Death and Transfiguration

死而蜕变

 

The golden age of the Western corporation may be coming to an end

西方企业的黄金时代可能正走向终结

 

Edward Gibbon, the great English historian, begins his “Decline and Fall” with a glowing portrait of the Roman Empire in the age of Augustus. The Empire “comprehended the fairest part of the earth”. Rome’s enemies were kept at bay by “ancient renown and disciplined valour”. Citizens “enjoyed and abused the advantages of wealth and luxury”. Alas, this happy state of affairs was not to last: the Empire already contained the seeds of its own destruction. Gibbon soon changed gear from celebrating triumphs to chronicling disasters.

 

英国伟大的历史学家爱德华·吉本在其《罗马帝国衰亡史》的开章描写了罗马帝国在奥古斯都时代的辉煌图景。罗马帝国“囊括世上最美之疆域”，在其“古老声威与严整军容”的震慑下，敌军不敢来犯。市民“尽享富庶生活，甚而奢华挥霍”。哀哉，这个声色犬马的欢乐国度好景不长：帝国倾覆之祸根早已深种。吉本随即笔锋一转，从高歌胜利转向细数灾祸。

 

Perhaps the history of the Western corporation will one day be written in much the same vein. Today’s corporate empires comprehend every corner of the earth. They battle their rivals with legions of highly trained managers. They keep local politicians in line with a promise of an investment here or a job as a consultant there. The biggest companies enjoy resources that have seldom been equalled; Apple, for instance, is sitting on a cash pile of more than $200 billion. And they provide their senior managers and leading investors with “wealth and luxury” that would have impressed even the most jaundiced Roman.

 

或许有一天西方企业发展史也将被用同样的笔墨写就。今日的企业帝国已延伸至地球的每一个角落，它们调派训练有素的经理人军团与对手交战。为拉拢地方政客，他们或作投资承诺，或以顾问之职相赠。最大的那些企业拥有旁人难以企及的庞大资源，比如苹果公司坐拥超过两千亿美元的现金。这类企业给予管理高层及主要投资者的“财富与奢华”甚至会令当年最偏狭的罗马人也为之叹服。

 

A new report by the McKinsey Global Institute provides some invaluable statistics for any future Gibbon, which MGI calculated by crunching data from nearly 30,000 firms across the world. Corporate profits more than tripled in 1980-2013, rising from 7.6% of global GDP to 10%, of which Western companies captured more than two-thirds. The after-tax profits of American firms are at their highest level as a share of national income since 1929.

 

麦肯锡全球研究院（MGI）发表的最新报告为将来企业史的执笔者提供了宝贵的统计数据，这是MGI用从全球近三万家企业采集的数据计算所得。1980年至2013年间，企业利润增加了两倍还多，占全球GDP比例从7.6%上升至10%，其中西方企业占三分之二以上。美国公司的税后利润占国民收入份额处于自1929年来的最高水平。

 

Yet the men and women from McKinsey change gear as quickly as Gibbon. The golden age of the Western corporation, they argue, was the product of two benign developments: the globalisation of markets and, as a result, the reduction of costs. The global labour force has expanded by some 1.2 billion since 1980, with the new workers largely coming from emerging economies. Corporate-tax rates across the OECD, a club of mostly rich countries, have fallen by as much as half in that period. And the price of most commodities is down in real terms.

 

然而，麦肯锡的研究员们笔锋转换快如吉本。他们认为，西方企业的黄金时代是两大良性发展趋势的产物：市场全球化以及因此而来的成本下降。自1980年以来，全球新增劳动力约12亿人，主要来自新兴经济体。在此期间，经合组织（主要由富裕国家组成）成员国的企业税率下降了一半之多。大部分大宗商品的实际价格也下跌了。

 

Now a more difficult era is beginning. More than twice as many multinationals are operating today as in 1990, making for more competition. Margins are being squeezed and the volatility of profits is growing. The average variance in returns to capital for North American firms is more than 60% higher today than it was in 1965-1980. MGI predicts that corporate profits may fall from 10% of global GDP to about 8% in a decade’s time.

 

如今一个更艰难的时代正在开启。今天跨国公司的数目是1990年时的两倍多，竞争更为激烈。利润率受到挤压，利润波动性越来越大。北美企业如今的资本收益率平均方差比1965至1980年期间高出60%。MGI预测，十年后，企业利润占全球GDP份额可能从现在的10%下跌至8%。

 

Two things in particular are shaking up the comfortable world of the old imperial multinationals. The first is the rise of emerging-market competitors. The share of Fortune 500 companies based in emerging markets has increased from 5% in 1980-2000 to 26% today. These firms are expanding globally in much the same way as their predecessors from Japan and South Korea did before them. In the past decade the 50 largest emerging-world firms have doubled the proportion of their revenues coming from abroad, to 40%. Although the outlook for many emerging markets is more mixed than it was just a couple of years ago, troubles at home may push rising multinationals to globalise more rapidly.

