A importância dos indicadores não-financeiros

Para um fã do BSC isto é óbvio:

"Principle 4. Include Nonfinancial Targets
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Our final recommendation is to incorporate targets that are not directly related to sales and profits in any CEO performance contract. Although the research we base this article on didn’t explicitly measure the effects of nonfinancial targets, it’s clear that many of them are hard to game. To begin with, it often takes a significant amount of time for the results of decisions related to them to become apparent. Investments in employee training, for example, may not translate into employee productivity for a while. Additionally, many nonfinancial metrics, such as brand, reputation, and sustainability rankings, are set by outside agencies and so are hard for managers to manipulate.
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Creating a compensation package that adheres to the four guiding principles is not easy for a board. Directors need to debate multiple metrics (financial and nonfinancial alike), align them with the company’s strategy and values, [Moi ici: E relacionar com Bruce Jenner e os salami slicers] calibrate them with the risk appetite of the firm, and select an appropriate peer group to use as benchmarks. But this is ultimately what a board is there to do. If it uses executive compensation packages as a way to reinforce the company’s competitive strategy and manage its risks, so much the better. Not only will it be more effective at communicating the strategy and rationale for top management pay with shareholders but it will also ensure that senior managers execute against the right objectives. Remember: Executives will do their best to hit whatever goals are set. So set targets that work for the corporation."

Trechos retirados de "Comp Targets That Work"

Experimentar e iterar

"As for remaking its stores, Toys “R” Us is going to try: According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, the company will convert “its remaining locations … to be more experienced-based, incorporating amenities such as in-store play areas,” a gambit to be not just a place where parents can get things for their kids but one where they can entertain them. This move places the store in line with many other retailers in this moment, claiming they are not, in the end, shopping destinations but places to have “experiences”—something Millennials are believed to prefer. As my colleague Joe Pinsker reported last week, retailers from Apple to Starbucks to Nordstrom are pivoting to providing spa services, classes, restaurants and cafes, and so on.
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Catering to Millennial parents is not an impossible task, ... Millennials, he argues, will “pay a small premium for exceptionally easy-to-use brands, exceptionally strong brands—brands where they feel like, ‘They get me.’"
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That, of course, is tough to do when working under a giant debt burden and investors who want to see a quicker return. Most Millennial parents just aren’t going to pass on the convenience and prices offered online, even for a brand whose aisles seemed like heaven when they were growing up."

Por todo o lado sinais desta evolução no mundo do retalho com a ascensão do comércio electrónico.

O português-tipo, carregado de locus de controlo externo, quando abalroado pela evolução dos modelos de negócio, resvala para a esmola do papá-Estado como se pressente com a imprensa.

Gente com locus de controlo interno procura alternativas, refaz o mundo onde actua, experimenta e itera.

Trechos retirados de "Toys Aren’t Us"

Desenho de ecossistemas de co-criação de valor

A leitura de "Strategy For a Networked World" de Ramírez & Mannervik fez-me recordar e voltar a este esquema:

"in scenario planning we distinguish between the more immediate business (or "transactional") environment that a strategist influences through their interactions with counterparts (who, from their point of view, are "actors" or "interactors") from the "factors" around these interactors, which remain beyond the strategist's influence - and which constitute and are situated in the broader "contextual" environent.
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by definition, the "contextual environment" is that part of the environment of every organization that it cannot influence; whereas the organization has offerings in relations to all parts of its transactional environment, and therefore can influence it to a smaller or larger degree.
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A new design of a VCS by any one firm (typically carried out with others) can challenge the existing distinction between the individual firm's transactional and contextual environments.
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probing the boundary between contextual and transactional environments not only helps to surface tacit assumptions about roles and relationships, and to challenge established beliefs about constraints that may no longer be valid
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This redrawing of the transactional/contextual environment boundary by coming together with actors that remained outside the existing VCS with a new offering that configures a new VCS"

E dei conta que na semana passada fiz exactamente isto numa empresa.

Começámos por retratar a situação actual, muito "pobre":

E acabámos numa primeira versão de ecossistema da procura no futuro que pode ser representada por:

A formulação da estratégia começa por equacionar que sistema de co-criação de valor pode ser organizado juntando um conjunto de actores num ecossistema.

