No JdN de ontem o patrão do jornal, alguém com experiência numa empresa de pasta de papel, uma commodity em que o custo é que manda, disse:
"Para o presidente da Cofina as empresas portuguesas enfrentam dois desafios. 0 primeiro é o da otimização e eficiência. A escalada de preços tornou os "custos de produção muito mais elevados, alguns deles não voltarão a níveis que tínhamos no passado, obrigando as empresas a otimização dos processos, tornando-se mais eficientes", aponta Paulo Fernandes."
"Felix Lange, a Swedish software designer, currently head of product at a Portuguese housing start-up, also arrived in Lisbon in 2016 looking for a change.
After the 10-year period he is still not sure of what he is going to do. "I think if I'm going to move it's not going to be because of the end of my NHR statute. That won't be the decisive factor."
"However, I did calculate the tax rate I would have if I didn't have the NHR statute and it would feel weird for me to pay more taxes in Portugal than those I used to pay in Sweden," he adds."
Trecho retirado de "Portugal's tech boom challenged by tax change"
Lembram-se da Raporal? Eu ajudo:
Recordo também "Fazer o by-pass à distribuição" de 2013.
"This small meat-processing facility, which a group of ranchers started under the name Old Salt Co-op, is one of many that have appeared across the country recently. "Small" is an understatement: Old Salt can process the equivalent of 20 cattle per week, while major meatpackers butcher thousands per day.Just four companies process 85% of American beef, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture....Since most independent ranchers and processors lack the volume to supply major grocery chains, their survival rides not only on how much brisket they produce, but on how many people buy it.Without a strong customer base, Rebecca Thistlethwaite, director of the Niche Meat Processor Assistance Network at Oregon State University, fears that many small processors will fail. She cited a University of Illinois study. that suggested success is contingent upon local demand. "It's not a field of dreams situation; it's not an 'If you build it, they will come," Thistlethwaite said. "You can't build supply chains without having that end consumer."...Data on net profits is difficult to find, but gross profits are certainly down. Fifty years ago, ranchers got 60 cents of every dollar that consumers spent on beef; today, it's 39 cents, according to the White House,...For independent ranchers, major chains - like Walmart, where 26% of America's food dollars go are basically out of the question. "To get into a chain grocery store, you have to have volume," explained Bill Jones, general manager of the Montana Premium Processing Cooperative, which opened in January. And since it takes two years and roughly $2,500 to raise a single head of cattle, Jones said it's "a heck of a challenge" for ranchers to establish enough volume to interest a grocery chain.Jones said the ranchers in his cooperative sell their meat online, at farmers markets or to local grocers and restaurants. "And then some are doing all three," he added...."So we decided to try to consolidate that into one kind of regional effort." Old Salt has also gone beyond selling meat online: opening a buzzy burger stand in the heart of Helena, organizing a festival and cookouts and ranch tours, and launching a butcher-shop-slash-grill that will showcase its products and host community events....Whether Old Salt can find more people like Barnard is an open question - and a critical one. As Mannix put it: "If customers don't change their buying habits, local meat really doesn't have a chance."Thistlethwaite, of Oregon State University, agrees. "I don't think (local meat processors) are going to survive unless we see consumers step up more seriously," she said."
Produtores pequenos têm de:
BTW, recordar a lição da Purdue em Se há coisa que não suporto é misturar catequese com negócios (2010)
"Economists at the Bank of International Settlements looked at data from more than 25,000 companies and found supply chains lengthening as other countries, especially in Asia, became additional stops in trade between China and the US. Companies shifting supply chains away from China are often moving production to countries whose economies are already highly integrated with China, such as Vietnam. Mexico, where investment by Chinese manufacturers has ticked up noticeably in recent years, is also becoming an important link in US-China trade. So it's not so much that the US and Chinese economies are decoupling-they're just coupling in different places.
...
Still, the connectors are proof that talk of the end of globalization is overwrought. Goods and capital still move across borders - even more of them, in fact."
Estes trechos foram retirados de "These Five Countries Are Key Economic; 'Connectors' in a Fragmenting World" publicado pela revista Bloomberg Business Week.
Interessante o que encontramos no WSJ de ontem:
"China passed a significant milestone last fall: For the first time since its economic opening more than four decades ago, it traded more with developing countries than the U.S., Europe and Japan combined. It was one of the clearest signs yet that China and the West are going in different directions as tensions increase over trade, technology, security and other thorny issues.
...
Benefits for the U.S. and Europe include less reliance on Chinese supply chains and more jobs for Americans and Europeans that otherwise might go to China. But there are major risks, such as slower global growth - and many economists worry the costs will outweigh the advantages."
Trechos retirados de "Global Economy Splits Into U.S. vs. China"
"This is a column about two numbers that seem to tell contradictory stories about globalization.
Over the past 15 years, a consensus has developed that globalization has run its course and gone into decline. One popular number supporting this argument: Trade as a share of global output peaked in 2008 at the cusp of the global financial crisis and has never recovered.
But a new metric from a pair of economists, Sharat Ganapati of Georgetown University and Woan Foong Wong at the University of Oregon, tells the opposite story: More goods are traveling greater distances than ever before.
That seems impossible if globalization has truly swung into reverse. So which is right?"
O FT de ontem trazia um artigo sobre a evolução dos chips de computador. Por coincidência, também ontem, durante a caminhada matinal vi este video no Youtube sobre o mesmo tema, "The end of Apple Silicon's reign".
O artigo do FT, intitulado "Chip wars set to change the landscape of personal computing":
"One sign that something is stirring has been the flurry of news around CPUsthe general-purpose processors that power PCs and servers. This week, as Apple unveiled its latest high-end Macs, its new M3 chips were very much the focus.
...
Last week, mobile chipmaker Qualcomm unveiled an Arm-based PC chip of its own. It is the first chip based on designs from Nuvia, a start-up founded by some of Apple's top chip engineers that Qualcomm acquired two years ago, and a sign that a real technology race is breaking out in PC chips.
...
Intel, which dominates the market for PC chips, is doing its best not to sound rattled by all of this. Given the high barriers to entry, it has good reason.
...
All of this sets up a race in the normally staid world of personal computing, with Intel trying to pull off a rapid series of manufacturing upgrades over the next two years to get back in the lead, Apple digging in to protect the clear lead it has established with its Mac chips, and a new wave of Arm-based PCs hitting the market."
E comecei a pensar na impermanência das empresas grandes; as empresas grandes podem reinar por algum tempo, mas há sempre um momento em que falham. Empresas grandes, mais tarde ou mais cedo resvalam para o foco na eficiência, e isso dita a sua queda. E qualquer coisa neste pensamento fez-me pesquisar no blogue e encontrar, de Setembro de 2012, Contrarian, sempre!!!
E ao ler esse postal ... comecei a fazer ligações para o que tenho escrito aqui recentemente, ou tenho lido recentemente:
"Por isso, enquanto muitos continuam a acreditar na vantagem de ser grande, cada vez mais acredito nas vantagens de se ser pequeno, na paciência com a quota de mercado ou com o volume de vendas.
Ser pequeno pode significar: decidir rapidamente; agir ainda mais rapidamente; experimentar em escala reduzida; estar mais próximo da tribo; corrigir o tiro inicial muito mais rapidamente; ter mais paciência e não se amesquinhar por causa do próximo relatório de contas; ter mais paixão.
O que mais me entristece e ver empresas pequenas a pensarem como empresas grandes... uma empresa pequena nunca poderá competir de igual para igual com uma empresa grande. Uma empresa pequena devia concentrar-se em tornar-se uma grande empresa.
Uma empresa pequena pode ser uma grande empresa, assim como uma empresa grande pode nunca ser uma grande empresa.
Uma empresa pequena a caminho de ser uma grande empresa é a empresa que reconhece que o seu campeonato não é o da eficiência, mas o da arte, o da originalidade, o da rapidez, o da flexibilidade, o da proximidade, o da autenticidade, o da tradição, o da diferença... o caminho menos percorrido."
Quando era miúdo muito miúdo, ainda nem andava na escola primária, ouvi a minha mãe a comentar com alguém que "somos um fogo", ou seria "somos uma chama". E nunca me esqueci disso, não sei porquê.
Também as empresas são chamas, são transição, são fluxo até que passam a comportar-se como um reservatório, e em vez de aspirarem ao futuro e à novidade, focam-se na defesa do presente. E o futuro morre, mais depressa ou mais devagar, mas morre. E estas empresas não precisam de ser grandes, também podem ser pequenas.
Há tempos li What Fast-Moving Companies Do Differently:
"The Two Dimensions of Speed
When we talk about speed, we consider the two key dimensions that determine how fast a company can move:
Recordo de 2020 - Ter ou não ter fogo no rabo.
Recordo de 2019 - A falta de fogo no rabo.
Interessante ter conversado com pelo menos duas PME nos últimos 30 dias que posso incluir no pequeno grupo de empresas que apostam na velocidade. Acumularam capital, têm graus de liberdade, têm gente que está atenta ao contexto e age!
Depois de torrados cerca de 400 milhões de euros ... continuam a achar a EFACEC estratégica?
Recordar "Deixem as empresas morrer" ao vivo e a cores.
"A oficialização da privatização da Efacec, ontem, foi um "dia feliz" para o ministro da Economia, António Costa Silva, mas o Estado ainda vai injetar mais 160 milhões de euros na empresa após a venda ao fundo Mutares, além de libertar uma garantia de 72 milhões de euros relacionada com financiamentos da banca." No Correio da Manhã de ontem.
Parte III, Parte II e Parte I.
"Research has shown that storytelling has a remarkable ability to connect people and inspire them to take action. "Our species thinks in metaphors and learns through stories," the anthropologist Mary Catherine Bateson has written. Tim O'Brien, who has won acclaim for his books about the Vietnam War, put it this way: "Storytelling is the essential human activity. The harder the situation, the more essential it is." When your organization needs to make a big change, stories will help you convey not only why it needs to transform but also what the future will look like in specific, vivid terms.
In this article we outline an effective way to leverage the power of storytelling, drawing on decades of combined experience helping senior executives lead large-scale change initiatives. There are four key steps: Understand your story so well that you can describe it in simple terms; honor the past; articulate a mandate for change; and lay out a rigorous and optimistic path forward."
Vale a pena a leitura.
Trecho retirado de "Storytelling That Drives Bold Change"
Desemprego a aumentar (+6,5% face ao mês homólogo e +1,0% face ao mês anterior), sobretudo nos sectores ditos tradicionais:
"Os dados da Informa D&B mostram que, entre janeiro e setembro deste ano, o número de insolvências da indústria da moda, que inclui precisamente o têxtil, o vestuário e o calçado, aumentou 95%, face a igual período do ano passado, passando de 82 para 160 falências.Também a indústria metalúrgica registou um aumento no número de desempregados registados, num total de pouco mais de três mil, em setembro, o que corresponde a um aumento homólogo de 4,5%.Alemanha é o principal mercado de destino quer das exportações de calçado quer da metalurgia e, ainda, ontem, o boletim mensal do Bundesbank indicava que o Produto Interno Bruto (PIB) alemão deverá ter-se "contraído ligeiramente no terceiro trimestre", apontando vários fatores, como a debilidade da procura externa de produtos industriais e o aumento dos custos de financiamento, que estão a travar a economia local." (fonte)
Onde está o capital e o know-how para criar os empregos do nível seguinte na linha horizontal dos flying geese?
Como diz Joaquim Aguiar, não há capital em Portugal, só dívida. Precisamos da receita irlandesa. Quanto a know-how ... duvido que haja para estes novos negócios.
Acabo de publicar o meu mais recente ebook na Amazon:
Acredito que o cidadão comum não percebe a relação entre o seu voto e as suas consequências, as consequências das escolhas que faz.
30 de Janeiro de 2022, eleições legislativas.
Escolhas:
Ainda me lembro da primeira vez que num projecto em que era o consultor que apoiou a implementação do sistema da qualidade segundo a ISO 9001:2015 ter apanhado esta não-conformidade, com surpresa, durante a auditoria de concessão.
Ainda no ano passado, durante uma auditoria interna num outro projecto, o auditor escolhido resolveu brindar-nos com a mesma não-conformidade.
Pergunta:
"Is it mandatory for the organization to maintain or retain documented information as evidence of communication to outside suppliers of their requirements for control and monitoring of those requirements to be applied by the organization? (8.4.3)"
Contexto que suporta a pergunta:
"It has been common for certification bodies to require that the organization retain documented evidence that it has made such a communication, not only accepting verbal communication."
Interpretação:
"No"
Racional para a interpretação:
"Clause 8.4.3 (Information for external providers) does not include any requirement to maintain or retain documented information."
Como ouvi uma consultora dizer: "Os auditores reúnem-se num retiro e aprendem estas cenas ditas por um qualquer guru. Eles têm de parecer gurus, não há não-conformidades, inventam-se."
ISO/TC 176/SC 2 Listing of Approved Interpretations against ISO 9001:2015
Segundo este artigo:
"Skincare remains a prominent focus, constituting 46.2% of year-to-date transactions due to the high-margin profile of many skincare brands, making them attractive for both strategic and financial buyers.
Strategic buyers have been leading M&A activity, accounting for the majority of transactions. Large strategic buyers are showing renewed interest in transformative acquisitions, which is indicated by recent high-valuation deals.
Financial buyers have been cautious, influenced by elevated financing costs and a need for greater pricing transparency. However, there are signs of a rebound in private equity investment activity, especially in the Contract Manufacturing segment.
The Contract Manufacturing segment is gaining interest due to its predictable revenue streams and scalability. Outsourced partners with established client bases are becoming attractive, and private equity firms are considering buy-and-build strategies in this space."
Entretanto neste outro artigo:
"Where to play will become just as important a question as how to win, given the changing underlying growth tailwinds. The changing dynamics will render the industry's largely homogenous global playbooks of the past decades less effective and require brands to reassess their global strategies and introduce greater nuance and tailoring.
Geographic diversification will become more essential than ever. It was just recently, for example, that brands could focus their footprints on the industry's two top countries: China and the United States. Both countries will remain mighty forces for the industry, with the beauty market expected to reach $96 billion in China and $114 billion in North America by 2027."
Outra vez o "contract manufacturing".
Outra vez a ilusão das empresas grandes com o modelo económico do século XX.
Contract Manufacturing tem condições para crescer nestes tempos de recessão.
O NYT de ontem traz um artigo sobre as marcas brancas ... segundo o artigo, há muito que deixaram de ser marcas brancas, agora são marcas das lojas, com produtos tão bons quanto os das marcas de fabricante, mas com um preço 75% mais baixo.
"The snack chips had become pretty pricey.
For years, customers stopping at Casey's General Stores, a convenience store chain in the Midwest, hadn't thought twice about snagging a soda and a bag of Lay's or Doritos chips. But over the last year, as the price of a bag of chips soared and some customers felt squeezed by the high cost of gas and other expenses, they began picking up Casey's less-expensive store brand.
So Casey's began stocking more of its own chips, in a variety of new flavors. This summer, Casey's brand made up a quarter of all bags of chips sold, eating into the sales of big brands like Frito-Lay, which is owned by PepsiCo.
...
But with retailers now expanding their store-owned food and beverage offerings, consumers are slowly shifting their spending. Overall, private-label foods and beverages have crept up to a 20.6 percent share of grocery dollars from 18.7 percent before the pandemic, according to the market research firm Circana.
But a deeper look at some categories reveals private-label goods are gaining significant ground on national brands. Private labels snagged 38 percent of canned vegetable sales in the three months that ended June 30, according to Numerator, another market research firm. Numerator's data also shows private-label cheese held 45 percent of the market and coffee nearly 15 percent.
The shift in spending reflects a customer base that is nearing or at its tipping point. Inflation, which climbed to 3.7 percent in September, is running at a less rapid pace than a year ago, but millions of shoppers still face increasingly high prices in grocery stores.
...
"Consumers are trading down," said Rupesh D. Parikh, an equity analyst at Oppenheimer & Company who covers food, grocery and consumer products. He recently bought a box of Kellogg's Mini Wheats cereal at Walmart along with the Walmart version. "The Kellogg's cereal was 75 percent more expensive, and I couldn't tell the difference between them," he said.
Big brands, in response, are already starting to offer small sale prices on certain foods, like salty snacks. "The question is how deep they are willing to go in promotions," Mr. Parikh said." ... Retailers are offering customers "belly fillers" basic foods at low prices that are virtual clones of national brands, but they are also hunting for ways to differentiate themselves,"
Trechos retirados de "Those Doritos Too Expensive? Stores Offer Their Own Version."
Quem produz para a distribuição fazer concorrência às marcas de fabricante? O contract manufacturing.
O editorial do JdN de hoje, "A discussão que se segue" termina com:
"Talvez fosse mais útil fazer uma discussão mais profunda sobre se devemos continuar a ter governos viciados na fórmula fácil da receita fiscal e pouco abertos a olhar para a despesa estrutural."
Para haver uma discussão profunda têm de existir duas partes. Em termos eleitorais qual a dimensão da parte interessada em afrontar a imensa mole de interesses instalados à mesa do orçamento? Desde as associações empresariais e os partidos de extrema direita, até aos de extrema esquerda mais os seus grupos amestrados, mais os reformados, pensionistas e dependentes dos apoios sociais, está o país quase todo.
Ando a ler Dominion de Tom Holland. É fascinante perceber como 150 anos depois de Cristo havia uma multidão de crenças e variantes acerca da pregação de Jesus. Só por volta do ano 180 nasceu a ideia de um canon. Só por volta do ano 325 apareceu o Credo de Niceia, mais por imposição política do imperador Constantino que queria aproveitar o cristianismo para uma religio de estado. Interessante perceber como evoluiu a relação dos cristãos ricos com a riqueza.
Por exemplo, Santo Agostinho achava que os pobres não eram mais puros de coração do que os ricos. Para ele, todos estavam perdidos. "Abandonem o orgulho, e o dinheiro não fará qualquer mal."
Entretanto, ontem li "John Gray's The New Leviathans - is the world doomed to get worse?"e não pude deixar de pensar em Mongo e num postal sobre as ideias de Fukuyama, Mongo, tribos e política.
"They all have in their sights what Gray regards as a distinctively modern myth: the conviction that humanity is moving towards a common destination - a combination of liberal democracy, laissez-faire economics and scientific progress. Recent history - from the débâcle of nation-building in Iraq, through the global financial crisis to the sharpening of geopolitical tensions between the US and China - seems to encourage the conclusion that it will be later rather than sooner. [Moi ici: A minha convicção dos anos 70 e destruída pelos separatistas islâmicos das Filipinas algures a meio da década de 90 - 1 Origem de uma metáfora]
Central to most versions of liberalism, in Gray's sceptical view, is a faith in the "corrigibility and improvability of all social institutions and political arrangements". But it does not follow from this assault on liberal optimism that Gray believes social or political progress to be impossible. Rather, the hard lesson he wants readers to take from the new book is that it is always, and everywhere, precarious and provisional.
It is a fact of our natures that human beings have conflicting needs and demands; social peace "is a truce, partial and temporary, between humankind and itself." What political philosophers call the state of nature - in which, as the 17th-century English thinker Thomas Hobbes famously put it, life is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short" - is never far away. [Moi ici: Interessante como isto se relaciona com as ideias de Tom Holland. O Cristianismo como uma força fundamental na formação da civilização ocidental, influenciando tudo, desde a política e a moral até a arte e a literatura. Quando como sociedade nos afastamos dele, recordar "Deus morreu!" de Nietzsche, o deslaçamento dos valores vai progredindo, da corrupção à celebração da barbárie nas ruas. Até aos "cabritas reis"]
...
He is much more convincing, however, when he suggests that wokeism is a "footnote to Christianity" [Moi ici: Algo que julgo Tom Holland também partilha] sustained by the belief that the world is perfectible. In fact, on Gray's account of the "psychology of the political believer", the same is true of liberalism itself, which, like all large-scale projects of human emancipation (including communism and socialism), is so much spilt religion."
Heresia - “Heresy” comes from the Greek verb hairein, which means to choose. The idea is, heresy is the result of choosing one thing that is true and then running with it until it distorts everything else. Eu, que partilho das ideias liberais acredito que os seus maiores inimigos são os liberais sem freio.
No FT de ontem o artigo "Is the secret to employee happiness not working?" é muito interessante e vai ao arrepio do mainstream:
"Such perks [Moi ici: Dias de folga extra] are in recognition of the growing concern about wellbeing. A report this year by the American Psychological Association found 77 per cent of workers experienced workrelated stress in the previous month, while 57 per cent indicated signs of workplace burnout, such as emotional exhaustion.
...
Research in the Journal of Advanced Nursing found that people taking "mental health days" were more likely to report problems at work, as well as mental health issues. The authors concluded that wellbeing days were only dealing with the symptoms of overwork, and that other, earlier interventions might have been more effective in preventing problems in the first place.
Moss says: "If we aren't tackling the root causes of burnout and the chronic stressors at work - mental health days become a band-aid solution."
Julgo que já tive esta conversa com o parceiro das conversas oxigenadoras, usam-se aspirinas para lidar com os sintomas e não se vai às causas-raiz.
Pensando bem, é um bocado absurdo, o segredo para o bem estar no local de trabalho é ... não trabalhar.
Como aprendi na semana passada: No Ocidente acredita-se cada vez mais naquilo que soa bem e parece bem, do que no que naquilo que funciona e resulta.
Uma das citações na coluna das mesmas é:
"When something is commoditized, an adjacent market becomes valuable"
Algo que escrevi aqui no blogue pela primeira vez em 2013.
Penso:
"In some markets, the rise of a discontinuous technology, besides posing a substitute threat to the old technology, further exposes niche segments where customers continue to favor the old technology. This paper predicts that within such a market, as competitors increasingly adopt the new technology for varied motives, firms sticking with the old technology may see their performance declining before rebounding and potentially reaching new heights....this paper further emphasizes the importance of attending to the inherent heterogeneity of a demand context in analyzing the dynamics of technological change and its performance implications at both the market and firm levels. Such demand heterogeneity, due to varied sources, may preserve niche opportunities in a market for an old technology, preventing it from complete displacement by the new technology. This subsequently makes it possible for firms sticking with the old technology to thrive for an unexpectedly long period despite the rise of a new technology with superior functionality."
O mundo é como o planeta Mongo, uma paisagem muito enrugada.
eheheh o @JNegocios ainda acredita na farfetch
— Carlos P da Cruz 🇺🇦🚜🇳🇱🇬🇪 (@ccz1) August 21, 2023
super-alavancada deve ser estilo farfetch, gasta mais na expansão do que ganha nas vendas. Fogem da máxima: "Volume is vanity. Profit is sanity"
— Carlos P da Cruz 🇺🇦🚜🇳🇱🇬🇪 (@ccz1) March 24, 2020
Ontem li "Farfetch: What Went Wrong?":
"this week, as we waited for a ruling from the European Commission on the company’s plan to acquire a 47.5 percent stake in its rival, Yoox Net-a-Porter Group, many analysts noted that Farfetch shares have lost 97 percent of their value in the last two years, a spectacular drop. Its market capitalisation has plummeted from a pandemic high of $26 billion in February 2021 to just over $600 million today.
...
I’ve been thinking about how things went so wrong at Farfetch, and my thoughts kept coming back to this: the fashion industry and the financial markets no longer understand the company’s increasingly complex vision and have little faith that the company, which has never consistently made a profit, can get back on track.
In 2015, the company began a spree of acquisitions, starting with Browns (meaning that Farfetch would now be taking on inventory and operating physical stores), the intellectual property from Condé Nast’s failed e-commerce venture Style.com (a brand that the company has never used), sneaker reseller Stadium Goods in 2018 (which moved Farfetch into the resale business and further into physical retail), New Guards Group in August 2019 (meaning that Farfetch now operated brands like Off-White and Palm Angels, including design, manufacturing and even more physical retail), and in 2022, Violet Grey. (The company was Farfetch’s first move into beauty and, according to a source who spoke to The Business of Beauty, is now up for sale).
In addition to these acquisitions, Farfetch now also operates white-label platform solutions for a variety of brands and retailers, including Neiman Marcus (into which it invested $200 million as part of an unusual deal), a business in China in partnership with Richemont and Alibaba and its original business which now works more than 1400 sellers in 50 countries.
The cautionary tale here for any entrepreneur taking on huge amounts of funding is the importance of maintaining focus. Over the years, as Farfetch went on its acquisition spree, it drifted further and further away from its original vision of being a technology platform for the fashion industry. As tempting as it may be to raise more money and acquire scale (and, sometimes profitability, as was the case with New Guards Group) through acquisitions, when you start stitching together so many disparate pieces you end up with a patchwork quilt that nobody understands."
Há cerca de um mês e meio em E na sua empresa, como está a ser aproveitada a AI? recordava uma frase de Kasparov:
"Algures li uma afirmação de Kasparov que dizia que um grande mestre perdia sempre contra um supercomputador, mas que um jogador mediano com um computador mediano, juntos batiam sempre o supercomputador."
Agora em "Training with Al: Evidence from chess computers" encontro:
"Using the case study of chess computers, we examine the linkage between Al-backed simulation and learning strategic interactions. It is plausible that Al will democratize opportunities to learn strategic-and potentially more broadly social-interactions. If so, Al may become a game changer well beyond the game of chess. While it has often been asked whether Al will replace humans, our study suggests that a more imminent change may be that humans with Al will replace humans without Al."
Again, como é que na sua empresa está a ser testada, usada, aproveitada a AI?
Há quem defenda que a perda de um mandato pelo Labour numa circunscrição de Londres tradicionalmente trabalhista deveu-se ao ataque contra o automobilista por parte do mayor da cidade. Achei um exagero.
Depois, à cerca de duas semanas, a meio desta entrevista (ao minuto 36), "Piers Morgan VS Jordan Peterson The Full Interview #2", ouvi:
"you can tell the tyrants, they hate two things, they hate comedians and they hate cars"
Achei estranha esta referência aos carros.
Depois, no WSJ de 6 de Outubro passado descobri "The Culture War Is Coming for Your Car":
"Forget race. Forget sex. Forget immigration. The mother of all culture wars is breaking out, and its subject is the car. The automobile has long been a policy flashpoint, with the paramount issue being where it should be able to roam. This was the heart of the brutal urban-planning battles of the mid-20th century, which were fought over the need for and placement of new highways.
...
The problem with the personal car isn't its direct climate impact. Road transport, including trucking, accounts for 12% of global carbon emissions. Electric vehicles aren't an obvious means of reducing overall emissions, especially once you factor in their dirty supply chains and the coal-fired power that often charges them.
Rather, the car is a focus for the war on carbon because it's so visible. An electric vehicle is the most conspicuous, although perhaps not the most effective, thing a household can do in service of reducing global emissions. The corollary, however, is that if a household insists on buying and driving a gasoline or diesel car, it signifies that some concern other than climate is more important-cost and convenience often at the top of the list.
The car is becoming a cultural flashpoint because it is where climate-apocalypse proselytizing meets antielitist pragmatism. Both sides increasingly understand their fundamental values are at stake."
Esta semana descobri que uma petição pública por causa do IUC para veículos anteriores a 2008 já ultrapassou os 200 mil subscritores neste país sem sal.
O que fará o governo, recuará?
Eu duvido que as pessoas consigam relacionar o seu voto com as consequências do seu voto.
Li "Why Your Starbucks Wait Is So Long" e fiquei impressionado com a semelhança com o que se passa em muitas PMEs.
Skinner sorriria e explicaria facilmente o que está a acontecer. Solução? PWP e também aqui e aqui.
No domingo passado escrevi este postal "Regressar ao século XIX" elogiando a actuação de uma associação empresarial na área da joalharia. No final não resisti a uma tirada cínica:
"O meu lado cínico sorri e pensa nos que emigram para França para receber muito mais, depois do curso tirado."
Entretanto, ontem li:
"Fashion is in need of new talent in technical areas which take time to master - including leatherwork, tailoring and jewellery-making."
Pesquisando um pouco encontrei:
"um processo de gestão e planeamento que as organizações utilizam para determinar a capacidade necessária para satisfazer as suas necessidades futuras. Envolve a avaliação e o dimensionamento dos recursos necessários, como mão de obra, equipamentos, instalações e tecnologia, para satisfazer os objetivos operacionais e estratégicos.O objetivo do planeamento de capacidade é garantir que uma organização tenha recursos adequados para satisfazer a procura do negócio de forma eficaz e eficiente. Isso envolve equilibrar a capacidade disponível com as necessidades projetadas, evitando tanto a subutilização quanto a superutilização de recursos."
""Temos uma realidade objetiva que é termos um conjunto de profissionais de saúde com um nível etário onde já estão dispensados de fazer urgências", sinalizou António Costa, apontando para o facto de a lei estabelecer que a partir dos 50 anos os médicos estão dispensados de fazer urgência noturna e a partir dos 55 anos estão dispensados de fazer urgência, quer de noite quer de dia. "Por outro lado, "a formação de novos profissionais leva tempo", pelo que nesta "substituição" deverão continuar a existir alguns constrangimentos. "Vão ser dois anos onde vai haver sempre tensão", alertou o primeiro-ministro, em declarações transmitidas pela RTP3, no final da reunião com a Direção Executiva do SNS"
Afinal Todos nascidos do mesmo caldo não é bem verdade, há empresas mais bem geridas que se destacam da mediania.
Ou como diria o ICI-man (Sir John Harvey-Jones):
"Planning is an unnatural process; it is much more fun to do something. And the nicest thing about not planning is that failure comes as a complete surprise rather than being preceded by a period of worry and depression."
O mesmo ICI-man dizia:
"There are no bad troops, only bad leaders."
"A second reason I resisted the R word is that I had no plans to stop working. I had begun preparing for my post-FT life several years earlier, spending evenings and weekends training to become a counsellor, with the hope of helping others deal with their career dilemmas. When the time came to leave full-time journalism, I discovered my bosses were happy for me to continue contributing articles and teaching in the executive education business I had helped set up. So I have settled contentedly into a three-part career of writing, lecturing and counselling.I am not alone. The number of UK over-65s still working rose to 1.47mn in the quarter to June 2022, an all-time record, according to the Office for National Statistics. This compares with 1.1mn in 2014. Much of the increase was driven by part-time work and self-employment.Part of the reason people carry on working is financial. Rising prices and the ending of gold-plated company pensions mean many cannot afford to stop working entirely. Even the best of the old-fashioned private sector final-salary pension schemes provide annual increases that fall far short of current inflation.But there is also the desire to continue to matter. Moving on from a full-on job brings with it more identity issues than simply accepting one’s age. There is a loss of status. The question “what do you do?” requires a new answer. The “well, I used to . . . ” response palls after a while.Many 60- and 70-somethings I come across want to continue being players rather than spectators. Having more time to watch sport, travel or go to the theatre has its attractions. But for many, there is still a drive to participate, to be in the fray.One of the problems with giving up work entirely is that you could be a long time retired. The average 65-year-old can expect to live into their mid-80s in developed countries, according to OECD figures. And many are living longer than that. Worldwide, there were nearly 500,000 people aged 100 or more in 2015, four times as many as in 1990, according to a 2016 Pew Research Center report, which said the number of centenarians was likely to reach 3.7mn by 2050.Health problems start to intrude at some point. But healthier eating and exercise (one of the pleasures of self-employment means you decide when to go to the gym) help stave them off.It is not just that many older people want to work; ageing societies will need them. Bain, the strategy consultancy, predicts that a quarter of the US workforce will be aged 55 or more by 2031. In Germany the figure will be 27 per cent, in Italy 32 per cent and in Japan 38 per cent."
Há anos que faço isto e só agora percebi que havia uma designação oficial "backcasting scenarios".
"O futuro é a base do significado, é de onde vem o projecto que alguém tem para si próprio ... o futuro, o projecto que temos de futuro, o entendimento genuíno, instintivo, intuitivo que dele fazemos é o que nos faz ser o que somos hoje."
"Agora, imaginem a seguinte situação, avaliamos, documentamos, retratamos, descrevemos uma realidade actual. E depois, viajamos mentalmente no tempo, e imaginamo-nos num tempo, num estado futuro. Um estado futuro com uma particularidade interessante, é um estado futuro desejado, não é um local de descoberta, é um local de destino conhecido. Esta situação é diferente, sabemos onde estamos, e sabemos onde queremos chegar no futuro. Então, colocados mentalmente no futuro, vamos começar a “puxar” a nossa realidade, para que ela um dia, se transforme na realidade futura desejada....Quem se coloca mentalmente no futuro gera uma situação paradoxal (será?). O futuro desejado (o efeito n), a consequência, o resultado, transforma-se numa causa do presente!!!Ou seja: Assim, há que equacionar o futuro desejado onde queremos chegar, para começar a actuar sobre o presente, de forma planeada, de forma deliberada.“Isto faz-nos constatar de que a minha vida de agora, presente ou actual e, portanto, o meu “eu” agora, actual e presente é o que é graças a um meu eu futuro, à minha vida futura e não o contrário.”"
No JN do passado dia 11, "Uma escola para servir a região que mais produz joalharia".
15 valores! Só não dou mais por causa da dependência dos apoios. De resto, um retorno ao século XIX:
"AQUI NÃO HÁ DESEMPREGOOs cursos ficarão a cargo do CINDOR, um centro de formação, sediado em Gondomar, com cerca de 600 alunos. "Nenhum jovem de Guimarães procura formação em Gondomar diretamente. Há falta de mão de obra no setor, que até paga acima da média, portanto, esperamos aumentar o interesse das pessoas pela área", aponta João Faria. "Não há nenhum técnico de ourivesaria ou cravador desempregado", acrescenta."
O meu lado cínico sorri e pensa nos que emigram para França para receber muito mais, depois do curso tirado.
É uma diferença abismal!
A diferença de mindset entre uma empresa que abraça a mudança e uma que resiste à mudança.
A diferença entre uma empresa com graus de liberdade e uma endividada só para se manter à tona.
Lembrei-me disto ao encontrar no Caderno De Economia do semanário Expresso de ontem uma entrevista, "Walburga Hemetsberger CEO da Solar Power Europe - É preciso investimento urgente nas redes". Uma das constatações que fiz este mês é que "descarbonização = nova electrificação".
Na quinta-feira de manhã no FT li "US auto salvage trade starts preparing for influx of battery-powered vehicles" sobre como os "sucateiros" de automóveis americanos se estão a preparar para o abate de carros eléctricos. Sublinhei:
"US salvage companies might learn from Norway, where nearly four in five new cars sold last year were electric, the highest share in the world. Tom Gronvold, chief executive at salvage company Gronvolds Bil-Demontering in the Scandinavian country, said the first electric wreck showed up at his yard eight years ago and they now constituted 12 to 15 per cent of his volume. His company advertised to find buyers for batteries that could be converted to power agricultural equipment or boats. EVs, with fewer moving parts, generally undergo less wear and tear than internal combustion vehicles. But Gronvold said they still generated demand for salvaged parts."
Será interessante visitar a Noruega para perceber como será o futuro a nível de renováveis e de mobilidade eléctrica.
A actual rede eléctrica vai ter de sofrer uma revolução (por isso Walburga Hemetsberger diz ""Redes, redes, redes." É esta a resposta de Walburga Hemetsberger, presidente da associação Solar Power Europe, quando questionada sobre o que é preciso para acelerar a instalação de capacidade solar. "É preciso investimento urgente nas redes.")
Pessoalmente teria preferido a versão inicial de um país como uma rede resiliente de miniparques fotovoltaicos, mas os "tubarões" conseguiram que a ideia dos megaparques triunfasse.
Uns em vez de pensar o futuro andam a conduzir empilhadores no armazém.
No FT de ontem, "Germany calls for more immigrants to fix its shrinking economy":
"Companies are desperately looking for workers, craft businesses have to reject orders, and shops and restaurants have to limit their opening hours,” he said on Wednesday. “And it’s not just about skilled workers — we notice in every possible corner that we simply lack workers.
...
Germany's economy has contracted or stagnated for the past nine months and the IMF this week predicted it would be the worst-performing major economy this year, with output contracting 0.5 per cent before returning to tepid growth of 0.9 per cent in 2024."
Os EUA estão a viver um boom industrial, com os investimentos em instalações de produção a atingirem um máximo histórico. Isto é alimentado por novas leis que oferecem subsídios e incentivos para a construção de fábricas de chips e fábricas de veículos elétricos. A Geórgia está a beneficiar enormemente deste boom, atraindo grandes investimentos de empresas como a Hyundai e a Rivian. No entanto, existem preocupações sobre a infra-estrutura e o impacto nas comunidades locais. Outros estados, como Ohio, também estão a ter um aumento no investimento em fábricas de veículos elétricos e de baterias.
Fonte - "America's Factory Boom Brings Billion-Dollar Projects to Tiny Towns"
Recordo também Outra vez o Karma
A partir deste mês, a Europa está a implementar a primeira taxa baseada no carbono, impondo um imposto sobre as importações com base nas emissões de carbono causadas pela indústria transformadora. Esta taxa terá inicialmente o maior impacto nos materiais industriais, mas empresas como a PepsiCo e a Davita alertaram que poderá eventualmente afetar os seus negócios. A União Europeia pretende incentivar mais países a reduzir as emissões e garantir que os fabricantes europeus permaneçam competitivos. Os impostos não serão cobrados até 2026, aumentando gradualmente até igualarem os preços do carbono da UE em 2034. Espera-se que esta taxa tenha um impacto significativo em indústrias como cimento, ferro e aço, alumínio, fertilizantes, eletricidade e hidrogénio.
Os impactes potenciais da taxa de carbono nas empresas podem variar. Inicialmente, indústrias como o cimento, o ferro e aço, o alumínio, os fertilizantes, a eletricidade e o hidrogénio serão as mais afetadas pela taxa. As empresas que operam nesses setores podem enfrentar um aumento de custos por causa dos impostos sobre as emissões de carbono causadas pela produção. Isso pode levar a preços mais altos para produtos feitos com combustíveis fósseis, o que pode resultar em inflação.
""The consequences will be vast," wrote Elena Belletti, head of carbon research at energy research firm Wood Mackenzie, in a recent report. She thinks the rules will "reconfigure international trade flows" over the next five years, and potentially result in new carbon fees going into effect in more countries.
European policy makers say the system, known as the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, has two goals: encouraging more countries to write laws that reduce emissions, and making sure that European manufacturers stay competitive with rivals operating in "dirtier" jurisdictions."
Por exemplo, para as empresas portuguesas que se lançaram na subcontratação no Brasil:
"Chinese, Brazilian, and Indian officials have warned that it could upend free trade [Moi ici: O Brasil preocupado com o comércio livre, uma anedota]. The U.S. has reportedly asked for exemptions."
Trechos retirados de "A European Carbon Tax Is Coming. What It Means for the World."
O candidato presidencial Mário Centeno está preocupado (no CM do passado dia 5:
"A menos de uma semana da apresentação do Orçamento do Estado para 2024, Centeno tocou o sinal de alarme para Fernando Medina ouvir.
"Desaceleração" é a palavra de ordem do governador do Banco de Portugal para o ministro das Finanças. Menos riqueza (2,1% do PIB para este ano, contra uma previsão de 2,7 em junho. E 1,5% para 2024 contra 2,4% em junho), menos investimento, menos consumo, menos exportações, mais inflação. "A desaceleração da economia é um fenómeno mais geral", afirmou Centeno,
...
"A questão que se coloca é se o mercado de trabalho continuará a funcionar como um dique para conter tensões que se vão criando ou será a primeira peça do dominó a cair" disse, considerando que "quer as empresa, quer os trabalhadores, quer as decisões de política monetária e orçamental devem entender a importância desse fenómeno, respeitá-lo e garantir que esse dique não se rompa", diz o governador."
Entretanto, ontem no ECO, "Insolvências em Portugal sobem pelo quinto o mês seguido, com novo aumento de 7,3% em setembro". Ainda ontem, mas no JdN, "Juros altos vão matar «zombies". "E isso é bom"".
- Hmmm!
Uns repetem o nosso mantra: Deixem as empresas morrer!
O que fará o governo quando as pernas começarem a tremer? Vamos para mais uma sessão no país do Chapeleiro Louco?
Aceitam-se apostas!
O WSJ da passada sexta-feira abre o caderno "Business & Finance" com o artigo "MGM Resorts Said No to Ransom":
"MGM Resorts International refused to pay hackers' ransom demand in a September cyberattack that threw its Las Vegas Strip resorts into chaos and crippled its properties and technology nationwide, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Service disruptions from the attack and efforts to resolve the issue will cost the company more than $100 million in the third quarter, MGM said in a regulatory filing Thursday."
Depois, na página B4 do mesmo caderno encontro "Clorox Warns of Costs From Cyberattack":
"Clorox so far has spent $25 million to respond to a suspected ransomware attack, including hiring forensic investigators and legal and technology help. More cyber expenses are expected to arise in 2024, the company said."
O que é que as PMEs portuguesas estão a fazer para se protegerem desta realidade?
No WSJ da passada sexta-feira li "3M Innovation Suffers Dry Spell" de onde sublinhei:
"The 20th century belonged to the unruly minds at 3M.
From its early days, the American manufacturing giant gave its researchers a long leash to chase ideas, many to dead-ends. The hits, though, were indelible: Scotch tape. Masking tape. Videotape. Post-it Notes. N95 masks. Artificial turf. Heart medication.
3M patented adhesives and abrasives, as well as proprietary coatings and films that reflect light, repel water and insulate against cold and heat-materials at the heart of highway signs, weatherproof windows and stain-resistant clothing and carpets. Its optical film brightened the screens of millions of laptops, smartphones and flat-screen TVs. A cautious air has since settled on the 3M headquarters and research campus in Maplewood, Minn., dampening the restless ambition that built the company, according to some investors and company veterans. There are fewer new products and fewer still have been blockbusters, a dry spell that couldn't have arrived at a worse time.
...
Current and former scientists say the strategy makes it more difficult for fresh ideas to survive a gantlet of management naysayers. For decades, 3M released a cascade of new items on the market, confident most would be profitable and a few would become indispensable. The company has retreated from its traditional goal of earning around 30% of revenue from new products.
"Senior management has deluded themselves into thinking they can pick winners and losers, when in reality we need to generate more products so we can get into test markets to see what works," said Robert Asmus, a former 3M healthcare scientist and member of the Carlton Society, the company's highest honor for science and engineering.
...
3M's innovation principles took shape more than a century ago under William McKnight, who grew up as a farm boy in South Dakota.
McKnight joined 3M as an assistant bookkeeper a few years after its founding in 1902 and became its president. He helped guide the company from a sandpaper maker to a manufacturer of thousands of industrial, automotive and home products. Though McKnight began his career at the dawn of the assembly line era, he believed in worker autonomy and initiative. "Mistakes will be made, but if the man is essentially right himself, I think the mistakes he makes are not so serious in the long run as the mistakes management makes if it is dictatorial," he said, according to a company history. He instituted what became known as the McKnight principles. One of them allowed researchers to spend 15% of their time on projects unrelated to their everyday tasks even if managers disapproved. The principles championed collaboration, encouraging researchers to share findings. The Post-it Note came about after scientist Art Fry, bedeviled by paper bookmarks falling out of his church hymnal, remembered a semi-sticky adhesive discussed at a company seminar. The product was an instant success after it hit stores in 1980.
...
Rob Kieschke, a former research director who left the company last year, said 3M's weakening position in the smartphone display market is a symptom of its troubles. Researchers are encouraged to pursue incremental improvements to existing products rather than novel, swing-for the fences breakthroughs.
"If you start forcing people to eliminate risk, then all you end up doing is what has been done before or what everyone else is doing," said Kieschke, who contributed to more than 20 patents.
3M said it balances work between improving products and creating new ones.
Kieschke and others said the company still feels the influence of prior leaders such as James McNerney, a former General Electric executive who served four years as CEO in the early 2000s. McNerney installed "Six Sigma," a regimen used at GE to measure and standardize business practices but loathed by 3M researchers as a creativity killer. [Moi ici: Aqui o anónimo da província não se deixou enganar]
Under Inge Thulin, who held the CEO job from 2012 to 2018, 3M more than doubled its dividend and spent billions on share buybacks. Research spending went up modestly during that period. Even so, Thulin told investors in 2016 that he wanted higher R&D productivity. 3M makes big investments, he said, "we also expect big returns." Neither McNerney nor Thulin could be reached for comment.
...
Such projects have kept talent flowing into 3M, which hires about 40 Ph.D. scientists a year into its corporate labs. Not all of them stay, including Ben Mac Murray, who joined the company in 2018 with a doctorate in materials science and engineering from Cornell University.
He became part of a group working on 3-D printing and was impressed with 3M's capabilities. Yet he felt the pace of product development was too slow. In 2021, he left to work at materials-science company Interfacial, which he said was "quicker in general from idea to product.""
É como uma doença que se apanhou, ao misturar 6 sigma com inovação, e da qual é muito dificil recuperar. Tempo de repensar a melhoria contínua
"Os últimos indicadores sinalizam esse aumento da emigração qualificada. É uma 'fuga de cérebros, como no passado?
- Não, o que temos hoje é uma coisa diferente e não vai ter a escala que teve no passado. Há, nas pessoas e nos grupos com que trabalho, um sentimento geral de que esta saída do país já não é uma fuga mas uma ambição, sobretudo dos mais jovens, de criar novos mundos e somar experiências de desenvolvimento profissional, motivados também por programas como o Erasmus que ainda na universidade estimulam esta visão transformadora. Ou seja, já não é a emigração que antes conhecíamos, exclusivamente movida pela necessidade e pela falta de oportunidades no país."
Trecho retirado de ""A saída do país já não é uma fuga, é uma ambição"" publicado no caderno de Economia do semanário Expresso desta semana.
