiro 2016)
4. Beyond Lean (Agosto 2017)
5. Seru (parte V) (Setembro 2017)
6. Da normalização para a excepção (parte II) (Fevereiro de 2018)
7. Coisa de loucos (Maio de 2018)
8. O que protegerá Portugal dos robôs? (Outubro de 2018)
9. Nem de propósito! (Dezembro de 2018)

"not “winning,” “beating,” or “defeating” competitors"

Motards, Dastardlys, ...

“To get ahead of disruption, we need to pay far more attention to customers than we ordinarily do, and commensurately less attention to competitors. We need to discipline ourselves to look at markets from the customer’s perspective, not just the company’s, and to understand customers’ evolving desires and behaviors.
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At first glance, executives might resist shifting their strategic focus from competitors to customers. In my experience, most executives care about customers, but they are obsessed with competitors—and understandably so. Modern business strategy has focused squarely on the firm, on assessing the competitive landscape, and on responding to competitors.
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Game theory models, meanwhile, conceptualize games as played with a competitor. Customers are secondary, conceived as the “prize” for which competitors are vying.
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Focusing on competitors has worked well in the past, and it might still work in some situations, but it has become less applicable for companies competing in markets threatened with disruption. Traditional corporate strategy assumed a situation in which companies faced only one or a few competitors, and in which opponents’ actions were somewhat predictable. Under such conditions, competition really did bear more similarity to a chess match or to warfare. In today’s markets, incumbents across many industries often square off against not one or two large and predictable opponents, but dozens more of small, nimble, and less predictable challengers.
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For these reasons alone, executives would do better to return to the basics of business—not “winning,” “beating,” or “defeating” competitors, but acquiring and retaining customers. Entrepreneurs at disruptive startups see the world in precisely this way, paying heed to Peter Drucker’s famous dictum “The purpose of a business is to create a customer.” Indeed, entrepreneurs perceive the focus on customers as a defining quality of startups as opposed to incumbents.”

A mesma doença está na base disto:

"I’m a terrified dinosaur. I’ve been living in this cozy world of old brands [and] big volumes. You could just focus on being very efficient and you’d be OK. All of a sudden we are being disrupted in all ways. If you go to a supermarket, you see hundreds of new brands. In beer, we had the new kinds of beer coming in from all over. We are running to adjust."

Trechos iniciais retirados de “Unlocking the Customer Value Chain” de Thales S. Teixeira.

"will lead to a big change for manufacturing"

Os trechos que se seguem parecem retirados daqui do blogue. Há anos que escrevemos sobre esta tendência.

"Personalised production is an evolution of customization that enables companies to differentiate their offer through innovative products for specific needs of a customer or a target group thanks to adaptable and reconfigurable production systems supported by easy-to-use product configuration systems to make processes along the supply chain efficient. In this scope, the proposed mission is to turn ideas into products by transforming passive consumers into active participants in the production of their own products thanks to new technologies that can enhance and empower their capabilities. This mission implies a paradigm shift because innovation will not originate anymore from the identification of consumer requirements; indeed, innovation and production will be taken out of the factory boundaries to allow people to be the decision makers during the design and production process in new collaborative supply chain models.
Consumer goods (e.g. clothing, footwear, sports items, glasses) but also other kinds of product such as medical products (personalised orthopaedic prosthetics, dental prosthetics, etc.) or durable goods (cars, kitchens, buildings facades, etc.), and even food can be produced based on the ideas of and by customers applying an approach of self-managed personalisation. In this way, they can create products with a unique design and style, along with functional and comfort-related aspects, going beyond the conventional choice dictated by off-the-shelf products.
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This mission will lead to a big change for manufacturing heading towards socialization and massive involvement of consumers. Many small and medium sized manufacturers (e.g. SMEs, fab-labs and even individuals) will participate in different market segments, while evolving into production service providers to satisfy customers’ personalised requirements. These entities will further aggregate into dynamic communities in a decentralized system and win bargaining power and efficiency. Moreover, new companies will basically sell ideas and their integration into new and dynamic value chains and markets.
...
The implementation of the proposed mission will have an indirect impact also on sustainability since production will shift from Make-to-Stock to Customise-to- Order,"

Trechos retirados de "Key Research Priorities for Factories of the Future—Part I: Missions" de Tullio Tolio, Giacomo Copani e Walter Terkaj, publicado em "Factories of the Future The Italian Flagship Initiative", 

E quando Mongo "rouba" os trabalhadores?