Biologia e economia

Cuidado com a eficiência.

Every small company  thinks and acts biologically because it lacks the resources to shape its environment through brute force, it lacks the scale to buffer change, and it's constantly thinking about the though odds for a startup to survive.

O veneno do activismo

"we consider scenario planning to be a good approach to support search and research approaches that can be adopted by managers seeking to either test existing VCSs or innovate new VCSs. Existing practices - particularly if they have encountered success for some time - can conceal tacit assumptions about existing and future roles. these assumptions may have made sense in the past but with changed conditions may now appear to be arbitrary demarcations between "what is (or can be) ours" and "what cannot be". Obsolete assumptions that remain unsurfaced and unquestioned may render potentially valuable strategic configurations difficult to explore."

Enquanto lia isto veio-me à mente Nassim Taleb: "Stressors are information" e uma notícia da manhã, "Vinho da Madeira: Excesso de produção leva Governo a comprar uvas a baixo preço".

Quando o activismo governamental mascara os sinais de stress, distorce a realidade e está a minar a realização de transições de modelo de negócio por alguns ao longo do tempo. O activismo cria uma espécie de reserva onde as premissas tornadas obsoletas no mundo real continuam válidas. Como o mundo real continua a evoluir, o gap entre a realidade real e a realidade distorcida da reserva continua a crescer até que algures, o activismo do governo deixa de ser capaz de suportar a reserva e a barragem rebenta obrigando muita gente a um choque brutal para o qual não estavam preparadas.

No Douro, o vinho DOP, as marcas e o enoturismo conjugaram-se com o vinho do Porto para criar um ecossistema muito mais estável e atraente. Até que ponto esta intervenção governamental na Madeira não impede a evolução do ecossistema da vitivinicultura da Madeira para uma nova realidade onde o vinho da Madeira se conjugue com outras formas de transformação das uvas da região em vinho com marca e DOP?

Trecho retirado de "Strategy in a Networked World" de Ramírez & Mannervik.

Para reflexão

"we humans, when thinking about risk, need to develop policies that take into consideration our inherent cognitive limitations.
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Most modern approaches to risk management start by analyzing the objective likelihood and consequences of risks faced by individuals or communities, then design measures that could mitigate these risks—and hope people choose to implement them.
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But since people often don’t adopt these measures, we argue, effective risk management has to proceed in the reverse order, starting with an understanding of why people may not choose to adopt risk-reduction measures and then designing approaches that work with, rather than against, our natural biases."

Trechos retirados de "Why You’re Not Prepared For Disasters (And What To Do About It)"

O top-down é uma doença

Quinta-feira à noite enquanto conduzia ouvia este artigo, "O palavrão que vai trazer o futuro às empresas já" e não consegui chegar ao fim horrorizado com o grau de visão top-down tão ao estilo de o Grande Planeador.

Primeiro, o benchmarking com a Alemanha. Portugal não é a Alemanha! O que funciona na Alemanha provavelmente não será adequado para a realidade portuguesa.

Segundo, as empresas não devem mergulhar na Indústria 4.0 só porque está na moda ou há dinheiro público para torrar. As empresas têm ambições, as empresas têm desafios, as empresas têm problemas e constrangimentos e, a Indústria 4.0 pode ajudar quando surgir como uma resposta a desafios/problemas concretos não como algo de intrinsecamente bom independentemente das empresas e da sua orientação estratégica.

A melhoria não começa porque alguém resolve planear uma melhoria, esqueçam o velho PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act). A melhoria começam quando se compara o real com o desejado e se resolve mudar (CAPD) (Check-Act-Plan-Do). Recordo Scott Berkun:

"We didn't need a Department of Innovation to achieve the greatest technological achievement in human history: putting a man on the moon. We did create NASA, but its goal was not the vague and distracting mandate to "promote innovation", but to solve a specific set of problems, problems so hard that they demanded a huge amount of innovation."

