"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"

No postal anterior abordámos o tema da quebra da procura do fast-fashion e uma certa aposta na qualidade.

"People are moving away from poorly made, inexpensive fashion items.
...
Payless was the shoe equivalent of fast fashion. The brand was not known for the quality or durability of its product, but competed largely on price."

Recordar, "Para reflexão pelos empresários do calçado e do têxtil":

"Dá que pensar no potencial impacte numa série de modelos de negócio baseados no fast-fashion... ou no low-cost."

Entretanto perante este descalabro:

Encontro, "The Lesson Of The Kraft Heinz Nosedive: Radical Cost-Cutting Is Out, Brands Are Back":

"Marketing budgets became a key target for the frugality drive of companies ever since the last recession. [Moi ici: Como é a memória... faz-me recordar qualquer coisa que li em 2007 sobre as marcas do FMCG... cá está, Kumar] Last year, budgets had decreased from 12.1% of average revenues in to 11.3% the previous year, according to consulting firm Gartner.
.
Predictably, with a focus on cost-cutting rather than growth, the financial health of corporate America is deteriorating. According to an analysis of the 2017 Fortune 500, 53% of corporates had experienced an after-tax profit decline, while only 47% saw profit growth. Marketing, once the driving force of America’s consumer society, has been in retreat for over a decade
...
The 3G Capital approach to business is ruthless and revolves around cost-cutting. Every employee must justify his existence every single day. Promotions are quick and merit-based, and underperformers get fired with the same alacrity. Budgets are zero based and evaluated unsparingly every year, or even sometimes with more frequency. Expenses are eliminated if they’re no longer judged worth incurring.[Moi ici: Oranges, como classificaria Laloux. A receita da tríade, e a paranoia do eficientismo]
.
In less than two years after merging Kraft with Heinz, its workforce was cut by 20% and overhead by 40%. Critics have long contended that 3G Capital’s cost-cutting went too far and came at the expense of growth. They turned out to be right. The problem with this philosophy is that you can’t cost-cut your way to growth.
...
Not surprisingly, what followed is sales declined for six quarters in a row. The wheels came off last Friday morning when Kraft Heinz stock dropped 30% at the open and the company lost $16 billion of its market value. The essential problem facing Kraft Heinz is that it stopped investing in its brands at a time when consumer tastes and behaviors are shifting, and the competitive environment is intensifying. [Moi ici: Seria interessante relacionar a #G Capital e as ideias Itamar Simonson]
.
It is time for companies to refocus on growth by investing in marketing, distribution and continued innovation, not adhere to a strategy of frugality alone.
...
Brands are more important than ever, as the world has come online and there are many new markets and a growing middle class in places like India, China, Brazil, Russia, South Africa, Nigeria, Indonesia, Turkey or Mexico. These consumers buy brands, not commoditized products. They buy premium brands. And branding is essential to differentiate itself in a world of parity and, in order to create brand preference.
.
Remember, brands do better in tough times compared to unbranded products and brands outlive product cycles."

O que escrevi sobre a ideia de Simonson: o fim das marcas:

• Plataformas, Mongo, emprego e confiança nas marcas (Fevereiro de 2016)
• Leu aqui há vários anos... (Julho de 2014)
• O jogo de sedução pode ir para muito mais longe (Abril de 2014)
• O papel da marca em Mongo (Fevereiro de 2014)

Recordar também os marcadores hollowing, radio clube, muggles, eficientismo e tríade. Por exemplo, acerca das marcas ocas:

• Marcas que viraram carcaças (bonitas por fora mas ocas) (Setembro de 2016)

"Uber", Mongo e a educação (parte II)

Parte I.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Daqui, de onde também recordo:

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

Cuidado com o preço-baixo

"Don’t price too low  The second wrong mistake dooms many businesses in the cradle. Professional pricers believe there are three and only three overarching strategies: skim, neutral and penetration.
.
Skimming does just want the name implies; it skims the cream off the top. Apple has created near $1 trillion in market capital by using mostly skim pricing. Neutral is also fairly self-explanatory – pricing in the middle of the pack, neither too high, nor too low. Penetration pricing refers to attempting to penetrate a current market by undercutting incumbents with a lower price. The problem is once your organization gets tagged as the low-price challenger, it is especially difficult to overcome that moniker.
.
To overcome these many companies have used what used to be called a loss-leader. Today, we call it Freemium. To gain a foothold, products are introduced with a low or even free price with the ability to us."

Como não recordar aquela frase: não há nenhuma lei que impeça a existência de concorrentes estúpidos. Ou seja, não é ilegal ser estúpido.

