麥當勞CEO黯然下臺 爲什麼董事會不再給他時間了

Just last week McDonald’s CEO Don Thompson made the case for more time to turnaround the troubled company during his year-end earnings calls.

就在前一週，在麥當勞年終收益電話會議中，公司首席執行官唐o湯普森表示，他需要更多時間來幫助這家陷入困境的快餐巨頭扭轉局勢。

His board, it appears, gave him a resounding “no.” Yesterday Thompson announced he will step down from the job after two-and-a-half years, a period marked by sliding sales and mounting pressure on the brand. Fortune chronicled McDonald’s MCD 5.06% woes in November, which you can read about here. The company’s stock was up more than 3% in after-hours trading yesterday.

眼下看來，麥當勞的董事會斷然拒絕了湯普森的要求。上週四，湯普森宣佈，將不再擔任麥當勞首席執行官一職。湯普森兩年半前走馬上任，在此期間，麥當勞銷售滑坡、品牌面臨巨大壓力。去年11月，《財富》曾撰文細數了麥當勞面臨的種種困境，。CEO即將離職的消息一出，麥當勞股價在週四盤後交易中上漲了3％以上。

The official word out of McDonald’s Oak Brook, Ill., headquarters is that Thompson, 51, is “retiring.” But it’s pretty clear that he didn’t make this choice alone. When the company reported earnings last week, 2014 became the first year since 2002 that the fast-food behemoth suffered a global decline in sales at outlets open for at least a year. As Sanford Bernstein analyst Sara Senatore wrote in a note today: “While we understand that the timing was determined by Thompson, there is no doubt in our mind that he was under increasing scrutiny by investors and therefore the board.”

來自美國伊利諾伊州橡溪鎮麥當勞總部對此的官方說法是，現年51歲的湯普森將“退休”。但很顯然，“退休”並非湯普森獨自做出的決定。麥當勞最新公佈的業績顯示，自2002年以來，2014年這家快餐巨頭全球開張一年以上店面銷售首度出現下滑。正如桑福德伯恩斯坦公司分析師薩拉o塞納託雷日前在報告中所寫的：“雖然我們理解此時退休是湯普森的決定，但無疑他承受的來自投資者以及董事會的壓力與日俱增。”

So after five quarters of declining same-store sales in the U.S. market, why now? Nonexecutive chairman Andrew McKenna told Fortune in the fall, “We’re very supportive of Don. We see the leadership team moving forward with a sense of urgency, which is good.” But McKenna and his fellow directors were starting to feel the pressure as the press increasingly focused on its role in the company’s struggles. On Friday, for example, Jim Cramer took the board to task on CNBC, demanding, “When will someone finally be held accountable for this kind of sub-par performance and why do corporate boards tolerate these mistakes, keeping the flailing CEOs of these two companies [McDonald’s and UPS] around for still more earnings seasons?” He concluded that both companies would create value immediately if their CEOs left.

麥當勞在美國市場的同店銷售額已連續下降5個季度，湯普森爲何現在“退休”？去年秋天，該公司非執行董事長安德魯o麥肯納向《財富》表示：“我們非常支持唐。我們看到公司管理層懷着緊迫感勇往直前，這是件好事。”但隨着媒體日益聚焦董事會在麥當勞身處困境時所發揮的作用，麥肯納及其他董事開始感受到壓力。舉例來說，前一個週五，CNBC知名主持人吉姆o克拉默在電視上批評麥當勞董事會，責問：“何時纔會有人對這類低水準的業績擔責？企業董事會爲何容忍這樣的錯誤，繼續讓[麥當勞和UPS]這兩家公司的首席執行官任職？”克拉默稱，如果麥當勞和UPS的首席執行官下臺，兩家公司將立即增值。

Thompson’s successor, SVP and chief brand officer Steve Easterbrook, joined the company in 1993 but left in 2011 to become CEO first of Pizza Express and then Wagamama, both UK-based restaurant brands. Thompson brought him back in 2013, telling Fortunein October, “I love the fact that he had experience sitting in a CEO chair. It broadened his purview of business in general.” Two years away may very well give him an outsider’s perspective at a notoriously insular company like McDonald’s, but it might not be enough time away to give him the kind of fresh thinking that the chain needs to accomplish an incredibly daunting task. As we wrote in November:

