大公司的创新困境
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研究员麦斯维尔•维塞尔在《哈佛商业评论》（Harvard Business Review）的博客上发表了一篇大作，文中提出了一个大公司应该如何创新的框架。该文深入详实、见解深刻，但行文到最后也同样让人颇感沮丧。 作为“增长与创新论坛”（Forum for Growth & Innovation）的资深会员，维塞尔在这篇共有三部分的大作中描述了一个特有的商业世界。这个世界中充斥着平庸不堪、只知道削减成本的经理人。他们对流程极度关注，总是对即将发布的财务季报忧心忡忡，还对公司的股东怕得要命。作者其实并没有挑明这一点，实际上他对这类经理人、乃至这类对创新毫无兴趣的公司深感同情。文中写道：“经验老到的经理人总能让自己的员工乖乖地离开创新探索的艺术之道，转而埋头追求如何实现交付的科学之路。他们会教员工如何提高效率，充分利用好现有资产和分销渠道，同时对公司最优质的客户言听计从（同时百般取悦）。” 或许，更切中要害的观点是：“这种做法和政策确保了公司高管能向华尔街交出有意义的收入报表，同时安抚股东。” 比利，你长大了想干什么？“噢，天哪，我想摆平股东！” 维塞尔深知，很多这类经理人（不过显然他们不都是这样）此生宁可选择别的事业。而且在大多数情况下，他们选择的余地很小。他还说，就算是最稳定的行业中、最古板的公司，其大多数也必须谋求增长，同时适应不断变化的市场。 不过即便在这种情况下，要正确地创新也需要眼光和勇气。为此维塞尔引用了一个嘉宝公司（Gerber）当年曾试图离开婴儿食品市场向外拓展，最终无果而终、声誉受损的案例。1974年，嘉宝公司推出了Gerber Singles。它其实还是一款婴儿食品，只不过在瓶身上换了个标签，在杂货店换个摆放位置而已。这个尝试最后惨淡收场，公司颜面扫地。 维塞尔写道，因为就其体制而言，嘉宝公司【现在已属于雀巢公司（Nestle）】就必须尽可能高效地推广其现有产品，所以“嘉宝的管理层针对成年人推出那款看起来和尝起来都像儿童食品的产品就再自然不过了。这是他们最大的体制障碍导致的，而不是因为缺乏眼光。”但这当然是因为缺乏眼光，问题只在于弄清到底是什么导致了这种缺失。维塞尔是这么认为的：“…嘉宝面临组织内部压力，也就是需要高效运营，每年实现数十亿美元的增长，满足现有客户——而且要在完成所有这些任务的同时，不能危及现有的净收入水平。问题不在于创意，问题来自这种成熟机构对不断增长的利润的不懈追求。”【事实上恰恰相反，这个创意本身也够糟糕的；维塞尔表示，如果嘉宝只是为这款产品换个包装，它或许就能成为下一个奥德瓦拉公司（Odwalla，美国著名新鲜果汁公司——译注）或坚宝果汁公司（Jamba Juice）。但是冰沙毕竟不是婴儿食品。】 |
On the Harvard Business Review's blog network, researcher Maxwell Wessel offers a framework for how big companies should go about innovating. It's informative and insightful, but also, ultimately, depressing. In his three-part essay, Wessel, a fellow at the Forum for Growth & Innovation, describes a business world filled with stodgy, cost-cutting managers who are hyperfocused on processes, always worried about the coming quarterly report, and scared of their own stockholders. He doesn't say this outright, and in fact he's empathetic to those managers and even to companies that have no interest in innovating. "Seasoned managers," he writes, "steer their employees from pursuing the art of discovery and [toward] engaging in the science of delivery. Employees are taught to seek efficiencies, leverage existing assets and distribution channels, and listen to (and appease) their best customers." And, perhaps more to the point: "Such practices and policies ensure that executives can deliver meaningful earnings to the street and placate shareholders." What do you want to do when you grow up, Billy? "Why, jeepers, I want to placate shareholders!" Wessel knows that many such managers (though clearly not all of them) would rather be doing something else with their lives. And in most cases, they have little choice. Even the most staid companies in the most stable industries must seek growth and adjust to changing markets, he notes. But even in those cases, it takes vision and courage to do innovation right. Wessel cites the example of Gerber's infamous attempt to expand beyond the baby-food market. In 1974, it came up with Gerber Singles, which was just baby food with a different label slapped on the jar, and placed in a different part of the grocery store. It was a miserable, humiliating failure. Wessel writes that because Gerber (now a subsidiary of Nestle) was institutionally geared toward focusing on marketing its existing products as efficiently as possible, it was "only natural that Gerber executives created a product for adults that looked and felt just like its product for children. This was their biggest barrier, not a lack of vision." But of course it was a lack of vision, it's just a matter of determining what caused the lack. Wessel says as much: "...Gerber faced the internal pressure of its organization, the need to operate efficiently, to deliver billion-dollar growth businesses every year, to satisfy existing customers — and to do all this without threatening existing net income levels. The problem wasn't the idea; the problem emerged from the relentless pursuit of incremental profit within mature organizations." (On the contrary, the idea was terrible; Wessel says that if Gerber had simply presented the product differently, it could have become the next Odwalla or Jamba Juice. But smoothies ain't baby food.) |
