Preço e diferenciação

"Price is often the enemy of differentiation. By definition, being different should be worth something. It’s the reason that supports the case for paying a little more—or at least the same— for a product or service.
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But when price becomes the focus of a message or a company’s marketing activities, you are beginning to undermine your chances to be perceived as being unique. What you’re doing is making price the main consideration for picking you over your competition. That’s not a healthy way to go.
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Few companies find happiness with this approach for the simple reason that every one of your competitors has access to a pencil. And with it, they can mark down their prices any time they want. There goes your advantage.
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[Moi ici: E como refiro tantas vezes, o preço mais baixo não é para quem quer, é para quem pode] you can start with price but without a structural advantage you can’t finish with price. You’ve got to move up the food chain.
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Market leaders will always be attacked on price. It appears to be almost a law of nature. So what do you do?
"Do something special.
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Cause some confusion.
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Shift the argument. Another good strategy in a pricing battle is to introduce the concept of total cost as opposed to initial cost."

Trechos retirados de Trout em "Differentiate or Die: Survival in Our Era of Killer Competition"

So this is how a brand dies, with thunderous applause.

E trabalho eu com as PME os conceitos e a execução da diferenciação, da autenticidade, da estratégia, do ADN, dos nichos, de ...
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E vem uma multinacional, cheia de recursos fazer exactamente o contrário, "Really, Volvo? Performance Cars?":

"Volvo went dumb, electing to go all-in on a performance-oriented line that will offer go-fast variants of its standard models. It’s a fatigued formula nearly every major luxury car brand employs. Yawn.
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Really, Volvo, you’re the company that 50 years ago introduced the seat belt we still use today, side-impact airbags and an exhaustive list of other inspired safety innovations – and now this is the best you’ve got?
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It’s all about competing with those domineering Germans, don’tcha know, the bunch who wrote the rules on building fast cars because, well, theirs is the only society left that believes getting somewhere quickly in your private vehicle is an efficient and righteous endeavor and doesn’t have to equate with social deviancy."

Não culpemos os chineses, o desvario já vem de trás, recordar "Reflexões sobre a evolução das marcas"

Torrar dinheiro dos contribuintes a defender o passado

Enquanto o sector têxtil português já deu a volta há muito:

"A empresa Tovartex, que produz em Ovar meias da marca Falke, está a preparar o despedimento de 176 trabalhadores para encerrar a fábrica e deslocalizar a produção para um país do Leste europeu, anunciou esta quinta-feira a autarquia."

Entretanto a câmara de Ovar não pestaneja em disponibilizar-se para torrar dinheiro dos contribuintes a defender o passado:

"O vice-presidente da Câmara de Ovar admite que, em caso de deslocalização para outro país, a autarquia "nada pode fazer", mas informa que já manifestou à administração da empresa "a sua disponibilidade total para o estudo de um quadro de benefícios que permitisse a sua continuidade no concelho".

Quanto dinheiro terá torrado a câmara no passado para conseguir manter durante estes anos todos uma empresa com esta dimensão?

"Em actividade em Ovar desde 1981, a Tovartex chegou a empregar cerca de 700 trabalhadores em 2004, sendo que em 2011 ainda tinha ao serviço quase 550 pessoas." 

Os políticos dizem e prometem juras de quererem que os trabalhadores ganhem mais. No entanto, minam essa pretensão ao apoiar este tipo de empresas:

"Realçando que o capital da Tovartex é detido em 100% pela multinacional alemã Falke, que adopta "um modelo de produção assente na subcontratação de mão-de-obra com baixo valor acrescentado", o autarca declara que a unidade de Ovar está "à mercê da procura de um custo de produção mais baixo e, neste caso, da deslocalização para um país do Leste da Europa"."

Trechos retirados de "Fábrica Tovartex em Ovar fecha e despede 176 pessoas"

Curiosidade do dia

"A cultura que inventou a filosofia, a tragédia e a democracia é agora uma catástrofe
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Essa última consulta grega foi uma obra-prima de confusão e delírio hipnótico. Os eleitores tinham de responder a uma pergunta incompreensível, se aceitavam ou rejeitavam uma proposta que a União Europeia fez à Grécia em 25 de junho, mas que já não existia! Impassível, Tsipras disse aos gregos que o não lhe daria forças para negociar com mais sucesso em Bruxelas; os gregos — 70% dos quais não querem que a Grécia saia do euro ou da Europa — também acreditaram nele, e 61,8% dos eleitores votaram não. Esse resultado é pura e simplesmente manicomial. "

Trecho retirado de "'El País': O Cavaliere Cipolla e o desvario grego, por Mario Vargas Llosa"

E as outras SATAs?

Esta manhã, depois de ouvir falar sobre o tema num noticiário da rádio escrevi no Twitter:

Pena q ng reflicta muito a sério sobre os custos para a economia açoriana de décadas a proteger a SATA

— Carlos P da Cruz (@ccz1) July 16, 2015

Entretanto, à hora do almoço apanhei "Continentais só estavam à espera das low cost para viajarem até aos Açores"
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Isto é só o princípio, primeiro os hotéis, a restauração e os souvenirs, depois, vão começar a surgir negócios de segunda geração.
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Quantos €€, quantos empregos serão criados, só durante o primeiro ano de liberalização?
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Repito aquela pergunta, quanto terá perdido a economia açoriana por décadas de protecção da SATA?
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Quantas SATAs sorrateiramente, ou não, continuam a introduzir fricção na economia portuguesa?

