Para lá da eficiência

"In a world of commoditised expertise, “Being human,” becomes a real hope for continued differentiation!”

— @bill_fischer pic.twitter.com/ZQZTXhu31w

— Alex Osterwalder (@AlexOsterwalder) June 22, 2017

"Innovation by definition is inefficient, because you make prototypes, because you try stuff that fails, that doesn’t work. Exploration is inherently inefficiency. Art is not efficient. Human relationships are not efficient. These are all the kinds of things we’re going to gravitate to, because they’re not efficient. Efficiency is for robots.» "

Trecho retirado de "Efficiency Is For Robots", a relacionar com "When we understand"

"What won’t you be?" (parte II)

Parte I.

"Almost nothing in our daily lives is actually a winner take all competition.
Somewhere, there's someone fitter, faster, thinner, quicker, smarter, more popular or richer than you. And there's someone else fitter, faster, thinner, quicker, smarter, more popular or richer than they are. And you're (far) ahead of someone else who is busy looking at you from behind.
And yet we see people angry because someone's passing their car, or gaining more followers online. They mistakenly believe it's a race. It rarely is.
If you can use your situation as fuel, fuel to dig in and care more and do better, by all means.
But if not, ignore it. Do your work, not theirs."

Trecho retirado de "Winner take all"

Curiosidade do dia

"Please note !!...this is not my house...I stated that my house is surrounded by native trees with eucalyptus 800 metres away...not as close as the picture shown !!....I was just making an observation and used a picture which I stated was of a Portuguese farm...but have given another good example of another property similarly affected this past weekend with bad fires at Figueiró dos Vinhos. Most people understood this and I have been contacted by journalists who were very interested on the angle of the story ~ I have passed them onto the people who have had this happen in the past few days
.
Original Post ~ Our house is surrounded by native oak with the nearest eucalyptus about 800 m away...on our land we have olive, oak and fruit trees....all native to Portugal unlike the eucalyptus...it would seem according to studies that this would make us safer as these trees act as natural fire breaks, especially due to the Oak...A photo illustrating how Portuguese farms with indigenous trees are far more fire resistant than the eucalyptus plantations"

Trecho retirado de "Quinta rodeada de carvalhos e castanheiros escapou ao fogo"

Strategy it's about what you will do

"You can only deliver a truly differentiated client experience if you design one and do it in accordance with your strategy. Strategy isn't about what you can do -- it's about what you will do."

Trecho retirado de "Why You Shouldn't Go the Extra Mile for Customers"

Lemingues (parte IV)

Parte I, parte II e parte III.

"If you have the ability to generate greater results than anyone else, a strategy called “customer intimacy,” then you have to make the necessary investments to deliver that level of value. Look, your competitors aren’t stupid. If they have a lower price, they know that they are giving up something when it comes to customer intimacy. Maybe they decided not to make the investment in the additional people. Maybe they don’t want or intend to make the investment in leadership. To reduce their price, they have to give up something.
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You have to pick a lane on these things. You can have the very best product, but you are going to have to sell at a price that allows you to deliver the very best product. If your product is your intimate knowledge of the client and the ability to work creating high trust, high value, and high caring, then you are going to have to give up low price to deliver those things."

Trecho retirado de "You Have to Pay for Your Competitive Advantage"

À atenção do ministro da Economia

O impacte do fim da China como fábrica do mundo no FT de ontem:

Recordar estas palavras:

"Se a conjuntura explicasse tudo, a aceleração não seria apenas em Portugal, seria um fenómeno europeu e isso não é a realidade", acrescentou."

Segundo o ministro da Economia de Portugal só Portugal é que está a crescer...

Macacos não voam

Recordando Porter e os seus conselhos a Portugal durante o consulado de Cavaco Silva.

Recordando "Os macacos não voam, trepam às árvores, um exemplo".

Cuidado com os investimentos de alta tecnologia suportados por generosos apoios estatais se não há tradição no sector.

Curiosidade do dia

Dizem-me que é ruído.

"What won’t you be?"

"Today’s economy, he notes, is “replete with winner-take-all effects [Moi ici: Sabem que acredito que isto é passageiro, uma espécie de doença infantil das plataformas "Estratégia em todo lado - não é winner-take-all (parte V)"] and huge advantages that accrue to the biggest and best-run organizations, to the detriment of upstarts and second-fiddle players.”
...
But is the only strategy in our winner-take-all era to get as big as possible, to aspire to eventually serve everyone, and to meet their every need?...
We’re not trying to meet all needs. So, Amazon’s business strategy is super broad. Meet all needs. I mean, the stuff that will be in Prime in five or ten years will be amazing, right? And so we can’t try to be that — we’ll never be as good as them at what they’re trying to be. What we can be is the emotional connection brand, like HBO or Netflix. So, think of it as they’re trying to be Walmart, we’re trying to be Starbucks. So, super focused on one thing that people are very passionate about.
...
Michael Porter would approve. “The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do,” he writes in his 1996 classic “What Is Strategy?” In Porter’s view, sustainable competitive advantage depends on trade-offs, including the fact that it’s difficult for one company to serve all customers across a wide range of needs.
...
In an era where a small number of huge companies have unprecedented reach and control, Porter’s central question seems more important than ever: What won’t you be?"

