外文翻译--公司的核心竞争力

1 中文 4890 字 本科毕业论文（设计） 外 文 翻 译 外文题目 The Core Competence of the Corporation 外文出处 Harvard Business Review May-June 1990 外文 作者 普拉哈拉德 原文： The Core Competence of the Corporation The most powerful way to prevail in global competition is still invisible to many companies. During the 1980s, top executives were judged on their ability to restructure, declutter, and delayer their corporations. In the 1990s, theyll be judged on their ability to identify, cultivate, and exploit the core competencies that make growth possible indeed, theyll have to rethink the concept of the corporation itself. Consider the last ten years of GTE and NEC. In the early 1980s, GTE was well positioned to become a major player in the evolving information technology industry. It was active in telecommunications. Its operations spanned a variety of businesses including telephones, switching and transmission systems, digital PABX, semiconductors, packet switching, satellites, defense systems, and lighting products. And GTEs Entertainment Products Group, which produced Sylvania color TVs, had a position in related display technologies. In 1980, GTEs sales were $9.98 billion, and net cash flow was $1.73 billion. NEC, in contrast, was much smaller, at $3.8 billion in sales. It had a comparable technological base and computer businesses, but it had no experience as an operating telecommunications company. Yet look at the positions of GTE and NEC in 1988. GTEs 1988 sales were $16.46 billion, and NECs sales were considerably higher at $21.89 billion. GTE has, in effect, become a telephone operating company with a position in defense and lighting products. GTEs other businesses are small in global terms. GTE has divested 2 Sylvania TV and Telenet, put switching, transmission, and digital PABX into joint ventures, and closed down semiconductors. As a result, the international position of GTE has eroded. Non U.S. revenue as a percent of total revenue dropped from 20% to 15% between 1980 and 1988. NEC has emerged as the world leader in semiconductors and as a first tier player in telecommunications products and computers. It has consolidated its position in mainframe computers. It has moved beyond public switching and transmission to include such lifestyle products as mobile telephones, facsimile machines, and laptop computers bridging the gap between telecommunications and office automation. NEC is the only company in the world to be in the top five in revenue in telecommunications, semiconductors, and mainframes. Why did these two companies, starting with comparable business portfolios, perform so differently? Largely because NEC conceived of itself in terms of core competencies, and GTE did not. Rethinking the Corporation Once, the diversified corporation could simply point its business units at particular end product markets and admonish them to become world leaders. But with market boundaries changing ever more quickly, targets are elusive and capture is at best temporary. A few companies have proven themselves adept at inventing new markets, quickly entering emerging markets, and dramatically shifting patterns of customer choice in established markets. These are the ones to emulate. The critical task for management is to create an organization capable of infusing products with irresistible functionality or, better yet, creating products that customers need but have not yet even imagined) This is a deceptively difficult task. Ultimately, it requires radical change in the management of major companies. It means, first of all, that top managements of Western companies must assume responsibility for competitive decline. Everyone knows about high interest rates, Japanese protectionism, outdated antitrust laws, obstreperous unions, and impatient investors. What is harder to see, or harder to acknowledge, is how little added momentum companies actually get from political or macroeconomic relief. Both the theory and practice of Western management have 3 created a drag on our forward motion. It is the principles of management that are in need of reform. NEC versus GTE, again, is instructive and only one of many such comparative cases we analyzed to understand the changing basis for global leadership. Early in the 1970s, NEC articulated a strategic intent to exploit the convergence of computing and communications, what it called C&C Success, top management reckoned, would hinge on acquiring