 Trechos retirados de "Top three pricing mistakes to avoid"

O século XX continua por cá (parte III)

Parte I e parte II.

Há anos que refiro aqui o beco sem saída a que as corporações gigantes estão a chegar ao depararem com Mongo e a explosão de tribos que traz. Por exemplo:

• E porque não somos plankton (parte VII)
• E porque não somos plankton (parte VI)

A P&G a encolher, a Mondelez a encolher, ...

Via Twitter o @hnascim chamou-me a atenção para "So Long, Hamburger Helper: America's Venerable Food Brands Are Struggling", mais um exemplo de Mongo não é um mundo gigantes-friendly (parte III):

"For over a century, brands such as Kellogg’s cereal, Campbell’s soup and Aunt Jemima pancake mix filled pantries of American households that wanted safe, affordable and convenient food. They provided companies with reliable revenue growth from grocery shelves, and there was little reason to mess with that formula.
.
Today, these giants are struggling with competition that is corroding business from both ends. High-end consumers are shifting toward fresher items with fewer processed ingredients while cost-conscious shoppers are buying inexpensive store brands. [Moi ici: Polarização dos mercados] The makers of staples including Chef Boyardee canned pasta and Hamburger Helper meal kits failed to spot the threat and didn’t innovate in time.
.
Anyone searching for macaroni and cheese, a childhood staple, can opt for fancy pasta with organic ingredients or inexpensive store brands such as Kroger Co.’s. Squeezed in the middle are Kraft Heinz Co.’s venerable blue-and-yellow boxes.
...
“A lot of what’s crept into big companies is internal focus, bureaucracy, PowerPoint presentations—the antithesis of agility,”
...
Many big brands didn’t move fast enough to remove artificial ingredients and haven’t been able to shed the negative perception of processed food, said several food executives and others close to the industry.
.
At the same time, they faced low-cost store brands—or “private label” products—from retailers such as Costco Wholesale Corp., Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and regional grocers that sell copycat products. National brands, which have huge marketing costs, generally can’t afford to compete on price with the in-house brands of stores, which need little marketing beyond displaying products prominently on their own shelves.
...
Big food sellers still dominate in America. The 25 largest food and beverage companies commanded a 63% share of $495 billion in U.S. food and beverage sales in 2016, according to consultancy A.T. Kearney.
.
That is down from 66% in 2012, and even seemingly small market-share losses hurt sales and profits. The top 25 companies averaged 2% annual sales growth from 2012 through 2016, compared with 6% for their smaller rivals, according to A.T. Kearney."

Tecnologia e salários

Há dias chamei a atenção para isto:

Pede-se aos teóricos sem skin in the game que olhem para as fotos da realidade. Por favor. Veja os empregos criados com curso superior pic.twitter.com/HTL4SdaRr2

— Carlos P da Cruz (@ccz1) June 21, 2017

Agora encontro:

"even more critically, the enabling technology view implies that any improvement in technology should lead to higher wages for all types of workers. But wage declines for low-education workers have been the norm not the exception over the past 30 years in the US labor market. [Moi ici: Acredito que grande parte desta tendência deveu-se à deslocalização?] In particular, the real wages of workers with less high school, high school or some college have all fallen sharply since the early 1970s. The inability of this conical framework to account for the pervasive phenomenon of declining real wages of certain groups of workers is one of its most jarring shortcomings.
...
In particular, wages at the bottom, median and the top move very differently over different time periods. Most notably, in contrast with simple skill-biased technological change view, we do not see an opening of the gap between median and bottom wages.
...
there is an extended period from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s where wages at the bottom are increasing more rapidly than wages in the middle of the distribution.
.
In contrast to a view based on enabling technologies helping the most highly skilled workers, we see rapid employment growth at the bottom of the wage distribution both in the 1990s and 2000s. The picture that emerges is thus one in which the economy is generating considerably more employment in lower- paid occupations than in occupations in the middle of the wage distribution.
.
Finally, we can also verify that this is not just a US phenomenon. The middle-paying occupations have contracted in every European country between 1993 and 2006, strongly suggesting that the employment patterns we are witnessing in the United States are due to common technological trends rather than idiosyncratic US factors.
...
In contrast to the standard framework based on enabling technologies, replacing technologies can reduce wages. This contrasts with the predictions of the canonical model we discussed in the previous section. The key is the difference between enabling and replacing technologies.
...

