过去的辉煌是基业长青最大的敌人

    做一个小测试：不论你现在用的是哪种品牌的智能手机或数码相机，你知道数码相机的绝大多数技术都是由哪家公司发明的吗？早在1975年，这家公司的科学家就发明了数码相机，而且还相继生产出超过1,000种数字创新产品，包括第一款超过140万像素的百万像素传感器、第一个彩色滤镜座，以及第一种将图像按JPEG标准进行压缩的方法。它是哪家公司？

    索尼（Sony）、三星（Samsung）、苹果（Apple）、诺基亚（Nokia）、动态研究公司（Research in Motion，也就是如今的黑莓），还是当今的其他科技巨头？如果这是你的答案，再猜一猜。猜不到了吧？答案是柯达公司（Kodak）。柯达一度占有美国胶片市场90%的份额，但由于不愿意侵蚀自己的传统产品，结果其它规模更小的数字摄影创新公司在日益壮大和抢占份额的时候，柯达却依然置之不理。结果，仅仅十年时间，柯达的价值便损失了87%，并于去年宣布破产。

    南加州大学马歇尔商学院（University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business ）的管理学教授及全球创新中心（Center for Global Innovation）负责人杰勒德•J•泰利斯发现：“公司处于成功巅峰的时候，往往也是最危险的时候，极有可能由此由盛转衰。市场支配地位就像一个魔咒，会让公司迷失方向，看不到即将到来的重大创新。”

    泰利斯的新书《创新无止境》（Unrelenting Innovation）对造成这种情况的原因进行了研究。他与同事研究了15个国家的770家公司，其中许多公司的艰难历程经常登上媒体头条，比如惠普（Hewlett-Packard）、索尼（Sony）和通用汽车（General Motors）等。研究人员发现，从长远来看，成功与规模、拥有专利的数量或者用于研发的资金多少无关。要想始终保持领先，需要建立一种“创新的文化”，包括对风险的偏好，对奖励新思路的热忱，以及对未来、而非过往的专注。

    当然，说起来容易做起来难。泰利斯详细研究了所有障碍。最终书中解释了一个道理，为什么创建一种文化、最终侵蚀掉目前成功的产品才是唯一的道路。想要通过收购来引入这种文化的任何尝试通常都不会成功，因为当一家公司决定进行战略收购时，收购目标“要么已经估值过高，要么已经过了巅峰期，或者与公司的差异太过巨大，无法进行有益地整合，”泰利斯解释说。

    泰利斯和他的研究团队仔细研究了收购方的股价。以eBay为例。2005年，eBay以26亿美元收购了Skype。结果很不幸，两年后，Skype贬值14亿美元。而且，研究人员发现，“为了获得创新技术而（收购）公司，会导致收购方的股价持续下跌。”而那些在内部培养创新的公司，股价情况则恰恰相反：“市场对内部的有机创新会给予回报，而对于外部收购则会施加惩罚。”

    《创新无止境》一书吸引人的地方在于泰利斯在书中穿插的数十个短小、生动的案例。以其中一则为例：在柯达全盛时期，“‘停滞文化’为可怕的官僚主义的滋生提供了土壤，官僚主义在柯达已经根深蒂固，就像一个政府部门……公司强调任何事情都必须遵照公司的规则……开会之前，总要事先召开会议讨论问题，以避免冲突，因为他们认为冲突不符合柯达的形象。”

    根据泰利斯所说，如果你也在经历着同样的事情，说明你的公司已经有麻烦了——尤其是在一切都非常顺利的时候。(财富中文网)

    译者：刘进龙/汪皓

    Here's a quick quiz: No matter whose brand name is on the smartphone or digital camera you're using now, do you know who invented almost all of the technology in it? This outfit's scientists came up with digital cameras way back in 1975, and then went on to produce more than 1,000 digital innovations, including the first megapixel sensor of more than 1.4 million pixels, the first color filter tray, and the first method of image compression up to JPEG standards. What company was it?

    If you said Sony (SNE), Samsung, Apple (AAPL), Nokia (NOK), Research in Motion (now known as BlackBerry), or any other present-day tech giant, guess again. Give up? It was Kodak. Reluctant to cannibalize its traditional products (at one point, Kodak had a lock on 90% of the U.S. film market), the company sat on its hands while smaller digital-photography innovators zoomed in and ate its lunch. As a result, Kodak lost 87% of its value in just over a decade and declared bankruptcy last year.

    "Organizations are in greatest danger of failing when they're at the peak of their success," observes Gerard J. Tellis, who teaches management at the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business and directs the Center for Global Innovation there. "Market dominance can be a curse that blinds companies to the next big innovation on the horizon."

    His new book, Unrelenting Innovation, looks at exactly how that happens. Tellis and his colleagues studied 770 companies across 15 countries, including many -- like Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Sony, and General Motors (GM) -- whose struggles have made headlines. The researchers found that success over the long haul isn't a matter of size, number of patents, or the dollar amount of R&D investments. Instead, staying on top requires a "culture of innovation," including an appetite for risk, an eagerness to reward fresh thinking, and a focus on the future, not the past.

    That's easier said than done, of course, and Tellis examines all the obstacles in detail. But the book makes clear why creating a culture designed to cannibalize currently successful products is the only way to go. Trying to buy that kind of culture usually doesn't work because by the time a company decides on a strategic acquisition, the target is "either overpriced, past its peak, or too different to integrate profitably," Tellis notes.

    Tellis and his team of researchers scrutinized the share prices of acquirers -- like eBay (EBAY), for example, whose ill-fated $2.6 billion acquisition of Skype in 2005 led to a $1.4 billion write-down two years later -- and discovered that "[buying] firms for their innovations leads to a consistently negative spike in the stock price of the acquiring firm," while the opposite was true for shares of companies that grew their own innovations in-house: "The market rewards internal organic innovation and punishes external acquisitions."

    What makes Unrelenting Innovation a fascinating read is the dozens of short, vivid case studies Tellis has woven into his book. To take just one example among many: The "culture of stagnation" at Kodak in its heyday "fueled the growth of a nightmarish bureaucracy so entrenched it could have passed for a government agency…. There was an emphasis on doing everything by the company rulebooks…. Meetings were held prior to meetings to discuss issues and avoid confrontations, which were considered un-Kodaklike."

    By Tellis' lights, if that sounds at all familiar, your company is already in trouble -- even, or especially, if everything's going great right now.