Trechos retirados de "How Can Companies Compete with Amazon? Netflix Has the Answer"

Lemingues (parte III)

Parte I e parte II.

A propósito deste texto de Tim Harford "The age of the Microsoft and Amazon economy". Os teóricos acreditam nisto:

"One of my first economics lessons contrasted perfect competition, which was judged to be a good thing, with monopoly, which was not."

Concorrência perfeita significa igualdade, significa que só resta o preço como factor diferenciador. Claro que um adepto e promotor da concorrência imperfeita não podia estar mais em desacordo com a suposta beleza da concorrência perfeita. VIVAM os monopólios informais.

A Lego entrou no vermelho por causa da concorrência perfeita e saiu dela quando promoveu a concorrência imperfeita e o monopólio informal mental na mente dos seus fãs.

"This is surprising. As the world economy grows, one might expect markets to become more like the perfectly competitive textbook model, not less. [Moi ici: Em Mongo ...não será esta a via] Deregulation should allow more competition; globalisation should expose established players to pressure from overseas; transparent prices should make it harder for fat cats to maintain their position. Why hasn’t competition chipped away at the market position of the leading companies? The simplest explanation: they are very good at what they do. Competition isn’t a threat to them. It’s an opportunity."

Os números e a tendência de concentração citada por Tim Harford é ainda um sintoma do estertor do século XX porque foi neste período que se deu o êxodo industrial para a Ásia. A globalização não foi feita por empresas chinesas a entrarem no Ocidente, foi feita por empresas do Ocidente a montarem fábricas na China ou a aproveitarem fábricas incipientes na China para substituírem a produção nos mercados de consumo.

Efeito de rede?

"“A nossa expectativa para 2017 é entre o melhor ano de sempre e o muito melhor ano de sempre”, afirma a presidente executiva da Associação da Hotelaria de Portugal (AHP), Cristina Siza Vieira."(1)

E isto apesar do sucesso do turismo de alojamento local.

Os gananciosos acreditam que a economia é um jogo de soma nula e que o que uns ganham é o que os outros perdem. Por isso, querem proibir ou restringir essa suposta concorrência.

“What’s made them successful over the past 10 years is their ability to create new entities, movies, TV shows, by partnering with brilliant people. They’ve said: ‘We might not make as much money if we outsource it, but the product will be better.’ That mentality is very Danish. It comes from saying: ‘We’re engineers. We know what we’re good at. Let’s stick to our knitting.’ That’s a very brave thing to do and it’s where a lot of companies go wrong. They don’t understand that sometimes it’s better to let go than to hang on.”(2)

Será que estamos perante um efeito de rede?

Porque muitos turistas vêm através do turismo local criam um buzz e uma dinâmica que atraem outros para o alojamento turístico tradicional?

Recordar "O poder das associações e nas associações"

(1) - Trecho retirado de "Hotelaria rumo ao melhor ano de sempre"
(2) - Trecho retirado de "How Lego clicked: the super brand that reinvented 

Formação: Gestão por processos

Interessados em participar numa formação sobre Gestão por processos com a duração de 25 horas podem consultar a informação em Formação: Gestão por processos.

Temas a abordar em torno de:

• 15. Quantos processos?
• 14. Abordagem por processos e riscos
• 13. Processos, funções, competências
• 12. Caracterizar um processo
• 11. Razão de ser de um processo
• 10.Designar um processo
• 9. SG um portfolio de iniciativas
• 8. Contexto e críticos
• 7. Função objectivo
• 6. I’ll be back!
• 5. Eliminar as estruturas sistémicas conspirativas (parte II)
• 5. Identificar as estruturas sistémicas conspirativas (parte I)
• Não há acasos!
• Uma empresa: uma caixa negra
• Pergunta venenosa
• "algo não bate certo nesta abordagem"
• Acerca dos processos
• Transformar, apesar do travesti (parte I)

