波音公司(The Boeing Company)正处于水深火热之中。只要问问上周在拒绝最新合同后罢工的3.3万名工会工人就知道情况了。诚然,也可以读一读铺天盖地的报道:波音飞机(灾难性的737 Max机型)出现令人匪夷所思的故障而停飞。在公司内部,领导者们正努力止血。
周一,波音公司首席财务官布莱恩·韦斯特(Brian West)向员工发送了一份备忘录,详细介绍了削减成本和实现生存的计划。行业刊物The Air Current主编乔恩·奥斯特罗尔(Jon Ostrower)在推特(Twitter)/X上分享了这份备忘录,详细介绍了韦斯特在波音应对近期巨额亏损之际削减损失的尝试。
韦斯特写道:“我们的业务正处于困难时期,” 并补充说,罢工“严重危及我们的复苏”。因此,为了保存现金和“保障”公司的未来,公司已进入成本节约模式。
新的削减措施包括在全公司范围内冻结招聘、暂停加薪和晋升、停止任何非必要的旅行、暂停所有慈善或市场营销和广告支出、停止提供餐饮服务以及暂停外出活动。此外,高管也不再乘坐头等舱或商务舱(但没有提及是否仍允许乘坐私人飞机)。
此外,韦斯特还表示,波音公司将大幅削减供应商支出,并削减737 Max、767和777的大部分订单。领导层正在“考虑采取艰难举措,如让众多员工暂时休假”。
这些步骤中的每一步都是这家陷入困境的公司的孤注一掷。《财富》杂志的肖恩·塔利(Shawn Tully)报道称:“2024年上半年,波音公司的自由现金流损失了83亿美元。9月13日,工会投‘反对票’的消息使其股价暴跌近5.7%,收于158美元左右,为2024年以来的最低水平,比年初的价格低三分之一。”此外,据报道,评级机构正在考虑将波音公司的债务评级降至垃圾级。
航空咨询公司Darcy Strategic的创始人詹姆斯·达西(James Darcy)告诉《财富》杂志,要保护波音公司的信用评级,领导者必须改善其现金流。为了改善现金流,波音公司必须更快地交付更多飞机。达西说,如果不结束罢工,就“不可能”做到这一点。“然而,他们可能需要同意解决罢工问题的条款,而这些条款从长远来看对他们的现金流毫无帮助。”
上个月,在长期担任首席执行官的大卫·卡尔霍恩(Dave Calhoun)离职后,已退休的凯利·奥特伯格(Kelly Ortberg)再度复出,试图扭转局面。他刚买了一套价值410万美元的住宅。
韦斯特上周五发表的言论被《西雅图时报》称为“明显的和解”,他说波音公司领导人希望与机械师工会“回到谈判桌前,以达成协议”。他补充说,奥特伯格亲自参与了这项工作。
达西说:“波音员工目前对公司的影响力是前所未有的,但让波音屈服肯定不符合他们的长期最佳利益。波音需要以一种过去从未表现出的谦逊态度来对待谈判,但如果双方都想有健康的未来,劳方也需要保持高度的务实精神。”
Thrive HR Consulting创始人杰森·沃克(Jason Walker)告诉《财富》杂志记者谢丽尔·埃斯特拉达(Sheryl Estrada):“韦斯特在内部备忘录中概述的这些举措是‘能够影响利润的即时现金节约措施’。当你担心手头的现金量时,这是一种相当标准的做法。”
另一方面,裁员的力度可能会进一步削弱员工对公司的看法。沃克告诉埃斯特拉达:“这只会让情况变得更糟。我认为,[波音]确实陷入了自找的死亡漩涡。”(财富中文网)
译者:中慧言-王芳
波音公司(The Boeing Company)正处于水深火热之中。只要问问上周在拒绝最新合同后罢工的3.3万名工会工人就知道情况了。诚然,也可以读一读铺天盖地的报道:波音飞机(灾难性的737 Max机型)出现令人匪夷所思的故障而停飞。在公司内部,领导者们正努力止血。
周一,波音公司首席财务官布莱恩·韦斯特(Brian West)向员工发送了一份备忘录,详细介绍了削减成本和实现生存的计划。行业刊物The Air Current主编乔恩·奥斯特罗尔(Jon Ostrower)在推特(Twitter)/X上分享了这份备忘录,详细介绍了韦斯特在波音应对近期巨额亏损之际削减损失的尝试。
韦斯特写道:“我们的业务正处于困难时期,” 并补充说,罢工“严重危及我们的复苏”。因此,为了保存现金和“保障”公司的未来,公司已进入成本节约模式。
新的削减措施包括在全公司范围内冻结招聘、暂停加薪和晋升、停止任何非必要的旅行、暂停所有慈善或市场营销和广告支出、停止提供餐饮服务以及暂停外出活动。此外,高管也不再乘坐头等舱或商务舱(但没有提及是否仍允许乘坐私人飞机)。
此外,韦斯特还表示,波音公司将大幅削减供应商支出,并削减737 Max、767和777的大部分订单。领导层正在“考虑采取艰难举措,如让众多员工暂时休假”。
这些步骤中的每一步都是这家陷入困境的公司的孤注一掷。《财富》杂志的肖恩·塔利(Shawn Tully)报道称:“2024年上半年,波音公司的自由现金流损失了83亿美元。9月13日,工会投‘反对票’的消息使其股价暴跌近5.7%,收于158美元左右,为2024年以来的最低水平,比年初的价格低三分之一。”此外,据报道,评级机构正在考虑将波音公司的债务评级降至垃圾级。
航空咨询公司Darcy Strategic的创始人詹姆斯·达西(James Darcy)告诉《财富》杂志,要保护波音公司的信用评级,领导者必须改善其现金流。为了改善现金流,波音公司必须更快地交付更多飞机。达西说,如果不结束罢工,就“不可能”做到这一点。“然而,他们可能需要同意解决罢工问题的条款,而这些条款从长远来看对他们的现金流毫无帮助。”
上个月,在长期担任首席执行官的大卫·卡尔霍恩(Dave Calhoun)离职后,已退休的凯利·奥特伯格(Kelly Ortberg)再度复出,试图扭转局面。他刚买了一套价值410万美元的住宅。
韦斯特上周五发表的言论被《西雅图时报》称为“明显的和解”,他说波音公司领导人希望与机械师工会“回到谈判桌前,以达成协议”。他补充说,奥特伯格亲自参与了这项工作。
达西说:“波音员工目前对公司的影响力是前所未有的,但让波音屈服肯定不符合他们的长期最佳利益。波音需要以一种过去从未表现出的谦逊态度来对待谈判,但如果双方都想有健康的未来,劳方也需要保持高度的务实精神。”
Thrive HR Consulting创始人杰森·沃克(Jason Walker)告诉《财富》杂志记者谢丽尔·埃斯特拉达(Sheryl Estrada):“韦斯特在内部备忘录中概述的这些举措是‘能够影响利润的即时现金节约措施’。当你担心手头的现金量时,这是一种相当标准的做法。”
另一方面,裁员的力度可能会进一步削弱员工对公司的看法。沃克告诉埃斯特拉达:“这只会让情况变得更糟。我认为,[波音]确实陷入了自找的死亡漩涡。”(财富中文网)
译者:中慧言-王芳
Things are in dire straits at The Boeing Company. Just ask the 33,000 unionized workers who walked off the job last week after rejecting the latest contract. Or, of course, read the barrage of reports of mind-boggling malfunctions grounding its planes, namely its disastrous 737 Max. Internally, leaders are scrambling to stanch the bleeding.
