Mongo é inevitável

Recentemente em "Speed to market" escrevi:

"Ou seja, alguém em 2004 publicou um artigo sobre os perigos do modelo eficientista, e em 2019 ainda  vemos tantas empresas mergulhadas nesse modelo." 

Nos últimos dias tenho apanhado vários artigos sobre Mongo e o seu crescente impacte. Por exemplo, ontem, fiquei preso a esta imagem (tirada daqui).

Eu que até já comprei pensos amarelo-berrante e, coloridos com padrões, faço logo a ponte para Mongo. Para muita gente não basta a um produto o mero cumprimento da sua função básica, há que acrescentar algo mais. Esse algo mais não é racional, é emocional e isso abre a porta a uma variedade de respostas que a lógica do século XX não contemplava, ou não valorizava o suficiente.

Recentemente voltei a um tema iniciado em Agosto de 2014 com "Porque não somos plancton ..." por causa da Procter & Gamble, foi em "exploitation através de local searches quando a paisagem competitiva está em mudança" sobre a Heinz. Entretanto, dou de caras com este artigo e o seu exemplo da profusão de marcas e sabores, "The Best Hot Sauces on Amazon, According to Hyperenthusiastic Reviewers". Já agora, hiperentusiastas tem tudo a ver com a assimetria das tribos apaixonadas e "tu não és meu irmão de sangue":

Estes exemplos traduzem-se em realidades novas "P&G cuts annual ad spend by $350M as it targets 'smart audiences'":

"“We’re reinventing brand building from wasteful mass marketing to mass one-to-one brand building fueled by data and technology,”
...
P&G is moving away from generic demographic targets such as women 18 to 49 years old to more than 350 precise smart audiences, he said." [Moi ici: Como não recordar o tweet de Tom Peters sobre a suckiness dos gigantes. Quem procura servir o mediano, afugenta os não-medianos. Ora quando os não-medianos já são mais que os medianos... desastre para as empresas grandes e os seus modelos do século XX]

Já agora, tenho uma nota sobre esta abordagem da P&G:

"“We have developed a very large proprietary database,” Taylor said. “We have over a 1 billion consumer IDs worldwide. … That allows us to have these smart audiences. And once you have the smart audiences, you can do propensity marketing with people that have similar characteristics.”" [Moi ici: Se os segmentos forem por grupos de pessoas teria cuidado. Se os segmentos forem por situações em que as pessoas se encontram, talvez faça mais sentido]

Por fim, um último artigo dos últimos dias, também sobre a agonia da Heinz, "Today’s Contrarian Ketchup Consumers":

"The ketchup scientists have been busy. Kraft Heinz Co. now has at least 20 varieties of the stuff. [Moi ici: Pequenas séries, muita variedade, mata o modelo das empresas grandes baseado no volume e no grande centrão dos medianos] There’s the jalapeño flavor, the sriracha, the kind with no salt, the sugar-free and a version sweetened only with honey.
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Still, it’s not enough. Even as Heinz locked down an unprecedented 70% of the ketchup market, the company posted yet another crushing financial update and yet another massive writedown this week, as its shelf full of Americana was further squeezed in a startup, small-food world. [Moi ici: Faz-me lembrar um postal sobre as empresas grandes que tentam passar-se por fornecedoras de nichos... Minkowsky rules, o ADN não engana. Não é impunemente que se tenta mudar]
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To date, the narrative has focused on niche consumption: the sweaty masses are passing up on boomer brands in favor of trendy startup condiments and healthier options.
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The study found that collectively people have been buying a wider range of products, in part because of an increase in choice. No surprise there.
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What’s really interesting, though, is that spending has become more concentrated within product categories. As a whole, we have become ketchup-curious, but once we figure out what we like, we stick to it (no doubt because of the sheer glut of options).
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This is all tricky for the big incumbents in the consumer product game. It suggests that they need to constantly gin up (or buy) new varieties to maintain their trajectory. In other words, Heinz needs 20 ketchups to do the business it used to manage with one—and each other iteration adds a dollop of cost on every line item, from research to production to packaging to marketing. What’s more, boutique brands are more likely to come in at lower prices in order to steal market share.[Moi ici: Porque se podem concentrar em ser azul ou preto e não se atolarem no pântano do meio-termo onde as marcas das empresas grandes caem]
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It's a vicious cycle where the customer increasingly gets both more choice and more value."

Mongo é complexidade e "em ambientes cada vez mais complexos os gigantes falham"

Lembram-se da estória dos nenúfares que precisaram de 47 dias para cobrir metade de um lago? Ontem chamaram-me a atenção para a situação da GE. Imaginem a cascata que decorreria da falência de uma empresa com mais de 1 milhão de trabalhadores, com uma rede de parceiros e fornecedores ...
Calro que Trump não a deixará cair: to big to fail.

Mongo é inevitável e trará custos e dor aos incumbentes.

"Loucos por Carros"

Sei que resolvi fazer uma pausa nas publicações mas ...

Racionalmente nunca procuro assistir a um programa destes, carros não são algo que me atraia por aí além.

Às vezes a fazer zapping passo pelo canal Blaze e deixo-me ficar a assistir a episódios de "Loucos por Carros" ... aquilo é ver Mongo a funcionar.

Paixão, conhecimento, hibridação, personalização, tudo ao vivo e a cores.

"scalable efficiency is becoming less and less efficient"

Trechos em linha com o que escrevemos aqui há muitos anos. Mongo rules!

"Over the past century, [Moi ici: Recordar "Tão século XX" e "O fim do modelo económico do século XX"] the scalable efficiency model has driven the growth and success of large institutions around the world – corporations, governments, universities, NGO’s, etc. In this model, the primary focus is how to perform complex tasks very efficiently and reliably at scale. The way to achieve this has been to tightly specify and highly standardize all tasks. In a more stable world, this produced significant efficiency.
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But here’s the challenge. Our world is no longer stable. It’s evolving at an accelerating rate with growing uncertainty. Customers are also being more powerful and less and less willing to settle for standardized, mass market products and services. The combination of these two forces creates a paradox: scalable efficiency is becoming less and less efficient."

Trechos retirados de "Learning and Strategy"

Vamos fazer uma breve paragem na publicação de postais durante os próximos dias para poder concentrar a atenção em alguns projectos.

Uma bofetada que recebo como um aviso

"nature evolves away from constraints, not toward goals"

Como escrevi ontem "exploitation através de local searches quando a paisagem competitiva está em mudança". A que grupo pertencerão, ao segundo ou ao terceiro?

"Três grupos:

• os que agem ao primeiro sinal e partem em exploration de novas alternativas;

• os que por cegueira ou incapacidade continuam a sua vida de exploitation através de local searches; e

• os que assumem a exploitation até ao fim, conscientes de que mesmo assim, terão de fazer a sua mudança, porque os dois primeiros grupos vão libertar quota de mercado, voluntária ou involuntariamente."

