家得宝以退为进谋增长

    商业世界是增长率数据的奴隶。大多数分析师和其他公司观察人士都会以增长率来衡量一家公司成功与否。如果你经营的是一家零售企业，增长率往往意味着需要开设更多的门店。如果你想跻身行业增长前列，你就得去中国，那里有新兴的中产阶级和富有的消费者。“去中国增长，增长，再增长”是企业观察人士的一致呼声。

    然而，家得宝（Home Depot）却并不理会这一套。这家家居建材连锁店的CEO弗兰克•布莱克决定关闭中国业务，停止在美国开设新的门店。这样做的效益已经显现。2011年底，家得宝实现营收704亿美元，较2010年增长3.5%。10月底，家得宝股价超过了60美元，同比涨幅近70%。布莱克是怎么取得这些成绩的？它与停止扩张不无关系。

    当然，从公司利益出发，叫停大项目，并不是布莱克给家得宝带来的唯一改变。2007年，他接替罗伯特•纳德利时，也进行了重要的经营调整。纳德利此前削减了员工福利，专注于扩张和收购。布莱克则反其道而行之，决心重振公司受损的客户服务声誉，削减成本，但不伤士气。

    布莱克意识到，让公司重新成为员工动力的源泉，需要做大量的工作。因此，尽管零售业普遍存在增长压力，但开设新店似乎不是最佳的资金运用方式。瑞信（Credit Suisse）研究家得宝的分析师盖瑞•保尔特称：“布莱克看着世界地图说：‘我们到处都有店，为什么不专注于改善现有的门店，不再为了增长而增长？’”布莱克认为，为了安抚华尔街而盲目扩张并不可取。

    与此类似，家得宝在纳德利担任CEO期间，于2004年宣布了中国扩张计划。但公司的DIY家装理念在中国始终不温不火，布莱克表示。很大程度上是因为地区负责人没有选好，大卖场（big box）模式与中国分销体系的冲突，以及文化上的不适应。布莱克最近告诉《财富》杂志，在中国，“自己动手装修并不值得炫耀。”

    家得宝的中国门店当时在亏钱。虽然很多公司有“门店建好了，顾客自然会上门”的想法，但布莱克还是希望在美国本土改善家得宝的业绩。今年9月13日，这家公司宣布将关闭中国的7家大卖场门店。

    “人们可能会说，‘真是个傻瓜，这家伙怎么能退出全球消费者数量最多的市场呢？’”布莱克说。但他承认，他不是要带领家得宝进行海外扩张的人。这位CEO对其他新兴市场和高增长国家也有同样的看法。“我们不进巴西没问题，”他说。“但不能丢掉家得宝门店提供的、最好的整体零售体验。”

    总是在敦促企业增长、增长、再增长的华尔街似乎也喜欢他。“他做任何事情都有点逆潮流而动，”保尔特表示，分析师们已开始期待他采取这样的行为，然后送上赞美。

    The business world is a slave to growth stats. That's how most analysts and other company watchers gauge a firm's success. If you run a retail operation, growth often means building more stores. And if you want in on the best growth rate, you'll head to China. That's where the new middle class and wealthy consumers are. "Grow and grow in China," urges the Greek chorus of corporate spectators.

    Home Depot (HD) has balked at all of this. CEO Frank Blake decided to close the hardware chain's operations in China and refrained from building new stores in the United States. And the company has benefited At the end of 2011, Home Depot had earned $70.4 billion in revenue, up 3.5% from 2010. As of this October, a share of Home Depot costs more than $60, an increase of nearly 70% from the same time last year. How did Blake pull this off? Part of it has to do with calling it quits on growth.

    Of course, pulling the plug on big projects for the good of the company isn't the only skill Blake has brought to Home Depot. He also made key operational changes when he replaced Robert Nardelli in 2007. Nardelli had slashed employee benefits and focused on expansion and acquisitions. Blake reversed that tactic and set to get the company's damaged customer service reputation back up to snuff and cut costs without killing morale.

    Blake realized that returning the company to its employee-empowered roots would take a great deal of work. So much, in fact, that building new stores didn't seem like the best use of money, despite the general pressure to grow. "Frank looked at the world and said, 'We're fully stored, why don't we focus on improving the existing stores that we have rather than growing for growth's sake?'" says Gary Balter, an analyst who covers Home Depot for Credit Suisse. Blake saw, he says, that growing to placate Wall Street didn't make good business sense.

    Similarly, Home Depot had announced plans to expand in China in 2004 under then-CEO Nardelli. But the company's do-it-yourself hardware approach never took off in the region, Blake says. Much of this was due to a combination of having the wrong regional leaders at the company, challenges adopting its big box model to China's distribution system, and a cultural mismatch. In China, Blake recently told Fortune, "Doing it yourself is not a point of pride."

    Home Depot stores in the region were losing money. And while many companies have an "if you build it, they will come" mentality, Blake wanted to improve Home Depot at home. On September 13 of this year, the company announced it would close its seven big box stores in China.

    "The next person could go, 'what a moron, how could this guy walk away from the largest consuming population in the world?'" Blake says. But he admits he is not the person to lead Hope Depot's overseas expansion. The CEO feels the same way about other emerging market, high-growth countries. "We can afford not to be in Brazil," he says, "but we cannot afford not to have the best interconnected retail experience in our space."

    And Wall Street, which often pushes companies so hard to grow, seems to love him. "He's done everything a little bit so-called 'against the grain,'" Balter says, and analysts have come to not only expect that behavior from Blake, but reward it.