Outro factor a alterar a paisagem competitiva

Um tema que tem aparecido recorrentemente na minha lista de leituras nos últimos meses, a explosão da venda de artigos em segunda-mão:

• StockX to Become First Billion-Dollar Sneaker Reseller
• Why Teens Are Selling Clothes Out of Their Closets

Outro factor a alterar a paisagem competitiva que mexe com o mundo das PME exportadoras.

Tail risks can screw you up

A propósito de "Eureka em PER com dívidas de 22 milhões a 622 credores" como não recordar da parte II:

"Of course, economies of scale can sometimes be required for success in certain markets and for some products, but often they aren’t required and it is ego, not a strong business strategy, that is forcing growth where growth isn’t necessary."

Para contextualizar: "De Vizela para o mundo" e "A atracção das marcas".

Primeiro um disclaimer: as pessoas da Eureka têm o meu respeito porque são gente com skin-in-the-game, são gente que fazem o que cada vez é mais difícil e arriscado, põem o pescoço no cepo e ao fazê-lo criam emprego.

Qual poderá ser o seu erro?

Added a section to explain that Goldman Sachs survived for 149 years by explicitly avoiding SOME tail risks and taking a lot of other risks. pic.twitter.com/Qk2f7GG6Ai

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) May 2, 2018

E recordo de "Jouer Sa Peau" de Nassim Taleb:

"On peu aimer le risque tout en nourrissant une aversion profonde pour la ruine.
L' asymétrie central de la vie est la suivante:
Dans une stratégie qui entraîne la ruine; les bénéfices ne compensent jamais les risques de ruine"

A atracção pelo crescimento rápido pode levar ao tail risk de tudo perder.

Um bálsamo para a alma

A propósito do livro:

Fiquei tão, mas tão contente com este comentário:

Ok, é claro que qualquer autor fica satisfeito com um com um comentário positivo, mas receber um comentário que vai directamente ao âmago, ao propósito do livro, à intenção que se tinha quando se começou a escrever é um tremendo bálsamo para a alma.

Quando falta mão de obra (parte II)

Parte I.

“Often, in the pursuit of growth, companies or founders have to battle ... “the Beast.” A company focused on growth often puts into place complicated systems to handle exponential volume and scale, which require more resources (human and financial) to manage, which then require more complex systems to manage the increased resources, and so on and so on. [Moi ici: Recordar a malta da Junqueira]
...
In “killing her own Kraken,” as she put it, she began to radically simplify. Her strategy shifted from “broadcasting light . . . to as many people as possible” to “broadcasting light . . . to the people with eyes to see it.” Not focusing on growth and scale, she believes, was the best way to remove the Beast from her company of one and return her focus to the people who were already paying attention to her work. She likens her decision to stop trying to reach infinitely more people through paid channels to feeding only those people who show up for dinner—the ones who naturally or organically find her work through word of mouth or who are hanging out where her business hangs out. The fact is that she still has hundreds of thousands of ravenous fans showing up for “dinner.
...
Of course, economies of scale can sometimes be required for success in certain markets and for some products, but often they aren’t required and it is ego, not a strong business strategy, that is forcing growth where growth isn’t necessary.
...
When you feel like you have to start out competing with the largest player in the market, you end up chasing your competitor’s growth instead of bettering your own offering. Sometimes finding and working with a single customer, then adding another, and then another, is a very useful and solid way to begin. And sometimes that can even be the end goal—one where your focus is on the relationship and the paid work at hand. Sometimes the best plan is focused on your current customers’ success, not on chasing leads and growth.
...
Instead of scaling production, she focused on raising her prices higher and higher until the demand leveled off to where she could handle orders. She focused on creating an amazing product that was better than the competition—mass-produced snow globes—and was able to charge a huge premium for her work. Because she focused on making the best product, not the most scalable product, she grew her profits quickly without scaling production, which would have also scaled complexity and expenses.
...
When you focus on doing business and serving customers in better and better ways, your company of one can end up profiting more from the same amount of work because you can raise the prices until your demand flattens out to where you can handle it.”