Ou "For Successful Social Innovation, Start With The Problem, Not The Solution":

1. "Start with the problem, not the solution. If you start with a solution, it may not actually solve the problem.
2. Identify the “binding constraint” that is causing the problem. Be careful of coming up with a solution that doesn’t actually remove that constraint.
3. Work with the user. We think we know what is best, but then we get it wrong. Listen to them and co-create a solution."

Visão sem acção não é mais que fantasia

Sinto que provavelmente padeço desta doença:

Para quem tem um martelo, ou sabe usar um martelo, todos os problemas são pregos.

Ao assistir a uma tertúlia/debate ouvem-se muitos argumentos, ouvem-se ideias interessantes mas no fim arruma-se a trouxa e a realidade continua na mesma.

Às vezes esses debates descambam para o pensamento de que Portugal é assim desde há não sei quantos séculos e não há volta a dar.

Quando trabalho com empresas, muitas delas PME, os empresários até podem apreciar algum nível de diagnóstico mas querem é acção, querem é mudar a realidade.

Uma PME consegue mudar a realidade?

Sozinha não, mas com a ajuda de um ecossistema e com o critério de sucesso do engenheiro, funciona o suficiente para ser útil, consegue mudar a realidade que lhe interessa ou onde está inserida.

Por isso, ao voltar a "Strategy for a networked world":

"For strategists, it is not only important that the key attention in VCS is the configuring offering (as it sets out the relations or interactions), not the actors; but also that these are designed and enacted over time
...
the strategist must have a broad view on who are relevant actors and must explore how they interact. A lesson from Actor Network Theory is moreover that, even though the strategist can aim at orchestrating a VCS, the VCS can never be fully controlled" 

Começo a pensar na aplicação da Actor Network Theory para desenhar um sistema (VCS) que junte n actores diferentes numa rede de interacções que se torne auto-sustentável e promova a mudança que queremos ver na realidade.

O velho provérbio japonês:

"Visão sem acção não é mais que fantasia,acção sem visão é apenas um pesadelo"

Sem este salto, um dia acontecerá o "bardamerda tertúlias/debates"

Salário mínimo - what else?

Quando um mercado está comoditizado, quando há um excesso de oferta face à procura, qual é a primeira regra que os incumbentes poderosos seguem?

Conluiarem-se com os governos para criarem barreiras à entrada ou à permanência dos concorrentes mais pequenos. Em vez de comprarem esses concorrentes, em vez de subirem na escala de valor, em vez de melhorarem face a esses concorrentes, em vez de seduzirem melhor os clientes... pedem coisas como estas: "Patrão da Jerónimo Martins quer “salário mínimo muito mais alto”".

Claro que esses mais pequenos, se tiverem pensamento estratégico, ultrapassam a dificuldade extra do salário mínimo mais alto. No entanto, a maioria não tem capacidade para subir na escala de abstracção para perceber o que está a acontecer e que alternativas tem. Por isso, apostam no que é intuitivo, no que é mais rápido, mais eficiência e menos interacção ... e quinam.

Este senhor sabe muito, dá a mão ao governo, coisa fantástica em Portugal para obter benesses, fica bem na opinião pública, esses sapos que gostam de ser cozinhados em lume brando, e elimina concorrentes.

Os pescadores não são a Santa Casa da Misericórdia

A propósito de "Pescadores ganham mais com menos peixe" repito o que costumo escrever para os agricultores.

O papel dos pescadores não é alimentarem o mundo, não são a Santa Casa da Misericórdia ponto. O papel dos pescadores é ganharem a sua vida ponto.

Por isso:

"O preço médio por quilo do pescado vendido em lota subiu 6,2% nos primeiros oito meses de 2017 face a igual período do ano anterior, tendo passado de 2,01 para 2,13 euros.
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Segundo a Docapesca, que gere 47 lotas e postos de venda, "esta valorização do pescado permitiu aos pescadores melhorar o rendimento face a 2016, apesar da redução do volume capturado de 66,2 para 64,3 mil toneladas, menos 2,8%".
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No global, o peixe comercializado nos primeiros oito meses do ano fixou-se em 137,2 milhões de euros, o que se traduz num crescimento de 3,3% por comparação com os 132,9 milhões de 2016."

