成功企業(yè)必須克服的五個問題

1. 管理難度

Running a global, complex company in 2014 is one of the most difficult management and leadership challenges imaginable.After all, Coke is sold inalmost every country in the world; Wal-Martemploys2.2m people. For companies such as these,not only do you need to run your business, but you also need to think about how to completely change it at times. Few large companies are adept at pulling off both these tricks. Maybe that’s why IBM has fallen behind in cloud services and mobile, two of the most important changes in the IT world. They require different organisational structures and even different talent for success than IBM’s core businesses.

年管理一家龐雜的全球企業(yè)是管理層所能想象到的最困難的挑戰(zhàn)。畢竟，可口可樂在全世界幾乎所有國家都有業(yè)務;沃爾瑪有220萬雇員。對這樣的企業(yè)來說，不僅需要考慮業(yè)務的開展，還要思考如何在一些時候徹底革新。幾乎沒有哪家大企業(yè)能夠同時嫻熟掌握這兩種技巧?；蛟S這就是IBM沒趕上信息行業(yè)兩大變化——云服務和移動——的原因。這需要不同于IBM核心業(yè)務的組織結構，甚至需要不同的人才。

Successful companies build strong culturesthat reinforce that success. Adapting to changeoften requires leaders to breakthat culture. That’s not easy.

成功的公司構建強大的企業(yè)文化，而這又幫助企業(yè)獲得成功。而順應變化常常需要領導者打破原來的企業(yè)文化。這并不容易。

2. The formula for growth is not infinite

2. 增長沒有固定的公式

There are clear pathways to growing a business. Once you have your core product or service,your opportunities come from selling it to more customers. Eventually the quest for customers leads tonew markets. Simultaneously, companies seek to expand. Perhaps they look fornewways to leverage their main products, or they seek to offer new services.

企業(yè)增長有清晰的路徑。一旦你有了核心產(chǎn)品或服務，把它出售給更多的消費者，你就會獲得增長機會。最終，為了贏得更多的消費者，企業(yè)會進軍新的市場。同時，企業(yè)還試圖擴張。企業(yè)可能會尋找新的方式來利用它們的主打產(chǎn)品，或者它們會試圖提供新的服務。

And that’s it. Growth comes from selling the same thing to new customers or selling new thingsto existing customers, orboth. What happens when a company and its leaders have pretty much played all these cards? Where else can Coca-Cola sell their products? Are there someproductcategories that Wal-Mart and Tesco have yet to uncover?

這就是全部了。增長來自于把同樣的東西出售給新的顧客，或向現(xiàn)有的顧客出售新的東西，或者雙管齊下。但是，當一家企業(yè)基本上打完了所有這些牌以后，會發(fā)生什么?可口可樂還可以賣到哪里去?還有什么產(chǎn)品類別是沃爾瑪和樂購沒有覆蓋到的嗎?

3. New growth opportunities usually involvemore risk

3. 新的增長機會常常伴隨著更大的風險

Once a company begins to exhaust its coregrowth formula, it has got to look further afield.And that means expanding into tangentially related businesses where they may no longer have the inherent advantage.

一旦一家企業(yè)開始逐漸耗盡其核心增長模式，它就必須把目光放到其他領域。這就意味著向相關的臨近業(yè)務擴展，而企業(yè)在這些領域可能并沒有內(nèi)在優(yōu)勢。

Amazon is a particularly intriguing example, because its managers are taking all sorts of new risks via expansion,even while its core business — ecommerce — is growing by leaps and bounds. It’snot impossible to make this work, but the degree of difficulty goes up exponentially when you enter a market or product category where you don’t have the upper hand. Amazon’s failure in a variety of new ventures, from smartphones, to tablets, to search is a case in point.

亞馬遜是一個特別有趣的例子，因為亞馬遜的管理者在其核心業(yè)務——電子商務——蒸蒸至上的同時，還在通過擴張冒各種風險。這種方式并不是不可能成功，但是當你進入了你完全無法掌控的領域或產(chǎn)品類別時，成功的難度就會以指數(shù)級增長。亞馬遜在各種新項目上遭遇的失敗——從智能手機、平板電腦，到搜索——都是很好的例子。

4. It’s much less fun tocompete when growth slows

4. 增速放緩時競爭就不那么有趣了

Growth is great, but when the naturaltrajectory of growth slows, you’ve got to compete onprice and other features. That’s much lessfun, because you’re now fighting a zero-sum game formarket share points, and it’s much lesslucrative.

增長是件好事，但是當自然增長開始放緩時，你就不得不在價格和其他方面開展競爭。這就不那么有趣了，因為你的競爭目標是市場份額，零和游戲的利潤并不好。

Not only is your business strategy tougherto pull off when growth slows, but a company’saddiction to meeting and beatingmarket expectations (remember the score sheet, aka, thestock market?) createsall sorts of negative side effects. Cost cutting starts to dominate,forinstance. That’s not necessarily a bad thing … until it becomes the go-tostrategy to pushearnings per share growth. There are natural limits to cost cutting, because at some point you start to lose great talent, cut back on new initiatives and push out other priorities. For example,the disastrous Gulf oil spill in 2010 was triggered, at least in part, by BP’s maniacal attention to cost cutting.

當增長放緩時，不僅你的商業(yè)戰(zhàn)略會難以奏效，而且當企業(yè)對達到并超過市場預期上癮時(還記得打分表，即股票市場嗎?)，這會帶來各種各樣的副作用。比如，削減成本開始主導。這未必是件壞事……除非企業(yè)依賴這一戰(zhàn)略以促進每股盈利的增長。從根本上講，削減成本是有上限的，因為到了一定程度，你就會開始損失人才，減少新項目并放棄其他優(yōu)先事項。比如，2010年墨西哥灣漏油事故的部分起因就是英國石油瘋狂削減成本。

IBM has spent more money on stock buybacks and dividends than research and development for some time, a strategy that certainly pushes earnings per share up, but only makes it tougher to compete,and even tougher to find a new path to renewed growth.

近期，IBM用于股票回購和發(fā)放紅利的資金已經(jīng)超過研發(fā)資金。這一戰(zhàn)略當然會促進每股盈利的增長，但是它也會削弱IBM的競爭力，阻礙它尋找新的增長途徑。

5. No company lives forever

5. 沒有長盛不衰的公司

This is the one nobody in the executive suite really wants to hear about, but it’s simply a core lesson of business history. Of the top 100 companies by revenues in 1955, for example, onlyabouta dozen still enjoy that same ranking almost 70 years later. Everything leaders do to grow a business is designed to forestall the day when that growth stops.And of course new waves ofentrepreneurial ventures rise to take up the topspots over time. After all, back in 1955 Wal-Mart and Amazon were nowhere to be found, and McDonald’s was a tiny regional player. Todaythey’re allgiants. What will we see in another few decades?

這一條沒有任何管理人員希望聽到，但它正是商業(yè)歷史中的核心一課。以1955年收入前100的公司為例，70年以后，只有12家左右仍然保持相同的排名。企業(yè)的領導者做的每一件事都是試圖阻止增長停止那一天的到來。不過，新一波創(chuàng)業(yè)公司在崛起的同時自然也會進入收入排行榜。畢竟，1955年時，沃爾瑪和亞馬遜還不存在，麥當勞只是一個微不足道的地方企業(yè)。而如今，它們都成長為商業(yè)巨頭。再過幾十年，我們又會見證什么變化呢?

Companies that become giants in theirindustries are not immune from these fivefundamental forces. At some pointthey become so big that the classic pathways to growthbecome constricted, andthe inevitable rise of new companies start to take their toll. At somepoint,all successful companies become too big to succeed.

即使成為行業(yè)巨頭，這些企業(yè)也無法擺脫這五種基本力量。在某個時候，它們的規(guī)模如此之大，以至于傳統(tǒng)的增長模式受到限制，而另一方面，新興企業(yè)的增長又必然會重創(chuàng)大企業(yè)。到某個時候，所有成就顯赫的企業(yè)都會遇到增長的瓶頸—大到不能再繼續(xù)成功。