From you to me, it's our way

A propósito destes cenários, a propósito de Mongo, a propósito do que aqui se costuma escrever sobre mudar o modelo mental dos agricultores:
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"A LinkedIn For Local Food And Farmers"
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"More jobs. More money in the local economy. More resilient supply chains. Better food. Less CO2, and other pollution. Advocates of local food “webs” point to all kinds of advantages from reducing the distance between field and plate. And that’s before you even talk about the less tangible benefits of sourcing from someone you know, rather than from a company whose interests are elsewhere."

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Quando a experiência dos clientes é mais forte que ...

... a adição do controlo de custos
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Para quem acha que o futuro é da Amazon e de quem vende on-line, só...
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Uma empresa que começou on-line e que está a ganhar presença física por que:
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"Having a retail presence makes sense to us for four reasons. First, our customers wanted it. Second, it allows us to build close personal relationships with customers by meeting them, (Moi ici: Quantos ainda não perceberam a magia de um Genius Bar) which you don't get from an online transaction. Third, the showrooms act as learning laboratories, and help us to create ways to make shopping for glasses online easier based on how we see people behaving physically in-person. Fourth, the stores are a great training opportunity for our staff. When they've served people in our showrooms, they do a better job helping customers who need assistance by phone or over email."
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"physical selling will probably always be an important part of our branding and will help us to innovate and create the best customer experience possible."
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Reparem no título "Four Reasons Why an Online Retailer Decided to Open Stores"
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Os batoteiros sabem como actuar... sabem como raptar o futuro.

A democratização da produção...

Parem para ver este filme e imaginem... se tiverem imaginação suficiente para abarcar a awesomeness que aí vem...

E os zarolhos, os ceguetas dos designers que andam por aí a chorar pelos cantos..
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Não perder "Ben Franklin Would Have Loved This: Hackerspaces at the Public Library"

Cenarização e Mongo

"What Consumer Culture Will Look Like In 2020 (And How Brands Can Adapt)"

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"The brands that succeed will be the ones that are the most adaptable (Moi ici: As mais robustas) to whatever nature throws our way. The Consumer Futures 2020 report, developed by the U.K.'s Forum For The Future, takes a stab at imagining what consumer culture will look like nearly a decade down the line. There are four potential paths we might take:  (Moi ici: 4 cenários. Mais uma vez: o essencial não é acertar, o propósito é estar preparado para o que pode acontecer)

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(Moi ici: Os sublinhados a vermelho são os que associo a Mongo)

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MY WAY
In this scenario, the economy is prosperous and entrepreneurial, local government thrives (but national government is weak), society is optimistic but still divided between the 1% and the rest of us, and we mostly buy items from local brands, individual producers, and online exchanges. Our relationship with brands is unpredictable, and largely based on peer recommendations and quality of products (the dollar store isn’t so popular anymore). The concept of "sustainability" is important at the local level, but on a larger scale, our own needs are more important. 

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This is a fairly rosy view of our future--one where we rise up from the current recession and modify supply chains to become much more fluid.

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(Moi ici: Não acredito na viabilidade do cenário que se segue)

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SELL IT TO ME
In this future, the global economy is flourishing, consumers spend like crazy, and large companies rule. These big companies are trusted and counted on to offer solutions to pressing environmental problems. We purchase items from brands we trust and all-encompassing "shopper-tainment" villages. "Sustainability" is thought of us a mainstream issue, but one that doesn’t require a lifestyle change because businesses will deal with it. Local government is weak, but national government is strong. Popular products include branded, specialized local produce, personalized products (i.e. cereal made to order, soap bars with individual scents), (Moi ici: Este sublinhado faz parte de Mongo, tenho dificuldade em o associar a "large companies rule") 

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This is possibly the least plausible scenario. (Moi ici: De acordo) It speculates that transport infrastructure will become more expensive, but it seems implausible that resource issues and climate change won’t dramatically interfere with a globally dominated supply chain--even one that only sources products in direct response to consumer demand.

