Quais são as partes interessadas

Assim que olhei para esta imagem:

Sorri e pensei nos exercícios pueris que vejo em algumas empresas sobre quais são as suas partes interessadas.

Sonho ... deliro.

Está quase a fazer dois anos que o primeiro ministro foi descrito assim:

"Ao dr. Costa interessa tanto o que se vai passar daqui a três anos, como a mim o que se vai passar daqui a 300. O dr. Costa quer saber da semana que vem. O que é desesperante é que a direita nem a semana que vem percebe."

 Dali só podemos esperar competência(?) no jogo do imediato. Por isso, seria interessante que um bloco central qualquer, para remover reacções epidérmicas, se reunisse para pensar o futuro, e preparar um conjunto de propostas sobre como criar condições para tirar partido da re-industriialização da Europa. Não seria para escolher campeões, não seria para distribuir dinheiro pelos amigos, mas para, na linguagem de Bloomberg como mayor de New York, pôr a mesa.

A revolução está aí:

"A global arms race to reindustrialise is under way, reversing long-established trends in many advanced economies. The forces driving this race - decarbonisation, deglobalisation, remilitarisation - are likely to have lasting implications for the global macroeconomy and may even help it break free from secular stagnation.

...

Underpinning this shift has been a relocation of manufacturing production from west to east and an accompanying reconfiguration of global supply chains. [Moi ici: Recordar "já não precisamos da vossa ajuda" ] This was made possible by successive waves of trade liberalisation, culminating in China's accession into the World Trade Organization in 2001. These trends were then amplified by the activist industrial policies pursued by countries such as China and Singapore, policies typically not matched in the west.

...

The past few years, however, have seen a new industrial age beginning to take shape, with global manufacturing undergoing a revival, in particular in the west. This has been underpinned by three distinct global arms races.

...

This new industrial age is also beginning to reverse some of the secular macro trends of the past. Fractured supply chains are raising global prices, causing inflation targets to overshoot and interest rates to rise. Public and private money is flooding into manufacturing projects, irrigating firms dehydrated by the investment drought. Higher investment plans are also helping absorb the global savings glut, with global real interest rates rising by over 1 percentage point so far.

Most arms races leave no one better off. Today's race to reindustrialise is different. It mav be just the impetus the world needs to break free of its economic and environmental torpor."

Sonho... deliro.

Trechos retirados de "The industrial arms race is just what we need" publicado no FT de ontem.

Incerteza e desequilibrio

"Principle 1. Value is created in production and innovation and realized in exchange.

...

Principle 2. Value is appropriated through competitive bargaining and pure bargaining.

...

Principle 3. Firms allow stakeholders to create value by offering a governance form to resolve the pure bargaining over the surplus created by team production and team innovation.

...

The fundamental insight to emerge from juxtaposing these analyses [Moi ici: De Schumpeter and Knight] is that (Ricardian) rent is a cross-sectional/equilibrium concept that explains payments above opportunity costs that derive from heterogeneity of individual resources, while (Schumpeterian) profit is a dynamic/disequilibrium concept that explains payments above opportunity costs that derive from heterogeneity of resource bundles.

...

In Schumpeter's (1934) analysis, profit is possible when the entrepreneur moves the economy away from a prevailing competitive equilibrium by combining resources in a new way. More specifically, entrepreneurship is the act of bringing new combinations to market alternatively referred to as "innovation." If (and only if) the new way of combining resources creates more value than before, this will result in an economic profit: the entrepreneur only needs to pay resource suppliers their opportunity costs and appropriates the residual. 

...

There are three important things to note about entrepreneurial profit. First, as our simple example demonstrates, it does not require heterogeneous resources. The reason for the entrepreneurial profit is not that there is something special about any of the resources that are used, but that there is something special about the bundle of resources. Second, note that Schumpeter's analysis only holds under conditions of uncertainty (Knight, 1921). Without uncertainty, why would the entrepreneur be able to appropriate the value created by the bundle of resources that she assembles? The assumption is that the entrepreneur, in organizing resources in a new way, only needs to pay resource suppliers their opportunity costs. However, why would the residual between these opportunity costs and the prices paid for the new product not be subject to ex-ante bargaining between the entrepreneur and resource suppliers? In Knight's view, if the residual was generally anticipated, this is exactly what would happen: the economy would adjust its relative prices and the profit opportunity would disappear. Knight's fundamental insight was that entrepreneurial profit can only result when it is not generally anticipated. This insight also leads into the third point about entrepreneurial profit, which is that it is likely to be a temporary phenomenon. This is the case because once the entrepreneur's innovation proves successful, the previous uncertainty is eliminated. In that sense, we can understand successful innovation as revealing new productive knowledge. Unless there are "isolating mechanisms" that prevent the dissemination of this new productive knowledge, the economic system will adapt: imitation will eliminate the entrepreneurial profit. I

...

