尋找企業盈利的中間路線
Michael Porter was the first economist to become a business guru. He used economic concepts to illustrate issues of corporate strategy. One of his most cited conclusions was the need to avoid being “stuck in the middle”. Companies, he said, must either gain a cost advantage or emphasise product differentiation. It was fatal to fall between the two stools of cost leadership and superior quality.
This claim struck me as nonsense. Middle market positions were not only viable but the preferred stance of many successful companies. In debate with Prof Porter, the eponymous chairman[WHO? AND WHEN?] of Sainsbury’s supermarket defiantly displayed a model truck carrying the slogan “Good food costs less at Sainsbury’s” — a celebration of being stuck in the middle. And, when Tesco overtook Sainsbury’s in the UK market, it was not by following Prof Porter’s advice but by beating Sainsbury’s at its own game.
我曾經認爲這個主張是胡扯。居中的市場位置不僅能夠生存，還是許多成功企業偏愛的定位。在和波特教授辯論時，森寶利超市(Sainsbury’s)的董事長森寶利曾以挑戰的姿態展示了一輛模型卡車，上面印着“Good food costs less at Sainsbury’s”（森寶利食品物美價更廉）的標語——爲“夾在中間”的狀態喝彩。而樂購(Tesco)在英國市場上取代森寶利的地位，靠的也不是波特教授的建議，而是採取了和森寶利一樣的策略，並且做得更加出色。Yet if we look at the UK supermarket sector today, the consensus view is that Prof Porter was right after all. The most successful competitors are Waitrose, firmly at the top of the market, and German discounters Aldi and Lidl, which have placed themselves at the bottom. Tesco, the market leader, along with traditional rivals Asda and Morrisons are under pressure, apparently stuck in the middle. The transformation of fortunes is not confined to the food sector; a remarkable phenomenon in UK high street retailing is the rise of Primark, which sells clothes for less than a hotel charges to launder them. And the most valuable company in the world, Apple, charges premium prices for premium products.
然而，如果我們看一看今天的英國超市業，共識觀點是波特教授終究還是正確的。最成功的競爭者是牢牢佔據市場頂端的Waitrose，以及將自己定位於市場底端的德國折扣超市Aldi和Lidl。身爲英國超市業巨擘的樂購、及其傳統競爭對手阿斯達(Asda)和Morrisons都承受着壓力，顯然被夾在中間。發生境遇轉變的不僅是食品業；Primark的崛起在英國商業街零售業中創造了一個不同尋常的奇蹟，這家店以低於酒店洗衣費的價格售賣服裝。世界上市值最高的公司蘋果(Apple)爲其高端產品設定了高昂價格。
Like many business gurus, Prof Porter wriggled out of the challenge of “good food costs less” by adopting a slippery definition of his proposition. “Don’t be stuck in the middle” can be interpreted as meaning that unless you have some cost advantage or product differentiation, you are unlikely to be very successful. That is a proposition so banal as to be almost tautological. A different proposition altogether says that you must emphasise either cost advantage or product differentiation, and if you aim at both you will not be successful. This may be either true or false. It is disingenuous to use the self-evident truth of the first proposition as support for the empirical validity of the second. And that, I argued back in the 1990s, was exactly what Prof Porter was doing.
像許多商業大師那樣，波特教授用一種滑頭的方式來界定自己的主張，以避開森寶利的挑戰。“不要夾在中間”可被解釋爲，除非你有一定的價格優勢或者產品差異性，否則你不太可能非常成功。這種闡釋太過泛泛，幾乎只是在重複。另一種不同的闡釋是你必須要麼注重成本優勢，要麼注重產品差異化，把二者都列爲目標是無法成功的。這或許對，或許不對。如果用不言而明的第一種闡釋來支持第二種闡釋的經驗有效性，就有點不實在了。而我在上世紀90年代曾提出，那正是波特教授所做的。Business conferences typically proceed by competitive anecdote. But these debates can never be resolved by repeating slogans and telling stories; you can usually find a narrative to support all but the most outlandish assertions. The only way to find answers is to use more comprehensive data sets, and the combination of market research and company financial statements made such analysis possible here.
商務會議往往充斥着競爭的軼聞。但只靠重複標語或者講故事永遠無法解決這些論爭；除了最古怪的斷言外，你總能找到一種敘述來支持任何斷言。找到答案的唯一方法是使用更全面的數據集，就此而言，綜合市場研究和公司財務報表使此類分析成爲可能。My empirical research drew[WHICH RESEARCH?] on a database that enabled us to relate perceived market position to return on capital employed. We discovered, to no one’s surprise, that high cost with low quality was not often a successful strategy. And low cost with high quality yielded the highest profits. Of course it did. But were you better off with low cost[AND?,], low quality, or high cost and high quality, or being stuck in the middle with medium quality and medium cost? All produced similar returns.
我的實證研究使用了一個數據庫，通過這個數據庫，我們能分析市場地位和已動用資本回報率的相關性。不出所料，我們發現高成本低質量往往不是一種成功的戰略。而低成本高質量能夠帶來最高的盈利，當然會這樣。但低成本低質量、高成本高質量、以及以中等成本和中等質量夾在中間，哪一種狀況最有利？三種情況得到的回報率是相似的。A product offering is very rarely a sustainable source of competitive advantage because it can readily be imitated. What really matters is enjoying a competitive advantage in the market position you choose — and that typically involves matching your market position to the distinctive underlying resources and capabilities of your business. Waitrose, Aldi and Lidl are not the beneficiaries, and Tesco and Sainsbury’s not the victims, of any verity of business strategy other than the eternal one; the best strategy is to be good at whatever it is you do.
產品範圍很少能帶來可持續的競爭優勢，因爲產品很容易被模仿。真正重要的是在你選擇的市場地位上取得競爭優勢，一般而言這就需要使企業的市場地位切合其根本層面的獨特資源和能力。除了一條永恆的商業戰略真理之外，Waitrose、Aldi和Lidl並非其他任何商業戰略真理的受益者，樂購和森寶利也並非受害者。這條真理就是：最好的戰略是擅長你做的事情，無論你做什麼。
