Não é nem roubo nem desigualdade

Recomendo uma reflexão baseada em dois textos de Niraj Dawar.

O primeiro texto é "The Critical Role Of Context In Building Brands" e parte do vídeo com alguns anos, que muitos terão visto, de um reputado violinista a tocar anonimamente no metro de Washington, quando dias antes tinha enchido o Symphony Hall de Boston com os bilhetes a $100. A mensagem de Dawar é: o contexto é tudo.

"But ultimately, where does context reside? In the mind of the customer. By creating context, marketers play with the customers’ mind. They shape it to create the most receptive setting for the brand and the product."

O meu ponto de vista é: não podemos servir todo o tipo de clientes e para alguns, ainda que o nosso produto ou serviço seja de topo, não seremos a melhor solução pois o resultado que procuram obter nas suas vidas pode ser conseguido com uma oferta alternativa, ou mais barata, ou mais fácil, ou mais luxuosa, ou mais amizade genuína, ou mais ...

O segundo texto é "Brands And The Consumer Hourglass Theory" e vai de encontro a muitos desabafos que faço quando vejo empresas a deixarem dinheiro em cima da mesa - Damn! It's not about the price!!!

"Citigroup calls it the Hourglass Theory. As income inequality increases, consumers are polarizing into two groups – the few looking for high-end, highly differentiated and high value-added products, and the many looking for value, and sometimes extreme value.
.
The middle, which was the staple target market of consumer goods companies since at least the mid-twentieth century, has shrunk, and continues to shrink." [Moi ici: Isto faz-nos recuar a 2005 e à polarização dos mercados]

O ponto de Dawar, com o qual estou totalmente de acordo, é que isto, o desaparecimento do mercado do meio termo, não acontece por causa do aumento das desigualdades económicas. Quantas pessoas conhecem com um bruto carrão, e que não têm onde cair mortas com dívidas? Quantos estudantes não querem gastar um cêntimo em livros e propinas, mas não hesitam em ir à discoteca da moda derreter dinheiro? [Apesar desta linguagem não faço julgamentos de valor, cada um é livre de decidir onde e como gastar o seu dinheiro, a menos que depois eu tenha de contribuir para fazer o bail-out de uns quaisquer lesados-[colocar nome dos maus de turno]]

"But while the data on income inequality are incontrovertible, there is another explanation for the hourglass that marketers should not rule out: attention scarcity.
.
What if the scarce commodity at the source of the hour glass is not so much consumer income or spending, but consumer interest and attention?
.
Consider for a moment that consumers now make thousands of purchase decisions in hundreds of product categories every year. They can’t possibly be experts in all of these product categories, nor do they have an interest in optimizing their choice in each product category. They just want something that will do the job."

Acredito profundamente nisto que se segue:

"for most of the thousands of choices consumers make, they merely want a reasonable product – give me something that works at a price that makes sense. This is the very definition of value.
Some consumers are willing to spend the time to learn about product categories about which they are passionate, and are usually also willing to spend more money on the better products in those categories. For all other product categories, they couldn’t care less.
...
So the bifurcation of the market into what looks like an hourglass occurs, but due to attention disparity, not income disparity.
.
If it is interest and consumer attention that are creating the hourglass"

Por isso, tento convencer os empresários que quando um concorrente conquista um cliente que entra num mercado pela primeira vez, o mais certo é que esse cliente ainda não esteja no patamar [de atenção] que os torna como a oferta mais adequada. O seu interesse e conhecimento vai ter de aumentar porque, por exemplo, querem subir na escala de valor, só nessa altura estarão maduros para uma outra oferta.

E no seu caso, como é?

Value Chain Marketing

O que tenho feito nos últimos 15 anos com tantas empresas, quando trabalhamos o ecossistema da procura.