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FROM ME TO YOU
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The economy here is uncertain, everyone is worried about climate change and extreme weather events, local communities are increasingly looking to alternative economic models (and the Transition Town movement), and the government has lost our confidence. There is a general distrust of big business, and people buy local and direct. Peer-to-peer swap services are also popular, and people increasingly produce their own food in urban farms. Word of mouth and product quality are far more important than brand loyalty. Popular products include the "UGrow" service, which lets users sell their produce through regional and national distributors; hemp ( just in general); and an online filtering system that lets users set geographical parameters on their purchasing decisions.
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The "From Me To You" scenario seems plausible enough. High oil prices have resulted in the increased popularity of railways and canals, and supply chains have had to become much more diverse in response to supply failures and climate change. Instead of giant distribution centers, retailers use smaller, local systems.
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I’M IN YOUR HANDS
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This world has an economy that is slowly recovering from the recession, strong national identities, big businesses that are required to follow strict government environmental guidelines, and centralized governments. Consumers purchase things from trusted brands, even buying in to long-term contracts to get better value. Everyone is happy to share personal data with companies that provide quality, durable products. The most popular products include meals delivered from the local supermarket using anything you want from the store; retailer-leased washing machines, dishwashers, and other appliances; and personalized health products (smoothie with statins, anyone?).

This is the Big Brother scenario--but in this case, Big Brother is actually doing some good. (Moi ici: Não acredito, o Big Brother não consegue fazer o bem, não permite a variedade, a adequação ao indivíduo) One thing that’s still in trouble: transportation, which hasn’t changed much since today. Congestion is a huge problem, even in the face of sky-high oil prices. Supply chains have largely integrated vertically, and they efficiently use transport infrastructure, including airships and ultra-long freight trains.

Chances are, the real 2020 will fall somewhere in the middle of these scenarios. But for what it’s worth, our money is on a combination of "My Way" and "From Me To You"--smaller, local economies with an emphasis on decreasing waste and maximizing resources. Worried companies (and everyone else) can check out all of the scenarios here. (Moi ici: Basta ver os meus sublinhados a vermelho para perceber que também aposto o meu dinheiro neles)

A reacção

No jornal Metro de hoje encontrei a história "Caro leitor, "Ikeámos" a Ikea"
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"As grandes cadeias estão a deixar as nossas casas todas iguais. Por isso, pensámos fora da caixa da Ikea e pedimos à famosa autora do blog Ikea Hackers, Mei Mei, para personalizar algumas das peças genéricas da cadeia sueca."
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A reacção...
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No livro "Adapt" de Tim Harford li que Estaline mandou construir em Magnitogorsk uma cidade operária em que todas as casas eram iguais e em que a única variedade de raiz residia nos candeeiros usados nas divisões dos apartamentos... existiam dois modelos (salvo erro, branco e laranja).
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Personalização, customização, individualidade... Mongo

Gostava de perceber o que está por detrás desta explosão...

Descobri esta história há bocado:

• "Chobani: The unlikely king of yogurt"
• "Contending with a Product Boom at Chobani"

Como é que num mercado como o norte-americano, uma empresa em apenas 4 anos passa de 0 vendas para a número 3 em vendas?

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Como é que uma empresa consegue fazer isto? O que é que isto quer dizer? E isto em plena "crise internacional"...

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Estamos a falar de alguém que viu uma publicidade...

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"By 2005, I thought maybe I would relax and have a family. But one day I opened a piece of mail. It said, "Fully equipped yogurt factory for sale." I threw it away. But then I thought about it later and went back and got it out of the garbage. I called. It was nearby, in South Edmeston, N.Y., near Utica. Kraft was closing it and getting out of the yogurt business. There were a million reasons not to buy it."

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Mercados saturados, em que todos competem da mesma forma, em que todos seguem a mesma cartilha... talvez precisem de outsiders, de autenticidade, de gente com a mão na massa...

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De certeza que há aqui algo a merecer estudo...

Mais um exemplo da economia de Mongo

A explosão dos consumidores-produtores, os prosumers do casal Toffler, mais um exemplo:
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"Busque came up with the idea for TaskRabbit in 2008 in Boston. It was too cold to go out, and she and her husband Kevin needed to buy a big heavy bag of dog food for her dog Kobe. She wondered if there was any service that let people easily outsource errands and tasks. There wasn’t, so she quit her job four months later to start a company.
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TaskRabbit, which lets people post tasks that can be subsequently bid on, operates in five cities

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TaskRabbit is now seeing 9,000 tasks a month and has tripled its net revenue since its Series A funding in May. The company monetizes by taking a fee of between 13% – 30% from each task completed."

