Privilegiar os inputs sobre os outputs (parte XII)

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

Recordar 

"Privilegiar os inputs sobre os outputs nada mais nada menos do que aplicar uma regra fundamental do Design Thinking.
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Começar pelo que o cliente, ou o consumidor, ou o prescritor (começar por um actor do ecossistema) precisa ou quer fazer. Quais as suas motivações, que problema é que está a tentar resolver.[Moi ici: Recordar sobretudo a parte IX]
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A Empatia é a chave. Não é acerca da nossa empresa. Precisamos da capacidade de perceber e partilhar os sentimentos de outros"

E considerar "How Not to Fail at Retail":

"Think About: Input Before Output
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We all know how online shopping works: a customer can search for products based on various criteria. But an online store isn’t very good at asking probing questions to find out what a consumer really cares about.
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As Frank asked me questions about what I wanted to accomplish with this new amplifier, he gathered key information before suggesting what the right solution would be. He put himself in a position to make recommendations to me that guitarcenter.com would never be able to make. And he helped me learn more about what was really important to me.
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Could I have bought the amp on guitarcenter.com? Sure. But now that Frank has acted like a trusted advisor and helped me with my decision making, I’m much less likely to close the deal online. And truthfully, the only place I even considered making the purchase was in-person, with Frank.
...
As an in-store salesperson learns about a consumer’s needs and interests, they can do something that an online retailer can do in only the most rudimentary fashion: frame the product’s story in terms of the particular benefits to this individual customer.
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An online product listing can tell of generic benefits, such as “gets your teeth their whitest” or “saves you $432 per year in energy costs.” An in-person retail experience can do so much more.
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Brick and mortar retailers have lost many of the advantages they once had, including providing better access to products and the convenience of “location, location, location.” But in-person retailers still have the advantage of proximate, meaningful human contact to that allows them to better listen to customers, collaborate with them and personalize their purchase experience."

Acerca da Micam

"“Now the world has changed. Thanks to digital disruption and transformation, the buyers are a little bit lost, in their words. [Moi ici: Aqui "the buyers" são os clientes das empresas de calçado. Recordar "Calçado português? Bom no fabrico, desconhecido na marca"] They are lost because it’s very complicated to understand what to follow, how to follow it and what time to dedicate to what," Micam's chief executive Tommaso Cancellara told BoF."

Trecho retirado de "Insights From the Frontline of Footwear"

Anónimo da província, mas sempre à frente

Há tempos fui fazer a auditoria anual que realizo desde 2013 a uma empresa que opera no mercado interno. Em 2013 desafiei-os a procurar outros clientes, a alargar o leque de clientes que serviam. Na altura, trabalhavam a 100% pra a EDP ainda que indirectamente.

A semente caiu em boa terra e a empresa começou a procurar clientes particulares. Em 2018 a EDP baixou fortemente o seu volume de negócios por várias razões, mas a empresa aumentou a facturação e o valor acrescentado. Um euro facturado a um particular é muito mais valioso que um euro facturado à EDP.

Quem acompanha este blogue sabe que sigo a evolução das exportações há muitos anos e que tenho uma abordagem parcial ao seu conteúdo. Para mim, um euro exportado por uma multinacional não tem o mesmo valor que o mesmo euro exportado por uma PME. Por isso, tenho feito este tipo de comentários ao longo dos anos:

• No meu campeonato as exportações do 1º trimestre correram bem! (Maio de 2016)
• Empresas que me interessam (Setembro de 2016)

Por isso, 2018 foi um ano mau demais:

• Acerca do perfil de exportações de 2017 (Fevereiro de 2018)
• "Um outro olhar sobre os números das exportações" (parte II) (Outubro de 2018)
• O choque em curso (Dezembro de 2018)

Relacionar isto com "Como os têxteis e o calçado ainda dão cartas":

"“Cada milhão de dólares de crescimento na procura final de têxteis, couro e calçado tem potencial para gerar 20,3 novos empregos, o que é o valor mais alto da indústria transformadora portuguesa”
...
O estudo de Tiago Domingues, técnico superior do GEE (Direção de Serviços de Acompanhamento da Economia Portuguesa), coloca no extremo oposto o sector petrolífero, que apresenta um potencial de criação de 2,2 novos postos de trabalho por cada milhão de dólares de aumento da procura. Sustenta que mais do que comparar stocks de importação e exportação entre países, importa analisar o valor acrescentado. E na explicação volta a remeter para os têxteis e o petróleo: se Portugal exporta produtos petrolíferos, o valor acrescentado bruto é quase nulo e prende-se com a refinação de crude. Já nos têxteis, temos 30 cêntimos de importações para cada euro produzido."