"To deal with the consequences of derived demand, he argues that B2B sellers need to consider not only the next immediate customer in their marketing plans but also aim their marketing activities at subsequent stages.
...
VCM goes beyond traditional marketing, missionary selling, as well as primary demand stimulation. It represents a holistic marketing strategy which covers the entire marketing mix and thus encounters the complexities of the value chain in which a firm operates. As mentioned before, the pull strategy is frequently limited to the promotional part of the marketing mix. The author uses the term VCM “to refer to the practice of influencing an entire industry value chain for the benefit of the marketing function”. The ultimate goal of VCM is to develop comprehensive marketing intelligence and to promote innovations across all levels of the value chain. To stay competitive in the market, B2B marketers have to cover a broader framework to analyze the chain. They “must understand not only the cost and revenue dynamics of its intermediate target buyer firms, but also the cost and revenue dynamics facing the buyers’ buyers, from whose demand the demand of the immediate market is derived”. [Moi ici: Recordar "aplicar a análise Value Stream Mapping o fizessem à utilização do produto durante o ciclo de vida do utilizador final,"]
...

This mapping process requires a high degree of market orientation. [Moi ici: O trecho que se segue parece tirado aqui do blogue. Basta recordar a figura deste postal] Also, they should integrate influencers like procurement and engineering consultants, industrial designers, experts for complementary products, lawyers, or architects when mapping the value chain. Their special characteristic is to influence both the buying decision of immediate and downstream customers. They are well- informed on present upstream and downstream marketing projects and are open to innovative ideas. Furthermore, influencers establish relationships to manufacturers and applicators and are able to get them interested and to induce them to stimulate demand for supplier innovations.

...
Instead of relying on just one marketing strategy, VCM comprises push and pull marketing equally and covers the whole marketing mix. It includes the kind of product, how it is promoted to customers in a value chain, the method for distributing products to customers, and the amount the customers are willing to pay for a product. The crucial point is that in VCM the adapted and tailored marketing activities of the push and the pull strategy complement each other and are incorporated into one universal marketing strategy.
...

...
First, VCM reduces the risk of substitutability of suppliers’ materials or product inputs by demonstrating their importance for the end product. This means that suppliers no longer operate anonymously and address customers down the value chain directly. They create problem awareness among downstream customers by presenting the distinguishing features of their innovative products. As VCM allows a two-way communication, it increases the efficiency of the entire marketing mix. It implies that suppliers receive unfiltered feedback from downstream customers and the chance to better solve their problems in real time. As a result, suppliers gather valuable market information and translate this information into product improvements or innovations. If suppliers succeed in positioning and differentiating their products in a favorable way, substitutability becomes less likely. By creating preferences at the stage of downstream customers, VCM assures suppliers’ sales-political independence in the vertical production and distribution process. VCM allows suppliers to strengthen their position in a value chain and motivate downstream customers to invest in long-term partnerships. In consequence, suppliers are able to enhance control over different value-chain activities and anticipate fluctuations in demand more readily."

Trechos retirados de "Value Chain Marketing - A Marketing Strategy to Overcome Immediate Customer Innovation Resistance" de  Stephanie Hintze,

"creative destruction means that low productivity plants are displaced by high productivity plants"

O Nuno enviou-me um artigo que me pôs a pensar. Vários tópicos positivos e um sinal de preocupação.

"A TrimNW foi criada em Março de 2015 na sequência do fecho da antiga Ipetex do Cartaxo, que abriu insolvência nesse ano. Vários trabalhadores acreditaram na mais-valia de uma das áreas de negócio – a do sector automóvel – e avançaram por sua conta e risco, sendo bem sucedidos.[Moi ici: Este parágrafo faz-me lembrar Maliranta e Taleb. A empresa fechou e foram os trabalhadores num novo projecto, com skin in the game, que encontraram uma resposta para o aumento da produtividade necessária]