Na parte V desta série "Como aumentar a facturação quando não se pode aumentar a produção por falta de pessoas? (parte V)" começo a abordar um tema que será cada vez mais relevante à medida que Mongo e a demografia avançarem:

Mongo vai dar poder aos makers, que poderão fazer uso de plataformas como a Crafted Society para chegarem ao consumidor. A tecnologia vai avançar para máquinas pequenas, boas para pequenas séries e trabalho customizado, que podem ser propriedade de um maker ou de uma cooperativa de makers. Ou seja, aquilo que refiro na parte IV e V sobre os carpinteiros, electricistas e outras profissões que preferem trabalhar por conta própria em vez de por conta de outrem, vai ter tendência a alargar-se a outras profissões tradicionais.

Mesmo sem Mongo, com uma demografia a gerar falta de trabalhadores, isto será cada vez mais frequente "Ohio Sonic drive-in staff quit after wages were reportedly reduced to $4/hour":

"The entire staff at three different Sonic fast-food drive-in restaurants in Ohio reportedly walked out to protest poor working conditions this past week."

Qual a alternativa? Talvez passe por coisas como esta "KitchenAid’s Key Ingredient: Investing in Workers. ‘It’s Not a Dead-End Job Anymore.’":

"Companies discover investment in workers as a way to keep churn low:
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As the U.S. labor market continues to tighten, companies are reaping decades of underinvestment in their workers. Blame it on a wave of skilled baby boomers retiring or colleges teaching the wrong things or a lack of loyalty among younger workers. The harder it gets to find the next generation of Jenni Hannas, the bigger the headaches get in the human-resources department.
“If you’re the person who is in charge of finding staff, they want you to go out and find the unicorn,” Andrew Angyal, founder of NexGen Recruiting in Youngstown, Ohio, said. “They want all these people with 10, 20 years of experience and, if you do happen to find them, it’s a big question of whether you can pay them enough.”"

Ao escrever estas linhas não consigo deixar de pensar no aumento do lobby das empresas junto dos reguladores e governos de turno para dificultar a vida aos freelancers do futuro.

Um clube de leitura

Julgo que foi neste almoço que começaram as nossas conversas oxigenadoras:

"O empresário lá de cima, há meses que criou um clube leitura na empresa porque, explicou-me então:
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- Como posso aspirar a ter gente com espírito crítico se as pessoas não lêem.
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E depois, o desafio seguinte foi libertar as pessoas para a possibilidade de criticar, de não concordar com o que estava escrito.
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- Sabe Carlos, para quem não está habituado a ler o que está escrito tem uma aura de sagrado, de não criticável."

O nosso próximo almoço, que era para ser hoje, será amanhã. E um dos temas que levarei para a mesa será: "The quiet power of reading with your coworkers":

"As with most initiatives, the most important thing is to take action. I tell the teams I work with, “Start scrappy and know that doing something is infinitely better than doing nothing.” So, get going today."

Better lemonades

Não sei até onde se podem confiar nestas notícias, mas cá vai para ser motivo de reflexão:
"Uísque do Lidl eleito melhor do mundo em concurso internacional"

"À venda no Lidl por cerca de 15 euros, o "Queen Margot", de oito anos, foi considerado o melhor na categoria "Uísque escocês com 12 anos ou menos" entre os uísques de mistura (blend). Ficou à frente de alguns mais conhecidos, como por exemplo o "Johnnie Walker Black Label", esclarece a "Esquire", revista americana dedicada ao público masculino."

Recordar "Private labels melhores do que..."

Isto também está relacionado com o hollowing das marcas... (ver "profecia fácil do "hollowing", ou "radioclubização", de como uma marca forte e genuína se transforma numa carcaça, num aristocrata arruinado, fruto de deixarem os muggles à solta" e "Warns of Margin Threat as Niche Brands Disrupt Industry"

Como aumentar a facturação quando não se pode aumentar a produção por falta de pessoas? (parte V)

Parte I, parte II, parte III e parte IV.

