"the need to consider the interests of a broader range of stakeholders"

"respondents indicated which stakeholders were explicitly considered during the strategic planning process. We presented them with a list that included five specific groups — customers, employees, partners, communities, investors — and also invited them to name any other stakeholders (such as regulators) relevant to their specific business.

It was surprising that only 11% of respondents indicated that their strategic planning process explicitly considered the perspective of all the identified stakeholder groups. While consideration of customer needs was nearly universal, only 58% of respondents said that the needs of employees were explicitly considered, 35% said that partners were considered, and 27% considered their communities.

...

Restricting your focus solely to the needs of customers is like trying to solve a puzzle with many of the key pieces missing. A strategy development process that overlooks the interests of all relevant stakeholders creates blind spots about the viability of your strategy

...

The goal of strategy has always been to create value for customers and investors in a way that cannot be easily copied and that enables a business to earn an attractive margin. But business leaders now face two additional requirements: the need to consider the interests of a broader range of stakeholders, and the ability to do so under conditions of change rather than stability. 

Our research indicates that the majority of companies should ignore the siren voices urging them to either double down or to pivot. For these companies, the priority is rather to focus their innovation and leadership efforts on reimagining the activities used to deliver value to customers and other stakeholders in order to improve the relevance and distinctiveness of their strategy. Then do it again."

Algo estranho para quem há anos que promove os ecossistemas da procura:

• Que faz o quê no ecossistema (Março de 2017) 
• Olhar para o ecossistema (Outibro de 2017)
• Subir na escala de valor (Março de 2007)

Trechos retirados de "Most Businesses Should Neither ‘Pivot’ nor ‘Double Down’" 

"change is always, at some level, about what people value"

Há dias em "Why Change Fails" li e sublinhei:

"All too often, we assume that mere necessity can drive change forward, yet history has shown that not to be the case. There’s a reason why nations fail and businesses go bankrupt. The truth is that if a change is important, some people won’t like it and they will work to undermine it in underhanded and insidious ways. That’s what we need to overcome.

...

Organizations face similar challenges. Sure they invest in tangible assets, such as plant and equipment, but any significant change will involve changing people’s beliefs and behaviors and that is a different matter altogether. Today, even technological transformations have a significant human component.

...

One of the great misconceptions of our modern age is that people make decisions based on rational calculations of utility and that, by engineering the right incentives, we can control behavior. Yet people are far more than economic entities, They crave dignity and recognition, to be valued, in other words, as ends in themselves rather than as merely means to an end.

...

The biggest misconception about change is that once people understand it, they will embrace and so the best way to drive change forward is to explain the need for change in a very convincing and persuasive way. Change, in this view, is essentially a communication exercise and the right combination of words and images is all that is required.

Yet as should be clear by now that is clearly not true. People will often oppose change because it asks them to alter their identity. 

...

In other words, change is always, at some level, about what people value. That’s why to bring change about you need to identify shared values that reaffirm, rather than undermine, people’s sense of identity. Recognition is often a more powerful incentive than even financial rewards. In the final analysis, lasting change always needs to be built on common ground."

Bom material para uma futura conversa oxigenadora.

Interessante esta proposta, OpenSpace Beta para fomentar a transformação: 

"Explain the case for transformation.

Explain that specific practices have not been determined. 

Explain the challenges the business is facing in terms of competition, pricing pressure, organizational effectiveness, etc.

Invite everyone involved into the process of writing the transformation story. Communicate clearly that the managers do not have all the answers and that they are looking for the very best ideas to make the move to Beta genuine, rapid and lasting.

Make it plain that the organization will work with a wide array of Beta practices. The results of each intervention on the system (or "Flip") will be inspected to determine whether to continue the specific practice."

Dinheiro da UE para financiar modelos de negócio cancerosos...

"Um estudo da Agroges mostra que a fileira de tomate para a indústria tem evoluído "muito favoravelmente" nas últimas duas décadas, tendo "aumentado muito significativamente a sua eficiência, produtividade e relevância" na área do regadio do Ribatejo e Oeste. Um período em que a área de tomate cresceu 27,4% e a produção total aumentou 47,95%. A produtividade foi reforçada em 16,1% e a produção por agricultor cresceu 426,1%. Estamos a falar de uma produção total, em 2019, de 1440 toneladas, produzidas por 367 produtores, numa área total de 14 468 hectares. E que geraram um volume de negócios total de 119 milhões de euros.

