摩托罗拉艰难转型

    至少当时除了前行，已无路可退：2008年桑贾伊•杰哈加入摩托罗拉(Motorola)、出任手机部门主管时，该部门亏损高达数十亿美元，濒于倒闭。刀锋(RAZR)系列的成功已成过眼云烟，苹果(Apple)的iPhone引发了手机行业革命，而经济衰退又极大地抑制了手机需求。摩托罗拉手机部门的员工普遍感到沮丧和不满，12年内部门总裁已走马灯似地换了10位。杰哈的任务是挽救这项业务。

    生于印度、在英国受教育的杰哈在接到摩托罗拉的电话时已升任手机芯片设计公司高通(Qualcomm)的首席营运官。他到任后迅速抛弃了摩托罗拉自己的手机操作系统，改用谷歌(Google)的Android系统【参见《亿万Android 粉丝不会搞错》(One Hundred Million Android Fans Can't Be Wrong】，推出了一系列创新产品(如最近的Xoom平板电脑)，在市场上也引起了不少轰动。但总体进展并不顺利；无论是以销量、还是销售额计，摩托罗拉的全球市场份额表现平平。48岁的杰哈如今已开始独立掌舵Motorola Mobility Holdings——今年1月，主攻智能手机和机顶盒业务的Motorola Mobility Holdings从摩托罗拉剥离，独立挂牌交易。近日，杰哈接受了《财富》杂志(Fortune)Geoff Colvin的采访，谈到了如何在竞争激烈的市场中保持特色、他面临的最严峻挑战、人们对手机的依赖等等。下面是经过编辑的对话摘要：

    《财富》：今年是平板电脑之年，1月份你们推出的Xoom获得了好评。但自那以后，我们已看到了iPad 2、RIM的PlayBook、宏达国际（HTC）的Flyer、T-Mobile的G-Slate以及很多其他平板电脑。你们如何有别于竞争对手？

    桑贾伊•杰哈：我们所能做的头等大事是考虑我们的目标客户群。我们预计大公司将把整个IT系统转向平板电脑。首席信息官看好平板电脑的一个原因是它能提供云计算服务，使用简便。消费者喜欢它，企业用户喜欢它，皆因互动的即时性。其次，我们要提供最佳的浏览体验。我们支持Flash 10（媒体播放器），这一点非常重要，它使得大部分网页都可以浏览，而其他都一些设备（特别是iPad，不支持Flash播放器）就做不到。第三，我们相信用户一定希望能在移动环境下浏览所有内容，无论这些内容保存在哪里。我们已进行了一些收购，方便用户接入平板电脑上的所有内容。当然，大小和格式总是很重要的，我们的品牌在美国、拉美和中国都具有重要地位，在欧洲的影响也与日俱增。

    贵公司非常重视出品的平板电脑在大公司环境中的高度适用性，原因何在？

    目前，企业网络中的设备，主要是平板电脑和智能手机，有约65%事实上是消费者个人购买的，因为首席信息官的预算遭到削减。因此，这些设备一定要对消费者具有吸引力，同时在安全性上必须达到首席信息官的标准。

    当员工将个人设备带到公司时，首席信息官们往往非常紧张。

    确实如此。我们将这股趋势称之为企业的消费者化。曾几何时，首席信息官们说“你不能将那台设备带到公司来。”但现在他们越来越愿意接受这些设备，我们也在和首席信息官们合作，希望提供足以让他们感到安心的安全保障。

    许多经理人都没有充分认识到平板电脑和智能手机对业务的帮助。你们在Motorola Mobility中如何应用这些便携设备?