Ainda há dias um empresário contava-me, para meu espanto, que andava a desenvolver um produto low-cost... para juntar à gama de produtos existentes. Mais complexidade, mais incoerências internas,  mais risco, mais vendas para ganhar cada vez menos.

Trecho retirado de "Company of One: Why Staying Small is the Next Big Thing for Business" de Paul Jarvis.

"where uncertainty avoidance is high"

“A ... cultural dimension that makes a difference when it comes to questions is “uncertainty avoidance,” or the degree to which members of a society feel stressed by ambiguity, unstructured situations, and the prospect of an unknown future. In cultures where uncertainty avoidance is high, people are comfortable with strict behavioral codes, laws, and rules. There is “disapproval of deviant opinions, and a belief [that] ‘there can only be one Truth and we have it.’” Among the observable differences on this dimension, Hofstede points to schools in which teachers can say “I don’t know” versus schools where teachers are “supposed to have all the answers.” Again, it is easy to see how these cultural differences would translate to very different propensities to ask thought-provoking questions.”

Trecho retirado de “Questions Are the Answer” de Hal Gregersen

Quando falta mão de obra (parte I)

Estive a analisar um inquérito feito a cerca de 20 empresas em 4 concelhos de Trás-os-Montes e a resposta mais comum à pergunta "Quais os problemas que têm internamente?" foi: Falta de mão de obra.

O que tenho escrito por aqui sobre como crescer quando falta mão-de-obra?

Como aumentar a facturação quando não se pode aumentar a produção por falta de pessoas?

• Parte I;
• Parte II;
• Parte III; e
• Parte IV

Relacionar:

“his job as a business owner is not to endlessly increase profits, or even to defeat the competition, but instead to create better and better products and services that his customers benefit from in their lives and work. Implementation, he’s found, is the key to retaining his customers and persuading them to keep buying—that is, if they’re using what he makes, they see successes in their own business and then keep buying more from him.
...
This goal feels very counterintuitive to what we’re taught about business and success. Society says that business goals should focus on ever-increasing profit and that, as profit increases, so should everything else—more employees, more expenses, more growth. But like many others, Sean feels that the opposite is true—that success can be personally defined, and that while profit and sustainability are absolutely important to a business, they aren’t the only driving forces, metrics, or factors in business success.
...
He believes that companies need to focus on becoming better instead of simply growing bigger. His approach is to question the idea that growth is always good and always unlimited.
...
When businesses require endless growth to turn a profit, it can be difficult to keep up with increasingly higher targets. Whereas, if a business turns a good profit at its current size, then growth can be a choice, made when it makes sense to succeed, and not a requirement for success.”

Trecho retirado de "Company of One: Why Staying Small is the Next Big Thing for Business" de Paul Jarvis.

Continua.

É isto!

Great provocation when you’re knee deep in user stories and feature planning. Are you upgrading your users or your product? https://t.co/eYdOCYFBlO by @alanklement pic.twitter.com/dqm5LBKQIN

— bruce hardy (@bruce_hardy) July 7, 2019

É isto!

Quando o propósito é subir na escala de valor, ou aumentar preços, ou fugir da concorrência pelo preço mais baixo, o caminho passa pelo upgrade dos clientes-alvo.

Aqui, upgrade dos clientes-alvo não quer dizer necessariamente uma mudança de clientes-alvo (também pode ser, como no caso das tábuas de madeira, ou nas colchas de linho, ou nos tecidos de burel). Aqui, por upgrade dos clientes-alvo entenda-se sobretudo o esforço de ajudar, de colaborar no esforço daqueles clientes-alvo que precisam de algo mais, ou porque a solução actual não é perfeita, ou porque eles aspiram a algo mais, porque eles querem passar, eles próprios, para um próximo nível. 