Julgo que ao segundo, porque os que se enquadram no terceiro grupo mudam algo no modelo de negócio.

Há meses escrevi sobre o que acontece quando deixa de haver trabalhadores, foi na série, "Para aumentar salários ... (parte IV)". Quando a falta de trabalhadores obriga os salários a subirem mais do que a produtividade, as empresas começam a trilhar um caminho perigoso. A minha visão optimista apontou logo a alternativa, subir na escala de valor para que a produtividade aumente mais depressa do que os salários. Ainda recentemente escrevi "Mudar e anichar" e em Janeiro último "Espero que não vos tremam as pernas quando as empresas começarem a cair como tordos".

A Natureza não pensa, não corre para objectivos, a Natureza foge de restrições e constrangimentos. Qual a alternativa a pensar e subir na escala de valor (o primeiro grupo lá de cima). Manter tudo igual e procurar suprir a restrição mais forte.

Assim, este título, "Empresas têxteis portuguesas recrutam trabalhadores na Ásia", é uma bofetada que recebo como um aviso para aprender a ler melhor o comportamento humano (como os templários no final do processo de iniciação). É mais fácil fazer o que é mais fácil.

Voltamos à equação da produtividade:

Eu, por feitio profissional, opto sempre por trabalhar o numerador, o único que pode promover melhor nível de vida para todos. Por isso, esqueço-me que há sempre gente em busca de viver à custa de melhorias no denominador. Claro que isto será sempre um paliativo, trabalhadores mais dóceis, mais ignorantes e àvidos de horas extra só permitem controlar os custos até um certo ponto. Até porque a capital de Marrocos fica mais perto de Lisboa do que Madrid.

Isso depende...

"Our learnings support a single point, which Paul and I named in Mike’s honor. Mazzeo’s Law: The answer to every strategic question is “It depends.” Corollary: The trick is knowing what it depends on.
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What we found is that there’s no best path to business success. Managers successfully address seemingly similar problems in very different ways and, as our corollary suggests, the trick is to find which solution fits with the specifics of your business.
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The key to making good business decisions is to assess how the potential benefits and potential costs of a particularly strategy, in this case an incentive plan, pertains in your specific situation."

Trechos retirados de "The Answer to Every Business Question Is “It Depends”"

exploitation através de local searches quando a paisagem competitiva está em mudança

Em Fevereiro último escrevi ""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"".

O que fez a Kraft Heinz no início do ano? Escolheu um novo CEO com um passado na indústria cervejeira moldado no sucesso através do volume e eficiência. Agora apanho "Kraft Heinz shares slump on new writedowns and falling sales":

"Kraft Heinz, the Warren Buffett-backed food company, has disclosed another $1.2 billion (€1.07 billion) of write-downs, on top of the $15 billion charge it took earlier this year to reflect how shoppers have been shunning its brands.
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Its shares fell 13 per cent on Thursday morning, taking the decline for the year to 38 per cent." 

Empresa a precisar de um corte epistemológico, a precisar de ir em busca de uma nova estratégia corporativa, opta por continuar a sua busca por óptimos locais na paisagem competitiva enrugada, quando os picos do passado estão a afundar-se por alteração da percepção dos clientes.

Recordar:

• "Warns of Margin Threat as Niche Brands Disrupt Industry" (Março de 2019)  
• O século XX continua por cá (parte III) (Julho de 2017) 
• Porque não somos plankton... (Agosto de 2014)

Relacionar com este texto de Seth Godin "The old media/new media chasm":

"New media tends to be adopted by amateurs first. And it rarely has a mass audience in the early days (because it’s new). But professional content for the masses is precisely what old media stands for. As new media gains traction, the old media doubles down on what they believe to be their value, because they no longer have a monopoly on attention.
...
So the Times publishes a snarky, poorly written takedown of podcasts. Not because it’s based on the economic or cultural reality of today, but because their self-esteem requires there to be a chasm between all of these amateur podcasts and the few professional ones that they deign to create and publish.
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Businesses make their own choices and suffer the consequences."

E volto a há dias atrás:

"Três grupos:

• os que agem ao primeiro sinal e partem em exploration de novas alternativas;

• os que por cegueira ou incapacidade continuam a sua vida de exploitation através de local searches; e

• os que assumem a exploitation até ao fim, conscientes de que mesmo assim, terão de fazer a sua mudança, porque os dois primeiros grupos vão libertar quota de mercado, voluntária ou involuntariamente."

Acerca do valor

Excelente artigo sobre princípios associados ao conceito de valor, "What Does It Means to Create Value Now":

"First Principles.
Value is in the eyes of the beholder—or the recipient, for our purposes here. You have the right to develop a theory as to what should be valuable for another person, but they possess the right to determine their worth. Because perceptions about value vary, you may have to explain why your dream client should perceive the value in the way you view it.
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The person receiving the value needs to be better off in some way having received it. If the person is no better off having received the attempted value creation, it is not value.
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Value exists on a continuum. Some things are more valuable than others. My view of this continuum of value in sales is 1: Product Value, 2: Experience Value, 3: Tangible results, and 4: Strategic Value.
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Value has a contextual component, meaning something that might have been valuable in the past may not be helpful in the future. Something that would be valuable in one circumstance might be less useful when the conditions are different.
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Value creation tends to degrade over time; it has a half-life. The value you created in the past is not likely to be as valuable to your clients as the value you create now.
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Value creation may also build on prior value. It is possible to create an upward spiral of higher value over time. [Moi ici: A base para a subida na escala de valor, a base para os macacos que não voam, mas trepam às árvores]
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The greater the value you create, the more relevant you will be to your clients and your dream clients. An inability to create value will make you irrelevant. [Moi ici: O paradoxo do foco num nicho]
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Value creation is found in your understanding. It is as much in your learning as it is your teaching. While it is important you help your clients discover something about themselves, it’s equally (or more) important that you allow them to educate you if you want to create a preference."

Uma ressalva: as empresas não criam valor, as empresas criam ou co-criam valor potencial. Só quando o cliente experiencia valor na sua vida é que ele se materializa.

Relacionar com "Richard von Strigl on Subjective Value":

"The economic value of a good can only be understood as a "subjective value", that is to say, it is always related to and depends upon the effective ends of a determinate economic agent (even though the agent may, of course, take into account the interests of several individuals when setting his ends, as is, for example, the case of a family father)."

Exportações YTD (Junho de 2019)

Os resultados das exportações em Junho de 2019 pintam um quadro mais alegre que o de Junho de 2018, mas já ilustram uma deterioração face a Maio de 2019.

Olhando para os dados que acompanho há anos:

Na imagem acima comparo meses homólogos. 