    我们是一家全球性公司，我们对通过可视会议进行合作非常感兴趣。在过去，老实说电话会议优于可视会议。现在，有了高清显示，你可以看到肢体语言，这在任何会议中都能传递大量的信息。而且，我们的员工越来越不局限于坐在办公室内，因此能用平板电脑或智能手机参加可视会议非常重要。此外，我们的绝大部分服务通过云服务实现。这也很重要。当然，还有日常的安全电子邮件功能，平板电脑一旦落入他人之手，我们可完全抹去该设备内的记录——这些我们功能都在使用。

    包括摩托罗拉在内，大约有20家生产商正在生产或将要生产Android智能手机。要在这样的竞争环境中脱颖而出一定是一大挑战。

    的确如此。（但这）可能是我一生中最大的科技业商机。人们在说，到2015年亚太（各类）手机保有量将达到30亿台。一些预测人士称，到2014年智能手机将达到10亿台。复合年增长率超过35%——这是一个巨大的商机。但我们并不是这个市场中的唯一厂商。我们决定注重消费体验以及简化人们的生活。不能简化人们生活的科技不能长期赢得共鸣。我们非常重视设计流程。这涉及到巨量的消费者测试。我们的设计人员几乎总是在和消费者互动，找到最能引发共鸣的点。而且，企业和多媒体也是我们希望有别于竞争对手的两个重要领域。

    这就涉及到一个很重要的问题，因为你们所做的所有这些都是基于向所有人开放的Android平台。最近有位分析师称，“Android是一个大宗商品化平台，竞争需要规模。他们[摩托罗拉] 目前显然还做不到。”这种担忧是否有根据？如果确实如此，你们如何应对？

    每项业务都会涉及到规模。但过去30年，企业的盈利能力与市场份额的关联度显示较弱，而与消费者忠诚度的关联度更高。企业希望消费者能回来不断地购买自己的产品。J.D. Power的数据显示，我们在智能手机市场获得的消费者忠诚度排名第二。因此，规模是一个因素，但我认为规模不是决定性的因素。过去很多公司规模很大，但最终却迷失了方向。我们需要创新，需要不断满足消费者的期望，这将是我们关注的重点。

    在你进入摩托罗拉之前，摩托罗拉历史上曾有过出色的创新，但缺乏持续性。刀锋系列在2005年大获成功，但此后一直青黄不接。你能使企业保持持续的创新吗？

    创新本身是不够的——我有时称之为企业娱乐。在美国公司中，很多事都被冠以创新之名。如果不能解决消费者的问题，那就是在浪费金钱。我试图在摩托罗拉推行的一个重要观点就是我们如何解决关键的问题。问题必须是独特而重要的，我非常重视这一点。创新往往与独特性相关。然而，仅仅独特性还不够。没有一成不变的创新方式。必须创造一种文化，让人们为偶尔的失败做好准备。如果没有做好失败的准备，就不会有持续成功的机会。因此，我们会冒险尝试。我们创造的文化是让人们做好准备，认同20%的时间里“这是一项高风险的业务提议或高风险的科技提议。”我们将全身心投入。我们建立了所谓的回顾式评价流程。我们视情况而定，奖励那些做出决定和采取行动的人们，而非设立目标的人。我们也设立目标，但我们更关注人们如何通过行动来实现这些目标。

    你来到摩托罗拉时公司亏损达数十亿美元，情况危急。当时你的首要任务是什么？

    我的第一要务是做出清晰的业务决策，为公司设定观注的目标。在我到任前，摩托罗拉追逐的是市场份额、规模以及众多并不清晰的目标。我一上任就说90天内将就公司方向做出决定。我们做出的一项核心决定就是选择Android作为平台。当时Android能否胜出自然还不清楚，也没有达到今日的规模。很多人感觉我是断了后路，孤注一掷。我信奉不入虎穴，焉得虎子。而且，如果你不下定决心选择一条路，肯定会失败。如果你选了太多路，也很难实现成功。专注的目标非常重要。我们必须更专注，在产品中更清晰地传递出摩托罗拉精神以及其有别于竞争对手的特质。