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Trecho retirado de "TaskRabbit Gets $17.8M For “Aggressive” Expansion, Wants To Grow Internationally And Beyond"

Evolution is smarter than we are

"As the biochemist Leslie Orgel famously remarked, ‘Evolution is cleverer than you are’, meaning that when an evolutionary process is let loose upon a problem, it will often find solutions that no human designer would have dreamed of. But there is an unhelpful corollary to Orgel’s maxim: if the problem is misstated then evolution is likely to find loopholes few of us could have imagined. In biological evolution, of course, there is no one to misstate the objective. Genes succeed if they are passed down the generations. But with Karl Sims’s virtual evolution, it was Sims who set the criteria for reproductive success and the results were sometimes perverse. There is a revealing moment in the video which displays a creature that evolved to move quickly on land. The creature, a crude slab of a body with two blocks loosely attached, simply rolls around and around in a wide circle, its ‘head’ staying still while its ‘legs’, crossing and uncrossing, mark out the circle’s circumference. The virtual creature looks like one of life’s losers, but it isn’t: it’s a winner, because it is achieving the goal Karl Sims set: move quickly on a flat plane.
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we discovered that the economy is itself an evolutionary environment in which a huge variety of ingenious profit-seeking strategies emerge through a decentralised process of trial and error. As Leslie Orgel’s rule suggests, what emerges is far more brilliant than any single planner could have dreamed up. But as the dark side of Orgel’s rule predicts, if the rules of the economic game are poorly written, economic evolution will find the loopholes. That is why sensible-seeming environmental rules can produce perverse results: rainforest chopped down to produce palm oil; trucks laden with woodchips braving the congestion of central London; the rise and rise of the SUV. Evolution is smarter than we are, and economic evolution tends to outsmart the rules we erect to guide it."
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Trechos retirados do capítulo V do livro "Adapt" de Tim Harford

Acerca da estratégia

"A new strategy is, in the language of science, a hypothesis, and its implementation is an experiment. As results appear, good leaders learn more about what does and doesn’t work and adjust their strategies accordingly.
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a good business strategy deals with the edge between the known and the unknown. Again, it is competition with others that pushes us to edges of knowledge.
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Given that we are working on the edge, asking for a strategy that is guaranteed to work is like asking a scientist for a hypothesis that is guaranteed to be true—it is a dumb request. The problem of coming up with a good strategy has the same logical structure as the problem of coming up with a good scientific hypothesis.
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A good strategy is, in the end, a hypothesis about what will work. Not a wild theory, but an educated judgment. And there isn’t anyone more educated about your businesses than the group in this room.
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But in a world of change and flux, “more of the same” is rarely the right answer. In a changing world, a good strategy must have an entrepreneurial component. That is, it must embody some ideas or insights into new combinations of resources for dealing with new risks and opportunities.
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Treating strategy like a problem in deduction assumes that anything worth knowing is already known—that only computation is required. Like computation, deduction applies a fixed set of logical rules to a fixed set of known facts.
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The presumption that all important knowledge is already known, or available through consultation with authorities, deadens innovation. It is this presumption that stifles change in traditional societies and blocks improvement in organizations and societies that come to believe that their way is the best way. To generate a strategy, one must put aside the comfort and security of pure deduction and launch into the murkier waters of induction, analogy, judgment, and insight."
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Pois, onde está o conhecimento que resulta das relações amorosas com clientes, fornecedores, produtos e serviços? Como é que ele é introduzido nas análises dos macroeconomistas que querem explicar o presente e intuir o futuro?
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Por exemplo, qual a narrativa da tríade para explicar que as exportações portuguesas para fora do espaço comunitário tenham crescido mais de 23% no trimestre que terminou com Outubro de 2011?
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23% de aumento para fora da UE, 23% de aumento apesar de trabalharmos e pagarmos salários em marcos alemães!!!
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Por que é que nunca ninguém atira estes números à tríade em busca de uma explicação?
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Trechos retirados de "Good Strategy, Bad Strategy"