No quadro seguinte comparo valores acumulados:

O Parcial I a fazer alguma recuperação, apesar do vermelho geral, à custa das aeronaves e da óptica. E da próxima vez que vos perguntarem por exemplos de falta de liberalização no sector exportador lembrem-se do farmacêutico a crescer 9% nas exportações, a aproveitar e bem quem paga mais caro e com melhores prazos.
O sector agrícola com uma evolução muito boa:

Calçado com uma quebra de 8%.
Não costumo acompanhar, mas o sector da marroquinaria está com uma evolução notável. Cresceu quase 10% em Janeiro e depois, mais de 25% nos restantes meses do semestre.


Pela primeira vez desde há muito tempo o têxtil com evolução negativa, "Exportações de têxteis afundam 12,7% em junho".

Apesar das importações têxteis terem crescido. Por exemplo as exportações de vestuário de malha cairam 33 milhões de euros no semestre, mas as importações aumentaram 46 milhões de euros. E muitas das importações são material em curso de fabrico para ser exportado depois. Há aqui algo a merecer investigação.

Claro que tudo isto com base nos números do INE, mas há coisas que nos deixam a pensar. Por exemplo, segundo os números do INE as exportações para a China foram de cerca de 300 milhões no semestre e caíram 4% face a 2018. Já com base nos números dos serviços de alfândega chineses as exportações portuguesas no meso período chegaram aos 998 milhões de euros e cresceram 4%. (fonte)

"Re‐shaping demand landscapes" (Parte III)

Parte I e Parte II.

"The decision of where on the landscape firms should position their products is at the core of product positioning. By deciding what attributes to include in the product and what uses of the product to promote, firms guide the customers’ understanding of the new product’s comparison set, i.e., the appropriate demand landscape for the product. Firms’ emphasis on a subset of product attributes helps the customers determine the product’s location on the relevant demand landscape and the customers’ WTP for the product.
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Competitor products can serve as referents for the introduction of new products and repositioning of existing products. Depending on the competitors’ positioning in relation to the customers’ ideal points, firms may pursue either differentiation or imitation strategies.
...
Four conditions are useful for thinking about how firms decide when to move on the demand landscape and when to reshape the landscape: weak connection between product attributes and performance, large number of attributes used by the customer to evaluate products, opportunity for collective action, and fragmentation of buyers and suppliers. Both firms that are constrained in their product-attribute choices and firms that have exhausted their repertoires of product modification options can pursue profits by attempting to change the shape of their demand landscapes.
...
Firms that are limited in their product modification options, e.g., generic drug manufacturers, may be especially likely to turn to landscape-shaping strategies in order to promote their products."

Trecho retirado de  "Re‐shaping demand landscapes: How firms change customer preferences to better fit their products". 

Speed to market

Um conjunto de frases retiradas do podcast "Inside H&M’s $4B Inventory Challenge | Inside Fashion" que o amigo Pedro Alves me enviou.

"Focus should be speed to market

Speed has to be the primary asset and capability. Speed is a way to reduce cost and reduce risk.

Cost of lost sales

Cost of high markdowns

Cost of high inventory

Speed is more than being trendy

Speed is primary

A very digital world but it is an analog supply chain depending on lowest cost countries and long lead times supplied by sea

The high cost of low cost: there is a cost to being slow and being in 12 month design cycles and 6/9 months delivery cycles."

E regressamos a 2006 e a um texto sobre isto "O regresso dos clientes" que cita um artigo de 2004. Ou seja, alguém em 2004 publicou um artigo sobre os perigos do modelo eficientista, e em 2019 ainda  vemos tantas empresas mergulhadas nesse modelo. Algumas com sucesso e muitas a perder dinheiro e valor das marcas. Isto faz-me recordar um trecho retirado de um livro que não consigo identificar, julgo que de Adrian Slywotzky, e tenho 8 ou 9 livros dele, sobre o negócio dos televisores a preto e branco. Quando apareceu a TV a cores os televisores a preto e branco ficaram condenados à morte. Uns concorrentes sairam logo desse mercado, outros foram empurrados e mortos sem alternativa, até que ficaram aqueles que assumiram esse mercado até ao fim e ganharam dinheiro a explorar os nichos em que uma televisão a cores é suficiente porque o que conta é o preço, como o das televisões para segurança.

Três grupos:

• os que agem ao primeiro sinal e partem em exploration de novas alternativas;
• os que por cegueira ou incapacidade continuam a sua vida de exploitation através de local searches; e
• os que assumem a exploitation até ao fim, conscientes de que mesmo assim, terão de fazer a sua mudança, porque os dois primeiros grupos vão libertar quota de mercado, voluntária ou involuntariamente.

Voltando ao podcast: em que grupo se enquadra a H&M?

É que não basta decidir mudar...

"First, strategy exists in managers’ minds—in their theories about the world and their company’s place in it. Second, strategy is embodied, reified in a firm’s activities, and routines. Understanding the origins of strategy therefore requires a grasp of how its two aspects— the mental and the physical—jointly come into being. That is, it requires the characterization of a two-part search process. One part occurs in the world of cognition and comprises the mental processes that mold particular theories about the firm and its environment. The other unfolds in the world of action and consists of mechanisms that shape what a company actually does."

Além da decisão é preciso re-orientar toda uma organização habituada e moldada a uma certa forma de trabalhar. Basta comprar o que está por trás da Zara e o que está por trás da H&M antes de chegar à prateleira.


Trecho retirado de "On the Origin of Strategy: Action and Cognition over Time" de Giovanni Gavetti, e Jan W. Rivkin, publicado em Organization Science Vol. 18, No. 3, May–June 2007, pp. 420–439.

"Re‐shaping demand landscapes" (Parte II)

Parte I.

"A long-standing tradition in strategy conceptualizes the firm's operating environment as a fitness landscape. In this conceptualization, the firm’s performance is an outcome of searching the landscape for an optimal position. ... More recent contributions to this literature put forward the possibility of firms not just searching a landscape shaped by other actors, but also reshaping the landscape, i.e., changing the topology of the landscape to improve a focal firm’s position on the landscape and, with it, the firm’s performance. This suggestion expands the repertoire of strategies available to firms.
...
To date the research on demand landscapes has taken the shape of the landscape as a given, implicitly assuming that firms operate on exogenously determined landscapes (i.e., firms’ only option is to change products to accommodate customer preferences). Taking a different perspective, I propose that firms can reshape the demand landscapes for their products (i.e., change customer preferences to accommodate their products).
...
I consider two approaches to landscape reshaping by firms—1) moving the customer’s ideal point and 2) manipulating the customer’s perception of the distance between the customer’s ideal point and the firm’s product.
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My starting point is the demand landscape —a concept that describes the distribution of customer preferences in terms of customers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for different combinations of product attributes. ... In my conceptualization, the demand landscape represents a mapping from product attribute combinations (product positions) to customers’ WTP for these combinations."

Trecho retirado de  "Re‐shaping demand landscapes: How firms change customer preferences to better fit their products".

