[转帖] [2012.01.14] The last Kodak moment? 柯达的最后时刻？

showcraft

http://www.ecolion.cn/thread-62527-1-1.html
Technological change
科技进步

The last Kodak moment?
柯达的最后时刻？

Kodak is at death’s door; Fujifilm, its old rival, is thriving. Why?
死神已经站在柯达的门口；柯达的老对手富士胶片却蒸蒸日上，为什么？

Jan 14th 2012 | NEW YORK AND TOKYO | from the print edition



LENIN is said to have sneered that a capitalist will sell you the rope to hang him. The quote may be spurious, but it contains a grain of truth. Capitalists quite often invent the technology that destroys their own business.
据说，列宁曾嘲笑资本家会将绞死他自己的绳子卖给你。这听上去或许有些荒谬，但确实包含了一定的道理，资本家们经常发明出那些最终摧毁了他们自己事业的玩意。

Eastman Kodak is a picture-perfect example. It built one of the first digital cameras in 1975. That technology, followed by the development of smartphones that double as cameras, has battered Kodak’s old film- and camera-making business almost to death.
伊斯曼-柯达就是一个完美的例子。柯达于1975年制造出了世界上第一台数码相机，这项技术以及随后拍照智能手机的发展，现在已经将柯达传统的胶片和相机制造业务冲击得奄奄一息。

Strange to recall, Kodak was the Google of its day. Founded in 1880, it was known for its pioneering technology and innovative marketing. “You press the button, we do the rest,” was its slogan in 1888.
回忆起来，这确实很奇怪，柯达在它春风得意的年代里就像如今的Google。创立于1880年，柯达以开创性技术和创新型营销而著称，其在1888年的口号是“你只需按下按钮，其他的交给我们。”

By 1976 Kodak accounted for 90% of film and 85% of camera sales in America. Until the 1990s it was regularly rated one of the world’s five most valuable brands.
1976年柯达占据了美国胶片和相机市场分别占据了90%和85%的份额。直到1990年代，柯达长期位于世界最有价格品牌的前五之列。

Then came digital photography to replace film, and smartphones to replace cameras. Kodak’s revenues peaked at nearly $16 billion in 1996 and its profits at $2.5 billion in 1999. The consensus forecast by analysts is that its revenues in 2011 were $6.2 billion. It recently reported a third-quarter loss of $222m, the ninth quarterly loss in three years. In 1988, Kodak employed over 145,000 workers worldwide; at the last count, barely one-tenth as many. Its share price has fallen by nearly 90% in the past year (see chart).
之后，数码摄影技术开始取代胶片，智能手机开始代替相机。柯达于1996年达到收入峰值，大约为160亿美元，利润峰值则为1999的25亿美元，而根据多数分析师预测，其2011年收入大约为62亿美元。最近，柯达公告了第三季度亏损，为2.22亿美元，这是三年内的第九次季度亏损。1988年，柯达在全球范围内雇佣了超过145,000名员工，而最近的统计显示该数据只有过去的十分之一，而柯达股价也已经从过去的高点跌去了90%。



For weeks, rumours have swirled around Rochester, the company town that Kodak still dominates, that unless the firm quickly sells its portfolio of intellectual property, it will go bust. Two announcements on January 10th—that it is restructuring into two business units and suing Apple and HTC over various alleged patent infringements—gave hope to optimists. But the restructuring could be in preparation for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
数周来，传闻一直围绕着罗切斯特，柯达依然在这个依赖大公司生存的小城占据统治地位，如果不能尽快出售它持有的知识产权资产，那么这家百年企业将会破产。1月10日发布的两则公告给了乐观者一些信心，柯达宣布它正在进行重组，将原有公司业务分拆为两个业务单元，并且正在对苹果公司和HTC的侵权行为采取诉讼。但是公司重组行为也有可能是在为申请破产法第11章中的破产保护作准备。

While Kodak suffers, its long-time rival Fujifilm is doing rather well. The two firms have much in common. Both enjoyed lucrative near-monopolies of their home markets: Kodak selling film in America, Fujifilm in Japan. A good deal of the trade friction during the 1990s between America and Japan sprang from Kodak’s desire to keep cheap Japanese film off its patch.
柯达面临困境，它的长期竞争对手富士胶片却蒸蒸日上。这两家公司非常相似，都几乎垄断了各自的本土市场，坐拥暴利：柯达在美国出售胶片，富士胶片则是在日本。1990年代美日之间大量贸易摩擦都源于柯达试图将日本的低价胶片挡在美国国门之外。

