Quantas empresas? (parte VII)

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

Voltemos à evolução do número de empresas de calçado em Portugal:

A azul os dados da APICCAPS publicados nas sucessivas monografias estatísticas anuais.
A vermelho curvas de tendência.

Consideremos a evolução de uma empresa em particular:

Inicialmente a empresa por tentativa e erro procura uma alternativa que lhe permita sobreviver, e quiçá, ter sucesso. 
FASE II - Muitas empresas não conseguem encontrar/criar o truque, o modelo de negócio e ou fecham ou prolongam a agonia como zombies. Subitamente uma empresa, depois outra e outra começam a ter melhores resultados e parecem ter chegado a um modelo que parece funcionar. 
FASE III - Por spillover o novo modelo é progressivamente adoptado pelas empresas existentes e o sucesso atrai novos empreendedores. Fase de exploração em que se faz render o modelo ao máximo.
FASE IV - Inevitavelmente, porque o contexto externo e interno muda, quer a nível de concorrentes, quer a nível do resto do ecossistema do negócio (clientes-distribuição, retalhistas, consumidores), o modelo começa a falhar e progressivamente começam a encerrar empresas incapazes de se sustentarem.

Ajustando as duas figuras temos, para uma empresa-tipo:

Richard D'Aveni no velhinho livro "Hyper-competition: Managing the Dynamics of Strategic Advantage" escreve, a propósito da segunda figura acima (a figura é uma adaptação da que D'Aveni usa):

"The pursuit of a sustainable advantage has long been the focus of strategy. But advantages last only until competitors have duplicated or outmaneuvered them.
...
Once the advantage is copied or overcome, it is no longer an advantage. It is now a cost of doing business. Ultimately the innovator will only be able to exploit its advantage for a limited period of time before its competitors launch a counterattack [Moi ici: Não gosto desta liguagem de "contra ataque". Os concorrentes não nos atacam. Os concorrentes precisam dos mesmos recursos financeiros que nós. Esses recursos financeiros estão nos bolsos dos potenciais clientes. Os concorrentes não nos atacam. Os concorrentes arranjam uma alternativa que serve melhor os potenciais clientes, proporcionando-lhes mais valor]. With the launch of this counterattack, the original advantage begins to erode (see Figure 1-1}, and a new initiative is needed."

Há muito que uso aqui no blogue este gif para ilustrar que as estratégias nunca são eternas:

No final da FASE III a vantagem competitiva está perdida e volta-se à estaca zero, procurar uma nova vantagem competitiva. O interessante é que ao longo das décadas, parece que a duração da fase de exploração parece que se vai encurtando.

Às vezes oiço empresários, meio a sério, meio a brincar, a defender que é preciso importar bangladeshis ou chineses. Isso era o que se fazia antigamente quando os concorrentes que se tinham tornado mais competitivos tinham melhorado a sua competitividade nuns "pós" percentuais, estes concorrentes estão muito melhor habilitados para este campeonato. Por isso, tentar extender o tempo da exploração é perder tempo e gastar recursos que deviam ser colocados ao serviço da procura do próximo modelo de negócio bem-sucedido.

D'Aveni usa uma linguagem colorida:

"So what is the harm of trying to sustain an advantage for as long as possible? In an environment in which advantages are rapidly eroded, sustaining advantages can be a distraction from developing new ones. It is like shoveling sand against the tide rather than moving on to higher ground.
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Trying to sustain an existing advantage is a harvest strategy rather than a growth strategy. It is designed to milk what assets you have now rather than to seek new assets to build on. Even in high-growth markets old advantages based on old assets may not be the ones that will be the source of future success. A strategy of sustaining the advantage created by your existing assets creates a danger of complacency and gives competitors time to catch up and become strong.
...
Attempting to sustain an old advantage can eat up resources that should be used to generate the next move, thereby inviting attack by savvy competitors who realize that complacency has set in. Sustaining advantage is effectively a defensive strategy designed to protect what a firm has. In hypercompetition the better defense is often a strong offense."

Continua

Value-based selling (parte II)

Parte I.

As vendas deviam ser transformadas, por quem vende, num investimento para quem compra.
No b2b se o cliente pagar x quanto vai ganhar, y, por escolher uma certa opção A em detrimento de uma certa opção B?
No b2c se o cliente pagar x que experiência vai poder viver se escolher por uma certa opção A em detrimento de uma certa opção B?

"In b2b market, both the supplier (when offering their products/solutions) and the buyer (when choosing among alternative offers) aim at increasing their own value (NPV). Both the supplier and the customer can increase their values by eight dimensions that are called financial value drivers.
1. Sales increase. Additional sales increase (ceteris paribus) value.
…
2. Operating profit margin. Bigger operating profit margin increases (ceteris paribus) value.
…
3. Tax rate. Reduction of tax paid increases (ceteris paribus) value.
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4. Effectiveness of working capital investment. Working capital equals current assets (cash, accounts receivable and inventory) minus accounts payable. The effectiveness of working capital investment can be measured as a relation between operating profit, cash frozen in accounts receivable, and inventory (the bigger the relation, the better) or determined by the time of outflows and inflows of cash (the shorter time between cash payments for buying parts and materials, and cash inflows from sales, the better).
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5. Effectiveness of fixed asset investment. The improvement of relation of operating profit to cash frozen in fixed assets increases (ceteris paribus) value.
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6. Cost of capital. Smaller cash paid by company to debtors (interest rate) and the owners (return) for their capital increases (ceteris paribus) value.
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7. Value creation period. The longer a business can generate cash on the expected level (ceteris paribus), the bigger value.
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8. Launching an additional business unit (new product, additional source of value) increases (ceteris paribus) value.
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VP is defined as translating the differentiating feature (design attribute) of an offering into monetary impact on customer's business value in value-based selling.
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tell the story about the offer's impact on customer's business operating profit margin (by reducing one of operating costs), so about one of eight financial value drivers.
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The "product differentiating feature/design attribute" is the real cause of the impact on the customer's both non-financial and financial value driver (s). VP translates the offer's feature (as a cause) into quantified non-financial and financial effects. Thirdly, the differential impact of the offer on the customer's business value justifies its higher price that is presented as an investment for the customer. The supplier avoids price competition this way."