Principle 4. Profit is a disequilibrium phenomenon resulting from heterogeneity of resource bundles.

Principle 5. Rent is an equilibrium phenomenon resulting from heterogeneity of individual resources.

...

Principle 6. Economic profit is the result of resource bundles characterized by (1) novelty, (2) unique complementarities, and/or (3) scale advantages.

...

Principle 7. Stakeholder payments are the sum of (1) opportunity costs, (2) rent payments, and (3) the outcome of pure bargaining over economic profit."

Como se cria o desquilibrio? Com a inovação. O que é preciso para criar inovação?

Como se deslinda a incerteza? Só pondo a pele em jogo. Desconfiar de teóricos que sabem onde os outros devem pôr o seu dinheiro. 

Acerca da incerteza, li há dias uma frase que era mais ou menos: Depressão é olhar para trás. A ansiedade é olhar para a frente. E depois: "Anxiety is the price you pay for your freedom."

Trechos retirados de "Value, rent, and profit: A stakeholder resource-based theory" de J. W. Stoelhorst.  

"innovation is the ultimate source of value creation"

"If we want to explain rather than assume value creation, we need to acknowledge the central role of the firm in the framework. It is the firm that is able to turn resources into products for which the willingness to pay of buyers exceeds the sum of the opportunity costs of resource suppliers. Take this ability out, and no value will be created. However, this ability, too, must necessarily be assumed. Define "productive knowledge" as the ability of the firm to turn resources into products.

...

It may be clear that innovation is the ultimate source of value creation: over time an economic system can only create additional value if firms develop new productive knowledge - or in other words, new ways of increasing buyers' willingness to pay and/or lowering the sum of the opportunity costs of the resources used in creating the products for which buyers are willing to pay."

Trechos retirados de "Value, rent, and profit: A stakeholder resource-based theory" de J. W. Stoelhorst. 

Are you prepared to walk the talk? (parte III)

Are you prepared to walk the talk? (parte II)

Sintomas da evolução estratégica da Zara em "Zara's wedding crashers mark its rise as couturier to the rich and famous" publicado no passado Sábado no FT:

"The wedding of Ricardo Gómez-Acebo Botin, a nephew of Banco Santander chair Ana Botin, was a high society affair outside Madrid this month, attracting gushing Elle magazine coverage of guests' flower-topped hats, swishy capes - and the fact some people wore Zara.

So noteworthy was the presence of two "inspiring looks" from the Spanish brand, costing €129 and €36, that it became headline news.

...

Although it still sells basics such as T-shirts, Zara has tried to differentiate itself from Sweden's H&M and escape the tag of disposable "fast fashion" by becoming a designer of stylish partywear.

Last year American singer Selena Gomer wore a €150 electric blue Zara suit to Britney Spears' wedding. Inditex's sales reflect the shift.

...

"But we are always striving to improve quality, style and design, and we want to make room for nonconformnism in our fashion. That's never changed," he told the Financial Times at Inditex headquarters in Arteixo.

Patricia Cifuentes, analyst at Bestinver, said: "They have repositioned themselves slightly upwards to reach the events arena. In the past in Spain you could never wear Zara to a wedding. But now with all the influencers and celebrities wearing Zara you can. Inditex has reinforced the idea that Zara sells fashion."

Fugir da previsibilidade

Ontem, quando li este tweet...

As a leader, “You don’t demand predictability. There is nothing more frightening than predictability.” —Peter Block @Peter_Block #AskTSOE @ronaldbaker @edkless

— The Soul of Enterprise (@asktsoe) June 23, 2023

Sorri em concordância. E pensei na quantidade de pessoas que não o entende. Pior, que está contra ele. Pior ainda, sendo empresários, estão contra ele.

Recordei então um sublinhado num artigo que ando a ler:

"The benchmark in explaining differences in performance is the model of perfect competition, which specifies the conditions under which all firms earn zero economic profit. It follows that generating positive economic profit requires market imperfections. In line with this, RBT points to factor market imperfections as a crucial source of economic profit."