...

Rendimento em causa Para Manuela Nina Jorge, diretora -geral da Agroges, esta alteração na PAC "irá por em causa o rendimento do agricultor e, a prazo, a sua capacidade de capitalização e de investimento". Sobretudo, quando o custo dos fatores de produção em Portugal, desde a energia aos agroquímicos, são "substancialmente mais altos" do que nos restantes países europeus, o que, já por si, retira competitividade ao setor."

Há anos que escrevo sobre o tomate e sobre as incongruências do sector (2017, 2016, 2014, 2012, 2006).

O texto de 2006 já levantava a mesma interrogação que este acima me levanta: Tanta eficiência, tanta produtividade, tanto crescimento, mas sem o dinheirinho da UE o modelo falha. Interessante, ainda na quinta-feira passada escrevi:

"Quantas vezes empresas recebem apoios e subsídios para inovação e acabam por usar esse dinheiro, sem dolo, como uma forma de reduzir os custos e poder prolongar o modelo de negócio actual por mais um ou dois anos, continuando a competir pelo preço."

Dinheiro da UE para financiar modelos de negócio cancerosos... 

BTW, lembram-se do karma do leite? Preparem-se para o karma do tomate:

"Já Gonçalo Escudeiro, da Federação Nacional das Organizações de Produtores, considera que "ou a UE protege os seus produtores, ou tem de taxar a produção internacional que entra de forma muito agressiva no mercado europeu". A próxima PAC será bastante exigente do ponto de vista ambiental, "e muito bem", defende, mas é preciso garantir que "não seja à custa da perda de competitividade dos produtores europeus". Uma das exigências dos agricultores é que o consumidor possa conhecer a proveniência dos produtos alimentares. "Porque é que se vamos comprar uma peça de roupa esta é obrigada a ostentar a sua origem e uma lata de tomate ou de milho doce ou um pacote de leite não é?", questiona." 

Trechos retirados de "Fileira do tomate teme perda de competitividade com a nova PAC" no Dinheiro Vivo de ontem.

Are you a Marxianist?

"Are you a Marxist? You are likely to answer “no.” So my next question is: “OK, if you are not a Marxist, why is your pricing Marxian?” While Marx’s labor theory is totally rejected today, it has survived in pricing. What a strange phenomenon! Let me explain why that is the case.

The most important contribution of Karl Marx (1818–1883) was his labor theory of value, according to which only labor creates value. He writes that the “prices of goods are determined by wages” (Marx 1951). Marx allows for differences in productivity and qualifications of workers, and thus for different values per unit of time. But the core of his theory is that only labor creates value. Consequently, labor costs are the sole base for price calculations.

In modern terminology, we call this method “cost-plus pricing.” Based on my decades of observations around the world, I would claim that 80% of all prices in today’s markets are primarily determined on the basis of costs. And all costs are labor costs. Lawyers, consultants, and most other service providers charge prices for their time (hourly, daily, monthly rates). If an automotive company buys parts from a supplier, these parts from a supplier, these parts carry labor costs up the value chain."

Leio isto em “A Remarkable Journey from Farmhouse to the Global Stage” de Hermann Simon. É uma pena Hermann Simon ser tão mal conhecido em Portugal... um país pequeno como Portugal, parte do continente europeu e aspirante a um nível de vida centro europeu não pode confiar no marxianismo, não pode seguir a receita dos muggles, tem de seguir o método alemão. Não a baboseira que nos contam sobre as BMW, ou VW, isso não está no nosso ADN, nem temos capital para isso. Isso é para futuros governos inteligentes (eheheheh um oxímoro em Portugal, juntar as duas palavras. Em Portugal é mais, infelizmente, "governo de espertos") que apliquem a receita irlandesa para atrair capital estrangeiro que estabelecerá as multinacionais. 

O método alemão de que falo é o que Hermann Simon caracterizou como o dos campeões escondidos, o seguido pelas Mittelstand. Empresas grandes a competir com chineses dá ... asneira.

