Uns fazem, outros queixam-se!

Uma notícia interessante, "Castanha da Beira Alta lança marca própria", leio no Caderno de Economia do semanário Expresso de 7 de outubro último:

"Este ano, com uma novidade: a empresa, gerida por dois irmãos e que fatura anualmente 11 milhões,  vaira lançar uma marca especifica, a Saudade, para diferenciar a martainha, produzida em Sernancelhe e em todos os concelhos limítrofes que constituem a área geográfica com classificação Castanha dos Soutos da Lapa, de Denominação de Origem Protegida (DOP). "Nos últimos anos, percebemos que esta variedade estava a ser muito valorizada, no mercado nacional mas sobretudo nos países para onde exportamos, pelos distribuidores e assadores. O problema é que, na hora de comprar, não há nada que diga a estes clientes o que estão a comprar, que diferencie este produto sazonal, de alta qualidade, de outras variedades. Uma castanha parece-se sempre com outra castanha.
...
A insígnia Saudade — Sabores do Coração, que será apresentada em Madrid, durante a Fruit Attraction, uma das principais feiras empresariais de frutas e legumes da Europa
...
Além de querer ir ao encontro do consumidor português, "que vai passar a ir ao supermercado e a saber o tipo de castanha que está, de facto, a comprar", a insígnia pretende comunicar diferenciação deste produto a mercados como Alemanha, França, Suíça, Luxemburgo, Itália, Espanha, Estados Uni-dos e Canada—geografias onde a Frusantos, que exporta mais de 50% da sua produção, está presente, O lançamento de uma marca própria faz parte do projecto de internacionalização..."

Um exemplo interessante: criação de uma marca, aposta na diferenciação, internacionalização e participação em feiras.

Uns fazem, outros queixam-se!

"influence the formation of sense making and meaning"

"The idealistic view of a manager as one who is in control is not consistent with our practical experience, or with modern science. From the point of view of the sciences of complexity, an organization is not even a system, but should be understood as a pattern, or as interconnected patterns in time. [Moi ici: Um ponto de vista interessante que reforça o papel e importância da comunicação]
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These interconnected patterns are the results of self-organizing processes across the network forming the organization. Many events, local interactions generate emergent outcomes that cannot be traced back to any specific management action. Looking towards the future, we create what happens next, without knowing what will happen next.
...
The organization, then, is no longer self-regulating in a cybernetic sense, but self-influencing in a complex sense. Self-influence as a concept is not necessarily positive, it can lead both to self-sustaining and self-destructive behaviors.
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The key management capability is not being in control, but to participate and influence the formation of sense making and meaning. It is about creating a context that enables connectedness, interaction and trust between people. [Moi ici: Outro insight poderoso, "influence the formation of sense making and meaning". Como desesperei interiormente há tempos, quando um empresário interpretava o meu conselho sobre a criação de um ecossistema da procura, como um convite para ligações pouco transparentes e até ilegais com outros actores]
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Most people believe that the role of leaders is to choose strategic directions and then persuade others to follow them. A modern view of strategy is about exploration and experiments, a search process of trial and error. [Moi ici: Não sou tão radical assim embora perceba a importância ads experiências. Recordo os "arbustos"] The openness to the possible through the search process leads to having to live with anxiety and not knowing. Work needs to equal learning."

Acerca dos arbustos:

“Typical strategic planning processes focus on chopping down the branches of the strategic decision tree, eliminating options, and making choices and commitments. In contrast, an evolutionary approach to strategy emphasizes creating choices, keeping options open, and making the tree of possibilities as bushy as possible at any point in time. Options have value. An evolving portfolio of strategic experiments gives the management team more choices, which means better odds that some of the choices will be right” … “The objective is to be able to make lots of small bets, and only make big bets as a part of amplifying successful experiments when uncertainties are much lower.” 

