Para reflexão

"Poor preparation is a lousy excuse for a last-minute selfish frenzy. That frenzy distracts us from doing it right the next time.
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If you want to understand where mastery and success come from, take a look at the inputs and the journey, not simply the outputs."

Trecho retirado de "Cold yeast"

Testar rapidamente

"But today’s pop-up is hardly about smashing annual revenue numbers. Much as a Silicon Valley start-up might release a prototype or beta version to study user feedback, many retailers are treating their pop-up stores as a way to test, learn and iterate on new ideas.
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To some, it’s about testing a hypothesis or validating a new concept. To others, it’s about evaluating new markets, studying consumer behaviour or collecting actionable data to inform marketing strategy, R&D and business decisions. But for most, it’s still about building brand recognition, engaging new and loyal customers, and igniting social media and PR buzz."

Trecho retirado de "The Pop-Up Has Grown Up"

"o destino é este constante subir, crescer e, depois, ser suplantado por outros"

"Zara fue pionera en el concepto de moda rápida en la década de 1980. Fue la primera en desarrollar un método de reacción rápida a las tendencias cambiantes, utilizando cadenas de suministro ágiles basadas en la producción de abastecimiento cerca de la sede para acelerar sus "plazos de entrega" que desde el comienzo del proceso de diseño hasta llegar a las tiendas tardaba semanas.
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Pero los nuevos competidores crecen rápidamente, sin presión por la propiedad de las tiendas físicas, acercan la producción a la distribución y a la constante renovación de la mercancía.
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Boohoo.com, fundada en la ciudad británica de Manchester en 2006, opera en un modelo de "prueba y repetición" por el cual produce pequeños lotes y aumenta la producción de los que mejor se venden. Más de la mitad de sus productos se fabrican en Gran Bretaña.
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La compañía, cuyas ventas se duplicaron el año pasado, dijo que tenía plazos de entrega tan cortos como dos semanas. Missguided, que también tiene su sede en Manchester, ha dicho que sus plazos de entrega pueden ser de tan solo una semana."

Esta é a beleza da história da evolução da vida na Terra. Quando os governos não protegem os incumbentes, o destino é este constante subir, crescer e, depois, ser suplantado por outros:


Trecho retirado de "Así utiliza Zara la tecnología para mantenerse líder en la industria de la moda"

Pobres gigantes... não vão ter qualquer hipótese

“The power of the unscale dynamic can be seen as Warby Parker developed its business model by renting scale instead of building and owning it and, in a flash, competed against Luxottica for a slice of the entrenched company’s global market. The company can rent computing power on cloud services like AWS and Microsoft Azure, rent manufacturing from contract factories in Asia, rent access to consumers via the internet and social media, rent distribution from delivery companies like UPS and the US Postal Service. Warby today can succeed against an entrenched player with fewer than eight hundred employees. The company as I write this is worth well north of $1 billion and has become a fixture in the market for hip eyeglasses.
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Warby is also part of a trend that is changing consumers’ relationships with brands. Brands were created to convey information about products at a time when it was hard for consumers to get information. But our hypernetworked and data-engorged era is killing the very reason for mass-market branding. We can find out everything about some gadget or shirt or hockey stick from a maker we never heard of. We can read reviews, Google the company, ask about it on social networks. As we get better information about small-scale products, people feel safe seeking out the unique, the undiscovered, the unbrands—giving a company like Warby an opening against a Luxottica.
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We used to want the brands everybody else had. But now we’re moving toward mass individualism, wanting stuff “nobody else has. This leaves big brands vulnerable to hordes of quirky little unbrands.
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All the dynamics of mass-market consumerism reinforced one another. For instance, big producers could claim more shelf space at big outlets, making it difficult for niche products to reach consumers. And economies of scale ruled. The bigger the retailer, the harder it could bargain for lower prices and the more efficiently it could operate. Walmart especially gained an advantage in this way. The bigger the consumer product maker, the more it could spend on advertising while gaining efficiencies from mass production and massive distribution. Here, P&G took the lead ahead of other manufacturers.
But when you think about it, the mass-market consumer companies made each of us conform to the experience that was best for them, not us.
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On top of that, the products we wind up with probably don’t conform to our specific taste. We’re often buying a compromise product—Budweiser beer, Levi’s jeans—designed to appeal to as many people as possible. The experience most of us really want is to easily find exactly the product we’re looking for, no matter where we are at the moment, and “have it delivered into our hands within a couple of hours. That’s an unscaled consumer experience.”

Pobres gigantes... não vão ter qualquer hipótese... a menos que os políticos, com medo das alterações a nível da sociedade entrem em campo e reforcem o apoio que já dão aos incumbentes.

Excerto de: Taneja, Hemant,Maney, Kevin. “Unscaled”.

As quatro estratégias-base para o retalho (parte III)

Parte I e parte II.

“2. Lead on Experiential: Offer Enhanced Customer ExperienceRetailers in the Experiential quadrant offer a physical customer experience that provides more pleasure, more excitement, and more fun than other retailers can provide.
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Here, the customer journey is more experiential, and is seen as a lifestyle choice, not a chore. This is a high-touch, social experience.
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excitement and discovery in-store.
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Other retailers augment the customer experience in-store by becoming community centers and hosting events such as book readings, celebrity talks, and community get-togethers. Lifestyle brands often offer aerobic classes, rock climbing walls, and basketball courts. Pop-up stores within stores offer excitement, “newness,” and innovation.
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3. Lead on Low Price: Offer Operational Excellence, Lowest-Cost EfficienciesRetailers in the Low Price quadrant provide reliable products or services at the lowest prices, and therefore offer customers the best savings. Retailers who can consistently offer the lowest prices have developed operating models that can efficiently manage inventory, keep overhead costs down, eliminate unnecessary intermediary steps, and reduce transaction costs at every step.
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are companies that look for creative ways to minimize overhead costs and to eliminate unnecessary transaction costs. They also offer reliability and efficiency, excellent customer service, and strong customer-focused policies for returns. These retailers build their entire business models around these goals.
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4. Lead on Frictionless: Offer Comprehensive Customer Understanding and Total ConvenienceRetailers in the Frictionless quadrant prioritize providing a frictionless customer experience that eliminates all pain points and offers the customer the easiest and most convenient way to shop. The key deliverable here is a simple, seamless integration of the shopping experience across all touchpoints. This requires the collection, capture, and analysis of all available customer data. Constantly analyzing the data allows for customization and personalization.
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In order to succeed here, retailers must identify the current pain points in the shopping experience.”