Recordar "Somos todos alemães" ou "We are not cost cutters" ou "Somos todos alemães (parte X)". E para quem tem horror a escolher clientes ou segmentos do mercado recomendo "Há que escolher! (parte III)"

Trabalhar para nichos mundiais

Na conversa de 116 minutos no Whatsapp no passado Sábado a minha irmã "inglesa" falou-me do livro "Why the Germans Do It Better" de John Kampfner. Ontem, comecei a ouvi-lo:

"It may be global in reach, but it is local in its loyalties. It is one of hundreds of thousands of small and medium-sized enterprises (with turnover of under €50 million and up to 250 workers) in towns across Germany. The Mittelstand employs around three quarters of the country’s workforce and produces more than half the economic output. It is the backbone of the economy and the backbone of society.

...

,,Along with regionalization, family ties and social responsibility, another key aspect of the Mittelstand is its emphasis on specialization. Many of the most successful entrepreneurs find a single product – a particular machine tool or a household appliance. Theirs is a narrow expertise, but they often then end up cornering the global market, focusing relentlessly on acquiring and expanding their customer base, and making sure they stay ahead of the competition.

...

Two statistics stand out. Some 80 per cent of German GDP is derived from family businesses. Two thirds of successful global Mittelstand companies are based in places with fewer than fifty thousand inhabitants.

...

In many other countries in the Western world, industrial and business operations have become very much centralized towards the major cities, whereas in Germany, advanced manufacturing, international footprint and regionalism go together.

Most of all, it is the smaller firms that set Germany apart. The business strategist and author Hermann Simon has coined the term ‘hidden champions’. These are companies, like the ones I’ve mentioned, that devote themselves to a niche. These are success stories of globalization and free trade. The individuals in charge are classic monomaniacs, single-minded and devoted to a single cause or product. They usually shun the limelight."

Falei-lhe disto quando lhe disse qual a receita para as PMEs tugas, nicho com clientes em todo o mundo para ter escala. A velha lição alemã:

• Empresas pequenas concentradas em nichos mundiais (2012)

" never run a business in which you have no influence on the prices you charge"

"In every market my father went to, we were “price takers.” [Moi ici: Eram agricultores] We had to accept the set price, whether we liked it or not. It was an extremely uncomfortable position. As anyone with a similar experience will attest, money is tight on a farm. These sales were our only source of income.

I absorbed all these impressions as a boy and I must admit, I did not like them. Decades later, I would explain in interviews that these lessons taught me something that has guided me in running my own business and helping others improve theirs: never run a business in which you have no influence on the prices you charge."

 Trecho retirado de "A Remarkable Journey from Farmhouse to the Global Stage" de Hermann Simon

Não se pode querer sol na eira e chuva no nabal!

Recordo este gráfico de 2013:

Então, comparava as exportações de 2012 com as de 2006. O valor era o mesmo, mas enquanto que em 2006 existiam 8000 empresas, em 2012 já só existiam 5000 empresas.

Entre 2006 e 2012 a produtividade das empresas portuguesas da indústria têxtil e do vestuário cresceu.

Vivemos num país em que os salários e os custos aumentam mais do que a produtividade física. Por isso, os preços unitários têm de aumentar, mas nem todas as empresas o conseguem fazer. Assim, as empresas com produtos mais básicos desaparecem, são obrigadas a fechar, porque não podem competir com a Ásia, Turquia ou Marrocos. Por outro lado, as empresas que conseguem aumentar preços, fazem-no porque sobem na escala de valor. São mais pequenas e precisam de menos trabalhadores. 

Com o encerramento das empresas menos produtivas a produtividade estatisticamente sobe muito mais. Recordar o exemplo:

Ontem, li "Têxtil e vestuário admite perder de 11 mil a 56 mil postos de trabalho até 2030":

"O estudo é da responsabilidade da ATP e contempla três cenários distintos, desde a visão mais pessimista, que admite o desaparecimento de 3500 empresas e de mais de 56 mil empregos, à mais otimista, que prevê o encerramento de cerca de mil empresas e de mais de 11 mil postos de trabalho. A grande diferença está na riqueza gerada. No caso do cenário 'chumbo', o mais negativo, cairá para menos de cinco mil milhões de euros de faturação, enquanto as exportações se ficarão por pouco mais de quatro mil milhões de euros. Em contrapartida, no cenário 'ouro', o mais positivo, o volume de negócios do setor subirá para mais de 10 mil milhões de euros, com as exportações a serem responsáveis por oito mil milhões de euros, um aumento de 30% e de 53%, respetivamente, face aos valores pré-pandemia."