Trechos iniciais retirados de "The Future of Management"

Privilegiar os inputs sobre os outputs (parte VII)

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

"Customers in B2B markets are becoming increasingly sophisticated about purchasing. Recognizing that most products and services they buy are not strategic to their businesses, they begin by simply seeking suppliers that will meet their basic specifications at a competitive price. Then, after they’ve winnowed down the contenders, they often ask the finalists to offer “something more.”
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Many suppliers misunderstand this request. They’ll respond with the well-worn tactic of stressing features their offerings have but competitors’ lack, and when that doesn’t work, they propose price concessions. But it turns out that customers are looking for neither of those things.
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During a three-year research project, we discovered that when purchasing managers ask for something more, they are actually looking for what we call the justifier: an element of an offering that would make a noteworthy difference to their company’s business. A justifier’s value to the customer is self-evident and provides a clear-cut reason for selecting one supplier over others, effectively breaking the tie among the final contenders.[Moi ici: O artigo está cheio de bons exemplos, em vários sectores, destes "justifiers"]
...
The justifier, or tiebreaker, helps the purchasing manager demonstrate to senior leadership that he or she is making a contribution to the business. [Moi ici: Outra vez um exemplo de deixar de pensar nos outputs para concentrar a atenção nos inputs. Basta pensar no que vem a seguir] That is no small thing. People responsible for nonstrategic purchases have difficult, often thankless, jobs. They’re under pressure to complete these transactions as quickly and efficiently as possible. Whenever anything goes wrong with what they’ve bought, they get blamed. But their diligence and understanding of the business typically get little recognition.
...
Tiebreaking sellers coach their salespeople to explore this topic with customers and engage them in a conversation about their concerns.
...
With value selling, suppliers build a case to prove that their offerings provide greater worth to customers than competitors’ do. But when purchases aren’t strategic, that approach is ineffective, and suppliers need something extra whose value is self-evident to win the sale.

...
The top yearly goals of a customer’s senior management can be a great source of ideas for justifiers. By visiting a customer’s website or perusing its annual report, a supplier can learn about initiatives aimed at improving safety in specific areas, reducing waste, and the like. Yet purchasing managers told us that salespeople rarely conduct such rudimentary background research or put in the time to learn about their customers’ objectives.
...
we discovered demonstrate that with enough determination, even a supplier of a nonstrategic offering can persuade its customers’ purchasing managers and leadership that it is something special."

Trechos retirados de "Tiebreaker Selling"

Mais um exemplo de Mongo

Este artigo, "These Fancy Vinegars Are the Ones to Prioritize in Your Pantry", é mais um exemplo do fenómeno de entranhamento em Mongo.

No passado quantos azeites havia na prateleira? No passado quantos vinagres havia na prateleira? E agora?

Curiosidade do dia

Estórias da carochinha para enganar tótos, com sucesso: “As pessoas estão à frente do défice”.

Política é fazer escolhas. Política é optar por beneficiar certas opções em detrimento de outras, com legitimidade.

Os "preceitos neoliberais" que terão provocado os incêndios, de que fala Catarina Martins, serão estes? pic.twitter.com/ce05XJfZSj

— Paulo Ferreira (@pauloferreira1) October 22, 2017

Privilegiar os inputs sobre os outputs (parte VI)

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

"to shift our attention from production to utilization, from product to process, from transaction to relationship. It enhances our sensitivity to the complexity of roles and actor systems. In this sense the service logic clearly frames a manufacturing logic rather than replaces it. Creative business thinking comes from applying the service logic mode of thought, recognizing that within that overriding logic there are islands of a manufacturing logic. In other words, the service logic encourages us to think in terms of value creation and Value-creating Systems. It moves us from the oversimplified view that 'producers' satisfy needs and desires of 'customers' to the much richer but more complex view that they together form a Value-creating System. Within that system the provider has to find a way to position himself, and enhance and leverage the value creating process of the customer. It helps us move from the traditional industrial notion of products as outputs to the value-creation economy notion that offerings should he seen as inputs in a value-creating process."