"Turn disappointment into delight"

Primeiro a leitura desta carta "An open letter to Aer Lingus on the occasion of their quite dreadful service." de onde retiro, a título de exemplo:

"I was unfortunate enough to be on your delayed flight EI937 from Heathrow to Belfast City on 19/7/19, so am writing to complain about the delay itself, the way you made the delay worse, and the way you treated your passengers.
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Your flight was scheduled to leave at 19:20. When the boards in the airport showed that it was delayed till (if I recall correctly) 22:40, I went to find some Aer Lingus staff to ask for vouchers for food and drink. Since you are obliged to provide your passengers with food and drink during this delay, of course I should not have to go searching for them: you should be making an announcement over the PA and seeking out your passengers to provide them with what you are legally obliged to. But no.
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I should not but apparently do need to explain to you that the purpose of providing food and drink to your passengers is to make a bad experience — a severely delayed flight — somewhat less bad. Forcing your passengers to stand in a queue for hours in order to earn the privilege of asking for vouchers makes the bad experience worse. That is the opposite of compensation."

Recordo um texto re-lido esta semana, "Why Is Customer Service So Bad? Because It’s Profitable." e recomendo a leitura deste outro artigo lido esta semana "The Magic That Makes Customer Experiences Stick":

"2. Turn disappointment into delight. If your company is going to value the outliers, it must be ready to transform negative experiences into positives,
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By resolving a problem that he didn’t cause, the night manager delivered an experience that was remembered for years. When employees are taught to be in tune with the customer’s emotions, they can notice changes in emotional state and respond quickly. As their alacrity accelerates the shift from disappointment to delight, the intervention creates a sudden contrast that makes experiences sticky.
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By turning disappointment into delight, companies can create emotionally memorable experiences and win customers who will sing their praises."

"Re‐shaping demand landscapes" (Parte I)

Usar uma paisagem enrugada para explicar comportamentos observados no mercado é um clássico neste blogue.

Por exemplo, recordar "Acerca da Totoestratégia" de Julho de 2012 ou "O modelo NK de Kauffman - uma introdução" de Dezembro de 2010:

Empresas que procuram subir na paisagem competitiva em busca de melhores retornos ou menos ameaças e que têm de estar alerta porque, quando menos se espera, o espaço onde se movem altera-se, e a posição onde se aterra pode significar a morte, ou pelos menos muita dor.

Depois, com Nenonen e Storbacka, assume-se que as empresas podem ser elas próprias a alterar a paisagem competitiva em seu benefício. Os mercados não são, vão sendo "markets are not – they become" de Março de 2015:

• Não é armadilhar, é criar harmonia, é construir uma sinfonia... (Julho de 2011)
• Scripting markets (Abril de 2014)
• Driving markets (Maio de 2014)
• "The key source of success is to conceive the VCS and make it work" (Setembro de 2017)
• Market shaping (Janeiro de 2018)
• Assumir o desafio de mudar um mercado (parte IV) (Janeiro de 2018)
• "You can’t shape your customer" (Abril de 2018)

Agora encontro "Re‐shaping demand landscapes: How firms change customer preferences to better fit their products":

"I suggest that in addition to repositioning their products to accommodate customer preferences firms also change the distribution of customer preferences to accommodate the firms’ products.
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Specifically, I argue that firms alter customer preferences by adding, removing, and transforming the dimensions of the demand landscape.
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Managers often assume that customer tastes are fixed and that the only way to improve a product’s appeal to customers is to change the products’ attributes to better accommodate the customers’ preferences. In this paper, I consider two approaches firms can take to changing customer preferences to better accommodate their products. One approach is to convince the customers that the combination of attributes offered by a focal product, e.g., the Apple iPhone is more valuable than the combination of attributes a customer is used to consuming. An alternative approach is to manipulate the customer’s perception of similarity between a product she is used to buying and the focal firm’s product."

Relacionar também com a sugestão "mudar de clientes", de mudar de vida.

Continua.

"the importance of saying “no”"

Dizer não, é difícil e, muitas vezes, nunca chega a ser enunciado. Afirmamos as escolhas do que decidimos fazer e não clarificamos as escolhas do que não queremos, ou não devemos fazer. Por vezes isso dá asneira grossa. Sobretudo quando se compete em mercados muito competitivos, mercados polarizados (um link de Maio de 2006) e cheios de salami-slicers, não de Bruce Jenners. Segue-se aquela sensação de não ser nem carne, nem peixe, um stuck-in-the-middle, um médio que não se diferencia, que não emociona ninguém, que não tem inimigos.

"Remember the days when Tim Cook would brag about how Apple’s product line could fit on a single table? It would be much harder to make that claim today.
...
When Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, he slashed the company’s product line to a few core products and preached the importance of saying “no” — not just to ideas you don’t like, but also to those you love if they don’t work within the larger vision. [Moi ici: Recordar "the next big thing"] He revitalized the company with a focused product line, which helped grow its cult following. [Moi ici: Recordar o recente "The paradox of focusing on a niche"] As Apple’s values change, this kind of focus is under threat.
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Apple under Jobs wasn’t perfect. Jobs certainly wasn’t either. But it’s undeniable that Apple stood for something that redefined our expectations of personal computing and mobile devices. The company’s products looked great, and the options were streamlined, not confusing. Their prices were aspirational but, usually, attainable.
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Cook’s Apple has shifted from focusing on the products to focusing on the share price."

Trechos retirados de "Apple’s Product Line Is a Mess"

Sintomas de um mundo em mudança

Sintomas de um mundo em mudança:

• A Deluge of Batteries Is About to Rewire the Power Grid (Interessante cada vez mais ver referências a algo sobre o qual comecei a escrever há vários anos "And the end of utility companies as we know them")
• Refashioning clothing’s environmental impact
• Baby Amazons take on their American role model
• China scrambles to stem manufacturing exodus as 50 companies leave

Unintended consequences (parte III)

Parte I e parte II.

Setembro de 2018 - "Manadas salvajes, ataques... La alerta de los veterinarios portugueses ante la prohibición del sacrificio de perros"

Agosto de 2019 - "Ataques a animais. Medo em aldeias. Hortas destruídas. Canis cheios já têm consequências"

Os políticos são máquinas de gerar estes problemas sempre que se metem na pele de engenheiros sociais.

A minha primeira lei sobre a concorrência? (Parte II)

Parte I.

pic.twitter.com/Bw1SrgFNAc

— Sal the Agorist (@SallyMayweather) August 3, 2019

I - The Process Approach: Do you really use it?

Uma primeira experiência.

Curiosidade do dia

"Gillette boss: Alienating some consumers with #metoo campaign was a price worth paying" e "Nonshavers, rivals bleeding Gillette as P&G takes $8B writedown".