On Monday, Boeing CFO Brian West sent a memo to employees detailing the plan for cost-cutting and survival. The memo, shared on Twitter/X by Jon Ostrower, editor-in-chief of trade publication The Air Current, details West’s attempts at cutting losses as Boeing grapples with the avalanche of recent losses.
“Our business is in a difficult period,” West wrote, adding the strike “jeopardizes our recovery in a significant way.” As such, to preserve cash and “safeguard” the company’s future, it’s in cost-saving mode.
On that list of new cutbacks are a company-wide hiring freeze, a pause in raises and promotions, halting any non-essential travel, pausing all charitable or marketing and advertising spend, ending catered meals, and pausing offsites. Also, no more first-class or business-class air travel for the C-suite (though no mention was made of whether private jets are still allowed.)
To boot, West said the manufacturer will significantly reduce its supplier spending and cut off most of its orders for 737 Max, 767 and 777 purchases. And leadership is “considering the difficult step of temporary furloughs” for many workers.
Each of these steps represent a hail mary for the embattled company. “In the first half of 2024, Boeing bled $8.3 billion in free cash flow,” Fortune’s Shawn Tully reported. “News of the [union’s] ‘no’ vote pounded its stock by almost 5.7% on Sept. 13, its shares closed around $158, their lowest level for 2024, and one-third below its price at the year’s start.” Plus, rating agencies are reportedly mulling the choice to downgrade Boeing’s debt to junk.
To protect Boeing’s credit rating, leaders must improve its cash flow, James Darcy, founder of aerospace advisory firm Darcy Strategic, told Fortune. To improve cash flow, it has to deliver more planes, faster. That’s “impossible” to do without ending the strike, Darcy said. “Yet the terms on which they may need to agree to settle the strike will do nothing to help their cash flow in the long term.”
Last month, following longtime CEO Dave Calhoun’s departure, Kelly Ortberg emerged from retirement to attempt to right the ship. He just bought a $4.1 million house.
In remarks that the Seattle Times called “notably conciliatory” on Friday, West said Boeing leaders want “to get back to the table and to hammer out a deal” with the Machinists union. Ortberg is personally engaged in that effort, he added.
“The amount of leverage that Boeing’s workers have over the company at this moment is unprecedented, but bringing Boeing to its knees is certainly not in their long-term best interest,” Darcy said. “Boeing will need to approach negotiations with a degree of humility that they haven’t shown in the past, but the labor side will need to retain a great deal of pragmatism if both sides are to have a healthy future.”
The kinds of moves West outlined in the internal memo are “immediate cash-saving measures that will impact the bottom line,” Jason Walker, founder of Thrive HR Consulting, told Fortune’s Sheryl Estrada. “This is a pretty standard approach when you are worried about the amount of cash you are going to have on hand.”
On the other hand, the intensity of these cutbacks might stand to further dampen workers’ views of the company. “This is just going to make it worse,” Walker told Estrada. “I think [Boeing is] really in a death spiral of [its] own making.”