Trechos de "Where is value in b2b value proposition? The concept of value in research on selling, innovation management and NPD" de Ryszard Kłeczek, publicado em Wroclaw University of Economics and Business em Abril de 2018:

Quantas empresas? (parte VI)

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

Na parte V recordamos Clayton Christensen e a continua transição entre comoditização e de-comoditização. Na passada segunda-feira o Wall Street Journal trazia o artigo "Specialty Grocers Lose Natural Edge":

"Gourmet grocers are losing their edge as natural foods become mainstream. Supermarket chains and discounters are selling more fresh, natural and organic foods at lower prices, drawing shoppers who used to seek out those products at specialty grocers.... As a result, specialty grocers are having a hard time convincing customers to pay a premium to shop in their stores. And without the revenue and reach of bigger chains, they have also been hesitant to match price cuts or to invest in new services like delivery....“Differentiation can be ephemeral. Retail is an open book of copycats,”...“What was special 10 years ago isn’t special anymore,”...New Seasons Market, based in Portland, Ore., is trying to stand out from the competition with hyperlocal products, Chief Operating Officer Mark Law said. The chain of more than 20 stores in the Pacific Northwest works with local chefs to prepare oven-ready meals and buys dairy products from nearby farmers. Samestore sales growth rate nearly doubled last year.
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“Organic has been commoditized,” Mr. Law, a former Whole Foods executive, said. “You can’t differentiate with your product mix alone.”
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Other specialty grocers also are emphasizing services to stand out. But offering better services can push up costs, executives said.
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“You not only have your cost of goods but you’re trying to provide a higher level of customer service to differentiate yourself,”

Este tema já apareceu aqui: "As estratégias nunca são eternas ponto"

Outro artigo recente "Fairway Is So Crowded! How Can It Be in Bankruptcy?"

Há que repensar a actuação futura num mundo diferente

Outro exemplo, retirado da realidade do dia-a-dia, que ilustra como o mundo pode mudar rapidamente.

"In the cellar of the 18th-century Château du Pavillon in Bordeaux are 70,000 bottles of wine that nobody seems to want to drink. Olivier Fleury, 48, the château owner, had earmarked them for the United States, where they usually sell for between $25 and $60 (£20-£45) a bottle. That was before President Trump imposed a 25 per cent tariff on $7.5 billion worth of European exports including Scotch whisky, Italian cheese and still French wine containing less than 14 per cent alcohol.
...
At the same time there has been an unprecedented supply of grapes and wine in California.
...
Falling demand from a slowing Chinese market, coupled with the effect of the coronavirus, are also taking a toll, prompting a leading French wine merchant to warn that Bordeaux’s most prestigious châteaux will have to cut prices to avoid a collapse in sales.
...
Bordeaux’s wine-making bodies reported a 46 per cent fall in exports to the US since the tariffs. Across the French wine industry, exports to the US were 18 per cent down in the last quarter of 2019 compared with the quarter before."

Não basta uma reacção rápida, há que repensar a actuação futura num mundo diferente.
E a sua empresa? Como é que o mundo está a mudar para ela? Que alternativas de actuação?

Trechos retirados de "Winemakers pressed to cut prices in face of glut" publicado no The Times de 02.03.2020

O mundo que conhecemos nos últimos 20 anos pode mudar drasticamente

Os nabateus deixaram-nos uma grande lição nas ruínas de Petra.

"BTW, este fim de semana vi num canal do cabo, tipo National Geographic(?), um documentário sobre os Nabateus e a civilização de Petra. Uma parte desse documentário não me sai da cabeça... a parte em que se refere a técnica dos Nabateus para transportar água ao longo de km e km. Eles desenhavam a inclinação das tubagens não para a máxima eficiência de caudal transportado mas para a mais eficaz. A máxima eficiência leva à rotura frequente das tubagens."

Pois:

"Systems with slack are more resilient." 

Ontem, no Financial Times apanhei esta figura:

E pensei no exemplo das farmacêuticas, referido nesta "Curiosidade do dia".

Cheira-me que este choque, que esta disrupção nas cadeias de fornecimento, provocada pelo coronavírus, vai ser um momento de viragem... como as cheias em Bangkoque para a Ecco.
Entretanto, ontem no mesmo Financial Times apanho "Margins are going to be squeezed":

"If there is a simple lesson to be drawn from last week’s market rout, it is that there is fragility in complexity. The coronavirus outbreak has, like the 2011 Japanese tsunami and Thai floods that disrupted auto and electronics businesses, or the 1999 earthquake in Taiwan that brought the semiconductor industry to a halt, shown us the vulnerabilities of our highly interconnected economy and global supply chains.
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This time around, the trigger is an outbreak spreading outwards from China, still the factory of the world as well as its second-largest economy.
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Goldman Sachs last week warned investors to expect zero profit growth from US companies this year, mainly because of the growing impact of the virus. But I wonder how much profit growth big corporations will be able to expect even after the infections play out and the results of the November US presidential elections come in.
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The healthy margins of today’s highly optimised, extremely complex multinational corporations have largely depended on their ability to manufacture in China, sell in the US and Europe, and stash wealth wherever it makes most sense — particularly in favourable tax destinations like Hong Kong, Dublin or the Cayman Islands.
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I’ve wondered for years when the fragility inherent in complex global multinationals would force them to shift their business models, and I think we’ve reached that moment. I believe coronavirus will speed the decoupling of the US and Chinese economic ecosystems, increasing regionalisation and localisation of production. That may result in “supply chains that are less efficient but more resilient”,
...
If decoupling continues, multinationals will have to make costly choices around labour, productivity and transport in order to manage a shift away from China."

O mundo que conhecemos nos últimos 20 anos pode mudar drasticamente.

BTW, e estão a ver o impacto do coronavírus nos hospitais-cidade? E nas escolas-cidade?

Quantas empresas? (parte V)

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

O desafio que as empresas de calçado estão a sentir de novo é o desafio da comoditização.

A globalização, fazendo da China a fábrica do mundo criou este modelo:

Preços baixos, mas uma janela de 150 ou mais dias desde o desenho até à montra:

"By relocating most production for North America and Europe to Southeast Asia and putting retailers on 150-day order windows, the shoe industry has created a marvel of low cost at the factory gate in combination with an extraordinary array of styles"

O que o calçado português aprendeu foi a tirar partido da proximidade entre produção e consumo e

 permitir reduzir o tempo do desenho à montra, o que permitiu mais flexibilidade e acelerar o bailado entre oferta e procura.

O que recentemente a Turquia, o Norte de África e a Roménia conseguiram foi criar novos centros de produção de confiança próximos do consumo e mais baratos.

Aqui, fui ao meu exemplar de "The Innovator's Solution" e mergulhei no capítulo "How to avoid commoditization" e reli:

"It turns out that there is hope. One of the most exciting insights from our research about commoditization is that whenever it is at work some-where in a value chain, a reciprocal process of de-commoditization is at work somewhere else in the value chain. And whereas commoditization destroys a company's ability to capture profits by undermining differentiability, decommoditization affords opportunities to create and capture potentially enormous wealth. The reciprocity of these processes means that the locus of the ability to differentiate shifts continuously in a value chain as new waves of disruption wash over an industry. As this happens, companies that position themselves at a spot in the value chain where performance is not yet good enough will capture the profit.
…Making highly differentiable products with strong cost advantages is a license to print money, and lots of it. We must emphasize that the reason many companies don't reach this nirvana or remain there for long is that it is the not-good-enough circumstance that enables managers to offer products with proprietary architectures that can be made with strong cost advantages versus competitors. When that circumstance changes—when the dominant, profitable companies overshoot what their mainstream customers can use—then this game can no longer be played, and the tables begin to turn. Customers will not pay still-higher prices for products they already deem too good. Before long, modularity rules, and commoditization sets in. When the relevant dimensions of your product's performance are determined not by you but by the subsystems that you procure from your suppliers, it becomes difficult to earn anything more than subsistence returns in a product category that used to make a lot of money. When your world becomes modular, you'll need to look elsewhere in the value chain to make any serious money.
…Note that it is overshooting—the more-than-good-enough circum-stance — that connects disruption and the phenomenon of commoditization. Disruption and commoditization can be seen as two sides of the same coin. A company that finds itself in a more-than-good-enough circumstance simply can't win: Either disruption will steal its markets, or commoditization will steal its profits. Most incumbents eventually end up the victim of both, because, although the pace of commoditization varies by industry, it is inevitable, and nimble new entrants rarely miss an opportunity to exploit a disruptive foothold. There can still be prosperity around the corner, however. The attractive profits of the future are often to be earned elsewhere in the value chain, in different stages or layers of added value. That's because the process of commoditization initiates a reciprocal process of de-commoditization. Ironically, this de-commoditization — with the attendant ability to earn lots of money — occurs in places in the value chain where attractive profits were hard to attain in the past:
…Firms that are being commoditized often ignore the reciprocal process of de-commoditization that occurs simultaneously with commoditization, either a layer down in subsystems or next door in adjacent processes. They miss the opportunity to move where the money will be in the future and get squeezed — or even killed — as different firms catch the growth made possible by de-commoditization. In fact, powerful but perverse investor pressure to increase returns on assets (ROA) creates strong incentives for assemblers to skate away from where the money will be. …Executives who seek to avoid commoditization often rely on the strength of their brands to sustain their profitability — but brands become commoditized and de-commoditized, too. Brands are most valuable when they are created at the stages of the value-added chain where things aren't yet good enough. When customers aren't yet certain whether a product's performance will be satisfactory, a well-crafted brand can step in and close some of the gap between what customers need and what they fear they might get if they buy the product from a supplier of unknown reputation. The role of a good brand in closing this gap is apparent in the price premium that branded products are able to command in some situations. For similar logic, however, the ability of brands to command premium prices tends to atrophy when the performance of a class of products from multiple suppliers is manifestly more than adequate. When overshooting occurs, the ability to command attractive profitability through a valuable brand often migrates to those points in the value-added chain where things have flipped into a not-yet-good-enough situation. These often will be the performance-defining subsystems within the product, or at the retail interface when it is the speed, simplicity, and convenience of getting exactly what you want that is not good enough. These shifts define the opportunities in branding."

Onde está a próxima etapa da cadeia com possibilidade de gerar diferenciação?
Será no desenho e diferenciação do que se faz?
Será no consumo e na forma como se chega a ele?

Better management review meetings

When presenting the webinar "How to perform management review according to ISO 9001:2015" I use the following slide as an example:

If you look with care you can see that for each "Agenda Item" I include a question. The main question, or the main challenge under each agenda item.

Last night I started reading "How to Create the Perfect Meeting Agenda" and smiled when I found:

"Instead of designing your agenda as a laundry list of topics to be broached, consider creating your agenda as a set of questions to be addressed. In its simplest form, the meeting exists to answer a set of compelling questions in an allotted time.
...
By populating the agenda with questions rather than topics, you’ll begin to think and act differently as you design the meeting. You’ll become strategic, thinking critically about the meaning of a topic and what your ultimate outcome is — the true reason to bring the collective together. In addition, this method fosters intentionality.
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Think about creating agenda questions for meeting attendees like you would go about creating goals for your employees. Why? Goal-setting theory demonstrates that goals energize, focus attention, and promote persistence, all of which lead to better performance."

Another suggestion in the article is very useful for the effectiveness of management review meetings:
"Privilege the most important questions first.
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Meeting science shows that content at the start of an agenda receives disproportionate amounts of time and attention, regardless of its importance. The implication is clear: put your most compelling questions at the start of the meeting. This will not only assure coverage of key issues; it is also a way of quickly grabbing attendee attention and conveying the value of the meeting. And while it is fine to start a meeting with 5 minutes or so of news and notes, after that concludes, go all in addressing the most challenging, important, and vexing questions.

At the webinar I also recommend:

Management review process starts with the gathering and analysis of the data, that is sent to top management. Before meeting together, top management should review the prepared information and take notice of what is going according to planned, what is having a behavior different from planned, positive or negative, and what is and may happen in the context that may affect future performance of the management system.

In the article one can find:

"After your set of questions is finalized, distribute the meeting agenda in advance so people have time to think about and prepare for the questions to be addressed. [Moi ici: Attention, my advice is more radical than this one. I recommend not only distributing the agenda in advance but also distribute the content in advance. The meeting is not for watching a presentation or analysing information. That can be done in advance] There is no “magic time” per se; vexing strategic questions likely require around a week of lead time, but for most other questions, three days lead time should suffice."

BTW, next webinar about this topic is scheduled for Thursday, March 5th.

Analítica versus experimentação

Via Nassim Taleb cheguei a esta sequência:

Entretanto, tinha lido "Two Words That Kill Innovation":

"Over the past 50 years, management practices have become ever more scientific and quantitative. Managing by the numbers, using business analytics and leveraging Big Data are all considered to be unalloyed goods, indicative of enlightened management. Without question, data and analytics have their roles and their benefits. But they have a really important dark side too, and when managers don’t see that dark side, they accidentally kill innovation.
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The implicit logic behind the scientific management doctrine is that you must prove — analytically, and in advance — that a decision is correct before making it. To be clear, it is not the explicit doctrine — few managers think this themselves, but they’re swayed by their training to be scientifically analytical. This works productively for most of their everyday decisions.
...
But when genuine innovation is required, there’s a problem.
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— it is not possible to prove analytically that a new idea is a good one in advance. Why? It’s pretty simple when you think about it. There is no data about how a genuinely new idea will interact with the world in advance of said new idea actually interacting with the world. Therefore there is no way to prove it will work in advance.
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This creates a real problem for managers who believe that their job in life is to make sure that a decision should be made only when there is analytical proof that it is the right decision.
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To change this dynamic, managers need to distinguish between when they are honing and refining an existing system and when they are attempting to create something genuinely new. In the former situations, it is totally fine to come in with analytical guns blazing. In the latter, they need to put away the guns and take an entirely different approach. Here, they need to borrow from the design thinking toolbox by engaging in prototyping. Try innovative ideas, but do so in small ways without a lot of up front investment. Generate data through experimentation rather than assuming that there is pre-existing data to be harvested. Iterative experimentation will migrate the solution to an ever more compelling state — and spin off new data along the way."

Trechos retirados de "Two Words That Kill Innovation".