Democratização da produção (Parte VI)

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

Um bom remate final para esta série passa pelo artigo "Patient-innovators fill gaps that industry hasn’t addressed — or can’t":

"Here’s a long-held assumption that’s ripe for a challenge: Valuable improvements in health and patient care should come from experts in the pharmaceutical, medical device, and related industries.
.
There’s no question that such professionals are essential for innovation. But our research shows that patient-innovators also have important roles to play and will fill significant gaps that industry hasn’t addressed — or can’t. [Moi ici: E volto ao exemplo da Deutsch Post e da sua carrinha eléctrica]
...
To understand what drives patient-innovators like these and the challenges they face, we worked with colleagues around the world to conduct nationally representative surveys in six countries. We also had face-to-face discussions with groups of collaborating patient-innovators.
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One of the big surprises from this work was how many people have embarked on journeys of medical innovation: as many as one million people in the six countries surveyed reported having developed medically related products for personal use.[Moi ici: E vai ser cada vez mais fácil, barato e natural experimentar]
.
What drives most patient-innovators is the realization that something they want or need isn’t commercially available."

A fazer-me recuar mais de 12 anos e procurar esta citação:

"In 1970, 5% of global patents were issued to small entrepeneurs, while today the number is around one-third and rising."

E confrontar com:

"In addition to fulfilling a personal need, patient-innovators are also attracted by the learning they gain from the process and from sharing their innovations with people with similar needs. In short, it is a highly self-rewarding endeavor." 

Se não fosse esta disponibilidade para partilhar, os "small entrepreneurs" ainda tinham um peso muito maior no número de patentes.

Democratização da produção (Parte V)

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

"Companies have intuitively known for many years that product personalization was an inevitable progression of modern manufacturing. Indeed, the concept of mass customization, which has been around for a few decades, is an early, even primitive, attempt to implement a more personalized manufacturing and service environment and respond better to customers.
...
Technological advances and digital developments are emerging and spreading throughout the manufacturing environment so quickly that point-of-demand production is inevitable in virtually every industry; indeed, it’s already being implemented. Eventually this will lead to cars made by companies like Local Motors — but also Toyota, Honda, and GM [Moi ici: Isto é tão LOL. Como é que organizações dedicadas ao vómito industrial vão-se adaptar a serem alfaites e costureiras. Come on!] — being self-designed by adventurous consumers and built on 3D printers. And as customers taste the benefits of real product personalization, they will demand more of it, driving higher margins to companies that are equipped for customization and forcing all manufacturers to develop those capabilities if they hope to survive. In the end, companies that are prepared for the point-of-demand manufacturing phenomenon will thrive. But they must begin now to rethink their long-term manufacturing strategies and to implement the processes, systems, and technologies that will completely alter the way they interact with customers, make production decisions, establish factory footprints, and compete in their industries."

Trechos retirados de "Manufacturing’s new world order - The rise of the point-of-demand model"

"begin with understanding the true customer experience. Who are the customers and users?"

"A business strategy is the management’s game plan for strengthening the performance of the enterprise, including creating the business model and identifying the main customer target audience.
...
I now promote the idea that the brand strategy comes first, and the business strategy or plan, including goals of performance and the business model, comes second.
...
an enterprise must address these wider and underlying customer needs, and come up with an idea, a concept and a customer experience that leads to a high level of customer acceptance. This acceptance, enthusiasm and loyalty results in a long-term relationship between the customer and the brand of the enterprise.
...
begin with understanding the true customer experience. Who are the customers and users? What are their deeper needs? How do you ensure your customer experience has less friction and is more enjoyable when compared with existing alternatives? And how would that be perceived as different? Only when you understand the customer experience can you consider the technology and, finally or in parallel, look at how to combine the whole thing into a business with a good, smart business model."

Trechos retirados de "Brand Strategy Before Business Strategy"

"The paradox of focusing on a niche"

Os trechos que seguem devem ser lidos tendo em conta o que se tem escrito neste blogue ao longo dos anos sobre a necessidade de subir na escala de valor, sobre a necessidade de trabalhar para nichos, sobre a necessidade de não querer ser tudo para todos

“While it may seem counterintuitive to focus your marketing and trust-building efforts on a small and specific group of people, there are benefits to doing so. The more specific you are with who your products or services are for, the more you can build trust with that particular audience. The paradox of focusing on a niche is that the more specific you are, the easier it is to sell to that group and the more likely it is that you can charge a premium for being that focused. With that kind of focus in mind, you can get to know the specifics of your niche better, learn how to serve customers more effectively, and build a reputation for yourself in that smaller niche.
...
Alex Beauchamp, former head of content at Airbnb, said that she never wants any content she works on to “go viral.” She doesn’t want to ever be on the hook for making that happen. Moreover, going viral is often what happens with a business that, not understanding who its intended audience is, tries to appeal to pretty much everyone. If you want a piece of content for your business to generate a billion views, you probably don’t understand the purpose of that content or whom it was really created for. Engagement and connection with your niche are more important and far less costly to generate.
...
trust is more important than virality when it comes to content.
...
education is a better and cheaper way to build your customer base. When you teach customers about how products like yours can be used or can benefit their own businesses or lives, trust is the natural outcome.
...
If your business becomes a source of information, you’re giving your customers what they need to make their own informed decision (even if they decide not to buy from your business).”

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

Curiosidade do dia

Os jogos de tabuleiro são autênticas lições de vida. pic.twitter.com/AJIKDuDEDy

— Emigrante dos que estão lá fora no estrangeiro (@pedegancho) July 29, 2019

Comparar esta resposta "Brain drain claimed 1.7 million youths. So this country is scrapping its income tax" com a abordagem portuguesa "Falta de mão-de-obra? Portugal precisa de imigrantes, diz Bloomberg".

A Polónia age assim:

"A new law that comes into effect in Poland this week will scrap income tax for roughly 2 million young workers."

Portugal age assim:

"O país precisa de “atrair imigrantes qualificados para as necessidades da economia portuguesa”"

Depois admiramos-nos com "Para nós, as golas inflamáveis; para os outros, IRS a 20% /premium":

"Na mesma semana em que o país descobriu que as golas da Protecção Civil não só eram inflamáveis mas socialistas, o governo alargou a lista das profissões que garantem uma taxa de IRS de 20% a estrangeiros ou a emigrantes que decidam mudar-se para cá. Não, nem toda a gente se pode queixar: sobretudo, aqueles que ainda estão para chegar a Portugal.
...
Em Portugal, a carga fiscal cresce desde a década de 90. Mas quando os  cidadãos se queixam dos impostos, os altifalantes do governo insistem que é só má vontade, porque a fiscalidade portuguesa seria baixa quando comparada com a do resto da Europa. Nem vale a pena explicar-lhes que, para o nível de desenvolvimento do país, não é, e que o esforço fiscal em Portugal é, pelo contrário, dos mais elevados (37% acima do alemão). Mas se os impostos directos em Portugal, segundo a maioria governamental, são tão ínfimos, por que razão é preciso criar uma “flat tax” de 20% para seduzir estrangeiros? Não deveria bastar como chamariz uma das tributações supostamente mais leves do continente?"