Mongo no B2B, é óbvio que é urgente

"So far, much of the attention around smart, connected products has been around consumer-facing goods like watches and thermostats. Industrial companies have tended to be among the last to create digital strategies that harness the new opportunities arising from the proliferation of smart products. That lag poses  dangers. Tech titans such as Google and Amazon are working to connect more and more types of objects to the web by offering mobile interfaces for managing just about anything. If someone else designs the apps and software that allow customers to monitor machines, the ripple effects across value chains could force industrial giants into the role of being mere suppliers of commodities.
...
In this respect, creating an industrial internet of things is an even more urgent endeavor, because industrial systems represent huge capital expenditures, have longer lifecycles, and are placed in mission-critical and often hostile environments that can cause costly and dangerous systems failures.
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Turns out, data from all of these little things can make a big difference. SKF now provides 45 different iPad apps so managers can monitor the maintenance, speed, and reliability of up to 8,000 kinds of smart objects. This has led to new business models, putting SKF squarely in a position to provide “knowledge as a service” (KaaS), as more than a half million machines are already connected to the SKF Cloud.
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By changing the basis of competition in old-line industries, smart, connected  products are precipitating three strategic shifts that we believe will eventually  transform virtually all companies that manufacture things:
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From selling equipment to selling outcomes.
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Designing solutions that transcend the notion of products and services:
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From value chains to value networks"

A juntar a este manifesto, recomendo, também, a leitura de "Strategy, not Technology, Drives Digital Transformation"



Trechos iniciais retirados de "How Industrial Systems Are Turning into Digital Services"

Benvindos ao Estranhistão

Um texto que me encheu a alma! Um texto sobre Mongo, sobre a concorrência imperfeita, sobre a subida na escala de valor, sobre a interacção:

"Ten years ago, media outlets were brimming with news of how brands such as LA fitness and Fitness First were bringing their conveniently located, affordably priced clubs to more consumers.
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[Depois] low-cost gyms began emerging offering a narrower, stripped-back fitness experience at monthly fees that were more than 50 per cent lower than the national average price. An industry that once predominantly served the country’s more affluent households was evolving into something that was far more open and democratic. In order to provide remarkably low monthly fees, gyms were super-sized, migrated to a self-service 24-hour operating model, and powered by abundant technology to drive down costs. They captivated the interest of consumers and journalists who found them refreshingly simple to understand.
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Now the industry is turning again and embracing the power of the group, building a stronger sense of community and fostering a tribal following by creating signature fitness experiences that feel more authentic. Authentic because the ‘pact’ between the studio and customer, in my experience, seems clearer – you’re here because we’re a specialist and appreciate the effort required to reach your desired outcome. These are purposeful places with serious work to be undertaken.
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In 2015, however, the UK private health club sector is mature.
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There are high levels of merger, acquisition and restructuring activity. Competition is intensifying and private sector membership subscription income for 2010–2014 grew at an annual average rate of just 0.1 per cent – slower than annualised gross domestic product (GDP) – as it becomes more challenging for many operators to raise prices.
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Given this competitive backdrop, you would assume the predominant conversation among gym consumers would be “how little I pay”. But in fact for a growing minority it’s becoming “how much I pay”, with a 45-minute boutique fitness studio class potentially costing more than one month’s membership at a low-cost gym. So what are these new specialist studios, and what’s driving this trend?...
[Moi ici: Características dos estúdios. Pejados de trade-offs face aos gigantes do low-cost. Davida & Golias, cada um desenhado para um tipo de procura diferente. Não estamos perante um David versus Golias]
Intimate scaleNarrow programme/activity offerExpert and guided instructionSchedule-drivenNurturing environmentGroup-poweredShared common interestCompelling mission.
Many studios are founded by enthusiastic individuals with a compelling everyday mission to share their deep passion for a programme or activity.
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Being small in scale, studios need to operate efficiently and are therefore driven by scheduled classes using expert instructors who optimise the experience for all participants. The support and encouragement of others is transmitted through the class, bonded by a shared common interest to create a nurturing environment. It’s a powerful recipe that can be significantly different from a mainstream gym experience, and therefore very compelling from a customer perspective.
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Were you aware that, when a business comes along with a disruptive and novel consumer proposition, it can sometimes be left unchallenged for more than 10 years? Often this is because the ‘lens’ used to evaluate the disruptor is clouded by assumptions and pre-existing bias. It has happened before in the UK fitness industry, when the first low-cost gyms arrived and were greeted by incumbent operators with ridicule and scepticism – “they are not viable”, “they are unsafe” and “they will not be around for long”. They were wrong."

Trechos retirados de "Paying for expertise" de Ray Algar, publicado no número de Julho de 2015 da  "Health Club Management" 

Workshop - RBT (ISO 9001:2015) (Parte VI)

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

Há tempos dei comigo a pensar, admirado e algo desapontado: 15 anos depois da introdução da abordagem por processos, há tanto gestor da qualidade (e já agora, consultor) que ainda confunde procedimento com processo.
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Por isso achei interessante e revelador que a versão ISO/FDIS 9001:2015 inclua esta figura num capítulo introdutório sobre a abordagem por processos:

E pensar que desde 2001 uso as fichas de processo que abrem com:

Valor do investimento: 80€ (mais IVA)
Local: Porto

Inscrições: código RBT01 para o e-mail metanoia@metanoia.pt

Curiosidade do dia

Mais um exemplo de "É meter código nisso" em "Birth Control That Texts You If You Forget A Dose"... um mundo de possibilidades por explorar.

"How to Get Your Employees to Think Strategically"

"he cites a 2013 study by his company in which 97 percent of a group of 10,000 senior executives said strategic thinking is the most critical leadership skill for an organization's success. In another study, he writes, 60,000 managers and executives in more than 140 countries rated a strategic approach to leadership as more effective than other attributes including innovation, persuasion, communication, and results orientation.
...
Kabacoff says that you need to encourage managers to set aside time to thinking strategically until it becomes part of their job. He suggests you provide them with information on your company's market, industry, customers, competitors, and emerging technologies. "One of the key prerequisites of strategic leadership is having relevant and broad business information that helps leaders elevate their thinking beyond the day-to-day," he writes.
...
"Individuals and groups need to understand the broader organizational strategy in order to stay focused and incorporate it into their own plans and strategies," Kabacoff writes.
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Reward thinking, not reaction.
Whenever possible, try to promote foresight and long-term thinking. Kabacoff says you should reward your managers for the "evidence of thinking, not just reacting," and for "being able to quickly generate several solutions to a given problem and identifying the solution with the greatest long-term benefit for the organization."
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Ask "why" and "when."Kabacoff says you need to promote a "future perspective" in your company. If a manager suggests a course of action, you need to him or her ask two questions: First, what underlying strategic goal does this action serve, and why? And second, what kind of impact will this have on internal and external stakeholders? "Consistently asking these two questions whenever action is considered will go a long way towards developing strategic leaders," he writes."