Já em 2019, em "Sector têxtil admite fecho de um terço das empresas e 28 mil despedimentos" se lia:

"Na melhor das hipóteses, a indústria têxtil e do vestuário vai aumentar a facturação e as vendas ao exterior. Mas voltarão os encerramentos de fábricas e os despedimentos.

O plano estratégico anterior apontava três cenários possíveis para 2020, agora fala-se num para 2025. E é este último que prevê que uma forte quebra no número de empresas em laboração e um grande número de despedimentos. O sector da indústria têxtil e vestuário (ITV) tinha, em 2018, 6700 empresas, de acordo com o Banco de Portugal, e quase 139 mil trabalhadores. O projectado para 2025 reduz para “mais de 4000 empresas” e 110 mil trabalhadores. O que, a confirmar-se, significaria que cerca de um terço das empresas de ITV vão fechar e haveria à volta de 28 mil despedimentos."

Lamento este uso de linguagem negativa sobre os encerramentos e os despedimentos... isto parece forte, mas é como dizer que o leão é mau quando mata a gazela.

Se queremos que os trabalhadores têxteis sejam mais produtivos, e possam ter melhores salários, as empresas incapazes de subir na escala de valor têm de fechar e libertar os seus trabalhadores para outras áreas da economia onde possam ser melhor remunerados.

O erro é acreditar acriticamente que as empresas em Portugal podem continuar a crescer como antes de haver china.

Com base neste documento, atentem na evolução da facturação por trabalhador na indústria têxtil e de vestuário portuguesa:

Não se pode querer sol na eira e chuva no nabal! Recordar a evolução dos custos da mão-de-obra no têxtil e vestuário:

Eu, que sou consultor contra mim falo. É muito difícil fazer o corte epistemológico, mudar de agulha, mudar de paradigma comercial, produtivo, competitivo. Quantas vezes empresas recebem apoios e subsídios para inovação e acabam por usar esse dinheiro, sem dolo, como uma forma de reduzir os custos e poder prolongar o modelo de negócio actual por mais um ou dois anos, continuando a competir pelo preço. Não é impossível, mas é muito difícil. É abandonar a navegação por cabotagem e avançar, com medo claro porque se trata de gente com skin in the game, não são políticos a torrar impostos futuros, e avançar para mar incógnito onde os mapas antigos diziam "aqui há dragões"!

Por isso, o deixem as empresas morrer continua a ser a minha orientação principal.

"The choice is up to you"

E chego ao fim de “Choose Your Customer: How to Compete Against the Digital Giants and Thrive” de Jonathan S. Byrnes com uns trechos sobre o gestor do futuro:

"In today’s Age of Diverse Markets, managers’ activities could not be more different from those required of managers in the prior mass-market era. Successful managers today must be overwhelmingly broad and holistic in their perspective; their work is disruptive, innovative, and strategic; and they are primarily team-oriented.

This difference in management is analogous to the difference between a good cook and a great chef. A good cook flawlessly follows a set of predetermined recipes, always creating very good meals. A great chef, on the other hand, has the vision and capability to create an increasingly superb set of innovative, new dishes that continually transform a cuisine—producing the recipes that good cooks follow.

...

Managers today have to spend a significant amount of time actually physically in customers—walking in the customer’s shoes. [Moi ici: Lembrem-se dos que sonham em automatizar as interacções com os clientes] They must be involved in profit-showcase projects with customers, which are opportunities to develop new forms of their customer value footprint, learning by doing.

...

Understanding the company’s history: The key to really understanding a company is to know that most often it is doing what it needed to do 5 to 10 (or more) years ago. These practices—including customer targeting and management, category management, and supply chain and operations management—get embedded in a company’s culture and are passed along from manager to manager, year after year.

...

Each and every manager today faces a stark choice: either try to hold on to the past or focus on building your [Moi ici: Como não recordar a diferença dos que resistem versus os que abraçam a mudança - 2011, 2013, 2021]

The choice is up to you."