Comecemos pelo último texto citado:

"Por outro lado, grande parte dos profissionais que dominam este ofício trabalha por conta própria, mostrando pouca disponibilidade para aceitar desafios por conta de outrem que embora estejam hoje mais valorizados monetariamente, continuam a não ser suficientemente aliciantes."

E acrescentemos uma citação do último postal:

"Business model innovation is a powerful force of abrupt market-level change, in some cases more powerful than technology.
...
Likewise, don’t let an excessive focus on your products prevent you from paying attention to your business. Many executives at incumbent businesses, wedded to their business models, react to disruption by blaming their products. As they see it, all the newfangled lemonade stands out there are stealing customers because they have created better-tasting lemonade. Stop blaming your lemonade! The truth is that the upstart’s lemonade tastes the same as yours, or maybe even worse. It’s the new business model that is stealing your customers, not the product. ”

Quem lê este blogue sabe o que é Mongo, a metáfora do Estranhistão. O mundo cauda longa a espalhar-se por todo o lado, em vez das grandes séries do século XX, customização, individualização, interacção, co-criação, proximidade, pequenas quantidades.

Há dias em "Calçado português? Bom no fabrico, desconhecido na marca" voltei a ler a actualização dos números:

"A conclusão nessa altura foi que tanto o calçado masculino como o feminino made in Portugal tinha melhor avaliação (média de 34 e 31,50 euros, respectivamente) do que o italiano (31,50 euros e 29,60 euros) quando a origem do produto não era revelada. Só que, depois de dar a conhecer a origem, o sapato português desvalorizava (-18,2%, para 27,80 euros, no masculino; e -18,4%, para 25,70 euros, no feminino), ao passo que o calçado italiano valorizava ligeiramente (+1,6% no masculino) ou mantinha o preço inalterado (no calçado feminino), ainda assim 13,6% acima do preço do calçado português."

Recordo outra comparação entre o calçado italiano e o português, a dimensão, aqui: "Calçado italiano e português" (empresas bem mais pequenas - também por causa disto).

Stop! reparem no título "Calçado português? Bom no fabrico, desconhecido na marca".

Agora, leiam o artigo "Meet the Italian Makers of Luxury":

"We are long used to applauding designers at the end of a season. But behind them is a plethora of generally unheralded artisans who also power the “Made in Italy” brand, creating everything from knits to sneakers. Now, one nascent company is aiming to place that talent firmly in the spotlight.
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“We decided we wanted to celebrate the unknown,” Mr. Johnston said, “those who are rarely identified but are also behind some of the most beautiful creations made for the luxury market.” He noted that many artisans sign strict confidentiality agreements that keep them out of the public eye. [Moi ici: Conseguem fazer o paralelismo com aquela parte do título "Bom no fabrico, desconhecido na marca"]
...
 "Create ways in which consumers could truly appreciate things made by hand and preserve a crafted  society in the digital age.”
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All of the sales tags carry the label’s logo and the names of the Italian businesses that made the products, highlighting the craftspeople involved [Moi ici: Recordar "Fugir do anonimato"]. Available online are supplier details like contact and address information alongside photographs and biographies of the artisans who worked on the piece.
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As a direct-to-consumer brand, Crafted Society’s retail prices do not include the traditional distributor or wholesale markups, nor the usual markup associated with a premium brand name, which usually is 7 to 10 times the manufacturer’s cost price. (Crafted Society said its markup is three times the cost price.
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The partnerships that Crafted Society has been building, he said, could also tackle a broader crisis weighing on the future of Italian luxury manufacturing: the struggle to find the next generation of artisans.[Moi ici: O mesmo tema do artigo do Caderno de Economia na parte IV desta série]
“Most artisans in factories and workshops now are in their 60s and 70s, and younger people are not so interested in this line of work,” Mr. Mattioli said. “We cannot recruit them by saying the big luxury names we work for because of our contracts. But if we can take pride in what we do and in our community, and can present our craft independently, perhaps we can convince them of the importance of what we do.”

E volto aquela citação com que terminei o postal anterior e iniciei este. Há anos coloquei esta pergunta numa empresa de calçado: 

- Não têm receio que os vossos trabalhadores comecem a trabalhar para marcas a partir de casa?