• Even with a single type of labor competing against technology or capital, a set of tasks shifting from labor to capital can reduce wages. This effect is further strengthened if there are multiple types of labor, and new technologies directly take away some of the tasks performed by a specific type of labor (for example, semi-skilled manufacturing workers or operators).
• For the same reasons as articulated in the previous bullet point, replacing technologies displace workers, and may cause unemployment.
• If new technologies replace tasks in the middle of the pay distribution, they will cause polarization of employment. Intuitively, these new technologies will take away the middle paying occupations, and thus the overall wage distribution will have a smaller, in some sense ‘hollowed’ middle, causing wage polarization. Interestingly, because workers dislocated by technology from the middle of the pay distribution will compete with others, changes in employment structure may be divorced from wage growth patterns. As a result, we may expect to find faster growth of employment in lower- paying occupations as those dislocated by technology also seek employment in these occupations, which is confirmed by the changes in employment structure shown in the figure below, but this does not necessarily imply faster wage growth in these expanding occupations."

Trechos retirados de "Daron Acemoglu on: Will robots take our jobs?"

Actividade versus resultados

"During the first few years Udemy was seeking the right pricing and promotions formula. They settled on $10 a course and started promoting others who were more interested in selling $10 courses. I became interested in other aspects of the business.
...
For a couple years we cruised along. Then things started going down hill.
.
And quickly.
.
The market was getting crowded. I am not a believer in infinite markets and that “competition is good.” A guy who learns from you is someone who isn’t learning from me.
.
In my analysis, courses have become a commodity. Ask most new instructors what makes their HTML course different, they’ll tell you it’s the “quality of instruction,” or “their communication skills.”
.
I’m going to call bullshit.
.
Because I used to say the same thing. Your courses are the pretty much the same as everyone else’s. And so were mine.
.
Some time in the middle of last year it clicked: No one wants to take a fucking class.
.
A class is work.
.
A class is study, assignments, boring lectures. It’s torture. I hated all the academic aspects of college. But I really liked the result of getting a degree.
.
The hundreds of thousands who had purchased my courses didn’t want to take a course. They wanted the result that course brought. Learning Javascript was great, but being a Javascript developer was even better. What did my students really want? They wanted to be professional developers.
.
And we could facilitate that transition.
...
you should think of your company as an organization that serves a market instead of selling a product. It was simple genius.
.
We were a company that served new developers who wanted to be professionals — not a company that sold courses.
.
And, that, of course, changed everything.
.
We now sell live and online bootcamps that take people who want to be developers from never having written a line of code to job ready professionals.
.
We’ve gone from selling $10 courses to $2,000 life transitions. (And the price goes up soon. And then up some more.) We’ve differentiated ourselves with a comprehensive bootcamp product that includes unique elements like a live instructor mentor, and a capstone program in which you build a portfolio which will lead to employment.
.
In our program, participants earn 8 separate certifications. It’s now the furthest thing from a course on HTML.
.
In the meantime our distribution business in the corporate vertical continues to thrive.
.
The lesson here — Differentiate. Don’t be another guy or gal with a diet course, yoga course, or course on Python programming. You’re a commodity. Change your perspective and do something different. You’ll be glad you did."

Trechos retirados de "Please Don’t Make an Online Course"

Para reflexão

"Only about 1.1% of the world population is German. However, 48% of the mid-sized world market leaders come from Germany.[Moi ici: A tríade acha que isto só acontece por causa de um marco fraco. Tolos!]
...
But the reasons they are a predominantly German phenomenon are many. This includes the German history of many small independent states (until 1918 Germany consisted of 23 monarchies and three republics), which forced entrepreneurs to internationalize early on in a company’s development if they wanted to keep growing. [Moi ici: Aprender a fazer o by-pass aos Estados, um conselho deste blogue desde 2007] In addition, there are traditional regional crafts, such as the clock-making industry in the Black Forest with its highly developed fine mechanical competencies, which developed into 450 medical technology companies, most of them makers of surgical instruments.
...
A further pillar of the Hidden Champions’ competitive strength is the unique German dual system of apprenticeship, [Moi ici: Algo que enfrentou forte oposição dos proto-geringonços] which combines practical and theoretical training in non-academic trades. The Hidden Champions invest 50% more in vocational training than the average German company.
.
Tax advantages are another reason. The high taxes on assets in France and the inheritance tax in the U.S. prevent the accumulation of capital necessary for the formation of a strong mid-sized sector. [Moi ici: Como diz a filha do assaltante de bancos, "Temos de perder a vergonha de ir buscar a quem está a acumular dinheiro"]

Recordar este texto "Empresas pequenas concentradas em nichos mundiais"

"Assim, temos empresas concentradas em servir um nicho, por isso é que eu os achei (aos alemães) tão arrogantes no meu primeiro encontro profissional... os pedidos da minha empresa estavam a desviar-se do nicho onde eles nadavam... um nicho é, por definição, pequeno. Se uma empresa se mantém concentrada num nicho e quer crescer só há um caminho... percorrer o mundo à procura de mais clientes que se encaixem no nicho... a geografia tem de ser irrelevante para eles."