Value-based selling (parte I)

Uma das minhas paixões é o value-based selling. Gostei particularmente deste artigo "Where is value in b2b value proposition? The concept of value in research on selling, innovation management and NPD" de Ryszard Kłeczek, publicado em Wroclaw University of Economics and Business em Abril de 2018:

"(1) the VP as the device for knowledge transfer in both sales (value-based selling) and new product development processes in the company, (2) reinterprets results of current research (the research revealed some scope of financial value drives used in real business cases: some value drivers were used in crafting VPs,
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A value proposition (VP) is a statement that translates the features (design attributes) of supplier offering into monetary impact on customer business value, for instance: "feature X translates into energy saving of 1000 kWh and energy costs of 225 per year" or "feature Y translates into maintenance time reduction by 200 hours and, consequently, maintenance cost of 6000 per year".
...
VP is a device that: (1) enhances knowledge transfer between actors that collaborate in value creation, (2) overcomes the weaknesses of vague promises like "cost reductions" or "increased efficiency", and traditional concepts like „perceived customer benefits” and "product quality" in explaining b2b relations, (3) creates an alternative for developing and selling the components at prices allowable (by customer) and enables negotiation of differentiated (high) prices for differentiating impact on customer business value.
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VP is crafted iteratively by actors collaborating in value creation processes on both supplier and customer side.
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VP in b2b value-based selling. How to communicate the current offer's impact on customer business value and get the differentiated price?...
VP concept to explain the sales process in b2b settings. The managerial question here is how to change the selling process from selling the offer's functionalities into selling its impact on customer business value to get the appropriately high price (to show the price as investment for the customer's business). ... the VP, crafted and communicated by the salesperson, as the supplier's offer's impact on the customer's business value expressed in monetary terms (not in functional terms only), compared with the next-best alternative for the customer (the VP is understood as a managerial accounting device that enables knowledge transfer between salespeople and the customer). The salesperson crafts the VP based on identified value drivers for adding substantial value to the customer's business. Because customers are sometimes unaware of, or unable to explain their value increase potential, understanding customer needs (as they are articulated by customer) is not enough to craft the value proposition.
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Understanding the customer's business model is required as well. Value-based (value proposition) selling converges upon finding and offering the best long-term solution for the customer's business, which shifts the focus of purchasing from looking for the lowest price to making business investment decisions."

Continua.

Quantas empresas? (parte IV)

Parte I, parte II e parte III.

Na introdução no Linkedin ao postal "Uma lição para as PME portuguesas" escrevi:

"Fugir da corrida para o fundo do poço, fugir da armadilha mental que só interessa aos gigantes. Deixar de vender substantivos e vender adjectivos para nichos."

No referido postal sublinho:

"Instead, they decided to produce milk that could be certified as grass-fed and organic.
...
The price he commands for grass-fed organic milk isn’t double that of regular milk, but it’s close," 

O que é que isto quer dizer para os fabricantes de calçado?

Por exemplo:

• Deixarem de produzir sapatos para produzirem sapatos de segurança
• Deixarem de produzir sapatos de segurança para produzirem sapatos de segurança para operar no ambiente X com as condicionantes Y

Curiosidade do dia

No DN de hoje:

"Farmacêuticas e afins com impacto reduzido
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Com o mundo preocupado e a urgência no desenvolvimento de uma vacina em tempo recorde, fora dos laboratórios o setor farmacêutico tem visto uma corrida a máscaras e produtos de desinfeção, mas a Apifarma (Associação Portuguesa da Indústria Farmacêutica) garante que o "risco de impactos negativos na produção e fornecimento de medicamentos é muito reduzido". A indústria desenvolveu "rigorosos métodos de gestão das cadeias de fornecimento que permitem reagir a problemas internos e a choques externos como o atual", explica, lembrando que há sempre os planos de contingência. "O acesso às matérias-primas para a produção de genéricos e biossimilares não está afetado", confirma João Madeira, presidente da Apogen, garantindo que as empresas estão a monitorizar ativamente as cadeias de stock, para antecipar constrangimentos."

No Wall Street Journal de ontem:

"In U.S., a Risk to Drug Supply Emerges
China is a key provider of raw materials, chemicals for medicines popular abroad.
Factory shutdowns across China because of the coronavirus have exposed an uncomfortable health-care reality: Many medicines rely on raw materials that are made in that country.
...
For several weeks, the FDA has been contacting more than 180 drug manufacturers, reminding them to provide notification of any expected supply shortages. That includes the makers of roughly 20 products the agency has identified as containing key pharmaceutical ingredients from China. Most vulnerable are generic drugs, which make up some 90% of the medicines taken by Americans. Nongeneric, or branded, prescription medicines tend to have supply lines linked to other parts of the world."

Por que é que não me cheira bem?

Uma lição para as PME portuguesas

Qualquer negócio, do maior ao mais pequeno, está representado na figura acima. Qualquer negócio só tem direito à existência se conseguir atrair e manter uma plateia com "peso" suficiente para o sustentar e impedir que caia no abismo.

Uma plateia, qualquer plateia é composta por vários tipos de intervenientes - um ecossistema. No entanto, os mais importantes, os mais "pesados", são os que pagam pela oferta, são os clientes.

Os clientes não são todos iguais. Há clientes que valorizam sobretudo o preço, há clientes que valorizam sobretudo o serviço feito à medida e há clientes que valorizam sobretudo algo inovador ou diferente.

Quando falamos de leite, aprendi há muitos anos, falamos da commodity alimentar por excelência:

"Milk is the ultimate low-involvement category, and it shows. Only 10% of the international sample (in Denmark, Germany and Spain the number is less than 5%) would expect the private label version to be of a lesser quality."

 Vender leite é um negócio de preço. Qualquer negócio de preço é um negócio de eficiência, é um negócio de volume. Recordemos Marn e Rosiello:

Se o negócio é preço o modelo rola à base disto:

Neste postal recente, "O que mais ninguém lhe conta (parte II)" contei o caso de uma vacaria em Portugal com cerca de mil vacas, quando o tamanho médio das vacarias rondava há uns anos as 30 vacas. Na parte I desse postal perguntava:

Como é que num negócio em que o que conta é o preço (logo o custo), uma exploração com 30 vacas, ou 50 vacas, pode competir com uma de 500 ou de 900 vacas? (900 é só o número médio)?

Na parte I desse postal admirava-me com um vacaria americana com 9 mil vacas. Neste postal de 2012, "A verdade que não nos é contada, acerca do leite" citei uma breve referência a uma vacaria que teria 30 mil vacas:

"One farm in Indiana has 30,000 cows, and is a tourist attraction, with its own off-ramp on the interstate."

 Como é que num negócio em que o que conta é o preço (logo o custo), uma exploração com 900 vacas, pode competir com uma de 30 mil vacas?

Se optarem pela concorrência perfeita não podem ponto! Por isso, metem os políticos ao barulho e nasce o pernicioso activismo político associado ao leite.

Se o negócio é preço não há mistério, como diria Roger Martin. Se o negócio é preço não há arte, há ciência, há algoritmo:

Se o negócio é preço a abordagem a seguir é a do pragmatismo que me surpreendeu na altura. As formigas no piquenique em, "Faz sentido continuar a apostar num negócio?" (Julho de 2006).