BTW, hoje é o primeiro dia de trabalho da minha filha mais velha na Suíça. Farta do saque normando nesta choldra que tem de ter dinheiro para pagar golas e padeiros. Uma decisão acertada e apoiada pela família.

Caro joão oliveira, os supermercado podem não fugir, mas os saxões sim.

A minha primeira lei sobre a concorrência?

Perante este tweet dei logo resposta:

O artigo é este, "O curioso caso dos patrões portugueses que não querem um mercado liberalizado" e para quem não conhece a 1ª Lei de Arroja:

"Primeira Lei Arroja da Concorrência: “A concorrência é boa e desejável em todos os sectores de actividade, excepto no nosso”

Pensar que as empresas são todas iguais... come on.

Recordar:

• A mentalidade socialista (não confundir com os partidos) (Maio de 2010)
• Politicamente incorrecto (Abril de 2014)
• Curiosidade do dia (Outubro de 2016)

Neste blogue há uma lei para as empresas grandes de um sector económico (2014):

"Recordar qual é a primeira lei,  quando uma empresa grande pretende livrar-se de concorrentes sem os comprar?
.
Aumentar as barreiras legais e regulamentares!"

Daqui (2010):

"Qual é a minha primeira lei sobre a concorrência? Quando um mercado está saturado, a primeira via para eliminar concorrência é aumentar as barreiras burocráticas," 

Uma lição sobre co-criação, ...

Em 2010 escrevemos "Mais uma sugestão de modelo de negócio" com base numa ideia tida pela primeira vez junto à barragem de Bemposta, enquanto ouvia na rádio as notícias sobre níveis de radioactividade elevados nos países escandinavos (depois descobrir-se-ia Chernobyl, Abril de 1986 portanto).

Em 2014 acrescentamos "O essencial é co-criar à medida de cada um, a sua experiência".

Agora, leio "Flyfishing and kayaking trips help L.L. Bean, Orvis sell more gear and attract more customers". Uma lição sobre co-criação, sobre parcerias, sobre desenvolvimento de experiências:

"It's all there when you arrive. The fishing gear, the boat, the waders, the guide that knows that one secret spot where the trout are sure to bite along the Madison River in Montana's Ruby Valley.
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Orvis outdoor apparel and gear company has taken care of all of it — for $3,275. All you have to do is focus on the rhythm of your cast and the cool, clear water moseying by.
.
This is the vacation experience outdoor retailers and apparel companies are gunning for as they expand beyond merchandise into planning adventure trips and outdoor activity schools.
...
Education has long been a strategy for finding new customers for outdoor brands, which have offered low cost or even free programs for decades. The majority of vacationers either do no or very few outdoor activities in a given year on their trips, according to a 2018 study by market research company Mintel. Just 16% of people who went on a vacation in the past year did four or more outdoor activities on their trip and just 23% said they purchased equipment for a vacation.
...
By teaching people how to do new activities, the apparel and gear companies are expanding their customer pool.
.
"We start from a base of we want people to be interested and learn skills and learn those activities. Of course, once they do those activities, they fall in love with those activities, they become lifelong outdoors people, and then of course they start buying stuff," Smith said. "But it really starts from a pure place of wanting people to get outside and learn those skills and activities."

"The only way to really care is to have human beings who care"

"The marketing math is compelling. It’s obvious that the most highly-leveraged moment in every brand’s relationship with a customer is the moment when something goes wrong.
.
In that moment, when a promise was broken, the customer sees the true nature of the brand. We make up stories about the brands in our lives, but we believe that when the promise is broken we’re about to see the truth of that story.
...
The only way to really care is to have human beings who care (and to give them the authority and resources to demonstrate that.)
.
Once you’ve got that, it’s pretty easy to show that you do."

Sim, continuem a acreditar que a AI e a automatização vai ser o futuro em Mongo.
Sim, continuem a acreditar que as pessoas vão estar dispostas a comprar mais vómito industrial.
Sim, continuem a acreditar que basta pôr uns "warm bodies" sem formação e preparação a lidar na linha da frente com os clientes.
Sim, continuem a acreditar que os clientes quando lidam com a sua empresa estão tão prisioneiros como quando lidam com o estado e os seus serviços sem alternativa.
Pode ser que vos corra mal.

Trechos retirados de "Too big to care"

Democratização da produção (Parte IV)

Parte I, Parte II e Parte III.

Recordar "Quanto tempo?"

"Just as electrification did more than simply change the power source, leading companies to revamp their factory layouts, additive manufacturing will do more than increase flexibility and simplify assembly lines. It will allow for the overhaul of the industrial geography.
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Because additive manufacturing doesn’t depend on economies of scale, as conventional manufacturing does, factories can be much smaller. [Moi ici: O que dizemos aqui há anos!] They can focus on local markets rather than global demand — and then take this production to a new level of customer responsiveness.
...
“Today, Jabil has over 100 factories throughout the world,” he said in an interview. “Ten years from now, we might have 1,000 factories — or 5,000 factories — all smaller, and each closer to where our end markets are and where people buy products. This would allow us to make products fully on demand, which is ultimately the most compelling aspect of 3D printing’s value proposition.
...
Instead of drawing from global supply chains, the local factories that Dulchinos envisions will make most of their parts in-house. They will also need fewer parts and less assembly, though they will always need feeder materials. Thus, 3D printers integrated with software platforms promise to make countries more self-reliant in manufacturing. Companies will depend less on the flow of goods across continents, which would limit the damage from trade disputes. And they will do all of this while better giving customers what they want, on demand.
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Thanks to the versatility of later-stage Industry 4.0 production systems, these local factories will likely also make products across multiple industries. [Moi ici: Uma espécie de cooperativas ou makerspaces]
...
Each local factory will therefore serve customers across many product categories and beat its focused, single-industry rivals. This “pan-industrial” approach would give an already diversified company such as Jabil a major competitive advantage over focused rivals. If this progression continues, at some point in the not-too-distant future a typical retail store will consist of a showroom in front and a factory — managed by Jabil or others — in back. The store clerks would be like industrial consultants, conferring with customers and making products to order for them on the spot." [Moi ici: Proximidade para assegurar co-criação]

Trechos retirados de "Jabil’s manufacturing leap".

Are you prepared to walk the talk?

Ler sobre as preocupações ambientalistas da Zara e do grupo Inditex sem uma palavra acerca do seu modelo baseado no consumo atrás de consumo levou-me a escrever isto "Curiosidade do dia":

"Isto é muito interessante, mas se a Inditex está assim tão preocupada com o ambiente, quando é que muda o seu modelo de negócio baseado na fast-fashion: usar e deitar fora?"

Depois, citei em "Começar a revolução em casa":

"Each year approximately 350,000 tonnes of used clothing is sent to UK landfills but research suggests that this figure could be significantly reduced if wearers were actively and routinely to repair damaged clothes."