E comparar:

"Why is this mental internationalization so important? Because while Hidden Champions may be small, they compete on a global scale. They achieve world-class quality by keeping their focus narrow; focus is the most important element of a Hidden Champion’s strategy. Flexi, for example, makes only one product — retractable dog leashes — but has the claim to make them better than anyone else. This has allowed them to reach 70% of market share in this category. But focus makes a market small. How can you make it bigger? By globalizing." 

Trechos retirados de "Why Germany Still Has So Many Middle-Class Manufacturing Jobs"

"the annihilation of the mid-market"

O Armando recomendou-me a leitura de "Interview: Jim Graham, former COO of The Gym Group, gives his thoughts on the industry" e não pude deixar de recordar os salami slicers e Bruce Jenner ao ler:

"The establishment of a scaled-up low-cost segment, as well as the after-shock of the 2008 recession, has forced people to think differently. Burning platforms and in-flows of new money always brings about change. Adapt or die, I guess.
.
The major change has been the annihilation of the mid-market. It’s all but complete now, and that has to be a good thing since many of the assets were poor, the product tired and lacking relevance to the mass market it once owned.
.
We’re also seeing material new investment in technology to deliver a digital component to the physical experience. In the long-run this is a good thing for the consumer, but the digital ecosystem is ostensibly chaotic and in the short-term there’s questionable value to the customer from a lot of the early offerings. There are some interesting new niche products in play, but I’m not sure many will scale effectively."

Como não recuar a 2006 e a "Porque não podemos ser uma Arca de Noé! (II)" ou a "Quando se acorda atolado num pântano de indefinição..." e a "The vanishing middle market".

Foram estes textos, conjugados com o livro de Berger e com os primeiros casos de sucesso que acompanhava, de quem procurava alternativas ao modelo que tinha tido tanto sucesso antes da chegada da China à OMC, que me orientaram para a visão optimista que alimento desde então.

Continua.

Outro exemplo analógico de Mongo; o chocolate

Na coluna do lado direito, nas citações, encontra-se:

"When something is commoditized, an adjacent market becomes valuable"

Ontem, ao ler "Little Chocolate’s Big Moment" sorri quando encontrei:

"“When you have increasing concentration of producers in the center, you leave room on the periphery for specialization,”
...
In other words, as all the stuff in the middle, whether it’s from Hershey’s or Budweiser, gets more similar, there’s more room for outliers, whether from Dandelion or Brooklyn Brewery."[Moi ici: Vêem a lógica do canadiano e por que ela pode resultar?]

O artigo, para um missionário do Evangelho do Valor, um adepto da concorrência imperfeita que prevê um paradigma económico chamado Mongo, é das coisas mais deliciosas que se podem ler.

"Craft chocolate, like beer and coffee before it, is ready to go mainstream."

Lá chegaremos ao tempo em que o craft estará de volta, para alimentar e ser alimentado num baile de co-criação, a todos os sectores de actividade económica:

"The backlash against Big Food has crept from the supermarket’s beer and coffee aisles into the chocolate aisle—a rejection of candy as commodity, its units identical and cheap."

E para os que acreditam que tudo se resume a custos:

"At Whole Foods, for example, which sells only bars that it considers "ethically sourced,” the number of chocolate suppliers has increased 50 percent in the last four years.
.
“I don’t think Mars or Hershey has anything to worry about,” says Clay Gordon, a craft chocolate adviser, teacher, and author. The difference between craft chocolate (small, artisanal) and industrial stuff (mass-made, consistent), he says, is so fundamental that they aren’t really competitors."[Moi ici: Por isto é que deixei de pensar em David vs Golias e passei a David e Golias]

BTW, os problemas da Hershey com a compra da anterior marca craf Scharffen Berger só ilustram aquele repelão das tribos:

"-Tu não és meu irmão de sangue!"

