沃尔玛中国业务为何磕磕绊绊？

谈到全球化的前景，企业经理人通常都是一片乐观，也确实合情合理。全球化让世界各地的联系越来越密切，每年全球范围内交易的商品与服务超过30万亿美元，企业投资规模突破1万亿美元。信息技术和交通的进步为全球化推波助澜，将发达国家与发展中国家联系在一起，已经帮助约4亿人脱贫。

世界各国通过全球贸易与投资密切关联，潮流滚滚向前。相应地，企业经理往往将全球化视为不可避免的强大力量而敬畏不已——说得好像是一项科技突破，如果跟本公司扯不上就说全球化会改变世界未来潮流。他们常常自认为是全球化的佼佼者，就像发掘和征服千里之外的处女地任务的探险者。

对于全球化能给所在公司带来多少盈利，企业经理人也非常乐观。他们渴望两位数的销售增长潜力。只要将业务转移海外就有望将降低至少一半成本的机会也实在吸引人。于是，他们率领公司踏入了全球市场，寻找无尽的财富。

然而，机会跟现实往往不是一回事。虽然全球化会带来希望，但也艰险重重。管理者常常发现不了风险，有时则会忽视。遗憾的是，在这个奉行全球战略的高风险世界，企业很难将潜在收益转化为实际盈利。大部分公司没能调整好自身定位，无法充分利用全球化的优势，不少公司还在全球化探索之路上遭遇惨败。

中国就是个全球化探索时要警惕的地方。这个国家拥有13亿以上的人口，市场潜力也是亿万级别规模，开拓中国市场足以令任何一位经理人两眼放光。中国的潜力看似是无穷无尽的。

可要是进一步调查就会发现，西方企业在中国遇到的挑战巨大。

第一道障碍来自经济。自1979年向全球贸易和投资开放国内市场以来，中国的经济取得长足进步，但中国国内经济体制和基础设施的发展仍然落后于西方。

第二道障碍在文化方面。例如中国消费者和西方消费者的偏好很不一样，西方企业想取悦中国消费者就有点困难。

第三道障碍源于政治层面。中国的地方和全国政治网络错综复杂，西方企业想处理好各方关系并不容易。

鉴于所有这些因素，通用电气的首席执行官杰夫•伊梅尔特得出这一结论：“中国市场是很大，但很难下手。”

沃尔玛就在征战中国的过程中收获了惨痛的教训。自从1996年在深圳开设首家超市以来，沃尔玛一路困难重重，体现出沃尔玛压根不了解中国的政治、经济和文化环境。

首先，沃尔玛就不了解中国消费者和中国文化。和美国不同，中国每个城市的消费者的需求差别很大。所以，沃尔玛在25个省117个城市很难找到适合当地的产品组合。因此，沃尔玛只能在全中国销售统一的核心产品组合，结果压力很大。

而且，沃尔玛没能处理好同全国和地方政界的关系，卷入了各种纠纷。中国政府还曾因违反地方和全国法规对沃尔玛处以罚款，甚至迫使其因所谓的产品违规而暂时关闭店面。虽然认为这些指控毫无理由，沃尔玛也被迫认罚。

沃尔玛面临最大挑战还是经济方面。由于经济基础设施并不完善又问题多多，沃尔玛到了中国最大的一项优势没法发挥出来：技术先进而且效率极高的供应链。沃尔玛没能预计到，原本的商业模式在中国会面临诸多问题。其磕磕碰碰的中国征途凸显出，将高效的供应链，也就是物流的竞争优势应用于一个技术不成熟，基础设施又不完善的国家有多么困难。

过去好些年，中国的基础设施投资在全球名列前茅，但除了上海、北京、天津、广州、深圳等大城市，其他地区的基础设施依然有很多问题。中国地域广阔，航空、陆地和铁路基础设施均未达到发达国家标准，在各地区之间高效运输商品就成为一大挑战。有鉴于此，沃尔玛在中国市场的业务难以盈利，坐拥规模巨大盈利前景很好的市场却一直表现不佳，并不令人意外。

沃尔玛在中国遇挫的教训就是，企业经理人在考虑全球化时不是一般的乐观，多数时候是乐观得过分了，他们经常高估全球化的收益，又小看要付出的代价。在评估全球化的机遇时，管理者经常只看到机遇的一面，把风险抛在脑后。然而，风险与机遇如影随形，管理者却没能准确考虑到进军全球市场面临的风险。

企业经理人常常为了一举赢得全球市场做出危险的假设。他们自以为有了在本国成功盈利的商业模式，只要全盘复制到其他国家就能收获同样的盈利水平。这些经理人根本没考虑国家之间的明显差异，以及差异导致的经营风险可能对业务产生怎样的负面影响。不幸的是，他们最终在艰难的全球化中了解到，即使是最完美的全球化方案，也无法克服国家差异带来的风险。沃尔玛这样的巨头也不例外。

为了提高全球业务水平，更好地制定全球扩张的决策，企业经理人需要更深入了解想要开展业务的国家，把握当地的经济、政治和文化环境。他们必须理解国家之间的经济、政治和文化差异，以及各种差异会增加多少风险（和成本），然后结合风险因素重新考虑现有的战略和财务决策模式。（财富中文网）

本文作者罗伯特•所罗门在纽约大学斯特恩商学院任国际管理全职教授，从事全球化和全球战略研究将近20年。本文节选自他的作品《全球视野：企业如何克服全球化陷阱》（Global Vision: How Companies Can Overcome the Pitfalls of Globalization）。该书由出版商Palgrave Macmillan出版，获得授权转载。

译者：Pessy

审校：夏林

Managers tend to speak optimistically about the prospects of globalization, and for good reason. Globalization has fostered an increasingly interconnected world, with more than $30 trillion in goods and services traded and more than $1 trillion in corporate investment each year. Advances in information technology and transportation have helped facilitate globalization—connecting developed and developing worlds, lifting some 400 million people out of poverty along the way.