E na sua empresa... cultiva-se o pensamento estratégico, ou cultiva-se o granel instituído?

Trechos retirados de "How to Get Your Employees to Think Strategically"

Bom material para reflexão

Um artigo muito, muito bom "The Sharing Economy Isn’t About Sharing at All", que deixa pistas para reflexão:

"the sharing economy isn’t really a “sharing” economy at all; it’s an access economy.
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Sharing is a form of social exchange that takes place among people known to each other, without any profit.
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When “sharing” is market-mediated — when a company is an intermediary between consumers who don’t know each other — it is no longer sharing at all. Rather, consumers are paying to access someone else’s goods or services for a particular period of time. It is an economic exchange, and consumers are after utilitarian, rather than social, value.
...
[in an] access economy rather than a sharing economy – has important implications for how companies in this space compete. It implies that consumers are more interested in lower costs and convenience than they are in fostering social  relationships with the company or other consumers. Companies that understand this will have a competitive advantage.
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1 ... consumers simply want to make savvy purchases, and access economy companies allow them to achieve this, by offering more convenience at a lower price. Companies that emphasize convenience and price over the ability to foster connections will have a competitive advantage.
...
2 Consumers think about access differently than they think about ownership. And most of our best practices in marketing are built upon an ownership model. For example, being a part of a brand community is important to consumers for many products and services that they own, as they represent who they are, and consumers appreciate being able to share identity building practices with  likeminded others. When consumers are able to access a wide variety of brands at any given moment, like driving a BMW one day and a Toyota Prius the next day, they don’t necessarily feel that one brand is more “them” than another, and they do not connect to the brands in the same closely-binding, identity building fashion. They would rather sample a variety of identities which they can discard when they want. Thus, trying to foster a community of consumers around an access economy brand is rarely successful"

Modelos de negócio e ...

Na revista "Health Club Management" deste mês de Julho encontrei uma referência a uma empresa com um novo modelo de negócio em torno do fitness e dos ginásios, a ClassPass:

"It’s a monthly fitness membership programme that allows people to take classes at different studios and boutique clubs. For US$99 a month, people have access to an unlimited number of classes – but they can’t do the same class more than three times a month."

Em "How Getting Mugged And Maced Helped A World-Class Dancer Save Her Struggling Startup" e "How one fitness entrepreneur raised $14 million" obtive mais informação sobre o modelo, a origem e o pivoting entretanto feito.
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O potencial de inovação com base nos modelo de negócio não cessa de me surpreender, é mesmo um mundo de combinações de abordagens ao mercado, com ou sem activos, as tais plataformas.
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No artigo da revista "Health Club Management", "Pick ’n’ mix", há no entanto, um trecho que me ficou atravessado na garganta, pois representa o que há de pior, IMHO, na herança do mindset do século XX:

"What challenges did you face when launching ClassPass?You need to engage both sides – the studios and the customers – and they need to work in conjunction with each other. A lot of it was just finding the right product that would sell on both sides. In fact it was easy to sell to the studios, because the concept works well for them: they have excess capacity they want to fill."

 "they have excess capacity they want to fill", os tais que se vêem como gestores de activos físicos, e a criação da relação, da interacção, da tribo, da comunidade?

Workshop - RBT (ISO 9001:2015) (Parte V)

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

Quanto mais mergulho na versão DIS da ISO 9001 (BTW, parece que as diferenças para a FDIS são muito poucas), mais me convenço que seguiram uma percepção que registei no livro "Gestão Ambiental - Sintonizar Ambiente e Estratégia para o Negócio".
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Em Março de 2013 neste postal escrevi, e justifiquei, acerca da maior inteligência da ISO 14001 face à ISO 9001.
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No livro, usamos este esquema para ilustrar a modelação de um sistema de gestão concentrado em produzir resultados esperados.

Basta substituir "Levantamento Ambiental" por "Levantamento de Riscos e Oportunidades".
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Ontem voltei a lembrar-me deste modelo ao ler o texto da ISO/DIS 9001:2014 sobre a comunicação:

Recordei logo o que escrevi no livro. Primeiro sobre a comunicação interna:

Depois, sobre a comunicação externa:

E por fim, tendo em conta as alíneas a) a d) do texto da ISO/DIS 9001:2014, esta tabela:

Valor do investimento: 80€ (mais IVA)
Local: Porto

Inscrições: código RBT01 para o e-mail metanoia@metanoia.pt

BTW, engraçado, a editora nunca me pagou um cêntimo por este livro... coisas de quem anda à chuva.

Curiosidade do dia

"A questão não está no perdão da dívida (que é óbvio que não poderá ser paga, como já aconteceu com os anteriores perdões e descontos), mas sim na neutralização dos factores que geraram e continuam a gerar a dívida. A questão não está no que querem os eleitores gregos, mas sim no que é o campo de possibilidades numa área monetária comum, em que todos os eleitorados são partes interessadas."

Trecho retirado de "Uma esquina na História"

O efeito BES

"Mais 21 mil empresas criadas no 1.º semestre"
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"Mais de 21 mil empresas criadas até junho"

"Na primeira metade do ano foram criadas 21.094 empresas em Portugal, o que representa um crescimento de 11,9% face ao primeiro semestre de 2014 e de 6,8% face ao mesmo período de 2013, foi hoje divulgado."

Impressionante como, apesar das insolvências estarem a estagnar/cair (conforme as fontes), continua esta depuração:

"Os serviços dependentes da procura interna e das importações concentram a maioria das insolvências, embora reduzindo o número de empresas insolventes face ao mesmo período de 2014."

Estratégia e marketing

Moi, o "porteiro do marketing" em muitas PME, tinha de sorrir ao ler isto e a concordar:

"A dangerous canyon often arises between business model strategy and marketing. Separate roles, meetings, deliverables, timetables, personalities and consultancies exist on each side of the divide. When business strategy and marketing execution move forward independently – as they often do – spin, distrust, poor customer experiences and commoditization result.
...
you know a company by its actions and customer experiences, not by the story it tells in its marketing communications. The actions and experiences create what Montague calls your company’s Metastory: the observed truth in the minds of customers, prospects, employees and other stakeholders. Your Metastory is what your company wants to become, if it is not already."

Trechos retirados de "Are your business model strategy and marketing communications aligned?"