Dicas de Tufte

MCJ Edward Tufte Notes

Os lemingues

Propostas de valor recíprocas

A leitura de "Service-dominant logic and value propositions: Re-examining our mental models" deixou-me com aquela sensação de ter subido mais uns degraus, ou de ter alargado mais uns centímetros o raio do toroide de conhecimento que me envolve.
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Reflicto e escrevo sobre proposta de valor neste blogue, porque é um tema fundamental para as empresas. Que promessa de valor uma empresa pode oferecer, pode propor aos seus clientes-alvo? Quando uma empresa identifica os seus clientes-alvo, tem de equacionar o que vai prometer, o que vai oferecer, o que vai proporcionar aos seus clientes, que experiências originadoras de valor eles vão poder sentir, experienciar e integrar nas suas vidas.
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Em toda esta reflexão a preocupação, a direcção do vector é do fornecedor para os cliente-alvo. Contudo, já por várias vezes senti pisar terreno estranho ao abordar o tema do "armadilhar".
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Também já aqui escrevi que num negócio não são só os clientes a escolherem os fornecedores, os fornecedores também devem escolher os seus clientes-alvo:

• Além dos fornecedores, escolher, também, os clientes
• Escolher, escolher, escolher

O que é que a leitura deste artigo me trouxe?

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No final, virei-me para mim mesmo e exclamei: Duh!!! Estava na cara. Faltava dar um pequeno passo, faltava unir os pontos para ver o boneco!!!

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"customers’ participate in the co-creation of value, which they assess through service experiences gained in the co-sharing and integrating of resources with suppliers, especially skills and knowledge. Rather than firms marketing to customers, emphasis is placed on suppliers or other parties marketing with customers, as part of an interactive process. It follows that marketing is not producer-dominant or even customer-dominant but service-dominant. The customer is the arbiter of value cocreated in direct interaction with suppliers, and most importantly, the arbiter of value in-use derived from interaction with goods and other physical resources purchased. In other words, goods and physical (operand) resources are seen as service appliances, distribution mechanisms for service, and their value is determined at the time of use, as value-in-use.

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A value proposition is usually taken to mean the marketing offer or value promise initiated by one party with the intent that it be accepted by another. On the face of it, this definition seems reasonable in a mainstream marketing context but in S-D logic with its emphasis on interaction and service reciprocity, we argue that something of potential use is being misconstrued. In the shift from a unidirectional and monological logic to participative and reciprocal logic, the meanings of words matter.

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value propositions are co-produced but seldom pre-packaged by the supplier. Instead, suppliers and customers engage in dialogue and work with emergent “components of value propositions, which are then considered and modified to the satisfaction of both parties”

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(Moi ici: Fica inevitável pensar no que aí vem) the concept of reciprocal value propositions represents a more recent area for development. Glaser (2006) claims that if participants in the value creating process recognise that their objectives are complementary, rather than antagonistic, and carry this idea into the process of negotiating then the value outcomes for all parties are likely to be enhanced. Value in this sense is not a strategy or a set of customer benefits proposed in exchange for a monetary price but an all inclusive reckoning, where negotiation is the path by which participants share in the creation of value. In similar spirit, Ballantyne and Varey (2006) point out that there can be no satisfactory relationship development unless exchange participants reciprocally determine their own sense of what is of value, and begin this process with the development of reciprocal value propositions.

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The enterprise can initiate or participate in working together to develop value propositions as reciprocal promises of value - but the beneficiaries determine what is of value in use."

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Interessante esta cena das propostas de valor recíprocas!!!

Entre conselhos de ministros, fazia pela vida

PÁRA DE CAVAR!!!

Há bocado liguei o rádio e, por acidente, aterrei no Forum da TSF, bastou-me ouvir um interveniente para, rapidamente, me recordar do motivo porque não oiço tal programa há mais meses do que consigo, ou quero, recordar.
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Um representante de uma associação de comerciantes do distrito do Porto, qual galambista encartado, acaba de dizer:
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"É preferível vender com prejuízo do que não vender"
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O cainesianismo burro já contaminou estas cabeças...
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2012 vai ser melhor que 2011 para o comércio?
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2013 vai ser melhor que 2012 para o comércio?
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Estamos a viver uma perturbação conjuntural ou uma mudança estrutural?
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Acham mesmo que faz sentido enterrarem-se cada vez mais? Como vão estar no final de 2012? Como vão estar no final de 2013?
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Aprendam com a Pirelli.
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Quando descobrires que estás num buraco, segue a regra número 1.
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PÁRA DE CAVAR!!!