Agora descubro "Zara built a $20B empire on fast fashion. Now it needs to slow down":

"But as the fashion industry moves toward more eco-friendly practices, it’s worth asking: Can fast fashion ever really be sustainable?
...
But here’s the thing: Trendy clothes have a short shelf life. Case in point: Zara’s tie-dye pieces I referenced above are currently 30% to 50% off, in an effort to clear the inventory to make room for the next trend. One reason fashion is such a blight on the planet is that we’re simply consuming too much of it. The apparel industry produces more than 150 billion clothes every year for only 7 billion humans. Over the last 15 years, clothing production has doubled, and yet the average number of times a garment is worn before it is discarded has decreased by 36%. Many clothes are worn just seven to 10 times before they’re thrown out.
.
So if Zara wants to become more sustainable, it may need to rethink the design of its clothes, not just how they are manufactured.
...
Yet nowhere in its announcement did Inditex address the sheer volume of clothes it produces, nor its model of selling fashion-forward clothes at a fraction of the price of designer brands. In fact, it is working toward more and more growth. Over the last five years, its sales have grown between 4% and 10% every single year. While that’s good news for shareholders, it’s bad news for the planet. No matter how eco-friendly its supply chain becomes, producing more and more clothes comes at an environmental cost.
...
This kind of agility is one of Zara’s, and Inditex’s, biggest strengths. But right now, it is being deployed to create hot new looks that may not be in style in a few weeks or months. This is directly contributing to our overconsumption of clothes.
...
The most eco-friendly approach would be to create durable, classic clothes that the customer would wear for years before recycling."

Are you prepared to walk the talk?

Partilhar informação

Esta semana ouvi uma apresentação de um colega sobre o inbound marketing. Um slide, 5 minutos, um público difícil, mas saiu-se muito bem.

Já por várias vezes chamei a atenção para a desconexão entre as mensagens de uma organização e a sua estratégia. Por exemplo, em "A Natureza tem horror ao desperdício" escrevi:

"Quando um ginásio coloca pósteres de moças e moços a caminho de algum concurso de culturismo ou de beleza, está a apostar e a dizer ao mercado quem são os seus alvos e, ao mesmo tempo está a dizer aos seniores: nós não somos para vocês."

E qual é a demografia portuguesa? A de um país envelhecido:

E como é que os ginásios lidam com este envelhecimento?

Mal!

Daqui, "E quando o mundo muda", retirei esta figura:

Será que não há mercado para ginásios dedicados a uma fatia mais velha do mercado? Ou será que não há oferta dedicada a esses clientes-alvo?

Voltando ao inbound marketing, eis um exemplo do tipo de textos que podem ser desenvolvidos para começar a criar a aura de especialista no sector e, começar a atrair potenciais clientes e prescritores, "Physical Function and Aging"

Como escreve Paul Jarvis em "Company of One: Why Staying Small is the Next Big Thing for Business":

"Sharing content and information is an effective way to begin a sales process because it helps a potential customer see what they need, why they need it, and then how your products can help solve their problem.
...
The first is that creating a relationship with an audience that sees you as a teacher sets you up to be perceived as the domain expert on the subject matter. If you’re teaching an audience about legal issues on the internet each week in a newsletter, they’ll begin to trust your insights, and then, as happened with Brian, you’ll probably be the first person they think of when they need to hire someone to help them with legal issues.
The second benefit of out-teaching your competition is the chance to show an audience the benefits of what you’re selling."

Amadores a jogar bilhar

Outro exemplo de bilhar amador a ser praticado na assembleia da república.

Se forem pedir responsabilidades a quem aprovou a proibição do abate vão ouvir que a culpa desta situação é de quem não executou bem os planos. pic.twitter.com/octzIu1JWo

— Jorge Ventura (@joxventura) July 27, 2019

Recordar:

• Amadores a jogar bilhar (Junho de 2016)
• "Most thinking stops at stage one" (Julho de 2019)

But if trash comes in, trash comes out

Coincidência, ou conspiração?

Esta semana duas pessoas em dias diferentes, em cidades diferentes, recomendaram-me a leitura de "Factfulness". Quinta-feira, antes de apanhar camioneta entro numa livraria e apanho com este livro bem de frente.

"In poor countries what % of girls finish primary school? 20%, 40% or 60%?
.
What % of babies in the world under one year received a type of vaccine? 20%, 50% or 80%?
.
Today there are 2 billion children. According to the UN by 2100 the number will double, will it be 3 billion or equal?
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If you have not answered all three questions always with the last hypothesis, you are wrong. If you didn’t get anyone right, you’re in “good” company: most CEOs, top NGO managers, highly trained medical professionals, etc. all, all of them respond worse than chimpanzees… (which responding at random would hit at least one answer – 33%)."

Pois:

"One cannot think well with wrong facts. Am I an excellent information processor? In quantity and speed? All right. But if trash comes in, trash comes out: garbage in, garbage out. How to draw right conclusions from wrong assumptions? This is what explains how 1) smart people 2) in powerful countries make catastrophic decisions where it would be best to be quiet." 

Curiosidade do dia

Para reflexão, só números:

Portugal, the path to nowhere:
-One of the highest government debts;
-One of the lowest investment levels;
-Gov expenditure at EU avg.
So: Gov spends like avg EU, not reducing debt, while investment at record low...
Despite this, Portugal/Costa&Centeno seen as a success case. pic.twitter.com/P1nOAWeXhb

— FBS 🇵🇹 🇮🇹 🇪🇺 (@filipebatsilv) July 25, 2019

Acerca dos genéricos

Recuar a 2012:

@Peliteiro Qd se começou a falar de genéricos fui um fâ desde o início. Agora, qt mais sei sobre o sector mais tenho receio

— Carlos P da Cruz (@ccz1) January 15, 2012

Recuar a 2010:

@Peliteiro Há 10 anos não pensaria 2 vezes e defenderia os genéricos. Agora, tenho cada vez mais dúvidas... I mean it

— Carlos P da Cruz (@ccz1) September 14, 2010

Por coisas como esta "Are Generic Drugs as Good as Name Brand?":

"What Dingle needed, though, wasn’t a higher dose of new generic medicine, but the effectiveness of the brand-name drug. “When I went to pick up the new dose, the pharmacist took a minute to look at my prescriptions, then confirmed that my levels had changed after I switched from Synthroid to generic,” Dingle says. “He said he had seen variations like this, not only when the prescription changed from Synthroid to generics but also between batches of generics.”
...
The active ingredient of the generic must have the same pharmacokinetics as the original drug, which means it must behave the exact same way and reach the same maximum dose in the blood on the appropriate dosing. If the active ingredient is indeed bioequivalent, the drug will likely be equally effective and safe as the original.
But there may be a cost to the cheaper route. A drug’s inactive ingredients (binders, fillers, detergents, dyes, antioxidants, and sugars, which pharmacists call excipients) aren’t subject to the same level of regulation and research as active ingredients. While additional ingredients aren’t allowed to affect how the drug functions in the body and must be proven as “safe” to the FDA, those inactive ingredients can vary widely between brand names and generics — and between generics themselves.
...
For some patients, generic medications can cause a number of adverse reactions, meaning a drug can compound health concerns instead of alleviating them. This is often linked to a person’s biology; for example, a lactose-intolerant patient who switches to a generic drug with a lactose-based excipient might experience stomach issues, which could in turn decrease drug absorption.
...
Which leads to another drug-related phenomenon: the “nocebo” effect. Studies show using generic drugs can cause an anti-placebo effect of worsening symptoms or problematic side effects."