...
A empresa produz para nichos de mercado e tem vários clientes importantes, incluindo marcas de automóveis de luxo do Reino Unido, para quem chega a produzir séries limitadas de até 10 mil peças por ano.
.
A experiência e conhecimento adquiridos ao longo dos anos, juntamente com a qualidade dos seus produtos e da prática de preços competitivos, fazem da TrimNW um nome forte na Europa na produção daqueles materiais. [Moi ici: Este é o trecho que me deixa alguma preocupação. Se trabalham para nichos e fazem séries limitadas o preço não devia ser um factor crítico]
...
Os negócios fazem-se desde que a gente corra atrás deles. Se ficarmos aqui quietos à espera que venham ter connosco eles não vêm. O nosso material é muito específico, temos de procurar os nossos clientes, procurar as oportunidades que eles nos possam dar."[Moi ici: Proactividade, uma postura tão necessária nos tempos que correm]

Nunca esquecer:

"It is widely believed that restructuring has boosted productivity by displacing low-skilled workers and creating jobs for the high skilled."Mas, e como isto é profundo:"In essence, creative destruction means that low productivity plants are displaced by high productivity plants." Por favor voltar a trás e reler esta última afirmação. Pensem nos teóricos que dizem que a produtividade só cresce com mais educação académica.

Trechos retirados de "TrimNW é uma empresa de Santarém à conquista do mercado europeu"

"suppliers are in a weak position in the value chain and operate anonymously"

Há cerca de 15 anos que comecei a ajudar empresas a fugir do push marketing:

Há cerca de 15 anos que comecei a trabalhar o conceito de ecossistema porque acredito que é fundamental para subir na escala de valor, para aumentar preços, para aumentar a produtividade sem ser pela via cancerosa do crescimento a todo o custo.

Ontem, ao ler os trechos que se seguem, retirados de "Value Chain Marketing - A Marketing Strategy to Overcome Immediate Customer Innovation Resistance" de  Stephanie Hintze, estava sempre a pensar: está aqui muita da razão porque temos uma produtividade tão baixa. Como não temos marcas somos fornecedores de materiais ou produtos que outros vão ainda processar e/ou vender e continuamos anónimos, sem capacidade de intervenção e com pouco reconhecimento:

"By solely relying on immediate customers, suppliers are faced with the problem of limited and distorted information and are also confronted with a loss of control over their product quality. More to the point, immediate customers withhold information about application trends and needs. They act as gatekeepers by controlling the types of information the supplier receives. Their aim is to remain the channel of communication between the supplier and the end applicator and thus stay in control of the business relationship. For that reason, supplier firms are unable to anticipate change and plan product improvements or new ideas. Due to isolation from the application market, suppliers are in a weak position in the value chain and operate anonymously. Even if they develop innovations, these rest with the intermediaries, i.e. the manufacturers, as the former are often unwilling to promote supplier innovations aggressively. That is why suppliers cannot demonstrate the importance of their product inputs for the final product. Manufacturers prefer to wait until they receive strong signals from their customers indicating the need for an innovation. They do not want to jeopardize their goal of efficiency. As a result, only standardized and highly substitutable materials that restrict suppliers’ profits and margins are sold in the value chain. Instead of pursuing a proactive product innovations management, suppliers are forced to be reactive. Due to the absence of suppliers’ contact with end applicators, the distance to the application market remains big. Suppliers have no chance to build long-term relationships with downstream customers which could reduce their dependence on manufacturers."