    怎样应对那些对自身未来不确定，因为缺乏了解，对你同样不确定的员工? 你如何能让他们相信能重塑辉煌，并改变公司士气？

    这是最大的挑战。我们举行了全员大会，最先问到的问题就包括“我们凭什么相信你？”我的回答是，“没有理由。我会对你们做出承诺，如果我兑现了承诺，你们就应该开始信任我。”但信任我是一回事。信任他们自己将再创辉煌是另外一回事，我们在这方面小有成功。我们设立了一些小目标，当我们开始看到财务状况良好、生产的产品令人自豪，这对我们非常重要。挑战在于我计划削减50亿美元成本——这一任务无法一蹴而就。因此，每个人都有职位不保之虞，这对员工的忠诚度是一大考验。我认为，我的做法获得了普遍的认可。但是，一边要求人们卖力工作，一边却要进行2-3轮裁员，做到这一点非常困难。

    个人科技产品发展最终会完全落到手机身上吗？

    我相信人们一直随时携带的手机远比平板电脑重要，我们中大多数人有约30%的时间会携带手机。而且，我绝对相信手机将成为最出色的电脑，因为它总是在你身边。它将成为最出色的照相机，因为你需要时它总是在手边。它将是最出色的音乐播放器，因为它总是在你身边。我们进行了调查，有时会将手机从人们身边拿走，他们就会开始大叫。他们对手机投入了大量的精力。手机成了人们日常生活的数字枢纽。因此，我认为这是最大的商机：移动，互联网，内容，运算——所有这些都融入了手机这一台设备。

    有人认为，手机业是一项流行产品业务——产品要么轰动一时，要么泯然众人。这样的业务起伏很大，因此投资者对其估值会有所保留。有没有办法避免这一点？

    我想是有的。在手机业务历史上，诺基亚(Nokia)曾经实现了这一点。如今，苹果也实现了这一点。不过，你说这是一项流行产品业务，是对的。这很像好莱坞电影或制药业务。我们需要一套商业体系，能够持续提供适度的利润率，在此基础上再提供热门产品。问题不是是否有波动性。这项业务绝对有波动性。你永远没法保证下一款产品如何。但我们有完整的产业链，分销、供应链、开发、品牌包装和上市推都能产生一定的利润率。我认为有可能保证这个业务体系具备足够的效率，在此基础上，进行20%或30%的创新押注，其中有些可能会成为轰动一时的产品。

    历史告诉我们，手机这样的行业会不断整合，最终形成几家独大的局面。你认为会出现这样的情况吗？摩托罗拉会保持独立并存活下来吗？

    我预计会出现行业整合。我们的客户在整合，我们的供应商也在整合。但我的观点是目前的整合方式很有意思。我并不认为手机生产商收购其他生产商是为股东创造价值的最佳途径。跨越内容提供商、硬件和软件生产商——整合的方式多种多样，都能为股东创造价值，为行业带来不同架构。惠普(HP)收购手持设备生产商Palm已经不是新闻，这项收购非常有意思，它促成了硬件和软件资产的融合。微软(Microsoft)和诺基亚之间的关系也是如此。我们认为摩托罗拉会保持独立吗？现在我还不知道。我非常希望保持独立。我相信我们的战略是正确的，能为股东提供所承诺的价值。

    听起来似乎摩托罗拉与某一类软件公司整合也并非不可想象。

    我们有很多机会去整合不同的资源，为股东创造更多的价值。

    股市似乎认为苹果将一统天下——它是美国市值第二大公司，仅次于埃克森美孚(Exxon Mobil)。苹果公司的弱点何在？

    我非常不愿意去点评一家极其成功的、提供世界级产品的公司有何弱点。但另一方面，我得说，规模和创新往往不相容。（一旦达到一定的规模，）往往就会出现捍卫市场份额和其他的防御性行动，而中层管理者则开始强调一家公司的文化和战略。我相信苹果公司的员工一定深知这些，并已做好准备，确保不会出现此类情况。但如果泛泛而论，伴随着巨大成功而来的规模扩张往往是下坡路的开始。