Dastardlys

Dedicado aquelas empresas que vivem mais preocupadas com o que faz a concorrência do que em surpreender os clientes, do que em ganhar clientes, do que em subir na escala de valor, do que melhorar a eficiência.

When natural selection trumps sexual selection... pic.twitter.com/E4ne4izquL

— Steve Stewart-Williams (@SteveStuWill) July 26, 2019

Democratização da produção (Parte III)

Parte I e Parte II.

"The globalization manufacturing paradigms of the past few decades were primarily cost-cutting ventures built on traditional high-volume production schemes. Locating factories in regional hubs, typically in developing countries outside a manufacturer’s domestic market, was seen as a way to reduce labor expenses and form alliances with low-cost suppliers in these regions. And as long as the discount to operate in emerging nations was large enough to overcome logistics inefficiencies and time-to-market requirements, this approach was profitable and made perfect sense.
.
But a combination of trends is making this strategic approach obsolete — and is shifting value creation in production downstream toward customers and customization. For one thing, wage escalation in emerging nations and concerns about uncertain energy costs have eroded the perceived competitive advantage that multinationals sought from offshoring.
...
the growing importance of the “build where you sell” principle
...
More than anything, however, the rapidly morphing relationship between manufacturers and their consumers is at the heart of the point-of-demand revolution — and will have the most permanent impact on it. In all regions, but particularly in emerging nations as demand evolves and the middle class expands, customers increasingly expect products that match local cultural preferences, rather than homogeneous global brands and business-to-business services.
...
For the first time, customers can reasonably demand products from mainstream manufacturers that look and feel like they were made next door. And companies can expect increased customer loyalty when they meet these demands through personalization"

Cito isto e lembro-me da reacção da indústria automóvel incumbente a pedidos em pequena quantidade e com requisitos fora da caixa:

"Deutsche Post says it took this route when the conventional vehicle makers turned down requests to build the electric vans in what are limited numbers by their standards."

Também me lembro disto, "Comboio Vasco da Gama vai ligar Portugal à Alemanha em 2020". Da janela do meu escritório, a menos de 10 metros da linha do Norte vejo passar os comboios de mercadorias carregados de: eucalipto; brita; carvão; e cimento (eheheh escrevo isto, oiço o comboio a passar, levanto-me e é um comboio com contentores fechados). Não digo que seja impossível levar exportações das PMEs do Norte para a Europa Central, mas vai ser muito difícil. A variedade de destinos, as pequenas quantidades e as entregas rápidas não sei se podem ser conciliadas por quem tem o mindset noutro mundo. Fazem-me lembrar:

"Em 2009, com a forte quebra da produção automóvel, recordo as empresas produtoras de composto para esse sector, que com preços muito baixos tentaram fornecer os fabricantes de solas. Claro que a coisa não correu bem porque a indústria de calçado queria variedade e pequenas quantidades, não a monocor e as grandes quantidades. E a coisa deu para o torto." 

Continua.

Trechos retirados de "Manufacturing’s new world order - The rise of the point-of-demand model"

e a fugir do Normalistão

Muito empresário de PME precisava de ler isto, "Comparing % and mass", e deixar que a mensagem caísse bem fundo:

"Small audiences are your friend, because small audiences are specific, and specific increases your percentage."

Estamos a caminho de Mongo e a fugir do Normalistão.

Isto deve ser feike niús - só pode

Coisas que nos fazem dizer:

UAU!!!

Há dias o Chefe do Estado-Maior General das Forças Armadas dizia que havia falta de pessoal:

"Há um ano no cargo, o Chefe do Estado-Maior General das Forças Armadas queixa-se da falta de recursos humanos e fala de uma "situação insustentável". Militares ao serviço já fazem "esforço tremendo"."

Trecho retirado daqui "Chefe das Forças Armadas fala em “situação insustentável”".

Agora descubro isto no Twitter:

De acordo com este site.

Isto deve ser feike niús. Portugal tem mais efectivos que Espanha e a Alemanha?

Quer dizer que o exército português nunca fez a sua reformulação após as guerras coloniais?

Por favor digam-me que isto está errado.

Como se calcula o número de reservistas em Portugal?

Constância de propósito - falta tanta

Quando apresento o conceito de estratégia recorro ao ditado:

- Mais vale ser rico e ter saúde do que pobre e doentio!

Ninguém quer ser doente e pobre!
Toda a gente quer ser saudável e rico. No entanto, à luz do teste do algodão isso não é uma estratégia, é catequese.

Estratégia a sério dói! Implica renunciar a algo.
Ter saúde, mas ser pobre.
Ser rico, mas ser doentio.

Aos políticos quase todos falta a coragem para ter uma estratégia. Ter uma estratégia implica escolher  e fazer o lock e usar esses parâmetros para tomar as decisões a seguir. Acontece que os políticos têm medo do lado negativo de qualquer estratégia. Por isso, fazem uma escolha e logo a seguir começam a miná-la com as medidas que tomam para minimizar as consequências naturais das escolhas que fizeram. Recordo o conselho para a procura dos sacrificados. Reparem como este conselho de Abril de 2015 explica tão bem o caos nos serviços públicos (afinal os serviços públicos existem para os funcionários, como disse a ministra da Saúde recentemente, os sacrificados são os condenados a usá-los, os utentes).

Há dias recordei esta falta de constância: aumentar salários para eliminar as empresas que não podem pagar salários melhores, mas depois, face ao aumento do desemprego e encerramento das empresas, vem o apoio com subsídios.

Ontem detectei outro exemplo:
Às segundas, terças e quartas o ministério da Agricultura enterra milhões no sector leiteiro para evitar o normal funcionamento do mercado.
Às quintas, sextas e sábados o governo ataca os sectores que consomem leite:

"Entre os produtos que vão deixar de ser publicitados junto a escolar, parques infantis, redes sociais, e em programas de televisão e de rádio encontram-se chocolates, bolos, gelados, refrigerantes, bolachas, cereais de pequeno-almoço, iogurtes, fiambre, queijo ou refeições pré-preparadas." [Moi ici: BTW, e os leites achocolatados?] 

Brevemente teremos os cromos do karma a fazer o choradinho junto do governo, que irá desembolsar mais uns milhões para apoiar os produtores leiteiros prejudicados pelas medidas tomadas pelo mesmo governo.