Nations are now inextricably linked through global trade and investment. There is no turning back. Accordingly, managers often view globalization as a powerful and inevitable force, and they tend to treat it with reverence—speaking of it as if it were a breakthrough technology, the wave of the future that will change the world, if not their companies’ fortunes. And they tend to think of themselves as the champions of globalization, akin to explorers embarking on a mission to discover and conquer far-off, unexplored lands.

Managers express their optimism for globalization in terms of the profitability it can generate for their companies. They salivate at the potential for double-digit sales growth. They are seduced by opportunities that promise to slash costs by half or more, simply by shifting operations overseas. And they lead their companies on journeys to global markets in search of untapped and untold riches.

However, opportunity and reality do not always coincide. Although globalization certainly holds promise, it is also rife with hazards. It presents risks that managers fail to appreciate and that they often overlook. Sadly, in the high-stakes world of global strategy, companies regularly fail to convert potential into profits. Most companies are poorly positioned to capitalize on globalization’s potential, and many are spectacularly unsuccessful in their attempts to globalize.

China provides the setting for a classic cautionary tale about globalization. Given a population of more than 1.3 billionpeople and the market potential that goes hand in hand with a consumer base of that size, the prospect of expanding to China is enough to make any manager’s eyes light up. The potential is seemingly limitless.

But on further inspection, it becomes clear that China poses tremendous challenges for Western companies. The first obstacle is economic. Though China has made tremendous strides and enjoyed incredible growth since opening its markets to global trade and investment in 1979, the development of its economic institutions and its infrastructure has lagged behind that in the West. The second obstacle is cultural. Chinese consumers, for example, tend to be very different from those in the West, which makes it difficult for Western companies to appeal to local consumer tastes. The third obstacle is political. Western companies struggle to skillfully navigate China’s complex web of local and national political organizations. All of these factors led G.E.’s CEO Jeff Immelt to conclude: “China is big, but it is hard.”

Walmart has learned these lessons the hard way. Walmart’s ongoing troubles in China, since opening its first superstore in Shenzhen in 1996, reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of China’s political, economic, and cultural environments.

The American retailer has struggled to understand Chinese consumers and Chinese culture. Chinese consumers, unlike those in the U.S., differ widely from city to city in their needs. Walmart therefore struggles to find the right product mix to offer in the 117 cities and 25 provinces in which it operates. This makes it challenging to sell a core set of products nationwide.

Walmart has also suffered from troubled relationships with politicians—both local and national. The company has had its fair share of run-ins with the law. On one occasion the Chinese government fined Walmart for violating local and national laws and even forced it to close stores temporarily for purported product violations. Walmart paid the fines, even though the company believed the claims to be unfounded.

Yet the company’s greatest challenge remains an economic infrastructure that is problematic and underdeveloped. China simply cannot accommodate one of Walmart’s greatest strengths: an ultra-efficient and technologically advanced supply chain. The company did not anticipate that scaling up its business model there would present so many problems. Walmart’s struggles highlight the difficulties inherent in transferring a competitive advantage rooted in supply-chain efficiency—that is, logistics—to a country lacking a sophisticated technological and physical infrastructure.

Although China has led the globe in infrastructure investment over the past several years, outside of its largest cities (e.g., Shanghai, Beijing, Tianjin, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen), its infrastructure remains more than problematic. The efficient transport of goods from one region to another is a challenge because of China’s sheer physical size, and because its air, ground, and rail infrastructure does not meet developed country standards. Not surprisingly, Walmart’s China business has struggled to generate profits, and it has consistently underperformed in this huge and potentially lucrative market.

The lesson in all of this is that, when it comes to globalization, managers are not just optimists; all too often, they are unbridled optimists. They habitually overestimate the benefits of globalization and underestimate its costs. In evaluating globalization opportunities, managers often forget the other side of the opportunity equation: risk. Risk goes hand in hand with opportunity, and managers fail to accurately account for the risks they face in global markets.

Managers often make dangerous assumptions about what it takes to succeed in global markets. They tend to assume that their current business model, one they successfully and profitably exploit in their home country, will translate simply and effectively to other countries, yielding similar levels of profitability. These same managers fail to account for real and salient differences between nations, and fail to consider how those differences generate operational risks that may negatively impact their business. Unfortunately, they end up learning the hard way that the risk borne out of cross-country differences can overwhelm even the best-laid globalization plans. And Walmart is no exception.

To improve the practice of global business and to make better global expansion decisions, managers need a more sophisticated understanding of the economic, political, and cultural environments in the countries in which they intend to operate. They must appreciate how nations differ economically, politically, and culturally, and how those differences manifest as increasing risks (and costs). They then need to incorporate those risks into their existing strategy and financial decision models.

Robert Salomon is a professor of International Management and Faculty Scholar at NYU’s Stern School of Business and has researched globalization and global strategy for nearly 20 years. This article is excerpted from his book, Global Vision: How Companies Can Overcome the Pitfalls of Globalization. Published by Palgrave Macmillan; reproduced by permission.