创新至上：《财富》“最受赞赏”公司的秘密

    许多长期占据《财富》（Fortune）年度“全球最受赞赏公司排行榜”的公司【如IBM、迪士尼（Disney）和苹果（Apple）】都在大肆宣传，拥抱变化是公司的重要战略，是它们雄踞《财富》榜单的制胜武器。

    本月，《财富》举办了“最具影响力女性峰会”。许多全球顶尖企业的高管们汇聚一堂，分享对于增强公司竞争力的真知灼见。几乎所有来自全球最受赞赏公司的高管都不约而同地谈到了技术和商业模式的创新。IBM（位列“全球最受赞赏公司排行榜”第6位）首席执行官罗睿兰在会上表示：“大家说起IBM时，我并不认为这是一家制造某个产品的公司。这就是IBM能够屹立120年之久而不倒的原因。如果把自己局限在某个产品上，就一定会落后于时代，错过技术革新。而且还可能会错过像商业模式这种颠覆性的东西。”

    罗睿兰的发言得到了安妮•斯威尼的相应，斯威尼是迪士尼媒体网络公司（Disney Media Networks）联合主席兼迪士尼/美国广播电视集团（Disney/ABC Television Group）董事长。（它的母公司迪士尼集团今年位列最受赞赏公司排行榜第9位。）斯威尼和大家就企业增长和创新展开讨论，他谈到迪士尼正积极拥抱社交媒体，把它作为商业宣传和收集用户对软件程序反馈的有力工具，即便“拥抱社交”会让公司丧失一些控制权也在所不惜。当用户有不满需要发泄时，迪士尼可以与其沟通，避而不谈或是简单粗暴地拒绝绝对不行。“（大家）都想和你沟通交流。如果想维持客户关系，装聋作哑可能吗？”

    这些都是《财富》为第32期“全球最受赞赏公司排行榜”收集数据时收到的评论。《财富》杂志正与合益集团（Hay Group）合作，向全球27个国家，59个行业，约700家公司的15,000余名高管、董事会成员、分析师征求意见。为了制作2014年度“全球最受尊敬公司排行榜”，合益集团要求每位受访者选出10家自己最欣赏的公司，而候选公司则包括上一年度榜单中排名前25%的公司。

    当然，讨论创新并不是那些跻身“全球最受赞赏公司”榜单前列的企业才享有的专利，它甚至也不仅限于那些在所在行业组中得分较高的企业。比如雅虎（Yahoo）首席执行官梅丽莎•梅耶尔就在《财富》会议上谈了她执掌雅虎一年来在技术和企业文化方面进行的无数变革——包括收购轻博客Tumblr以及确保公司员工人手一部智能手机等，以使雅虎转型成为一家更关注移动业务的公司。梅耶尔还改造了雅虎一些“非核心”的方面，比如面向分析师的季度收益电话会议，在雅虎变成了视频会议的形式。梅耶尔解释称：“我们希望尝试这种做法。它是一个新事物。但我认为，总体而言，分析师们提出的问题更好、更具现实意义、也更切题。”我们不久就会发现有分析师同意这种看法，而这些也将帮助雅虎重返“全球最受赞赏的公司”榜单。（雅虎最近一次在行业分榜单中获得一席之地是在2010年。）（财富中文网）

    译者：项航   

    Many of the perennials on Fortune's annual World's Most Admired list (companies such as IBM, Disney, and Apple) are trumpeting their willingness to embrace change as part of their strategies for staying ahead -- and maintaining their "admired" status.

    At Fortune's recent Most Powerful Women Summit last week, executives from some of the country's top companies offered their perspectives on their businesses' competitive advantages. Almost all the leaders from World's Most Admired Companies (WMAC) spoke about technological and business-model innovation. "When I think of IBM, I don't define it by a product," said IBM (IBM) CEO Ginni Rometty. (IBM is No. 6 on the 2013 WMAC list), said at the conference. "And I think that's one of the reasons that it's 102 years old. If you think of yourself as a product, you'll miss the trends, you'll miss the shifts. And you'll miss dangerous ones, like business models."

    Rometty's view was echoed by Anne Sweeney, co-chair of Disney Media Networks and president of Disney/ABC Television Group. (Parent company Disney (DIS) ranks No. 9 this year.) During a discussion about growth and innovation, Sweeney spoke about Disney's embrace of social media as a tool for promoting and soliciting feedback about its programming, even though "going social" means the corporation has to relinquish control; Disney can start a conversation, but it can't retreat or shut it down if consumers verbalize unhappiness. "[Communities] want to interact with you," Sweeney said. "You can't hold everything back if you expect to have a relationship."

    These comments come as data collection for Fortune's 32nd WMAC ranking is underway.Fortune, in conjunction with The Hay Group, is in the process of surveying some 15,000 executives, directors, and analysts to solicit their views on about 700 companies in 59 industry groups from 27 different countries. To arrive at our 2014 overall Most Admired Companies ranking, the Hay Group is asking survey respondents to select the 10 companies they admired most, from a list made up of the companies that ranked in the top 25% in the prior year's survey.

    Of course, talk of innovation isn't limited to companies that rank high on the overall WMAC list -- or even those who score well in their industry groups. Yahoo (YHOO) CEO Marissa Mayer spoke at the Fortune conference about myriad technological and cultural changes she'd made during her year at the Internet company -- ranging from acquisitions such as Tumblr to making smartphones available to all employees -- as part of her effort to remake Yahoo into a more mobile-centric company. She's also revamping some "non-core" aspects of the business, such as the quarterly analysts earnings call, which Yahoo does as a video call. "We wanted to try this," Mayer explained. "It was something new. But I overall think that the analyst questions were better and more topical on point." We'll soon find out of analysts agree and help Yahoo return to the WMAC list. (It last earned a spot in the industry rankings in 2010.)