Daí não ser de espantar esta evolução:

"Em 25 anos (entre 1989 e 2013) desapareceram 90 mil explorações e reduziu-se o efetivo animal em mais de 140 mil vacas leiteiras, o que corresponde a variações negativas de, respetivamente, 92,2% e 34,7%.
Esta evolução traduziu-se sobretudo na eliminação de explorações pecuárias com um número reduzido de efetivos e consequente aumento da dimensão média dos efetivos por exploração (de cerca de 4 vacas por exploração para aproximadamente 34 vacas por exploração)."

Ontem à noite, ao folhear a Bloomberg Businessweek do próximo dia 2 de Março comecei por apanhar uma foto que me fez recordar a tal vacaria portuguesa com cerca de 1000 vacas:

Em "The Dairy Farm of Your Imagination Is Disappearing" encontrei a tal vacaria com 30 mil vacas que referi no postal de 2012 citado acima:

"This is Fair Oaks Farms, an Indiana tourist attraction designed to entertain road-weary families and deliver them back to the highway reassured that American agriculture is headed in the right direction. With more than 33,000 cows that pump out some 300,000 gallons of milk daily, it’s also quite a bit more.
...
In Wisconsin alone, between two and three family dairy farms go out of business every single day. (Some of these farms still operate, but no longer as dairies.) That rate has held steady for about three years, which is particularly striking given how few farms remain left to fail. In the early 1970s, the state had more than 75,000 dairies. Today it has about 7,400.
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Half of Minnesota’s dairy farmers failed to break even for the year. There, too, thousands of dairy farms have simply vanished.
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In the midst of this mass extinction, a counterintuitive fact remains true: Americans are consuming more dairy products than ever before, primarily because yogurt and cheese have compensated for a steady drop in fluid milk consumption. Americans consumed 646 pounds of dairy per person in 2018—the highest consumption rate in 56 years.
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As small farms fold, the balance of production tilts further toward huge, efficient, industrial dairy operations that can more easily weather price downturns and manage a razor-thin profit margin through the power of scale.
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“Thirty years ago, when I got started, if you would have asked me what a large farm was, I probably would have said 15 or 20 cows, [Moi ici: Conseguem imaginar a vertigem da evolução durante estes 30 anos?]
[Moi ici: Comparar com Portugal]
...
Today, more than 53% of America’s milk is produced by less than 3% of its farms. That helps explain how, in the face of a massive reduction in the number of total dairies, the U.S. continues to produce more milk and cheese than the market consumes—in 2019, America’s cheese surplus reached 1.4 billion pounds.
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“Now, what we see, obviously, is economies of scale having happened in America—big get bigger, and small go out,” Perdue said. “I don’t think in America we, for any small business, have a guaranteed income or a guaranteed probability of survival.” Maybe he was just stating a hard truth, but to a farmer like Yager, it sounded as if the architects of the U.S. dairy industry had all but agreed on a shared assumption: Small farms are destined, sooner or later, to fail.
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“Every time you come up with a plan to maybe make things better, I just feel like there’s someone who’s already a step ahead of you,” Yager says. “So what do you do?” [Moi ici: Competir no negócio do preço é estar sujeito ao efeito da Rainha Vermelha. Correr, correr, correr desalmadamente para conseguir ficar no mesmo sítio]
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A lot of people go out of business.
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“There’s got to be something other than saying, ‘Well, you have to be big to survive,’ ” he says. [Moi ici: Reacção típica de quem apenas conhece uma alternativa e julga que todos os clientes são iguais e valorizam as mesmas coisas. Recordo dois exemplos franceses aqui e aqui. Recordo um exemplo inglês com leite biológico completo e a aposta na diferenciação] “Maybe this is getting a little radical, but it reminds me of medieval times. Like we’re going back to that. We’ll have our kings—the owners, the corporations—and then we’ll have all the people who work the land. That didn’t work well centuries ago. Because taking ownership, taking pride—that’s what makes things really work. We’re gonna lose that. And think about conservation. Think about water quality. I don’t think you find land conservation, water quality, and animal care any better, anywhere in the world, than you do on these family farms. You absolutely will not!”
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Amid all that angst, some farmers have found a way to profit on smallness itself.[Moi ici: Malta do calçado, estão a ver o exemplo?]
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Paul Aubertine grew up on a plot of land overlooking the St. Lawrence River on the northern edge of New York state, near Cape Vincent. He was poised to be the seventh generation of his family to take the reins of the 50-cow dairy farm, but in 2002 his father and grandfather determined they couldn’t keep the business afloat any longer. Aubertine went to college, pursued a career in sales, and started a family.
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The older he got, the more he recognized and valued all that had been lost. There’d been 35 or 40 dairies in the community when he was growing up; now, wracking his brain, he could come up with four. “I really wanted my kids to experience what I’d experienced, to give them the chance to grow up on a farm and be exposed to the same thing,” he says.
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He and his brother-in-law, a computer scientist, decided in 2015 to restart the dairy. They crunched the numbers and saw that trying to compete with the 1,000-cow mega-dairies on their terms was a recipe for disaster. “I’ve never had an interest in having employees, and $300,000 tractors, and all the other stuff you need for that,” says Aubertine, who’s now 37. Instead, they decided to produce milk that could be certified as grass-fed and organic. Their cows would graze in the field. Aubertine would buy no herbicides, no grain feed, no nutritional supplements, no hormone treatments. Instead of acquiring the huge, high-powered heifers that produce 90 pounds of milk a day, he assembled a herd of smaller cows that might give him 35. Because of the animals’ reduced stress, he could keep them on the farm longer, saving on livestock costs.
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“I’m a realist, and I expected bumps on the road, but—and I shouldn’t say this out loud, probably—but it’s been beyond my expectations, what we’ve been able to do,” Aubertine says. The price he commands for grass-fed organic milk isn’t double that of regular milk, but it’s close, and his expenses are a fraction of what a modern dairy would require. He can raise his kids, take them on vacations, buy nice things, and preserve precisely the things about dairy farming that he believed were worth preserving."

A maré mudou

Ainda o coronavirus não tinha cá chegado e já a maré tinha mudado.


Desemprego a crescer há quatro meses seguidos. Variação homóloga do desemprego no Algarve já é superior a zero.

 Só a metalomecânica teve uma redução de desempregados no passado mês de Janeiro face a Dezembro.

Mais impostos para suportar o monstro, desgraçados hospedeiros.