Predictability é sinónimo de concorrência perfeita, ou seja lucros raquíticos e empobrecimento.

Fugir do padrão é arriscar, é inovar e fugir da previsibilidade.

Fugir da previsibilidade é uma forma de criar heterogeneidade e fugir da comoditização, é uma forma de criar valor potencial que pode vir a ser capturado como margem superior.

Trecho retirado de "Value, rent, and profit: A stakeholder resource-based theory" de J. W. Stoelhorst

Não somos plancton

"If we had to highlight a single cause for the rise in inflation, it must be the over-reliance of central banks on what goes by the name of workhorse macroeconomic models. This is not a prediction failure at its heart. It goes deeper. Modern macroeconomics has lost the ability, if it ever had it, to understand the dynamics of the 21st-century global economy."

Em Mongo os clientes não gostam de ser tratados como plancton. 

Retirado da revista The Economist.

"Safety is first"

O meu parceiro das conversas oxigenadoras há muitos anos que pratica esta filosofia:

"Safety is first. It's impossible to grow, to connect, or to lead if we are under threat or feel the ground shifting beneath us.

...

But the real desire is significance. To do something that matters. To be missed if we're gone. The universal desire to achieve dignity and be seen.

Becoming significant means making a change happen: impacting people or the world around us so they're different than if we had never been here. But to create change involves risk, the risk of living in possibility, and of the threat of failure (or success).

...

Tension is not something to avoid. You can't walk outside on a sunny day without casting a shadow, and you cannot create significance without encountering tension."

Recordo este postal de Março de 2020 Corona, pessoas e melhoria.

Trechos acima retirados do último livro de Seth Godin, "The Song of Significance: A New Manifesto for Teams".

A concorrência "desigual" ou A evolução da produtividade (parte VII)

 Parte VI,  Parte V, Parte IV, Parte III, Parte II e Parte I.

Say it with me: poor people have had faster wage growth than rich people for the last 5 years. The bottom 25% of workers have had faster wage growth than every other income quartile in America since 2018 and their real wages have grown at the fastest pace since the 1960s pic.twitter.com/uy5NDV5OXZ

— Swann Marcus (@SwannMarcus89) June 20, 2023

A desglobalização em curso e as barreiras à entrada de emigrantes nos Estados Unidos geram este resultado inevitável. Por isso, é que o patronato é tão adepto da imigração.

O aumento dos salários na base da pirâmide não só beneficia as pessoas que o recebem, como promove a morte das empresas incapazes de os pagar, podendo contribuir para o aumento real da produtividade agregada do país (nos Estados Unidos ainda não está acontecer porque o numerador não está a crescer mais do que o denominador). Esta morte, como é natural, e não imposta por um governo, liberta recursos para outras empresas quando são precisos e sem que fiquem por aplicar. É, sem tirar nem pôr, ao vivo e a cores, o Flying Geese a funcionar.

Os responsáveis pelas empresas que vão morrendo argumentam como o actual governo de Portugal:

"A secretária de Estado da Promoção da Saúde admitiu esta quarta-feira dificuldades em contratar especialistas de obstetrícia e ginecologia para o Serviço Nacional de Saúde (SNS), alegando a concorrência "desigual" do setor privado.

...

Segundo disse a governante, o "problema" na contratação destes especialistas para os hospitais públicos reside na "concorrência com os privados que é desigual"."

Havendo mão de obra barata ao preço da chuva ... Portugal não irá crescer se continuar a “exportar ‘mais do mesmo’”

Não há acasos, está tudo relacionado.

A importância das "market frictions"

"the presence of firm-level heterogeneity implies the presence of various market frictions, like causal ambiguity and asset specificity/uniqueness.

...

These market frictions interact to create the need for cost minimization, or the opportunity for value creation and value capture.

...

We then apply the market-frictions logic to organizational boundary and economic rents questions to show how joining cost minimization, value creation, and value capture can be achieved through considering various market frictions. More generally, we maintain that it is useful to view market frictions as the fundamental building blocks of strategic management, and the analysis of new combinations of market frictions may provide new strategic insights."