Porque não somos plankton (parte V)

Parte I, parte II, parte III e parte IV.
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E continua a venda de activos da P&G, "Procter & Gamble Agrees To Sell 43 Beauty Brands For $12.5 Billion"

Tantos políticos prisioneiros do argumento "Groundhog Day"

Outro recorte retirado de "Strategy as a Wicked Problem":

"Companies design planning systems to work based on feedback; they compare results with plans and take corrective actions. Though it’s a powerful source of learning, feedback has limited relevance in a wicked context. Feedback allows enterprises to refine fundamentally sound strategies; wicked problems require executives to come up with novel ones. Feedback helps people learn from the past; wicked problems arise from unanticipated, uncertain, and unclear futures. Feedback helps people learn in contexts such as the movie Groundhog Day, where the protagonist (Phil Connors) encounters the same set of circumstances every day, which enables him to perfect his responses over time. Wicked problems arise in circumstances such as those in the TV series Quantum Leap, where the protagonist (Sam Beckett) finds himself in an unfamiliar time and place in each episode. Comprehending the challenge he faces is itself the initial problem..To develop a feed-forward orientation as a complement to the feedback practices they currently use, corporations must learn to envision the future. In this variation of scenario planning, enterprises should describe the set of external and internal circumstances that they would like to see in the next 10, 20, or 50 years. This will open executives’ minds to the range and unpredictability of possibilities that the future may bring. Enterprises must then pursue strategies that will increase the likelihood of those circumstances’ becoming reality."

Recordar "Parte VII – Zapatero e os outros."
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Tanta gente na política que ainda continua com o mindset do tempo da vida fácil...

Curiosidade do dia

Tribos, tribos, tribos e .... neste caso também os conservadores empedernidos.

"Brick and mortar record stores have been hurting for over a decade now, as the music industry is forced to witness the sales of CDs drop year after year. While vinyl has certainly found a way to thrive in the past few years, it hasn’t been enough for many businesses, as there are still stores that close up shop all the time. So, as streaming platforms become the go-to way to consume music and the world begins to move into the post-iTunes era, why is one company expanding their record store business and opening new locations?
,
HMV is one of the biggest names in music in the world, even if the brand has never quite made it in the US (it shuttered the few stores that existed a decade ago). Just recently, the company has announced plans to expand its store count and to move into a new territory: the Middle East. HMV has apparently reached a deal with a Qatari conglomerate to open at least fifteen stores in the next few years in the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, and of course Qatar. It also looks like deals may be in the works for the brand to eventually open in nearby nations in northern Africa like Egypt, Tunisia, and Morocco."

Trechos retirados de "Why Is This Chain Of Record Stores Opening New Locations In 2015?"

Sem noção?

"As exportações portuguesas da indústria de vestuário e confeção mostram um crescimento homólogo até maio de 2015, de 1,4%, com um valor de 1,186 mil milhões de euros. Já as importações, neste mesmo período, cifram-se em 740 milhões de euros.
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Estes são os mais recentes dados lançados pela ANIVEC – Associação Nacional das Indústrias de Vestuário e Confecção, que sublinha ainda que o sector do vestuário, confeção e moda apresenta um mercado volúvel e de rápida renovação, com a sazonalidade e os curtos ciclos de vida dos produtos a criarem desafios acrescidos para a manutenção da vantagem competitiva."

Será que não têm noção de que é a sazonalidade e os ciclos de vida cada vez mais curtos que reforçam a vantagem competitiva do sector em Portugal?

Recordar "Hoje, o que diria Ricardo?"

Trecho retirado de "Exportações De Vestuário E Confeção Até Maio Atingem 1,186 Mil Mihões"

Cadê o efeito BES?

"“No segundo trimestre de 2014, a economia portuguesa terá crescido 0,7% em cadeia e 1,7% em termos homólogos, em ligeira aceleração face ao trimestre anterior (0,4% e 1,5%, respetivamente)”, segundo as estimativas do núcleo de estudos de conjuntura da economia portuguesa (NECEP) da Universidade Católica.
...
O gabinete de estudos da Católica estima, também, que no segundo trimestre do ano, a taxa de desemprego terá descido para 12,8%.
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Quanto ao crescimento médio da economia nacional durante 2015, o NECEP decidiu fazer uma revisão em baixa das previsões, para 2,1%."

Trecho retirado de "Crescimento no segundo trimestre terá acelerado, estima a Universidade Católica"

Workshop - RBT (ISO 9001:2015) (Parte IV)

Parte I, parte II e parte III.

Sobre a principal alteração introduzida pela versão de 2015 na ISO 9001, a abordagem baseada no risco (RBT).
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Um dia dedicado a testar a aplicação do RBT e como pode ser usado para desenvolver de raiz um SGQ, ou ser incorporado num SGQ já existente.

Valor do investimento: 80€ (mais IVA)
Local: Porto

Inscrições: código RBT01 para o e-mail metanoia@metanoia.pt

"You just avoided a PITA client"

Recordar o "dinheiro deixado em cima da mesa" em "Para acabar com o deixar dinheiro em cima da mesa - parte IIa" e "Para os que que deixam dinheiro em cima da mesa, porque se subestimam"

"Buyers can smell fear and anxiety a mile away, and most will take advantage. Successful salespeople avoid this problem by having enough confidence - in themselves and their products - to stand firm.
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If price is the only decision point for a client, red flags should be waving so furiously that you turn around and run the other way as quickly as possible. This person will become a PITA—a “pain in the ass” client who considers you a commodity. You will be nickeland-dimed, squeezed on everything, and expected to deliver additional services at no charge.
...
Even when talking to great clients, many reps in business to business sales underestimate their own value. At a recent sales conference, one marketing agency suggested that up to 95 percent of salespeople compromise on price before their customers even bring it up.
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So when someone pushes you on price, stand your ground. If you don’t get the deal, consider yourself lucky. You just avoided a PITA client."

Trechos retirados de "Business to Business Sales Reps Shouldn’t Cave on Price"

Para reflexão

Um caso que merece reflexão neste mundo de conglomerados e corporações:

"While a company dealing with a wicked problem has to experiment with many strategies, it must stay true to a sense of purpose. Mission statements are the foundations of strategy, but in a fast-changing world, companies change their “concept of business,” “scope of activities,” or “statement of purpose” more often than they used to. A company’s identity, which serves as a touchstone against which it can evaluate its choices, is often a more enduring statement of strategic intent.
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An organization’s identity, like that of an individual, comprises the following:

• Values. What is fundamentally important to the company?