E para terminar esta introdução:

“A company’s choice in strategy will depend upon that retailers’ inherent strengths and the culture of the organization, and ultimately will set priorities for future allocation of resources. Customers are attracted to different retailers depending upon their own needs, so the choice of strategy will inevitably attract specific customer segments—and, by extension, inevitably turn away others.”

Excerto de: Barbara E. Kahn. “The Shopping Revolution”

A dispersão de desempenho intra-sectorial a explodir

Costumo usar esta figura para ilustrar a evolução que acredito ter acontecido desde meados do século XX até aos nossos dias.

O século XX valorizava a uniformização para tirar partido da vantagem da escala. Assim, basicamente havia uma estratégia única para o sucesso, crescer mais depressa que os outros e via escala e eficiência conquistar os clientes e aumentar a quota de mercado. Mongo, terra de tribos apaixonadas, permite a coexistência de cada vez mais estratégias. Recordar McArthur:

Esta narrativa pode ser traduzida numericamente a:

"Corporate strategy is increasingly challenging for today’s leaders. Business environments are becoming more and more varied, which requires companies to actively choose strategic approaches that match their own specific situations. External forces such as political pressures, social expectations and macroeconomic circumstances are having greater impacts, adding to the complexity of strategy. And the increasing pace of change means that strategic assumptions must be re-evaluated constantly.
At the same time, corporate strategy is also becoming more important. With aggregate growth trending downward globally and new competitors presenting a constant threat of disruption, companies can no longer count on merely extending and exploiting historical strategies over the long term. This means that strategy has become a more important source of differentiation between firms: Within a given industry, the average dispersion of performance has doubled since the 1980s."

Trecho e imagens retirados de "The Board’s Role in Strategy in a Changing Environment"

As quatro estratégias-base para o retalho (parte II)

Parte I.

"“1. Lead on Brand: Offer Branded Product SuperiorityRetailers in the Product Brand quadrant offer branded products that provide more differentiation, more value, more pleasure, and ultimately more confidence to a particular customer segment, as compared to other products on the market. Here I am specifically referring to the value that comes from branded product. It is the product’s brand equity that brings the customer into the store.
There are several ways retailers can leverage the value offered through products that have strong brand equity. First, there are multibrand retailers who carry multiple lines of strong branded products that “pull” the customer into the store.
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Other retailers in this quadrant will include high-quality brands that are sold directly to the end user. These are known as vertical brands and the product brand name is the same as the retailer’s brand name. Examples include luxury brands like Louis Vuitton or Hermès, specialty retailers such as Lululemon or Zara, or the newer digitally native vertical brands such as Warby Parker or Glossier.
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In all of these cases, these brands have developed deep emotional connections with consumers and a strong narrative; their customers frequently become brand advocates. In the luxury markets, these brands have heritage, exclusivity, and prestige. For the nonluxury brands, they have strong identity and values that resonate with their devotees.
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Retailers in this quadrant also excel in design and style. ... Finally, leaders in this quadrant may also compete on state-of-the art technology. All in all, the leaders here succeed in developing an innovative culture where new ideas are embraced and commercialized quickly.”

Excerto de: Barbara E. Kahn. “The Shopping Revolution”

"formulate clear problem statements" (parte VI)

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

Em "The Most Underrated Skill in Management" propõe-se o uso do A3 como forma de sistematizar o desenvolvimento de uma acção de melhoria:

"To track problem-solving projects, we have modified the A3, a famous form developed by Toyota, to better enable its use for tracking problem- solving in settings other than manufacturing. The A3 form divides the structured problem-solving process into four main steps, represented by the big quadrants, and each big step has smaller subphases, captured by the portions below the dotted lines.

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Though the form may often have supporting documentation, restricting the project summary to a single page forces the user to be very clear in his or her thinking. The A3 divides the structured problem-solving process into four main steps, represented by the big quadrants, and each big step has smaller subphases, captured by the portions below the dotted lines. The first step (represented by the box at the upper left) is to formulate a clear problem statement. [Moi ici: 1.1 Qual é o problema que temos de resolver] In the Background section (in the bottom part of the Problem Statement box), you should provide enough information to clearly link the problem statement to the organization’s larger mission and objectives. [Moi ici: 1.2 Porque temos de trabalhar neste projecto? Qual o contexto. Qual a importância deste projecto. Que objectivo queremos atingir?] The Background section gives you the opportunity to articulate the why for your problem-solving effort."

2.1 - Como é que que funciona o processo actual? Qual o fluxograma? Que resultados temos? Que segmentação é possível fazer? Pareto(s)? Histograma(s)?

2.1 - Que suspeitas? Que hipóteses de causas mais prováveis? Que análises/testes devem ser feitos para despistar hipóteses irrelevantes? Espinha-de-peixe? Diagramas de correlação? 5 Porquês

"asking the “5 whys,” meaning that for each observed problem, the investigator should ask “why” five times in the hope that five levels of inquiry will reveal a problem’s true cause. Later, Kaoru Ishikawa developed the “fishbone” diagram to provide a visual representation of the multiple chains of inquiry that might be required to dig into the fundamental cause of a problem.
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The purpose of all root-cause approaches is to help the user understand how the observed problem is rooted in the existing design of the work system. Unfortunately, this type of systems thinking does not come naturally. When we see a problem (again, thanks to pattern matching) we have a strong tendency to attribute it to an easily identifiable, proximate cause. This might be the person closest to the problem or the most obvious technical cause, such as a broken bracket. Our brains are far less likely to see that there is an underlying system that generated that poorly trained individual or the broken bracket. Solving the immediate problem will do nothing to prevent future manifestations unless we address the system-level cause.
A good root-cause analysis should build on your investigation to show how the work system you are analyzing generates the problem you are studying as a part of normal operations."