As "market frictions" são o que cria as imperfeições de mercado, são o que gera a concorrência imperfeita. Sem imperfeições de mercado não há criação e captura de valor, só há lucros raquíticos e empobrecimento. Faz-me tanta impressão que estas coisas não sejam evidentes para a academia.

Recordar o lema deste blogue e do nosso trabalho:

• Promotor da concorrência imperfeita, dos monopólios informais e das rendas pornográficas (Março de 2021)
• "Perfect markets are for the poor" (Outubro de 2021)
• Promotor da concorrência imperfeita, dos monopólios informais e das rendas excessivas (Dezembro de 2021)
• Cartão de visita (Agosto de 2011)

Trechos retirados de "Market frictions as building blocks of an organizational economics approach to strategic management"

A lente macro é tão ...

"When the world's business and political leaders gathered in 2018 at the annual economic forum in Davos, Switzerland, the mood was jubilant. Growth in every major country was on an upswing. The global economy, declared Christine Lagarde, then the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, "is in a very sweet spot." Five years later, the outlook has decidedly soured.

...

A lot has happened between then and now: A global pandemic hit; war erupted in Europe; tensions between the United States and China boiled. And inflation, thought to be safely stored away with disco album collections, returned with a vengeance. But as the dust has settled, it has suddenly seemed as if almost everything we thought we knew about the world economy was wrong. [Moi ici: Mas quem é que achava que estava tudo bem?]

The economic conventions that policymakers had relied on since the Berlin Wall fell more than 30 years ago - the unfailing superiority of open markets, liberalized trade and maximum efficiency look to be running off the rails. [Moi ici: Este blogue sempre achou errada a crença absoluta na maximização da eficiência, basta recordar os marcadores eficiência, eficientismo e denominador]

...

Globalization, seen in recent decades as unstoppable a force as gravity, is clearly evolving in unpredictable ways.  [Moi ici: Outra tema caro a este blogue, há mais de 17 anos que escrevemos aqui sobre as forças a minar a globalização. Recordo O regresso dos clientes, Especulação - um epílogo?] The move away from an integrated world economy is accelerating. And the best way to respond is a subject of fierce debate.

...

As the consulting firm EY concluded in its 2023 Geostrategic Outlook, the trends behind the shift away from ever-increasing globalization "were accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic - and then they have been supercharged by the war in Ukraine."[Moi ici: Nunca esqueço de Maio de 2020 - El coronavirus actúa como acelerador de cambios que ya estaban en marcha]

...

Associated economic theories about the ineluctable rise of worldwide free market capitalism took on a similar sheen of invincibility and inevitability. Open markets, hands-off government and the relentless pursuit of efficiency would offer the best route to prosperity. [Moi ici: Recordo aquilo a que chamo a doença anglo-saxónica, recordo as críticas que fazemos há anos à automatização - Especulação sobre mais um falhanço da automatização, recordo o que escrevo sobre Kevin O'Leary]

...

The story of the international economy today, said Henry Farrell, a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, is about "how geopolitics is gobbling up hyperglobalization. [Moi ici: O que me impressiona nestas análises é que me parecem demasiado macro. Há mais de uma década que a globalização está a recuar por causa de Mongo, por causa do fim do modelo do século XX, por causa de "We are all weird"]

...

"Ignoring the economic dependencies that had built up over the decades of liberalization had become really perilous," Mr. Sullivan, the U.S. national security adviser, said. Adherence to "oversimplified market efficiency," he added, proved to be a mistake." [Moi ici: O que me impressiona nestas análises é a crença de que a economia é como a física newtoniana, quando a economia é a continuação da biologia"]

Trechos retirados do artigo, "Failures of Globalization Shatter Long-Held Beliefs", publicado no NYT do passado Domingo. 

O mundo não é mesmo linear

No WSJ do passado dia 14 encontrei uma estória interessante, "Sesame Allergy Sufferers Wanted Warning Labels. They Got More Sesame.":

"Congress passed legislation intended to make life better for people allergic to sesame seeds. Instead, it made things worse. The bill, passed with overwhelming bipartisan support and signed into law by President Biden in 2021, requires manufacturers to label sesame on their products starting this year.

In response, some companies began adding sesame to products that hadn't included it in the past-saying it was safer to add sesame and label it, rather than certify they had eliminated all traces of it.

People with sesame allergies say the result is fewer sesame-free food options, as well as new and unexpected risks in foods they used to eat without worry."

O mundo não é linear.

O inferno está cheio de boas-intenções.