Corrective actions versus continual improvement in ISO 9001

When do you use clause 10.2 and when do you use clause 10.3 when talking about improvement in ISO 9001:2015?

Let's look at this:

We have a standard way of doing things. 

We follow that standard, and we check the results. And we decide how to act. 

When everything is "as usual" we decide to keep the standard. The standard is useful. (Top SDCA cycle in the figure)

When a non-conformity (NC) happens, we treat the NC. After confirming that it was closed we ask,  should we improve? 

If the answer is no, we keep the standard, but when the answer is yes we start the improvement cycle, the PDCA cycle. (Bottom PDCA cycle) 

We plan an experiment about changing the way how things are done. 

We do the experiment. 

We check the results, and we decide how to act. 

If the results are not NOK we will continue in the PDCA cycle trying a new experiment. 

If the results are OK we can leave the PDCA cycle and return to the SDCA cycle where we update our standard. 

This event-based improvement is initiated by an NC it is about clause 10.2 and behind that is clause 8.7. This is the everyday level that I mentioned here.

However, even if our decision after a negative event is to not improve, periodically we should prepare a performance report, we should monitor and measure (clause 9.1.1) and we should analyze and evaluate (clause 9.1.3). And again, we ask, should we improve?

If the answer is yes, we are starting a calendar-based improvement. This is about clause 10.3 continual improvement. Typically, performance reports are about quality objectives and process performance. 

If this topic interests you perhaps this free webinar may be useful. 

"the Age of Diverse Markets" (parte VIII)

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

"Throughout this book, we argue that all revenues are not equally profitable—some produce high profits, and some actually produce losses. But are all profits equally desirable?

The surprising answer is no—and the key to understanding the difference between “good profits” and “bad profits” is demonstrated in 

The desirability of an investment is not just a function of the likely returns but also a function of the strategic relevance (whether the investment moves the company’s strategy forward). 

...

Consider the upper left quadrant: high returns but low strategic relevance. This quadrant is quicksand. These investments look very attractive, but they take the company’s capital and focus away from its main line of business. All too many companies have unclear and unproductive positioning because they lack the discipline to say no to attractive-looking investments that don’t fit. Ultimately, companies that pursue these types of investments get picked off by highly focused competitors. These are the investments that produce bad profits.

Think about the lower right quadrant: low returns but high strategic relevance. These are investments that would show up at the bottom of a simple capital budgeting ranking, but they are essential to moving the company forward. Here, the watchword is courage, a character trait that is especially critical in today’s transforming business world.

...

The moral of the story is that while investments in the upper left quadrant produce bad profits, investments in the lower right produce “good losses.”"

Trechos retirados de “Choose Your Customer: How to Compete Against the Digital Giants and Thrive” de Jonathan S. Byrnes.

"the Age of Diverse Markets" (parte VII)

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

"Cost reduction provides another landmark example of the power of transaction-based profit analytics. In virtually all supply chain projects, the objective is to reduce costs. The analytical process is to identify the costs that are above average and reduce them to at least average levels. What could be wrong with this?

The answer is that neither simply reducing higher-than-average costs nor reducing costs across the board will maximize profitability. The reason is that the Profit Peak customers are often more costly to serve—and rightly so because the extra customer service costs are a great investment."

Como não regressar ao Senhor dos Perdões e ao discurso monolítico sobre um todo homogéneo:

"Most strategic analyses are based on an assessment of a company as a whole. This is an artifact of the Age of Mass Markets. So-called strengths-weaknesses- opportunities-threats (SWOT) analysis, and even Michael Porter’s powerful Five Forces framework, illustrate this approach. Profit contour analysis significantly enriches these analytical models because it shows the composition of a company’s component segments and activities, allowing managers to see their underlying patterns of profitability, which have historically been hidden by aggregate, average metrics.

Companies are not monolithic. For example, profit contour analysis indicates how much a company would be helped by better positioning (for example, which segments are helped, which would suffer profit erosion in the absence of repositioning, and which are well positioned already). It also indicates how difficult, costly, or time-consuming the transition will be (for example, what proportion of the products or vendors have to be changed). This is especially important in addressing the specific problems and opportunities that the currents of change pose.

...

