比起中国企业，梅西百货关店的速度还不够快

优秀的中国公司跟随消费者的口味调整速度之快，经常让西方同行惊讶。

在中国人看来，即使美国百年老店梅西百货关闭约占总数15%的百家门店，也没什么大不了。

梅西百货关店的现实意义在于，面对亚马逊的崛起，以及纽约布鲁克林区无数初创公司在网上出售奢侈内衣和全套服装的热潮，纵然是老牌百货公司也难以应付。

中国也有一家类似的连锁百货公司，过去几年的困境跟梅西差不多。逛街的购物者越来越少，网店造成的竞争又越发激烈，实体店的客流和利润锐减。中国品牌的对策是大量关闭实体店，比例较梅西百货的15%高得多。

据中国媒体报道，中国内地首富王健林旗下购物中心开发商大连万达集团去年决定，关闭90家百货商店中的40家，几乎占店面总数的一半。内部人士告诉内地媒体，万达2007年以后开张的百货商店都没盈利。

尽管万达开拓网上销售看来一团乱，但其关闭过气百货商店的决策，以及短短几年内将450亿美元年销售额的业务重心从房地产转向服务业，都可能成为哈佛商学院的案例。不过，美国企业的最高领导者似乎不可能如此行事。

中国的初创公司还提供了更多的实例。

中国最大的出行共享平台滴滴出行起家时只有出租车叫车服务，但后来滴滴紧随美国竞争对手优步，在中国提供多项类似服务。后来即便优步的人气越来越高，滴滴出行的市场份额也居高不下。如今滴滴还提供拼车和私人巴士服务，周五晚上车主饮酒过多无法开车时，也可以通过平台找到代驾的司机。滴滴出行之所以能击败更强大的美国对手，主要原因是其能及时调整业务，满足用户的需求。

另一个例子来自腾讯。腾讯即时通讯应用微信面世后，蚕食了其他服务的市场份额。如今微信目前用户突破7亿。

在许多方面，中国像印度一样超越了美国。比如，中国的固网电信网络并不完善，运营商也不用从固话转向手机，中国全是手机生产企业。万达上纪80年代末才成立，而梅西百货早在1851年就开了第一家店。

不仅有这些后发优势，许多中国企业还克服了所谓创新者的困境。消费者当下的需求未来的需求二选一时，很多企业都清醒地倾向于未来需求。

或许梅西百货关店后，能真正放下包袱，断臂求生。

如果做不到，梅西百货的衰败只能怪自己战略转型过于缓慢。而与此同时，很多中国企业正在积极应变。（财富中文网）

翻译：Pessy

审校：夏林

Westerners often underestimate how good China’s private businesses are at swiftly adapting to consumer tastes.

That’s why the news of Macy’s closing 100 stores, or about 15% of its total, seems tame from a Chinese perspective.

Macy’s relevance, even if it is a most storied department store brand, is fading amid the rise of Amazon.com and countless Brooklyn-inspired startups peddling online luxury underwear and entire outfits.

A similarly popular Chinese department store chain has faced the dynamics as Macy’s over the past few years. Fewer shoppers and harsh online competition cut into traffic and profits. The Chinese brand responded by slashing a lot more than 15% of its stores

Last year Dalian Wanda Group, the mall developer owned by China’s richest man Wang Jianlin, decided to close almost half of the department stores it ran inside its larger malls, shuttering 40 of 90 locations, according to Chinese media reports. Insiders told the Chinese press that Wanda’s department stores opened after 2007 had never made a profit.

Although its push into online shopping looks like a mess, Wanda’s decision to close outdated department stores—along with flipping its $45-billion-annual-sales business from a real estate focus to services over a few short years—is the kind of decisive act that might be praised in the halls of Harvard Business School but seems near impossible for a U.S. CEO to make.

China’s startups offer more examples.

Didi Chuxing, the ridesharing leader in China, quickly came up with multiples of the services Uber offered in China after starting as a simple taxi-hailing service. These new offerings kept Didi’s market share elevated despite Uber’s rising popularity. Now Didi’s platform offers ridesharing, private buses, and even Friday night chauffeurs who drive your own car if you’ve had too much to drink. Didi’s transformation to keep up with user demands is a chief reason the startup beat its more powerful American rival.

In another example, Tencent cannibalized its other services when it released its messaging app WeChat. WeChat now has 700-million-plus users.

In many ways, China, like India, has simply leapfrogged the U.S. It never had a network of fixed-line telephones, for instance, nor phone operators who needed to adapt to cellphones; it just had cellphone companies. Wanda’s history traces back to the late 1980s, while Macy’s first store dates to 1851.

Even with those advantages, many Chinese companies have still overcome the so-called Innovator’s Dilemma. When faced with meeting its consumers needs now or their needs in the future, many have been able to choose the future.

Maybe Macy’s pulls itself out of a spiral of growing irrelevance.

If it doesn’t, its downfall will almost certainly be blamed on moving too slowly in a new direction—something many of China’s private companies don’t fear.