"Listen to them now about their priorities and values"

O artigo "The World in 2030: Nine Megatrends to Watch" termina assim:

"Listen to the next generation. By 2030, the leading edge of millennials will be nearing 50, and they and Gen Z will make up the vast majority of the workforce. Listen to them now about their priorities and values."

O que é viver num país em que a dívida aumenta todos os anos?

É viver num país que privilegia a geração actual, e atira para as costas das gerações futuras o fardo de ter de pagar as suas contas, ao mesmo tempo que só terão um resto para viverem as suas próprias vidas.

Há qualquer coisa de irónico, de provocador em "Listen to them now about their priorities and values". Sim, façamos de conta que os ouvimos, mas carreguemos-lhes o jugo mais e mais, mas limitemos-lhes as opções mais e mais.

Isto não é exclusivo desta geração actual já vem detrás, mas parece uma bola de neve que vai crescendo.

Free webinar – How to perform an ISO 9001:2015 internal audit

ISO 9001 requires the use of internal audits as a performance evaluation tool. This webinar will help you answer all your questions and doubts while preparing to perform an internal audit, and give you insights on how to execute it.

You can check the free webinar here.

Uma caldeirada de emoções (parte x)

De ontem.

Agora leio "Quebra na indústria alemã sugere que retoma é uma miragem":

"Os fabricantes de bens intermédios viram as encomendas descerem 1,5% e os bens de capital (como maquinaria pesada) perderam 2,8%. Já em Abril, a comparação homóloga mostrava uma indústria em crise: nesse mês, a quebra face a 2018 era de 5,3%.
.
Alguns analistas dizem que este comportamento mostra os danos que a guerra comercial entre EUA e China pode provocar à economia mundial. Carsten Brzeski, do banco ING, diz que as novidades germânicas são “devastadoras”. “Começámos a perder o nosso optimismo”, reage este analista, lembrando que Março e Abril até tinham sido meses com variações positivas (ainda que muito pequenas). Porém, “combinando os dados de Maio com os dados de Junho do mercado de trabalho, que registou a mais fraca prestação desde 2002, e os dados desanimadores do retalho, a economia alemã fecha desta forma uma semana para esquecer. O factor medo regressou”, sustenta Brzeski."

Em que medida estes sintomas estão a ser incorporados na reflexão sobre o curto-médio prazo da sua empresa?


BTW ontem ouvi o líder do maior partido da oposição prometer o corte de impostos com base no crescimento da economia, ou seja sem cortes na despesa. Hoje ouvi na rádio que as previsões de crescimento da economia no programa eleitoral do partido do governo são mais optimistas que as do governo. Só fragilistas por todo o lado.

Uma caldeirada de emoções

Recentemente em "Vantagens comparativas" escrevi:

• "Trump (quando tiverem tempo leiam bem este artigo "What’s Your 'Plan B' for Made in China?" é longo, mas vale bem a pena o investimento. E já agora, depois leiam "Equilibrium Americanum")"

É impressionante como o tema está em ebulição permanente. Agora é "Vietnam's apparel sector fears cost surge as tech giants move in":

"Major apparel makers are halting or slowing their expansion in Vietnam amid worries that the trade war will indirectly push up labor costs as tech giants like Apple seek to shift production out of China.
...
"More and more companies come to Vietnam ... In the foreseeable future, we do foresee a shortage of labors and even fierce competitions in hiring staff there," Makalot Chairman and CEO Frank Chou told the Nikkei Asian Review. For the apparel industry specifically, the best time to invest in Vietnam may have passed, Chou said, and companies will have to adjust to a tougher environment.
...
the minimum wage in Vietnam has risen over the last 10 years from 1 million Vietnamese dong ($43) a month to 4.18 million dong per month in 2019, according to the government, although this is still lower than China. The Vietnamese government also requires all manufacturers to raise wages by more than 10% each year.
...
"Companies in traditional industries will be squeezed as tech companies are also heading to Vietnam," said Karen Ma, an analyst specializing in emerging markets at Hsinchu-based Industrial Technology Research Institute. "Meanwhile, the cost of expansion there will definitely become much more expansive. ... Most of these existing players in the textile and footwear industry will face a dilemma: Where should they go if they are leaving Vietnam? Currently, there are not many choices for them left in the region as Laos and Indonesia have not yet reached Vietnam's level in terms of infrastructure and quality of the workforce.""

