"making the management of actor engagement a strategic priority"

Os arquitectos de paisagens competitivas, os engenheiros de ecossistemas serão uma função cada vez mais importante.

Recordar:

• Arquitectos de paisagens competitivas
• A importância crescente dos ecossistemas.

"Recently the discourse has developed along four trajectories. First, building on the idea of generic actors, research is increasingly focusing on actor engagement rather than customer engagement. Second, ideas related to collective or multi-actor engagement in networks illustrates how actors are connected and how these connections drive engagement behaviours. Third, informed by the realization that value creation happens in a systemic context, literature is making attempts to be liberated from a dyadic view, thus recognizing how institutional contexts influence actor engagement.
...
Building on this we also argue that, to be free from the restriction of dyadic thinking, engagement needs to be de-coupled from the exchange of property rights. The paper then proceeds by explicating the role of actor engagement as a driver of value creation, which suggests an elevation of actor engagement as a managerial priority.
...
the previously strict roles of producer vs. consumer, or seller vs. buyer are fleeting, as actors can have different roles. An actor-to-actor perspective effectively renders clearly specified and static actor roles  useless. All actors have comparable processes of engagement and what is needed is a generic view of actor engagement.
...
“actors need to be viewed not only as humans, but also as machines/technologies, or collections of humans and machines/technologies, including organizations”
...
need to also understand collective engagement of multiple (individual) actors. The argument is that focusing only on engagement by individual actors may lead to ignorance about aspects that arise from the inherent social embeddedness of actors, i.e., actor engagement by one actor affects resource integration processes between the focal actor and other actors in the service ecosystem.
...
However, all actor engagement happens in an institutional context, in which all actions are governed by various competing institutional arrangements. These arrangements are “interrelated sets of institutions that together constitute a relatively coherent assemblage that facilitates coordination of activity”
...
we posit that the dramatic shifts that we see in the operating environment are elevating the role of actor engagement, making the management of actor engagement a strategic priority.
...
it is not the attributes of resources that make them valuable, but the linkages between them.
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means that firm size is less important and firms' ability to collaborate more important, and that firms require a systemic view to be able to grasp opportunities for actor engagement with the aim to orchestrate resources in the market system for multiactor value creation.
...
Value creation is related to resource integration, which resonates with Normann (2001), who argues that greater density of resources corresponds to more value. Density expresses the degree to which resources are accessible for integration in a specific actor, time, situation and space combination.
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Density relates not only to physical resources but also to the density of various forms of socio- cultural resources such as meanings, designs and/or symbols. Consequently, resource density can be improved both by exchange-based and non-exchange-based resource contributions.
...
the ‘economics of connections’, i.e., increased returns through amplified density of interactions between business, people and things. As the density of connections grows, it increases the density of available resources and, thus, make increased returns possible.
...
we suggest that without actor engagement (i.e., resource contributions), no resource integration happens, and no value can be created. From a managerial point of view, this indicates that it is not the connections that increase the returns for a focal actor - it is the ability to mobilize actors in the market system to engage in resource contributions that, combined with other resources, improve resource density and value creation. This creates a clear link between actor engagement and increased returns – firm that have such abilities may enjoy ‘economies of actor engagement’. As we describe later in this paper, this suggests that firms should focus on a new set of capabilities: actor engagement management. To build these capabilities firms can likely build on existing processes and practices developed in connections to the management of customer relationships, supplier relationships and stakeholder relationships.
...
Recent research in strategic management and entrepreneurship suggests that markets should not be viewed as a given and deterministic context, exogenous to the firm. Firms are increasingly conceptualized as active creators of market opportunities, suggesting that markets are not precursors, but rather outcomes of strategy. Firms that have engagement management capabilities can engage in market-shaping activities to generate market innovations that improve the value creation of the market.
...
Managerially this means that to identify opportunities for marketshaping, focal market-shaping actors need abilities to comprehend a larger system of actors, to understand how new resource linkages can be created within this system, to recognize the institutional arrangements that govern all actors, and to mobilize actors for exchange-based and non-exchange-based resource contributions – thus making actor engagement central to market-shaping.
...
research is progressively seeing markets as networks, systems, or ecosystems...
Market systems do not obey simple laws of cause and effect, and they have no center and no central control mechanism. They do, however, evolve from a combination of deliberately designed influence, and random emergence resulting from combinations of various actors' engagement patterns. This indicates a need to understand how market change happens in a balance between deliberate design efforts (and related engagement) by various market actors, and spontaneous emergent developments occurring because of the amalgamation of all actors' engagement.
...
Understanding markets as systems that do not obey simple laws of cause and effect and that have no center and no central control mechanism, and which consist of generic actors that, governed by institutional arrangements, both contribute resources and create value by integrating their resources with the resources of other market actors, questions many of the traditionally dyadic and linear models of management. Instead of assumptions of control of resources and processes, management increasingly need to ‘let go’ and find new ways to manage the engagement of various intra- and inter-organizational actors."