3.1 - Que acções vão ser implementadas? Que processo futuro vai ser implementado?

"to propose an updated system to address the problem. Often the necessary changes will be simple. In the Target Design section, you should map out the structure of an updated work system that will function more effectively. ... The needed changes will rarely be an entirely new program or initiative. Instead, they should be specific, targeted modifications emerging from the root-cause analysis. Don’t try to solve everything at once; propose the minimum set of changes that will help you make rapid progress toward your goal.

3.2 - Que resultados pretendemos atingir?

"First, create an improvement goal — a prediction about how much improvement your proposed changes will generate. A good goal statement builds directly from the problem statement by predicting both how much of the gap you are going to close and how long it will take you to do it. If your problem is “24% of our service interactions do not generate a positive response from our customers, greatly exceeding our target of 5% or less,” then an improvement goal might be “reduce the number of negative service interactions by 50% in 60 days.” Clear goals are highly motivating, and articulating a prediction facilitates effective learning.
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Finally, set the leadership guidelines. Guidelines are the “guardrails” for executing the project; they represent boundaries or constraints that cannot be violated. For example, the leadership guidelines for a project focused on cost reduction might specify that the project should identify an innovation that reduces cost without making trade-offs in quality."

4.1 - Qual o plano de implementação?

"lay out a plan for implementing your proposed design. Be sure that the plan is broken into a set of clear and distinct activities (for example, have the invoice form reprinted with the general ledger code or hold a daily meeting to review quality issues) and that each activity has both an owner and a delivery date.
Now execute your plan and meet your target. But, even as you start executing, you are not done engaging in conscious learning."

4.2 - Resultados atingidos? Projecto eficaz? O que se aprendeu? Qual o próximo desafio?

As quatro estratégias-base para o retalho

“Most classic frameworks of retail strategy are missing a critical dimension: the customer perspective. It is a significant and startling omission.
After all, when customers go shopping, they want to buy something they value (product benefits) from someone they trust (customer experience). Whether customers buy these products offline or online is a function of where they are, who they are with, and how much time they have.
A related insight that many retail strategies seemingly forget is that today, more than ever, customers have lots of choices and they gravitate to the retailers who offer them the best value on the dimensions they care about. In other words, retailers have to provide some kind of superior competitive advantage beyond what is being offered by the competition. This superior value can be delivered either by providing more pleasure and benefits for their customers or by removing pain and inconvenience from the retail experience.”
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“The “Retail Proposition,” the horizontal axis of this 2 × 2 matrix, represents the first principle: Customers want to “buy something they want (product benefits) from someone they trust (customer experience). “Superior Competitive Advantage,” the vertical axis, represents the second principle: In order to win customers, retailers must offer products and experiences that are better than the competition’s.
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This matrix spells out four basic strategies. The first two strategies, illustrated on the top row, differentiate themselves by offering more pleasure and more benefits; the second two strategies, illustrated on the bottom row, differentiate by eliminating pain points.”

Excerto de: Barbara E. Kahn. “The Shopping Revolution”. iBooks.

Matéria-prima para ...

Ontem estive numa empresa de calçado que recentemente adquiriu uma máquina para classificar e preparar pele e outra para a cortar.

A empresa agora anda a ver como pode avaliar o antes versus o depois para ver qual o retorno efectivo das máquinas. O que me meteu impressão foi a postura tão arcaica do vendedor da máquina: venderam a máquina, instalaram-na, deram umas horitas de formação e adieu.

Se eu fosse vendedor da máquina era o primeiro interessado em fazer o que a SKF faz tão bem: calcular o Total Cost of Ownership:

Matéria-prima para justificar um preço superior, por causa da redução do custo total na vida do comprador.

Matéria-prima para ajudar o próximo cliente a decidir com mais segurança:

Mongo é sintonizar e responder rapidamente (Parte II)

Parte I.

“One of the keys to both Amazon’s success now and Walmart’s success in disrupting retail in the mid-nineties is a fierce understanding of what customers want. Winning retailers have to be completely customer-centric. This means they need to be mindful not only of what products customers want, but also of the importance of convenience—of removing the pain of shopping.” (1)

Saber claramente quem é o cliente-alvo e ter uma oferta desenhada para ele. Parece simples:

"Five Below sells items for $5 and under. Adults may be unfamiliar with the brand but the youth-focused discount chain has emerged as one of the brightest stars in the retail sector over the past 12 months.
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Unlike traditional discounters Dollar General or Dollar Tree, which sell cheap staples such as bread, soda and cleaning products to budget conscious households, Five Below chases pocket-money. It peddles $3 slime and $5 giant unicorn pool floaties to teens and pre-teens. This has turned out to be something of a retail sweet spot. A bet on fidget spinners helped Five Below deliver a 28 per cent rise in sales during its most recent fiscal year. Same-store sales were up 6.5 per cent — a feat few were able to match in the bombed out US retail sector.
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Five Below’s merchandise mix, one-third of which are in-house exclusives, helps protect its sales from Amazon." (2)

O complicado é o sacrificio de ter de considerar a blasfémia de chamar a uma parte do mercado não-clientes. Pois, o teste do algodão na estratégia ... todos querem ser simultaneamente ricos e com saúde.

(1) Excerto de: Barbara E. Kahn. “The Shopping Revolution”
(2) Trecho retirado de "Five Below/US retail: slime of the times"

"formulate clear problem statements" (parte V)

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

"3. Lack of a Clear GapA third common mistake is failing to articulate a clear gap. These problem statements sound like “We need to improve our brand” or “Sales have to go up.” The lack of a clear gap means that people are not engaging in clear mental contrasting and creates two related problems. First, people don’t know when they have achieved the goal, making it difficult for them to feel good about their efforts. Second, when people address poorly formulated problems, they tend to do so with large, one-size-fits-all solutions that rarely produce the desired results.
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4. The Problem Is Too BigMany problem statements are too big. Broadly scoped problem formulations lead to large, costly, and slow initiatives; problem statements focused on an acute and specific manifestation lead to quick results, increasing both learning and confidence."