Volume is vanity profit is sanity

Ontem à noite li "Prejuízos da Farfetch mais do que duplicam em 2019 para 373 milhões de dólares". Entretanto, de tarde tinha lido "Is Silicon Valley’s Love Affair With Direct-to-Consumer Brands Over?":

"When investors of the direct-to-consumer shoe brand Birdies pressured the start-up to burn through the $10 million it raised by buying more online ads and doubling the employee headcount, founders Bianca Gates and Marisa Sharkey resisted.
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“Our investors [were] like, ‘Spend the money!’ and intuitively, we were like, ‘This is silly,’” Gates told BoF. “Why grow faster if it costs us more to acquire customers than to sell the product?”
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But the sentiment among investors seems to be shifting, Gates said. “It was like a one-eighty. Now more than ever, there’s pressure to show profitability and product-market fit.”
...
Few startups in the product category have been able to secure lucrative exits for their investors. Many are stuck on a cycle of aggressive forced growth, followed by fundraising higher and higher rounds to facilitate that growth — all without regard to profit.
...
“You have this double whammy of increased customer acquisition costs and more competition, and this combination can be deadly,”
...
As a result, venture capitalists — especially those investing in later stages — are shifting their strategy to invest more cautiously, favouring profit over revenue and organic marketing over Instagram ads, industry sources say.
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As valuations drop, the metrics that determine these figures are also shifting. Revenue used to be the prime indication of valuation for brands, said Frederic Court, founder of Felix Capital. “But eventually, these businesses will have valuations driven by profitability… it’s about generating a healthy profit margin.”
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Eventually, these businesses will have valuations driven by profitability.
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Investors today are less focused on growth metrics and topline numbers and more focused on the bottom line"

Risco do coronavírus e ficar à espera do papá-estado

Ontem ao almoço tive uma conversa interessante com o meu parceiro das conversas oxigenadoras.

A certa altura chamou-me a atenção para o socialismo em que estamos todos embrenhados, esperando que seja o governo a dizer-nos o que devemos fazer para nos preparamos para o coronavírus. Depois, à noite, sorri ao ler este tweet:

Mas o que é isto? Pais a não quererem assumir a responsabilidade de impedirem os filhos de irem em viagens de finalistas para zonas afectadas pelo coronavírus. Querem que seja o governo a dizer se devem ou não ir. Querem o governo a mandar nos filhos deles?

— Estrela Serrano (@estrelaserrano) February 27, 2020

De manhã tinha partilhado este documento da DGS no Linkedin -


Entretanto, ao final da tarde li "Lead Your Business Through the Coronavirus Crisis".

O meu colega das conversas oxigenadoras chamou a atenção para o que nenhum governo vai fazer pela sua empresa:

• como minimizar a possibilidade dos seus trabalhadores ficarem infectados? Acima de x infectados pode crer que lhe fecham a fábrica, ou escritório, ou loja.
• como minimizar o impacte do encerramento de fornecedores e de subcontratados?
• onde arranjar alternativas para as matérias-primas?
• e se França, ou Espanha, fecharem fronteiras, como é que as encomendas chegam aos clientes?

estão a recordar aquela pergunta acerca da frequência com que se devem rever os riscos no âmbito do sistema de gestão da qualidade? Creio que agora é altura para repensar que riscos podemos correr e como os minimizar.

Ontem no Financial Times em "Italy plant closure prompts car industry fears":

"A European auto supplier has had to close its main Italian plant because of the coronavirus quarantine, in the first concrete evidence of the impact the disease could have on Europe’s domestic industry and economy. Electronics manufacturer MTA said that if its 600 employees in the northern town of Codogno were not allowed to return to work within days, production lines at Fiat Chrysler (FCA) subsidiaries would be brought to a standstill.
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“All the other FCA plants in Europe and those of Renault, BMW and Peugeot will close too,” MTA said, marking the first forecast of a shutdown at a large German carmaker’sdomestic sites."

Já esta madrugada, enquanto tomava o chá da manhã li as sugestões de "Prepare Your Supply Chain for Coronavirus":

"Start with your people. The welfare of employees is paramount, and obviously people are a critical resource.
...
Maintain a healthy skepticism. Accurate information is a rare commodity in the early stages of emerging disasters, especially when governments are incentivized to keep the population and business community calm to avoid panic.
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Run outage scenarios to assess the possibility of unforeseen impacts. Expect the unexpected, especially when core suppliers are in the front line of disruptions.
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Create a comprehensive, emergency operations center. Most organizations today have some semblance of an emergency operations center (EOC), but in our studies we’ve observed that these EOCs tend to exist only at the corporate or business unit level.
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Designing for response
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Know all your suppliers. Map your upstream suppliers several tiers back. Companies that fail to do this are less able to respond or estimate likely impacts when a crisis erupts.
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Understand your critical vulnerabilities and take action to spread the risk. Many supply chains have dependencies that put firms at risk.
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Create business continuity plans. These plans should pinpoint contingencies in critical areas and include backup plans for transportation, communications, supply, and cash flow. Involve your suppliers and customers in developing these plans.
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Don’t forget your people. A backup plan is needed for people too. The plan may include contingencies for more automation, remote-working arrangements, or other flexible human resourcing in response to personnel constraints."

Li agora no El Economista de ontem que o El Corte Inglés não ficou à espera do papá-estado e pôs de quarentena todos os seus compradores que estiveram no norte de Itália.

Curiosidade do dia

Na capa do JdN de hoje:

Em Junho de 2008 já aqui se fazia a previsão mais fácil de todas "A caminho da Sildávia do Ocidente":

Quantas empresas? (parte III)

Parte I e parte II.

Para sobreviver as empresas de calçado vão ter de subir na escala de valor, vão ter de vender os pares de sapatos mais caros.

Uma das primeiras lições que aprendi quando comecei a trabalhar com o sector do calçado em 2009 foi esta:

"Um par de sapatos sai de uma fábrica no Brasil a custar 10€ (fase da extracção de valor).
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O mesmo par de sapatos é vendido pela marca às lojas a 30€ (fase da captura de valor).
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O mesmo par de sapatos é vendido ao consumidor na loja a 90€ (fase da originação de valor)."

Olhando para a figura acima listemos algumas alternativas de subida na escala de valor:

1. fabricar sapatos que possam ser vendidos a um preço superior à saída da fábrica porque poderão ser vendidas mais caros na loja;
2. fazer o by-pass à distribuição e vender directamente à loja, ou ao consumidor final, ou ao comprador final;

Conjugar com o conselho:

• Nichos, co-criação e intimidade à escala
• Anichar!
• Mudar e anichar!

Que nichos existem? Que preços são praticados? Que canais de distribuição existem para esses nichos? Quem é quem nesses nichos? (clientes-alvo, influenciadores, prescritores, donos das prateleiras, ...) O que é valor em cada um desses nichos? Qual o papel de ter uma marca? É preciso ter uma marca?

O último postal publicado no blogue, "Estratégia no dia-a-dia", ilustra mais um exemplo de adopção de uma estratégia baseada em nichos, para fugir ao confronto directo com quem vantagem competitiva em outras arenas.