In analyzing possible strategic groups in both your current and transformed industry, it is very instructive to focus on the value-to-cost relationship of your major profit segments: Profit Peaks, Profit Drains, and Profit Deserts."

Trechos retirados de “Choose Your Customer: How to Compete Against the Digital Giants and Thrive” de Jonathan S. Byrnes.

"basta-me correr mais rápido do que tu"

Recuo a 2006.

Em África, todas as manhãs, uma gazela acorda. Sabe que tem de correr mais depressa que o leão, ser mais veloz ou será morta.Todas as manhãs, um leão acorda. Sabe que tem de correr mais depressa que a gazela mais lenta, ou morrerá de fome. Não interessa se és um leão ou uma gazela. Quando o sol se levantar será bom que corras.

Isto a propósito deste texto "James Galbraith: China and Supply Chains – The White House Review’s Focus on US Dependence" que recomendo vivamente. 

Um bom texto cheio de informação útil.

No final pensei ... para um governo, mesmo o americano, não é fácil responder a estes dilemas. No entanto, para um empresário a situação é outra:

Um urso corre atrás de dois campistas. Um deles grita que não têm hipóteses, o urso corre mais do que eles. O outro responde: Não preciso de correr mais depressa do que o urso, basta-me correr mais rápido do que tu.

Um empresário não tem de salvar o mundo, tem de "salvar" a sua empresa. Voltamos ao concreto em detrimento do abstracto.

Obrigado Eurosport

 

Finalmente chegou para me salvar da bola.

Bola por todo o lado em todos os canais. Obrigado Eurosport.

Le tour de France 2017, Le tour de france 2018.

Resultados esperados e riscos

Aqui escrevi (como escrevo em muitos outros espaços):

"A ISO define risco como o efeito da incerteza num resultado esperado.

Esse efeito pode ser negativo (risco) ou positivo (oportunidade)"

Aqui, por exemplo, proponho que o exercício da determinação dos riscos comece pelos resultados esperados: 

Interessante que em "High-Impact Tools for Teams: 5 Tools to Align Team Members, Build Trust, and Get Results Fast" encontre esta sequência:

Começar pelos objectivos para chegar aos riscos e voltar.

Aumento de preços

Há dias numa empresa perguntaram-me a opinião acerca do aumento de preços das matérias-primas. 

Entretanto, ontem li "Inflation, made in China":

"The globalisation side has a lot to do with China. Its export machine gives us all cheap stuff and suppresses wages for manufacturing industries worldwide.[Moi ici: Enquanto os tótós culpavam o euro. Nós, desde sempre optamos por "It's not the euro, stupid!"]

Is the China-as-deflation-exporter story over?

...

As the chart makes clear, the exchange rate has a lot to do with whether China exports higher prices to the US. Beijing has allowed the renminbi to strengthen somewhat. 

...

Now the pressure is really on, as reflected in the 9 per cent increase in Chinese producer prices in May. Choyleva argues that passing higher costs on to domestic customers is difficult in China, as evidenced by weak consumer price inflation. Nor is the government likely to provide relief by weakening the renminbi. It is more concerned about things like food price inflation and encouraging capital inflows. So Chinese producers, if they want to protect profits, have little choice but to jack up their export prices in dollars."

Depois, li "Should You Raise Your Prices This Summer?" de Rafi Mohammed na HBR. Um conjunto de tópicos para reflectir quando se pensa em aumentar preços:

"There are compelling reasons for businesses to raise prices this summer. First and foremost, costs are up. Wages in April and May grew at an annualized rate of 7.4%, gas prices have jumped by 49.6% in the last year, and May’s inflation rate leaped to 5%.

...

consider the following strategies to implement:

Be mindful of competitors. If they are raising prices, it’s easier for you to do so too. Don’t forget to evaluate how your customers will react 

...

Provide an explanation. To defuse pushback, provide a data-backed narrative on why prices are increasing. Customers are more amenable when they understand why they are being asked to pay more.

...

Lower other costs. It’s unrealistic for managers to believe that they have carte blanche to pass along any cost increase and that customers will in essence respond “No problem, keep your normal profit and we’ll continue buying the same amount.” Counterbalance increased input costs with savings from elsewhere. 

...

Roll out a “Best” version. The combination of pent-up demand and stimulus money may increase the receptivity of customers to buying a high-end “Best” version of a product. 