湯普森的繼任者將是麥當勞高級副總裁兼首席品牌官史蒂夫o伊斯特布魯克，伊斯特布魯克於1993年加入麥當勞，2011年離職，先後擔任Pizza Express和拉麪道的首席執行官，Pizza Express和拉麪道都是總部位於英國的餐飲品牌。2013年，湯普森將伊斯特布魯克召回麥當勞。去年10月，湯普森向《財富》表示：“我很喜歡的一點是，他有過擔任企業首席執行官的經驗。這拓寬了他的整個商業視角。”離開麥當勞的兩年，很可能使伊斯特布魯克能以局外人的視角，來審視這家以封閉著稱的企業，但要培養出能完成扭轉麥當勞局勢這一艱鉅任務的新思維，兩年的時間可能還不夠。正如我們在去年11月所寫：

[McDonald’s] has risen to the top of the fast-food chain by being comfortably, familiarly, iconically “mass market” and so ubiquitous as to be the Platonic ideal of “convenient.” Neither of these selling points, however, is as high as it was even a decade ago on Americans’ list of dining priorities. A growing segment of restaurant goers are choosing “fresh and healthy” over “fast and convenient,” and McDonald’s is having trouble convincing consumers that it’s both. Or even can be both.

“[麥當勞]成爲連鎖界老大，靠的是舒適親切，堪稱大衆市場典範，其店面無處不在，方便至極。然而，在外出就餐的美國人眼中，上述這些賣點的重要性較之十年前都有所下降。如今，越來越多的外出就餐者，更注重新鮮健康，而非快捷方便，而麥當勞未能讓消費者相信，自己做到了二者兼顧。消費者甚至不相信它有能力做到。”

In recent months, as the problems became more evident, Thompson took the tack of trying everything all at once. He was pushing digital investments, a build-your-own-burger platform, and a simplified menu, while also allowing regions to localize their offerings. To be fair, Thompson inherited plenty of the company’s issues, like menu bloat, but he certainly didn’t make them better and made some of them, like issues involving pricing, he made worse.

近幾個月來，隨着問題變得更明顯，湯普森開始鬍子眉毛一把抓。他一邊推進數字化投資、“自主定製漢堡”平臺、簡化菜單，一邊允許各地區對產品進行本地化。平心而論，麥當勞的很多問題（比如菜品過多）在湯普森上任前就存在，但他並沒有使事態好轉，反而使得一些問題（比如定價）更加積重難返。

One big advantage Easterbrook has over Thompson is that he faces a completely different set of expectations. Thompson had the unenviable job of taking over the company after it enjoyed an incredible run. His predecessor, Jim Skinner, had eight years of consecutive positive same-store sales growth, a nearly 50% increase in revenue, and a more than doubling of profits. In 2011 McDonald’s was the top-performing stock in the Dow for the one- and five-year periods. By contrast, Easterbrook takes the helm during an historically abysmal time for the brand. As Nation’s Restaurant News has reported, this year was the first time in at least 30 years that sales at the company’s U.S. business declined, ending the longest run ever of domestic restaurant sales growth for a single chain.

相比湯普森，伊斯特布魯克有一個很大的優勢，那就是人們對他的期望完全不同。湯普森接手麥當勞時，該公司剛剛取得了驚人的業績。湯普森的前任——吉姆o斯金納幫助麥當勞實現了同店銷售額連續八年增長，收入飆升近50％，利潤增長一倍多。2011年，麥當勞是一年期和五年期業績最佳的道指成分股。相比之下，伊斯特布魯克是在麥當勞品牌深陷危機時臨危受命。美國《全國餐館新聞》報道稱，2014年是30年來麥當勞美國市場史上首度出現銷售額下滑。單個美國餐飲品牌創造的史上最長銷售增長記錄就此告終。

On his very first earnings call after he was announced as CEO in 2012, Thompson was asked what he thought his legacy would be. “First of all, I hope that retirement point is quite a few years down the road. Otherwise, that might mean it was induced by something other than me,” he said, adding, “I’ve been around McDonald’s for over 20 years now and I think what’s most important for everyone is to understand that a change in leadership doesn’t mean a change in strategy.”

湯普森於2012年被任命爲麥當勞首席執行官，此後他在首次出席公司收益電話會議時，被問到認爲自己會留下什麼遺產。他回答：“首先，我希望多幹幾年再退休。否則，那可能意味着退休並非出自我本人的意願。”他補充道：“我已經在麥當勞幹了20多年。我認爲，最重要的一點是，大家應該意識到，領導層的變化並不意味着戰略的改變。”

This time, investors have to hope, a change in leadership will mean a change in strategy.

這一次，投資者勢必希望，領導層的變化將意味着戰略的改變。（財富中文網）