世界500强深度报道：百年巨人重回年轻态

1952年，时任波音公司（2016年世界500强排名第61位）首席执行官的比尔·艾伦说服了该公司董事会向一个未经验证的想法投入1,600万美元。当时波音主要制造军用飞机，也就是著名的B-52轰炸机这样成熟的喷气式飞机。这些昂贵、复杂的飞机未能在客运航空市场顺利转型。放弃螺旋桨飞机的成本过高，航空公司不愿冒这个险。

但艾伦拥有远见卓识。他深信乘客和航空公司都会被喷气式飞机的速度和便利所吸引，因而将波音未来的业绩押在了随后的波音707上。这是首款跨越大西洋的商用飞机，并且很快成为一种文化象征。它改变了二战后的航空旅行，还让波音成为20世纪最主要的喷气式客机制造商。

《财富》杂志将艾伦的这次“赌博”称为史上最伟大的商业决策之一。然而，这位今年就要满100岁的航空业巨擘和60年前的那家公司相比已经相去甚远。2014年前CEO吉姆·麦克纳尼表示，波音开发新飞机时再也不会追求过度的“高大上”，这也许是对现状的最清晰诠释。面对商用和军用市场令人却步的阻力以及华尔街对利润的永不满足的需求，波音对风险的欲望已经减弱。

对现任CEO丹尼斯·米伦伯格来说，在这家公司成为百年老店之际，弄明白究竟怎样像以前的波音那样创新，同时还要在种种困难的市场情况之下开展经营可能是他面临的最大挑战。刚刚上任满一年的米伦伯格要兼顾三个不同的重大商用飞机项目（同时权衡是否再实施一个项目），还要重组波音的国防部门，后者既缺乏新业务，也未能如期推进现有项目。

In 1952, Boeing’s then-CEO Bill Allen convinced the company’s board to sink $16 million into a single, untested idea. At the time Boeing primarily built military planes, sophisticated jet-powered aircraft like the venerable B-52 bomber. Such costly, complex aircraft didn’t translate well to the passenger air travel market. The switch from propellor-driven airplanes would simply cost too much, and airlines wouldn’t take the risk.

But Allen had a vision. Convinced that both travelers and airlines would come around to the speed and convenience of jet-powered air travel, he staked Boeing’s financial future on what would become the Boeing 707, the first transatlantic commercial jetliner and soon-to-be cultural icon. The 707 remade air travel for the post-war world. It also remade Boeing into the 20th century’s premier builder of passenger jets.

Fortune has called Allen’s gamble one of the greatest business decisions ever made. But as the aviation giant marks its 100th birthday this year, Boeing is far from the same company it was 60 years ago—a fact perhaps best crystallized in former-CEO Jim McNerney’s declaration in 2014 that Boeing will no longer pursue “moonshots” when developing new aircraft. Facing formidable headwinds in both the commercial and military markets as well as a fickle Wall Street that demands margins remains strong, Boeing’s appetite for risk has tapered.

Figuring out exactly how to innovate like the Boeing of old while operating under a range of difficult market conditions could prove current CEO Dennis Muilenberg’s biggest challenge as the company hits the century mark. In just his second year at the helm, Muilenberg finds himself juggling three different big commercial aircraft programs (and weighing the launch of another) while shaking up a defense unit that’s short on new business and behind schedule on its its biggest existing program.

波音成立于1916年7月15日，刚刚走过一个世纪的它面临着一些历史上较为艰难的挑战，这让部分人怀疑这家百年老店是否还能像比尔·艾伦在任时那样阔步前进，从而带来又一个“707时刻”。

如何顶住下行压力？

波音面临诸多问题，米伦伯格也无法通过对公司的任何简单调整让自己的任务变得轻松一些。商用飞机方面，六年来客机订单的迅猛增长看来已经开始放缓，特别是在波音基本上处于主导位置的远程飞机市场。同时，欧洲竞争对手空中客车（2016年世界500强排名：100）正在巩固自己在短程飞机市场的地位，而这个市场正是大多数飞机订单的来源。

虽然波音成功克服了在生产787梦想飞机过程中遇到的好几个难题，但这款造价超过300亿美元的机型能否最终盈利仍是未知数。每交付一架787，波音仍会亏损数百万美元，只是这个数字正在不断下降。这款产品带来的300亿美元递延开发成本仍是笼罩在波音头顶的一片阴霾。

就在波音管理层兼顾新型737 Max窄体客机、新777X（定于明年投产）以及787梦想飞机的开发之际，市场需求却在所谓的“市场中部”，也就是中程喷气式客机出现了增长。这种飞机最多可搭载260名乘客，填补了最大的波音737短程客机和波音787那样最小的远程客机之间的空白。如果波音决定朝着这个方向努力，这样的飞机有望在五年后问世。但在这之前，相关的开发和生产要消耗大量财务资源。

军用飞机约占波音960亿美元收入的三分之一。在这方面，波音面临的是另一番景象——新飞机数量不足，而不是太多。就销售和保持现有产品线而言，这项业务依然活跃。它的产品包括CH-47支奴干直升机、阿帕奇武装直升机、F/A-18和F-15系列战斗机。但波音已经吃了两次败仗，一次是美国国防部的下一代战斗机订单，一次是输给了洛克希德-马丁公司（2016年世界500强排名：197）的F35，另一次则是最近的一批隐形轰炸机订单被规模较小的竞争对手诺斯洛普格拉曼公司（2016年世界500强排名：450）夺走。

As it crosses the century mark, the company faces some of the more daunting challenges in its history, prompting some to wonder whether a 100-year-old Boeing can still conjure the kind of Bill Allen swagger that might produce its next 707 moment.