Num mundo onde se chegou ao fim da fronteira, em que já não há mais fronteira, tem de se perceber que o objectivo não deve ser atingido simplesmente à custa de vender mais e mais quantidade, mas à custa da subida na escala de valor.

Oportunidade ou ameaça?

Para quem, seguindo que orientação estratégica, isto, "Nike’s New Recycled Leather Shoes Look Like They Were Made From The Real Thing" é uma oportunidade, e para quem, seguindo que orientação estratégica, é uma ameaça?

O que seria necessário para isto ser uma oportunidade, ou uma ameaça?

instead of going high-touch...

"On a more fundamental level, the challenge for retailers like Toys “R” Us is that the basic function of a physical location has changed. Traditionally, stores were optimized for driving transactions. Cash registers were plentiful and easy to find, and success was measured with metrics like sales per square foot and average size of transaction.
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Yet now a transaction can happen anyplace, at any time. From sitting at the kitchen table to waiting for a train, consumers have the power to browse, compare prices, and order from thousands of retailers competing for their attention. The attraction of endless aisles has been replaced by the thrill of instant gratification. Today physical locations need to do something more.
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A more interesting development — one more pertinent to the challenges Toys “R” Us is facing — is the emergence of “shoppable showrooms.” At places like Bonobos Guide Shops and J. Hilburn’s “The Studio,” customers can get fitted, consult a stylist, and process returns, just like in a standard store, but these locations don’t stock any inventory, which allows for smaller locations and saves on costs. Nordstrom is now testing a similar concept.
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Imagine if Toys “R” Us followed this model by opening up small playrooms where parents could bring their kids off to test a revolving selection of the latest toys. You can imagine how their little darlings would be begging them to order the toy that had delighted them for the past hour. With traditional physical locations serving as a distribution center, same-day delivery could be arranged at minimal cost.
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Yet instead of going high-touch, [Moi ici: Em cheio para quem aprecio o poder das interacções] Toys “R” Us has opted for high-tech, rolling out new features like Find It Fast, to let customers see which stores had which toys, and using the loyalty program for better targeted ads and better product life cycle management. None of these ideas are necessarily bad, but they fail to address the shifting economics of retail. Rather, they seek to optimize a failing model."

O mesmo tsunami que varreu o jornalismo e a mesma resposta baseada na comoditização, baseada na corrida para o fundo, e que não resulta.

Trechos retirados de "Toys ‘R’ Us Is Dead, but Physical Retail Isn’t"

"despedir é sempre resultado de uma maldade ou de preguiça da gestão" (parte VII)

Parte VI.

O que dizer da provocação, para muitos, deste título, "As Your Company Evolves, What Happens to Employees Who Don’t?"?

"When companies evolve at a rapid pace, often people cannot keep up. Some individuals who fit our company in its infancy became a weaker fit over time. They may have had difficulty keeping up with our company’s growth rate and the requirements of their evolving roles.
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Often, I doubled down on an untenable position to keep an employee on because I didn’t understand how much harm the wrong fit could cause — especially when a person had been with us for so long."

O trecho que se segue faz-me recordar o caso concreto de uma empresa que recusava retirar um trabalhador que gerava reclamações, por causa de defeitos no produto em que tocava, porque não tinha posto alternativo para o colocar e não o queria despedir por causa da lealdade mostrada ao longo dos anos:

"People and the needs they fulfill evolve constantly, especially in small companies that grow very quickly. A good fit isn’t just about putting the right person in the right seat, but about putting them there at the right time.
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One of the things that separates good leaders from great ones is the ability to recognize when those three factors are out of alignment and to act upon that information, particularly in the case of a loyal, long-term employee."

Postura louvável em termos humanos, por parte da gerência, mas depois não me venham falar de produtividade baixa.

Any efficiency measure applied relentlessly ...

Não tenho tido tempo para pesquisar informação sobre o que está na raiz do problema actual da Ryanair.