Unintended consequences. 

Não acreditem no Pai Natal!

Sexta-feira passada ao final do dia, acabei de ver o filme "The Martian" em folhetins de cerca de 20 minutos ao longo de 3 ou 4 dias.

Gostei muito. MUITO MESMO!

Comecei a gostar do filme logo ao final dos primeiros 20 minutos. Experimentei uma sensação positiva indefinida que se manteve e até se reforçou ao longo do filme.

No final do filme percebi o porquê. É uma ode ao locus de controlo interno. Engraçado, no almoço dessa mesma sexta-feira com o meu parceiro das conversas oxigenadoras tinha falado do locus de controlo interno, um tema que acompanha este blogue há anos (2007 - ver também o marcador). Na altura escrevi aqui:

"É arrepiante a situação... quem tem o seu Locus de Controlo no exterior, ao atribuir poder a forças exteriores, para ditar o destino, para mudar as coisas... quase não tem motivação para agir, para melhorar, para actuar... afinal de contas, sente-se, acredita que é uma espécie de Calimero jogado de um lado para o outro pelos deuses! Esta postura degenera em "the discovery that loss of control leads to learned helplessness, a state similar to depression."" 

O click no final do filme ocorreu-me quando Mark Watney (o marciano) diz:

"When I was up there, stranded by myself did think was going to die? [Moi ici: Estava sozinho e sem contacto com a Terra] Yes, absolutely. 

And that's what you need to know going in because it's going to happen to you. This is space. It does not cooperate. At some point everything is going to go south on you. Everything is going to go south and you’re going to say 'This is it. This is how I end.' Now you can either accept that or you can get to work. [Moi ici: "You", não o papá, não o governo, não o outro, mas eu] That’s all it is. You just begin. You do the math, you solve one problem. Then you solve the next one, and then the next and if you solve enough problems you get to come home."

E o que é a vida? Aqui recordo o Livro do Génesis no capítulo 3:

"17 E ao homem disse: «Já que deste ouvidos à tua mulher e comeste do fruto da árvore, do qual eu te tinha proibido de comer, a terra fica amaldiçoada por tua causa, e será com grande sofrimento que dela hás de tirar alimento, durante toda a tua vida.

18 Só produzirá espinhos e cardos e tu terás de comer a erva que cresce no campo.

19 Só à custa de muito suor conseguirás arranjar o necessário para comer, até que um dia te venhas a transformar de novo em terra, pois dela foste formado.

Na verdade, tu és pó e em pó te hás de transformar de novo."

A vida envolve inerentemente lutas que os indivíduos têm de enfrentar e superar obstáculos para encontrar significado e realização. E a responsabilidade de agir é de cada um, não podemos esperar que outros decidam por nós.

E esta mensagem sobre o locus de controlo interno não é só sobre uma pessoa abandonada e isolada num planeta deserto. É quando a tripulação da Hermes a caminho da Terra resolve "amotinar-se" para regressar a Marte e salvar Mark. É quando a tripulação da Hermes tem de tomar uma decisão sobre como agarrar Mark no espaço, começam por desligar o som, retirar Houston da tomada de decisão. A decisão é deles.

 

Vivo num país em que o locus de controlo mais comum está no exterior. Toda a gente quer ser ajudada, toda a gente sente-se coitadinha. Mais, toda a gente pensa que tem direito a essa ajuda.

Os partidos políticos, da direita socialista à esquerda socialista, até a Iniciativa Liberal vai aderindo ao catecismo (têm de conquistar mais e mais votos), passam a mensagem: Todos têm direito a um queijo diário!!!

Acreditem no Pai Natal.

BTW, a banda sonora final ... 

... é a continuação da mensagem.

Mais do que dinheiro

Esta semana li "Diferença salarial entre jovens com ensino superior e secundário cai para metade numa década e está em «mínimos históricos".

Entretanto, ontem a almoçar com o meu parceiro das conversas oxigenadoras fiquei a saber que a filha começou a trabalhar numa empresa francesa ... 38 dias de férias por ano. O namorado dela, numa outra empresa francesa... 48 dias de férias por ano. Entretanto, perguntei à minha filha, numa empresa na Suíça... 32 dias por ano.

Como é que tantos jovens portugueses ainda ficam por cá neste país socialista?