Curiosidade do dia

"Edmund Burke saw society as a partnership between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are yet to be born. A failure to understand this relationship underlies a disturbing global tendency in recent decades, in which the appropriation of future wealth and resources for current consumption is increasingly disadvantaging future generations. Without a commitment to addressing this inequity, social tensions in many societies will rise sharply.
Central to the issue is that the rapid rise in living standards and prosperity of the past 50 years has been largely based on rising debt levels, ignoring the costs of environmental damage and misallocation of scarce resources.
A significant proportion of recent economic growth has relied on borrowed money -- today standing at a dizzying 325 percent of global gross domestic product. Debt allows society to accelerate consumption, as borrowings are used to purchase something today against the promise of future repayment. Unfunded entitlements to social services, health care and pensions increase those liabilities. The bill for these commitments will soon become unsustainable, as demographic changes make it more difficult to meet.
...
This growing burden on future generations can be measured. Rising dependency ratios -- or the number of retirees per employed worker -- provide one useful metric. In 1970, in the U.S., there were 5.3 workers for every retired person. By 2010 this had fallen to 4.5, and it’s expected to decline to 2.6 by 2050. In Germany, the number of workers per retiree will decrease to 1.6 in 2050, down from 4.1 in 1970. In Japan, the oldest society to have ever existed, the ratio will decrease to 1.2 in 2050, from 8.5 in 1970. Even as spending commitments grow, in other words, there will be fewer and fewer productive adults around to fund them.
...
Future generations will bear the ultimate cost of present decisions or inaction. As in Francisco Goya’s famous painting, “Saturn Devouring His Son,” today, the old are eating their children."

Entretanto por cá reformaram a Segurança Social por cem anos... pois, balelas:

 "In 2006 for every 100 persons aged 55-64 there were 117 persons aged 20-29, a value that decreased to 80 in 2016."

Trechos retirados de "The Old Are Eating the Young"

Fuçar, em directo

Em muitos sectores de actividade vemos os seus actores, quando a paisagem competitiva muda, a pedirem apoios do Estado. A maior parte desses apoios serve para adiar o inevitável. Recordar Spender.

O que tenho lido sobre a reacção de alguns centros comerciais à evolução do retalho electrónico é interessante e revelador do que acontece em qualquer sector económico quando o mundo muda e os actores mais activos fuçam em busca de uma nova oportunidade.

Quando um encontra uma combinação vencedora começa o spill-over que dissemina o novo conhecimento.

Alguns exemplos:

• Retail Isn’t Dead, But It Does Need To Adapt;
• A New Model for Shopping Malls
• The Rise of Luxury Strip Malls

Volume vs Lucro

"Thankfully, today’s data visualization from Ishtyaq Habib shows the top 100 biggest companies by market value, but uses circles to represent both the revenue and profit for each company.
...
The first noticeable difference in this version?
.
It’s that Apple is unparalleled in its ability to make money. In fact, Apple’s 2016 profit of $45 billion is far bigger than any other company, including Berkshire Hathaway ($24 billion), JPMorgan Chase ($24 billion), Wells Fargo ($22 billion), Alphabet ($19 billion), Samsung ($19 billion), Toyota ($17 billion), Johnson & Johnson ($16 billion), or Walmart ($14 billion).
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The only companies that can compare with Apple were Chinese banks like ICBC, Agricultural Bank of China, or China Construction Bank, but in many ways these state-owned enterprises are on an entirely different playing field, anyways.
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Also impressive: Apple’s profits are bigger than the revenues of massive companies like Coca-Cola ($41.5 billion) or Facebook ($27.6 billion).
...
Other organizations need to rely on razor-thin margins and volume to make things work. Walmart only brought in $14 billion of profit off of a whopping $485 billion of revenue – a margin of just 2.8%. Meanwhile, fast-growing Amazon was in a similar boat with margins of 1.7%, largely provided by its wildly successful AWS service.
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Lastly, it is also worth noting that some on the list did not make a margin at all. These are mostly companies that are suffering from the challenges of down cycles in natural resources. Chevron and mining giant Glencore, for example, were two of the Top 100 Companies that both lost money in 2016, while BP essentially broke even."

Trechos retirados de "The Top 100 Companies: Revenue vs. Profit"

Trabalhar para subir na escala de valor

Um sintoma bom: "“Portugal, o outro país do design”, diz o Le Monde"

Uma fama a ser alimentada, sustentada, trabalhada, para subir na escala de valor.

BTW, "Importância do design em debate"

Lemingues (parte II)

Parte I.

