Volume is vanity, Profit is sanity

"Market leadership is even more precarious. The percentage of companies falling out of the top three rankings in their industry increased from 2% in 1960 to 14% in 2008. What’s more, market leadership is proving to be an increasingly dubious prize: The once strong correlation between profitability and industry share is now almost nonexistent in some sectors. According to our calculation, the probability that the market share leader is also the profitability leader declined from 34% in 1950 to just 7% in 2007. And it has become virtually impossible for some executives even to clearly identify in what industry and with which companies they’re competing."

Como não recordar o clássico "Manage For Profit, Not For Market Share: A Guide to Greater Profits In Highly Contested Markets"

Trecho retirado de "Adaptability: The New Competitive Advantage"

"The market share mindset is the antithesis of a value mindset"

"One of the most important tests of your organization's maturity level and business orientation is how you use the word "commodity." If this is a common way for you to describe your products—internally and especially externally—you shouldn't be surprised if customers treat you as a commodity, meaning they argue that you have no differentiation. They have no desire at all to pay a premium. A commodity mindset shows that you don't have the right business orientation for VBP. ...Given maturity and a business orientation, there is also a difference between going through the motions and making the required changes and improvements. The volume-versus-value mindset is decisive. It is often the acid test for a transformation and for whether an organization is serious about it. ...You can spend all the money you want and create the culture you want, but if your organization is not willing to let go of market share, it will not change. Pretty brutal, but true. The market share mindset is the antithesis of a value mindset. It is the Jack Welch "be number r or number 2" mentality that still determines the way so many Gen Xers and Gen Yers run their businesses. I find it almost surreal in some companies that make market share into one of their most important and most reported KPIs."

Trechos retirados de Stephan M. Liozu em "Dollarizing Differentiation Value: A Practical Guide for the Quantification and the Capture of Customer Value"

"There are no pricing problems; only segmentation problems"

"What is the most important thing you can share about pricing?

• There are no pricing problems; only segmentation problems. [Moi ici: Qual é mesmo a segmentação que a sua empresa faz?]

• Think about your end-customer first.

• Value is in the perspective of the person with whom you are talking.

• The value changes in context as well.

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How does a price war destroy value?

• War results in destruction and casualties and price war leads to value destruction. – Dropped Mobile Profits

• There is a misconception of success when you capture market share.

• The causation effect is lost in the minds of people during a price war.

• Market share at any cost is chasing the wrong target.

• Which comes first, market share or profit?

• Profit comes first as it creates value for the customer; value comes first."

Trechos retirados de "The Ethics of Price Discrimination with Rags Srinivasan"

Acerca de medir o que interessa

O @pauloperes chamou-me a atenção para "Should You Use Market Share as a Metric?"

É claro que me lembrei do primeiro livro que li de Hermann Simon, "Manage for Profit, Not for Market Share: A Guide to Greater Profits in Highly Contested Markets"
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Voltando ao artigo:

"Managers commonly argue that market share is a useful intermediate measure — in effect, a leading indicator of future success. In some markets, market share probably does help increase future profits, but this is not always the case: General Motors Co. was the world’s biggest carmaker before filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy court protection in June 2009. Therefore, it is critical to understand the expected relationship between market share and profitability in your specific market.
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In some markets, bigger can be better; the most obvious examples are markets with economies of scale. Companies in such markets can reduce their cost per unit by selling more — thus increasing overall profits. If you think you are in such a market, you should confirm that the economies of scale you think exist actually do. Economies of scale do not automatically apply to all markets."

O tema deste artigo joga bem com este texto de Seth Godin "Numbers (and the magic of measuring the right thing)":

"When you measure the wrong thing, you get the wrong thing. Perhaps you can be precise in your measurement, but precision is not significance.
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On the other hand, when you are able to expose your work and your process to the right thing, to the metric that actually matters, good things happen.
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We need to spend more time figuring out what to keep track of, and less time actually obsessing over the numbers that we are already measuring."

E na sua empresa, o que é que se mede? Qual o racional por trás dessas escolhas? Que sinais internos são enviados por essas escolhas?

Pricing man (parte II) - para reflexão

Mais um trecho retirado de "Confessions of the Pricing Man: How Price Affects Everything" de Hermann Simon.

"Countries show significant differences in how profitable their companies are. I have tracked data on this topic for many years, and attribute some of the results to cultural norms. Figure 5.1 compares the average profit margins for companies in 22 countries.

US companies are in the middle of the pack at 6.2 %. German companies have an average after-tax profit of 4.2 %, placing them in the lower half despite their improved performance in the recent past. Japanese companies have assumed their customary place near the bottom, with a meager 2.0 %. The average across all countries works out to 6.0 %.

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What causes these sharp differences? To a large degree it is a matter of having the wrong goals. While I wouldn’t say these numbers are completely self-fulfilling prophecies, they do reflect the priorities that companies set. Too many companies have given higher priority to goals other than profit.

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There is nothing inherently wrong with having sales, volume, and market share targets. Most companies have them and work hard to strike the right balance. These three secondary goals, however, offer you no useful guidance for price setting. Price setting requires a thorough understanding of two things: how your customers perceive your value and the profit level you need to sustain or improve that value. If market share is your primary goal, why don’t you just give away your product for free? Or even pay customers to use it? Of course such a strategy makes no sense. The reality in almost all companies is that goal setting is not an “either-or” exercise. 

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Balance is paramount. The central problem is that most companies are not balanced. They still underemphasize profits relative to such goals as market share, revenue, volume, or growth. And they misunderstand the often dire consequences of that prioritization. This imbalance results in bizarre pricing strategies and ineffective marketing tactics."

Acerca da produtividade e dos feriados

Por estes dias, é interessante - ou deverei antes escrever exasperante? - acompanhar o debate no Twitter entre a direita e a esquerda acerca do efeito da reposição dos feriados na produtividade.
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Como é que se consegue mais produção? Como se aumenta a produtividade?
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A resposta da direita e da esquerda está nesta frase:

"Toda a gente sabe que o aumento da produtividade se consegue com mais produção. E como é que se consegue mais produção? Trabalhando mais horas ou, trabalhando com mais afinco em cada hora..."[Cuidado, isto é sarcasmo. Não se iludam!]

A direita defende "Trabalhando mais horas".
A esquerda defende "trabalhando com mais afinco em cada hora". [O racional é: mais horas de descanso levam a mais produtividade nas horas em que se trabalha. Foi o que li num tweet].
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Não há dúvida que as empresas portuguesas têm um problema de produtividade. No entanto, assim como a redução dos feriados não mudou o panorama, também agora a sua reposição não o altera.
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Qual é a minha receita? Há muitos anos que defendo aqui uma abordagem bem diferente da veiculada pelo mainstream. Recentemente encontrei este resumo de Ronald Baker:

"When you think about the traditional theory of an enterprise, you would no doubt construct a model similar to this:

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Revenue = Capacity X Efficiency X Cost-Plus Price

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... this model dominates the thinking of business leaders to this day"

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A direita chama a atenção para a "Capacidade" e a esquerda para a "Eficiência".
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A equação resume bem a mentalidade do Normalistão que governou o pensamento económico do século XX.
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O que aqui defendemos há muitos anos pode ser resumido por:

"The old equation is no longer relevant to the drivers of success in the business of the future.

...

It is time to replace the old equation described in the previous chapter with this new model: 

Profitability = Intellectual Capital X Price X Effectiveness"

Comparar as parcelas:

• Lucro versus Volume de vendas
• Capital Intelectual versus Capacidade
• Preço versus Cost-plus Price
• Eficácia versus Eficiência

Continua.

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Relacionar com:

• Economistas desvalorizam impacto no PIB do regresso dos feriados
• Industriais alertam para custo do regresso dos feriados
• Mário Centeno diz que o modelo de baixos salários “está esgotado”

BTW se usam esta argumentação e fonte:

In defence of Europe’s long holidays https://t.co/DcAvYeF1ts sobre as vantagens para a produtividade de ter mais dias de descanso.

— Sérgio Lavos (@sergiolavos) January 5, 2016

Convinha ler tudo até ao fim, nomeadamente:

"But raising productivity is not a consequence of extending the time between when workers clock in and out, nor reducing the number of weeks a year they spend on the Côte d’Azur or the Costa Brava."

Trecho retirado de "Measure what matters to customers : using key predictive indicators" de Ronald J. Baker.

Assim, talvez ter inimigos entre os clientes ou ex-clientes seja bom sinal (parte III)

Parte I e parte II.
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Quando escrevi o que escrevi na parte II, limitei-me a desenvolver um modelo mental que pode ser descrito por este esquema:

Ontem, fui levado a reler o artigo "The High Price of Customer Satisfaction", citado em "Cuidado com os pré-cozinhados". É impressionante como retive e incorporei a mensagem do artigo no meu racional. Primeiro, recordemos uma citação de ontem:

"allowing a galaxy of small companies to compete with multinationals"

PME não procuram ser as líderes de quota de mercado, por isso, com um pouco de pensamento estratégico, podem facilmente competir com vantagem com os pesados dinossauros das multinacionais. Vejamos então, algumas citações do artigo relido:

"Managers often assume that improving customer satisfaction and financial performance go hand in hand. The reality, however, is much more complex.
...
Customer satisfaction has become the most widely used metric in companies’ efforts to measure and manage customer loyalty. The assumption is simple and intuitive: Highly satisfied customers are good for business.
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However, the reality has not proven nearly so simple. In fact, we have found that if you look across industries at the correlation between companies’ customer-satisfaction levels for a given year and the corresponding stock performance of these companies for that same year, on average, satisfaction explains only 1% of the variation in a company’s market return."

Quando leio estes artigos americanos aprendi a usar uma dupla precaução, estes consultores e professores tratam com que tipo de empresas? Quase sempre com empresas grandes e muito grandes. Continuemos:

"High customer-satisfaction ratings are typically treated by managers as being universally good for business. Our findings indicate, however, that the benefits are not nearly so clear-cut.
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For example, a large [Moi ici: Estava mesmo à espera disto. "Large" significa, perseguir quota de mercado] beverage distributor in the midwestern U.S. found that the return on its satisfaction efforts was negative.
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If we look at one key factor that drives customer satisfaction — low prices — it is easy to see why this is the case. [Moi ici: Empresas grandes, buscam a maior quota de mercado. Logo, recorrem ao "lowest common denominator", o preço, por exemplo, para seduzir os clientes]
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In general, satisfaction and price are almost always inversely related. As a result, lowering price tends to be one of the easiest ways to improve satisfaction levels. [Moi ici: Apetece escrever "OMG" que racional mais básico... pois, racional de dinossauro. Como é que escrevia o @pmarca no Twitter há dias? "I like to say that if you are afraid of large corporations then you have never worked for one."]
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For example, the majority of customers of a large financial services company we examined were highly satisfied. The problem was that over two-thirds of these  highly satisfied customers were also unprofitable to the company. The customers’ high satisfaction was driven largely by the belief that they were getting exceptional deals — and they were.
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[Moi ici: E para terminar, esta desconcertante mensagem que se segue] What is clear from our research is that there is not one right way to improve satisfaction. Different approaches are required depending upon the profiles of the company’s customers and the nature of the competitive environment. Moreover, it may even  be necessary to accept lower average satisfaction levels in the pursuit of greater market share by appealing to a larger, less homogeneous customer base." [Moi ici: Empresas grandes vivem de market share, têm de trabalhar para uma base de clientes menos homogénea e usar o preço como forma de aliciamento... idealmente querem tratar os clientes como plankton. As PME não precisam de enveredar por esta via, podem fugir da quota de mercado e apostar em segmentos muito mais exigentes, muito mais homogéneos e que valorizam outras coisas que não o preço.] 

Assim, talvez ter inimigos entre os clientes ou ex-clientes seja bom sinal (parte II)

Parte I.
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Vamos recuar a 2008 com esta imagem:

Quanto mais pura é uma estratégia, maior a rentabilidade.
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Então, porque razão é que uma empresa há-de enveredar por estratégias híbridas?
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Suspeito que por causa do "bezerro de ouro" da quota de mercado.
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Quando uma empresa opta por uma estratégia pura, por exemplo, escolhe como clientes-alvo, para o seu projecto de turismo no Douro, os birdwatchers entusiastas e endinheirados, escolhe servir um nicho e deixa de lado muitos potenciais clientes que não se encaixam no perfil.
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Voltemos ao teste da parte I: Se o contrário de uma estratégia não é estúpido, então, uma empresa bem sucedida terá clientes muito satisfeitos (evangelistas), os birdwatchers entusiastas e endinheirados, os clientes-alvos da estratégia. E, terá também, clientes muito insatisfeitos (potenciais terroristas), os clientes-alvo de uma estratégia oposta, os apreciadores de paisagens, ou os apreciadores de paz e sossego, ou os apreciadores de vinho do Douro, ou ...
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Além da quota de mercado, outro factor que pode levar uma empresa a optar por estratégias híbridas é a crença na relação:

Se uma empresa medir a satisfação dos clientes recorrendo a questionários genéricos, bem intencionados mas não construídos com base na sua estratégia, fica condenada à comoditização, como tão bem explica Youngme Moon.
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Recordar:

• "Os clientes errados não têm razão"
• "Now, something completely different... para nos deixar a pensar"
• "Não é armadilhar, é arte";
• "Cuidado com os pré-cozinhados"

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Se essa empresa medir a satisfação dos seus clientes terá um resultado não muito abonatório, pois a alta pontuação dos evangelistas será "aguada" pela baixa pontuação dos terroristas.
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Ora, se uma empresa tem em conta a quota de mercado e a suposta relação entre satisfação e resultados financeiros, vai começar a pensar em "namorar" os clientes que não são o alvo, para as poder aumentar, para poder chegar a mais gente e ganhar mais. Por isso, vai abandonar a sua estratégia pura e vai enveredar por uma estratégia híbrida, para melhorar a opinião dos terroristas. Como consequência, os evangelistas vão deixar de ter a a empresa em tão alta consideração.
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Resultado:

• a quota de mercado vai aumentar;
• a satisfação medida vai aumentar;
• a diferenciação face a outras empresas vai baixar;
• a empresa vai-se comoditizar;
• a margem vai baixar.

Assim, valores elevados de satisfação, associados a elevadas quotas de mercado, acabam por se correlacionarem com margens mais apertadas.
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Um tema muito parecido com este é desenvolvido por Ajit Rao em "Value Promise versus Value Delivery" publicado por Journal of Creating Value 1(1) -91 –100. Alguns excertos:

"If one reviews customer satisfaction questionnaires, one would find that in any sector, there are minor differences between the questionnaire of one brand of service provider and another.
This indicates that most companies today are offering and measuring ‘commodity’ customer service. The questionnaires are mostly similar, especially in the factors (themes) and attributes that are covered in the survey.
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the customer satisfaction scores of most banks is going up. Yet, the share of the wallet is decreasing, possibly because most customers are unable to differentiate one bank from another, based on quality of service, and hence, customers end up choosing a bank/product based on charges, fees or interest rates.[Moi ici: Como não me lembrar de conversa ao almoço na semana passada em que gerente se queixava que o seu sector, muito regulado, presta um serviço de excelência e não é recompensado devidamente por isso. Falei-lhe logo no marxianismo.]
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Over the past several years, managers have been largely preoccupied with improving operational effectiveness [Moi ici: Cá está a minha preocupação com a cristalização do movimento da Qualidade] resulting in the rise of the quality movement, the six-sigma movement, etc. A natural fallout of these improvement efforts was the overall enhancement in customer satisfaction.
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Organizations are also benchmarking themselves with their competitors, not only within their markets but also with companies in other regions. So when a company makes a change in any of its processes other companies quickly follow those best practices. This tendency is resulting in ‘raising the bar’ when it comes to service delivery at customer ‘moments-of-truth’.
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As a result, customer satisfaction of most organizations is going up. However, in the process, there is hardly any differentiation in the services delivered from a company in one sector to another.
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Those organizations that view service as a competitive edge focus their energies in improving customer satisfaction. However, over time, while these companies do indeed improve customer satisfaction, they do so at the cost of poor differentiation compared to competition.
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Hence despite improving customer satisfaction, these sectors end up competing on price and promotions.
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Organizations cannot view service delivery or customer experience independent of the brand and only as improvements in operational excellence; organizations will need to bring strategy back into service delivery by ensuring that the brand promise is delivered at every interaction point with the organization. Indeed, the management and measurement of customer satisfaction will no longer be about just plain satisfaction but about relevant satisfaction or satisfaction in the context of truly aligning the experience with the brand promise."[Moi ici: Este sublinhado final é tremendo de importância... se bem interiorizado, cada empresa teria um questionário de satisfação em função da sua estratégia e não um genérico que o consultor trouxe]

"Strategy = compete for profit"

"2. Strategy = compete for profit
Business is not about having the largest market share or about growing fast. It’s about making money. ‘I want to grow my business’ is not a strategy. [Moi ici: Recordar o truque de Roger Martin, uma estratégia é uma escolha, se o oposto dessa escolha for estúpido então não é uma estratégia] ‘I want to grow my business’ is the same as saying, ‘I want to be rich’. Those things (unfortunately) don’t happen by themselves. Growing is not a strategy, it’s a consequence. When someone includes growth in their strategy, there should be an orange light starting to blink. [Moi ici: Volume is vanity, Profit is sanity] That does not mean that you cannot use the word ‘growth’. I use it a lot in the analysis phase – for example, when you talk about growth areas of the business or when you look for growth platforms – areas where you can reach potential that will give you additional profit."

Trecho retirado de "Strategy Execution - The definitive guide" de Strategy Jeroen De Flander

As escolhas importantes

"To break from the pack, you must dominate some significant area of the market.
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In today’s Copycat Economy, you can’t be great in many businesses, you can’t be curious, cool and crazy in many businesses, and it’s a fool’s gambit even to try. You must choose your markets, your products, and your customers very carefully, then go in with tremendous creative and productive force until you dominate the arenas you’ve selected.
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First, it’s important to remember that domination is not necessarily about being the biggest. Whopping balance sheets, stout sales figures, fat market shares, and big newspaper headlines are no indication that a company has taken command of its market,
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Neither is domination about beating up a rival"

Trechos retirados de "Break From the Pack" de Oren Harari

Em Mongo pode dizer-se "We're not in Kansas anymore!"

Ontem, o @pauloperes chamou-me a atenção para este texto "The Growth Share Matrix Revisited".
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Fiquei logo apanhado por um dos gráficos apresentados:

Um gráfico tão ao jeito de Mongo, um gráfico tão em sintonia com o que se escreve neste blogue há vários anos e que destoa do mainstream. Um gráfico tão ao jeito da economia como uma continuação da biologia e, que se traduz em "as estratégias não são eternas".
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Em Mongo, no Estranhistão, em que somos todos weirdos e orgulhosos disso, há mais gente fora do que dentro da caixa:

Quantos decisores, porque foram formados por quem aprendeu nos anos 60 e 70, continuam a acreditar que market share e lucro são sinónimos?
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Continua.

A doença

Via Scott McKain no Twitter, cheguei a isto:

"Every 10% of market share gained by dominant
companies leads to a 1.5% fall in customer satisfaction"

Recordar o que escrevi sobre a quota de mercado aqui:

"quota de mercado (por mim, não uso este objectivo estratégico, porque pode envenenar muita coisa e destruir margens)"

Ou os títulos:

"Não confundir quota de mercado com lucro" e "E a sua empresa, tem mais olhos que barriga?" e "The Profit Zone (parte II)"

Nunca esquecer:

"volume is vanity profit is sanity" 

O que é que isso pode querer dizer sobre a qualidade da estratégia da Apple?

Há bocado, neste postal "O que é que a sua empresa exclui?" chamávamos a atenção para este trecho carregado de sabedoria:

"If someone else is making money on what you choose not to do, it just might be a sign that you have a good strategy."

Pois bem, agora descubro nesta reflexão de Rags Srinivasan em "Quote of the Century on Running a Business" :

"these plans would eat into Apple’s margins, and investors hate when that happens. True, but they would drive sales and improve Apple’s market share, which would be a boon to Apple’s future earnings, especially if you believe that its low smartphone market share leaves it vulnerable to Google."

Se as escolhas estratégicas da Apple deixarem espaço para que "someone else" (Google) faça dinheiro com o que a  Apple resolveu não fazer... o que é que isso pode querer dizer sobre a qualidade da estratégia da Apple?
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Nunca esquecer:
"Volume is Vanity, Profit is Sanity" ou Hermann Simon e o seu "Manage for Profit, Not for Market Share: A Guide to Greater Profits in Highly Contested Markets"

E a sua empresa, tem mais olhos que barriga?

Enquanto corro ando a ouvir "The Ultimate Question" de Fred Reichheld, nele o autor aborda frequentemente a ideia dos "bons lucros" versus a ideia dos "maus lucros".
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Não posso deixar de fazer a ligação a Hermann Simon e ao seu "Manage For Profit Not For Market Share"... sim, "Profit is Sanity, Volume is Vanity".
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Pois bem, Dale Furtwengler em "Pricing for Profit" explica bem o que acontece quando se se quer crescer para lá do grupo de clientes-alvo, para aumentar a quota de mercado:

"Let’s say that your market, the people who will pay significantly more for your offering because they value what you provide, is 100,000 buyers. Let’s further assume that you’ve saturated your market, which, to me, means that you’ve achieved about 70 percent market share (70,000 customers from this group).
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you decide to increase “market share” by expanding the market to include people who have an interest in your offering, but who don’t really value it enough to pay your price.

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How do you attract them? Typically you’re going to offer a lower price. It could be in the form of a lower cash price, more favorable payment or delivery terms, or higher quality or additional service. Whatever the form, you have, in essence, lowered your price. To handle this additional volume, your infrastructure has to grow, with the following results. You will: 

1. Spend more to attract these customers, and the sales cycle will become more protracted, thereby driving up both your marketing and sales costs. 
2. Invest more in inventory if you’re a manufacturer/assembler. 
3. Typically experience slower pay because these buyers don’t really value what you offer. 
4. Pay more interest to finance larger inventories and older receivables. 
5. Experience more bad debt losses, because buyers don’t value your offerings. 
6. Incur more in customer service costs dealing with customer complaints; people who don’t value what they buy are easily disappointed. Attracting that second tier customer is expensive. It’s one reason why so many businesses end up with 20 percent of their customers being the wrong customers." (Moi ici: Recordar as curvas de Stobachoff)

Quanto custa a uma empresa não conhecer os seus clientes-alvo?

Quanto custa a uma empresa ter mais olhos que barriga?

Duh!

Este já aprendeu:
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“We will shift our strategy to improving profitability from pursuing market share blindly with cheap and unprofitable products,”

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Uma frase que aborda 3 tópicos fundamentais:

• Esquecer a quota de mercado, o crescer por crescer;
• Esquecer os produtos baratos, com margens apertadas, assentes na quantidade... isso é para quem tem modelos de negócio adequados a eles;
• Focar no lucro... curva de Stobachoff com eles.

Agora só falta a tríade aprender a mesma lição que o senhor J. T. Wang

"Volume is Vanity, Profit is Sanity"

Não sou, nunca fui um incondicional da Apple.
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Desde uma relação de quasi-desprezo, dos tempos em que só uma certa classe tinha, ou podia ter, um Macintosh, a coisa evoluiu até aos dias de hoje em que sinto sobretudo respeito e admiração.
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Um dos meus dizeres favoritos é:
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"Volume is Vanity, Profit is Sanity"
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Várias vezes cito aqui Hermann Simon e o seu "Manage for Profit, Not for Market Share"
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Inúmeras vezes discuto nas empresas contra a paranóia da quantidade em detrimento da concentração na margem, no lucro, na rentabilidade.
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Assim, não podia estar mais em desacordo com este título do FT "Samsung beats Apple in mobile stakes"
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Por que é que o jornal optou por este título?
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"UK-based Strategy Analytics, a market research firm that follows the smartphone market closely, on Friday said Samsung shipped 27.8m smartphones in the last quarter, taking 23.8 per cent of the market, compared with Apple’s 17.1m shipments and 14.6 per cent market share."
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Não deixa de ser um desempenho notável da Samsung, sublinhe-se. Contudo, o meu ponto é este:
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"Samsung’s handset profit margin stood at 16.9 per cent. The company is the world’s second most profitable handset maker after Apple, whose operating margin was 30.8 per cent in the third quarter."

Apologia da flexibilidade

Para os que acreditam na quota de mercado como o indicador todo-poderoso, para os que têm medo dos gigantes, para os que hesitem em defrontar os gigantes (sem aprender com a Al-Qaeda ou o Hezzbolah):
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"Early in his tenure as CEO of General Electric, Jack Welch promulgated a hard-nosed policy for his company’s divisional managers: Either get to be number 1 or number 2 in your markets, he warned them, or expect to be dumped by the Mother Ship. And Welch delivered on his threat: He unloaded 117 businesses—or 1 in every 5 GE businesses— valued at $9 billion. When the heads of those number 3 and number 4 industry players protested, pointing out that (in many cases) they were highly profitable,
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Now, I’d be the first to admit that Welch had some housecleaning to do when he first took the helm at GE. Nevertheless, there is one thing wrong with this … approach. It assumes that someone in the organization can define “market share” in a meaningful (i.e., “profitable”) way. As the BMW/DaimlerChrysler example amply illustrates, fuzzy thinking about market share can infiltrate the corner offices of some of the world’s smartest corporations.
Insisting on being number 1 or number 2 in your market—without first having a very clear understanding of what definition of market share really drives profitability—can take some very interesting opportunities off the table. Howard Stevenson, an expert in entrepreneurship at Harvard Business School, jokingly used to thank Jack Welch for creating so many good opportunities for “the rest of us.”
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As mighty GE packed its bags, unfurled its sails, and sailed out of the harbor, smaller competitors were quite happy to move in on the abandoned territory.”
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Trecho retirado de "Where Value Hides" de Stuart Jackson

Volume is vanity... não há dúvidas!

Volume is vanity... profit is sanity.
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Até a Toyota se iludiu com o conforto para o seu ego em ser a maior, de ter a maior quota de mercado:
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"Only two years ago, Toyota was riding the crest of a deliberate growth strategy in which it doubled in size and became the world’s biggest car company. Although most carmakers have suffered, Toyota’s rapid decline shocked many at the automaker and the experts who follow it."
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"Toyota has an advantage over its Detroit rivals in its streamlined processes for engineering and building its cars, said James P. Womack, an author and expert on company efficiency. But he said the company, famous for caution and self-reflection, strayed when growth, not quality, became its main concern."
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Por fim um ponto que parece retirado do Purple Cow de Seth Godin "“Instead of trying to be the manufacturer for everyone, they need to get back to being the best,” she said."
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No NYT "New Leader Tries to Get Toyota Back on the Road"

"We get in trouble when we forget the basics.We get out of trouble when we remember the basics"

Tom Peters escreveu recentemente acerca desta crise em que vivemos:
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""We get in trouble when we forget the basics.We get out of trouble when we remember the basics.We stay out of trouble when we become perpetually "insane" about the basics."
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Um dos fundamentais mais importantes que conheço, resume-se bem numa rima:
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Volume is Vanity;
Profit is Sanity.
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Sou um apreciador das ideias de Hermann Simon, por exemplo no seu livro "Manage for Profit Not For Market Share", daí que me faça sempre impressão o crescimento cego, ainda que à custa da rentabilidade.
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Bom, voltando a Tom Peters: "We get in trouble when we forget the basics.We get out of trouble when we remember the basics.We stay out of trouble when we become perpetually "insane" about the basics."
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Também Ram Charan, no seu livro "Leadership in the Era of Economic Uncertainty", publicado já durante o ano de 2009, aconselha:
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"Your focus must shift from the income statement to the balance sheet. Protecting cash flow is the most important challenge almost all companies face today whether they realize it or not.
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Pursuit of revenue growth must give way to understanding the cash implications of everything your company does.
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Because lack of liquidity will be an ever-present lethal threat, you will have to manage conservatively, lowering your cash breakeven point as rapidly as possible for the worst-case scenario.
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After spending their careers in a single-minded pursuit of growth, business leaders have to adjust their mentality. Some CEOs are telling their people that they should go for market share against competitors whose conditios could be unraveling. You should pursue that kind of growth only if it is profitable and cash-efficient.
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One CEO I know surrendered 8% of his volume when he raised prices, but the new prices stuck and the result was the security of improved cash flow. It was a risky move. I recommend that in this environment you only raise prices on your least profitable customers. Even then, be prepared to walk away from those customers if they balk.
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This is a time to narrow your focus and concentrate on the core of the business: the invaluable assets you can´t afford to lose. Choose the market segments and even the particular customers you will continue to serve, the products you will continue to make, and the suppliers you will continue to buy from and eliminate the rest."
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O que é que andamos a pregar há 4 anos neste espaço?
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The basics, os fundamentais!!!
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A concentração no que é essencial.

The Profit Zone (parte II)

Voltando mais uma vez ao livro de Adrian Slywotzky e David Morrison, "The Profit Zone", escrito em 1997, ao finalizar o primeiro capítulo dou comigo a imaginar o que teria sido o desempenho das nossas PME's se a mensagem do livro tivesse sido conhecida, percebida, entranhada e implementada com dez anos de avanço ...

Desde o início da Revolução Industrial até algures entre a década de 60 e 70 do século passado, a realidade do mercado era a descrita na figura. A Procura agregada era maior do que a Oferta agregada.
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Nesta realidade, quem manda é quem produz, tudo o que se produzir vende-se, há mercado para toda a produção que as empresas consigam realizar.
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Assim, como a concorrência entre empresas era relativamente fraca, dado que havia mercado para todos e os clientes estavam a multiplicar-se e a aumentar a sua capacidade aquisitiva, o critério fundamental para ter sucesso era aumentar a quota de mercado. Quanto maior a quota de mercado maiores as poupanças conseguidas à custa de economias de escala, maior a eficiência das empresas, maior a rentabilidade. Crescer, crescer, crescer era a palavra de ordem.
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“Market share was the grand old metric, the guiding light, the compasso f the product-centric age. Companies focused on improving their product and building economies of scale. This product-centric thinking led to the battle cry: “Get more market share and the profit will follow.”
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Contudo, ao longo dos anos 80, a maioria dos líderes de quota de mercado viram a sua rentabilidade degradar-se continuamente. Apesar da sua dimensão e posição dominante, as elevadas quotas de mercado não os protegeram acabando por terem uma rentabilidade inferior à média do mercado.
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“The two most valuable ideas in the old economic order, market share and growth, have become the two most dangerous ideas in the new order.”
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“Companies used to be able to command a premium price by simply showing up. There were relatively few players in any competitive arena, and customers held little power. ... however, advances in industrial technology, innovation in business design, increases in global competition, and tremendous improvements in information technology have altered the game. In the face of intensive competition, companies in many industries have leveraged efficiency gains and competed for market share by lowering price.
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Simultaneously, information has become more accessible to customers, allowing them to conveniently shop for the best deals and the best prices. This forces all contenders to match price reductions or lose customers to a lower-priced competitor. It creates no-profit zones. In the old world, the rule was: Every industry makes money, and the market share leaders make the most money.”
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“Today, no-profit zones are everywhere, and they are growing. … They can be a part of the value chain; they can be a customer segment; they can be an entire industry; they can be individual customers; or they can be an entire business models.

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Quando vêmos empresas texteis que fecham falidas, apesar de estarem carregadas de encomendas, vêmos empresas que estavam a operar na no-profit zone.
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No-profit zones are the black holes of the business universe.”

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Quantas empresas preferem o lucro à quota de mercado?
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Ao terminar o primeiro capítulo do livro os autores descrevem o uso de conceitos como modelo de negócio, proposta de valor e sobretudo clientes-alvo.
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Continua.