    你是管理着一家世界性企业的首席执行官。你认为美国在世界经济中保持竞争力的关键是什么？

    创新和教育体系。我们拥有——或一直以来拥有——全球最好的中等和（大学）教育体系，我们总的来说改变了世界——不仅仅是我们自己，还有英格兰和其他地方。我们毫无疑问一直鼓励全世界最聪明的人来到美国进行创新。但我们的一些移民政策稍稍违背了这一方向。我们应关注这个问题，加大投资，首先是我们的教育体系，其次是大学里的竞争前研究。当年我们把人类送到月球上时，研究支出在GDP中的占比远高于当今。很重要的一点是要回到基础研究的根本，然后在此基础之上谋求制胜。

    At least there was no place to go but up: When Sanjay Jha joined Motorola as chief of its cellphone business in 2008, the division was losing billions and on the verge of failure. The RAZR phone's success had evaporated, Apple's (AAPL, Fortune 500) iPhone had revolutionized the industry, and the recession was pounding down demand. The division's employees were depressed and cynical, having seen 10 presidents in 12 years. Jha's assignment was to fix the business.

    Born in India and educated in Britain, Jha had risen to COO of Qualcomm (QCOM, Fortune 500), which designs chips for cellphones, when Motorola called. He quickly abandoned Motorola's own cellphone operating system in favor of Google's (GOOG, Fortune 500) Android (see "One Hundred Million Android Fans Can't Be Wrong") and created a little more marketplace buzz by introducing innovative products, most recently the Xoom tablet. But progress remains a struggle; Motorola is still an also-ran in global market share by units and by revenue. Jha, 48, is now captain of his own ship -- Motorola Mobility Holdings (MMI) separated from the rest of the company in January and is publicly traded. He talked recently with Fortune's Geoff Colvin about differentiating in a crowded market, his toughest challenge, why people cry when their cellphones are taken away, and

    FORTUNE: It's the year of the tablet, and you introduced the Xoom to good reviews in January. We've since seen the iPad 2, RIM's PlayBook, the HTC Flyer, T-Mobile's G-Slate, and many others. How do you differentiate yourself?

    SANJAY JHA: The biggest thing we could do is think about what audience we're addressing. We see large corporations switching entire IT systems to tablets. One reason CIOs like the tablet is that it delivers cloud-based computing and renders it very easily. Consumers love it, and enterprise users love it, because of the immediacy of interaction. Second, we need to deliver the best browsing experience. We support Flash 10 [a media player], and that makes a huge difference. A large portion of the web is now viewable, where in some other devices [notably iPads, which do not support the Flash player] it's not viewable. Third, we believe you must be able to view all your content, anywhere you keep it, in a mobile environment. We've made some acquisitions that will allow you to access all your content on your tablets. Of course, size and form factor are always important, and our brand name has always played an important role in the U.S., Latin America, China, and increasingly in Europe.

    Why focus so much on making your tablets highly useful in a big enterprise setting?

    About 65% of the devices -- tablets and smartphones -- that show up on an enterprise network are actually purchased by consumers, because CIOs' budgets have been cut. These devices must be attractive for consumers and must also have the security to meet the CIOs' standards.

    CIOs get terribly nervous when people bring their personal devices into the business.

    That's right. We call this trend consumerization of the enterprise. There was a time when CIOs said, "There's just no way you can bring that device." But increasingly they're accepting the devices, and we work with CIOs to deliver the security that makes them comfortable.

    A lot of managers don't fully understand the business usefulness of tablets and smartphones. How do you use mobility in Motorola Mobility?

    We're a global company, and we're really interested in collaborating through videoconferencing. In the olden days audioconferencing quite frankly was better than videoconferencing. Now, with high definition, you can see body language, and that's a huge amount of the communication in any meeting. And increasingly our people are not in their offices, so being able to participate in videoconferencing using their tablets or smartphones is very important. In addition, the vast majority of our services are being delivered through cloud services. That's also very important. Of course the normal capabilities of secure e-mail, the ability to wipe the tablet clean if it falls into the wrong hands -- we're using all those things.

