福特如何在113年的成功之后继续创新？

尽管一般都匮乏资金，但初创型公司可以非常自由地拿自己的想法和产品做试验，还可以在这样的试验失败后转向新的领域。与之相对，大型成熟公司的高管或许有大量资金可用，但缺乏独立性，或者说难以下决心调整本公司利润丰厚的业务模式。

福特汽车在2016年的国际消费电子产品展上证明，尽管已有113年历史，但该公司依然可以开展试验并取得进步。福特在拉斯维加斯举办的本次展会宣布，将把参与自动驾驶测试的汽车数量提高到原来的三倍；并携手亚马逊以及家庭自动化产品制造商Wink共同开发相关技术，以便消费者在自动驾驶汽车里操纵家里的电器；还将把Apple CarPlay、Android Auto和4G LTE以及几款新的AppLink应用添加到福特汽车的车内资讯娱乐平台上。

在2015年的国际消费电子产品展上，福特宣布将制造具备更多联网功能的汽车，测试车辆共享等其他类型的客运方式，并对车内传感器收集的信息进行大数据分析，以便更多地了解人们在车内的行为。以上的措施都和上一年的这些计划有关。

在本届国际消费电子产品展上，福特首席执行官马克•菲尔兹是《财富》杂志科技头脑风暴晚宴嘉宾。在接受科技头脑风暴大会主席亚当•拉什斯基采访时，菲尔兹介绍了福特立足今天、探索明天的策略。

《财富》杂志编辑艾伦•莫里在晚宴后指出，虽然市场似乎看好没有历史负担的新生力量，但未来很可能属于那些知道如何拥抱明天，又能把昨天最好的东西保留下来的公司。菲尔兹说，这正是福特目前的努力方向。

具体做法如下。

不要用同样的标准来评估你的核心业务和新思路。

菲尔兹说：“我们的核心业务一直都非常公开化，我们也一直在确保自己有一套充满活力而且强大的管理流程。每到星期四，我们就会作为一个管理团队坐下来，探讨我们的核心业务。”

这个团队首先会考察经营环境，看看市场动向，消费者以及最畅销的福特150皮卡等新推出产品的的情况。简而言之，他们要确保福特的赚钱机器运转良好。

福特还会评估车辆共享等出行试验，但采用的是另一套标准。

“我们得认识到，如果采用评估皮卡和轿车业务大规模资本支出的标准，这些项目很快就会消亡，因为这是在做试验，是一个学习的过程。”

给员工动力

菲尔兹说，福特已经多次对自身进行再投资。这项工作需要挑战习惯并质疑传统。最重要的是，允许员工就此提出问题。

他指出：“我们认为，高管团队的作用不是教员工如何创新。他们最不需要的就是花半天时间，脱离工作岗位来看一个1000页的“怎样创新”PPT。我们的员工知道怎么去创新。作为高管团队，我们必须允许他们这样做，而且无论成败，我们都得庆祝一番，因为我们将从中汲取经验和教训。”

策略不是扔纸团

对于福特的出行方案，菲尔兹说：“这是一项策略，而不是扔出一个纸团，然后看看它会落在哪里。”

尊重新生力量

谷歌正在开发自动驾驶汽车。特斯拉汽车制造的纯电动汽车拥有一批“信众”。包括菲尔兹在内，大家都认为苹果公司将生产汽车。如果是这样，苹果的汽车一定会有很棒的用户界面和联网功能。

菲尔兹说自己不会对此感到担心，这些情况只会促使福特更快地进行创新。

他表示：“我们尊重所有的竞争对手，无论是知名企业还是这个领域中的新生力量。我们的观点是，我们总是能从别人那里学到些东西，然后将其用于我们自己的业务。”

一定要为新的思路投入资金

去年福特的资本支出预算为65亿美元，其中大部分都用于核心业务。虽然菲尔兹没有透露其中有多少投入了福特的新出行项目，但从他的话里可以听出来，这笔资金并不是很多。不过，要点在于这是专门用于试验的资金，或者为此划拨的专款。