No entanto, no Twitter chamaram-me a atenção para Outubro de 2015:

@ccz1, troca tweets de 2015, não sei até que ponto esta desorientação actual na Ryanair não tenha surgido precisamente do tal DNA que refere https://t.co/wseCWNgQw3

— highalpha (@veryhighalpha) September 19, 2017

Entretanto, na passada terça-feira numa empresa recordei o exemplo dos nabateus por contraponto com o fragilismo do esticar demasiado a corda com sistemas com respostas côncavas:

"Any efficiency measure applied relentlessly ultimately becomes inefficient."

Hoje, apanho estes textos de Seth Godin:

• Building on maximized systems
• Optimized or maximized? 

Claro que a minha proposta é outra:

"As a valuable contributor seeking to build a career, you benefit when you develop a unique asset, because that asset gives you the leverage to choose a niche in a system that respects optimization instead."

O poder da interacção para lidar para com o desconhecido

Mais do que o Big Data, apostar na interacção:

"As opposed to “complicated” systems, where (a) components and and variables, (b) their dimensions, and (c) their purpose in a given system are known; "complex" systems are those in which one or more of (a), (b), and/or (c) is not known.
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Managing complex systems thus requires managing ignorance, which may even include the system's objectives
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One way to address the ignorance that complexity entails is to “engage" counterparts with whom one co-addresses this ignorance. Such engagement connects the managers of these organisations together, … In “engaging with” (as opposed to one actively studying and the "other" being a passively studied), both parties co-explore something as well as each other and each other's way of engaging. In working together, they discover how the differences of how each would engage alone, and when compared, can help each party to ascertain the blind spots it would otherwise keep about a given issue.
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In the management of this multi-relations and multi-role complexity, it must never be forgotten that counterparts themselves have their own agendas."

Trechos retirados de "Strategy for a Networked World" de Ramírez & Mannervik.

"Build from your strengths"

"In their efforts to compete, business strategists often forget a basic principle: Build from your strengths. The most successful companies have a clear, well-articulated view of what's important to them and their customers. They understand that the way to win consistently is through what they do rather than what they sell.
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These companies also understand that “what they do” is unique to them; they have their own capabilities and practices that no other company could quite duplicate, even if it tried. In that sense, building from your strengths is the most reliable way we have found to differentiate your company.
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This advice is easy to state and difficult to follow — not just in business, but in every aspect of human endeavor. Focusing on what you are great at doing is intuitively compelling, but few companies drive their strategy this way. It’s too easy to get caught up in chasing what others do — fixing the inevitably long list of weaknesses in your company, or seeking out what’s new in a world of change.
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But when you understand what you’re great at, and design your capabilities and strategy accordingly, you can define how you want to compete, and shape your own future rather than waiting for others to do it for you."

Lembrei-me logo de Youngme Moon e "Different"


Trecho retirado de "Design for Your Strengths"

Batota e modelos de negócio

"it has been found that business models cannot be static.
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business models can be conceived as a set of relations and feedback loops between variables and their consequences, and recommend that strategic management should aim at developing these to create virtuous cycles, leading to an evolution of the business model.
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it has been argued that business models cannot be anticipated fully in advance and that they rather must be learned over time through experimentation. Such experimentation could lead to business model innovation through trial-and-error learning. In line with these findings, one capability we identify as critical for fuelling business model change is to identify, experiment with and exploit new business opportunities.
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business models can generate virtuous cycles e positive feedback loops that would strengthen parts of the model over time. They consider such virtuous cycles to be crucial elements in successful business model operation, and thereby suggest that different aspects of managing business models can reinforce their consequences. Similar to their conceptualization, we found in our study that the strategizing actions together with the critical capabilities worked as complementarities, meaning that in combination these elements fuel more sustained value creation through successful business model change over time.

...
The role of strategic management is then to develop such virtuous cycles."

Como não pensar no papel da batota. Tomar consciência do que está a funcionar e forçar a nota.

Trechos retirados de "Dynamics of Business Models e Strategizing, Critical Capabilities and Activities for Sustained Value Creation" de Leona Achtenhagen, Leif Melin & Lucia Naldi, publicado por Long Range Planning (2013).

Subir na escala de valor

"O melhor vinho branco do mundo é português"

Subir na escala de valor passa também por acções deste tipo.