As mudanças em curso na China - parte II

Imaginem isto:

 Ao longo dos anos sempre me impressionaram as imagens deste tipo que vinham do outro lado do mundo. Linhas de produção em que as células de trabalho se repetem até ao infinito.
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Como opera uma unidade produtiva deste tipo? Como um enorme super-petroleiro... como um enorme dinossauro... bem sucedido e adaptado a um modelo de negócio em que são imbatíveis.
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Agora, imaginem um cenário económico em que estes eficientes dinossauros perdem o pé?
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Imaginem um mundo em que os consumidores querem coisas específicas, feitas à medida, feitas em cima da hora, feitas de acordo com as suas indicações...
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O modelo que suporta os dinossauros das fotografias não está preparado para isso...
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Os dinossauros da figura prosperam no mundo das bolas azuis da figura:

Não conseguem competir, nunca conseguirão competir num mundo onde as bolas pretas prosperam. O pior que pode acontecer é tentar estar nos dois mundos ao mesmo tempo, por exemplo, no mundo das bolas vermelhas:

Muitas empresas tentam sobreviver no mundo das bolas vermelhas... vivem apenas o tempo que os concorrentes deixarem...
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O mundo das bolas azuis é um mundo que convive bem com isto:

Como é que esta selva convive com Mongo?
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Mongo é um asteróide que está a bater no mundo económico todos os dias, que está a envenenar a vida da maior parte dos dinossauros azuis...
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O futuro são pequenos mamíferos pretos... irrequietos, flexíveis, rápidos, inovadores, atentos à relação...

As mudanças em curso na China - parte I

Interessante ler acerca das mudanças em curso na China:
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"China Shifts Away From Low-Cost Factories" (Julgo que falham quando pensam que é só uma questão de custo... ainda não descobriram Mongo... a "creator economy" ou a nova era económica - interessante estes comentários também referirem o que já tinha descoberto - os Toffler em "A 3ª Vaga" tinham visto isto em ... 1980)
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Agora comparem o discurso deste economista chinês sobre a evolução salarial na China, com o discurso da tríade...
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"It is my hope that China’s comparative advantage as a low-wage producer does disappear – the sooner the better. But why should I, a Chinese economist, wish to see China’s competitiveness reduced through rising labor costs? (Moi ici: O que diz Vítor Bento? Ou Ferreira do Amaral? Ou Daniel Bessa? Ou ...)
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So the conclusion seems to be that wage growth will not threaten China’s competitiveness in the next 10 or even 20 years. (Moi ici: Acredito que não será bem assim. No entanto, o desafio, na minha opinião, não está nos custos, está no modelo de negócio que passa por esta imagem:

Tudo em grande, tudo normalizado, tudo igual, e muito, muito tempo entre a produção e o consumo.)

Maldade

"as late as 1984 John Kenneth Galbraith was writing that “the Soviet system has made great material progress in recent years is evident both from the statistics and from the general urban scene. . . .
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In 1985 the great economist Paul Samuelson wrote that “what counts is results, and there can be no doubt that the Soviet planning system has been a powerful engine for economic growth. . . . The Soviet model has surely demonstrated that a command economy is capable of mobilizing resources for rapid growth.” In 1989 Lester Thurow asked, “Can economic command [that is, the industrial policy that Thurow advocated] significantly. . . accelerate the growth process? The remarkable performance of the Soviet Union suggests that it can. . . ."
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Trechos retirados de "The Bourgeois Dignity. Why Economics Can’t Explain the Modern World" de  Deirdre McCloskey.

O galambismo explicado

"políticas de atribuição de direitos universais que não estão sujeitos a nenhuma contribuição. São políticas onde os utilizadores podem pedir sem limites porque não pagam, e onde os funcionários que prestam esse serviço podem gastar sem limites porque não há pagamento - tudo é feito e pago com o dinheiro dos outros"
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Trecho retirado de "fim - o fim dos tempos" de Joaquim Aguiar na revista XXI - Ter Opinião

Como aproveitar?