Estratégia no dia-a-dia

Mais um exemplo da vida real sobre o que é uma escolha estratégica:

"Discovery has predicted that there will be “carnage” in the streaming arena as the Hollywood studios prepare to launch their own services. [Moi ici: Uma perspectiva sobre o futuro que aí vem]
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The factual giant used its third quarter financial investor call to talk up its own niche digital platforms
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the scripted streaming space was “crowded, aggressive, expensive and risky” and that it was more focused on getting the most out of its library and launching niche digital services. [Moi ici: Como se percebe no segundo texto abaixo, o Discovery não pode competir de igual para igual com os gigantes. Há que apostar na concorrência imperfeita, há que apostar numa alternativa onde se possa ter uma vantagem, ou onde a desvantagem seja irrelevante]
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“It’s a huge competitive advantage especially as we watch our industry peers on the premium scripted side pay whatever it takes to amass enough content for a slice of the fragmenting entertainment space within the direct-to-consumer model. We are not in that series scripted and movie side of the entertainment business,  [Moi ici: Ter uma estratégia começa por se ter uma noção clara sobre o que não se vai fazer]
...
“We’ve shied away from the 7 or 8 players that are fighting it out in the entertainment area, it’s getting more expensive and we believe three or four of them are going to make it. It’s going to be a lot of carnage,” he added
...
“People still love golf, they still love natural history and science, we have a definitive collection of content… that every family and children should watch.
...
we’re going in these niches,”"  [Moi ici: Ter uma estratégia é, também, ser claro quanto ao campo onde se vai actuar] 

Trechos retirados de "Discovery Predicts “Carnage” In Streaming Arena As It Lauds Niche Digital Plays & Doubles Down On Food Network Kitchen".

Outra fonte é "Discovery channels streaming strategy through reality television":

"David Zaslav, chief executive of Discovery, is looking to reality stars such as the Gaines — and their tens of millions of social media followers — to help the US pay-TV group compete as the high-stakes streaming war in entertainment heats up.
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Mr Zaslav faces a big challenge: figuring how to compete in an industry dominated by a few conglomerates following a wave of consolidation, in which Disney bought Rupert Murdoch’s prized entertainment assets and AT&T gobbled up Time Warner. This has left Disney with blockbuster brands such as Marvel, X-Men, Star Wars and The Simpsons, while AT&T boasts HBO’s prestige programming such as Game of Thrones alongside popular comedies such as Friends and South Park.
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On paper, Discovery is one of the leftover media minnows of media following these megadeals.
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“Competing against nearly $2tn in market cap . . . is not going to be easy, so we prefer [streaming] strategies that target niches in the market,” said Steven Cahill, analyst at Wells Fargo, referring to the combined value of streaming giants such as Apple and AT&T. “We think the biggest and best attempt at niche [streaming] thus far is Discovery’s portfolio.”"

Quantas empresas? (parte II)

É grande a minha admiração e respeito intelectual por Hermann Simon, um homem do pricing, um homem que promovia as Mittelstand quando ainda não era sexy fazê-lo, e ao contrário dos defensores dos campeões nacionais do burgo, sempre defendeu os chamados "campeões escondidos".

Em "Quantas empresas?" (parte I) apresentei o cenário em que se encontra o sector do calçado em Portugal e o desafio que tem pela frente, para ser capaz de subir preços. Entretanto, li um texto de Hermann Simon com um conselho para o futuro da economia polaca que julgo tem alguns pontos relevantes para o sector do calçado e para a economia portuguesa:

"As empresas polacas devem construir suas próprias marcas fortes no exterior, e o governo deve se concentrar em empresas de médio porte, protegendo o setor de produção - escreve um estratega alemão, prof. Hermann Simon.
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No início de Fevereiro deste ano li que o governo polaco "quer levar o país ao topo da Europa até 2040" e "alcançar a Alemanha" - uma atitude louvável. Objectivos ambiciosos são a base do progresso económico. No entanto, eles devem ser realistas e confiáveis.
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Usemos as taxas de crescimento da Alemanha nos cálculos. Vamos supor que nos próximos 20 anos a economia alemã cresce "apenas" 1% ao ano. O PIB per capita em 2040 seria de 50 448 euros; assumindo 1,5% ao ano - 55 685 euros. Para atingir o limite acima a Polóniaa teria que crescer 3,67 e 4,05 vezes mais rápido, respectivamente, que a Alemanha, o que corresponde a taxas de crescimento anual de 6,71% e 7,24%, respectivamente. Nada é impossível. Essa taxa de crescimento em duas décadas me parece extremamente ambiciosa, não prejudicaria um pouco mais de realismo.
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Onde procurar oportunidades de crescimento? O primeiro-ministro Mateusz Morawiecki disse: "A conquista bem-sucedida de mercados estrangeiros é um dos elos mais importantes em nosso plano". Concordo com isso, embora pense que a expansão externa seja um grande desafio para as empresas polacas. Primeiro, há concorrência global, não apenas em segundo, há a questão de criar valor agregado e a participação dos negócios internacionais no PIB per capita polaco.
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Até agora, os exportadores polacos têm actuado principalmente como fornecedores e, como tal, foram expostos a uma forte pressão de margem por parte de clientes poderosos, como a Volkswagen e grandes revendedores. Para alcançar maior valor agregado nas exportações, é necessário alcançar melhor o destinatário final e construir marcas internacionais. É aqui que está o caminho para alcançar maior valor agregado e margem de lucro.
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Nenhuma marca polaca alcançou reconhecimento internacional significativo. A necessidade de recuperar o atraso nesta área é, portanto, urgente. As empresas polacas devem construir suas próprias marcas fortes no exterior.
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Nesse contexto, o governo deve, portanto, atribuir grande importância à protecção do sector manufactureiro e não deve se apressar em mudar para os serviços. O sucesso contínuo das exportações da Alemanha resulta não apenas do facto de a participação da indústria no produto interno bruto ser quase o dobro da França, da Grã-Bretanha e dos EUA, mas também do facto de que a diferença na alocação de empregos (e, portanto, no valor agregado) do setor serviços em comparação com o setor manufatureiro é significativo. Os serviços devem ser fornecidos localmente, ou seja, nos mercados-alvo. É aqui que novos empregos são criados. Na produção, no entanto, é possível criar empregos no país e, ao mesmo tempo, participar do crescimento dos mercados emergentes por meio das exportações. Nos últimos dez anos, 'campeões escondidos' na Alemanha criaram 500.000 novos empregos, a maioria altamente especializados.
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Outra questão diz respeito a setores em que a Polónia pode ser líder. Eu acho que a indústria de transformação é definitivamente uma delas. Os produtores de bens de consumo, no entanto, precisam alcançar os consumidores finais com mais eficiência. Isso também se aplica à área de construção da marca acima mencionada. Nos negócios B2B, uma integração ainda maior com as cadeias de valor européias, e não apenas alemãs, pode ser promissora.
...
No entanto, você deve ser realista ao formular metas. Afinal, os processos básicos levam muito tempo. Não obstante, vejo impulsos importantes na construção de marcas internacionais, no aumento do apoio às PME (especialmente no campo da internacionalização), na protecção da produção e no foco em sectores industriais seleccionados - aqueles nos quais a Polónia tem experiência acima da média"

Trechos retirados de "Hermann Simon: Dogonić Niemcy nie będzie łatwo"

Quantas empresas?

A reflectir sobre a situação actual do sector do calçado em Portugal, recordei este gráfico publicado aqui:

Entretanto, já tenho dados até 2017. O que dizer da fase 3?

Entre 2010 e 2017 o preço médio por par pouco variou, o número de pares produzidos aumentou quase 34%, o número de unidades produtivas cresceu cerca de 22% e o número de trabalhadores no sector cresceu 24%.