Curiosidade do dia

Dois exemplos de como Mongo vai ser um mundo de diversidade:

• Book sales are up this year over last year, and physical books are thriving
• Back to the future: cassettes launch comeback tour

From pull to Value Chain

"In pull marketing, the second dominant marketing strategy for dealing with derived demand, suppliers no longer restrict their marketing activities to those who apparently make the procurement decision. By stimulating downstream customers, suppliers try to pull their innovative products through the entire value chain. They bridge the gap to the application market and gather valuable information regarding downstream customer needs. This supports a supplier’s proactive innovations management. As a result, the supplier is able to reduce his dependence on the manufacturer.
.
In this marketing strategy, the role of the manufacturer tends to be passive but the applicator’s role becomes very active. The supplier tries to generate demand at the stage of applicators through extensive advertising and personal selling activities...
Thus, applicators become more informed about the available products and solutions that might be applicable to their business. Instead of pushing the product to immediate customers, suppliers make downstream customers request it.
...
With a pull strategy, the supplier does an end-run, circumventing the more direct value-chain actors, concentrating on those further down the value chain.
...
the objective of a pull strategy is to establish a bottom-up demand base so that the immediate customer has little choice but to adhere to these demands and to place orders with the respective supplier
...
Involving downstream customers like in pull marketing leads to another marketing strategy that addresses an even bigger audience. This strategy is called Value Chain Marketing (VCM) and describes the practice of influencing the entire value chain to succeed in marketing innovative products. It requires a firm to have a deep and complete understanding of the value chain in order to maximize marketing effectiveness."   

Trechos retirados de "Value Chain Marketing - A Marketing Strategy to Overcome Immediate Customer Innovation Resistance" de  Stephanie Hintze.

"value, like price, should be deduced, and not calculated" (parte II)

Parte I.

"The most important questions the pricer can ask are, “What problem does my product solve, and who owns that problem?” Answering those questions is the first step in understanding and clarifying value. For any new product or service, the value will be determined in the context of current options. I argue that value is comprised of multiple components, including both negative aspects of value (such as risk in use) and positive aspects (such as the incremental benefits of the product) that drive the value of the product.
...

...
Put another way, value is determined by the interaction of the utility of the product (as defined in the model) moderated by the risk (also defined in the model) in using it; ... The implications of this relationship are fairly straightforward: increasing the utility of a product or decreasing the risk in its use can both result in increased value, which can translate into either a higher price or an enhanced value proposition in which the buyer understands that the price paid is far below the value received.
...
The positive aspects (or sources) of value begin with a determination of the need for the product or service, which is driven, or moderated, by the criticality of the situation in which it is needed or used and the number and quality of alternatives that are available.
Criticality is the urgency of the need for the outcomes of the use of the product. This urgency is not strictly temporal but also captures the likelihood and severity of the negative consequences if the product is not used or acquired. Higher levels of criticality will positively affect the level of need. Criticality is moderated by a number of alternatives in that the level of criticality of the situation is a key driver of value, while the availability of alternatives can mitigate the level of need."

Trechos retirados de "Understanding Value Beyond Mere Metrics" de E. M. (Mick) Kolassa

"you have to find a niche market and work to be the best at it"

Leiam o que se segue e comparem com o que este anónimo da província escreve por aqui há milhares de anos:

"The economy is changing and we will see increasing market fragmentation. The only ones who will win in mass markets will be the big platform owners.
...
It seems that to be successful in the network era you have to find a niche market and work to be the best at it. Ross Dawson makes a strong point by stating that “in a connected world, unless your skills are world-class, you are a commodity“. Expertise, relationships, and innovation will mark the successful people in the emerging network era economy according to Ross.
...
It’s not easy finding new market niches but that seems to be the only option for most of us who are not in Silicon Valley building the next social media platform. The only way to make our talent profitable in the network era is to turn it into a highly specialized capital asset. Feeding crowd-milking platforms is not a sane small-business operating model. It’s better to find your own cow than be milked by someone else."

Trechos retirados de "Crowd-milking"

"value, like price, should be deduced, and not calculated"

Em Maio de 2007 - "Value is a feeling not a calculation, o poder de perguntar porquê?".