competencies, particularly in semiconductors. Management adopted an appropriate strategic architecture, summarized by C&C, and then communicated its intent to the whole organization and the outside world during the mid 1970s. NEC constituted a C&C Committee of top managers to oversee the development of core products and core competencies. NEC put in place coordination groups and committees that cut across the interests of individual businesses. Consistent with its strategic architecture, NEC shifted enormous resources to strengthen its position in components and central processors. By using collaborative arrangements to multiply internal resources, NEC was able to accumulate a broad array of core competencies. NEC carefully identified three interrelated streams of technological and market evolution. Top management determined that computing would evolve from large mainframes to distributed processing, components from simple ICs to VLSI, and communications from mechanical cross bar exchange to complex digital systems we now call ISDN. As things evolved further, NEC reasoned, the computing, communications, and components businesses would so overlap that it would be very hard to distinguish among them, and that there would be enormous opportunities for any company that had built the competencies needed to serve all three markets. NEC top management determined that semiconductors would be the companys most important core product. It entered into myriad strategic alliances over 100 as of 1987 aimed at building competencies rapidly and at low cost. In mainframe computers, its most noted relationship was with Honeywell and Bull. Almost all the collaborative arrangements in the semiconductor component field were oriented 4 toward technology access. As they entered collaborative arrangements, NECs operating managers understood the rationale for these alliances and the goal of internalizing partner skills. NECs director of research summed up its competence acquisition during the 1970s and 1980s this way: From an investment standpoint, it was much quicker and cheaper to use foreign technology. There wasnt a need for us to develop new ideas.” No such clarity of strategic intent and strategic architecture appeared to exist at GTE. Although senior executives discussed the implications of the evolving information technology industry, no commonly accepted view of which competencies would be required to compete in that industry were communicated widely. While significant staff work was done to identify key technologies, senior line managers continued to act as if they were managing independent business units. Decentralization made it difficult to focus on core competencies. Instead, individual businesses became increasingly dependent on outsiders for critical skills, and collaboration became a route to staged exits. Today, with a new management team in place, GTE has repositioned itself to apply its competencies to emerging markets in telecommunications services. The Roots of Competitive Advantage The distinction we observed in the way NEC and GTE conceived of themselves a portfolio of competencies versus a portfolio of businesses was repeated across many industries. From 1980 to 1988, Canon grew by 264%, Honda by 200%. Compare that with Xerox and Chrysler. And if Western managers were once anxious about the low cost and high quality of Japanese imports, they are now over;whelmed by the pace at which Japanese rivals are inventing new markets, creating new products, and enhancing them. Canon has given us personal copiers; Honda has moved from motorcycles to four wheel off road buggies. Sony developed the 8mm camcorder, Yamaha, the digital piano. Komatsu developed an underwater remote controlled bulldozer, while Casios latest gambit is a small screen color LCD television. Who would have anticipated the evolution of these vanguard markets? In more established markets, the Japanese challenge has been just as disquieting. 