Trecho retirado de "Reframing Business: When the Map Changes the Landscape" de Richard Normann

"Gaming the system" - está-nos no sangue

"What determines what a company can do actually is less what an executive thinks ought to be done,  but rather that decision right there makes determines what this happens, and that determines what this is.
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This is actually more powerful, and an executive decision, I think and it's interesting that these metrics we assume that that's the way it should be done but we never think about it just as a general rule.
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When we decide we're going to measure it this way, people, all of us, cheat and try to game the system so that the the metric goes up"

Trecho retirado de "Harvard Professor – Clayton Christensen The Process of Strategy Formulation and Implementation"

Para reflexão

Recordo Abril último:

"A evolução do retalho é um tema que me interessa porque é super importante para as PME com que trabalho. A maioria das PME portuguesas não tem marca própria relevante. Ou produzem para marcas de outros ou produzem componentes que serão incorporados nas marcas de outros (B2B2C ou B2B2B2C).
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Assim, o seu futuro depende em larga escala, segundo o modelo de negócio actual, do sucesso da última interacção da cadeia, aquele ...B2C. Se esta última interacção falhar, tal como falharam em massa as sapatarias de rua quando chegaram os centros comerciais, as nossas PME terão um problema em mãos."

Ao ler:

Factory work does not take place in factories any more but in retail

— Esko Kilpi (@EskoKilpi) October 22, 2017

"It's not lupus"

Há tempos realizei uma auditoria interna a uma empresa e deixei a Oportunidade de Melhoria que ilustro acima.

Na cláusula 6.2.1 da ISO 9001:2015 as empresas são convidadas a definir os resultados que esperam para o seu sistema de gestão da qualidade. Segundo a cláusula 6.2.2 as empresas devem planear como vão atingir os desafios de desempenho referidos anteriormente.

Noto que algumas empresas certificadas (e, por isso, com esta abordagem validada pelas entidades certificadoras) listam actividades genéricas já incluídas na descrição de processos. Por exemplo, na ilustração acima a empresa quer reduzir desperdícios, quer ser mais eficiente, quer reduzir custos. A empresa acredita que a principal acção a desenvolver para ser mais eficiente passa por "executar os trabalhos segundo o planeamento estabelecido". A empresa já planeia os trabalhos. A empresa já procura executar os trabalhos segundo o planeado. A empresa planeia e executa de forma perfeita?

Claro que não! E esse é o ponto. A ISO 9001:2015 na cláusula 6.2.2 a) refere "o que será realizado".

Não adianta repetir o que está escrito de forma geral e genérica no procedimento sobre a execução dos trabalhos.

Quantas obras executaram?
Com quanto é que cada obra em particular contribuí para o indicador "Proveitos vs Custos"?

O que nos diz um histograma sobre a distribuição dos resultados de cada obra?

Faz sentido analisar diferentes tipos de obra, tendo em conta a sua duração ou âmbito dos trabalhos?

Faz sentido distinguir os desvios, mão de obra, tempo, materiais?

A ideia é fazer o mesmo que a "equipa" do Dr. House:

Analisar os sintomas sob várias perspectivas e ângulos. Depois, usando o princípio de Pareto, reduzir o âmbito do problema. Por exemplo, deixar de ser "reduzir os desperdícios (custos)" e passar a ser "reduzir a disparidade entre a mão de obra realmente utilizada (horasxhomem) versus a mão de obra planeada nas obras do tipo X.

Só nessa altura, depois de bem delimitado o principal contribuinte para o problema, é que faz sentido começar a pesquisar as causas mais prováveis. Por exemplo:

• deficiente planeamento?
• deficiente preparação?
• má coordenação?
• mau acompanhamento?
• condições atmosféricas?
• ...

A imagem do Dr. House acima diz respeito a esta fase. Listar as possíveis causas e depois mandar fazer umas análises, umas verificações, recolher dados históricos, que permitam validar/corroborar uma ou mais causas.

E só depois de identificadas e validadas as causas mais prováveis é que faz sentido pensar na resposta a 6.2.2 a).

"Violations of rational choice principles in pricing decisions"

"We are interested in how customer purchase decisions exhibit behavioral patterns that are inconsistent with rational choice models. As we will see, violations of rational choice can take many forms: demand that increases with price increases, choices that are influenced by the addition of irrelevant options, preferences that are unstable, and a willingness to pay that is fluid and subject to contextual influences. In this context we thus summarize how firms can influence customer perceptions of value and price without changing the price. Second is the manager. Managers set prices and in this process are equally susceptible to violating fundamental principles of rational choice. These violations can take the following forms: conformity bias, competition neglect, competitor obsession, simple heuristics, and underpricing for new product introductions.
...
This refers to the tendency to pursue competitor-oriented goals—such as market share—to the detriment of one's own profitability. When comparative profits are provided, managers show a consistent tendency to price below optimal levels in order to hurt competition, as opposed to maximizing their own profits. Field studies suggest that competitor orientation and market share goals are detrimental to profitability. ...  “The use of market share as a measure of corporate or executive performance is at best a waste of time; at worst, it is totally misleading. We recommend that you never make the market share calculation. If you emphasize competitive goals, you are letting the competition define your business and its success.” Competitor obsession leads to lower prices and lower profits. This effect is well documented in industrial markets.