• Competencies. What does the company do better than others do?

• Aspirations. How does the company envision and measure success?

An identity provides executives with direction and focuses attention on opportunities and threats. For instance, in August 2007, Campbell Soup decided it would sell off the Godiva business. The company didn’t base the decision on financial performance; Godiva is a superpremium chocolate brand and a profitable business. Trouble is, Campbell’s values, competencies, and aspirations focus on nutrition and simplicity - and Godiva chocolates don’t fit in with that self-image. “Although the premium chocolate category is experiencing strong growth and Godiva is well-positioned for the future, the premium chocolate business does not fit with Campbell’s focus on simple meals,” explained Douglas R. Conant, Campbell Soup’s CEO, while announcing the decision. In December 2007, the company reached an agreement to sell Godiva to Yildiz Holding, which owns the Turkish company Ülker Group, for $850 million. By relying on its identity, rather than on financial projections, Campbell made the decision to sell Godiva quickly and painlessly."

Qual a identidade da sua PME?

Trechos retirados de "Strategy as a Wicked Problem"

Curiosidade do dia

Há exactamente uma semana Estarreja apareceu nos noticiários televisivos da noite por causa do aparatoso incêndio em vários pontos em torno de uma zona industrial.
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Hoje de manhã, aproveitei o céu nublado para fazer uma caminhada por lá. E parei diante deste símbolo:

No ar ainda se sente o cheiro a queimado e, no chão, preto e cinza, salientam-se já uns tufos de erva fresca de cor verde-benetton.
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Sou um fã de usar a biologia como uma metáfora da economia... aliás, a economia é a continuação da biologia.
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Depois da desgraça, depois da recessão, depois da depressão, os recursos que restam são reaproveitados para novos projectos, novas tentativas, novos sonhos.
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Sem necessidade de planeamento central.

Acerca da Grécia

"The First Rule of Strategy 
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The general principle for sequential-move games is that each player should figure out the other players’ future responses and use them in calculating his own best current move. This idea is so important that it is worth codifying into a basic rule of strategic behavior:

RULE 1: Look forward and reason backward. 

Anticipate where your initial decisions will ultimately lead and use this information to calculate your best choice."

Trecho retirado de "The art of strategy : a game theorist's guide to success in business & life" de Avinash K. Dixit e Barry J. Nalebuff.

Outra abordagem

A propósito de "Foodie Friday: Top Trend–Pet the Horse…Pass the Pizza!":

"“The real advantage of the pizza farms, notes Consumerist, is that it provides typically small farms with additional income.
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‘They’re selling an experience by letting people come to their farm, and I think there are a lot of people out there hungry for this experience.'”
As agritourism continues to grow – so do new opportunities to showcase and sample freshly harvested and prepared farm-fresh foods.
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Children will chase chickens and pet horses while the adults share conversations and sip on beverages while waiting for “farm-fresh” pizzas to emerge from large wood-burning ovens. This trend is sweeping the heartland of America, and shows no signs of slowing any time soon."

Recordar "A verdade que não nos é contada, acerca do leite"

É claro que Portugal não é o estado de Nova York, quer em nível de vida, quer em gostos, quer em mindset. No entanto, quantas explorações agrícolas podiam beneficiar desta abordagem?

Em vez de continuar a espiral absurda da quantidade, para competir com os gigantes franceses ou servir a distribuição, seguir uma outra via. O objectivo de uma exploração agrícola não é o de alimentar todo o mundo.

"Sometimes the best way to create a profitable and sustainable business is to shrink"

Um excelente artigo, com grandes ensinamentos:

"During the 1990s Tommy Hilfiger became one of fashion’s hottest brands. I got involved in 1996, when I became a partner in a start-up company that signed the license to sell Hilfiger products in Europe. During that period the U.S. business really took off: From 1997 to 2000 the company’s overall sales more than doubled, and it was a stock market success as well. But that came at a price. The brand was too hot, too hyped, and grew too fast. In the United States its products drifted away from its core values, and when demand fell and they began to sell at a discount, the company’s designers started creating stuff that felt like discount clothing—a vicious cycle. By the early 2000s Hilfiger’s U.S. sales were falling every year.
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One challenge of executing a turnaround in this situation is that when you’re a public company, the expectation is that you’ll grow every quarter. Sometimes the best way to create a profitable and sustainable business is to shrink, [Moi ici: Uma grande verdade que muitos evitam, muitas vezes pela vergonha de encolher a empresa] but it can be difficult to do that in the glare of the public markets.
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When a brand becomes too big and too visible, giant logos and apparent ubiquity can start working against it. By 2000 the brand had peaked in the U.S., and the company began to face market resistance.
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In the fashion industry, weak demand leads to discounting. If the discounting goes on too long, it can become structural, which means it gets factored into the design process. Let me give you an example. For years Tommy Hilfiger’s designers had been creating shirts that would sell for $79 but would offer the look and quality of shirts that might sell for $89. But when the market started to turn against the brand, retailers had to mark down those shirts to $49 in order to sell them. To be profitable at $49, you need to make very large compromises on materials, styling, and quality. They began designing into the discount environment, and the brand eroded further.
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In the European division, which I was running, we chose not to sell the lower-quality product. To succeed in Europe, we needed a $99 shirt that looked as if it cost $150. By 2001 we’d taken steps to reduce our reliance on the brand’s U.S. operations. We created our own design center and supply chain. From 2000 to 2006, while Hilfiger’s U.S. sales fell every year, European sales grew by roughly 50% every year.
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The strategy to scale back the U.S. business in the short term laid the groundwork for the brand’s turnaround in the market in less than four years."

Trechos retirados de "Tommy Hilfiger’s Chairman on Going Private to Spark a Turnaround"

Curiosidade do dia

No primeiro trimestre deste ano os empresários do sector bem diziam que a coisa estava um bocado mais fraca que no ano passado. Excepção para as empresas mais low-cost que estavam carregadas de trabalho.
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Volto a recordar um precioso tweet de Nassin Taleb em Agosto passado:

"Economists fail to get w/ GDP growth that anything that grows without an "S" curve (slowing down phase) blows up."