5 Japanese companies are generating a blizzard of features and functional enhancements that bring technological sophistication to everyday products. Japanese car producers have been pioneering four wheel steering, four valve-per cylinder engines, in car navigation systems, and sophisticated electronic engine management systems. On the strength of its product features, Canon is now a player in facsimile transmission machines, desktop laser printers, even semiconductor manufacturing equipment. In the short run, a companys competitiveness derives from the price/performance attributes of current products. But the survivors of the first wave of global competition, Western and Japanese alike, are all converging on similar and formidable standards for product cost and quality minimum hurdles for continued competition, but less and less important as sources of differential advantage. In the long run, competitiveness derives from an ability to build, at lower cost and more speedily than competitors, the core competencies that spawn unanticipated products. The real sources of advantage are to be found in managements ability to consolidate corporatewide technologies and production skills into competencies that empower individual businesses to adapt quickly to changing opportunities. Senior executives who claim that they cannot build core competencies either because they feel the autonomy of business units is sacrosanct or because their feet are held to the quarterly budget fire should think again. The problem in many Western companies is not that their senior executives are any less capable than those in Japan nor that Japanese companies possess greater technical capabilities. Instead, it is their adherence to a concept of the corporation that unnecessarily limits the ability of individual businesses to fully exploit the deep reservoir of technological capability that many American and European companies possess. The diversified corporation is a large tree. The trunk and major limbs are core products, the smaller branches are business units; the leaves, flowers, and fruit are end products. The root system that provides nourishment, sustenance, and stability is the core competence. You can miss the strength of competitors by looking only at their end products, in the same way you miss the strength of a tree if you look only at its leaves. (See the chart Competencies: The Roots of Competitiveness.”) 6 Core competencies are the collective learning in the organization, especially how to coordinate diverse production skills and integrate multiple streams of technologies. Consider Sonys capacity to miniaturize or Philipss optical media expertise. The theoretical knowledge to put a radio on a chip does not in itself assure a company the skill to produce a miniature radio no bigger than a business card. To bring off this feat, Casio must harmonize know how in miniaturization, microprocessor design, material science, and ultrathin precision casing the same skills it applies in its miniature card calculators, pocket TVs, and digital watches. If core competence is about harmonizing streams of technology, it is also about the organization of work and the delivery of value. Among Sonys competencies is miniaturization. To bring miniaturization to its products, Sony must ensure that technologists, engineers, and marketers have a shared understanding of customer needs and of technological possibilities. The force of core competence is felt as decisively in services as in manufacturing. Citicorp was ahead of others investing in an operating system that allowed it to participate in world markets 24 hours a day. Its competence in provided the company the means to differentiate itself from many financial service institutions. Core competence is communication, involvement, and a deep commitment to working across organizational boundaries. It involves many levels of people and all functions. World class research in, for example, lasers or ceramics can take place in corporate laboratories without having an impact on any of the businesses of the company. The skills that together constitute core competence must coalesce around individuals whose efforts are not so narrowly focused that they cannot recognize the opportunities for blending their functional expertise with those of others in new and interesting ways. Core competence does not diminish with use. Unlike physical assets, which do deteriorate over time, competencies are enhanced as they are applied and shared. But competencies still need to be nurtured and protected; knowledge fades if it is not used. Competencies are the glue that binds existing businesses. They are also the engine for new business development. Patterns of diversification and market entry may be 7 guided by them, not just by the attractiveness of markets. Consider 3Ms competence with sticky tape. in dreaming up businesses as diverse as Post it notes, magnetic