Trechos retirados de "Violations of rational choice principles in pricing decisions" de Andreas Hinterhuber

Comparar o primeiro truque, "price quality effect", com:

"Why did Apple push the limits of pricing on the highly anticipated device? A key reason involves using a premium price to set an expectation of excellence in consumers’ minds."

Trecho retirado de "The Psychology Behind the New iPhone’s Four-Digit Price"

"Strategy is not planning"

"I must have heard the words “we need to create a strategic plan” at least an order of magnitude more times than I have heard “we need to create a strategy.” This is because most people see strategy as an exercise in producing a planning document. In this conception, strategy is manifested as a long list of initiatives with timeframes associated and resources assigned.
.
Somewhat intriguingly, at least to me, the initiatives are themselves often called “strategies.” That is, each different initiative is a strategy and the plan is an organized list of the strategies.
...
To make strategy more interesting — and different from a budget — we need to break free of this obsession with planning. Strategy is not planning — it is the making of an integrated set of choices that collectively position the firm in its industry so as to create sustainable advantage relative to competition and deliver superior financial returns. I find that once this is made clear to line managers they recognize that strategy is not just fancily-worded budgeting and they get much more interested in it.
...
Obviously you can’t execute a strategy without initiatives, investments, and budgeting. But what you need to get managers focused on before you start on those things is the strategy that will make these initiatives coherent.
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That strategy is a singular thing; there is one strategy for a given business — not a set of strategies. It is one integrated set of choices: what is our winning aspiration; where will we play; how will we win; what capabilities need to be in place; and what management systems must be instituted?
.
That strategy tells you what initiatives actually make sense and are likely to produce the result you actually want. Such a strategy actually makes planning easy. There are fewer fights about which initiatives should and should not make the list, because the strategy enables discernment of what is critical and what is not."

Não é fácil passar esta mensagem. Não é fácil raptar a gestão de topo dos atractores do dia-a-dia e conseguir que encontre tempo, que encontre disposição para subir na escala de abstracção, para fazer o tal "upframing" e olhar para a paisagem competitiva de uma forma diferente.

Trechos retirados de "Don’t Let Strategy Become Planning"

Será o efeito de Mongo?

Recordar:

• Porque não somos plankton (parte V)
• E porque não somos plankton (parte VII)
• Plankton?

Para enquadrar a continuação do fenómeno:

• Procter & Gamble Puzzled by Decreased Consumer Spending -- Update
• Shoppers desert family brands as P&G shares fall

Será o efeito de Mongo?

Contribuição

"When you run a company, it’s obviously important to understand how profitable the business is. Many leaders look at profit margin, which measures the total amount by which revenue from sales exceeds costs. But if you want to understand how a specific product contributes to the company’s profit, you need to look at contribution margin."

"Contribution margin". A primeira vez que li sobre esse conceito foi com Peter Drucker, talvez no livro "Managing For Results". Pensamento que me fez chegar a "Managing for Business Effectiveness":

"What is the first duty—and the continuing responsibility—of the business manager? To strive for the best possible economic results from the resources currently employed or available.
...
1. What is the manager’s job? It is to direct the resources and the efforts of the business toward opportunities for economically significant results. This sounds trite—and it is. But every analysis of actual allocation of resources and efforts in business that I have ever seen or made showed clearly that the bulk of time, work, attention, and money first goes to “problems” rather than to opportunities, and, secondly, to areas where even extraordinarily successful performance will have minimal impact on results.
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2. What is the major problem? It is fundamentally the confusion between effectiveness and efficiency that stands between doing the right things and doing things right. There is surely nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency what should not be done at all. Yet our tools—especially our accounting concepts and data—all focus on efficiency. What we need is (1) a way to identify the areas of effectiveness (of possible significant results), and (2) a method for concentrating on them.
...
1. Economic results require that managers concentrate their efforts on the smallest number of products, product lines, services, customers, markets, distribution channels, end uses, and so on which will produce the largest amount of revenue. Managers must minimize the attention devoted to products which produce primarily costs, because their volume is too small or too splintered.
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2. Economic results require also that staff efforts be concentrated on the very few activities that are capable of producing truly significant business results—with as little staff work and staff effort as possible spent on the others."