"I first wish to assert that value is not a simple monetization of the benefits of a product, but, in fact, encompasses much more. Value cannot be reflected totally in dollars and cents, despite what many may prefer or even claim. Attempts to calculate value solely in monetary terms ignore important aspects of human behavior, as well as the various ways price influences purchases, regardless of value. Many aspects of value defy monetization: no useful metric exists that can be applied directly to the happiness or emotional fulfillment that a buyer receives from certain purchases. This statement applies equally to consumer purchases as well as many B2B situations. Rather than attempting to measure precisely the value of a product or service and then set a price based on that information, we must first seek to identify and understand the sources and importance of the many facets of value, without economic blinders, and understand how that will enhance or support pricing decisions.
...
“Mathematics has given economics rigor, but alas, also mortis.” The economist or pricer who believes that value can be understood through mere mathematical calculation and the manipulation of sets of numbers misses the subtlety of value, and its many forms, by foregoing the rigor of investigation and relying on the mortis of metrics.
...
value, like price, should be deduced, and not calculated.
...
The most important questions the pricer can ask are, “What problem does my product solve, and who owns that problem?” Answering those ques- tions is the first step in understanding and clarifying value."

Trechos retirados de "Understanding Value Beyond Mere Metrics" de E. M. (Mick) Kolassa

Curiosidade do dia

The Crab of Europe pic.twitter.com/CtOKkNCiGe

— Antonio N Leite (@AntNLeite62) March 24, 2019

Remember 2008 - A caminho da Sildávia do Ocidente, 2010, 2018

Fábricas flexíveis, fábricas para Mongo

O meu parceiro das conversas oxigenadoras chamou-me a atenção para este artigo "Inside Toyota's Takaoka #2 Line: The Most Flexible Line In The World":

"Ever since the first cars rolled down Ford’s assembly line a little more than 100 years ago, a Gordian knot strangulated carmakers the world over: Assembly lines are fast, but inflexible. After pulling a few strings to get into the Takaoka plant, you will see the Gordian knot become untied.
...
Why would you want a flexible car plant? Isn’t it enough that the damn thing spits out cars in ever increasing numbers?
.
Did we just hear “ever increasing numbers?”
.
Assembly lines are great at building cars in great numbers and at relatively high speed. At the same time, assembly lines abhor change. Assembly lines pretty much have two speeds: On, or off. They hate to go much faster, or much slower, than their rated speed. Try introducing a new car model to the assembly line of old, and you sometimes face months of retooling. When demand for the car increases, customers sometimes must wait months for the long-tailed assembly line beast to catch up. When demand slackens, plants often must be idled. Takaoka is a marvel of production engineering that solves all that, and then some.
...
“Alright,” you say, “you replaced a robot with a human, but how does this make the line flexible?”...
For other automakers, substantial increases or decreases in capacity often mean building new factories, or idling current ones. At Toyota, it can be done over the weekend. Workers lay down cable trays on a flat shop floor. Instead of a mess of cables, only one fat cable is connected. Where cables must cross the line, a gate shaped cable tray on casters is rolled into place. Platforms are set down left and right to guide motorized dollies for cars in nascent state. Formerly fixed stations are rolled in place down the line, and on Monday, the plant has a completely different capacity than what it was on Friday. In the course of a year, this magical capacity conversion can happen several times."

Bem na senda de "O que protegerá Portugal dos robôs?"

Os artistas, os paraquedistas, os feiticeiros e os malabaristas (parte II)

Ao ler o título "Canis cada vez mais sobrelotados após lei que proíbe abate de animais saudáveis. Bastonário critica pouco combate ao abandono" sorri.

Há muitos anos que detectei a tendência dos políticos espertos para darem cada vez mais ênfase aos temas em que as consequências das suas decisões só podem ser avaliadas muito mais tarde, para não apanharem surpresas.

Por exemplo, a preocupação com as alterações climáticas.

Este caso dos cães e dos canis foi uma argolada que cometeram pois foge da regra. Rapidamente os factos da realidade emergem como uma parede contra a qual a argumentação dos políticos esbarra violentamente.