Segundo os dados do INE, publicados na passada sexta-feira, as exportações de calçado português, entre Janeiro e Maio, tiveram uma quebra homóloga de 0,54%.
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Sinal de que é preciso continuar o bom trabalho.
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BTW, as exportações de calçado para fora da UE cresceram 4,8% no mesmo período.

Não é novidade nenhuma

"“The main source of the productivity slowdown is not so much a slowing of innovation by the most globally advanced firms, but rather a slowing of the pace at which innovations spread out throughout the economy - a breakdown of the diffusion machine,” the OECD said.
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But why are innovations not spreading as quickly as before? One key reason appears to be that the process of “creative destruction” identified by Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter as essential to capitalism’s dynamism appears to have lost some of its ferocity. In the OECD’s words, “market selection is weak.”
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One reason for that is government policy, which the OECD said favors incumbents across a whole range of areas, from regulations designed to protect the environment, to taxation. As a result, older firms that suffer from low productivity growth endure, often “trapping” workers in jobs for which they are over qualified.
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“High rates of skill mismatch often coincide with the presence of many small and old firms,” the OECD said. “These firms are often unproductive and tend to be harmful for aggregate productivity to the extent that they absorb valuable resources, thereby constraining the growth of more innovative firms.”

Trechos retirados de "OECD: Broken “Diffusion Machine” Is Slowing Productivity"

O fim do século XX

Uma imagem metafórica do que é o fim do século XX:

O fim dos monólitos, o fim do domínio das empresas grandes, a explosão de variedade.

Imagem retirada de "Opening Windows"

O que é isto senão Mongo?

Via @armando_moreira cheguei a este artigo "Salesforce cofounder explains where big old tech companies like Microsoft often go wrong" cim uma mensagem tão querida deste blogue:

"Salesforce is expected to surpass $6 billion in revenue this year, making it the fastest enterprise software company to ever do so. Now it’s worth over $45 billion..It took almost 16 years for Salesforce to get to this point, but its cofounder Parker Harris believes there’s one key reason to its massive growth in a relatively short period of time: focus..Unlike some of its bigger rivals like Oracle and SAP, who are virtually in every area of enterprise software, Salesforce has kept its business focused on the customer relationship management (CRM) space, largely comprised of sales, marketing, and service automation....“Many people have said we just need to add more products. Look at Oracle, look at SAP. Add ERP and inventory or compensation. Add all this stuff,” Harris told IDG. “What we realized is we’re the customer company. We’re the front office solution and our customers would be really upset if we just added a whole bunch of stuff and lost focus.”"

Foco, foco, foco!
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Em vez de querer ser tudo para todos, em vez de uma oferta alargada, just-in-case"; foco, foco, foco!!!
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Interessante como o tema está presente numa série de outros artigos publicados recentemente.
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Por exemplo, "In Technology, Small Fish (Almost Always) Eat Big Fish" (este artigo merece outro postal futuro, sobre outra vertente) pode ler-se:

"Eventually, and inevitably, these “small” entrants eat their way up the food chain into the market, capturing a larger and larger share, until the behemoths of the sector are forced to retreat back into a narrowing market niche.
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One sterling example is in the CRM (customer relationship management) space. For as long as anyone could remember, the market was owned by Siebel. It was big, offering an incredibly complex solution that had to be installed for customers on their servers, licensed in bulk, with tons of training and customer service attached. Sounds unwieldy, but it was the norm, and everyone needed it.
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Then along came a company called Salesforce.com, offering just one capability of the many Siebel already provided. Only they offered it differently — instead of having to buy hundreds of licenses, customer companies could pay per employee using Salesforce.com, and use it in their web browsers hassle free. They became the automatic choice for the many young companies that couldn’t afford to do anything but start small with SaaS.
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Even so, the larger incumbents like Siebel comforted themselves that enterprise customers would never entrust their precious data and prospect lists to an offsite cloudbased system. Today, Salesforce.com completely dominates the CRM market and has an enormous ecosystem around it. Siebel, having had their lunch eaten right in front of them, became acquisition bait for Oracle.
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Salesforce.com’s ascent highlights the momentum of all cloud solutions, led by small, specialized companies purveying simple, easy-to-understand benefits for consumers and enterprises alike. Think Dropbox and Box, respectively. They are now what people think of when they hear the term “cloud,” not the large, vertically integrated storage solutions of yesteryear.
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[Moi ici: Recordando o exemplo de ontem sobre as peúgas, sobre a decomoditização] Your rallying objective should be to build something truly great for the low end of the marketplace, solving an important problem with a simple, low-friction product in a segment of the market that's underserved by the incumbents. Once you've achieved excellent market traction in this arena, you can nibble your way upward until you're competitive with the heavyweights of your industry."

Ainda um outro artigo sobre o poder do foco "The Increasing Fragmentation of SaaS":

"According to ChiefMarTec, in 2015 there are 1875 marketing technology companies, up from 947 last year. If the number of marketing software companies is any indication, there is a huge expansion in the number of SaaS companies in almost every segment including sales tools, engineering productivity, finance, and human resources.
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This fragmentation trend has been happening for quite some time. In the old model of software procurement, companies would call one of the large software monoliths (Oracle, SAP, IBM, etc) and negotiate an enterprisewide license for a software suite to serve the majority of their departments. These suite offerings promised simplified negotiation and procurement, a single integrated platform with free data interchange across departments, and one point of support. But, this promise was never fulfilled. For example, according to a recent study by Panorama Consulting Solutions, the average
ERP implementation requires 16 months to deploy and 20% of them are considered failures.
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The alternative, which is the fragmented market of today, enables teams to purchase best-of-breed point solutions, try them, and quickly cycle through all the different offerings until they find the best one for their needs. This change in purchasing behavior is happening broadly across SaaS.
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These department specific software stacks serve their customers much better than a single suite ever could, because each team in each company can select precisely the products that offer the features that meet their specific needs. and if requirements should change, it’s as simple as canceling a subscription, and starting with another product."