Como nascem as decisões de melhoria nas empresas? Que ferramentas são usadas para clarificar os problemas e que ferramentas são usadas para focar o âmbito dos problemas?

Quantas empresas usam gráficos e vez de tabelas?
Quantas usam cartas de controlo, diagramas de Pareto e histogramas?

Mongo é sintonizar e responder rapidamente

O século XX foi o século da concentração e da escala, assim que Mongo arrasa e fecha com os dinossauros logo aparecem as pequenas e ágeis criaturas que tornam, o que parecia ser um cemitério, num campo de experimentação e diversidade

"It looks like the bankruptcy of RadioShack has actually been good for independently-owned stores, who are now able to open in new locations partly by focusing on the DIY/maker movement (or young robotics enthusiasts). One store owner admits that on some supplies they’re actually getting cheaper prices than they got from RadioShack, while another points out that RadioShack’s bankruptcy has finally removed restrictions on where they could be located. (“The corporate store had all of the big towns… Now they’ve encouraged the ma and pop stores to take over in those areas.”)
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These locally-owned RadioShack stores now actually hope to compete with Amazon, which has sucked up 90% of the growth in all consumer electronics sales, by offering personal (and in-person) customer service on electronics. “The world will always need somebody that will help them with a question…” Vern says philosophically. “I don’t think anybody will ever get rich off it again — I think those days are gone. But I think there will always be a spot for someone who can solder a wire or just answer a question, put a battery in a cordless phone for somebody who’s elderly, a battery for a key fob in a car…”" (1)

"In the last three years, RadioShack has filed for bankruptcy twice and closed nearly all of its corporate stores. But in the wake of the former retail giant’s death, independently owned franchise versions of the store have reinvented the brand and are actually doing pretty well—they’re even expanding.
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Rather than focusing on landline phones and remote-control toys that lined the shelves of RadioShack’s past, many of the independently-owned stores have shifted focus to offer supplies for makers and DIY enthusiasts. [Moi ici: Lojas que têm de obedecer a um centro que supostamente cria valor comprando bem, comprando barato por causa do volume, não conseguem influenciar e mostrar o quanto o mercado está a mudar. Loja dependente do centro é um instrumento para despachar, vomitar mercadoria. Loja independente está centrada na procura e cria valor quando vai ao encontro dessa procura, responde e muda muito mais rapidamente] As maker and hacker culture has expanded, along with the right-to-repair movement, more average consumers are interested in buying esoteric parts like tiny screws and solder. As our editor-in-chief noted back in 2014, RadioShack can actually compete with online retailers like Amazon on this front because of the immediacy (you don’t want to wait days to get that final part you need to finish your project) and the collaborative nature of maker culture. [Moi ici: E imagino a quantidade de eventos que podem ser animados para criar/reforçar o espírito de comunidade com estes geeks] “Do-it-yourself — that’s a big part of what Radio Shack is now,” Thad Teel, the owner of a Radio Shack in Claremore, Ohio that opened in April, told the Claremore Daily Progress. “Someone who tinkers in building or repairing anything electronic will find us an invaluable resource for parts and tools.”" (2)

BTW, muitas vezes acho que os liberais são os maiores inimigos do liberalismo porque falam de querer amanhã o que só poderá ser obtido ao fim de um processo. Imagino o que aconteceria ao fim de pouco tempo se acabasse a escola pública como a conhecemos, independente da procura e dependente de um centro mais preocupado em vómito, política e custo.

Fonte 1 - Can Locally-Owned Stores Save RadioShack?
Fonte 2 - The DIY Movement Is Bringing RadioShack Back From the Dead

"formulate clear problem statements" (parte IV)

Parte I, parte II e parte III.

"1. Failing to Formulate the ProblemThe most common mistake is skipping problem formulation altogether. People often assume that they all already agree on the problem and should just get busy solving it. Unfortunately, such clarity and commonality rarely exist.
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2. Problem Statement as Diagnosis or SolutionAnother frequent mistake is formulating a problem statement that presupposes either the diagnosis or the solution. A problem statement that presumes the diagnosis will often sound like “The problem is we lack the right IT capabilities,” and one that presumes a solution will sound like “The problem is that we haven’t spent the money to upgrade our IT system.”
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Allowing diagnoses or proposed solutions to creep into problem statements means that you have skipped one or more steps in the logical chain and therefore missed an opportunity to engage in conscious cognitive processing."

Este ponto 2 fez-me lembrar este tweet:

só eu é que acho estranho, gato empreiteiro escondido com o rabo de fora, usarem as filas no aeroporto geradas pela falta de pessoal para justificar a necessidade de um novo aeroporto em Lesboa?

— Carlos P da Cruz (@ccz1) June 1, 2018

Contexto - calçado

Quando a ISO 9001 fala de contexto, de questões externas relevantes para o futuro da empresa, é de coisas como esta, por exemplo, "Consumers Want to Eat Beef, Not Wear It, Sending Leather Prices Plummeting".

Não é a APICCAPS que quer fazer dos EUA o alvo para as exportações de calçado dos próximos anos? Não é o calçado de couro a especialidade do calçado português?

Até que ponto esta tendência tem peso? Até que ponto esta tendência se pode reforçar no futuro?

"Today, shoppers have a more vegan sensibility about what goes on their feet, demanding shoes with non-animal elements like canvas, microfiber and plastic. Making the choice easier are advances in the quality of fake leather, which is now so good most buyers can’t distinguish it from the real thing.
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That’s bad news for the leather industry because footwear makers are by far the biggest buyers, accounting for 55 percent of demand.
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Younger consumers, in particular, prefer more casual footwear to dress shoes, and they are gravitating to non-leather products from companies with a compelling feel-good story about how they’re made,"

"formulate clear problem statements" (parte III)

Parte I e parte II.