"Midsize companies can’t compete ... on scale"

"Companies with between $10 million and $1 billion in sales saw 6.3 percent revenue growth in first quarter 2016, compared to just 1.1 percent for the economy as a whole, according to the National Center for the Middle Market.
...
Differentiation is key.
Midsize companies can’t compete with their large-cap counterparts on scale, so they need other ways to differentiate themselves. One way to do that, said Bala Ganesh, senior director of marketing for the US 2020 Team at UPS, is to offer a unique customer experience. “Just purely competing on price is impossible for smaller retailers,” Ganesh said. “You want to create unique products, a unique experience or some unique bundle not available from big box retailers.”.
One example might be to build a social community of like-minded consumers around a product offering, where the price of admission is a purchase or service subscription. [Moi ici: Uma tribo] Or bundle existing products and services in customized ways [Moi ici: Fugir do vómito industrial que só pensa em uniformidade] not available from larger outlets. “This is how they can hit above their average,” Ganesh added.
.
Ganesh identifies five areas where midmarket companies must excel to play in the big leagues: product selection, a flawless web or mobile experience, shipping and delivery transparency, flexible pickup options and an easy return process. “This is what drives demand. The consumer buying journey doesn’t end after you click buy, and more and more retailers are recognizing that,” Bala said."

Trechos retirados de "How midmarket companies use tech to compete with the big guys"

Um anónimo da província fica todo inchado (parte II)

Parte I.

Depois da leitura de "Everything we thought we knew about free trade is wrong" fica algum desapontamento.

Um longo texto que podia ser assinado por Francisco Louçã, passa 96% do tempo a culpar o comércio livre pelos problemas da economia americana para, no fim, rematar com:

"So does that mean that Trump is right in his anti-free trade crusade? No, says Dani Rodrik, economist at Harvard University.
.
“Trump is correct about the malaise that lower and middle class voters feel, but I cannot think of a single trade policy of his that I agree with. He is deluded in thinking that he can bring manufacturing jobs back to the US by changing trade policies,” Rodrik says. “And his belligerent, unilateralist tone on trade policy will do more harm than good.”
.
In this sense, Ricardian analysis is right: The jobs America lost in the last half-century would inevitably have been shed due to comparative advantage, as US productivity climbed. To bring them back now would cost the US economy enormously."

Outra incoerência ou falha do texto e que choca com a minha interpretação para o fenómeno, descrita na parte I, é esta:

"“What Ricardo imagined was you could easily move the capital from one country to another, and you simply can’t do it,” Keen says. “You can’t take a spinning jenny and wave a Harry Potter wand over it and get a wine press out of it. It’s simply nonsense.”" 

 Mas é isso precisamente o que acontece, é isso que provoca o desaparecimento das indústrias e impede a subida na escala de valor. Foi o capital chinês e os empresários chineses que criaram a "fábrica do mundo"? Nope!
A China tinha o ambiente e a mão-de-obra, o capital fluiu livre e facilmente dos EUA para a China. Capital e atenção empatado na China não tinha nem tempo nem necessidade de pensar em subir na escala de valor para fazer face à China porque a China era dos donos do capital. Apetece dizer Duh!!!

É como se no exemplo inicial de Ricardo, os detentores de capital inglês tivesse abandonado Inglaterra e viajado para Portugal para produzir vinhos e tecidos.

Onde é que a autora podia ter feito uma investigação mais cuidada?

Depois de escrever:

"Comparative advantage offers a great description of how the market will shift around countries’ finite resources as they respond to the cheapening of production abroad. But, says Keen, it tells us very little about what economies must do to keep growing. And as Baker points out, next to nothing about how to actually improve people’s living standards."

Devia estudar exemplos como o alemão, como o português e até americanos como o da Marlin, para perceber como sectores tradicionais conseguem subir na escala de valor.

A mentalidade da tríade, que só acredita no eficientismo, é mais culpada pela situação americana do que o comércio livre.


BTW, as acusações de manipulação do câmbio são de rir. Quem estiver inocente que atire a primeira pedra.

Para reflexão

A propósito de "Howard Schultz Stepping Down as Starbucks CEO to Focus on Higher-End Shops".

Vários pontos a reter:

• subir na escala de valor;
• apostar nas experiências;
• focalização

A propósito de "Middle-Market Woes Inspire Starbucks’s Bet on Luxury Coffee":

"Starbucks plans to open 20 to 30 giant Starbucks Reserve Roastery and Tasting Room outlets—where rare, exotic coffee grown in small batches will be roasted on site and prepared using a variety of brewing methods—as well as up to 1,000 smaller stores under the Starbucks Reserve brand.
.
“We’ve seen so-called ‘indies’ selling cups of coffee for a lot more than we’re charging and creating an interesting buzz,” Mr. Schultz said last week in an interview.
.
Some experts say the company’s plan to create a subbrand of luxury coffee shops aimed at the affluent is a good strategic move, given consumers’ growing interest in better-quality coffee.
...
Erich Joachimsthaler, chief executive of brand-strategy consulting firm Vivaldi, likens what is happening in the coffee business to what has happened in the beer industry, which has been hurt by the rise of craft breweries. “They never protected themselves on the high end,” he said of beer companies. “I think Starbucks sees that the middle is slowing down.”
.
It isn’t just wealthy consumers who might be willing to pay more for coffee marketed as a more gourmet product.
...
Starbucks created the high-end coffee category but the landscape has changed drastically in recent years. Starbucks now finds itself in the middle of the market, with independent coffee shops and larger companies such as Blue Bottle Coffee Co. serving an ever more discerning customer while McDonald’s Corp., Dunkin’ Brands Group Inc.’s Dunkin' Donuts chain and convenience stores are offering coffee and espresso drinks on the cheap."