"Because the pricing lever is so easy to pull and generates quick results for investors, retailers are often tempted to make quick, gut decisions to generate foot traffic with low prices. But this addiction is unstainable and not an isolated incident. Major companies are buckling down for bigger investments on price in the absence of other avenues to compete.
...
Play to win. But only after you know where, when and how much to compete. Most retailers can’t afford to blindly follow the lowest market pricing (and they shouldn’t). The good news is that you don’t have to meet or beat all prices on all products to win. The key is identifying which products are most critical to customer price perception and then understanding the results a price reduction will yield.
...
Pull the price lever. But don’t use it as a crutch. The power of pricing to drive volume and profits is unparalleled. Used correctly, it can be highly accretive. Abused, it can lead to quick ruin. Today’s customer demands competitive prices, but also craves experience, brand connection and convenience (among other things). Price should be a key part of your competitive strategy; however, it shouldn’t be your entire competitive strategy. If parts of your overall growth strategy aren’t resonating with consumers, you’re always going to go back to price. And the more you do that, the harder it becomes to break that cycle or addiction.
...
Price wars are becoming the next retail addiction and will cause a “death spiral” as retailers race to the bottom on price. In this scenario, only the financially fittest will survive. In the short term, consumers should benefit from lower prices on the shelf, but long term everybody loses if focus continues to coalesce around competing on price and away from areas like customer experience and innovation. Not only is this behavior inherently self-destructive, it begins closing off future avenues to growth. Once you’ve won a customer’s share of wallet based solely on the price of the good, what’s next? They are likely to stay only so long as you continue to be the lowest priced option."

Fundamental ter uma estratégia de diferenciação. Fundamental fugir da dependência do preço. Fundamental pensar por si próprio e não por ver as acções dos outros.

Trechos retirados de "Price War: Retail’s Latest Self-Destructive Addiction"

Curiosidade do dia

"Assunção Cristas admite autorizar eucalipto em zonas de regadio ao abandono"

"Para António Costa, que assinou com a empresa do grupo Altri, contratos de investimento na ordem dos 125 milhões de euros, para as fábricas da Leirosa e de Vila Velha de Ródão, é preciso melhorar a produtividade das florestas nacionais e isso envolve melhorar também a produtividade do eucalipto..Assinados os contratos de investimento, que vão permitir criar a maior unidade de descasque e destroçamento de madeira da Europa, o primeiro ministro plantou a ideia de reconstruir o setor florestal e explicou como fazê-lo: "valorizando os nossos recursos autóctones, que são decisivos para a riqueza do país, mas também necessariamente a plantação do eucalipto".

Trecho retirado de "Investimento de milhões na indústria do papel"

Cenários e estratégia (parte VIII)

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

Na parte anterior sublinhámos:

"it is important to distinguish between immediate actors one does business with (located in the smaller brown oval) and the diverse factors in the larger contextual environment. The contextual factors are beyond the influence of the organization. Scenario planning is about exploring how larger contextual factors might affect an organization. Scenarios are developed by combining contextual factors (particularly ones that are less well-known and more uncertain). Each scenario will be based on a unique combination of contextual factors."

E volto a sublinhar "The contextual factors are beyond the influence of the organization"

O problema da monocultura florestal é como o problema do sector público: dimensão, escala, volume.

Quando um privado faz uma asneira e implode, é um problema isolado. Quando se trata de um sector público a dimensão pode ser tão grande que vai ter impacte em toda a sociedade.

O futuro é incerto e pôr todas as fichas (recordo o que Taleb me ensinou sobre os estóicos e o investimento) numa hipótese pode ser problemático.

Recordo todas as previsões para Sines com o alargamento do canal do Panamá...

Além do refluxo da globalização, acrescentar:

• Realizado primeiro transporte de veículos comerciais por comboio entre a China e o Reino Unido
• Volvo torna-se o primeiro fabricante automóvel a exportar veículos novos da China para a Europa por ferrovia

COAR-map e mapas da estratégia (parte VIII)

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

"After the capabilities were identified at a high level, the next step is to create an analytical framework as shown in Table 6 (table shows a partial list of capabilities):

Each cell contains a score to reflect the state of the capability the following information:

• 0 (zero): The capability does not exist at all

• 1 (one): The capability needs to be improved

• 2 (two): The capability is good enough for meeting customer and stakeholder outcomes

The cells could be colored green, yellow or red for visual effect.
This analysis prepares the organization for the hands‐on effort in executing strategy. To efficiently carry out the operational activities required for designing and administering sales compensation, the organization needs to:

• For cells with a ‘0’ identify the specific capabilities that are missing

• For cells with a ‘1’ identify the specific capabilities that need to be improved

• Perform a detailed analysis to identify programs and projects that will create or improve the capabilities. This list is a very key input to the strategy execution effort of the organization

• Select programs and projects to implement (see the section on ‘Portfolio Management’ below for some details on how to select a program or project)

• Monitor the core objectives to ensure the strategy execution stays on track (accountability)

• Build organizational processes to ensure continuous improvement"

Isto é muito parecido com a abordagem que seguimos para identificar que investimentos realizar ao nível da perspectiva de recursos e infra-estruturas.

Trechos retirados de "Importance of Strategy Execution in Influencing Sales Behavior"