Quando um cidadão ou um opositor diz que uma dada medida está errada é uma opinião, quando a mesma medida aparece esmagada no pós-choque com a realidade ... não há desculpas.

Imaginem a malta que faz asneiras deste calibre, que acredita que a transmutação do ouro é possível, que acredita que o TGV serve para transportar carvão ou madeira de eucalipto, que acredita que os comboios de mercadorias devem circular a 300 km/h, que acham que um TGV pode funcionar como metro de superfície, que diziam que a Portela estava esgotada. E não esqueçam os copos menstruais. E já agora a falta de noção da realidade.

Como não se pode duvidar da capacidade intelectual das pessoas que acreditam nestas petas, "A revitalização do território e o papel da indústria". As pessoas reais, as que não estão nas listas de ajustes directos dos governos e autarquias, e as empresas sem ligações aos corredores, carpetes e biombos do poder, sabem que tudo o que vem das mentes destes seres na assembleia, são mais um escolho que vão ter de considerar no caminho árduo que trilham diariamente.

BTW, João Cravinho teve azar, disse e defendeu as SCUTs com argumentos que poucos anos depois caíram sobre ele como uma bomba... o que o deve ter salvo no carrossel das nomeações políticas foi o ter informação comprometedora sobre alguém, só pode.

Mateus 13:9

Recordo "Mongo a bater à porta. Tão bom!!!" e:

"O artigo é um exemplo da tendência que enquadramos no fenómeno a que chamamos de Mongo. Os gigantes, emaranhados com o seu umbigo, muito preocupados com a eficiência e os custos, tentando ser tudo para todos, abrem as oportunidades a novos actores."

Agora encontro "When Patients Become Innovators":

"Patients are increasingly able to conceive and develop sophisticated medical devices and services to meet their own needs — often without any help from companies that produce or sell medical products.
...
Unlike traditional producers, who start with market research and R&D, free innovation begins with consumers identifying something they need or want that is not available in the marketplace. To address this, they invest their own funds, expertise, and free time to create a solution. Rather than seeking to protect their designs from imitators, as commercial innovators do, we found that more than 90% of consumer innovators make their designs available to everyone for free.
...
The ability of patients to develop new medical products to serve their own needs is growing, and we expect the system to become stronger over time for several important reasons. First, the DIY design tools that patient innovators need are becoming cheaper and increasingly capable. People with fairly rudimentary engineering skills can acquire powerful design software that can run on an ordinary personal computer either for free or for very little money. Second, the materials and tools used to build products from DIY designs are also becoming both cheaper and increasingly capable."

Recordo também "Os humanos são todos diferentes":

“There is no perfect product, because there is no perfect patient” and “It’s a good product, but it’s not right for everyone.”

Recordo também esta leitura de 2007:

"In 1970, 5% of global patents were issued to small entrepeneurs, while today the number is around one-third and rising. When P&G realized this, it saw that its old model of purely internal innovation was suboptimal. Why not tap these entrepeneurs and scientists?"

E esta outra de 2011:

"The mass market — which made average products for average people was invented by organizations that needed to keep their factories and systems running efficiently.
.
Stop for a second and think about the backwards nature of that sentence.
.
The factory came first. It led to the mass market. Not the other way around."

 E deixo-vos com os industrialistas e a sua tendência para a suckiness.

E chegamos a isto: uma espécie de Ponzi pelo emprego?

Na sequência de:

• Cheira-me a tiro no pé (Julho de 2013) 
• Cheira-me a tiro no pé (parte II) (Julho de 2013) 
• Cheira-me a tiro no pé (parte III) (Agosto de 2013)
• O poder de uma marca (Fevereiro de 2014)
• Cheira-me a tiro no pé (parte VIII) (Março de 2016)

Agora "Sport TV usa trabalhadores para travar queda de clientes".