Trechos retirados de "Actor engagement, value creation and market innovation" de Kaj Storbacka, publicado por Industrial Marketing Management 80 (2019) 4–10.

Um mundo diferente

Um mundo diferente do Normalistão e de Magnitogrado/Levittown.

"According to the sixth annual “Freelancing in America” survey, released on October 3 by the Freelancers Union (which has 450,000 members) and Upwork, a digital platform for freelancers and their employers, for every freelancer who sees their work situation as temporary, there’s another who sees it as a long-term career path.
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As more people opt for full-time freelance—28% did this year, as opposed to the 17% who did in 2014—it’s worth looking at their share of the U.S. economy. Freelance income currently makes up almost 5% of the country’s GDP, or close to $1 trillion. That’s a greater share than those of industries like construction and transportation.
...
In the U.S. this year, 57 million people worked as freelancers, up from around 53 million in 2014, the first year this study was conducted. That’s about 35% of the U.S workforce.
...
This year, 60% of freelancers started working that way by choice as opposed to by necessity (say, due to an unexpected layoff). The number of people who see freelancing as a long-term career option jumped from 18.5 million to 28.5 million between 2014 and 2019."

Trechos retirados de "35% of the U.S. workforce is now freelancing—10 million more than 5 years ago"

Ver para lá do que se conhece (parte IV)

Parte I, parte II e parte III.

Por que me interesso por este tema aqui no blogue pelo menos desde 2011?

Em torno de 2011 trabalhei com uma empresa que operava no sector da mobilidade, e não só, para pessoas com deficiência.

Por que nutro a paixão pelos exoesqueletos há tanto tempo? Porque recordo as cenas finais do Alien I ou II em que Ripley combate o xenomorfo vestindo um exoesqueleto usado para operar num armazém. Vi aquela cena e nunca mais a esqueci:

Ontem, durante uma caminhada matinal de 7 km continuei a leitura de “Seeing Around Corners” de Rita McGrath e sublinhei este ponto:

"What Must Be True? Creating a Plan to Learn Fast
...
The techniques described here are not about making predictions and being right. They are about generating possibilities and opening your mind to what might happen, so that as evidence gets stronger, you are ready to take action. For any future state, there are many variables that can lead to one outcome or another. What is valuable in complex systems is to be able to keep multiple possible futures in mind so that if and when they unfold, the landscape is more recognizable.
.
Intel, for instance, has employed science fiction writers, futurists, and students to produce creative works about aspects of the future, with the purpose not of making predictions, but of opening people’s  minds to emerging possibilities. Seeing around corners is about broadening the range of possibilities you consider paying attention to. Your ability to look into the future is only as well developed as the set of possibilities you are prepared to entertain."

Por causa do tal trabalho desenvolvido em 2011 acompanhei de longe ao longo dos anos as movimentações entre as empresas grandes do sector das cadeiras de rodas... a imagem que me vem à mente agora mesmo é esta:


Empresas tão preocupadas em ganharem quota de mercado umas às outras, empresas tão absolutamente concentradas no que fazem que não vêem o contexto a mudar nem vêm o mundo pelos olhos de quem devem servir. A atenção da gestão de topo é gasta em aquisições, é pulverizada a seguir e a marcar a concorrência, qual Dastardly,

em vez de tornar o seu negócio actual obsoleto.

Como não esquecer os 8 anos de inércia...

Que outro job to be done?

A propósito desta tendência, "Tradicionais feiras de calçado têm cada vez menos visitantes", talvez esteja relacionada com esta outra "This chart shows why the holidays are becoming less important to retailers":

"The firm called out "the ongoing trend of holiday shopping becoming less important to key retailers." It said the holiday season accounted for almost 24% of all retailers' sales in the late 1990s, but is closer to 21% today."