"Is your problem important? The first rule of structured problem- solving is to focus its considerable power on issues that really matter.
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Mind the gap. Decades of research suggest that people work harder and are more focused when they face clear, easy-to-understand goals. More recently, psychologists have shown that mentally comparing a desired state with the current one, a process known as mental contrasting, is more likely to lead people to change than focusing only on the future or on current challenges. Recent work also suggests that people draw considerable motivation from the feeling of progress, the sense that their efforts are moving them toward the goal in question. A good problem statement accordingly contains a clear articulation of the gap that you are trying to close.
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Quantify even if you can’t measure. Being able to measure the gap between the current state and your target precisely will support an effective project.
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Remain as neutral as possible. A good problem formulation presupposes as little as practically possible concerning why the problem exists or what might be the appropriate solution. That said, few problem statements are perfectly neutral.
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Is your scope down? Finally, a good problem statement is “scoped down” to a specific manifestation of the larger issue that you care about. Our brains like to match new patterns, but we can only do so effectively when there is a short time delay between taking an action and experiencing the outcome. Well-structured problem-solving capitalizes on the natural desire for rapid feedback by breaking big problems into little ones that can be tackled quickly. You will learn more and make faster progress if you do 12 one-month projects instead of one 12-month project."

"Unscaling will leave few industries or activities untouched"

“Healthcare is on its way to becoming more preemptive instead of, as it is today, reactive. Newborns will routinely have their genome sequenced, and that data will help predict diseases. IoT devices will be able to monitor your vital signs and activity, spotting problems at a very early stage. You’ll be able to get an initial diagnosis from an AI software “doctor” app via your phone or some other device, and the AI will guide you to a specialist if needed. Healthcare will be flipped on its head, shifting from treating health problems after they arise to spotting and fixing them before they develop. That should cost a fraction of what healthcare costs today, solving one of America’s toughest financial squeezes.
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As entrepreneurs remake the energy sector, more homes and buildings will generate their own power using cheap and superefficient solar panels on roofs and high-powered batteries in basements or garages. The batteries, like those now being manufactured by Tesla, will store power generated when the sun shines for use when it doesn’t. “Each of these buildings will be connected to a two-way power line that can allow anyone to sell excess energy or buy needed energy in an eBay-style marketplace. If you do own a car, it’s likely to be electric, and your home solar panels and batteries can charge it.
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Trends suggest that you will get more of your food from small local farms or urban farms built inside old warehouses and shopping malls. The food industry spent the twentieth century scaling up agriculture, making farms bigger and more corporate, tended by enormous pieces of machinery with very few actual farmers. In the coming decades technology will help small, local farms operate at a profit, while breakthroughs in producing test-tube meat will vastly reduce the acreage needed to graze cows and raise chickens.
The technology of 3D printing is beginning to unscale and reimagine manufacturing. Within a decade, if you order a new pair of shoes or a chair, it might not come from a far-off mass-production factory; instead, many companies are going to custom produce items in small batches as they’re ordered, and the factories will operate akin to AWS—offering companies as much or as little manufacturing as they need.
Unscaling will leave few industries or activities untouched.”

Excerto de: Taneja, Hemant,Maney, Kevin. “Unscaled”.

"formulate clear problem statements" (parte II)

Parte I.

"When the brain’s associative machine is confronted with a problem, it jumps to a solution based on experience. To complement that fast thinking with a more deliberate approach, structured problem-solving entails developing a logical argument that links the observed data to root causes and, eventually, to a solution. Developing this logical path increases the chance that you will leverage the strengths of conscious processing and may also create the conditions for generating and then evaluating an unconscious breakthrough. Creating an effective logical chain starts with a clear description of the problem and, in our experience, this is where most efforts fall short.
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A good problem statement has five basic elements:

• It references something the organization cares about and connects that element to a clear and specific goal; [Moi ici: Relevante e específico]

• it contains a clear articulation of the gap between the current state and the goal; [Moi ici: Critério de sucesso claro]

• the key variables — the target, the current state, and the gap — are quantifiable;

• it is as neutral as possible concerning possible diagnoses or solutions; and [Moi ici: Não indica causas, soluções ou culpados]

• it is sufficiently small in scope that you can tackle it quickly." [Moi ici: Usar um Pareto para concentrar a atenção onde o impacte será maior]

       

Emprego por contra de outrem em Mongo

Uma previsão feita neste blogue há vários anos:

“Unscaling will involve transitioning away from ownership and toward accessing services.
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The key to success for most people will be living an entrepreneurial life and becoming their own personal enterprises, selling services on demand through the cloud to many employers. That’s not just for business owners but for everyone. For better or worse, a decreasing percentage of the population will rely on traditional full-time employment—and an increasing percentage will do better by owning their own business, with overlapping mini-careers throughout their lives.”

Recordar:

• Acerca da dimensão das empresas e da necessidade de crescer a todo o custo (Agosto de 2012)
• O futuro do emprego passará pelo auto-emprego (Janeiro de 2013)
• Mongo e o emprego (Junho 2016)

Excerto de: Taneja, Hemant,Maney, Kevin. “Unscaled”. iBooks.

"formulate clear problem statements" (parte I)

"There are few management skills more powerful than the discipline of clearly articulating the problem you seek to solve before jumping into action.
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while many organizations strive for continuous change and learning, few actually achieve those goals on a regular basis.
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one of the foundational skills in leading effective change: formulating a clear problem statement.
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we have come to believe that problem formulation is the single most underrated skill in all of management practice.
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There are few questions in business more powerful than “What problem are you trying to solve?” In our experience, leaders who can formulate clear problem statements get more done with less effort and move more rapidly than their less-focused counterparts. Clear problem statements can unlock the energy and innovation that lies within those who do the core work of your organization."

Quantas vezes não se formula correctamente o problema que se quer resolver?

Trechos retirados de "The Most Underrated Skill in Management"

Para reflexão

"Amazon continues to take a larger cut of that share for itself, accounting for almost 42% of U.S. online sales last year
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Still, four “bricks-and-clicks” retailers reported stronger online sales increases than Amazon last year, with Walmart at 61.5% growth (though much of it via acquisition), Lowe’s at 34.3%, Best Buy at 27.2% and Target with 24%,
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Meanwhile, among Internet Retailer’s Top 500 online retailers, sales for retailers listed No. 201 through No. 500 collectively increased about 25% last year, suggesting sales growth is well within reach for smaller e-commerce sites even as Amazon continues to dominate"

Trechos retirados de "Amazon still dominates e-commerce, but others have room to grow"

What a difference a year makes!