Como não recuar a 2006 e ao fenómeno da polarização do mercado. Como não recuar a 2010 e perceber a aterragem da Starbucks no ponto 4 quando estava entretida a subir para o ponto 3:

E assim se faz Mongo

"In addition to meeting the perennial need for growth, marketers have been launching more brands in response to the fragmentation of traditional segments. Consider, for example, how customers are migrating out of the middle to the low and high ends of the market in cars, clothes, computers, retailing, and other industries. At the same time, while globalizing consumer tastes are creating segments in some markets that cut across geographies, growing ethnic diversity in other markets is exacerbating fragmentation as customers seek products with local flavor. Furthermore, it's increasingly feasible for marketers to develop and launch brands cost-effectively for fragmenting customer segments. Distribution costs and communication costs are falling, and manufacturing flexibility is on the rise."

Recordar "Polarização do mercado ou como David e Golias podem co-existir"

Trecho retirado de "Profiting from Polarization"

The Mid-market (parte I)

"Does all this activity mean the mid-market is finally disappearing, or can operators in this segment of the market evolve to survive? We ask the experts... [Moi ici: Segue-se a resposta de Ray Algar]
...
Mid-market clubs were very slow to respond when low-cost gyms entered the market and disrupted the status quo. Now, unless they can offer something more compelling, it will only be a matter of time before more of these generic health clubs start to close.
.
In the last couple of years, we've seen a disproportionate number of mid-market independents close as membership stagnated, membership prices remained flat and insufficient funds were generated to reinvest into refreshing the experience.
.
The low-cost and premium markets are both well defined, but historically the mid-market brands have deliberately been more generic. Neither one thing or the other.
...
The remaining legacy brands need to take stock and now jettison things which no longer serve them, or their members, and rediscover their core excellence. Similar offerings may be good enough when there's significant geographic distance between clubs, but can be disastrous as the distance between health clubs shortens.
...
Mid-market clubs need to become experts, and build a reputation, in an area they really care about."

Como não recuar a 2005 e ao primeiro artigo que li sobre o fim do middle-market com a polarização do mercado: The vanishing middle market,” The McKinsey Quarterly, 2005 Number 4.
 
Trechos retirados do número de Outubro da revista "Health Club Management"

Acerca da importância da clareza

"we identify two types of companies with purpose. The first type, high purpose-camaraderie organizations, includes companies that score high on purpose and also on dimensions of workplace camaraderie (e.g. “This is a fun place to work”; “We are all in this together”; “There is a family or team feeling here”). The second type includes high Purpose-Clarity organizations that score high on purpose but also on dimensions of management clarity (e.g. “Management makes its expectations clear”; “Management has a clear view of where the organization is going and how to get there”).
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When we replaced our initial measure of purpose with these measures capturing the two types of purpose organizations, we found that only the high Purpose-Clarity organizations exhibit superior accounting and stock market performance."

Não basta um bom ambiente, é também preciso clareza sobre qual o destino e como vamos lá chegar.
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E vale a pena sublinhar o papel das chefias intermédias:

"We also found that middle managers and professional workers seem to be the key players in driving this relationship, not hourly workers and not top executives. This last finding underscores the absolute importance of fostering an effective middle manager layer within firms: managers who buy into the vision of the company and can make daily decisions that guide the firm in the right direction.
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Ultimately, our study suggests that purpose does, in fact, matter. But it only matters if it is implemented in conjunction with clear, concise direction from top management and in such a way that the middle layer within the firm is fully bought in."