tape, photographic film, pressure sensitive tapes, and coated abrasives, the company has brought to bear widely shared competencies in substrates, coatings, and adhesives and devised various ways to combine them. Indeed, 3M has invested consistently in them. What seems to be an extremely diversified portfolio of businesses belies a few shared core competencies. In contrast, there are major companies that have had the potential to build core competencies but failed to do so because top management was unable to conceive of the company as anything other than a collection of discrete businesses. GE sold much of its consumer electronics business to Thomson of France, arguing that it was becoming increasingly difficult to maintain its competitiveness in this sector. That was undoubtedly so, but it is ironic that it sold several key businesses to competitors who were already competence leaders Black & Decker in small electrical motors, and Thomson, which was eager to build its competence in microelectronics and had learned from the Japanese that a position in consumer electronics was vital to this challenge. Management trapped in the strategic business unit (SBU) mind set almost inevitably finds its individual businesses dependent on external sources for critical components, such as motors or compressors. But these are not just components. They are core products that contribute to the competitiveness of a wide range of end products. They are the physical embodiments of core competencies. Source:Harved Business Review May-June 1990 8 译文 ： 公司的核心竞争力 很多公司仍在苦苦寻找在全球竞争中克敌制胜的最有效方式。 20 世纪 80 年代，人们评价某个高管有没有才能，主要看这个人能否重组公司、拨乱反正和精简层级。然而，进入 20 世纪 90 年代后，人们评价高管时，将看他们有没有能力识别、培育和利用公司的核心竞争力 (corecompetence，也称核心能力 )，为公司的成长找到新的途径。看来，高管们该重新思考一下公司这个概念本身了。 让我们首先以美国的 GTE*和日 本的 NEC*两家公司为例，探讨十年来它们各自的发展轨迹。 20 世纪 80 年代初期，信息技术已初显欣欣向荣的景象， GTE 凭借自己的地位，极有希望成为该行业的主力军。这家公司在电信业非常活跃，其业务横跨多个领域，包括电话、交换与传输系统、数字化专用自动小交换机 （ PAXB）半导体、分组交换、卫星、国防系统以及照明产品等等。此外， GTE 旗下的娱乐产品集团 (EntertainmentProductsGroup)，也就是喜万年 (Sylvania)彩电的制造者，在相关的显示器技术领域也占有一席之地。 1980 年， GTE 的销售 额为 99 8亿美元，净现金流 17 3 亿美元。与之相比， NEC 当时还只是一个小字辈，销售收入仅为 38 亿美元。尽管拥有与 GTE 不相上下的技术基础和计算机业务，但 NEC在电信领域尚无任何经验。 然而，到了 1988 年， NEC 却后来者居上，销售额达到 218 9 亿美元，远远高于 GTE 公司的 164 6 亿美元。这时， GTE 实际上已经沦为一家以经营电话业务为主的公司，尽管它在国防和照明产品方面仍占有一席之地。这家公司的其他业务从全球的角度看已经变得很小。在过去的几年中， GTE 公司已经把喜万年电视机和 Telenet 业务剥离了出 去，把交换机、传输设备和数字 PABX 等产品转交给合资公司生产，而半导体业务则已关张大吉。在这个过程中， GTE 公司的国际地位一路下滑。 1980 到 1988 年间 GTE 在美国以外地区的销售收入从过去占总收入的 20降到了 15。 相比之下， NEC 却一跃成为世界半导体工业的领导者，并且在电信产品和计算机领域也跻身一流企业。它巩固了自己在大型计算机方面的领先地位，还跨出9 了公用交换和传输领域，把触角伸到了手机、传真机和手提电脑等所谓的生活时尚产品 (1ifestyleproducts)领域，在电信和办公自动化之间架起了桥梁 。 NEC成为惟一一家在电信、半导体、大型计算机三个领域的全球销售收入均名列前五位的公司。为什么这两家在起步时业务组合基本相近的公司，在几年后的表现却如此悬殊 ?主要是因为 NEC 能够从 “ 核心竞争力 ” 的角度考虑企业问题，而 GTEZ却没有。 对公司的重新思考 经营多元化公司曾经是一项很简单的工作，总部只需指示其业务单位把注意力放到某个特定的最终产品市场，并督促它们成为该领域的世界领先者即可。然而，随着市场边界的变化越来越快，目标开始变得飘忽不定，对目标市场的占领顶多只是暂时性的。但也有几家公司属于长袖善舞的一类 ，它们善于创造新市场，能够快速打入新兴市场并且在业已成熟的市场中大力改变客户的选择模式。这些公司自然成为大家效仿和学习的对象。对于公司的管理层来说，关键任务就是使自己的组织能够在产品中加入令人无法抗拒的功能，或者更高明一些，创造出消费者需要但是还未曾想到过的产品。 这项任务的艰巨性超乎我们的想像。最终，只有从根本上改变大型公司的管理才能完成这项任务。首先，西方企业的高层领导需要为竞争力的下降承担责任。人们或许会把竞争力下降归咎于高利率、日本的保护主义、过时的反托位斯法、爱闹事的工会以及缺乏耐性的投资者。但是 ，另一方面，人们却较难意识到或者羞于承认这样一个事实：政治上或者宏观经济上的“救济”并不会给公司提供多少动力。其实是西方管理的理论和实践在拖我们的后腿，真正需要改革的是我们在管理中遵循的原则。 像许多其他的对比案例一样， NEC 与 GTE 之间的比较可以给我们很多启迪。我们旨在通过这些对比分析来了解争夺全球领先地位所依靠的基础发生了什么变化。早在 20 世纪 70 年代初期， NEC 公司的管理层就清楚地阐明了把计算机与通信技术相融合的战略意图 (strategicintent)，即所谓的 “ C&C” （ computer& Communication，计算机与通信 )。 NEC 公司的领导认为，这一战略成功与否关键在于能否获得必要的核心竞争力，尤其是在半导体领域的核心竞争力。该公司的管理层采纳了一个合适的战略架构 (strategicarchitecture)，将其简称 C&C，10 然后在 70 年代中期将其意图传达给了整个组织以及外界人士。 NEC 公司成立了一个由高层经理组成的 “ 计算机与通信委员会 ” ，以指导核心产品与核心竞争力的开发。此外， NEC 还打破了各项业务的利益界限，建立了一些协调小组和协调委员会。按照其战略架构， NEC 把大量的资源调配到元 件和中央处理器项目上，以加强公司在该领域的地位。它通过相互协作方式使得公司的内部资源成倍增长，借此积累起了多方面的核心竞争力。 NEC 仔细地辨明了三种相互关联的技术和市场发展潮流。管理层认为，计算技术将从大型主机架构向分布式处理转变，元件将从简单的集成电路 (1C)发展为“ 超大规模集成电路 ”(VLSl) ，通信方面则从机械式纵横交换机演化为复杂的数字传输系统，即我们所说的 ISDN(综合业务数字网 )。随着形势进一步发展， NEC认为，计算、通信和元件业务将逐渐重叠和交织在一起，以至于最后很难将它们区分开来。如果一家 公司具备了服务于这三个市场的核心竞争力，那么到那时，必然会获得巨大的商机。 NEC 的高层领导决定把半导体列为公司最重要的 “ 核心产 （ coreproduct）。它随后与很多公司结成了战略联盟，到 1987 年联盟数量已达到 100 多个，其目的就是为了以低成本快速构建企业的核心竞争力。在大型主机领域， NEC 最著名的合作伙伴是美国的霍尼韦尔公司 (Honeywell)与法国 Bull 公司。在半导体元件领域，几乎所有的合作项目都是以获取技术为目的。在结盟时， NEC 的运营经理对合作动机和目的非常明确：吸收和消化合作伙伴的技能。 NEC 的研发总监曾这样总结 20 世纪 70 年代和 80 年代获取技能的经历： “ 从投资角度分析，这种方式使我们能够以更低的成本迅速掌握国外技术。我们没有必要自己开发新的创意。 ” 而 GTE 似乎并没有如此明确的战略意图和战略架构。尽管高层决策者也曾讨论过信息技术的发展将带来怎样的影响，但对于在信息技术行业竞争将需要什么样的能力 (competencies)，并没有形成一致的观点，更谈不上将其在公司中广泛传播了。虽然公司做了大量工作来确认关键技术，但高层业务经理依