 

有两件事情尤其给跨国公司安逸的旧帝国带来震荡。首先是新兴市场竞争者的崛起。财富500强企业中总部在新兴市场的公司所占份额从1980至2000年间的5%上升到今天的26%。这些公司在全球的扩张之路与其日本及韩国的前辈企业大致相同。过去十年，最大50家新兴市场企业的海外收入占其总收入的份额已翻倍至40%。尽管许多新兴市场的前景比起几年前更为喜忧参半，国内市场的问题可能会驱使更多跨国企业进一步加快业务全球化的进程。

 

The second factor is the rise of high-tech companies in both the West and the East. These firms have acquired large numbers of customers in the blink of an eye. Facebook boasts as many users each month as China has people: 1.4 billion. Tech giants can use their networks of big data centres rapidly to colonise incumbents’ territories; China’s e-commerce giants Alibaba, Tencent and JD.com are doing this in financial services. Such firms can also provide smaller companies with a low-cost launching pad that allows them to compete in the global market.

 

其次是高科技公司在东西方世界都在崛起。这些公司眨眼之间便揽获大量顾客。Facebook号称月活跃用户达14亿，相当于中国人口总数。科技巨头们可以利用其大数据中心网络快速抢占现有企业的市场，中国的电子商务巨头阿里巴巴、腾讯及京东正在金融服务业如法炮制。这些公司也可为小企业提供低成本的启动平台，帮助它们在全球市场上一较高下。

 

MGI does not dwell on it, but the political environment is also becoming more hostile. Populists on both the left and the right rage against corporate greed. In America, presidential hopefuls Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump both criticise companies for exploiting tax loopholes. Even middle-of-the-road politicians are sounding a more anti-corporate note. Angela Merkel introduced Germany’s first minimum wage in 2014; and in Britain David Cameron is phasing in a “living wage”. Companies may find themselves under pressure to “give back” to wider society.

 

而麦肯锡并无赘述的是，政治环境如今也变得更为恶劣。左右翼的民粹主义者都在怒斥企业贪婪无度。在美国，总统候选人伯尼·桑德斯（Bernie Sanders）和唐纳德·特朗普（Donald Trump）均指责企业利用漏洞，偷税漏税。连走中间道路的政客也日渐唱起反企业的论调。2014年，默克尔在德国推行首个最低工资法案；在英国，卡梅伦也在逐步实施“最低生活工资”政策。企业可能承受压力去“回馈”更广泛的社会。

 

How can Western companies navigate these threats to their rule? MGI advises them to focus on the one realm where they continue to have a comparative advantage – the realm of ideas. Many companies in labour- and capital-intensive industries have been slaughtered by foreign competitors, whereas idea-intensive firms – not just companies in obvious markets such as the media, finance and pharmaceuticals, but in areas such as logistics and luxury cars – continue to flourish. The “idea sector”, as MGI defines it, accounts for 31% of profits generated by Western companies, compared with 17% in 1999.

 

威胁重重，西方企业该如何应对？MGI建议他们专注于自己仍占相对优势的一个领域——专业知识领域。许多企业在劳动密集型与资本密集型产业被外国对手杀得片甲不留，但专业知识密集型企业则继续蓬勃发展，不单在媒体、金融、制药这类显而易见的行业，也包括了物流和豪华轿车等领域。按MGI的说法，“专业知识部门”占当今西方企业利润的31%，而在1999年仅为17%。

 

Capitalist redemption

资本主义救赎

 

The relative decline of the Western corporation could also lead to a rethinking of some of the long-standing assumptions about what makes for a successful business. Public companies may lose ground to other types of firm: in America the number of firms listed on stock exchanges has fallen from 8,025 in 1996 to about half that number now. The cult of quarterly earnings may lose more of its following. A striking number of the new corporate champions have dominant owners in the form of powerful founders. They are willing to eschew short-term results in order to build a durable business, such as Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook, the Mahindras and other assiduous families in India, and private-equity firms. Gibbon’s great work was a tale of decline and fall, as classical civilisation gave way to barbarism and self-indulgence. With luck, the tale of the relative decline of the Western corporation will also be a tale of the reinvention of capitalism as new forms of companies arise to seize opportunities from the old.

 

西方企业的相对颓势也令人反思一些长久以来所谓的企业成功定律。上市企业也可能不敌其他类型的公司：在美国，如今证券交易所上市企业数量已从1996年的8025家减少了一半左右。迷信季度财报可能将导致追随者进一步流失。新龙头企业中相当多是由强势创始人掌控。为打造持久的业务，他们愿意忽视短期结果，比如Facebook的马克·扎克伯格、马恒达（the Mahindras）及其他勤勉的印度家族，以及私募股权公司。吉本的伟大著作讲述了一段故事，当古典文明屈服于野蛮与放纵，帝国的衰亡随之而至。幸运的话，西方企业相对式微的故事也将是新型企业从旧式企业手中抢夺机遇，令资本主义蜕变重生的故事。

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