Recordar o banhista gordo "O banhista gordo e o low-cost"

"Forget competing on price"

"Reconsider your customers if they are too price focused
.
If you have customers who are constantly haggling with you over price, the problem may not be with your services. It may be with their ability to afford you. Remember that you aren’t responsible for ensuring that your prices match every budget out there. Find clients who are prepared to pay for your services at the rates you are worth.
.
Forget competing on price. You’ll just look desperate for clients. Instead, focus on competing on the basis of the value and skills you bring to the game. That’s the best way to stand out."

Trecho retirado de "Never Compete On Price. Here Are 5 Things To Compete On Instead."

Não é impunemente

Bom para reflexão:

"Millennials particularly tend to distrust the government (82%), the press (88%), and financial institutions and corporations (86%). The belief that big is bad is directly correlated to why long-established products and services are suspect compared to start-ups and innovators, and the opinions of online strangers are more persuasive than corporate endorsements."

A instituição que mais desconfiança gera é a imprensa.

Sinal dos tempos.

Não é impunemente que se mata o D. Ximenes Belo pelo menos 3 vezes.

Trecho retirado de "The Death Of Brand Loyalty: Cultural Shifts Mean It's Gone Forever"

Félix, Champalimaud, o papel da Altice e o share da Antena 1

Hoje, como tenho de estar numa empresa só a meio da manhã, resolvi fazer uma corrida de 10 km na marginal das praias de Vila Nova de Gaia.

8h00 - A certa altura ouço uma notícia passada a correr sobre um ataque informático à Fundação Champalimaud. O tema mereceu 30 ou 40 segundos, e a Antena 1 limitou-se a ler uma espécie de comunicado lacónico das relações públicas da Fundação:
- Foram alvo de um ataque [Moi ici: Foram alvo de um ataque ou foram vítimas de um ataque?]
- Não cederam aos hackers e ajudados pela Altice retomaram as operações [Moi ici: Ajudados pela Altice como? Terá sido por terem um serviço de backups nos servidores da Altice? Terá sido por a Altice ter poderes mágicos?]
- Nenhum informação sobre os pacientes foi comprometida [Moi ici: Como podem garantir isso se não foram capaz de prevenir o ataque? Já tiveram tempo para fazer a autópsia ao ocorrido para concluir isso com segurança?]

Tantas perguntas sem resposta, mas a Antena 1 também deve estar em contenção de custos. Não têm dinheiro para investigação e põem as jarras, tipo Sena Santos, a fazerem programas tipo-Goucha sobre o 4 de Julho nos Estados Unidos.

Entretanto, depois do noticiário, ou ainda durante o noticiário, a Antena 1, rádio sem publicidade e paga pelos saxões, recebe o comentador desportivo José Nunes para, pela milésima vez, perorar sobre a ida de João Félix para o Atlético de Madrid.

Pena que uma rádio que não precisa de andar a correr atrás de ratings e sharing não tenha pensamento estratégico.

Quantos ataques informáticos há por ano em Portugal?
Porque ocorrem?
Quais são as suas consequências?
Quanto podem custar?
O que pode ser feito para proteger as redes informáticas?
Qual o papel de cada um?

Lealdade, relações humanas e automatização

A propósito de:

"What Killed Brand Loyalty?
.
Consumers are not inclined to be loyal to brands as they once were because the underlying value of loyalty itself is no longer particularly relevant. In the old world, loyalty was good and something we aspired to give and receive across all aspects of life . . . with friends, family, employers, dentists, doctors, bankers, and maybe even the federal government. But generational experiences have made sticking with “tried and true” a sucker bet. Loyalty means remaining the same. Not exploring alternatives. Putting your head in the sand and maybe even missing a beach party."