O que é isto senão Mongo? Diversidade, focalização, especialização, decomoditização...
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BTW, em sectores completamente diferentes, recordar:

• "Hits" versus nichos;
• "Ter uma estratégia clara = escolhas claras = ideias claras = desejar sucesso à concorrência (parte V)"

A lição da biologia:

Especialização, diferenciação, nichos...

"aposta noutro mindset"

Primeiro, este trecho de Trout em "Differentiate or Die: Survival in Our Era of Killer Competition":

"Now let’s look at that 0 percent differentiation degree in the Banking sector. How can that be? All these big name banks spend millions on advertising telling us how wonderful they are to do business with. Well, class, the answer is obvious. Mergermania has taken a terrible toll. And after all these mergers, who knows who is who these days much less for what they stand. As the psychologists advise, without a line to the past, how can you be sure of a line to the future. The Banking category is a mess and deserves their 0 percent."

O que ouvimos e lê-mos em Portugal sobre os bancos?
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Corrida para fechar agências!
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Corrida para passar a oferecer os serviços via internet!
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O que se passa nos Estados Unidos, que vão à frente na tendência do eficientismo?

"Banks just can’t figure out what to do with their branches.
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The efforts are proving tricky given that banks want customers to come to branches for moneymaking financial products such as loans or credit cards, but also have to serve the millions of Americans who still regularly make deposits and withdraw cash at the teller line.
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Bank of America Corp. soon will begin converting about 9,000 tellers to “relationship bankers” who can direct customers to high-tech ATMs or show them how to deposit a check via smartphone.
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Despite banks cutting costs sharply in recent years, as many as one-third of those branches remain unprofitable, says consulting firm Simon-Kucher & Partners.
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“Nobody buys a home equity line of credit on impulse,” ... In some cases, the changes risk turning off customers.
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Some firms are simply shuttering branches. Fifth Third Bancorp last month announced that it will close or sell 100 branches, or 8% of its offices. Like many of its peers, the Cincinnati-based bank also is expanding its use of employees who can handle a variety of functions."

Entretanto no Twitter, encontrei estes tweets de Esko Kilpi, bem em linha com a mensagem deste blogue (ler de baixo para cima):

Recordar "The Three Rules" de Raynor e Ahmed:

• Better before cheaper;
• Revenue before cost;
• There are no other rules

O que é que os bancos andam a fazer há anos?
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A fugir da interacção e a fugir daquelas 3 regras.

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Para terminar, este trecho retirado de "Home and Away" na revista "Health Club Management":

Quem não aposta no "cheaper" e no "cost", aposta na interacção, aposta na co-criação, aposta noutro mindset... eu diria, "Every visit customers have to make are an opportunity for interaction and co-creation"
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Nunca esquecer, Golias pode apostar e ganhar com a automação porque está no seu ADN; contudo, David não tem qualquer vantagem em seguir esse caminho, tem muito mais a perder do que os euros que poupa.

Trechos 2 retirados de "Is This a Coffee Shop or a Bank?"

Curiosidade do dia

Imaginem que esta vigilância acerca do uso de conceitos económicos, "Does Jeb Bush Understand Economics?", se alargava a outros políticos... como Tsipras, ou Arménio Carlos, ou a João Galamba ou Paulo Portas...
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O debate político teria muito menos lixo tóxico a poluir as mensagens. Imaginem o que este tipo de vigilância diria dos políticos que prometem o aumento do SMN para baixar o desemprego, ou das palavras do bispo da Guarda que começa uma frase a lamentar a falta de investimento das empresas grandes no interior e acaba-a a chamar-lhes gafanhotos que chegam, sacam e voam para outras paragens.
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Hoje, com a publicação dos números do comércio internacional foi interessante ver os que defendem o aumento do consumo para fazer crescer a economia, criticarem o aumento das importações... go figure.
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BTW, ganda confusão na cabeça daquele Bush

Baptistas da Silva e números ... (parte II)

Parte I.

Enquanto misteriosamente, segundo a AHRESP, o sector da restauração perdia 53 mil empregos, isto acontecia em Portugal:

"Pela primeira vez desde 2012, há mais famílias a consumir fora de casa, em cafés e restaurantes. Em contrapartida, fazem menos compras nos supermercados, de acordo com os dados recolhidos pela Kantar Worldpannel e divulgados pelo jornal Público e pelo Jornal de Notícias.
O consumo dos portugueses fora de casa aumentou no primeiro semestre do ano, pela primeira vez desde o início da crise.
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O trabalho "Retrato do shopper português no grande consumo" conclui também que há menos 5% de pessoas a levar comida para o emprego, uma tendência que se acentuou consideravelmente desde o início da crise, com os cortes nos rendimentos, aumentos de impostos e, concretamente ao nível da restauração, o aumento do IVA para os 23%."

Trechos retirados de "Portugueses voltam a ir ao restaurante"

Ver também "Famílias vão menos ao supermercado e gastam mais nos cafés e restaurantes"

Quem tem a cabeça no século XXI concentra-se no ...

Ontem, ao jantar uma francesinha, alguém descrevia-me de forma simples e clara o "ajavardamento" do mercado automóvel, com a montagem de veículos com "plásticos" de fraca qualidade. Sintoma das consequências da aplicação da metodologia do eficientismo, tão cara ao século XX, levada ao extremo.
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Quem tem a cabeça no século XX concentra-se no custo unitário e apela à massa.
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Quem tem a cabeça no século XXI concentra-se no valor percepcionado pelos clientes. E começa por escolher uma tribo em vez de apelar à massa.
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Ao longo dos anos tenho aqui dado exemplos como:

• Littlemissmatched; e
• Happysocks

Produtos para tribos!

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Agora, mais um exemplo, ainda no reino das peúgas, Stance:

"In a startup world crazy with competition to find a niche, Stance's founders realized theirs was hiding in plain sight.…
Oakley weren't the creators of the eyewear category, … Reef, with sandals. Total dominant player, category leader." Both of those brands took basic, utilitarian items and made them lifestyle necessities through design, function, and focused distribution.
…
In researching the sock category, … discovered that even big brands like Polo and Hilfiger licensed their sock business to other companies. "As we put this landscape together, we just became convinced, everyone is really sleepy here," says Kearl. "There's big room for innovation. No one's really created the lab environment where you could innovate on a platform like socks.”"