Sublinho de "Fundamentals of Business-to-Business Marketing - Mastering Business Markets" editado por Michael Kleinaltenkamp, Wulff Plinke, Ian Wilkinson e Ingmar Geiger.:

"When analyzing benefit differences, we need to focus on the meaning of differences in competencies, processes, and programs for the buyer. A seller’s competitive strength is its ability to offer greater benefits or lower costs, i.e., greater net benefits, to the buyer compared to competitors.
...
Whereas, it may have been sufficient to pursue a policy of customer orientation to gain a lead, it is now the relative position of the supplier compared with its competitors that is critical. In the first chapter, we described this position as a customer advantage from the point of view of the customer. Since customer advantage describes the net difference in benefit between two suppliers, competitor analysis becomes part of customer analysis: the supplier—competitor—customer orientation triangle is the paradigm, which we term market orientation
...

...
 The marketing triangle illustrates this. Whereas focusing on the supplier’s own functions dominated initially (supplier orientation), as competition became more intense and markets shifted from sellers’ to buyers’ markets, it was the turn of the second corner of the triangle—customer orientation. The marketing triangle is complete when the third corner is included: we then speak of market orientation. The marketing concept with its market orientation is the answer to predatory competi- tion and forces management to gear all the processes of the supplying firm to generating customer advantage. Markets are thus developing to the point that customers ultimately dictate the offer. Or, in other words, suppliers who fall behind their competitors in the eyes of the customers will fail without any regret on the part of the customers. The fact that competition is evolving in this way is not based on the behavior of the suppliers alone—customers also contribute to this. Due to competition with regard to innovation, performance, and price, customers are learning that they can continuously demand more. This spiral has no foreseeable end."

 Chamar aos clientes "parque", avaliar a qualidade da oferta sem considerar a comparação com o concorrente e a opinião do cliente... tão... sem palavras.

Quando é que vão parar de cavar?

O artigo publicado ontem é doentio...

"no longer operate anonymously and address customers down the value chain directly"

"VCM [value chain marketing] is the marketing strategy that describes the practice of influencing the entire value chain to succeed in marketing innovations. This strategy requires a firm to have a deep understanding of the value chain in order to maximize its marketing performance. Adopting VCM implies at first that firms must cover a broader framework to map the value chain. They have to analyze and properly understand the players and their relationships at each level. This also includes identifying industry developments and drivers as well as government regulations.
...
firms intending to practice VCM should adapt and tailor their marketing mix. This includes the type of product, how it is promoted to customers, the method for distributing it to customers, and the amount the customers are willing to pay for it.
...
Customer intimacy is not only essential to understand the value chain and its processes but also to reduce the distance to downstream players. Therefore, a supplier no longer has to be separated from the stage of his downstream customers through his given position in the value chain. In fact, the value chain converts more and more into a value network and the distinction between immediate and down- stream customers becomes less clear cut. By acquiring knowledge in the surrounding fields, suppliers are able to increase the overlap between their knowledge base and that of the downstream actors. They learn about applicators and develop communication strategies to reach them and to persuade them. This enhances interpersonal interaction and the applicators’ feeling about the suppliers’ competence to discuss on innovative topics."

"VCM reduces the risk of substitutability of suppliers’ materials or product inputs by demonstrating their importance for the end product. This means that suppliers no longer operate anonymously and address customers down the value chain directly. They create problem awareness among downstream customers by presenting the distinguishing features of their innovative products. As VCM allows a two-way communication, it increases the efficiency of the entire marketing mix. It implies that suppliers receive unfiltered feedback from downstream cus- tomers and the chance to better solve their problems in real time. As a result, suppliers gather valuable market information and translate this information into product improvements or innovations. If suppliers succeed in positioning and differentiating their products in a favorable way, substitutability becomes less likely. By creating preferences at the stage of downstream customers, VCM assures suppliers’ sales-political independence in the vertical production and distribution process. VCM allows suppliers to strengthen their position in a value chain and motivate downstream customers to invest in long-term partnerships. In consequence, suppliers are able to enhance control over different value-chain activities and anticipate fluctuations in demand more readily."