A evolução das exportações este ano - números do INE. What a difference a year makes!

Aquele "Parcial I" teve uma evolução impressionante, e eu sou um fã do "Parcial I" (Julho e Setembro de 2017)

Imaginem o quão os automóveis distorcem os números agregados.

Fuçar!

"“There are so many things in this world that we cannot know until we try something. Very often after we try we find that the results are completely the opposite of what we expected, and this is because having misconceptions is part of what it means to be human.”"

Trecho retirado de “Taiichi Ohno's Workplace Management” de Taiichi Ohno.

E subir na escala de valor?

A propósito do meu primeiro contacto com as mochilas Monte Campo ler "Alargar os horizontes" (Julho de 2011), seguido logo por "Um sonho". Um sonho que não passou disso mesmo, "Mongo, experiências, emoções, significados e tribos" (Agosto de 2016).

Ontem tive oportunidade de ler "O pai, o avô no centro e o neto. Os três eduardos na fábrica da Monte Campo". Foi impressionante. Continua a falta de pensamento estratégico.

Encolheram e parece que ficaram à espera que a China/Ásia ficasse cara. E subir na escala de valor? E começar a fazer um trajecto para ir ao encontro das marcas da gama média-alta?

Suckiness, what else

Recordar "Giants invariably descend into suckiness" (parte XIV)

"It is crystal clear, however, that many more malls and stores will close without aggressive actions to reimagine and reinvent themselves. Struggling brands desperately need to go from boring to remarkable. Struggling brands need to adopt a culture of experimentation and be willing to be retail radicals. Struggling brands need to stop the nonsense about channels and realize it’s all just commerce, and that the customer is the ultimate channel. Struggling brands need to learn to treat different customers differently. And struggling brands need to hurry. Time is not on their side."

Trecho retirado de "These Brands Apparently Did Not Get The 'Retail Apocalypse' Memo"

Mudança, mudança, mudança

Mongo na agricultura... até na agricultura os gigantes estão condenados pela sua suckiness.

"Yet Minnesota-based Cargill’s business is falling victim to a scourge that’s already upended media, retailing, and other venerable industries: digital disruption. Cargill long made fat profits by having far more information about global commodity prices than the local farmers it negotiated with or the food companies it sold to. But today, even a small Iowa farmer with a smartphone or a tablet can get real-time data about weather conditions and prices facing his Brazilian counterparts.
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His view that farmers increasingly won’t need to rely on agribusiness giants for pricing intelligence is gaining ground within the industry. “We probably [will] witness the disappearance of the dinosaurs of the international agri trade,”
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The revolution goes beyond digitization. Agriculture is moving from a pure commodities business, where each bushel of wheat or corn is considered functionally identical, to an ingredients business, where consumers demand differentiation, such as organic produce and foodstuffs grown without genetically modified organisms. That transition makes the life of a trading-based company more difficult, says Jonathan Kingsman, author of Commodity Conversations, because it restricts its ability to find the lowest-priced goods on the market. When traders can no longer “substitute one origin for another, that reduces their ability to make money from the supply chain,”(fonte 1)

O problema da política agrícola comum europeia, afinal o de qualquer subsidiação porque minimiza o stress, elimina um sinal de que é preciso mudar.

"O algodão está a voltar às planícies do Kansas e do Oklahoma, ao mesmo tempo que os agricultores desistem do trigo, atraídos pelo preço relativamente alto daquela matéria-prima assim como pela sua capacidade para suportar uma seca.
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Um aumento de 20% em relação ao ano passado marca uma alteração profunda numa colheita que já dominou o delta do Mississippi até ao Texas e que registou o seu ponto mais baixo há três anos, quando os preços reduzidos levaram a quem se dedica à plantação do “ouro branco” a diminuir o número de hectares para mínimos em 30 anos. Esta mudança pode ser de longo prazo, tendo em conta que os agricultores estão a deixar o trigo, segmento dominado pelo crescimento enorme da Rússia, o maior exportador deste cereal." (fonte 2)

Recordar 2012, "Commodity Prices Are Headed Lower"


(1) - America’s Largest Private Company Reboots a 153-Year-Old Strategy
(2) - Algodão regressa às planícies americanas

"Giants invariably descend into suckiness" (parte XIV)

Parte I, parte II, parte III, parte IV, parte V, parte VI, parte VII, parte VIII, parte IX, parte X, parte XI, parte XII e parte XIII.

Mais um subsidio para a justificação de porque é que em Mongo os gigantes estão irremediavelmente condenados à suckiness, agora através das palavras de Seth Godin em "“It’s not for everyone”":

"The stuff that’s for everyone, that’s easy to click, sniff, share, produce and learn–that stuff ends up having no character. It’s not memorable. Tater tots are for everyone.
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But would you miss them if they were gone?
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The goal isn’t to serve everyone. The goal is to serve the right people."

E o que é que Mongo tem em grande quantidade? Tribos apaixonadas que não pactuam com o meio-termo, que são assimétricas.

Recordar:

"Customers often think we are different not because we are different, but because we recognize what makes them different" 

Influenciadores para nichos ou de nichos

Sabem como há muitos anos trabalho o conceito de ecossistema, de influenciador e de como não acredito no the-winner-take-all mesmo nas redes sociais (Mongo é diversidade, proximidade, autenticidade e paixão).

Assim, apreciei ler "A Guide to Working With Niche Influencers":

"Instead, it’s the fact that, despite only clocking roughly 155,000 Instagram followers, her engagement is almost twice that of the average fashion “influencer”, according to data analytics firm Tribe Dynamics. In 2017 so far, she has garnered 1.6 million likes on 258 fashion-related posts.
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Blutstein’s success represents the rise of a different kind of influencer, one who may not ever reach the followership of the major players — many of whom are now full-fledged celebrities — but who brings an aura of authenticity to the brand projects she takes on. Call them micro-influencers, niche-influencers, alterna-influencers, what-have-you, these Instagram, Youtube and Snapchat stars typically have well under 200,000 followers, and sometimes no more than 10,000.
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In an analysis of the accounts of 15 emerging-name fashion influencers — all with fewer than 300,000 followers, and most with fewer than 200,000 — Tribe Dynamics found that engagement rates were, on average, four times that of the average influencer in its database. When comparing upper-tier influencers (over 300,000 followers) with lower tier influencers (under 300,000 followers), the lower tier influencers fashion influencers have 86 percent higher engagement rates on Instagram.
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In an ironic turn of events, it seems that alterna-influencers are usurping advertising and marketing dollars from well-known superstar bloggers in the way those bloggers once usurped print magazines.
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There are influencers whose job is to advertise on Instagram. There are others who use social media to communicate. It’s two very distinct things."