Both firms saw their traditional business rendered obsolete. But whereas Kodak has so far failed to adapt adequately, Fujifilm has transformed itself into a solidly profitable business, with a market capitalisation, even after a rough year, of some $12.6 billion to Kodak’s $220m. Why did these two firms fare so differently?
柯达和富士胶片都发现它们传统的业务已经显得过时，但是柯达到目前为止都没有作出适当的调整，而富士胶片却已经成功转型为一家稳定赢利的公司。富士胶片的市值即使在经历了惨淡的一年后，也有约126亿美元，柯达仅为2.2亿美元。为什么公司如此相似，遭遇却截然不同？

Both saw change coming. Larry Matteson, a former Kodak executive who now teaches at the University of Rochester’s Simon School of Business, recalls writing a report in 1979 detailing, fairly accurately, how different parts of the market would switch from film to digital, starting with government reconnaissance, then professional photography and finally the mass market, all by 2010. He was only a few years out.
柯达和富士胶片都发现了变革的来临。现在罗切斯特大学西蒙商学院任教的Larry Matteson曾任柯达的高管，他回忆起在1979年时曾撰写的一份报告，报告中详细并相当准确描述了市场各个部分将如何从胶片转变为数码：首先是政府的勘察应用，然后是专业摄影行业，最终将在2010年普及大众市场。他的估计仅仅在时间上相差了几年。

Fujifilm, too, saw omens of digital doom as early as the 1980s. It developed a three-pronged strategy: to squeeze as much money out of the film business as possible, to prepare for the switch to digital and to develop new business lines.
富士胶片公司早在1980年代也预见了数码时代的来临，它制定了一项三管齐下策略：在传统的胶片业务领域尽可能挤压利润，准备向数码业务转型，开发全新业务领域。

Both firms realised that digital photography itself would not be very profitable. “Wise businesspeople concluded that it was best not to hurry to switch from making 70 cents on the dollar on film to maybe five cents at most in digital,” says Mr Matteson. But both firms had to adapt; Kodak was slower.
两家公司都意识到数码摄影领域本身利润并不丰厚，Mr Matteson说：“精明的商人认为现在并不应该急于放弃传统胶片业务，毕竟它拥有70%利润率，而数码业务的利润率至多为5%。”尽管如此，两家公司还是必须作出调整，柯达慢一些。

A culture of complacency
自满文化

Its culture did not help. Despite its strengths—hefty investment in research, a rigorous approach to manufacturing and good relations with its local community—Kodak had become a complacent monopolist. Fujifilm exposed this weakness by bagging the sponsorship of the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles while Kodak dithered. The publicity helped Fujifilm’s far cheaper film invade Kodak’s home market.
柯达的企业文化并没有给它带来帮助。尽管在研发领域有着大量投入，拥有精密的生产方式，并且和本地社区关系相当融洽，但是柯达还是成了自满的垄断巨头。这一弱点在1984年洛杉矶奥运会赞助权争夺战中得到体现，正当柯达举棋不定时，富士胶片却已将赞助权收入囊中。凭借这次赞助，富士胶片获得了美国公众的注意，它的廉价胶片也借此打入了美国市场。

Another reason why Kodak was slow to change was that its executives “suffered from a mentality of perfect products, rather than the high-tech mindset of make it, launch it, fix it,” says Rosabeth Moss Kanter of Harvard Business School, who has advised the firm. Working in a one-company town did not help, either. Kodak’s bosses in Rochester seldom heard much criticism of the firm, she says. Even when Kodak decided to diversify, it took years to make its first acquisition. It created a widely admired venture-capital arm, but never made big enough bets to create breakthroughs, says Ms Kanter.
柯达转型较为缓慢的另外一个原因来自它的高管们。哈佛商学院的Rosabeth Moss Kanter 曾为柯达提供咨询服务，她说：“柯达高管只对完美的产品感兴趣，缺乏现代高科技企业应有的制造-发布-改进思维。” Rosabeth Moss Kanter还提到，在一座过于依赖大公司的城市中经营，对柯达也没有帮助，因为经理们在当地几乎听不到任何批评的声音。甚至当柯达决定进行多元化时，它居然花费了数年来进行第一次并购。Kanter还说，尽管柯达建立起了令人羡慕的风险投资部门，但却从来没有进行过一项足以给公司带来创造突破进展的投资。