Em vez de confiar apenas no gosto dos clientes trabalhar para desenvolver relações com outros actores do ecossistema. Estes jurados juntos funcionam como influenciadores dos potenciais compradores.

Ao mesmo tempo este activismo que destrói sistemas de criação de valor genuíno: "CDS-PP Madeira pede que Governo Regional apoie os viticultores em mais 0,40€".

Como é possível escrever estas coisas:

"por os viticultores “produzirem a matéria-prima para um produto genuíno e mundialmente reconhecido pela qualidade”"

Tão reconhecido que precisa de apoios...

We are all weird, and proud of it

Ainda me lembro de sair de casa por volta das 19h, já era noite de Outono de 2011, para correr a ouvir o livro "We are all weird" de Seth Godin. Logo escrevi "We Are All Weird - Um manifesto sobre Mongo".

Ao ler este texto de Seth Godin, "Beware of false averages", como não recordar com ironia os fantasmas estatísticos tão típicos do século XX e, sobretudo, sonhar com a esperança de um futuro baseado na metáfora de Mongo e na explosão de tribos.

As interacções como a base para a criação de valor

"As business becomes more system-like with "business ecosystems ("BE") ... becoming the norm and  not the exception, value and its production requires more system-like, networked, and emergent conceptual frameworks.
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In the strategy frame we use in this book, we place interactivity as the focus for where value is created and assessed. Interactivity is, of course, also a major source of risk as well of value.
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Our argument is that this central concern with the interactivity that has become so ubiquitous inescapably leads strategists to rethink value creation and strategy.
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Attending interactivity also involves thinking of value as contingent, always located in a setting - no longer as isolated in things or individuals or groups - and dependent on those whom it connects and who co-create it as well as in termos of those it affects positively or negatively.
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patterns of interactivity that enable the production or co-creation of value and values arise or can be designed.[Moi ici: Aquela situação da empresa que toma consciência que está bem e pretende perceber porquê, para fazer batota!!!]
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So perceived patterns of interactivity do not therefore require any intentional design on the part of any particular actor, though they might arise in part because of such intent - and often do arise in this manner in business.
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the notion of value arises for the strategist when one takes the perspective of an actor within a pattern of interaction.
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how actors choose which interactions to privilege over others, and how they relate one interaction to another.[Moi ici: Como não recordar tantos postais deste blogue, como estes de 2007, 2012, 2013 e 2014]
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An organization's managers express its intents - and thus its values - by configuring interactions to establish (more or less) continuing patterns of activity with other actors. Are interactions with employees more important than those with customers? are interactions with shareholders more important than those with employees? For which of these interactions is the strategy primary constructed? These senior managers take views on what possibilities for value co-creation their organization is providing for which actors, and make choices that reflect and reinforce their values.
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We consider this configuring of interactions as a design activity. We use the term Value Creating System (VCS) for the pattern of interactions intentionally configured by the strategic planning carried out by an organization. The designed interactions become manifested as "designed" offerings.
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if the key to creating value is to design and co-create configuring offerings that mobilize others (who may have the role in the interaction of customer or supplier or partner or employee or investor, etc.) to co-create value, then a key source of success is to conceive the VCS and make it work.
...
value is not simply "added", but is mutually "created" and "recreated" among actors with different values. These multiple values are "reconciled" or "combined" in co-creating value, and as we shall see bellow, cannot be reduced to a single metric, like the price of a commodity.
...
We characterise VCS as designed activities that are part of much broader business ecosystems or business ecologies ("BE")
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we consider strategy as entailing reconfiguring roles, actions and interactions among economic actors through designed configuring offerings that result in a given VCS.
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In co-creation, it is the co-created offerings and the relationships these manifest, not the "business unit" actor, which becomes the central unit of (competitive and collaborative) strategic analysis.
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Designing co-creation requires the strategist having the role of ascertaining and ideally defining the engagement and the dialogue that underpins designing novel and distinctive value creation."

Trechos retirados de "Strategy in a Networked World" de Ramírez & Mannervik.

BTW, como não recordar Storbacka e Nenonen:

• Não é armadilhar, é criar harmonia, é construir uma sinfonia... 
• Os mercados como configurações (parte III)
• Scripting markets