Planeamento - Um relato fantástico!!!

Ontem estive numa empresa a animar um primeiro brainstorming sobre o que fazer para implementar um eixo estratégico.

A empresa criou um plano estratégico para 2018-2022. O plano lista os eixos estratégicos que permitirão atingir os resultados pretendidos no final de 2022. Entretanto, como eles dizem:

"De 20 trimestres já passaram dois e nós ainda não implementamos nada!"

Identificou-se o principal obstáculo à implementação do tal eixo estratégico e começaram-se a gerar ideias sobre como o ultrapassar. No final da sessão, decidiu-se que ideias mereciam ser trabalhadas, por quem e até quando. Trabalho de casa até ao próximo dia 14!

À noite apanho este artigo "How Chris Froome won Giro d'Italia thanks to 'spectacular' stage 19 victory". Eu que sou um fã de Froome e do Tour, eu que assisti em directo via computador ao feito de Froome:

Merci @lequipe pour me me laisser voire/ecouter cette course de Froome

— Carlos P da Cruz (@ccz1) May 25, 2018

Froome épico e histórico

— Carlos P da Cruz (@ccz1) May 25, 2018

Primeiro tópico:

"It was one of those great scenarios where you could say, let's throw the kitchen sink at it and see what happens. There was a real sense of, let's nail this. And then, let's get forensic on the planning." 

"Let's get forensic on the planning" - excelente!!!

Segundo tópico:

Já em mais do que um texto li sobre a técnica britânica no ciclismo, que fez do Reino Unido um papa-medalhas olímpicas. Definem o objectivo global e, depois, procuram todas as partes que contribuem para esse objectivo, para actuar sobre elas.

"DB: "We recognised that to pull it off, you would have to fuel it. The body can only absorb 90 grams of carbs an hour. If you're using more than that, you're going to run out pretty fast.
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"So it was mission critical that Chris had to get 90g of carbs every hour. But when you looked at where that would be in the race, you realised it wasn't always going to be practical to eat three rice cakes in an hour, or three gels. If you are riding hard up a climb or going flat out on a descent, it's not possible.
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"Tim divided the stage into segments - the first 90 minutes, then the transition into the first climb, the climb itself. Then he translated all that into the wattage Chris would be producing in each section, and the carbs Chris would need to do that. And then we put that into a nutritional strategy.
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"Each water bottle weighs 500g. We obsess over losing 30g from a bike. On this hour-long climb of the Finestre, which could be the decisive moment of the entire race, was it worth carrying an extra 500g up this possibly pivotal climb? But if you didn't, if he didn't hydrate, there was a very real risk he could blow.
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"OK, Let's get a feed at 10-minute intervals on that climb, so Chris can carry minimal food and water.
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"We told Rod the plan. Any chance? His face dropped.
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"He came back. 'We can do it, but we're going to need everybody in the team - press officers, mechanics, security guy, me. That's the only way it can work.' Then we thought, some of these guys have never given a bottle to a moving rider before. So we would have to move around.
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"Rod did the logistics of that. James worked out what Chris should eat, when and where. Tim did the calculations about energy expenditure and where. And then we got the riders together and said, this is what we're going to try to do."

Um relato fantástico!!!

Como é que a sua empresa planeia os seus objectivos, eixos estratégicos e mergulha no detalhe do plano de acção?

Do contra (parte II)

A propósito de "Portugal entre os países que mais vão perder população" recordo que este é um tema abordado aqui quase desde o início do blogue:

• Tudo o resto é espuma... (Outubro de 2006)
• Daqui a 20 anos ... (Fevereiro de 2013)
• Curiosidade do dia (Março de 2014)

No entanto, gostaria de chamar a atenção que divirjo do mainstream na avaliação desta tendência: Do contra (Julho de 2017)

"the heart of ecosystem strategy is the search for alignment"

Um excelente texto a merecer mais do que uma leitura, "Ecosystem as Structure: An Actionable Construct for Strategy":

"An alternative perspective, which I call ecosystems-as-structure, offers a complementary approach to considering interdependent value creation. ... starts with a value proposition and seeks to identify the set of actors that need to interact in order for the proposition to come about.
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The ecosystem is defined by the alignment structure of the multilateral set of partners that need to interact in order for a focal value proposition to materialize.
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places the value proposition as the foundation of the ecosystem—it is the proposed value proposition that creates the (endogenous) boundary of the relevant ecosystem.
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When a value proposition depends on a shift in ecosystem structure, the additional strategic question that is raised concerns alignment: How will the innovator create the impetus for other actors, who may not be directly linked to the innovator, to change? Crafting an ecosystem strategy hinges on a clear understanding of what the relevant pieces are and where the boundaries of dependence and independence lie.
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If the heart of traditional strategy is the search for competitive advantage, the heart of ecosystem strategy is the search for alignment. The value, rarity, and inimitability of resources finds its analog in multilateral partnerships, and sustainability of advantage has as much to do with maintaining relationships as it does with keeping rivals at bay. While the status, size, and capabilities of firms will clearly impact their ability to act and shape interdependence, status, size, and capability can only take an organization so far. Asymmetric interdependence—in which an innovator’s success depends more heavily on a partner breaking away from business as usual than does the partner’s continued success in its usual business depends on the innovators’ choices—can upend expectations of size and authority."