...

Provide options to retain price sensitive customers. A price hike may not work for some customers. Instead of writing them off, offer choices to keep them in the family. 

...

Reexamine prices individually. I’ve found it inevitable that examining a company’s prices leads to discovering some that are too low. Properly pricing these products may reduce the pressure to make an across-the-board increase or take unnecessary risks on other products."

"the Age of Diverse Markets" (parte VI)

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

"It all starts with choosing your customer, or, as we put it, selecting your strategic group and then aligning and organizing your functional capabilities to meet your diverse and rapidly changing customer needs.

The Manager of the Future must be adept at what we call Value Entrepreneurship, which we define as teaming with peer managers to constantly push the envelope of the company’s customer value footprint in its diverse target market segments in a tight but flexible way. 

...

The Age of Mass Markets was created in the late 1800s and early 1900s when rail, water, and road transportation enabled local markets to integrate into national mass markets. This agglomeration of volume converged with innovations in manufacturing, marketing, and distribution—like assembly line production; mass media like newspapers, radio, and broadcast television; and national networks of distributors—to create massive economies of scale. In this context, the most important strategic imperative was to get big.

All this began to change a few decades ago. The change was largely driven by technology. Computers came into widespread use, the internet was developed, and both wireless networks and narrowcast technologies like cable TV were deployed. These innovations accelerated companies’ ability to reach out directly to customers and microsegment markets and to accumulate data so that they could micro target customers. Manufacturing innovations like small-batch production, robotics, process automation, and additive manufacturing broke down economies of scale, enabling companies to produce niche products and services targeted at individual segments and even at individual customers.

...

While getting big was the strategic imperative in the Age of Mass Markets, the strategic imperative of the Age of Diverse Markets is to adroitly manage complexity. Today, successful companies must be expert at choosing their customer, aligning their resources, and managing their organization to target and meet the needs of the most lucrative, defensible parts of the emerging market in their transforming industry."

Trechos retirados de “Choose Your Customer: How to Compete Against the Digital Giants and Thrive” de Jonathan S. Byrnes.

Market research & new things

 “You can do market research to check your ideas, but my belief is that market research is not particularly effective when it comes to truly new things. Market research is useful but only for checking things that already exist. Consumers can only give you meaningful feedback on what they already know. For truly innovative things, you are better off testing them on the market. So, to make sure that my ideas were fine, we tried a few of them in a limited way to make sure they worked. ”

Trecho retirado de “Organizing for the New Normal” de Constantinos Markides.

"the Age of Diverse Markets" (parte V)

 Parte I, parte II, parte III e parte IV

Recordem este velho esquema deste blogue:

E o teor do texto que se segue:

"The pervasive fear felt by so many incumbent company managers is rooted in the false assumption that the currents of change, of which Amazon is emblematic, will completely disrupt industries and leave no place to hide or prosper.

In fact, hundreds of studies of industry profitability in the industrial organization economics literature show the opposite. The most profitable overall industry configuration is one with a relatively small number of competitors, with each having a different strategy and each being very profitable—some serving small customers, others serving large customers; some offering arm’s-length service, others building-integrated customer relationships; and so on. In fact, contrary to popular belief, the industry model of a big winner and a lot of losers consistently provides low overall profits to all industry participants.

Today, the winning strategy is “choose your customer."

...

The overwhelmingly important problem for all too many managers in incumbent firms is that they are stuck in the obsolete strategic paradigm of the fading Age of Mass Markets in which the primary goal is to maximize all revenues while minimizing all costs. In essence, they are choosing all possible customers, which is no choice at all."

Agora reparem neste trecho, parece retirado daqui do blogue:

“Continuing to act on the obsolete assumption that all revenues are good and all costs are bad leads all too many managers to dilute and waste resources trying to hold on to all of their business, rather than choosing their customers and focusing on building their high-profit, defensible business in their target strategic group. This is the single most important issue in business today, and most managers do not even see it.”

Trechos retirados de “Choose Your Customer: How to Compete Against the Digital Giants and Thrive” de Jonathan S. Byrnes.

For ISO 9001 people... (part II)

Part I.

Let's look at the difference between the everyday level and the process level.