BTW, como lidar com "Falta de mão de obra desespera empresas"?

Webinar - How to perform an ISO 14001:2015 internal audit

Na próxima quinta-feira, 28 de Fevereiro pelas 19h00, os interessados podem assistir a "How to perform an ISO 14001:2015 internal audit [free webinar]" e colocar questões.

Para reflexão

Um artigo que merece ser lido para perceber o que se pode fazer e como as coisas podem funcionar, "What the ‘Amazon Coat’ Reveals About the Future of Shopping":

"More than half of shoppers aged 15 to 29 are influenced by independent customer reviews, and 43 percent are influenced by social media, according to Euromonitor International’s Lifestyle Survey 2017. “When it comes to shopping for clothes, fit, sizing and quality are key criteria — and when shopping online, these criteria are so hard,” said Ayako Homma, a fashion and luxury consultant at the market research firm.
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The glut of positive reviews surely has helped the Amazon coat stand out."

"profecia fácil do "hollowing", ou "radioclubização", de como uma marca forte e genuína se transforma numa carcaça, num aristocrata arruinado, fruto de deixarem os muggles à solta"

No postal anterior abordámos o tema da quebra da procura do fast-fashion e uma certa aposta na qualidade.

"People are moving away from poorly made, inexpensive fashion items.
...
Payless was the shoe equivalent of fast fashion. The brand was not known for the quality or durability of its product, but competed largely on price."

Recordar, "Para reflexão pelos empresários do calçado e do têxtil":

"Dá que pensar no potencial impacte numa série de modelos de negócio baseados no fast-fashion... ou no low-cost."

Entretanto perante este descalabro:

Encontro, "The Lesson Of The Kraft Heinz Nosedive: Radical Cost-Cutting Is Out, Brands Are Back":

"Marketing budgets became a key target for the frugality drive of companies ever since the last recession. [Moi ici: Como é a memória... faz-me recordar qualquer coisa que li em 2007 sobre as marcas do FMCG... cá está, Kumar] Last year, budgets had decreased from 12.1% of average revenues in to 11.3% the previous year, according to consulting firm Gartner.
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Predictably, with a focus on cost-cutting rather than growth, the financial health of corporate America is deteriorating. According to an analysis of the 2017 Fortune 500, 53% of corporates had experienced an after-tax profit decline, while only 47% saw profit growth. Marketing, once the driving force of America’s consumer society, has been in retreat for over a decade
...
The 3G Capital approach to business is ruthless and revolves around cost-cutting. Every employee must justify his existence every single day. Promotions are quick and merit-based, and underperformers get fired with the same alacrity. Budgets are zero based and evaluated unsparingly every year, or even sometimes with more frequency. Expenses are eliminated if they’re no longer judged worth incurring.[Moi ici: Oranges, como classificaria Laloux. A receita da tríade, e a paranoia do eficientismo]
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In less than two years after merging Kraft with Heinz, its workforce was cut by 20% and overhead by 40%. Critics have long contended that 3G Capital’s cost-cutting went too far and came at the expense of growth. They turned out to be right. The problem with this philosophy is that you can’t cost-cut your way to growth.
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Not surprisingly, what followed is sales declined for six quarters in a row. The wheels came off last Friday morning when Kraft Heinz stock dropped 30% at the open and the company lost $16 billion of its market value. The essential problem facing Kraft Heinz is that it stopped investing in its brands at a time when consumer tastes and behaviors are shifting, and the competitive environment is intensifying. [Moi ici: Seria interessante relacionar a #G Capital e as ideias Itamar Simonson]
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It is time for companies to refocus on growth by investing in marketing, distribution and continued innovation, not adhere to a strategy of frugality alone.
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Brands are more important than ever, as the world has come online and there are many new markets and a growing middle class in places like India, China, Brazil, Russia, South Africa, Nigeria, Indonesia, Turkey or Mexico. These consumers buy brands, not commoditized products. They buy premium brands. And branding is essential to differentiate itself in a world of parity and, in order to create brand preference.
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Remember, brands do better in tough times compared to unbranded products and brands outlive product cycles."