Quanto mais Mongo avança, mais fácil e curto é o espaço de tempo do desenho à montra, mais o número efectivo de épocas por ano aumenta, e deixa de fazer sentido esperar tanto por mostrar uma criação aos potenciais interessados. Com a internet qualquer criador pode mostrar o que quiser e quando quiser a quem interessa, se esta estiver interessada. Depois, como também cai o número de peças a produzir por modelo, deixa de fazer sentido reservar tanto tempo para satisfazer eventuais encomendas.

Talvez as feiras possam ainda fazer sentido no futuro, mas numa outra função, satisfazendo um outro job to be done.

Ver para lá do que se conhece (parte III) ou manifestações em 3, 2, 1 ...

Em Novembro passado na parte I escrevi:

"A propósito de "Implante no cérebro permitiu usar 'tablets' com o pensamento", se é possível com um tablet é possível com um exoesqueleto. E se é possível com um exoesqueleto... não há limites."

Um tema que me atrai desde há largos anos (recordo este postal de 2011, por exemplo). Na parte II dei conta do começo da democratização dos exoesqueletos.

Ontem à noite para meu espanto... they got there:

"Um homem paraplégico conseguiu caminhar e fazer movimentos com os braços usando um exoesqueleto controlado pela própria mente. Um pequeno passo, que abre gigantes perspetivas para o futuro das pessoas presas a uma cama."

Trecho retirado de "Tetraplégico caminha e mexe os braços com exoesqueleto controlado pela mente"

Recordar: Cuidado com a absolutização do que a nossa empresa produz (parte I e parte II) e, sobretudo, "Um exemplo de miopia na vida real".

Se isto fosse em Portugal teríamos o começo de manifestações de fabricantes de cadeiras de rodas em 3, 2, 1 ... a pedir para que estes exoesqueletos sejam proíbidos porque lhes roubam vendas e são postos de trabalho que se perdem.

Cuidado com os subsídios

Por um lado este texto, "Research: When Losing Out on a Big Opportunity Helps Your Career", de onde sublinho:

"We examined more than 1000 early-career scientists in the U.S. who had narrowly won or just missed winning a key grant, and found that, in the longer run, the near-miss researchers ended up producing higher-impact work, on average, than their narrow-win peers."

Neste outro texto, super-interessante, "The IT revolution and southern Europe's two lost decades", de onde sublinho:

"Since the middle of the 1990s productivity growth in southern Europe has been much lower than in other developed countries.
...
Some papers argue that the large capital inflows that southern Europe received during the first decade of the euro have mostly been captured by low-productivity firms, depressing aggregate productivity through a composition effect. Others claim that inefficient management practices have kept southern European firms from taking full advantage of the IT revolution
...
many salient long-run features of southern European economies can be explained by a single factor: inefficient management.
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We have also analysed southern Europe's policy interventions. Subsidising IT adoption actually lowers southern productivity even further. Likewise, subsidising education has negative effects, as it is effectively becomes a transfer to the north through high-skilled migration. These surprising results are due to the fact that, in our model, low IT adoption and low education are a symptom, rather than the cause, of low productivity growth in southern Europe."

Esperemos que o próximo governo tenha maioria absoluta

O texto que se segue foi integralmente escrito em 28 de Novembro de 2018. Antes disto, "Para reflexão séria - recordar a fragilização", disto "Another Way EVs Will Cost Us" e disto ""Portugal parece uma ilha de estabilidade, mas há uma sensação incómoda". Bloomberg diz que legislativas são teste à economia". É saudável que quem gera fragilidades com políticas fragilistas, depois fique para limpar a borrada.

"O socialista diz que lhe custa “a crer que no espaço de três a quatro meses a empresa possa passar de uma situação estável para uma rutura quase total”."

Ler este trecho em "BE questiona Governo sobre despedimentos na fábrica DURA Automotive da Guarda", depois de no mesmo dia ter lido:

• GM's Moves May Mean Marchionne's Confessions Were Correct

Depois de no último mês ter publicado tweets como:

Tudo se começa a conjugar para um 2020 interessante.

“There’s a sense that this economic cycle is long in the tooth,” an economist said after the news of GM’s cutbacks. https://t.co/jBWflP6rUs

— Real Time Economics (@WSJecon) November 27, 2018

Esperemos que o próximo governo tenha maioria absoluta, 2020 vai necessitar de austeridade a sério e será importante ter uma maioria a suportar um governo que vai ter de subir impostos, que vai ter de cortar regalias na função pública.