Verdade! Quando as marcas são as primeiras a sofrer da doença anglo-saxónica, são as primeiras a tratar os consumidores como plancton, são as primeiras a querer automatizar tudo.

Quando as marcas desenvolvem relações humanas acredito que a lealdade ainda possa ter algum valor.

BTW, "Fidelizar o shopper infiel: realidade ou mito?" - tratar o potencial cliente por "shopper" é talvez um sintoma do porque faz sentido não ter lealdade a uma marca.

Trecho retirado de "The Death Of Brand Loyalty: Cultural Shifts Mean It's Gone Forever"

"companies need to focus on becoming better instead of simply growing bigger"

“Sean feels that his job as a business owner is not to endlessly increase profits, or even to defeat the competition, but instead to create better and better products and services that his customers benefit from in their lives and work. Implementation, he’s found, is the key to retaining his customers and persuading them to keep buying—that is, if they’re using what he makes, they see successes in their own business and then keep buying more from him.
.
Sean is only interested in reaching his target limit. This goal feels very counterintuitive to what we’re taught about business and success. Society says that business goals should focus on ever-increasing profit and that, as profit increases, so should everything else—more employees, more expenses, more growth. But like many others, Sean feels that the opposite is true—that success can be personally defined, and that while profit and sustainability are absolutely important to a business, they aren’t the only driving forces, metrics, or factors in business success.
...
Sean sees lots of people in the online education world focusing their time entirely on marketing, but his focus is on making his products better for his existing audience. He works to get more and better results for his existing customers, who in turn continue to buy from him, both established products and new products as he releases them.
...
Sean sees lots of people in the online education world focusing their time entirely on marketing, but his focus is on making his products better for his existing audience. He works to get more and better results for his existing customers, who in turn continue to buy from him, both established products and new products as he releases them
...
He believes that companies need to focus on becoming better instead of simply growing bigger. His approach is to question the idea that growth is always good and always unlimited. Ricardo works at determining the size at which each company he manages can enjoy worldwide competitive advantages and then stop growth from there in order to turn the focus away from getting bigger and toward getting better instead.”

Excerto de: Paul Jarvis. “Company of One”. Apple Books.

"how that strategy fit in their world"

"You might have the most compelling vision for your organization, but if you can’t get it out of your head and get others to see it and believe in it, it might as well not even exist.
.
Just because the strategy makes sense to you doesn’t mean it will take only an instant for others to see it like you do. [Moi ici: Recordar "Para assentar ideias"] We often think that others think as we do, that others see the world as we do, but it’s more likely that there’s a lot of ground to cover between their perspective and yours. Employees come to their jobs with their own context, and it’s the leader’s job to help them understand the collective context, including how you see the marketplace today, and how that led to your strategy. [Moi ici: Na última conversa oxigenadora o meu colega usou o termo: entrar no mundo do outro. Se alguém quer que um dado objectivo da empresa seja assumido por um trabalhador, tem de se fazer um trabalho que passe por uma ida ao mundo do trabalhador e traduzir esse objectivo em algo que responda à pergunta: o que é que eu ganho com isto? "O que eu ganho com isto" não é quase sempre dinheiro, mas uma razão para justificar qualquer mudança]
...
According to our research, a majority of employees globally don’t understand their company’s strategy and, as a consequence, how they fit in. [Moi ici: Pergunta sincera - será "how they fit in" ou não será antes "how that strategy fit in their world"?. O que apreciei neste filme de 2008 (obrigado Eduardo) foi a viagem para levar a motivação ao mundo de cada um]"

Trechos retirados de "6 Steps to Help Your Employees Understand Your Strategy"

A doença anglo-saxónica

Há dias escrevi:

Hoje leio e pasmo com a doença, com a paranóia anglo-saxónica do eficientismo "Boeing’s 737 Max Software Outsourced to $9-an-Hour Engineers":

"It remains the mystery at the heart of Boeing Co.’s 737 Max crisis: how a company renowned for meticulous design made seemingly basic software mistakes leading to a pair of deadly crashes. Longtime Boeing engineers say the effort was complicated by a push to outsource work to lower-paid contractors.
.
The Max software -- plagued by issues that could keep the planes grounded months longer after U.S. regulators this week revealed a new flaw -- was developed at a time Boeing was laying off experienced engineers and pressing suppliers to cut costs.
.
Increasingly, the iconic American planemaker and its subcontractors have relied on temporary workers making as little as $9 an hour to develop and test software, often from countries lacking a deep background in aerospace -- notably India."

Ou:

"“Boeing was doing all kinds of things, everything you can imagine, to reduce cost, including moving work from Puget Sound, because we’d become very expensive here,” said Rick Ludtke, a former Boeing flight controls engineer laid off in 2017. “All that’s very understandable if you think of it from a business perspective. Slowly over time it appears that’s eroded the ability for Puget Sound designers to design.”
...
Boeing has also expanded a design center in Moscow. At a meeting with a chief 787 engineer in 2008, one staffer complained about sending drawings back to a team in Russia 18 times before they understood that the smoke detectors needed to be connected to the electrical system,
...
U.S.-based avionics companies in particular moved aggressively, shifting more than 30% of their software engineering offshore versus 10% for European-based firms in recent years, said Hilderman, an avionics safety consultant with three decades of experience whose recent clients include most of the major Boeing suppliers.
.
With a strong dollar, a big part of the attraction was price. Engineers in India made around $5 an hour; it’s now $9 or $10, compared with $35 to $40 for those in the U.S. on an H1B visa, he said. But he’d tell clients the cheaper hourly wage equated to more like $80 because of the need for supervision, and he said his firm won back some business to fix mistakes."

En vez de adoptarem o Evangelho do Valor, em vez de trabalharem o numerador da equação da produtividade, continuam na race-to-the-bottom.

Em vez de trabalharem para poderem aumentar preços num mercado competitivo, continuam unifocados na redução dos custos.

Em vez de trabalharem para fazerem emergir a concorrência imperfeita, continuam prisioneiros da concorrência perfeita.

Estratégia, contexto e resultados

“Success is driven by the combination of the strategy and the context.

The strategy interacts with the context of the organisation to produce outcomes.
...
As the context changes, the interactions between strategy and context will necessarily change, as will the outcomes. Therefore, we should expect that changes in context that are not matched by appropriate changes to the organisation and possibly to the selection of a different strategy are likely to result in inferior outcomes. ”

Trechos retirados de “What's Your Competitive Advantage?” de Paul Raspin.

E para quem trabalha Centeno?

A propósito de "Bastonário dos Médicos lamenta que esteja um país inteiro a trabalhar para Centeno" sorrio e recordo:

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it"

Quando eu era miúdo, ainda na década de 60 do século passado, dava na televisão uma série sobre as aventuras de Robin dos Bosques na sua luta contra o malvado Principe João. A série fazia de João Sem Terra um malvado sempre em busca de riquezas pelo gozo de ser rico. Muitos anos depois percebi que os normandos andavam sempre em busca de mais impostos não por causa das paranóias do principe, mas para alimentar a estrutura de poder.

Interessante que um bastonário continua a crer que Centeno é uma espécie de principe João. Acaso estará Centeno a meter dinheiro ao bolso? Claro que não.

O que interessa ao bastonário é não dar a entender que Centeno está a trabalhar para ele e para os outros membros da estrutura de poder normando.

Até parece que é impunemente que se reduz o horário semanal de 40 para 35 horas para quem trabalha por turnos, até parece que é sem consequências que se fez o que se fez. E depois vêm-se queixar de que o país está a trabalhar para Centeno...

E para quem trabalha Centeno?