Em que negócio nós estamos?, Edward Deming

“What business are we in? In the case of carburetors, was it to make carburetors? Yes. The makers of carburetors made good carburetors, better and better. They were in the business of making carburetors. It would have been better had they been in business to put a stoichiometric mixture of fuel and air into the combustion chamber, and to invent something that would do it better than a carburetor. Innovation on the part of somebody else led to the fuel injector and to hard times for the makers of carburetors. A good question for anybody in business to ask is What business are we in? To do well what we are doing – i.e., to turn out a good product, or good service, whatever it be? Yes, of course, but this is not enough. We must keep asking What product or service would help our customers more? We must think about the future. What will we be making five years from now? Ten years from now?” - W. Edwards Deming. The New Economics. MIT, 1993. P. 10.