Box公司CEO独家撰文：企业如何避免数字化颠覆带来的痛楚

从1768年到20世纪90年代初，大英百科全书（Encyclopedia Britannica）一直是全球百科全书信息市场的统治者。在200多年的时间里，该公司掌握了专业的销售手段，利用独特的上门推销和顾客分销渠道相结合的方式，卖出了海量的百科信息。

然而，正如菲利普•埃文斯在1997年《哈佛商业评论》（Harvard Business Review）一篇产生巨大影响的文章中所说的那样，突然之间，一切都改变了。随着信息时代的到来，大英百科全书花了近两个世纪建立起来的伟业，在几年之内就被互联网公司摧垮了。

Blockbuster、柯达（Kodak）和鲍德斯（Borders）有着类似的遭遇。这些公司告诉我们：在数字时代，竞争来自方方面面，几乎无所不在。管理者和企业大量投入并取得成功的业务，转而给他们带来了危机。比如，大英百科全书继续出售价格高昂的实体书并附赠光盘，而不是反其道而行之；鲍德斯在向数字经济转型时做出了一个冒险举动，把电子商务的业务承包给了亚马逊（Amazon），最终反被亚马逊推翻；而淘儿唱片（Tower Records）的反应或许足够及时，但在数字化的过程中，零售店和实体供应链成了公司沉重的负担。许多案例中的公司，面对行业里不可避免的颠覆浪潮，基本没有做出抵抗，但企业应对的速度和方式其实至关重要。

在许多企业看来，20世纪90年代颠覆性的数字化浪潮似乎已经完全过去了。电子商务的网站已经建立，供应链得到了优化，信息技术投资蓬勃发展。然而，20世纪90年代和21世纪头十年的第一波数字化浪潮，只是把数字界面和体验带入了现有的世界，实际上它仍然是在模拟现实世界的东西。这就是为何第一家引起巨大反响的科技公司实际上只是做了个网页版的图书目录，以及为何早期的互联网充斥着新闻报道，将纸质报纸逼到了墙角。

时间快进到2014年，情况已经越来越明晰：新闻、媒体和商业的数字化转型只是冰山一角。今天，互联网变得无处不在，智能手机开始拥有定位功能，潜藏的计算资源开始商品化，直到这时，我们这个世界转型的时机才完全成熟。

下一个十年，将会是在经济社会的剩余领域打造数字“接口”和数字体验的时代。曾经受到重大资产投资或迟滞的监管环境保护的企业，如果不迅速做出反应，就有可能重蹈唱片店的覆辙。在这个计算机技术可以无限扩展的世界中，如雨后春笋般涌现的初创公司开始在生命科学和眼镜等形形色色的领域抢占市场；人才可以随时获得；委托生产只需要点击几下鼠标，而将产品分销给数十亿人几乎成了企业与生俱来的权利。

每个公司的董事会、信息技术部门和领导团队，都应该假定现在有——或是将会有——更高效的服务顾客的方式。2010年，出租车业没有扪心自问：“我们被雇来是做什么工作的？”因此也没有为顾客提供高质量、随叫随到的服务。所以，Uber和随后的Lyft填补了这个空缺。

尽管几乎没哪个行业像出租车业那样分散化，但这些改变了城市交通运输的因素几乎可以影响到其他所有市场。缺乏新的竞争者使得僵化的“寡头”产生了高枕无忧的错觉（传统医疗体系）；法律法规导致准入门槛过高（传统出租车公司）；或是由于人们难以找到替代者而稳操胜券（大型零售商）——这些曾经支撑市场垄断的结构正在瓦解。面对拥有全新价值特性，专注于提供个性化、随叫随到的体验，没有传统基础设施和垂直整合的拖累，不用分期偿还大量贷款的公司，这些曾经颇具竞争力的优势如今已荡然无存。

在《哈佛商业评论》不久前刊登的一篇文章中，哈佛商学院（Harvard Business School）教授迈克尔•波特写道：“这些新型产品改变了行业的结构和竞争的本质，让公司暴露在新的竞争机遇和威胁下……在许多公司中，智能联网的产品会迫使他们问出最基本的问题：‘我到底从事的是什么买卖？’”

无论在哪个行业，都有办法将工业时代的经济转型成信息经济。首先，你得搞清在这个全新的数字世界中，公司专有特色的自然延伸或独特价值。如果你的公司拥有大量基础设施，那就考虑创造一个应用程序接口（API），让你的庞大规模能够为其他人所用。而对产品公司而言，需要考虑如何利用数字化的反馈回路与顾客建立更加动态化的关系。如果你是一个高端产品供应商，就要设法通过新技术来降低成本并扩大用户群体。数字化转型并不意味着抛弃你的核心竞争力，而是意味着利用新的体验和技术来大幅提高你的竞争力。

而在开发新产品、新技术之外，另一种可能的解决方案是与硅谷等地的初创公司合作。比如全食超市（Whole Foods）最近就与杂货电商Instacart联手，使得公司的交易规模提升了150%。通用电气（GE）最近也投资了行业领先的无人机公司Airware。在另一些情况下，收购可能会是合适的选择。比如诺德斯特龙（Nordstrom）收购Trunk Club，或是孟山都（Monsanto）去年收购Climate Corp。数字化转型浪潮甚至改变了公司领导层的DNA。比如服装公司盖普（Gap）最近就任命了数字和创新部门主任阿特•佩克为下一任首席执行官。

正如网景公司（Netscape）和风投公司安德森•霍洛维茨（Andreessen Horowitz）的创始人马克•安德森所言，软件正在吞食这个世界。但科技驱动的创新不仅来自科技业。所有行业的公司都有机会从第一波数字化浪潮中陨落的公司那里吸取教训，顺应这一变化，在数字世界重塑自身品牌。 

阿隆•列维是Box公司的首席执行官，也是Airware公司投资人。Box的客户包括通用电气、Gap和孟山都等知名公司。（财富中文网）

译者：严匡正

From 1768 to the early 1990s, one company dominated the world’s market for encyclopedic information. For over 200 years, it had mastered the esoteric practice of selling libraries of information through a unique blend of traveling sales people and consumer distribution channels.