Uma grande coincidência desta semana que passou foi auditar uma empresa em que este tema está na ordem do dia, ainda que sem o saberem.

Drucker, o homem que mudou a minha vida.

Trecho inicial retirado de "Contribution Margin: What It Is, How to Calculate It, and Why You Need It"

Agora estou na dúvida... talvez tenha sido o Engº Vergílio Folhadela quem primeiro me deu a conhecer a contribuição.

Privilegiar os inputs sobre os outputs (parte V)

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

"the more a supplier's product contributes to creating meaningful differentiation in the customer's products, the more value quantification has to be detailed, collaborative, and customer-specific.
...
There is one golden rule. If you are a lawyer you should not ask what you do for your client. What you should ask is what the client is able to do as a result of working with you [Moi ici: Outra vez a concentração nos inputs que o cliente tem de processar para atingir os seus objectivos] - as opposed to working with your closest competitor. You have to ask what your competitive advantage is incrementally worth to customers in monetary terms."

Outro excelente trecho retirado de "Value First Then Price" editado por Andreas Hinterhuber e Todd Snelgrove.

"drilling into that"

"How can you compete? Well, for starters, understand where you fit in.
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Now, some of you will construe what I'm about to say as "niche" or "stay small" but neither is the case at all! No, what you need to do is to understand - and then effectively communicate - the real-time relevance of your business.
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In other words, you have to be the best for one particular set of scenarios, not a solution for a variety of scenarios that are close to what the customer is looking for.
...
What this is really about is understanding the market for your products or services and, drilling into that. All the different types of customers who buy from you. Too many times, we think only in terms of a specific avatar - the key buyer - but the real world is that there are 7 billion potential customers on this planet (over 10 billion if we're thinking in terms of B to B, also), so a narrow view of who your buyer is (and where they are) can restrict your growth. Of course, you have to balance this, but the key is understanding that casting a wider net with one solution may yield far greater results than throwing a myriad of solutions to the masses and not being able to execute any of them perfectly."

Trecho retirado de "Make More Money (By Selling Less?)"

Mudar de vida ou não

Neste esquema relaciono a ISO 9001:2015 com uma sugestão que me deram para abordar um projecto em curso.

Além de uma abordagem baseada em números, partir da situação actual com as fragilidades e forças da organização. Considerar um conjunto de cenários plausíveis que se podem manifestar no futuro, tendo em conta o contexto da empresa.

Em cada um desses cenários determinar o que podem ser riscos e oportunidades.

Depois, equacionar o que ignorar, o que reduzir, o que evitar, o que assumir e o que aproveitar.

E no todo, avaliar se a empresa precisa de mudar de vida ou não.

Como é na sua empresa?

Pesquisando o marcador "abordagem por processos" pode ter-se uma ideia do que penso sobre o tema e como a uso. Sinto que a uso de uma forma bastante diferente da maioria.

Por exemplo, num projecto em curso:

Entrevistei duas pessoas que identificaram algumas dores da empresa, falhas, que associei a dois processos. À medida que entrevistar mais gente vou associar outras dores a estes e outros processos. Assim, quando chegar a hora de desenhar os projectos de transformação da empresa todos saberemos, por exemplo,  que o novo referencial para o processo "6. Comprar materiais" terá de evitar/minimizar a frequência de ocorrência destas falhas.