At the everyday level, a company receives a complaint and starts handling it. Then, as part of this process, it reaches an agreement with the customer and decides to close the complaint. Immediately before closing it, someone has to assess the interest or opportunity to take an improvement action to reduce or eliminate the likelihood of the complaint being repeated.

Implementing a true and effective improvement action is not cheap unless you already know the root cause. Implementing a true improvement action involves knowing the root cause, but the root causes are usually hidden under several layers of reality. They have to be investigated, tests need to be made and this consumes scarce resources. So, normally, the right bdecision is not to proceed with an improvement action because the return is not worth it.

At the level of the process, driven by the calendar, someone, normally a team, should look at the set of complaints received, at the big picture, and ask the question, does it make sense to develop one or more actions for improvement? A Pareto diagram may be powerful tool to evidence the big picture and show if there are any relevant priorities for improvement. For example:

In this case, the reason "Design deficiency" is responsible for around 30% of all complaints. The company decided to focus the attention on this topic and found this scenario:

Reason A is responsible for 75% of all complaints generated by "Design deficiency". So, Reason A alone is responsible for 22% of all complaints. Perhaps it is wise, and a good investment to decide to develop an improvement action to remove the root cause (s) behind Reason A.

Who should be part of a team to develop an improvement action to remove the root cause (s) behind Reason A?

It is so different, it is so powerful, it is so revealing, looking into the film, looking into the big picture instead of looking for just a frame. Both are needed, but the latter one is fundamental.

For ISO 9001 people...

Implementing a management system is like tossing and keeping a series of plates in the air circulating like a jongleur is able to do it.

A dish is, for example, about ordering, receiving, and supplying raw materials to production. Another dish is about sales, another is about production, control, and packaging, another is about...

What often happens is that once the dishes are released... they fall to the ground...

The management system cannot take on a life of its own. Someone has to always be aware that the dishes have fallen and that they have to be thrown into the air again.

This happens when an internal audit approaches, or when a surveillance audit date looms. Then, on the run, corrections are made, figurately “some walls are repaired, some wires are fastened, and a new scenario is set up” so that the next audit will look good in the photograph.

One of the most important mechanisms to keep the management system working, to keep the dishes in the air, involves measuring, analyzing, and making decisions to improve.

Let me show you why.

First, let us consider three levels of monitoring, measuring, and analyzing:

• The everyday level - everyday people have to act, to react to defects, to complaints, to delays, to orders, to events
• The process level - periodically, people will collect information about process performance and after analysis will decide if any change, any improvement is needed
• At the company level - periodically, people will collect information about company-wide performance and after analysis will decide if any change, any improvement is needed

At the everyday level things normally work, the pressure of the moment, the weight of reality make people acting. However, improvement only comes as a consequence of the other two levels. 

Yes, solving "sporadic spikes", controlling is not the same thing as improving. Remember the good old Joseph Juran:

Improvement only happens when you deliberately decide to change the status quo in a positive way. Improvement is not about eliminating sporadic spikes, improving is not about acting around a frame, improving is about connecting the frames and seeing the film, seeing the trend, seeing what is beyond the foam of the days. 

What if there is no discipline to stick with the actions that lead to the analysis at the process and company level?

What kind of improvement, what rate of improvement can we expect from not working at these two levels? I dare to state that without these two levels there is no improvement. And more, these two levels are not event-based, but calendar-based.

Let me show how ISO 9001:2015 clauses are used while we perform the two levels. 

At the company level:

At the process level:

These inputs are used in analysis and evaluation (also inputs from audit results and management review):

Let us see the outputs:

Check out how the outputs of analysis and evaluation can leverage changes in:

• competency requirements
• competency gaps
• risks and opportunities
• processes

So, if you don't do these two types of analysis and evaluation improvement is only event-based never calendar-based.

Why is that demand for training and webinars on improvement are always not a priority for ISO 9001 people with an implemented quality management system?

• Do you have the right indicators? (Different organizations in the same economic sector with different strategies may require different indicators due to different priorities)
• Do you have a dashboard? Is it well designed according to the rules?
• Do you prepare a report for analysis and evaluation? Do you fall in the three most common mistakes in presenting data?
• Do you make decisions about improvement?
• Do you use the project approach to command improvement?
• Do you use tools and techniques to find the root causes?