O que escrevi sobre a ideia de Simonson: o fim das marcas:

• Plataformas, Mongo, emprego e confiança nas marcas (Fevereiro de 2016)
• Leu aqui há vários anos... (Julho de 2014)
• O jogo de sedução pode ir para muito mais longe (Abril de 2014)
• O papel da marca em Mongo (Fevereiro de 2014)

Recordar também os marcadores hollowing, radio clube, muggles, eficientismo e tríade. Por exemplo, acerca das marcas ocas:

• Marcas que viraram carcaças (bonitas por fora mas ocas) (Setembro de 2016)

Ainda mais temas para o futuro do retalho e da produção

Parte I e parte II.

"The decline of Payless can be attributed partly to broader trends in the market. The brand’s stores were largely located in malls, and there has a general decrease in the amount of foot traffic at large shopping centers over the last few years.
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But there’s also an important shift happening in consumer behavior. People are moving away from poorly made, inexpensive fashion items. For decades fast fashion, epitomized by brands like H&M and Forever21, churned out cheap, fashionable clothes that customers could wear a few times before chucking out. But as I’ve reported before, many fast fashion brands are now on the decline.
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Payless was the shoe equivalent of fast fashion. The brand was not known for the quality or durability of its product, but competed largely on price. As a result, customers could buy whatever boot or heel was in season, and expect to throw it away months later. Consumers appear to be tired of this approach, partly because it is so environmentally unsound. While Payless has spiraled downwards, a flock of brands making high-quality, eco-friendly, durable shoes like M.Gemi, Allbirds, and Rothy’s have been thriving."

O impacte desta evolução no retalho, nas marcas, na produção, nos materiais e design - pense nisso!

Trecho retirado de "What the Payless bloodbath says about the death of fast fashion"

In a culture that sanctifies victimhood

"In a culture that sanctifies victimhood, he [Moi ici: Jordan Peterson] proposes that people confront life’s inevitable pain unflinchingly. So here is Peterson in a nutshell: Life is suffering. We can only bear it if life has meaning. And meaning is created when you take responsibility – by confronting hardship and firmly steering your ship forward, even against waves that will, ultimately, overwhelm it. This is a message people are “hungry for” in our times, he says."

Como não recordar:

“Real courage is when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.”  

Trecho inicial retirado de "Jordan Peterson, PC's Fiercest Critic, Explains Why You Should Stand Up Straight"

Mais temas para o futuro do retalho

Parte I.

"Payless ShoeSource this week filed for Chapter 11 protection and said it would be closing all 2,500 store locations across North America as well as its e-commerce operations. With over 16,000 jobs lost, it is one of the largest retailer liquidation to date, according to the Wall Street Journal.
...
 we need see these closings as a sign of change and heed the lessons wisely, because what "killed" all three [Moi ici: Payless, Toys R Us e a Sears] is not just Amazon or the internet, but a new business paradigm."

Ontem vi este video sobre o Revolut e N26 e é o mesmo fenómeno: "a new business paradigm". Ter especial atenção às palavras do economista Vinay Pranjivam e os trechos que se seguem, retirados de “Unlocking the Customer Value Chain” de Thales S. Teixeira.

Ontem de manhã li estes trechos:

"The Concept of Decoupling
...
Wondering precisely how disruptors were unsettling small parts of incumbents’ businesses, I turned to a basic framework that my colleagues and I teach our students: the customer’s value chain, or CVC. A CVC is composed of the discrete steps a typical customer follows in order to select, buy, and consume a product or service. CVCs vary according to the specifics of a business, industry, or product.