A paisagem pode ser modificada pelas empresas

Demasiadas vezes olhamos para a paisagem competitiva como uma constante do desafio.
Na verdade, a paisagem competitiva não é um dado constante. Ela está sempre a mudar. Ainda ontem a notícia sobre a taxa de 25% que os EUA vão aplicar sobre as importações de queijo e fruta, representa uma alteração da paisagem imposta por agentes muito poderosos.
O que esquecemos muitas vezes é que as próprias empresa podem agir, elas próprias, para alterar a paisagem competitiva onde actuam.

"For purposes of understanding shaping in strategy, the idea that organisms can alter their selection environments and those of their descendants has obvious appeal.
...
In biology, organisms shape elements of the selection environment that affect survival. But in strategy, firms generally have a different proximate goal—they seek profits—and they take action directed toward this goal. Thus, for firms, the relevant selection criteria are those that determine profits and payoffs to specific courses of action.We can think of the selection criteria for profit-seeking firms as encoded in the payoff structure that maps particular firm actions or decisions or attributes (e.g., activities, resources, and capabilities) to the payoffs that ensue. In this sense, shaping the selection environment in strategy means shaping the payoff structure for all firms operating in that environment. In NK terms, firms generate or modify the “fitness function,” which lies behind the topology of the fitness landscape that all firms climb in search of profit opportunities. Similarly, in the context of strategic interactions, shaping the business context means that a firm or firms playing a competitive game endogenously generate or modify the payoff structure for all firms in the game, such as by altering the payoffs to particular moves or the types of moves available.
...
1. Shaping can have major direct effects on the performance of a shaper and its position on the business landscape, i.e., its competitive advantage.
2. As a corollary, shaping can also have direct implications for the competitive advantage of competitors. In addition to improving the focal firm’s position, shaping can directly undermine other firms’ positions on the landscape by affecting the bases of their competitive advantage.
3. Highly malleable business landscapes may hide subtle dangers for shapers because high malleability leads to more frequent shaping. Although firms may be individually rational when shaping the business context in an effort to improve their performance, their independent actions may collectively lead to overshaping and long-run instability in performance for all firms.
4. Overshaping is not independent of the number of firms of the shaping type in the population. Unless shaping involves joint action by a group of firms (a case that the model does not contemplate), ceteris paribus the fewer the number of shapers, the greater the benefits from shaping activity.
5. The sustainability of competitive advantage is likely to be highest in situations of moderate to high complexity (K) combined with a low to moderate number of dimensions available for shaping (E). Under these conditions, any advantage obtained through shaping is less likely to be undermined by shaping on the part of other firms and is more likely to be sustained due to complexity."

Trechos retirados de "Searching, Shaping, and the Quest for Superior Performance" de Giovanni Gavetti, Constance E. Helfat e Luigi Marengo, publico por Strategy Science, Volume 2, Issue 3, September 2017, Pages ii, 141-209

Os que fogem da Sildávia

Ao ler o capítulo "Customers, Not Hostages" no livro “Seeing Around Corners” de Rita McGrath:

"customers will tolerate negative features as long as they do not feel they have viable alternatives. Once something comes along that allows them to capture the benefits they seek but eliminates the “tolerable” feature, that attribute becomes a “dissatisfier” and eventually an “enrager.”[Moi ici: Comecei a pensar nos jovens que enquanto estudam e estão em casa dos pais vivem por cá, mas quando agarram um canudo, ou querem começar a trabalhar para ganhar dinheiro, percebem que não são prisioneiros deste estado e "Bazam!" para melhores locais]
...
When an inflection point opens up the possibility to escape the negative, customers often depart, transferring their resources and relationship to a more accommodating provider. In other words, customers “escape” the incumbent and start doing business with the new provider.
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When you identify a barrier to achieving a job to be done, you have identified a vital point at which an inflection might change the arena.
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Remember, a useful way to think about potential customers is to consider the jobs they are trying to get done in their own lives and how a shift in constraints can have an effect on how those jobs get done. A powerful source of inspiration with respect to the next inflection point is to consider what gets in the way of customers achieving their goals. This means that paying attention to the situations potential customers are in, what they are trying to achieve, and what outcomes they seek is key."