E pensar no 2º golo? E pensar num modelo de negócio alternativo? Como metaforicamente escreveram num comentário na parte IV: "obrigar as empresas "a saírem da vala""

Quem está focado no 1º golo pensa à la Bruce Jenner, quem pensa no 2º golo pensa em salami slicers. Quem pensa no 2º golo sabe que tem de dizer não a muita coisa.

É tão difícil fazer esta transição... Maliranta e Taleb explicam 

"It’s the new business model that is stealing your customers, not the product”

“Car dealers now make hardly any money on car sales themselves—less than 10 percent of total net profits. Rather, their profits arise from the sale of financing, insurance, extra warranties, and maintenance, which now represent 67 percent of their net income. Car dealers have evolved and today resemble banks selling financial services much more than they do auto retailers.
...
After all, Uber, Amazon, and Birchbox are all regarded as technology companies, right? I decided to talk to these firms and learn about the new technologies they developed and were leveraging. It soon became clear to me that the initial success of these companies didn’t hinge on new and innovative technologies, but rather on the power of their business model innovations. Similarly, others have argued that even well-regarded “tech” companies such as Google, in their early days, didn’t invent completely new technologies, but rather invented or perfected new business models. These innovations represented the real engine of disruption.
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Business model innovation is a powerful force of abrupt market-level change, in some cases more powerful than technology. Technology, as Jim Collins put it more than a decade and a half ago in his bestselling book Good to Great, “is an accelerator, never a creator of momentum and growth.
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Likewise, don’t let an excessive focus on your products prevent you from paying attention to your business. Many executives at incumbent businesses, wedded to their business models, react to disruption by blaming their products. As they see it, all the newfangled lemonade stands out there are stealing customers because they have created better-tasting lemonade. Stop blaming your lemonade! The truth is that the upstart’s lemonade tastes the same as yours, or maybe even worse. It’s the new business model that is stealing your customers, not the product. ”

Agora relacionar com "Today's CEO playbook is outdated. Here are 5 things rising stars should focus on to win in the next decade":

"Competing in ecosystems.Classical models of competition assume that there are discrete companies that make similar products and compete within clearly delineated industries. But technology has dramatically reduced communication and transaction costs, weakening the Coasean logic for combining many activities inside a few vertically integrated firms. At the same time, uncertainty and disruption both require individual firms to be more adaptable and also make business environments increasingly shapeable. Companies now have opportunities to influence the development of the market in their favor, but this can be achieved only by coordinating with other stakeholders.
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As a result of these forces, new industrial architectures are emerging based on the coordination of ecosystems  —   complex, semi-fluid networks of companies that challenge several traditional assumptions of business. ... They blur the boundaries of industries: for example, automotive ecosystems include not just traditional suppliers but also connectivity, software, and cloud storage providers. And they blur the distinction between collaborators and competitors: for example, Amazon and third-party merchants have a symbiotic relationship, while the company competes with those merchants simultaneously by selling private-label brands.
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The playbook for how to emulate these ecosystem pioneers has not yet been fully codified, but a few imperatives are becoming increasingly clear:
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Adopt a fundamentally different perspective towards strategy, based on embracing principles like external orientation, common platforms, co-evolution, emergence, and indirect monetization
Determine what role your company can play in your ecosystem or ecosystems  —   not all companies can be the orchestrator [Moi ici: Ao orquestrador chamei em 2012 o arquitecto de paisagens competitivas]
Ensure that your company creates value for the ecosystem broadly, not just for itself"

Trechos iniciais retirados de “Unlocking the Customer Value Chain” de Thales S. Teixeira.

Como aumentar a facturação quando não se pode aumentar a produção por falta de pessoas? (parte IV)

Parte I, parte II e parte III.

Regressemos ao título "Como aumentar a facturação quando não se pode aumentar a produção por falta de pessoas?"

Falta de pessoas...

No último fim-de-semana no Caderno de Economia do semanário Expresso, roubado em casa da minha mãe, encontrei o artigo "10 profissões tradicionais onde há falta de gente".

Sobre as costureiras pode ler-se:

"Salários ainda pouco valorizados (ligeiramente acima do mínimo nacional) e a exigência das funções fabris estão na base das dificuldades de contratação. Atrair talento para esta indústria — e são precisos cerca de 15 mil profissionais, diz Paulo Vaz, diretor-geral da Associação Têxtil de Portugal —, terá de passar pela valorização destas profissões."