Já sabem que recomendo a subida na escala de valor para fugir à guerra do preço e promover uma sociedade mais rica.
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Contudo, muitas empresas, por causa do modelo mental dos seus gerentes, por causa da tradicional falta de capital, por causa de ... são incapazes de,  ou não querem, ou não podem, dar esse salto.
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Assim, sempre haverá uma fracção do ecossistema económico que actua no mercado do B2B com uma proposta de valor assente na preponderância do preço mais baixo.
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Pois bem, mesmo essa franja pode ter uma oportunidade nos próximos anos segundo "Will China Remain the Low-Cost Country of Choice?"
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"When Will China Be More Expensive Than The US?
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The analysis was based on three assumptions:

• 30% annual increase in China’s wage rates. This is in line with Chinese wage inflation over the last several years.
• 5% annual increase in the strength of the yuan. A widely accepted estimate of the under-valuation of the yuan is 20% - 25% relative to the U.S. dollar.
• 5% annual increase in freight rates. This is a reasonable assumption based on increasing fuel prices and stabilization at pre-boom and bust levels.

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While these hypothetical scenarios certainly don’t rule out China as an LCC contender, they do illustrate the challenges that companies can expect if they have concentrated the supply base for their U.S. operations in China. Again, while no one factor is likely to tip the cost advantage in the favor of the U.S. over China, a combination of reasonably likely factors could well erase some or all of China’s cost advantage over the next four to five years."

O relatório é feito a pensar no fornecimento aos Estados Unidos. E para a Europa? 

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Como aproveitar esta oportunidade?

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Como é que aquela franja pode aproveitar esta oportunidade? Não tenho grande fé que a possam aproveitar... a maioria opera num registo de "survival mode" um dia de cada vez.

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Só aproveitarão como subcontratados de subcontratados de subcontratados ...
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Poderemos captar IDE para este tipo de produções como nos anos 80 a seguir à entrada na UE? Só que este IDE não é tipo Autoeuropa, não é um investimento que possa passar pelo gabinete de um ministério com cuidados especiais, é um IDE que se concretiza em fábricas com 60 a 120 pessoas... isto não vai com PINs, isto tem de ser como se tudo, by default, seja PIN, mesmo a nível de impostos... e não só para o IDE, também para os novos projectos com capital nacional.

Indie capitalism e Mongo!!!

"If you add up all the trends under way today, I believe we are beginning to see the start of something original, and perhaps wonderful. (Moi ici: Interessante e sintomático o uso desta palavra "wonderful". Ler este postal e ver este extracto do filme retirado e disponível aqui)

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Indie (Moi ici: "Indie" de independente) capitalism is, above all, a maker system of economics based on creating new value, not trading old value. It embraces all the strains of maker culture--food, indie music, DIY, craft, 3-D digital fabrication, bio-hacking, app enabling, CAD modeling, robotics, tinkering. Making is not a rare act performed by a few but a routine happening in which just about everyone participates. (Moi ici: Mongo como um mundo de artesãos) Making and using tools are part of a meaningful existence. And tools shift from a ritual presence to a practical role in everyday life. Having great tools and making great things begin to replace consumption as an end in itself.

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We are just two guys who made something people want to buy, and then we sell it to them. No middle men, no big corporations, no venture capital, no investments. (Moi ici: Isto é Mongo!!!)

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A while back, the futurist Paul Saffo predicted a new “creator economy” replacing the industrial and consumer economies. I like the term but prefer “indie capitalism” because it captures more of the social context and values of this new economy. I think it is sufficiently different from the entrepreneurial, startup culture of Stanford/Silicon Valley to warrant its own name. The term feels more 21st century, while “startup” sounds, well, 20th century. It’s socially focused, not technology focused, more designer/artist-centric than engineering-centric. (Moi ici: Definitivamente, e quem não perceber isto perde parte importante dos alicerces... leiam Hilary Austen!!!)

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I think that rising before us may be the solution to all that. Indie capitalism could be the kind of reinvigorated capitalism that we can all believe in again. To make it really work, we might need a new indie economics (of creativity and innovation), plus a new indie set of political policies. (Moi ici: Façam como eu, procurem na biblioteca o livro dos Toffler "A 3ª Vaga". Depois, leiam tudo sobre a "electronic cottage")

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Trechos retirados de "4 Reasons Why The Future Of Capitalism Is Homegrown, Small Scale, And Independent"