Trechos retirados de "The Type of Purpose That Makes Companies More Profitable"

É preciso ser coerente

Há dias fiquei abismado por ouvir Nicolau Santos na Antena 1 a propor que Portugal se tornasse um paraíso fiscal para os investidores estrangeiros.
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Na altura no Twitter comentei:

Começar o dia com vergonha alheia. Bruno de Cravalho quer ser presidente do Benfica? Ñ, pior. Nico do laço quer fazer de PT paraíso fiscal

— Carlos P da Cruz (@ccz1) May 3, 2016

Faria sentido Bruno de Carvalho querer ser presidente do Benfica?
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O seu passado não seria um CV recomendável para se atirar a esse objectivo. Será que o CV de Portugal o torna recomendável para esse objectivo?
Qual o histórico?
Qual o reflexo instintivo da classe política portuguesa?
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Voltei a lembrar-me disto quando ontem li "Sounds Like the Return of Ron Johnson":

"Interesting to read that Land’s End – the middle of the market retailer – is now being led by CEO with upscale fashion aspirations.  She prefers New York to the Dodgeville, Wisconsin headquarters, wants to move the brand upscale and refers to some of the company’s traditional offerings as “ugly.”
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But has the board forgotten the basics of leadership here?  As many critics have argued, the attempts to turn around Penney’s were doomed by a culture clash, the inability to bring people along and basically a lack of leadership."

Como não recordar Pine & Gilmore e o espaço de Minkowski em "O paradoxo da estratégia (parte II: As posições anteriores limitam as posições futuras)" ou mesmo Ricardo Haussman e os macacos que não voam.

Os outsiders vêem oportunidades onde os incumbentes vêem paredes

Meu Deus... fico a pensar no que os portugueses poderiam fazer neste campeonato se saíssem mais do modelo mental padrão. Como esse modelo resulta, têm de ser os outsiders a entrar e aproveitar:

"one of a number of custom retailers disrupting the luxury market, luring consumers with cheaper options and the ability to design their own products. [Moi ici: Interacção! Personalização!!!] As the proliferation of fast fashion and e-commerce creates an increasingly detached shopping landscape, these companies are working to rebuild relationships with consumers by adding a touch of personalization to the digital space. The challenge comes in building name recognition and expanding variety amid a mass customization market.
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custom companies hold a level of accountability to their customers that you don’t see in the traditional retail space.
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“There’s this sense of stewardship. You want to make sure the customer is making the right choices, and you want to inform them to make the right choices,”
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“bringing back old-school craftsmanship” and responding to a shift in men’s wear from off-the-rack styles to customizable pieces.
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Increased accessibility and lower price points become a selling point by minimizing the middle men, in this case wholesalers, distributors, retailers, salespeople and the costs associated from typical brick-and-mortar style stores.
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“The biggest challenge with the space is that this is all mass customization,” Mulpuru-Kodali said. “The companies generally are limited by the few items they can customize. They’re like pizza restaurants with lots of variants around a few core items. To scale, they’ll need to offer much more variety and choice.”
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Beyond a return to tradition, custom wear gives the consumer a sense of ownership and artistic jurisdiction over their apparel, an integral element of building truly unique personal style.[Moi ici Tribos de Mongo!]
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“People are looking to be part of the process,” Pagano said. “For millennials, expression is such a core value of what we espouse and what we purchase.”
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Jodie Fox, co-founder of custom women’s shoe company Shoes of Prey, echoed Pagano, and said that giving the consumer the ability to design their own products helps enhance custom brands and gives them an edge over standard retailers.
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“Customization is a really important thing now, really having that ownership and connection to what [consumers] want,”
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“I think that a lot of brands that have been around for a long time have to think about how they’re going to exist in a digital environment,” said Hamilton, whose company was founded by his father before the dawn of the Internet age. “Especially custom, which is so special because there’s this interaction with somebody who’s guiding you through all these decisions."

Trechos retirados de "Customization is the next front for luxury retailers"

O mundo a mudar, outra vez (parte I)

O mundo a mudar, outra vez, "German Exporters Shudder as China Economy Slows":

"German exports to the important Chinese market are suffering their sharpest drop in a quarter of a century, casting a shadow over Europe’s biggest economy and showing the global impact of China’s slowdown.

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With new orders from China and other emerging economies sagging, German businesses fear the bad news is only beginning, data and surveys released in recent days suggest.
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German exports to the U.S. and many other markets are still growing, cushioning the impact of China’s troubles. But with much of Europe still licking its wounds from the long eurozone debt crisis, business confidence in Germany is vulnerable to continued cooling in Asia.
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Above all, capital-goods sales to Chinese factories are down, as overcapacity there takes its toll on investment spending.
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The stakes are high for Germany. The 30 companies in its DAX stock-market index have 672 subsidiaries in China, according to the Munich-based consultancy EAC.
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Some Chinese companies have started to dump unused machinery on the market, further hurting German companies’ sales and profit margins.
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Bright spots remain. Many German companies in consumer and service sectors say they’re benefiting from China’s rapidly growing middle class. Engineering companies that can help China improve its infrastructure and relieve traffic pressures, and environmental-technology companies whose equipment can help reduce pollution, are also reporting growing orders.
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But it is the U.S. that is doing most to compensate for China’s stumble. German exports to the U.S. rose just over 19% from January to November from a year earlier, according to the statistics office."