Sobre os carpinteiros pode ler-se:

"grande parte dos profissionais que dominam este ofício trabalha por conta própria, mostrando pouca disponibilidade para aceitar desafios por conta de outrem que embora estejam hoje mais valorizados monetariamente, continuam a não ser suficientemente aliciantes." 

Sobre os soldadores e serralheiros pode ler-se:

"E apesar dos aumentos dos últimos anos, os salários actuais - em média €1200 para candidatos com um patamar médio de experiência laboral - e a dureza do quotidiano profissional continuam a não ser atractivos para os mais jovens."

Sobre os montadores e modeladores de calçado:

"Os salários têm aumentado mas esta continua a ser uma questão crítica no sector ... o calçado continuará com falta de mão de obra porque os salários são baixos"

Sobre os pintores de automóveis e bate-chapas, sobre os técnicos de manutenção industrial, sobre os padeiros e pasteleiros, sobre os chefes de cozinha, sobre os electricistas e electromecânicos e sobre os alfaiates.

Lembram-se de "Espero que não vos tremam as pernas quando as empresas começarem a cair como tordos"?

Perante a falta de pessoas as empresas vão ter de aumentar os salários, ponto. O @nticomuna chamou-lhe populismo, eu chamo-lhe desespero.

O que acontece a uma empresa que aumenta os salários acima do aumento da produtividade? Ou a empresa fica menos competitiva, e/ou os sócios terão de ter menores rentabilidades. Empresas menos competitivas fecham, capitalistas com menos retorno dão outra aplicação ao seu dinheiro... a menos que seja emprestado e, nesse caso, ficam tramados.

Em "Gachiche (parte III)" escrevi:

"ou a demografia obriga a subir salários, e os salários mais elevados matam as que não se adaptarem, ou os engenheiros sociais obrigam os salários a subir e matam as que não se adaptarem"

Portanto, a demografia vai obrigar-nos a fazer o mesmo que os europeus do centro da Europa fizeram na década de 60 do século passado:
Ou as empresas dos sectores ditos tradicionais se adaptam e dão um salto na produtividade, ou terão de se deslocalizar, ou terão de fechar para que o dinheiro seja melhor aplicado noutro sítio com mais rentabilidade. Acredito que esta adaptação vai ser difícil e muito dolorosa. Explico.

Ontem de manhã, enquanto fazia uma caminhada matinal de 6 km e lia uns trechos de "Key Research Priorities for Factories of the Future—Part I: Missions" de Tullio Tolio, Giacomo Copani e Walter Terkaj, publicado em "Factories of the Future The Italian Flagship Initiative", só me vinha à mente a frase:

- Não tentem marcar o 2º golo antes de marcarem o 1º!

Vais ser uma adaptação difícil e dolorosa porque os empresários são gente pragmática que estão preocupados em marcar primeiro o 1º golo, em vez de pensarem na nota artística na marcação do 2º golo. Por isso, vão, como qualquer incumbente vítima da disrupção, serem os últimos a descobrir que têm de mudar, que terão quase de certeza de encolher as suas empresas e subir na escala de valor. Só uma forte subida na escala de valor permitirá pagar aos artistas de Mongo.

BTW, naquela lista acima de profissões tradicionais é relevante a quantidade de vezes que se refere:

"Por outro lado, grande parte dos profissionais que dominam este ofício trabalha por conta própria, mostrando pouca disponibilidade para aceitar desafios por conta de outrem que embora estejam hoje mais valorizados monetariamente, continuam a não ser suficientemente aliciantes."

Isto vai-me servir de base para a parte V desta série.

Uma realidade transitória

Da próxima vez que ouvir alguém dizer que o paradigma do Normalistão, o século XX, é o normal de que não nos devemos afastar, pense neste gráfico:

Recordar "Mais outro exemplo: Provinciano, mas muito à frente":

"Há anos que escrevo sobre o futuro do trabalho, sobretudo acerca do fim do emprego estabelecido como paradigma pelo século XX, e que a maioria acredita ser algo milenar, algo eterno."

Imagem retirada de "This is what 150 years of US employment looks like"