Fase 1
Crescimento do número de empresas  47%
Crescimento da quantidade de pares produzidos  76%
Crescimento do número de trabalhadores  88%
Crescimento do preço médio por par  160%

Fase 2
Crescimento do número de empresas  -13%
Crescimento da quantidade de pares produzidos  -26%
Crescimento do número de trabalhadores  -20%
Crescimento do preço médio por par  41%

Fase 3 (entre 2010 e 2017)
Crescimento do número de empresas  22%
Crescimento da quantidade de pares produzidos  33%
Crescimento do número de trabalhadores  24%
Crescimento do preço médio por par  2%

Vamos entrar numa Fase 4
O número de empresas vai voltar a diminuir
A quantidade de pares produzidos vai voltar a diminuir
O número de trabalhadores vai voltar a diminuir
O preço médio por par vai novamente dar um salto importante

Como é que o preço médio por par pode voltar a dar um salto? Recordo a lição de Liozu:

1. Innovation position is the most significant positive driver of pricing power.
2. Differentiation position is the second most significant positive driver of pricing power.

Quantas empresas de calçado apostam na inovação? Inovação do produto ou do modelo de negócio?

"Demonstrating and Documenting Superior Value"

Li "Value Merchants: Demonstrating and Documenting Superior Value in Business Markets" de James C. Anderson, Nirmalya Kumar e James A. Narus em 2008 e aqui no blogue meti-o na categoria:

"Livros que desapontaram (se calhar sou eu que ainda não passei pelas experiências de vida que me ensinarão a apreciá-los devidamente)"

Confirma-se. Nunca é tarde para aprender, às vezes é demasiado cedo. Recomecei a sua leitura e é um confirmar de coisas que entretanto aprendi a avlorizar ao longo dos anos:

"To combat price concessions and commoditization pressures, firms have to fundamentally reexamine their philosophy of doing business and how they put it into practice. Suppliers must adopt a philosophy of doing business based on demonstrated and documented superior value and implement that philosophy using an approach we call customer value management. Customer value management is a progressive, practical approach to business markets that, in its essence, has two basic goals:
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1. Deliver superior value to targeted market segments and customer firms 2. Get an equitable return on the value delivered
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Demonstrating and Documenting Superior Value
Increasingly, to get an equitable or fair return, suppliers must be able to persuasively demonstrate and document the superior value their offerings deliver to customers. By "demonstrate," we mean showing prospective customers convincingly beforehand what cost savings or added value they can expect from using the supplier's offering relative to the next-best alternative.
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Value case histories are written accounts that document the cost savings or added value that reference customers have received from using a supplier's market offering.
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Demonstrating superior value is necessary, but it is no longer enough to become a best-practice company in today's business markets. Suppliers also must document the cost savings and incremental profits that offerings have delivered to customers. Thus, suppliers work with their customers to define the measures on which they will track the cost savings or incremental profit produced and then, after a suitable period of time, work with customer managers to substantiate the results. Documenting the superior value delivered to customers provides four powerful benefits to suppliers. First, it enhances the credibility of the value demonstrations for their offerings because customer managers know that the supplier is willing to return later to document the value received. Second, documenting enables customer managers to get credit for the cost savings and incremental profit produced. Third, documenting enables suppliers to create value case histories and other materials for use in marketing communications to persuasively convey to prospective customers the value they, too, might obtain from the supplier's offering. Finally, by comparing the value actually delivered with the value claimed in the demonstration and regressing these differences on customer descriptors, documenting enables suppliers to further refine their understanding of how their offerings deliver the greatest value."

O que é um ecossistema?

"WHAT IS A BUSINESS ECOSYSTEM?
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The confusion about ecosystems starts with the question of what they are and how they differ from other forms of organization. We use a simple definition: a business ecosystem is a dynamic group of largely independent economic players that create products or services that together constitute a coherent solution.
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This definition implies that each ecosystem can be characterized by a specific value proposition (the desired solution) and by a clearly defined, albeit changing, group of actors with different roles (such as producer, supplier, orchestrator, complementor).
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Modularity. In contrast to vertically integrated models or hierarchical supply chains, in business ecosystems, the components of the offering are designed independently yet function as an integrated whole.
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Customization. In contrast to an open-market model, the contributions of the ecosystem participants tend to be customized to the ecosystem and made mutually compatible.
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Multilateralism. In contrast to open-market models, ecosystems consist of a set of relationships that are not decomposable to an aggregation of bilateral interactions. This means that a successful contract between A and B (such as phone maker and app developer) can be undermined by the failure of the contract between A and C (phone maker and telecom provider)."

Trechos retirados de "Do You Need a Business Ecosystem?"

"Nothing stalls innovation faster than a so-called HiPPO—highest-paid person’s opinion"

Aposto que o meu colega das conversas oxigenadoras vai gostar disto - cultivar a curiosidade

"Culture—not tools and technology—prevents companies from conducting the hundreds, even thousands, of tests they should be doing annually and then applying the results.
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Create an environment in which curiosity is nurtured, data trumps opinion, anyone can conduct a test, all experiments are done ethically, and managers embrace a new model of leadership.
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“In an increasingly digital world, if you don’t do large-scale experimentation, in the long term—and in many industries the short term—you’re dead,”
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If testing is so valuable, why don’t companies do it more? After examining this question for several years, I can tell you that the central reason is culture. As companies try to scale up their online experimentation capacity, they often find that the obstacles are not tools and technology but shared behaviors, beliefs, and values. For every experiment that succeeds, nearly 10 don’t—and in the eyes of many organizations that emphasize efficiency, predictability, and “winning,” those failures are wasteful.
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To successfully innovate, companies need to make experimentation an integral part of everyday life—even when budgets are tight. That means creating an environment where employees’ curiosity is nurtured, data trumps opinion, anyone (not just people in R&D) can conduct or commission a test, all experiments are done ethically, and managers embrace a new model of leadership.
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Cultivate Curiosity.
Everyone in the organization, from the leadership on down, needs to value surprises, despite the difficulty of assigning a dollar figure to them and the impossibility of predicting when and how often they’ll occur. When firms adopt this mindset, curiosity will prevail and people will see failures not as costly mistakes but as opportunities for learning.
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Many organizations are also too conservative about the nature and amount of experimentation. Overemphasizing the importance of successful experiments may encourage employees to focus on familiar solutions or those that they already know will work and avoid testing ideas that they fear might fail.
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In experimental cultures, employees are undaunted by the possibility of failure. “The people who thrive here are curious, open-minded, eager to learn and figure things out, and OK with being proven wrong,”
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The empirical results of online experiments must prevail when they clash with strong opinions, no matter whose opinions they are.
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Nothing stalls innovation faster than a so-called HiPPO—highest-paid person’s opinion."

Trechos retirados de "Building a Culture of Experimentation"

Como não pensar no sucesso irlandês

A propósito de "Redução do IRC no interior dispara criação de empresas" como não pensar no sucesso irlandês.

É claro que não é só o IRC, mas sobretudo a crença de que um governo não mudará de política como quem muda de camisa, mesmo a pedido de Bruxelas.