Schumpeter: Squeezing the Tube

熊彼特：物尽其用

 

Instead of disrupting their industries, firms should look for opportunities under their noses

与其颠覆行业，不如先寻找眼前的机遇

 

Business theorists routinely instruct managers to look over the horizon. “Blue Ocean Strategy” is the most successful book on business master-planning in recent years. In it W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne of INSEAD, a business school in France, argue that companies should trawl for profits in “blue oceans” that their rivals ignore rather than “red oceans” that they squabble over. Companies often search for ways to disrupt their industries lest a rival or new entrant does the same and pulls the rug from beneath them. But reinventing a business from the ground up, to avoid being consumed by the fires of new technology, comes with huge risks as well as a potential for great rewards.

 

商业理论家会例行公事地嘱咐经理人去眺望远方的地平线。《蓝海战略》是近年来关于商业总体规划最成功的一本著作。法国英士国际商学院（INSEAD）的金伟灿（W. Chan Kim）和勒妮·莫博涅（Renée Mauborgne）在书中论述道，企业应该到被竞争对手忽略的“蓝海”中拉网捕鱼，谋求利润，而不应在各方竞争激烈的“红海”中掐架。企业经常想方设法颠覆其所在行业，以免对手或新进入者先下手为强，导致自己被釜底抽薪。但彻底重塑一个行业以避免被新科技之火所吞噬，既有可能带来巨大的潜在回报，也可能带来巨大的风险。   

 

Ships that set sail for blue oceans are often becalmed in the middle of nowhere. AOL-Time Warner’s catastrophic merger in 2000 failed to remake the media business for the internet age. News Corp’s foray into social networking ended with the sale of Myspace for a small fraction of its purchase price. Sometimes being cautious, incremental and pragmatic when others are gambling on bold and visionary thinking is more sensible. Why take the chance when there is lots of money to be made closer to home? That is the argument of “Edge Strategy”, a new book by Alan Lewis and Dan McKone from LEK Consulting. They argue that before turning themselves upside down firms should think harder about profiting from the “edges” of existing businesses.

 

扬帆向蓝海进发的船只经常在茫无涯际的大海上停滞不前。美国在线时代华纳（AOL-Time Warner）在2000年灾难式的合并没能够重塑网络时代的媒体业。新闻集团（News Corp）涉足社交网络，最后以出售MySpace告终，售价仅为当初收购价的零头。有时，在其他人搏胆识、搏远见的时候，谨慎小心、稳扎稳打、讲求实际更为明智。眼前就有大把赚钱的机会为什么还要舍近求远去冒险呢？这就是由艾意凯咨询（LEK Consulting）的阿兰·刘易斯（Alan Lewis ）和丹·麦科（Dan McKone）合著的新书《优势战略》（Edge Strategy）中的观点。作者认为在企业在彻底颠覆自身之前，应该更仔细地考虑如何利用现有业务的“优势”来谋求利润。

 

The authors focus on three such edges. The first is products: how can you stretch merchandise so that it generates more income or appeals to more people? An obvious way is to make accessories. Apple is praised as revolutionary but one secret of its success is its tight control of the bits and pieces that adorn its main products. Once purchased, an iPhone or iPad needs a fancy leather case or fashionable headphones. Apple’s own accessories come at considerable expense to the user and give the firm a steady revenue stream.

 

两位作者重点关注三种优势。第一是产品：如何能够扩展产品，以产生更多收入或吸引更多人？一个显而易见的做法便是经营配件。苹果因其革命性而广受赞颂，但它成功的秘诀之一就是严密控制其主产品的各种小配饰。一旦购买iPhone或iPad之后，还需要一个漂亮的皮套或者一副时尚的耳机。苹果自产的配件售价不菲，为公司提供了稳定的收入流。   

 

Another is to link services to products, a tactic made easier by the internet of things. Cars are increasingly connected. Onstar is an in-car service offered by General Motors whose features include automatic calls to emergency services after a crash and over-the-air diagnosis of mechanical problems. Caterpillar can monitor the performance of its excavators, bulldozers and other equipment via sensors, in return for a monthly fee.

 

另一种做法是将服务与产品挂钩，这种策略因物联网而变得容易实施。现在汽车联网的程度越来越高，安吉星便是通用汽车提供的一项车内服务，包括自动撞车报警和远程机械故障诊断。卡特彼勒（Caterpillar）每月收取一定费用就可以通过传感器监控其挖土机、推土机和其他设备的运作情况。   

 

The second edge is the “customer journey”. This sounds nebulous but is, in fact, simple. Customers usually buy goods and services to solve a problem. They purchase pneumatic drills because they want to dig a hole in the road, not because they like the way they look. The authors argue that firms have lots of opportunities to make money if they walk in customers’ shoes and keep their eyes open. ESAB, a company that sells welding equipment, also sells general education in welding, training for specific products and engineering consulting. Whole Foods Market, a swanky grocery store, used to specialise in the raw ingredients needed for healthy eating. It now gets around a fifth of its revenue from selling ready-to-eat foods from an ever-expanding range of sushi bars, barbecue stands, Mexican-food stations and espresso bars.