Em qualquer sector podemos encontrar este "hiding in plain sight", produtos e serviços básicos, utilitários, tratados como commodities, dominados por um mindset concentrado no eficientismo, à espera de quem veja a realidade com outros olhos:

Trechos retirados de "This Company Raised $86 Million to Revolutionize the Tired, Boring World of Socks"

Workshop - RBT (ISO 9001:2015) (Parte III)

Parte I e parte II.

A cláusula 4.1 da ISO DIS 9001:2014, sobre o perceber e compreender uma organização e o seu contexto, menciona a necessidade de identificar os factores internos relevantes, que podem afectar os resultados esperados para o sistema, ou a sua orientação estratégica.
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Uma ferramenta possível, para identificar os factores internos, pode ser baseada na abordagem por processos e, em cada processo investigar o que pode correr mal para que não se cumpram os objectivos de cada processo:

Não o fazemos perder tempo com a matéria para os auditores, não lhe falamos da evolução da norma, ou do Anexo SL, ou da transição, todo o tempo concentrado na RBT.

Valor do investimento: 80€ (mais IVA)
Local: Porto
Inscrições: código RBT01 para o e-mail metanoia@metanoia.pt

Este futuro estava escrito nas estrelas

Recordando "Este futuro está escrito nas estrelas".

"The freight trucking industry is growing profit margins at the fastest rate of all industries, according to financial information company Sageworks.
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"If the trucking industry is doing well, growing revenues and profits and hiring more employees, it often indicates that consumer demand is strong and their appetite for buying is high," says Sageworks analyst Kevin Abbas.[Moi ici: Este parágrafo faz-me comichão... acredito que o home delivery cresce sobretudo por causa dos novos modelos de negócio online, mais do que por causa do aumento do consumo]
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According to the American Trucking Association, more than 93 percent of companies within the trucking industry are small businesses, with 20 or less trucks.
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Because the freight trucking industry acts as a middle man between production and consumption, increasing profitability in the sector is good news for both U.S. retailers and U.S. manufacturers."

Trecho retirado de "The 10 Most Profitable Industries of Tomorrow"

Curiosidade do dia

A propósito destes números:

Reparem como na redacção da Renascença não percebem nada disto "Alemanha é o país da OCDE onde se trabalha menos", agora imaginem as pessoas que todos os dias, subliminarmente, são catequizadas por eles.

Workshop - RBT (ISO 9001:2015) (Parte II)

Não lhe falamos da evolução da norma, ou do Anexo SL, ou da transição, todo o tempo concentrado na RBT.


Parte I.

Ter memória...

Ter memória...
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Gostava de ouvir Nicolau Santos, o mesmo daqui e daqui, comentar isto:

"De acordo com as intenções manifestadas pelas empresas no Inquérito de Conjuntura ao Investimento de abril de 2015 (com período de inquirição entre 1 de abril e 1 de julho de 2015), o investimento empresarial em termos nominais deverá aumentar 2,5% em 2015. Esta expetativa corresponde a uma revisão em alta das intenções manifestadas no inquérito anterior de outubro de 2014, que apontavam para uma variação de -2,2%. Os resultados deste inquérito indicam ainda um aumento de 5,4% do investimento em 2014, traduzindo também uma revisão em alta face às perspetivas reveladas no inquérito anterior (variação de 1,0%)."

BTW, só espero que a fiscalização da AT e a comunicação das existências, tenha tido um efeito marginal nestes números.

Trechos retirados de "Inquérito de Conjuntura ao Investimento - Inquérito de abril de 2015" do INE

Não há alternativa, não se pode ser neutro (parte V)

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

Em linha com:

• o teste da estratégia estúpida;

Mais um trecho retirado de "Differentiate or Die: Survival in Our Era of Killer Competition" de Jack Trout:

"Quality and Customer Orientation Are Rarely Differentiating Ideas
...
quality is a given these days, not a difference. Knowing and loving your customer is a given, not a difference.
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The great myth of marketing in the 1990s was that ‘‘serving the customer’’ was the name of the game.
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Many marketing people live in a dream world. They believe in the fantasy of the virgin market. This is the belief that marketing is a two-player game involving just the company and the customer. In this fantasy, a company develops a product or service designed to appeal to customer needs, and then uses marketing to harvest the crop.
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But there are no virgin markets. The reality of marketing is that a market consists of consumers strongly or weakly held by a range of competitors. A marketing campaign, therefore, consists of holding on to your customers while at the same time attempting to take customers away from your competitors.
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That’s what differentiation can do. It’s not just about knowing your customer. It’s about your customer knowing about you.
...
Customer satisfaction is not the same as customer commitment. ... More than 40 percent of customers who claimed to be satisfied switched suppliers without looking back."

 A situação é algo caricata e perigosa... a Qualidade, como a estratégia, em vez de promover a diferenciação... promove a uniformização.

Acerca de Mongo

"Maker Movement and these types of Maker Faires as being important for fostering innovation. The result is that more and more people create products instead of only consuming them, and it’s my view that moving people from being only consumers to creators is critical to America’s future. At the very least, some of these folks will discover life long hobbies, but many of them could eventually use their tools and creativity to start businesses. And it would not surprise me if the next major inventor or tech leader was a product of the Maker Movement."

Um mundo de diversidade, de variedade, de prosumers, de novas relações económicas.
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  Trecho retirado de "Why the Maker Movement Is Important to America’s Future"

Curiosidade do dia

"“Many negative emotions such as anger, fear, and frustration become problematic when those emotions turn into a more permanent disposition or a habitual outlook on the world,”
...
This way of thinking may also hurt your heart. A 2009 study from the journal Circulation looked at data from nearly 100,000 women and found that the most cynical participants were more likely to have heart disease than the least cynical folks. The more pessimistic women also had a higher chance of dying over the study period, versus those who were more optimistic about humanity.
...
Our thoughts and emotions have widespread effects on bodily processes like metabolism, hormone release, and immune function, Simon-Thomas says. One theory is that when you’re stressed or depressed, cortisol levels increase, making your immune system less able to control inflammation, which could lead to disease over time."

Recordar “Tell me something good that happened today.”

Trecho retirado de "Can Negative Thinking Make You Sick?"