Os extremistas

No último livro de Seth Godin, "The Song of Significance: A New Manifesto for Teams" encontrei um texto sobre um tema que me é muito caro: 

"49. Focusing on the Extreme User

Every organization has extremists: the employees, customers, or investors who demand more, pay more, use more, talk more, and share more. These extreme users have great needs and offer greater benefits. They are the heavy users, people with disabilities, the sneezers, and the professionals. They're the committed. The Stanford d.school has argued that focusing on these users teaches the organization lessons that will work for all users. This is contrary to the typical industrial organization, which is happy to lose the extremists if it helps them serve the masses more easily. Find the nerds, the motivated, and the overlooked, and figure out what they need to thrive. That exploration will reveal what others have needed as well but didn't care enough to speak up about."

Isto alinha bem com um texto que encontrei na net recentemente:

Evoluir na paisagem económica

Ontem no JdN em "Alemanha cola-se a Espanha nas vendas de componentes - As exportações de componentes para a indústria automóvel cresceram 26,9% em abril, o 12º mês consecutivo de subida homóloga." sublinhei:

"Após um máximo mensal histórico em março, quando as exportações de componentes automóveis ascenderam a 1.112 milhões de euros, as vendas destes produtos ao exterior cifraram-se em 899 milhões em abril, uma subida homóloga de 26,9%, indicou a Associação de Fabricantes para a Indústria Automóvel (AFIA).

A associação destaca que este foi o 12º mês consceutivo de crescimento em termos homólogos.

...

Em termos de crescimento homólogo, as vendas para Espanha subiram 21% no acumulados dos primeiros quatro meses do ano.

Já o mercado alemão apresenta, para igual período, um aumento no valor das vendas na ordem dos 29,5%, o crescimento mais expressivo entre os cinco principais destinos das exportações do sector."

Recordo o que escrevi aqui há dias:

"Just why should the organization renew itself when there is no crisis? 

...

Nothing breeds complacency like success. The point for maximum strategic paranoia is when you are at the top of your game." 

Ao ler o artigo de ontem no JdN fiz logo a ligação para um artigo do passado dia 9 de Junho no Eurointelligence de Wolfgang Münchau, "How an industry declines":

"There is a lot of confusion about de-industrialisation. It does not necessarily mean less industry and fewer factories. It means less money - a falling share of industry in an economy's value-added. That has a lot of important consequences, but not necessarily the ones people expect, or discuss.

...

The most important impact of the slowly creeping de-industrialisation is a loss of profits, not necessarily a loss of activity. That translates into relatively lower wages. 

...

The diesel scandal was the last hooray of the German car industry. 

They will still make cars in Germany in the future. But the industry will be dominated by other plays, it will employ fewer people, it will feed fewer suppliers, and its role in society will diminish."

No final desta leitura recordo que procurei mentalmente fazer um paralelismo com a deslocalização do têxtil alemão para Portugal nos anos 60. 

A ser verdade o que escreve Wolfgang Münchau, a AFIA devia agora estar a promover a paranóia estratégica entre os seus membros ("The point for maximum strategic paranoia is when you are at the top of your game"). Quantos iriam ouvir esse apelo?

No livro que acabei de ler na passada segunda-feira, "Lead and disrupt: how to solve the innovator's dilemma" de Charles A O' Reilly III and Michael L. Tushman, os autores contam a estória da empresa Ball Corporation:

"Ball is recognized around the world for its high-quality metal and PET plastic food and beverage containers, and for its leading aerospace technology products and services." 

O livro começa o texto sobre a Ball da seguinte forma:

"The story began in 1880 when Frank Ball and his four brothers began making wood-jacketed tin cans to carry kerosene for lanterns. However, soon after their founding, glass jars became an economical alternative to wooden buckets, so the Ball brothers quickly converted their business to produce glass jars, including what would become their most successful offering, the screw-top Ball jar that generations of Americans have used for home canning."

Esta empresa ficou-me na memória pela sua capacidade de evoluir na paisagem económica do seu tempo.

Curiosidade do dia

This chart is also pretty amazing.

In 1995, the working age population was as follows:

🇺🇸 US: 175 million
🇯🇵 Japan: 87 million
🇩🇪 Germany: 55 million

In 2021, it looks as follows:

🇺🇸 US: 215 million
🇯🇵 Japan: 73 million
🇩🇪 Germany: 53 million pic.twitter.com/aZTRwb1spH

— Benjamin Wolf 🇺🇦 (@benbawan) June 13, 2023

O mundo a mudar

No FT de ontem matéria-prima para análises de contexto.