Traditionally, consumers completed all these activities with the same company in a joint or coupled manner.
...
What I realized, as I thought about these examples, was that disruptors had posed a threat by breaking the links between some of the stages of the CVC and then “stealing” one or a few stages for themselves to fulfill.”

Trechos iniciais retirados de "Valuable Lessons Learned From the Closing of Payless Shoes"

Curiosidade do dia

Portugal progediu muito em safety. Continuamos naíve em security. Em Cesar, junto a parede de madeira, e de escola, no passeio, um oleão

— Carlos P da Cruz (@ccz1) January 5, 2017

Já por várias vezes no Twitter referi que em Portugal nos últimos anos têm-se feito muitos progressos em termos de segurança/safety, mas que continuamos muito atrasados em termos de segurança/security.

Há dias deparei com esta cena:

Um veículo a alta velocidade terá embatido no muro. Uma entidade tratou de sinalizar o local colocando umas barreiras metálicas, umas fitas plásticas e sinalização luminosa.

Agora reparem no lado esquerdo da fotografia. Aquela rede em cima do muro sinaliza uma pequena ponte sobre a linha férrea entre Gaia e Valadares.

Imaginem a facilidade com que alguém pode pegar naquelas barreiras metálicas e atirá-las para cima da linha férrea. É como deixar um maço de notas em cima do banco de um automóvel.

Estratégia e criatividade

Em "Strategy Needs Creativity" pode ler-se:

"The field of strategy overfocuses on analytic rigor and underfocuses on creativity.
...
I’ve noticed that business school students often feel frustrated when they’re taught strategy. There’s a gap between what they learn and what they’d like to learn. Strategy professors (including me) typically teach students to think about strategy problems by introducing them to rigorous analytical tools—assessing the five forces, drawing a value net, plotting competitive positions. The students know that the tools are essential, and they dutifully learn how to use them. But they also realize that the tools are better suited to understanding an existing business context than to dreaming up ways to reshape it. Game-changing strategies, they know, are born of creative thinking: a spark of intuition, a connection between different ways of thinking, a leap into the unexpected.
...
I believe strongly that the answer is yes. At its core, strategy is still about finding ways to create and claim value through differentiation. That’s a complicated, difficult job. To be sure, it requires tools that can help identify surprising, creative breaks from conventional thinking."

Como não recordar o tema da paixão e da arte e a sua relação com a estratégia:

• Arte, sempre a arte (Maio de 2018)
• O futuro da economia é a arte (Abril de 2018) 
• A ascensão do artesão e da arte na produção (parte II) (Abril de 2017)
• Qual a alternativa? (Maio de 2016)
• Arte e PME (Novembro de 2015)
• Acerca da paixão nas PME (Março de 2015)
• Passion Rules!!! (Maio de 2011)
• Paixão e relações amorosas (Fevereiro de 2011)

É preciso coragem

"This product is way out of my budget" a customer recently emailed me. I sighed and reminded myself that not everyone is now always right customer for my store."

É preciso coragem para ser firme.

Trecho retirado de "Here's Why You Should Stick To Your Prices--Even If Your Customers Hate Them"

"the nature of competition has changed"

"new technology isn’t driving most disruption today. Consumers are. And that in turn means incumbents require a different kind of innovation in order to thrive—not technological innovation, but a transformation in business models. A business model describes how a company works—how it creates value and to whom; how it captures value and from whom. Innovating your business model requires a deep knowledge of customers. You must understand what your customers want, and in particular, the main steps or activities they undertake in order to satisfy their desires. You need to understand their value chain.
...
In today’s new wave of disruption, upstart firms are breaking apart these chains, offering customers the chance to fulfill just one or a few activities with them, and leaving incumbents to fulfill the rest. [Moi ici: Parei e recordei as dezenas de discussões em que dirigentes de PMEs me asseguraram que os clientes preferiam uma one-stop-shop. Pois!] I call this process of breaking apart the chain of consumption “decoupling.” Startups decouple to gain a foothold in the market, and they grow by offering to fill a specific activity for customers—what I call “coupling.” Both the initial decoupling and the subsequent coupling allow startups to quickly steal a substantial amount of market share at incumbents’ expense. In short, the startups become disruptors.
...
[Moi ici: Por fim, um trecho sobre Mongo] 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s, the nature of competition has changed. Most industries used to have only two or at most a few major global players. Today industries contain many competitors, mostly small ones acting globally. Game theory loses much of its value when one larger, more predictable player has to play a strategic “chess match” with not one, not two, but hundreds and in some cases thousands of small, unpredictable players.”