Trechos retirados de "Value Chain Marketing - A Marketing Strategy to Overcome Immediate Customer Innovation Resistance" de  Stephanie Hintze.

Compras em segunda-mão

Tantas coisas ...

Há tempos numa empresa prestadora de serviços à indústria perguntavam-me como se explicaria o abaixamento na actividade das PMEs, as suas clientes.

Falámos da economia das experiências, falámos do efeito Norte de África, Turquia e Leste da Europa, ... nunca me passou pela cabeça este factor:

• Thanks, Marie Kondo! The resale market is becoming bigger than fast fashion

"The 2019 thredUp Resale Report, in conjunction with GlobalData, analyzed the trends and drivers pushing this revitalized sector. Researchers found that 56 million women bought secondhand products in 2018, an increase of 12 million new secondhand shoppers from the year prior. And they’re not done yet: 51% of resale shoppers plan to spend even more on thrift in the next five years.
...
ThredUp reports that increased growth can be credited to millennials and gen-Z, who adopt secondhand items 2.5 times faster than the average consumer. This is partially because they prefer to wear the latest styles, meaning last season’s fads get quickly deposited through the thrift cycle. According to the report, it’s why secondhand, rental, and subscription are the top three fastest-growing retail categories.
...

• As consumers partake in the resale market, they now own 28 fewer items, on average, than two years ago.

• The resale market grew 21 times faster than apparel retail over the past three years.

• 72% of secondhand shoppers shifted spend away from traditional retailers to buy more used items.

• The secondhand clothing industry is expected to grow 1.5 times the size of fast fashion within 10 years.

• One-third of consumers polled by ThredUp said they would spend more with their favorite retailers if those retailers also sold secondhand apparel."

• Fast-fashion retailers like Zara and H&M have a new threat: the $24 billion used clothes market

"How long should a long-term strategy be?"

"I find that giving strategy an a priori time frame is the wrong way around. Instead, the time frame should depend on the strategy. To be clear, “What time frame should we have for our strategy?” is the wrong question. The better question is, “What changes does our strategy need, and how much time do we need to implement them?” In other words, leaders have a five-year strategy if the changes they want to make to their strategy will take five years to implement.
...
The ideal time frame depends more on what changes leaders want to make to their strategy than on the business they are in.
...
Great strategies are, among other things, highly specific about a company’s target customer, value proposition, and leading capabilities. It’s impossible to know with much specificity what these should be a decade from now. Imagine how much water will pass under the bridge between now and then, let alone over the next century. Yet it’s also impossible to change overnight the essential elements of a strategy in any meaningful way. Choosing a time frame that’s too short will force leaders into a mode of incremental strategy, and that is a recipe for failing to keep pace with a changing world."

Trechos retirados de "Strategy talk: How long should a long-term strategy be?"

Para reflexão

“The purpose of price is not to recover cost, but to capture the value of the “product” in the mind of the customer” (Dan Neimer)

A alternativa ao eficientismo

Mais um exemplo retirado de "Fundamentals of Business-to-Business Marketing - Mastering Business Markets" editado por Michael Kleinaltenkamp, Wulff Plinke, Ian Wilkinson e Ingmar Geiger. Mais um exemplo do uso de linguagem que uso aqui no blogue há muitos anos, basta recordar eficientismo versus eficácia.

Há alternativas ao eficientismo como vantagem competitiva.

Curiosidade do dia

"Navigator procura terras com eucalipto em Espanha. Já tem um projeto na Galiza" e "Odemira já mal respira sob o plástico das estufas" são sintomas da aplicação do mesmo modelo de negócio baseado no volume.

Em vez de subir na escala de valor, a única forma de aumentar o rendimento é continuar a crescer, a crescer, a fomentar a monocultura.