    Something like 20 manufacturers, including Motorola, are making or will be making Android-based smartphones. Distinguishing yourself in that environment has to be a challenge.

    It certainly is. [But it is] probably the largest opportunity in technology in my lifetime. People are saying that in the Asia Pacific by 2015 there will be 3 billion phones [of all types]. Some predictors are saying there will be a billion smartphones in 2014. The compound annual growth rate is over 35% -- a great opportunity. But we're not the only ones playing in this marketplace. We've chosen to focus on delivering consumer experiences and simplifying people's lives. Technology that doesn't simplify people's lives is not a technology that resonates over a long period. We're very focused on our design process. It involves a huge amount of consumer testing. Our designers are nearly always interacting with consumers to find out what will resonate. And again, enterprise and multimedia are two very important areas where we want to differentiate ourselves.

    That gets to a really important issue, because you're doing all this on the Android platform, which is available to anyone. An analyst said recently, "Android is a commodity platform, and to compete, you need scale. They [Motorola] clearly don't have it now." Is that a valid concern, and if so, what do you do about it?

    Scale is a factor in every business. But over the past 30 years the correlation of a company's profitability with market share is weak. The stronger correlation is actually with consumer loyalty. You want your consumers to come back and buy your devices over and over. J.D. Power recently showed us to have the second-highest loyalty in the smartphone market. So scale is a factor, but I do not believe that scale is a determining factor. Lots of companies used to have very large scale, and they lost their way. We need to innovate and meet consumer expectations, and that's going to be our focus.

    Before you came to Motorola it had a record of strong innovations, but they were intermittent. The RAZR phone was a big success in 2005, but there was nothing to follow it up. Can you keep a business continually innovative?

    Innovation itself is not enough -- I sometimes call it corporate entertainment. Lots of things in American corporations are done in the name of innovation. It's wasted money unless it solves consumer problems. The central thing I have tried to bring to Motorola is how we solve the right problems. It has to be unique and relevant, and I'm very focused on that. Very often, innovation is associated with being unique. Unique is not enough. There's no one way of doing innovation. You have to create a culture where people are prepared to fail once in a while if you're not prepared to fail, there's no chance of success in a sustained way. So we're taking more chances. We're creating a culture where people are prepared to say 20% of the time, "This is a high-risk business proposition or a high-risk technology proposition." We will engage with it. We have what we call a retrospective review process. We reward people on how -- given the circumstances -- they made decisions and acted, as opposed to setting objectives. We set objectives too, but we look at how people acted toward accomplishing those objectives.

    You came to Motorola when it was losing billions of dollars. This was an emergency situation. What were your top priorities?

    My No. 1 priority was to make some clear business decisions and focus the organization on objectives. Before my arriving here, we were chasing market share, scale, and a number of different objectives that weren't clear. As soon as I arrived, I said that within 90 days we'll make some decisions about the direction of the organization. One of the core decisions we made was to select Android as our platform. It certainly wasn't clear that Android was a winner, and it didn't have the scale it does today. Lots of folks felt I had burned my boats and had chosen one path. I believe in making your bets. I believe you fail if you don't decide which path to choose. If you take too many paths, sometimes there's no path to success. That decision to focus made a big difference. We still have to focus more, so that what Motorola stands for and how it differentiates itself show more clearly in our products.

    What about dealing with employees who were uncertain about their future and uncertain about you, because they didn't know you. How could you help them understand they could be winners again, and change the psychology of the place?

    That was the largest challenge. We had a town hall meeting, and one of the first questions I got was, "Why should we trust you?" My response was, "You shouldn't. I will promise you a certain number of things, and if I deliver them, then you should begin to trust me." But it was one thing to trust me. Trusting themselves to be winners was another issue, and we did it with small successes. We set small objectives, and as we began to see ourselves doing well financially and delivering products we could all be proud of, that made a big difference. The challenge was that I was taking $5 billion of costs out -- it was done not in one fell swoop. So everyone had some uncertainty about their position, and it's a testament to the commitment of the employees that they stuck with it. I think it's broadly recognized as having been the right course of action. But it was very difficult to have two or three cycles of layoffs while you're asking people to work harder.