Trecho retirado de  “Unlocking the Customer Value Chain” de Thales S. Teixeira.

Pena que o jornalismo passe ao lado

Ontem à noite vi esta notícia, "Escola Secundária de Canelas tem falta de funcionários".

No decorrer da reportagem ouvi e fixei: A escola tem um quadro de 21 assistentes operacionais e actualmente 12 desses assistentes estão de baixa médica.

STOP! 12 em 21!?!?!?!?!

A reportagem seguiu o guião habitual, os media não passam de megafones das corporações, e entrevistou o director da escola que fez o seu choradinho. A solução do governo de turno é, perante um problema, atirar dinheiro para cima dele. Logo, vão ser contratados mais assistentes operacionais.

Espero que na sua empresa esta abordagem não seja a seguida. Numa empresa os financiadores, os clientes, são livres e podem mudar para a concorrência se acharem que pagam mais do que o que recebem. A abordagem que uma empresa decente segue e que também devia ser seguida no estado é a de ir à raiz do problema.

É razoável pensar que 12 em 21 assistentes operacionais estejam de baixa médica em simultâneo?
Quais os motivos das baixas médicas? Há um padrão? Será que os assistentes operacionais são sujeitos a situações que levam à deterioração genuína da sua saúde física ou psicológica? Imaginem que isto era verdade... então o comboio de baixas há-de continuar para os novos que vierem, a menos que sejam precários.

Pena que o jornalismo passe ao lado da investigação e se remeta à condição de megafone.

Mais informação sobre acções de melhoria sobre causas raiz em:

• Causas e 5 porquês (Março de 2018)
• Exemplo de acção preventiva (parte VIII) (Maio de 2009)
• Não-conformidades, acções correctivas e preventivas (Dezembro de 2007)

"can lead to outcomes that suck"

“Nokia, once the global leader in mobile phones, had to sell itself in 2013 to avoid bankruptcy, also a victim of digital disruption. Its CEO, Stephen Elop, was brutally honest in acknowledging that he didn’t know what he didn’t know. In a tearful interview that has since become famous, Elop claimed, “We didn’t do anything wrong, but somehow we lost.”

Como não recordar:

"Lesson #2: Rational choice, chosing a dominant strategy, can lead to outcomes that suck, ou seja, escolhas racionais por actores racionais podem levar a resultados indesejáveis."

Trecho retirado de  “Unlocking the Customer Value Chain” de Thales S. Teixeira.

"strategic choices should flow mainly from the analysis of its unique skills and capabilities"

Excelente abstract:

"Much of the current thinking about competitive strategy focuses on ways that firms can create imperfectly competitive product markets in order to obtain greater than normal economic performance. However, the economic performance of firms does not depend simply on whether or not its strategies create such markets, but also on the cost of implementing those strategies. Clearly, if the cost of strategy implementation is greater than returns obtained from creating an imperfectly competitive product market, then firms will not obtain above normal economic performance from their strategizing efforts. To help analyze the cost of implementing strategies, we introduce the concept of a strategic factor market, i.e., a market where the resources necessary to implement a strategy are acquired. If strategic factor markets are perfect, then the cost of acquiring strategic resources will approximately equal the economic value of those resources once they are used to implement product market strategies. Even if such strategies create imperfectly competitive product markets, they will not generate above normal economic performance for a firm, for their full value would have been anticipated when the resources necessary for implementation were acquired. However, strategic factor markets will be imperfectly competitive when different firms have different expectations about the future value of a strategic resource. In these settings, firms may obtain above normal economic performance from acquiring strategic resources and implementing strategies. We show that other apparent strategic factor market imperfections, including when a firm already controls all the resources needed to implement a strategy, when a firm controls unique resources, when only a small number of firms attempt to implement a strategy, and when some firms have access to lower cost capital than others, and so on, are all special cases of differences in expectations held by firms about the future value of a strategic resource. Firms can attempt to develop better expectations about the future value of strategic resources by analyzing their competitive environments or by analyzing skills and capabilities they already control. Environmental analysis cannot be expected to improve the expectations of some firms better than others, and thus cannot be a source of more accurate expectations about the future value of a strategic resource. However, analyzing a firm's skills and capabilities can be a source of more accurate expectations. Thus, from the point of view of firms seeking greater than normal economic performance, our analysis suggests that strategic choices should flow mainly from the analysis of its unique skills and capabilities, rather than from the analysis of its competitive environment."