Bad luck played a role, too. Kodak thought that the thousands of chemicals its researchers had created for use in film might instead be turned into drugs. But its pharmaceutical operations fizzled, and were sold in the 1990s.
柯达的遭遇也有一部分运气因素，公司曾认为其为胶片业务而研发的几千种化学物质可以转而用于制药，但是柯达的制药业务最终也以失败告终，并在1990年代被出售。

Fujifilm diversified more successfully. Film is a bit like skin: both contain collagen. Just as photos fade because of oxidation, cosmetics firms would like you to think that skin is preserved with anti-oxidants. In Fujifilm’s library of 200,000 chemical compounds, some 4,000 are related to anti-oxidants. So the company launched a line of cosmetics, called Astalift, which is sold in Asia and is being launched in Europe this year.
富士胶片公司的多元化进程则更为顺利。胶片其实和皮肤有一些相似之处：两者都含有胶原蛋白。如同相片会由于氧化而逐渐褪色，化妆品公司希望你相信可以依靠抗氧化物保养皮肤。富士胶片实验室里近20万种化合物中，约有4000种与抗氧化相关，因此富士胶片公司发布了名为艾诗缇(Astalift)的化妆品系列，这一系列目前仅在亚洲范围内销售，但今年将推广至欧洲。

Fujifilm also sought new outlets for its expertise in film: for example, making optical films for LCD flat-panel screens. It has invested $4 billion in the business since 2000. And this has paid off. In one sort of film, to expand the LCD viewing angle, Fujifilm enjoys a 100% market share.
富士胶片公司也在寻找新的途径来利用其胶片领域的专业技能：比如为LCD平板显示器制造化学薄膜。自2000年以来，富士胶片在该项目上已经累计投资约40亿美元，目前，这项投资已经开始产生回报。这种薄膜可以扩大LCD显示器的可视角，富士胶片占据该市场100%的份额。

George Fisher, who served as Kodak’s boss from 1993 until 1999, decided that its expertise lay not in chemicals but in imaging. He cranked out digital cameras and offered customers the ability to post and share pictures online.
George Fisher于1993至1999年间曾任柯达的总裁，他坚定地认为柯达的专长在于成像，而非化学。他机械地制造数码相机，然后为顾客提供可将照片上传和分享的服务。

A brilliant boss might have turned this idea into something like Facebook, but Mr Fisher was not that boss. He failed to outsource much production, which might have made Kodak more nimble and creative. He struggled, too, to adapt Kodak’s “razor blade” business model. Kodak sold cheap cameras and relied on customers buying lots of expensive film. (Just as Gillette makes money on the blades, not the razors.) That model obviously does not work with digital cameras. Still, Kodak did eventually build a hefty business out of digital cameras—but it lasted only a few years before camera phones scuppered it.
一个卓越的领导者或许可以将这个点子做成另一个Facebook，但是Mr Fisher显然不够卓越。他没有能够将生产大量外包出去，而这本可以使柯达变得更为灵活，更富有创造力。与此同时,Mr Fisher还必须艰难地对柯达的“剃须刀片”式商业模式进行改革。就像吉列Gillette主要通过出售剃须刀片而非剃须刀来赢利，柯达低价出售相机，大量的利润依赖于顾客购买其昂贵的胶片，但这种商业模式显然不适用于数码相机。尽管如此，柯达最终还是在数码相机领域建立了庞大的业务，然而几年之后，随着摄像手机的出现，这部分业务也受到巨大的冲击。

Kodak also failed to read emerging markets correctly. It hoped that the new Chinese middle class would buy lots of film. They did for a short while, but then decided that digital cameras were cooler. Many leap-frogged from no camera straight to a digital one.
柯达同样没能正确捕捉新兴市场的需求，它希望中国的新兴中产阶级会购买大量胶片，事实上这一情况仅仅持续了一段时间，随后他们便认定数码相机比传统的胶片相机酷多了，许多人未曾拥有相机的人直接跳入了数码相机时代。

Kodak’s leadership has been inconsistent. Its strategy changed with each of several new chief executives. The latest, Antonio Perez, who took charge in 2005, has focused on turning the firm into a powerhouse of digital printing (something he learnt about at his old firm, Hewlett-Packard, and which Kodak still insists will save it). He has also tried to make money from the firm’s huge portfolio of intellectual property—hence the lawsuit against Apple.
柯达的领导层动荡频繁，因此它的战略也会随着领导层的不同而变动。目前，于2005年就任的Antonio Perez致力于将柯达转变为一家数码打印行业的领军企业(这是他在就任于老东家惠普Hewlett-Packard时学到的，并且柯达坚称这一业务可以挽救公司的命运)。Antonio Perez还努力想让公司从持有的大量知识产权中获利，因此才有了对苹果公司的诉讼。

At Fujifilm, too, technological change sparked an internal power struggle. At first the men in the consumer-film business, who refused to see the looming crisis, prevailed. But the eventual winner was Shigetaka Komori, who chided them as “lazy” and “irresponsible” for not preparing better for the digital onslaught. Named boss incrementally between 2000 and 2003, he quickly set about overhauling the firm.
科技进步在富士胶片也引发了领导权力的争夺，起初，胶片消费领域的人在管理层占据主导地位，他们无视正在逼近的危机，但最终的胜利者却是古森重隆(Shigetaka Komori)。古森重隆批评前者“懒惰”，“不负责任”，因为他们没能为数码相机的冲击作出更好的准备。从2000年开始直到2003年，古森重隆不断受到提拔，在最终成为了公司总裁后，他迅速采取行动对公司进行大刀阔斧的改革。

Mount Fujifilm
登上富士

He has spent around $9 billion on 40 companies since 2000. He slashed costs and jobs. In one 18-month stretch, he booked more than ￥250 billion ($3.3 billion) in restructuring costs for depreciation and to shed superfluous distributors, development labs, managers and researchers. “It was a painful experience,” says Mr Komori. “But to see the situation as it was, nobody could survive. So we had to reconstruct the business model.”
自2000年来，古森重隆在40个公司上花费了约90亿美元，并削减了经营成本和员工。在18个月内，他对公司资产进行了巨额减记，处理过剩的经销商、研发实验室及管理和研发人员，而这些举动产生了超过2500亿日元（33亿美元）的重组费用。“这是一次痛苦的经历，”古森重隆说，“但是面对当时的境况，没有人可能幸存，所以我们必须重建商业模式。”

This sort of pre-emptive action, even softened with generous payouts, is hardly typical of corporate Japan. Few Japanese managers are prepared to act fast, make big cuts and go on a big acquisition spree, observes Kenichi Ohmae, the father of Japanese management consulting.
日本管理咨询之父大前研一(Kenichi Ohmae)对此评论说，尽管富士胶片的慷慨赔偿缓和了这次突击行动的冲击，但在日本，这样的举动依旧不具有代表性。日本的经理人中几乎没有人会为这样的快速行动，大幅削减以及大量并购作好准备。

For Mr Komori, it meant unwinding the work of his predecessor, who had handpicked him for the job—a big taboo in Japan. Still, Mr Ohmae reckons that Japan Inc’s long-term culture, which involves little shareholder pressure for short-term performance and tolerates huge cash holdings, made it easier for Fujifilm to pursue Mr Komori’s vision. American shareholders might not have been so patient. Surprisingly, Kodak acted like a stereotypical change-resistant Japanese firm, while Fujifilm acted like a flexible American one.
古森重隆的举动推倒了亲自挑选他为接班人的前任总裁所作做的大量工作，这犯了日本企业文化的大忌。尽管如此，大前研一认为在日本存在一种长期的公司文化，公司股东不会对公司短期表现施加很大压力，也能容忍公司持有大量现金，这使富士胶片可以更容易按古森重隆的设想进行改革。相反，美国公司股东可能就不会这般耐心。让人惊讶的是，柯达的表现反而更像一家传统的不愿意进行改革的日本企业，富士胶片却像一家灵活的美国公司。

Mr Komori says he feels “regret and emotion” about the plight of his “respected competitor”. Yet he hints that Kodak was complacent, even when its troubles were obvious. The firm was so confident about its marketing and brand that it tried to take the easy way out, says Mr Komori.
古森重隆说他对“他所尊敬的竞争对手”所面临的困境“感到遗憾并非常理解。”但同时也暗示柯达过于自满，即使当它所面临的困境已十分明显。古森重隆认为柯达过于相信自己的营销能力和品牌以至于它不愿意采取过于激烈的方式来解决问题。

In the 2000s it tried to buy ready-made businesses, instead of taking the time and expense to develop technologies in-house. And it failed to diversify enough, says Mr Komori: “Kodak aimed to be a digital company, but that is a small business and not enough to support a big company.”
2000年代，柯达曾试图通过收购现成的企业来代替公司内部费时费钱的技术研发。古森重隆认为柯达的多元化并不充分：“柯达的目标是要成为一家数码类公司，但数码行业对于支撑像柯达这样一家庞大企业来说并不够大。”

Perhaps the challenge was simply too great. “It is a very hard problem. I’ve not seen any other firm that had such a massive gulf to get across,” says Clay Christensen, author of “The Innovator’s Dilemma”, an influential business book. “It was such a fundamentally different technology that came in, so there was no way to use the old technology to meet the challenge.”
或许，柯达的失败仅仅是因为这项挑战实在是太艰苦了。畅销商业图书“创新者的窘境”的作者Clay Christensen说：“这真是一个非常棘手的问题，我从没见过其他企业面临这样一道鸿沟，新兴的技术和传统相比有着本质的区别，因此你无法利用原有技术来应对挑战。”

Kodak’s blunder was not like the time when Digital Equipment Corporation, an American computer-maker, failed to spot the significance of personal computers because its managers were dozing in their comfy chairs. It was more like “seeing a tsunami coming and there’s nothing you can do about it,” says Mr Christensen.
柯达所犯的错误和美国历史上另一个失败者-制造计算机的数字设备公司并不一样，后者是因为没能认识到个人计算机业务发展的重要性而失败，那时它的管理层还躺在舒适的椅子里打着盹呢。Christensen认为：“柯达的失败更像是眼见一场海啸的来临却发现自己对此无能为力。”

Dominant firms in other industries have been killed by smaller shocks, he points out. Of the 316 department-store chains of a few decades ago, only Dayton Hudson has adapted well to the modern world, and only because it started an entirely new business, Target. And that is what creative destruction can do to a business that has changed only gradually—the shops of today would not look alien to time-travellers from 50 years ago, even if their supply chains have changed beyond recognition.
Christensen指出，在其他行业里也出现过占统治地位的大企业仅仅因为较小的冲击就灭亡了。过去几十年里，316家连锁百货公司中，只有代顿-哈德森(Dayton Hudson)很好的调整适应了现代世界，仅仅是因为开创了一项全新的业务，Target(全国性的优质高档折扣连锁店)。这恰恰体现了创新型破坏对渐变式业务的影响-来自50年前的时间旅行者对如今的商店也不会觉得陌生，尽管商店的供应链已经发生了翻天覆地的变化。

Could Kodak have avoided its current misfortunes? Some say it could have become the equivalent of “Intel Inside” for the smartphone camera—a brand that consumers trust. But Canon and Sony were better placed to achieve that, given their superior intellectual property, and neither has succeeded in doing so.
柯达是否曾有机会避开这场厄运呢？一些人说它本可以像PC行业中的“Intel Inside”一样成为智能手机摄像头中让人依赖的品牌，但是坐拥优越知识产权而处于优势地位的佳能(Canon)和索尼(Sony)公司在这一方式上都没有像英特尔一样取得成功。

Unlike people, companies can in theory live for ever. But most die young, because the corporate world, unlike society at large, is a fight to the death. Fujifilm has mastered new tactics and survived. Film went from 60% of its profits in 2000 to basically nothing, yet it found new sources of revenue. Kodak, along with many a great company before it, appears simply to have run its course. After 132 years it is poised, like an old photo, to fade away.
和人类不同，一家公司理论上可以永生，但是公司的世界和人类社会也有很大差异，那里充满了你死我活的斗争，因此大部分公司都早早消亡。富士胶片熟练运用了新的策略并幸存下来，它的利润中胶片业务所占比重已经从2000年时的60%下降到如今基本上为零，然而他们已经找到新的利润来源。而柯达，同它之前的许多大公司一首，显得仅仅是按部就班。诞生132年后，柯达就像一张旧相片，正在慢慢褪色，消失。

小讨厌

说到底，还是领导头脑和观念不行。