    Does personal infotech over time end up focused almost entirely on the phone?

    I believe the device you carry with you at all times is much, much more important than a tablet, which most of us will carry about 30% of the time. And I absolutely believe that the phone is going to be the best computer, because it's with you at all times. It's going to be the best camera, because it's there when you need it. It will be the best music player because it's with you at all times. We do surveys and sometimes take phones away from people, and they start crying. They have that amount of personal investment in the relationship. It becomes the digital hub of your life. So I think this is the biggest opportunity. Mobility, Internet, content, computing -- all of that is converging into this device.

    There's an argument that this business is fundamentally a hit business -- each product is a hit or it's not. Such businesses are fundamentally volatile, and investors discount their value for that reason. Is there a way to escape that?

    I think there is. In the history of this business Nokia (NOK) accomplished that, and todayApple has accomplished it. You're right though in saying this is a hit business. It's very much like a Hollywood movie business or a drug selection business. What we need is a business machine that works at a modest profitability level at all times, and then on top of that you can have hits. The question isn't whether there's volatility. There is definitely volatility in this business. You're only as good as your last product. But we have a distribution machine, a supply-chain machine, a development machine, a branding machine, a go-to-market machine, which delivers a level of profitability. I think it's possible to get that machine to be efficient enough, and then on top of that you take this 20% or 30% innovative bet that some of them could be hits.

    History says an industry like this eventually consolidates to a handful of players. Do you expect that to happen, and does Motorola survive as an independent company?

    I expect consolidation to occur. Our customers are consolidating, and our supply base is also consolidating. But my view is that consolidation occurs in some interesting ways. I'm not convinced that handset manufacturers acquiring other manufacturers is the best way for value to be created for shareholders. Consolidation across content manufacturers and hardware and software manufacturers -- I see a bunch of different ways for this consolidation to occur, to create shareholder value and create different structures to the industry. You've already seen the acquisition of Palm by HP (HPQ, Fortune 500), a very interesting acquisition that brought software and hardware assets together. The relationship between Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) and Nokia (NOK) also speaks to that. Do we expect Motorola to be an independent company? I don't know yet. I hope very much that we are. I believe our strategy is the right strategy and will deliver the shareholder value we've promised.

    It sounds as if Motorola consolidating possibly with a software outfit of some kind is not unimaginable.

    There are lots of opportunities for us to combine different resources and create more shareholder value.

    The stock market seems to think Apple is going to rule the world -- it's the second most valuable company in America, after Exxon Mobil (XOM, Fortune 500). What are Apple's vulnerabilities?

    I'm loath to comment on vulnerabilities of a company that has been incredibly successful in delivering world-class products. On the other hand, I would say that scale and innovation very often don't mix. Defense of market share and other defensive actions very often set in, and middle management begins to drive the culture and strategy of a company. I'm certain the folks at Apple are very cognizant and are prepared to make sure that doesn't occur. But not speaking about Apple in particular, the scale that comes with that level of success is very often the beginning of a decline.

    You're a global CEO running a global business. What's the key to America's competitiveness in the world economy?

    Innovation and the education system. We have -- or we've had -- the best secondary- and [college]-education system in the world, and we by and large changed the world -- not just ourselves, but also England and some other places. We definitely want to encourage the brightest people in the world to come and innovate here in America. Some of our immigration policies are slightly counter to that direction. We ought to look at that and also invest much more heavily in, first, our education system, and second, what I call pre-competitive research in our universities. When we put a man on the moon, we were spending far more of our GDP on research than we are doing today. It's important that we go back to the roots of doing fundamental research and then winning on the basis of that.