Schumpeter
Keeping it under your hat
An old management idea gets a new lease of life
熊彼特
收入囊中
苹果收购特斯拉古老的管理理念焕发新生
APPLE and Tesla are two of the world’s most talked-about companies. They are also two of the most vertically integrated. Apple not only writes much of its own software, but designs its own chips and runs its own shops. Tesla makes 80% of its electric cars and sells them directly to its customers. It is also constructing a network of service stations and building the world’s biggest battery factory, in the Nevada desert.
不仅大部分软件是自己写的，芯片也由自己设计，连商店都自己开。特斯拉80%的电动车都是自己生产，并直接销售给客户。它还在构建一个充电服务站网络，并在内华达沙漠建设世界上最大的电池厂。
A century ago this sort of vertical integration was the rule: companies integrated “backwards”, by buying sources for raw materials and suppliers, and “forwards”, by buying distributors. Standard Oil owned delivery wagons and refineries in addition to oil wells. Carnegie owned iron-ore deposits and rail carriages as well as blast furnaces. In his 1926 book “Today and Tomorrow” Henry Ford wrote that vertical integration was the key to his success: “If you want it done right, do it yourself.” He claimed he could extract ore in Minnesota from his own mines, ship it to his River Rouge facility in Detroit and have it sitting as a Model T in a Chicago driveway—in no more than 84 hours.
一个世纪以前，这种垂直整合堪称法则：企业“向后”整合，购买原材料来源和供应商；同时“向前”整合，购买分销商。标准石油公司有油井，更拥有送货车和炼油厂。卡内基不但有高炉，还有铁矿床和火车车皮。亨利·福特（Henry Ford）在他1926年的著作《今天和明天》
（Today and Tomorrow）中写道，垂直整合是他成功的关键：“如果你想做好，那就自己做。”他号称可以在明尼苏达州他自己的矿山中开采矿石，运到位于底特律的红河谷工厂，再把它变成停在芝加哥的一辆T型车——一切都在84个小时之内完成。
Today this sort of bundling is rare: for the past 30 years firms have been focusing on their core business and contracting out everything else to specialists. Steelmakers sold their mining operations and carmakers spun off their parts suppliers. Controlling it all made sense, the argument went, when markets were rudimentary: when supplies of vital materials were limited or contractors could cheat you. As markets became more sophisticated these justifications fell away. Thanks to globalisation, companies could always find new resources and better suppliers.
如今，这种捆绑就很罕见了。过去30年里，各个公司一直专注于自己的核心业务，其他的一切都外包给专门人士处理。钢铁制造商出售了采矿业务，汽车制造商剥离了零部件供应商。这种观点说的是，在市场还处于原始状态时，什么都要控制是有道理的，因为关键材料的供应有限，或者承包商可能会欺骗你。随着市场变得越来越成熟，这些理由都站不住脚了。有了全球化，企业总是可以到新的资源和更好的供应商。
Yet a growing number of companies are having second thoughts. This is most visible in information technology. The industry’s leaders were at the heart of the contracting-out revolution. Vertically integrated companies such as IBM outsourced as much as possible in order to lower costs. Upstarts such as Microsoft prospered by focusing on a narrow—but exceptionally valuable—slice of the pie: the operating system of personal computers. Now many startups in Silicon Valley pride themselves for being “full stack”. But re-bundling can be found everywhere, from fashion to manufacturing.
然而，越来越多的公司另有考虑。这在信息技术领域尤为明显。行业领袖们本来是处于外包革命的中心。IBM等垂直整合的公司尽可能地进行外包以降低成本。新贵如微软则是专注于一块非常狭窄但价值极高的蛋糕——个人电脑的操作系统。现在，很多硅谷创业公司都自豪地自称是“全栈”。但从时装到制造业，重新捆绑随处可见。
Reasons for the reversal abound, but five stand out. The most important is simplicity. Consumers are willing to pay a premium for well-integrated products that do not force them to deal with different suppliers or land them with components that do not talk to eac
h other. They want to be able simply to press a button and let the machine do the rest. This is largely why Apple opted for integration, as did Nest, a maker of wireless thermostats.
反转的理由比比皆是，但有五个理由引人瞩目。最重要的一点是简单。消费者愿意为整合良好的产品支付溢价，这样他们就不会被迫和不同的供应商打交道，或是拿到一堆无法相互沟通的零件。他们希望能够按一个按钮，机器就什么都做好了。这在很大程度上就是苹果公司以及无线温控器制造商Nest选择整合的原因。
A second reason is that firms operating on the technological frontier often find it more efficient to do things in-house. Companies that are inventing the future frequently have no choice but to pour money into new ventures rather than buy components off the shelf. This explains Tesla’s “gigafactory” for batteries: their availability is the biggest constraint on the firm’s growth. Boeing tried to cut its production costs by outsourcing 70% of the production of its 787 Dreamliner to hundreds of different suppliers—more than any airliner before. The result was a disaster: parts came in late; bits didn’t fit together; deadlines wer
e missed. The firm reversed course, bringing manufacturing back in house and buying a factory.
第二个原因是，站在技术前沿的企业时常发现通过内部做事效率更高。发明未来的公司经常没有购买现成零件的选择，只能投资于新的项目。这就解释了特斯拉为什么要建立电池“超级工厂”——电池能不能做出来是企业增长的最大制约因素。为了降低生产成本，波音公司试图把787梦想飞机70%的生产外包给数百个不同的供应商——这在客机生产上是前所未有的。结果是一场灾难——部件来晚了，零件装不到一起，进度一再拖延。最后，波音公司改弦易辙，购买了一家工厂，亲自上阵主持生产。
A third reason is choice: the more the market has to offer, the more important it is to build a relationship with customers. Netflix and Amazon now create their own television shows in order to keep their viewers from buying more generic content elsewhere. Harry’s, an American company that sends its subscribers a regular supply of razors and shaving cream, spent $100m to buy a German razor-blade factory.
第三个原因是选择：市场机会越多，与客户建立关系就越重要。Netflix和亚马逊现在都自
己做电视节目，以免观众从其他地方购买更常见的内容。定期给订户寄送剃须刀和剃须膏的美国公司Harry’s花了一亿美元购买了一家德国剃须刀片厂。
Choice is reinforced by speed: fashion brands such as Spain’s Zara have resisted contracting out everything. Instead, they operate their own clothes factories, employ their own designers and run their own shops. This gives them a big advantage: they can turn the latest trend into new product, often in small batches, and have it in stores in a couple of weeks. Less vertically integrated brands such as Gap and American Apparel find they are stuck with yesterday’s creations because they cannot get supply chains to produce new wares quickly.
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