O preço não devia ser um dado

"Perspective defines what you see and what you don’t see. People observe things as they appear to them in their day-to-day lives. For example, media convey those events they consider the most important and thereby shape the perspective of the audience. Their readers and viewers process news items as they are served up to them.
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In a similar way, items on the agenda of a company’s board shape the perspective of middle managers and employees. Price is rarely an item on that agenda, which is down to the fact that no one on the board has direct and undivided responsibility for pricing.
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Broken up into several pieces, the pricing policy comes under the competency of the commercial, managing, financial, and operational directors. Each director only sees a piece of the pricing puzzle, and the consequences of suboptimal prices often go unnoticed. Pricing is considered a given, and not a critical decision; the price is exogenous instead of endogenous.
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The result is an underdeveloped perspective on pricing. Scant heed paid to pricing matters at board level leads to pricing decisions being sometimes made almost casually, with the decision-making process largely hidden from view, and only the end product, i.e., prices, reaching the desks of managers and employees.
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Organization of the pricing function is barely explicit and almost always suboptimal."

Trechos retirados de "Pricing: The Third Business Skill" de Ernst-Jan Bouter.

Mongo na saúde

“Over the past four or five decades carbohydrate-heavy diets—pushed by mass-market production and mass marketing of cereals and drinks laced with high-fructose corn syrup—created an epidemic of obesity and, ultimately, diabetes. The medical profession lumped most people with diabetes into one of two categories of the disease—type 1 is genetic and type 2 is diet related—and prescribed a standard treatment. It was a classic mass-market medicine approach. So the healthcare industry scaled up to meet demand. It built diabetes centers and more hospitals and ran every patient, assembly-line style, through the same tests the few times a year they’d be able to visit an endocrinologist, whose schedule was packed. Yet for patients, sugar levels in between appointments can change, rising and falling to dangerous levels, and the disease can progress, adding more costs and more visits to bigger hospitals. People suffering from diabetes end up costing the healthcare system $300 billion a year in the United States alone. (It’s only going to get worse globally: within a decade China will likely have more people with diabetes than the entire US population.) “The scaled approach can’t keep up with the growing number of people with the condition, and it fails to give people with diabetes what they really want: a healthy life.
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In reality every person who has diabetes suffers from it differently, and the best way to treat it is different for everybody.
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“Personalized AI-driven care can reduce the amount Americans spend caring for diabetes by as much as $100 billion just by keeping more people with diabetes well more of the time. Unscaled solutions can change the game and reduce healthcare costs by keeping people well. The nation can save money while at the same time making citizens healthier, happier, and more productive.”

Por cá, fala-se muito de Indústria 4.0, mas continuam a construir hospitais-monumento ou hospitais-cidade. Recordar os hospitais-cidade, as escolas-cidade e as máquinas-monumento.

Trecho retirado de "Unscaled: How A.I. and a New Generation of Upstarts are Creating the Economy of the Future"

"Giants invariably descend into suckiness" (parte XIII)

Parte I, parte II, parte III, parte IV, parte V, parte VI, parte VII, parte VIII, parte IX, parte X, parte XI e parte XII.

"The problem with GE, it appears, is that it has become a square-peg business in a round-hole world. It’s not that it’s gotten lazy, but that it invested heavily in getting better and better at things people care less and less about. That’s a problem we rarely talk about. We like to believe that success breeds more success, but the truth is that success often breeds failure.
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From a certain point of view, GE did everything right. It continually improved its operations, brought in outside experts to shake things up and transformed its product development process. It also made strategically sensible acquisitions in an industry it knew well. But the whole time it was getting better and better at things customers wanted less and less. That’s how you get disrupted.
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It’s a fairly simple equation. If you don’t explore, you won’t discover. If you don’t discover you won’t invent. And if you don’t invent, you will be disrupted."

Pensar na GE é pensar na Procter & Gamble e numa série de gigantes. De que serve a escala quando as pessoas não querem ser tratadas como plankton?

Trechos retirados de "How GE Got Disrupted"

Não basta inovar (parte II)

Parte I.

Recordar também "O Diógenes dentro de mim" (Maio de 2014). Não é uma questão que só aconteça às PME. Sempre que falha o alinhamento

temos desperdício:

"A new product line had failed, and the company believed the problem was either poor product delivery times or lack of effort by the sales force. After throwing millions at both problems, they finally realized what the real issue was: misaligned goals between marketing and sales. The product line was priced to grow market share, yet the sales force compensation was structured to incentivize salespeople based on profit margin maximization. As a result, the frustrated sales force focused efforts on selling other products in which the goals were more aligned.
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This company isn’t alone. Marketing and sales departments often set their strategies, and goals, separately from each other."

Trecho retirado de "When Sales and Marketing Aren’t Aligned, Both Suffer"

Douro

Teóricos vs práticos

Pois ...

Imaginem ...

Ao fim de vários meses lá consegui que empresa de informática que representa marca de ERP finalmente acedesse a dar formação à empresa A, sua cliente, paga com dinheiro de um subsídio.

Dias depois da primeira sessão visitei a empresa A e estavam entusiasmados com o que tinham aprendido. Tinham o ERP há anos e só aproveitavam uma pequena parcela. Logo por causa da primeira sessão resolveram avançar para a compra de mais um módulo do referido ERP.

Aposto que a empresa de informática não vai fazer a relação entre os dois acontecimentos:

• cliente ganha know-how sobre o ERP, cliente valoriza o ERP, cliente percebe o valor que pode experimentar com um novo módulo do ERP, cliente encomenda novo módulo do ERP;
• empresa de informática ganha encomenda, empresa de informática ganha publicidade positiva com os comentários da empresa A.

Imaginem que a empresa de informática era capaz de somar 2 mais 2 e começava a oferecer aos seus clientes mais sessões deste tipo ...

Para reflexão

"Experiences, which offers users activities hosted by locals — like a photography workshop or a cooking class — is now doing a million and a half bookings on an annualized basis. It’s growing much faster than Homes did, according to Chesky, who shared the data point that three in four millennials said they’d rather buy an Experience than a physical good."

Imaginem quando os hospedeiros por cá começarem a oferecer mais do que o espaço e se concentrarem no pacote completo.

Trecho retirado de "The experience economy will be a ‘massive business,’ according to Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky"