【中英双语】大公司要怎么做，才能摆脱被颠覆的命运？
The Strategic Advantage of Incumbency
过去二十年来，许多企业领导者开始关注存亡问题。20世纪的大部分时期，在某一领域经营多年、市场占有率强劲、员工众多的企业都被视为前景乐观。企业规模被当作资产而非负累。但在20世纪90年代初期，IBM和通用汽车等长期居于主导地位的公司开始出现巨额亏损。90年代后期，克莱顿·克里斯坦森（Clayton Christensen）形容成熟公司受累于自身成功的颠覆性创新理论成为企业战略中流行的概念。
Over the past two decades many corporate leaders have become focused—perhaps too focused—on that existential question. For most of the 20th century a company that had been in business for many years and had a strong market share and a large employee base was viewed positively. Size was seen as an asset, not a liability. But in the early 1990s long-dominant firms like IBM and General Motors began experiencing significant losses. Later in that decade, Clayton Christensen’s theory of disruptive innovation, which describes how established companies fall victim to their own success, became a popular concept in strategy.
普遍的思维模式由此发生转变：如今企业年龄和规模往往被视为弱点，老式公司常被塑造成巨人歌利亚，最终会被矮小灵活的大卫打倒。这种普遍的看法——大企业的颠覆和灭亡不可避免——令许多市场主导企业采取防御的态度，创新和转型都像是铤而走险。
That caused a shift in the prevailing mindset: Today age and size are often perceived as vulnerabilities, and “legacy” firms are typically cast as Goliaths that will ultimately be taken down by smaller, nimbler Davids. This conventional wisdom—that corporate disruption and death are inevitable—has put many market leaders in a defensive stance. Inside such firms innovation and transformation efforts can take on an air of desperation.
而我们看到了一条不同的道路。与其摆出防御姿势，成熟企业更应当采取一种我们称为“战略性在位”的思维和行动方式。我们将战略性在位定义为，成熟企业将自身年龄、规模和传统转化为市场支配力、信赖关系和深入洞见等关键优势的能力。这种转化如果安排得当，在位企业就可以改造自身、战略及商业模式，创造新的机遇并防御新入者。
We see a different path forward. Instead of embracing a defensive posture, established companies should adopt a mindset and a set of behaviors we call strategic incumbency. We define strategic incumbency as an established firm’s ability to dynamically convert age, size, and tradition into the key advantages of market power, trusted relationships, and deep insights. That conversion, when managed well, allows incumbents to reinvent themselves, their strategies, and their business models and create new opportunities and ward off upstarts.
问题在于怎么办？成功的在位者会采取哪些措施应对艰难的环境？如何比其他公司准备得更充分？
The question is: How? What steps do successful incumbents take to prevail through tough circumstances? How are they better equipped than other firms?
管理复杂性
Harnessing Complexity
复杂性虽然有负面含义，但也有好的和坏的方面。官僚程序拖慢决策、造成内部权力竞争、让组织变得更加“忙碌”，这是坏的复杂性。增加收入或利润、让人们齐心协力、增加活力和专注的则是好的复杂性。战略性在位要系统性地消除坏的复杂性，有效增加好的复杂性——具体方法通常是以小竞争者无法复制的方式满足各种客户需求。
Although complexity has a negative connotation, it has both good and bad facets. Bureaucratic processes that slow down decision-making, create internal power plays, and add “busyness” to an organization are bad complexity. Anything that boosts the top or bottom line and creates alignment, energy, and focus is good complexity. Strategic incumbents systematically eliminate bad complexity and effectively increase good complexity—often by approaching a wide set of customer needs in ways that smaller competitors can’t replicate.
举个通过复杂性增加价值的例子，比如英荷联营的印度联合利华公司（Hindustan Unilever Limited，简称HUL）。2013年桑吉夫·梅赫塔（Sanjiv Mehta）当上CEO时，这家公司已有80年的历史。梅赫塔质疑内部认为本公司作为印度最大的快速消费品生产商已经没有多少发展空间的想法。为了反驳这一观点，他问了一个简单的问题：“印度消费者的特征是什么？”
For an example of value-adding complexity, consider Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL), the Indian subsidiary of Unilever, the Anglo-Dutch multinational. When Sanjiv Mehta became the CEO of the then 80-year-old organization, in 2013, he challenged the internal sentiment that there was little room for the largest fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) player in the country to grow. To counter that viewpoint, he asked a simple question: “What is the identity of the Indian consumer?”
印度人口超过十亿，每隔几百公里的语言、文化、食物和偏好都不同，这个问题并没有唯一的答案。梅赫塔没有把印度当作一个单一的组织，而是与团队一同设计了“在许多个印度取得胜利”战略。他们首先根据消费模式和经济发展阶段将印度消费者分为14个群体，随后设法通过本土化推动增长——不仅根据当地需求调整产品，还在不同区域采用不同的分销和供应链战略。为了提升组织敏捷性，梅赫塔设立了15个全国级别的分类业务团队，如居家照护、洗衣、护发、护肤、自然和食物等。每支团队由小型委员会独立运营，一位总经理负责达到盈利要求。
There was no single answer for a country of more than a billion people, where language, culture, taste, and preferences change every few hundred kilometers. Instead of approaching India as a monolith, Mehta and his team devised a strategy called “Winning in Many Indias.” First they divided the country into 14 consumer clusters based on consumption patterns and stage of economic development. Then they identified ways to use localization to drive growth—not only by adapting products for local tastes but also by using different distribution and supply chain strategies in different regions. To improve his organization’s agility, Mehta set up 15 country category business teams, such as home care, laundry, hair care, skin care, naturals, and food. Each team was independently run by a mini board and headed by a general manager with a mandate to deliver on the P&L.
这种去中心化的组织帮助HUL将资源投入到能够通过迎合当地需求和口味获得最大回报的地方。HUL的规模和资源——即在位的积累——也使其得以同时采取多种不同的方法。初创企业根本不可能根据这么多不同区域的需求对这么多产品进行调整。
This decentralized organization helped HUL invest resources where it would obtain the highest returns by catering to regional needs and tastes. HUL’s size and resources—its incumbency—allowed it to tackle a broad variety of approaches at once. No start-up could hope to localize so many products for so many regions.
有多少领导团队敢于在如此成功的企业进行规模如此之大的结构性改变？对于梅赫塔而言，让HUL进入下一个增长轨道的唯一方式，就是根据印度各地的不均一性调整公司运营结构。他向投资者解释，“如果（新结构）为业务增加了复杂性，也是像有益胆固醇一样——这是我们乐见的复杂性，在我们的管理之下。”HUL的转型使得收入从2013年至2019年增加了41%，税前利润翻了一倍，利润率持续增长。投资者奖励了公司：2019年10月，HUL市值达到600亿美元，跻身全世界最有价值的快速消费品企业之列，超过高露洁、卡夫亨氏和利洁时（Reckitt Benckiser）。
How many leadership teams would have dared to undertake a structural change of such magnitude—in a successful company at that? For Mehta, the only way to launch HUL on its next growth trajectory was to align the company’s operating structure with the heterogeneity of the country. He explained to investors, “It [the new structure] added complexity to the business, but it is like good cholesterol—it’s a complexity which we welcome, and it’s a complexity which we manage.” HUL’s efforts led to 41% revenue growth from 2013 to 2019, a doubling of pretax profits, and consistent margin improvements. Investors rewarded the company: In October 2019, HUL’s market capitalization of $60 billion made it one of the most valuable FMCG companies in the world, ahead of Colgate-Palmolive, Kraft Heinz, and Reckitt Benckiser.
关注长远发展
Maintaining a Long-Term Focus
我们的研究里，成功的在位企业显示出坚持长远打算的非凡能力。被动的在位者会对季度表现斤斤计较，战略在位者则力求平衡当下的成果和对未来的准备。研究中一家公司的CEO解释，“短期指标是外部计分卡，但还需要更重要的内部计分卡，关注你对员工、客户和社会的长期贡献。”
In our study successful incumbents showed exceptional ability to stick to a long-term agenda. Whereas passive incumbents get caught up in quarterly performance, strategic incumbents strive to balance delivering in the present with preparing for the future. The CEO of one company we studied explained, “The short-term metrics are the outer scorecard, but you also need a more important inner scorecard that looks at the contribution you make to employees, customers, and society in the long term.”
美国著名的迪瑞公司（Deere and Company），所在的农机设备行业周期性很强。几十年来这家公司渡过多次灾难性的行业低迷和锤炼，一个原因是CEO任职时间长——在183年的时间里只有10位CEO。自2009年至2019年担任迪瑞CEO的塞缪尔·艾伦（Samuel Allen）整整45年的职业生涯全都在这家公司度过。他掌舵期间的迪瑞经历了半个世纪以来最严重的经济下行周期。2014年至2016年，主要农作物价格下跌，美国农场收入减少，农场主推迟购买新设备。农机设备销量暴跌，行业分析师开始怀疑迪瑞的发展前景。但艾伦依然忠于公司的长期战略：领导精准农业——将农场设备与科技结合起来，帮助农场主以高效环保的方式提高作物产量和盈利能力——这是前几任CEO在20世纪90年代定下的目标。艾伦坚持严格控制成本，应对紧迫的财务压力，但依然会将年销售额的约4%到6%用于收购和研发投资，打造数字化能力，即使在最艰难的时期也未中止。
Consider the iconic U.S.-based Deere and Company, which operates in the highly cyclical agricultural equipment industry. One reason the company has survived many catastrophic downturns and forged on, decade after decade, is its long-tenured CEOs. It has had just 10 CEOs in its 183-year history. Samuel Allen, Deere’s CEO from 2009 to 2019, was with the company for his entire 45-year career. During his time at the helm, Deere saw the worst down cycle in half a century. From 2014 to 2016, the prices of key agricultural crops fell, U.S. farm income declined, and farmers put off buying new equipment. As sales slumped, industry analysts became skeptical about Deere’s prospects. But Allen remained true to the company’s long-term strategy of being a leader in precision agriculture—the practice of combining farm equipment and technology to help farmers increase yields and profitability in an efficient and environmentally friendly manner—a goal set by his predecessors in the 1990s. He adhered to strict cost discipline to manage the immediate financial pressures but continued to make acquisitions and R&D investments of about 4% to 6% of annual sales to build digital capabilities, even in the most difficult years.
迪瑞公司坚持这一战略的过程中，在位的积累提供了一系列优势：广大的客户基础和一百多年的声誉。农场经营通常是几代人的事业，客户知道是迪瑞的钢犁让中西部成为了农业中心地带。迪瑞早已有这种创新的传统，让价值主张实现现代化。通过为产品配置自动化技术、车载信息服务、计算机视觉系统、全球卫星定位系统和传感器，迪瑞帮助农场主增加产量、降低成本、提高效率，并且极大地促进盈利和增长。21世纪10年代初期，迪瑞开始关注改变行业面貌的数字化技术，如人工智能和机器学习，可以协助为每一株作物做出实时耕种决定。举例来说，迪瑞前不久收购了加利福尼亚的蓝河科技（Blue River Technology），整合计算机视觉和机器学习，让农场主可以只在杂草上喷洒杀虫剂。
As Deere pursued this strategy, incumbency provided it with a set of advantages: an immense installed base and a reputation that extended back more than a hundred years. Farming tends to be a multigenerational business, so customers know Deere as the company behind the steel plow that transformed the Midwest into an agricultural heartland. Deere had built on this legacy of innovation to modernize its value proposition. By outfitting its products with automation, telematics, computer vision, GPS, and sensors, it helped farmers produce more, reduce costs, increase efficiencies, and boost their profitability and growth. In the early 2010s, Deere began focusing on game-changing digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, which made farming decisions on a plant-by-plant level in real time. For example, Deere’s recent acquisition, the California-based Blue River Technology, integrates computer vision and machine learning to enable farmers to spray pesticide only on weeds.
向农场主出售新技术可不容易：他们保守且节俭。但迪瑞坚持不懈，运用对客户的深入了解，说服较为前沿的农场率先采用新技术，证明技术的确可以提升运营效率，然后迅速推广到其他农场。不过，迪瑞的目标不只是为农场主优化输入和最大化输出，更大的动力是一个全球共同面对的现实：世界人口预计将在2050年达到97亿，届时必须以与现在相同的耕地面积产出翻倍的农作物，才能提供足够的食物。精准农业不只是产品策略，也是维持人类下一代生存发展的途径。
Selling farmers on new technologies isn’t easy: They tend to be conservative and frugal. However, Deere persevered, using its deep knowledge of customers to target leading-edge farms for initial adoption, establishing proof that technology helped them operate more efficiently, and then spiraling out to the rest. But Deere sought to do more than merely optimize input and maximize output for farmers. Its bigger motivation is a global reality: Given that the world’s population is expected to rise to 9.7 billion by 2050, agricultural yields will need to double to produce enough food to meet demand then with the same amount of arable land in use today. Precision agriculture isn’t just a product strategy; it’s a way to sustain the next generation.
利用信赖可靠的客户关系
向邻近领域扩展
Leveraging Trusted Customer Relationships
to Expand into Adjacencies
我们发现，重新定义竞争场地的一个强力因素是信赖。战略在位者在稳固的关系基础上，与利益相关者开展深入交流，了解对方需求的演化、将来要应对的关键问题，以及利益相关者和公司共同的利益。
One potent enabler for redefining the playing field that we observed is trust. Strategic incumbents build on strong relationships to have deep conversations with stakeholders about how their needs are evolving, critical issues that should be addressed in the future, and the interests that they and the company have in common.
丹麦的穆勒-马士基集团（A.P. Møller–Maersk）就是这样做的。这家有117年历史的公司，生产的货船遍及世界各地。2016年CEO索伦·斯科（Søren Skou）上任，肩负着欧洲工业界规模最大的转型之一。他放弃了马士基的石油和能源业务，让公司集中发展两大支柱——海上运输和陆上物流。
One firm that did this was A.P. Møller–Maersk. The name of the 117-year-old company adorns cargo ships all over the world. (Maersk’s Alabama attracted worldwide attention when it was seized by Somali pirates in 2009, an event that became the subject of a movie starring Tom Hanks.) When Søren Skou took over as its CEO, in 2016, he was tasked with one of the biggest transformations in European industry. He jettisoned Maersk’s oil and energy businesses in order to focus the company on two pillars—marine shipping and land-based logistics.
马士基知道必须保持海运方面的优势——这是公司的核心和灵魂。早在20世纪70年代，马士基就开辟了大型集装箱货运业务，越来越大的集装箱运货船不断创造和打破世界纪录。然而，行业被商品化、波动、合并、低利润和六十年里最漫长的衰退（2008年至2016年）所席卷。在这样的背景下，斯科的策略是通过连接和简化全球供应链为客户创造价值，而不是单纯地把集装箱从一个港口运到另一个港口。机会是巨大的，因为马士基的海上运输量占全球的1/5，但只向不到20%的海运客户出售了陆上物流产品。
The Danish behemoth knew that it had to protect its superiority in shipping—the heart and soul of the company. Maersk had pioneered large-scale container shipping back in the 1970s, repeatedly setting and breaking world records with the launch of ever-bigger container ships. However, the industry had been plagued by commoditization, volatility, consolidation, low margins, and the longest downturn in six decades (2008 to 2016). Against this backdrop, Skou’s strategy was to create value for customers by connecting and simplifying their global supply chains, instead of just moving containers from port to port. The opportunity was immense, since Maersk transported one-fifth of all seaborne freight but sold land-based logistics products to fewer than 20% of its ocean-shipping customers.
不过，仅凭公司的传统货运能力，无法驱动新的价值主张。因此马士基聘请了新的人才，调整物流结构并投资进行并购以发展物流能力。公司大幅度转向，从供给驱动（将产品推荐给客户）转为需求驱动，设法应对客户需求和痛点。马士基航运及物流负责人文森特·克莱尔（Vincent Clerc）说，“我们转为解决方案模式，将客户需求置于价值主张的核心。我们消除麻烦，将不同的海运和陆运产品综合起来发挥作用，并为结果承担责任。”但马士基成功的能力从何而来？部分优势在于拥有的资产令其有能力控制向客户承诺的成果，以及通过货物出站和入站实时信息、货物追踪、交通管制、天气对路线的影响以及交付时间等各种数据实现端对端可见度的能力。
However, the company’s traditional capabilities in shipping alone would not drive new value propositions. So Maersk hired new talent, restructured its logistics arm, and invested in M&A to build its logistics capabilities. The company made a big shift from a supply-driven approach (pushing its products to customers) to a demand-driven way of doing business, creating offerings to address customer needs and pain points. Says Vincent Clerc, the head of Ocean and Logistics for Maersk, “We are getting into a solution model where the customer need is at the heart of the proposition. We take away the hassle, combine different ocean and land-side products, make it work, and take accountability for the outcome.” But what gives Maersk the ability to win? Part of its advantage lies in asset ownership, which translates into control over the outcomes it promises to customers, and its ability to orchestrate end-to-end visibility through a wide array of data, such as real-time information on inbound and outbound cargo, shipment tracking, bottlenecks, the impact of weather on shipping routes, and delivery schedules.
技术是实现这一转变的关键。马士基首先整合了数字创新，让客户可以在Maersk.com网站上了解价格、完成预订、处理文件并进行支付。
Technology was key to achieving that shift. The company started integrating digital innovations that allowed customers to go to Maersk.com to get prices, make bookings, handle documents, and make payments.
在位企业常常嫉妒敏捷的新入者不必承担老旧体系的重荷，但这种态度会令在位企业忽视自身优势。马士基并非如此，而是看到长期从事航运业务的经历和与成千上万客户建立的联系在向陆运业务扩展的过程中形成了巨大的优势——短短四年时间，马士基就重新定义了价值主张，进入新的市场。
Incumbents often look with envy at agile new entrants that don’t have to contend with the burden of legacy systems. But in doing so, they fail to recognize their edge. That was not the case at Maersk, however. It saw that its longtime shipping business and existing relationships with thousands of customers gave it a tremendous advantage as it expanded into land-based transport—and within the short span of four years it had redefined its value proposition and moved into a new market.
虽然人们普遍认为颠覆是大公司注定的命运，但大公司不一定会消亡。必须学会发挥原有的强项，采取战略在位行动。
Despite the prevailing ethos that disruption is their inevitable fate, large legacy firms do not need to wither and die. Instead they must learn to tap into their inherent strengths and behave like strategic incumbents.
关键词：颠覆
托马斯·马尔奈特（Thomas W. Malnight）艾维·布切（Ivy Buche）| 文
托马斯·马尔奈特是瑞士洛桑国际管理学院战略教授、企业转型项目学术主任，《准备好了吗？组织为未来做准备的3个R》（Ready? The 3Rs of Preparing Your Organization for the Future，2013年出版）作者之一。艾维·布切是瑞士洛桑国际管理学院企业转型项目副总监。