 

第二种优势是“客户旅程”。这个听起来很玄乎，但事实上很简单。通常客户购买产品和服务是为了解决问题。他们买风钻不是因为它好看，而是想在路面钻一个洞。《优势战略》的作者认为，如果企业能够站在客户的立场上睁大眼睛洞察其需求，赚钱的机会就会有很多。销售焊接设备的伊萨（ESAB）公司同时也做焊接基础教育、具体产品培训和工程咨询。时尚高端食品超市Whole Foods Market曾专门销售健康饮食的原材料。如今该公司五分之一的收入来自其超市中不断扩大的寿司台、烧烤台、墨西哥食品站和咖啡站所销售的即食食品。   

 

The third edge is exploiting underused parts of the enterprise. One example would be farmers renting out marginal land to energy companies for wind turbines: the farmer stays in the business of agriculture but also boosts income by finding a new use for some of his acres. Many firms routinely collect data in the course of running core operations. Sensible ones use the data to provide more services (or sell them to third parties, with due protections for privacy). Cargill, a commodity-trading firm, has used its agricultural expertise and data to develop software that guides farmers on how best to plant their fields on the basis of 250 variables such as soil type, weather conditions and seed performance. Toyota, a Japanese carmaker, sells traffic information generated by its vehicles to local governments and businesses.

 

第三种优势是开发企业中尚未充分利用的资源。举个例子来说，农夫将自己农田边缘的土地租给能源公司安装风力发电机，这样农夫可以继续务农，但通过为一些土地找到新用途增加了自己的收入。很多公司在运营核心业务的过程中会定期收集数据，聪明的公司会利用数据提供更多的服务（或在保证恰当隐私保护的前提下卖给第三方）。大宗商品贸易公司嘉吉（Cargill）利用自身的农业专长及数据来开发软件，指导农夫根据包括土壤类型、天气条件和种子性能等在内的250种变量来决定如何最好地耕种自己的田地。日本汽车公司丰田将其汽车收集到的交通信息出售给地方政府和企业以获利。   

 

Many of these edge businesses started as an afterthought but have become vast sources of revenue. In the early 2000s Amazon started building servers for its own business. Today it makes $5 billion a year selling cloud-computing capacity to Netflix, Pinterest and the CIA, among many others. UnitedHealthcare sells information culled from its enormous database, OptumInsight, to various customers. OptumInsight’s revenue increased from $956m in 2006 to $6.2 billion in 2015, a much faster rate of growth than its parent company.

 

很多优势业务开始时只是作为补充，但如今已成为巨额收入的来源。21世纪初的几年里，亚马逊（Amazon）开始为自身的业务打造服务器。如今通过向Netflix、Pinterest、美国中情局（CIA）及众多其他客户销售云计算能力，它每年能从中赚取50亿美元。联合健康保险（UnitedHealthcare）将其巨大的数据库OptumInsight中采集到的信息卖给各种客户。OptumInsight的收入从2006年的9.69亿美元激增到2015年的62亿美元，增长速度远快于其母公司。   

 

The strategy is not new: visit the cinema and you will spend more on popcorn and Coca-Cola than on tickets. Buy a car and a wily salesman will engage in a frenzy of “upselling” leather seats or after-sales services. But that is the point. The authors say that firms risk forgetting about long-established sources of growth in the pursuit of disruption. Rather than obsessing about the new, firms need to make the most of their existing businesses.

 

这个战略并不新颖：去看场电影，花在买爆米花和可乐上的钱比电影票价还多。买辆汽车，精明的销售员会卖力地“追加销售”皮椅或售后服务。但是道理就在于此，作者认为企业如果追求颠覆，就可能会忘记经营多年的增长源头。企业不应一味求新，而需要尽量发展已有业务。   

 

Firms must resist the temptation merely to charge for what hitherto has come free, however. American airlines dramatically increased revenues by charging customers to put their bags in the hold. This scheme earned them $3.5 billion in baggage fees in 2014 alone but came with heaps of complaints from unhappy customers. Lots of other firms are also charging for services formerly included in the price: having paid more than $400 for a hotel room in Manhattan recently, Schumpeter was then asked for an extra $10 to store his bag for a few hours between checking out and going to the airport. What next? Extra charges for soap and sheets?

 

但是，企业必须顶住诱惑，不应只是对以前一直免费的服务收费。美国航空公司通过向乘客收取客舱行李费，大幅提升了收入。仅2014年一年的行李费收入就达35亿美元，但也招致不满乘客的大量投诉。很多其他企业也开始对以前免费的服务收费：最近，熊彼特专栏记者在曼哈顿以400美元的房价入住酒店，后来在退房和出发去机场之间的几个小时内寄存行李还要额外支付10美元。接下来会怎样？肥皂和床单也要另行收费吗？   

 

In its customer-friendly forms, however, edge strategy is a valuable corrective to the obsession with transformational ideas. Firms are right to worry that their businesses are about to be shaken up by the digital revolution or by upstarts from emerging markets. But their priority should be squeezing more money out of their existing assets, not taking a leap into the unknown.

 

不过只要保持客户友好，这种优势战略对执迷于变革理念的企业有很大矫正价值。企业有理由担心其业务将被数字革命或新兴市场的新晋公司动摇，但它们应首先从现有资产中挤出更多价值，而不是盲目跃入未知领域。

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