Abstract retirado de "Strategic Factor Markets: Expectations, Luck, and Business Strategy", de Jay Barney e publicado por Journal Management Science, Volume 32 Issue 10, October 1986.

Afinal há pensamento estratégico

Comecei a ler "Uma empresa de fornos com projetos na forja" e ia comentando para mim mesmo:

- Só features, só produto,  só fábrica.

Chego à parte final e começo a ler:

"Apenas com um concorrente no país, a Induzir bate-se, sobretudo, com empresas italianas e alemãs, das quais procura diferenciar-se."

E recordo logo esta imagem ...

 ... deste postal do mês passado. E uma outra do início deste ano:

Competir pelo desempenho não é o terreno que convém a uma PME portuguesa.

Uma PME portuguesa tem mais vantagens competitivas se optar por navegar no mundo da flexibilidade.

E por fim, chega o remate final do artigo:

"Somos conhecidos por apresentarmos soluções. Não fazemos nada standard. Desenvolvemos o forno à medida." 

E sorrio. Graças a Deus o meu julgamento inicial foi prematuro. Afinal há pensamento estratégico.

Paisagens enrugadas

O que acontece à necessidade, quanto á importância de ter uma estratégia e de monitorar as consequências da sua adopção quando se caminha para Mongo?

Mongo significa paisagem cada vez mais enrugada.

"An adaptive landscape is a mapping from a high-dimensional space of genotypes onto fitness or some other related quantitative phenotype, which defines the ‘elevation’ of each coordinate in genotype space. Evolution can be viewed as a hill-climbing process in an adaptive landscape, where populations tend to move towards peaks as a consequence of natural selection.
...
An adaptive landscape that is smooth and single peaked does not pose any obstacle to evolutionary exploration. It is therefore highly navigable, in that it is possible to reach the global peak via positive selection through a series of small mutations that only move ‘uphill’. In contrast, a rugged landscape can block the approach to the highest peak by entrapping populations on local suboptimal peaks.
...
We define landscape navigability as the ability to access a global peak via an evolutionary exploration involving random mutation and natural selection. Landscape navigability is highest when all mutational paths to the global peak exhibit a monotonic increase in binding affinity, which implies a landscape that is smooth and single peaked. Landscape navigability is lowest when no mutational paths to the global peak exhibit a monotonic increase in binding affinity. This implies a rugged landscape with many peaks.
...
The number of peaks in an adaptive landscape is an important indicator of its navigability. The more peaks a landscape has, the less navigable it becomes, if the peaks are of unequal height."

Trechos retirados de "A thousand empirical adaptive landscapes and their navigability" de José Aguilar-Rodríguez, Joshua L. Payne and Andreas Wagner, publicado por Nature Ecology & Evolution 1, 0045 (2017)

Desemprego em 2019

Evolução do número de desempregados, segundo o IEFP.

Entre Setembro de 2018 e Janeiro de 2019 o desemprego cresceu em 14584 pessoas ao mesmo tempo que o desemprego de funcionários públicos baixou em mais de 5100 pessoas.

Entre Setembro de 2017 e Janeiro de 2018 o desemprego cresceu em 7404 pessoas ao mesmo tempo que o desemprego de funcionários públicos baixou em quase 5950 pessoas.

Vejamos como correm as coisas em 2019.

Curiosidade do dia

Pegadas de urso na zona do Barroso.

Foto retirada daqui.