Por um lado "China is 'cancelled' for many foreign investors"  onde encontrei:

"Overseas investors are selling shares even in profitable internet companies such as Tencent and Alibaba, while becoming reluctant to back the country's most promising start-ups. Venture capital group Sequoia last week became the latest business to bow to rising tensions between Beijing and Washington, announcing a plan to split its China business into a separate entity. Adding to the flight of foreign capital is an unsteady economic recovery that has deflated Chinese tech stocks that had briefly jumped on hopes for the country's post-pandemic reopening. The downward trend has left employees and investors concerned that the depressed valuations for Chinese tech groups listed in New York and Hong Kong may be long-lasting.

"China is getting canceled and the economy is a dumpster fire," said a Hong Kong-based equity analyst." 

Por outro lado "Clients rush for Asia investment products that exclude China" onde encontrei:

"Global fund managers say they are rushing to meet client demand for new Asian investment products that exclude China as investor appetite for the region's largest economy is hit by slowing growth and mounting geopolitical risk.

...

They said demand had been stoked by worsening US-China tension and a rally for the rest of the region that had left Its biggest market behind.

"Investors are concerned about geopolitics," said Minyue Liu, Investment specialist at BNP Paribas Asset Management.

...

"On geopolitics, there are a lot of different opinions among clients but I think that anyone who thought the US-China tension was going to go away is now very aware that it will not," Lees said. "At the same time, clients are seeing that they can get a lot of exposure to China through other markets like Australia, Japan, and South Korea."

However, the main driver of the trend towards ex-China investment was "economic, not geopolitical","

O mundo a mudar.

Entretanto, no JdN de hoje, na última página pode ler-se "Xi prepara megaplano de estímulo económico"... faz-me lembrar os anos 90 e os dirigentes japoneses. Estímulos económicos são para salvar o sistema financeiro.

A evolução da produtividade (parte VI)

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

"In crisis situations, you need to reinvent rapidly through a turnaround in which everything about an organization is open for reexamination. Strategic renewal, however, requires a new way of working a deliberate effort to enable the organization to lead change in its market. Since the goal of strategic renewal is to move ahead of a crisis, these change efforts are more difficult to motivate, fund, and lead. Just why should the organization renew itself when there is no crisis? These proactive change efforts are about learning more rapidly and shaping the future more competently than your competitors. There are countless examples of underfunded, underled proactive transformations.

...

Nothing breeds complacency like success. The point for maximum strategic paranoia is when you are at the top of your game."

Por isto é que são tão difícil saltos na produtividade agregada com os incumbentes. 

Trechos retirados de "Lead and disrupt: how to solve the innovator's dilemma" de Charles A O' Reilly III and Michael L. Tushman. 

A evolução da produtividade (parte V)

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

Ainda há dias citei aqui, na Parte I, o "famoso Zé Reis":

"As empresas "acantonam-se no lado fácil da economia."

Nas últimas semanas tenho lido/relido "Lead and disrupt: how to solve the innovator's dilemma" de Charles A O' Reilly III and Michael L. Tushman. Houve uma altura em que achei o livro deslocado da realidade portuguesa por causa dos casos utilizados (CIBA, CISCO, IBM, ...), e por causa dos recursos que essas organizações conseguem mobilizar. Agora, quase a chegar ao fim do livro começo a perceber que a dimensão das empresas é irrelevante. Se tantas e tantas empresas grandes, com vastos recursos financeiros à disposição, e com gente carregada de cursos, por norma não conseguem dar a volta e valorizar a exploration, porque a explotation seca tudo à volta, porque seria mais fácil para uma PME com escassez de recursos financeiros e escassez de quadros?

"CEOs or business unit leaders are often reluctant to challenge the established business. But failing to confront this directly legitimates resistance within the organization and allows warring tribes to emerge within the ranks. Business units defend their turf at the expense of broader organizational goals. The senior team must both understand and own the tension between its historically anchored business and its more future-oriented explorations. If, as we saw at Havas, the tension between tribes is not managed, it will be only "resolved" when the innovation is killed or sidelined."

Por isso, faz ainda mais sentido pensar nos mastins dos Baskerville e na receita irlandesa. Que condições criar para que outras empresas, de outros escalões de valor acrescentado e sectores apareçam?