Staying aloft amid downward pressure

There’s no singular issue facing Boeing, and no singular twist of the corporate dials that might make things easier for Muilenberg. On the commercial side, a six-year boom in passenger aircraft orders appears to be slowing, particularly in the long-haul market where Boeing generally dominates. Meanwhile, European rival Airbus   is gaining ground in the short-haul market, where most of the aircraft volume lives.

Though Boeing has managed to move past several early headaches in the production of its new 787 Dreamliner, it’s still unclear if the jet—which cost the company more than $30 billion to develop—will ever turn an overall profit. Boeing still loses several million dollars per aircraft for every 787 delivered, though that number continues to shrink. That $30 billion in deferred development costs related to the Dreamliner still loom over the company like a specter.

Even as management juggles the development of the new 737 Max narrow-body, the new 777X (slated to enter production next year) and the 787 Dreamliner, market demand is growing for a so-called “middle-of-the-market” medium-haul jetliner. Seating up to 260 passengers and filling the gap between Boeing’s largest 737 short-haul jet and its smallest long-haul airliners like the 787, such an aircraft would come to market in the middle of the next decade should Boeing choose to pursue it. Its development and engineering would start burning through financial resources much sooner than that.

On the defense side, which accounts for roughly a third of the company’s $96 billion in revenues, Boeing faces different anxieties—not enough new aircraft rather than too many. Boeing still does a brisk business selling and sustaining its current aircraft offerings—which range from CH-47 Chinook heavy-lift helicopters Apache gunships to the F/A-18 and F-15 families of fighter jets. But the company lost competitions to build both the Pentagon’s next generation of fighter jets (won byLockheed Martin and the F-35) and, more recently, a new fleet of stealth bombers won by smaller rival Northrop Grumman .

With no major combat aircraft programs on the horizon and its current aircraft running out of orders to fill, Boeing could soon find itself shuttering its current fighter jet production lines, cut out of a market that has long been a core part of its defense business. “There’s a good chance the F-15 dies in 2019, with the F-18 winding down at about the same time,” says Richard Aboulafia, senior vice president for research at defense and aerospace consultancy The Teal Group. “So in the background of all of this, you’ve got the end of their most profitable defense platforms too.”

Boeing plans to remain competitive in the tactical jet space by focusing on both the sustainment of its current fleets of F-15s and F-18s around the world as well as by competing for a multi-billion-dollar U.S. Air Force program that will replace its current fleet of trainer jets, says Steve Nordlund, vice president of strategy for Boeing’s defense unit.

Others are not so optimistic that will be enough. Without a major Pentagon tactical jet program to fund research and development, Boeing’s long-term presence in the lucrative but competitive combat aircraft market will depend on how much the company wants to invest in keeping its fighter jet shop up to speed, says Byron Callan, a defense analyst for Capital Alpha Partners.

“If you have a really good idea, maybe it is worth it to start pushing it and taking some of that risk,” Callan says. “Otherwise, I don’t know how you survive in the fighter market five or six years after the F-15 and the F-18 are out of production.”

‘We know our future’s not guaranteed.’

In the immediate future, however, fighter jets are not Muilenberg’s key concern. Moving into Boeing’s second century, the larger battle will be managing the tension between shareholder growth and plateauing profits.

“It is a competitive marketplace,” Muilenberg told the Financial Times earlier this month. “We know our future’s not guaranteed, so every day we have to relentlessly pursue additional actions to drive our competitiveness.”

Thus far, those actions have included job cuts within Boeing’s commercial unit (as many as 8,000 jobs could be cut this year), a management shakeup in the defense unit, and adjustments to its supply chain unlikely to be popular with suppliers. (For instance, Boeing will now take up to three times as long to pay its bills). In the relentless pursuit of shareholder value, Boeing’s employees have felt the pain as well, and relations between the company and labor remain somewhat strained.

Meanwhile, though the aerospace market is famously cyclical, the downward pressure on profits won’t necessarily be relieved during the next market upswing. Looking toward the long-term, the ruling Boeing/Airbus duopoly that has served the vast majority of the commercial jetliner market likely won’t last. Canada’s Bombardier recently shocked market onlookers by inking a deal with Delta Air Lines  for 75 of its C-series narrow-body jets, stealing a piece of business from the market served by Boeing 737 and Airbus’s A320.