菲尔兹说：“我们需要非常清楚地表明，我们会拨出这样一笔钱，并且专门把它用于这些领域，原因是我们认为这里存在着机遇。”（财富中文网）

译者：Charlie

校对：詹妮

Startup companies, while typically cash poor, have a lot of freedom to experiment with ideas and products, and pivot into new areas if those fail. Meanwhile, execs at large mature companies might have large pools of capital to play with, but lack the independence, or mental fortitude, to tinker with their lucrative business models.

Ford Motor Co. demonstrated at CES this year that even at 113 years of age the business can still try to experiment and evolve. During the massive consumer electronics show in Las Vegas, Ford announced plans to triple its test fleet of autonomous vehicles, a partnership with Amazon and home-automation company Wink to develop technologies that would let consumers operate their home from the car, and the addition of Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, 4G LTE, and several new AppLink apps to its in-car infotainment platform.

All of these efforts are connected to an initiative introduced a year ago at CES that involves building cars with additional Internet connectivity, experimenting with the different forms of transportation such as car-sharing, and using big data analytics on information from in-vehicle sensors to learn more about how people travel.

CEO Mark Fields was Fortune’s guest at our Brainstorm Tech dinner at CES. In an interview with Brainstorm Tech chair Adam Lashinsky, Fields laid out the company’s strategy of keeping one foot planted in today and the other in tomorrow.

Fortune editor Alan Murray noted after the dinner that while the markets seem to favor new entrants unburdened by the past, the future likely belongs to those who can somehow figure out how to embrace the new while preserving the best of the old. Fields argues that’s what Ford is doing.

Here’s how.

Don’t use the same litmus test to evaluate your core business and new ideas.

“We’re being very overt around our core business and making sure we have a very robust and strong management process,” Fields said. “Every Thursday, we’re sitting around as a management team reviewing that business.”

The team begins by examining the business environment, looking at what’s going on with the markets, customers, and its product launches like their top-selling F-150 truck. In short, make sure that money-making machine is working really well.

Ford also evaluates its mobility experiments like car-sharing, but with a different set of standards.

“Let’s face it, if we look at (these experiments) through the same lens as we evaluate some of our big capital expenditures on trucks and cars, they’d die a quick death because you’re experimenting, you’re trying to learn.”

Empower your employees

Ford has reinvented itself many times, Fields said. That process requires challenging custom and questioning tradition, and most importantly, allowing your employees to ask those questions, he said.

“Our role as a senior team, in our view, is not to teach our people how to innovate,” Fields said. “The last thing they need is a half day off-site looking at 1,000 powerpoint slides on how to innovate; our people know how to do it. We as a senior team have to allow them to do it and to celebrate the successes and failures because we’ll learn from it.”

Strategy not spitballing

“This is a strategy,” Fields said about Ford’s mobility plan. “It’s not about throwing stuff out there and seeing what sticks.”

Respect the newcomers

Google is developing self-driving cars, Tesla Motors is making an all-electric car with a cult-like following, and everyone including Fields expects Apple to make a car of some kind. When Apple does, it will have a great user interface and connectivity.

Fields said it doesn’t worry him; it just motivates the company to innovate even faster.

“We respect every competitor—established and newcomers to the space,” he said. “Our view is we can always learn something from everyone and apply that to our own business.”

Commit to investing in the new ideas

The bulk of Ford’s $6.5 billion capital expenditure budget last year went to its core business. And while he wouldn’t reveal what percentage goes towards its new mobility projects, Fields didn’t give the impression that it was a significant amount of money. Still, what matters is that funds are specifically designated or set aside to fund experiments.

“We need to be very overt that we’re going to take this amount of cap ex and dedicate it to these areas because we think there’s opportunity there,” he said.