Entretanto, com a leitura de "Value First Then Price" editado por Andreas Hinterhuber e Todd Snelgrove encontrei este exemplo:

"We recently completed a pricing project with a German B2B company with sales in excess €5 billion. As part of the diagnosis, we mapped the key processes where pricing decisions were made. The key process in B2B is, as mentioned, the offer development process - most industrial companies have a similar process in place that covers 

The client illustrated ... had an offer development process in place, but the analysis revealed that profitability suffered as a result of a poor design on nearly all elements in this process.
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Customer insights, for example, were not shared between sales managers and regions, so the salesforce was perceived, as out of sync by some customer segments. Likewise, executives did not systemically collect, let alone share, information on price levels or offer configurations of competitors.
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Sales managers responded passively to request for proposals rather than actively developing new markets and cross-selling new products to existing customers.
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Sales managers used revenues and not gross margins to evaluate market opportunities, meaning that the company's best available technical talent was regularly assigned to large but unprofitable deals.
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Also, the offer development reflected what salespeople thought customers wanted instead of taking customer insight to develop the value proposition; ...."

 Estes trechos dão uma ideia de como a abordagem por processos pode ser usada com cabeça, tronco e membros conjugada com a abordagem baseada no risco.

Como é que a sua empresa usa a abordagem por processos?

"killing products is a necessary component of good management practice"

"The other, equally important observation is that killing products is a necessary component of good management practice. Most companies do this too late. Many companies make the mistake of carrying a large product porfolio, which of course also carries the risk that salespeople focus then on the wrong products. And so it takes courage to ask "Where am I truly competitive? In which areas am I able to deliver outstanding value?" It takes courage to then say, "Okay. I withdraw from products or segments A, B, and C because this is not where I want to be in the future and instead I do something else."

Ler isto e conseguir visualizar logo duas ou três empresas onde isto ainda acontece. E na sua?

Ler isto e recordar uma experiência de 1997 ou 98, em que uma empresa têxtil com marca própria, produzia cerca de 200 referências por época. 12 referências apenas representavam cerca de 90% das vendas.

Um excelente trecho retirado de "Value First Then Price" editado por Andreas Hinterhuber e Todd Snelgrove.

"increasingly doing their own buying"

Parte I.

Continuando a leitura de "CBI Understanding European Buyers: Footwear".

"Retailers and brands are increasingly doing their own buying
.
Players on the European footwear market can be roughly divided into two categories: large retailers and brands on the one hand and wholesalers, or importers, on the other. Due to the aforementioned pressures, the former category in their search for lower-cost production opportunities, are increasingly sidestepping the intermediaries in the supply chain, i.e. wholesalers and/or importers. Instead, they are seeking to do business directly with low-cost suppliers, or, in some cases, developing their own production facilities in low-cost countries.
.
Considerations for action

• Importers or wholesalers are no longer your only or most likely, point of connection with European markets: you might just as successfully establish a direct relationship with a major EU retailer or brand. Which of these you choose, depends on your strategy.

• 􏰀If you are aiming for direct sales to brands and/or retailers, be prepared for a steep learning curve. Make sure your staff have the willingness and ability to learn and adapt in order to keep in step with your target group.

• Make sure your company is visible and easy to find on the Internet, at trade fairs et cetera.

• Make sure you meet all the basic criteria for the particular segment or market you are focussing on.

• If you have a successful partnership with a brand or retailer, approach similar players, using your client as a reference. Success fuels success."

Privilegiar os inputs sobre os outputs (parte IV)

Parte I, parte II e parte III.

Cuidado com a leitura. Ela deve ser feita calçando os sapatos do cliente, simulando uma entrada na sua mente e vendo o mundo através da sua perspetiva:

"Price is a simple number. How much money do I need to hand you to get this thing?
.
Cost is more relevant, more real and more complicated.
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Cost is what I had to give up to get this. Cost is how much to feed it, take care of it, maintain it and troubleshoot it. Cost is my lack of focus and my cost of storage. Cost is the externalities, the effluent, the side effects.
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Just about every time, cost matters more than price, and shopping for price is a trap."

Nem sempre é suficiente, o cliente pode não fazer contas, o cliente pode não ter informação, o cliente pode ser preguiçoso, o cliente pode não saber como fazer as contas, ....

Então, faz sentido fazer o "upframing", subir a um ponto mais alto, para ter uma perspectiva diferente e desenhar um novo ecossistema. Um ecossistema onde, por exemplo, um prescritor ou um influenciador possa actuar sobre os clientes.

O que é que o actor (cliente, influenciador, prescritor, ...) procura ou valoriza? De que fogem? De que têm medo? O que é dor para eles?

Trecho retirado de "Price vs. Cost"