Que oportunidades e ameaças para a sua PME por trás desta evolução?
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Já reparou como a China se está a transformar numa economia de consumo?

E que impacte terá esta evolução na economia alemã? Quais as consequências para o resto da eurozona?

Pricing man (parte II) - para reflexão

Mais um trecho retirado de "Confessions of the Pricing Man: How Price Affects Everything" de Hermann Simon.

"Countries show significant differences in how profitable their companies are. I have tracked data on this topic for many years, and attribute some of the results to cultural norms. Figure 5.1 compares the average profit margins for companies in 22 countries.

US companies are in the middle of the pack at 6.2 %. German companies have an average after-tax profit of 4.2 %, placing them in the lower half despite their improved performance in the recent past. Japanese companies have assumed their customary place near the bottom, with a meager 2.0 %. The average across all countries works out to 6.0 %.

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What causes these sharp differences? To a large degree it is a matter of having the wrong goals. While I wouldn’t say these numbers are completely self-fulfilling prophecies, they do reflect the priorities that companies set. Too many companies have given higher priority to goals other than profit.

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There is nothing inherently wrong with having sales, volume, and market share targets. Most companies have them and work hard to strike the right balance. These three secondary goals, however, offer you no useful guidance for price setting. Price setting requires a thorough understanding of two things: how your customers perceive your value and the profit level you need to sustain or improve that value. If market share is your primary goal, why don’t you just give away your product for free? Or even pay customers to use it? Of course such a strategy makes no sense. The reality in almost all companies is that goal setting is not an “either-or” exercise. 

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Balance is paramount. The central problem is that most companies are not balanced. They still underemphasize profits relative to such goals as market share, revenue, volume, or growth. And they misunderstand the often dire consequences of that prioritization. This imbalance results in bizarre pricing strategies and ineffective marketing tactics."

Um exemplo da polarização do mercado

A isto que se segue aprendi a chamar de polarização do mercado no artigo de 2005 que refiro em ""Listen very carefully, I shall say this only once."" e continua válido e cada vez com mais força à medida que Mongo se entranha:

"For several years, I have been paying close attention to the emergence of the global low-cost gym segment. I understand the business model and how they compete to win customers and the pressure they apply to many ‘legacy’ or established operators. However, it was only after taking a step back that a broader perspective emerged and I realised that mature health and fitness markets seem to be bifurcating or forking along two distinct pathways, which I describe as ‘self-service’ and ‘supported’.
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Many consumers have steadily been taking control of activities once outsourced to others – selfscanning groceries, using apps to book hotels and flight tickets – and enjoy the empowering feeling of serving themselves. Low-cost gyms have very effectively tapped this phenomenon, attracting members seeking a ‘narrow’ fitness experience who are competent exercisers and content to serve themselves. However, perhaps less evident is the second ‘supported’ pathway, where  customers seek and pay for a more guided experience. This is where the very best micro gyms and studios are to found, purposely engaged in helping customers reach a desired health and wellbeing aspiration. So one pathway serves up outputs (facilities, equipment, programmes etc) and the other outcomes (creating a meaningful difference in a member or customer’s life).
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If a club is stuck between these two pathways it is a vulnerable position [Moi ici: Stuck in the middle] because it creates a sense of confusion, not just among existing and new members, but also staff and other stakeholders. Also the experience the member receives may not be aligned with the price – members may feel they receive little or no valued support and yet are paying two or three times more than a low-cost, self-serve
experience. Journalists, if at all interested in the business, would also struggle to understand what the club believes in and what it excels at.
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An interesting trend which is presently better evidenced in the United States is the growing number of consumers choosing to hold membership of multiple clubs or instead opting for a ‘pay-as-you-train’ relationship taking advantage of class and gym pass booking platforms
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It suggests that some consumers are seeking a more open relationship with fitness providers, one based on a ‘best-in-class’ approach to their health and fitness regime. This means they ask themselves ‘where is the best indoor boot camp experience in Boston on a Thursday evening?’ – not the closest, but the best. This phenomenon begins to erode the idea that a single fitness operator can ‘monopolise’ a consumer’s health and fitness experiences."

E a sua empresa, também está atolada no pântano da indefinição?
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Também precisa de um choque ao estilo de Mateus 10, 34-36?
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Talvez possamos ajudar.

Trechos retirados de "Health club industry mid-market report – investigating how brands are repositioning in an era of rising competition" (Researched and written by Ray Algar, Managing Director, Oxygen Consulting, UK. December 2015).