Suddenly, everything changed for Encyclopedia Britannica, asPhilip Evans diagrammed in a seminal Harvard Business Review article in 1997. With the advent of the information age, what took Encyclopedia Britannica nearly two centuries to build up was undone by computer-oriented businesses in just a few years.

Blockbuster, Kodak and Borders have similar stories; these companies have taught us that in the digital era, with competition democratized across a widening landscape, managers and businesses are threatened by the very activities they’re most invested to accomplish. In Britannica’s case, this meant continuing to sell high-priced physical books with CD-ROMs as an add-on, rather than the other way around. For Borders, one of its perilous moves in entering the digital economy was contracting digital commerce to its eventual disruptor, Amazon AMZN -1.92% . And as responsive as Tower Records may have been to change, retail stores and physical supply chains became a burden when its core product turns into bits. In many cases, there’s simply no fighting the inevitable disruption at play in one’s industry, but how quickly you respond and the characteristics of that response are critical.

For many enterprises, it felt like the digital disruption of the 1990s had fully played out. Ecommerce sites were launched, supply chains were optimized, and information technology investments experienced a boom. But the first digital wave of the 1990s and 2000s merely brought digital interfaces and experiences to universes where similar, albeit analog, metaphors already existed. This is why the first technology company to explode was a web-version of a book catalog, and why news surged onto the Internet, scattering newspapers in its wake.

Fast-forward to 2014, and it’s becoming clearer that the transition to digital in news, media, and commerce was just the tip of the iceberg. It wasn’t until Internet ubiquity, location-aware smartphones, and a commoditization of underlying computing resources came together that our world was fully ripe for transformation.

This next decade will be about building digital “interfaces” and experiences in the rest of the economy. Enterprises once protected by significant investment in assets or slow-moving regulatory environments now run the risk of going the way of the record store if they don’t respond. Startups tackling markets as diverse as life sciences and eyewear are cropping up in a world where computing is infinitely scalable; talent can be acquired on-demand; contract manufacturing is just a few clicks away, and distribution to billions is nearly an entrepreneurial birthright.

Every company board, IT organization, and leadership team should assume that there are – or will be – new ways to more efficiently serve customers. In 2010, the Taxi industry neglected to ask, ‘what is the job we’ve been hired to do?’ and deliver a high-quality, on-demand experience for the consumer as a result. So Uber and later Lyft did it for them.

While few industries are as broken as the taxi industry, the same factors that have changed fortunes in urban transportation are at play in nearly every other market. The structures that once supported market dominance are becoming unsound: rigid “monopolies” that led to a false sense of competitive security due to a lack of new entrants (traditional healthcare systems); regulations that ensured high barriers to entry (traditional taxi companies); or businesses that won via constrained access to alternatives (big box retailers). These once-competitive advantages become inert in the face of newly valued characteristics, delivered by companies that focus on personalization, on-demand experiences, and don’t have the baggage of traditional infrastructure, vertical integration, or huge assets to amortize.

In a recent piece for Harvard Business Review, Harvard Business School professor Michael Porter wrote that “These new types of products alter industry structure and the nature of competition, exposing companies to new competitive opportunities and threats. … In many companies, smart, connected products will force the fundamental question, “What business am I in?”

No matter what the business, there’s a path to move from the industrial age to the information economy. The first step is to recognize the natural extensions of proprietary or unique value in this new digital world. If you’ve amassed massive infrastructure, consider creating application program interfaces (APIs) to let any outsider take advantage of your scale. For product companies, consider how a digital feedback loop can create a more dynamic relationship with your customer. If you’re a high-end provider, figure out how new technology lets you lower your costs and bring your solution to a wider set of customers. Digital transformation doesn’t mean throwing out your core competency, but it does mean heavily augmenting it with new experiences and technologies.

And beyond developing new products and technologies, part of the solution may be to partner with startups in Silicon Valley and beyond, as Whole Foods recently did by linking up with Instacart, where they’re already seeing transaction sizes increase by 150%, or as GE just did by investing in Airware, a leading drone startup. In other cases, the right answer might be through acquisition, as Nordstrom demonstrated by acquiring Trunk Club, or Monsanto did by scooping up the Climate Corp last year. This shift is even leading to a change in the DNA across the leadership team, as seen by the recent move of Gap naming Art Peck, its head of digital and innovation, as its next CEO.

As Marc Andreessen, founder of Netscape and VC firm Andreessen Horowitz said, software is eating the world. But technology-driven innovation won’t just come from the technology sector. Businesses across all industries have the opportunity to learn from companies who failed to catch the first wave of digital disruption and get ahead of this change, remaking themselves for the digital world.

Aaron Levie is CEO of Box. Levie is an investor of Airware. GE, Gap and Monsanto are customers of Box.