While both Boeing and Airbus benefitted from a number narrow-body jet orders from Asian carriers at the Farnborough Air Show in the U.K. this week, it’s only a matter of time before China leaps into the fray.

卡兰说：“想一想左右全球航天市场的力量就会发现，今后100年亚洲航空业必将更加繁荣。波音怎样应付这种局面，或者怎样参与其中仍是个未知数。”

但波音面对的不全是阻力。在它身后，该公司还有约5,800架飞机的未完成订单，价值4,000亿美元。同时，波音本周早些时候公布的最新商用飞机市场20年展望显示，今后20年的新飞机需求为39,620架，价值5.9万亿美元（竞争对手空客本周也发布了类似展望，只是乐观程度略低一些）。

波音商用飞机营销副总裁兰迪·廷塞斯说：“我们的处境是很难让未完成订单出现增长，但我们可以做到这一点。更重要的是，这些订单必须交付，而这正是我们的焦点所在。”

的确，波音很大一部分收入都来自交货之际，而不是飞机售出时。因此，只要能顺利增加交货量，削减成本，或者出现二者兼顾的理想情况，波音就有可能只提升利润，而不一定要提高销售额。

该公司国防业务策略副总裁诺德兰承认，国防预算（特别是美国）不断缩水以及15年来美国国防部战斗机业务的流失带来了挑战，但他认为波音前景光明，原因是它正在成为更加全球化的飞机制造企业。即将出口科威特的24架F-18价值30亿美元，还有向卡塔尔出口36架F-15E的40亿美元合同有望帮助波音的现有战斗机生产线再运转几年（这两笔交易都在等待美国政府的批准）。

但诺德兰指出，除了军用飞机出口，波音最近还跟印度塔塔集团签约，双方将在印度建立生产飞机零部件的合资公司。此外，波音还在英国和澳大利亚设立了业务部门。他说：“今后100年其实就是要把波音变成一家真正的全球化企业。”不光是出口飞机，还要在世界各地设点。

“If you think about the forces shaping the global aerospace market, over the next 100 years there’s bound to be a more robust Asian aviation industry,” Callan says. “How is Boeing going to deal with that, or participate in that—that’s an open question.”

But it’s not all headwinds for Boeing. At its back, the company has an order backlog of roughly 5,800 aircraft valued at $400 billion and—according to Boeing’s most recent 20-year commercial jet market outlook released earlier this week—a demand for 39,620 new planes worth $5.9 trillion over the next two decades. (Rival Airbus released a similar though slightly-less-rosy market projection this week as well.)

“We’re in a position where growing that backlog is difficult, but it’s something we can do,” says Randy Tinseth, vice president of marketing for Boeing Commercial Airplanes. “More importantly we’re in a position where we have to deliver that backlog, and that’s where our focus is.”

Indeed, the bulk of Boeing’s revenue is collected when planes are delivered rather than when they’re sold, allowing Boeing the opportunity to boost profits without necessarily boosting sales if it can successfully ramp up deliveries, cut costs, or—ideally—both.

Boeing’s Nordlund acknowledges the challenges posed by shrinking defense budgets (particularly in the U.S.) and the loss of Pentagon combat jet business over the past 15 years, but sees a bright future for Boeing as it evolves into an even more global aerospace company. A pending $3 billion sale of 24 F-18s to Kuwait and a similar $4 billion deal with Qatar for 36 F-15E jets could help sustain Boeing’s existing fighter jet production lines for a few more years (both deals are currently on hold pending approval by the U.S. government).

But beyond foreign military sales, Nordlund points to a recently-inked joint venture with India’s Tata to produce aerospace components in that country as well as business units Boeing has planted in the U.K. and Australia. “It really is about evolving Boeing in the next 100 years to be that truly global company,” he says—not just an exporter of aircraft, but a company with footprints across the world.

创新问题依然存在，波音愿为突破性理念冒多大风险的问题依然存在——这样的理念或许会再次改变历史以及波音的进程。它能既是数十年并购打造而成的大型国际性综合集团，又像当年造出波音707那样充满雄心壮志，愿意冒险吗？在一个面向未来的航天市场，一个依然可以创造“707时刻”的市场，埃隆·穆斯克的SpaceX已经拔得头筹，这让波音和洛克希德-马丁这样的老牌航天企业深感气馁。

卡兰说：“如果我是米伦伯格，那我最担心的就是还有多少像SpaceX这样的公司。这是个影响100年的问题。”(财富中文网)

译者：Charlie

审校：詹妮

There’s still the looming question of innovation and how much Boeing is willing to risk on breakthrough ideas that might—once again—change the course of history and the company. Can a company be both a massive international conglomerate, a product of decades of mergers and acquisitions, as well as the kind of ambitious, risk-taking enterprise that produced the 707? In one future aerospace market—one that remains ripe for 707 moments—Elon Musk’s SpaceX has already seized the initiative, much to the dismay of legacy aerospace companies like Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

“If I were Muilenberg my biggest concern is: How many more SpaceX’s are there out there?” Callan says. “That’s a 100-year issue.”