"Pastores que se escondem no meio do rebanho" encaminham-nos para a Sildávia.

"Em vez de prometer aos eleitores o que eles querem ouvir, em vez de lhes perguntarem o que é que querem, explicar aos eleitores o que é que eles devem querer." (Recomendo isto a partir do minuto 12.20)

"If you don’t know the difference between the right and wrong customers ..."

"Myth #1 – The customer is always right – Nope.  There are plenty of customers that are wrong.  Wrong about a conversation, wrong about your product, and just plain wrong for your business.  If you don’t know the difference between the right and wrong customers, you are wasting money trying to acquire customers that actually cost more than they are worth.  What’s worse, you are likely demoralizing many people in the company.  Nip that problem in the bud now!"

Do you know the difference between the right and wrong customers?

Trecho retirado de "Debunking Customer Service Myths"

Aprender uma nova linguagem

Quando realizo estes webinars uma das perguntas sacramentais que recebo tem a ver com o como convencer a gestão de topo a participar no sistema de gestão da qualidade.

Costumo recordar uma comunicação num congresso da American Society for Quality em que o apresentador apresentava um slide dividido a meio. Na metade esquerda do slide ele listava uma série de acrónimos relacionados com a qualidade. Coisas como SPC, FMEA, QFD, PDCA, ... a metade direita estava em branco.
O apresentador disse qualquer coisa como, esta é a vossa linguagem, esta é a linguagem que vocês entendem. Acham que a vossa gestão de topo conhece esta linguagem?

Depois, o apresentador avançava para um novo slide. Um slide em que a metade direita aparecia preenchida. Preenchida com acrónimos relacionados com a área financeira. Coisas como ROI, EBITDA, NPV, CUT, ...
Entao, o apresentador perguntava: conhecem algum desses acrónimos? Conhecem mais do que aqueles que desconhecem? Esta é a linguagem da gestão de topo, esta é a linguagem que eles entendem.

Se cada um só conhece a sua própria linguagem, como é que se vão entender, como é que vão dialogar? Como é que quem trabalha na área da qualidade pode dialogar com a gestão de topo?


Quem trabalha na área da qualidade tem de perceber que tem de aprender a falar a linguagem da gestão de topo, ponto. Sem o fazer a empresa sairá prejudicada.

Lembrei-me disto tudo por causa deste texto de Seth Godin "If you want to change minds…":

"...
Other people don’t believe what you believe, and they don’t see what you see."

Para reflexão séria - recordar a fragilização

"demand is being sapped by a mix of both cyclical and longer-lasting structural factors such as the demise of diesel and the shift to electrical vehicles. Trump’s trade wars and Brexit aren’t helping.
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Germany’s industrial sector contributes more than one-fifth of GDP and is usually a huge asset. Right now this export engine is pulling the economy down. Signs of distress are everywhere. German manufacturing activity is at a decade low, according to IHS Markit’s purchasing manager’s index. The Ifo Institute estimates that more than 5% of manufacturing companies have cut working hours and about 12% expect to do so during the next three months. German machinery orders declined 9% in the first six months of the year, according to the VDMA association, which represents the country’s engineers. In chemicals and pharmaceuticals, domestic production fell 6.5% in the first half of the year, while domestic car output has fallen 12% this year. Auto exports have dropped 14%.
...
 The chemicals giant BASF is cutting 6,000 jobs and has warned on profits.
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Meanwhile, the German carmakers BMW AG and Daimler AG have issued profit warnings
...
Their suppliers are the ones really hurting though. At least three — Eisenmann, Weber Automotive and a subsidiary of Avir Guss — have filed for insolvency in recent weeks and investors are betting the pain will spread more widely.
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The list of manufacturing heartache goes on. Debt-laden wiring and cable company Leoni AG is among the Germany’s most shorted stocks.
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The company that best illustrates this slow-burn crisis is Continental AG. Last week the tire and car parts titan announced a massive restructuring, which it said would affect 20,000 jobs over the next decade, or some 8% of the workforce. [Moi ici: Recordar a Michelin na Alemanha] Explaining its decision, the manufacturer warned of an “emerging crisis in the automotive industry.” Demand is weak and technological requirements are shifting fast. In future it will need more software engineers but fewer people building components for gasoline and diesel engines.
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However, unlike in 2009 when a domestic car scrappage scheme boosted demand, Germany can’t easily buy itself out of trouble this time. Tens of thousands of well-paid industrial jobs face obsolescence because of the demise of the combustion engine. Electric vehicle drivetrains have far fewer parts and the process is less labor intensive.
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Germany’s economic power was built on the back of its excellent gasoline and diesel cars. Their inevitable demise puts the country’s position as the “engine of Europe” under threat."

Ainda ontem comentava ao almoço que no último ano a quantidade moldes encomendados a Portugal pela indústria automóvel caiu drasticamente. Ligar os trechos acima com o peso das exportações automóveis na economia portuguesa... recordar a fragilização (Domingo passado, Junho passado e  Dezembro passado)


Trechos retirados de "An Industrial Crisis Is Brewing in Germany"

Curiosidade do dia

Isto é que era Mongo

Um mundo de tribos.
No futuro não serão étnico-familiares, mas de gosto e costumes.

A conexão via redes sociais

“along comes the cell phone revolution of 2007 (with the introduction of the iPhone and the commercialization of Android), and the order of jobs to be done by household budgeters changes dramatically. By then, social media was firmly established, and the desire to be connected was well entrenched, giving teens not only a reason to want to connect but also the technology with which to do so. The job of being connected has displaced—to some extent—the job of buying clothing. Not that clothing isn’t still being purchased, but if you were to think of jobs to be done in a hierarchy, the job of connection has significantly increased in importance.
Since that has happened, the resources that would have gone into the purchase of apparel perhaps are now being redirected. That in turn means that an entirely different consumption chain has become more relevant to buyers—which has then shifted the attributes they are anxious to obtain, which implies that the capabilities assembled to deliver traditional retail offerings are less relevant as well. The inflection point is rippling through the arena.”

Ao ler isto, que não nego, lembrei-me de outra possibilidade: A conexão via redes sociais reduz a necessidade de sair de casa, reduz a necessidade de se produzir para aparecer, reduz a necessidade de comprar moda.

Trecho retirado de “Seeing Around Corners” de Rita McGrath.

Determinar riscos e oportunidades

"Risk identification is a transformation process (commonly facilitated by a risk practitioner) where experienced personnel generate a series of risks and opportunities, which are recorded in a risk register.
...
The primary process goal of risk identification is to identify both the risks to the business, which would reduce or remove the likelihood of the business reaching its objectives, and the opportunities, which could enhance business performance.
...
The risk identification process was not commenced before the business objectives (or the objectives of the activity under examination) were made explicit. (Risks are only threats to objectives. Without understanding the objectives it is not possible to undertake risk identification.)
.
Risk identificationwas not commenced until the business objectives, deliverables and success criteria were aligned. Risk identification was not commenced prior to a “map” or flow chart of the business process being prepared."

Uma abordagem em linha com a que propusemos em "Apontamentos sobre os riscos na ISO 9001:2015" e que seguimos:

"Assim, as cláusulas 4.1 e 4.2 da ISO 9001:2015 apontam para um momento anterior à definição dos objectivos alinhados com a política, influenciando-o. Enquanto que a cláusula 6.1 da ISO 9001:2015 aponta para um momento posterior à definição dos objectivos, o que pode contrariar/beneficiar o seu cumprimento"

Só não gosto do uso da palavra identificação, prefiro a palavra determinação. Os riscos e as oportunidades não são algo intrínseco, são algo que resulta de um julgamento.

Trecho inicial retirado de "Simple Tools and Techniques for Enterprise Risk Management" de Robert J. Chapman.

Can you imagine?

This is how organizations, normally, see the world:

A place full of unexpected results conspiring against its existence and success.

But, if we digg a little deeper...

We always find an invisble system with its own agenda. Worst, we find nests of invisible cycles conspiring against the oficial agenda.

And what is interesting is ... like in that Alien movies: The evil (the xenomorph) was inside Ripley all the time

Results are a natural fruit of how organizations work and manage. Some times it is just a rule, just a small practice, that derails the entire system.

Can you imagem the power of that bonus?

Para reflexão

Ontem, no caderno de Economia do semanário Expresso, li:

"O grupo francês Michelin vai encerrar a fábrica de Bamberg, na Alemanha, com 858 empregados, devido à queda da procura dos pneus que ali se fabricam provocada pela concorrência asiática.
.
O fim da atividade em Bamberg ocorrerá até inícios de 2021, explicou a Michelin, que constituiu uma provisão de €167 milhões nas contas deste ano para fazer frente ao encerramento da fábrica. Em Bamberg produzem-se maioritariamente pneus premium de 16 polegadas, um segmento do mercado que segundo a empresa se vê afetado por “uma forte diminuição da procura global e por uma concorrência extremamente forte dos fabricantes asiáticos”. Os €60 milhões investidos desde 2013 para adaptar a produção e os esforços das suas equipas não foram suficientes para compensar as evoluções. A Michelin diz que neste contexto não há “qualquer alternativa industrial economicamente viável”.

Uma fábrica de uma marca de relevo, a trabalhar para um segmento premium, num país conhecido pela sua elevada produtividade e que está a queixar-se da concorrência asiática.

Humm!!!

Ou é uma desculpa (recordo a Fiat e a Polónia), ou é um sintoma de algo mais profundo... uma marca de topo, com produtos premium já não consegue fazer a diferença para a concorrência asiática.

Sintomas de um futuro a caminho

"Any business can invest in advanced technologies, but creating a workforce that’s ready to use them is much harder. It requires workers who can understand data, serve customers across virtual and physical interaction points, and keep up with fast-changing software languages. Unfortunately, traditional education systems often don’t teach these skills. Most university professors lack real industry experience, and curriculum development cycles can be as long as seven years. This timeline is a problem. A global survey of 4,300 managers and executives shows that 90% of workers feel they need to update their skills annually just to contend.
.
To close the gap between where education leaves off and the needs of the 21st century begin, some companies and governments are starting to take matters into their own hands."

Trecho retirado de "How Companies and Governments Can Advance Employee Education"

"Whenever a system has a sufficient number of badly served constituents, an inflection point has fertile ground to take root. I believe that alternative forms of credentialing, in which some kind of respected accreditation body certifies skills based on the level of the skill, rather than the degree, are beginning to gain real traction.
There is definitely demand. The presence of so many online resources and other tools that individuals can use to learn is creating a hunger for alternative certification systems. Considerable experimentation has been conducted with students using online badges and verified certificates to complement their traditional transcripts. While these things have been around for a while, the notion that they might substitute for a conventional degree has been met with ongoing skepticism.
This is changing. Evidence from a LinkedIn insiders’ survey of knowledgeable learning and development specialists shows a softening of the traditional model. Sixty percent of those surveyed believed that employers are well on their way to skills-based-hiring—in other words, “choosing candidates based on what they can do, rather than degree or pedigree.” Fifty-seven percent of respondents said they believe employers will start to place more value on nontraditional credentials, with one respondent going so far as to say that traditional credentials are “boring."

Trecho retirado de "Seeing Around Corners" de  Rita McGrath.

Uma revolução a caminho "47 dias incipientes e depois, de repente..."

Sorrateiramente, por baixo da maquilhagem, o diabo vai chegando às pessoas

Recordo de Junho último, "Optimista? Realista? Pessimista?":

"Se estudassem os números por detrás do número, podiam perceber o que venho relatando há cerca de um ano, a mudança de panorama das exportações portuguesas e a sua crescente fragilização: "What a difference a year makes! (parte II)""

Recordo também o último "Um outro olhar sobre os números das exportações" (parte III) (de Setembro de 2019).

Enquanto as exportações de automóveis, de óptica e aeronaves vão maquilhando o total, as exportações das nossas PME vão encolhendo e, sem fazer muitas ondas, que não convêm à coligação média-governo, uma empresa após outra vai fechando.

Um exemplo de Maio passado no calçado "O fim de um ciclo (parte II)". E agora, um exemplo no têxtil "Fábrica de Lousada faz despedimento colectivo e deixa 113 pessoas no desemprego":

"A unidade, que produzia camisas para marcas como Zara ou Lion of Porches, abriu em Junho de 2015 e já teve cerca de 200 funcionários.
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“Dizem que dá prejuízo desde o início, mas nós tivemos sempre muito trabalho e temos dado horas extras”"

"The central vehicle for value creation"

Em "Mental Representation and the Discovery of New Strategies" de Felipe A. Csaszar e Daniel A. Levinthal encontro:

"A mental representation is a model of reality held in the mind of an individual, who can use this representation to generate predictions about reality. Mental representations are especially important in strategy because they allow managers to consider alternative strategies in an `o -line' manner. That is, mental representations allow managers to consider the merit of alternative strategies without the need to actually invest in and carry out the various options. Of course, such `modeling' is inevitably imperfect and di fferent representations may off er better or worse characterizations of the likely payoff s in an actual business context. Thus the quality of managers' mental representations is a basis for performance diff erences, and a firm's prior history may have a considerable influence on the mental representations adopted by their managers.
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A fundamental characteristic of mental representations is that they account for only somedimensions of the represented reality. In strategy, the reduced dimensionality of mental representations helps explain why `frameworks' are pervasive in the field. Frameworks - which provide simple, typically two dimensional representations of the complex underlying strategy context - suggest the dimensions that a mental representation should include.
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A framework is useful to the manager because it reduces the high dimensionality of strategic problems and so makes them tractable within the bounds of the manager's cognitive capacity. Because frameworks incorporate only a subset of the problem's actual dimensions, multiple frameworks can apply to a given strategic problem.
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Thus, an important problem that managers face is to choose the dimensions of the representation - the `lens' or `fi lter' - through which to view their business landscape. That any landscape looks much di fferent under diff erent representations exposes a problem with how the literature has conceptualized the process of searching for a strategy."

Isto está relacionado com:

"firms create value as they formulate, identify, and solve problems.
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At the firm level, scholars have looked at the origins of value held in resources, accumulating experience, and developing capabilities, as well as in a firm’s governance. Some have argued that the “locus” of value creation exists at higher levels and thus have placed emphasis on factors such as the evolution of industries or interorganizational relations and networks. In fact, one of the central trends to emerge from recent research is a diminished focus on the firm itself as a central unit and source of value and an increased focus on value creation that originates from linkages with disparate environmental constituents [Moi ici: Os ecossistemas] (e.g., users, customers, suppliers, and universities).
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Value creation only occurs when a focal firm somehow discovers a bargain, namely, a solution with value that exceeds the price paid. Moreover, even such value creation may be short lived if competitors can access these same solutions at similar prices. Thus, discovering firm-specific bargains among solutions demands some kind of firm specific filter, a filter that enables the firm to sift through the abundance of possible and ready-made solutions, to discover those that might offer the firm unique value.
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Vital to a firm’s capacity for value creation is its ability to generate value for customers or offer common value at a uniquely low cost. Uniqueness is the discriminator between creating value that flows solely to customers and creating value that is at least partially captured by the focal firm. Value creation for the focal firm therefore demands that firms discover or solve unique problems, namely, problems or solutions unseen by or inaccessible to others.
Identifying common problems and discovering common solutions are unlikely paths to value creation, because these common problems and solutions are accessible to direct competitors as well.
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We contend that, for a given focal firm, the path to value creation typically originates with a cognitive effort to compose and develop a unique and firm-specific theory of value creation, in other words, a theory of and for a specific firm. This theory may reveal assumptions about the evolution of consumer tastes, define an unmet customer need or unaddressed problem, offer insights into the under- or overvaluation of assets in markets, or highlight a problem in the production of a product or service. The theory essentially defines a set of problems for which resolution is hypothesized to create the value foreseen.
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The central vehicle for value creation, then, lies in composing and updating the firm’s theory and using it to formulate problems, organize solution search, and select from among available need–solution pairs.
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humans, including managers and entrepreneurs, have a unique capacity to engage in forward-looking theorizing about possibilities beyond extant realities, theorizing that uniquely guides attention and observations. We argue that theorizing, then, isn’t the unique domain of scientists but in fact a universal human capacity that shapes human perceptions and behavior more generally. Importantly, theorizing is not simply the process of environmental observation or representation, learning or information processing, which suggests a rather passive conception of rationality and mind. Rather, theorizing is an active effort to project into the future and to imagine possibilities beyond what might readily be observed. We thus build on a very particular view of the human mind, one that does not rely solely on stimuli but instead focuses on the unique expectations, guesses, hypotheses, and theories that the mind constructs as it interacts with the environment.
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In economic settings, an individual’s capacity to recognize valuable problems and solutions depends on beliefs and attention, which are in turn shaped by the unique theories actors hold."

Trechos retirados de "Crossroads - Strategy, Problems, and a Theory for the Firm" publicado de Organization Science, de Teppo Felin e Todd R. Zenger (2015)