再談企業購併 -- 聯想電腦

2004年12月7日, IBM 與聯想電腦發佈聯合新聞稿, 用十七‧五億美元的代價，折合新台幣約五六五億元，購併ＩＢＭ連年虧損的個人電腦部門。

到目前為止仍看不出綜效. 雖然一般分析並不看好此宗企業購併. 但事情還是發生了. 聯想打的如意算盤如司馬召之心, 希望藉由此來擴大市佔率, 也因此企業版圖迅速擴大到行銷全球.

但是這其實併沒有把基本的問題解決:

• 產品的獨特性, 如何把電腦做到消費者指定的品牌, 以Notebook為例, 像是鍵盤特別好用, 這一招HP/Compaq已經用了; 外型Sharp, 像是IBM; 走時尚, 像是Sony; 走專業耐用, 像是Toshiba.
• 在銷售通路上是否有獨特, 例如通路商一定特別努力的賣聯想的電腦. 因為比較好賺. 像是 Acer 在歐洲, 或是 Dell 獨特的直銷模式.
• 是否能夠脫離打成本/價格戰的思維.
• 要把聯想電腦帶到那裡去, 到底聯想電腦要賺的是品牌, 通路, 還是管理的錢.

如果還在與各眾家PC大廠瓜分市場, 今天這一塊餅由對手拿去, 明天我再把它搶回來, 而不去開發真正的消費者要的東西, 那只是延遲失敗而已.

Tom Peters 說過, 贏家與別人不同點在於當別人在努力透過企業購併來買市佔率時, 他卻在努力的創造市場, 這是兩種完成不一樣的邏輯. Apple 就是最佳的例子.

是不是這樣呢, 讓我們由時間來證明, 希望聯想電腦的決定是對的.

English version: Coporation Acquisition

In December, 2004, IBM and Lenovo joined announced the news: “Lenovo to Acquire IBM Personal Computing Division”, which the total acquisition amount was approximately US$1.75 billion, even thought the financial report showed that IBM PC division was on a deficit.

This was obviously a strategy to grab at market share and to broaden the economic scale for Lenovo’s ambition to go to the global brand market. Almost one year past, we do not see Lenovo to solve some root problems for playing a role in PC industry.

1. The product of differentiation. We don’t see Lenovo to build a series of products which customers designate. Laptop, for instance, the customers can easily identify the fine art of keyboard and flat LCD panel designed by Compaq (now HP), the sharp contour designed by IBM, the fashion style designed by Sony, and the professional and concrete look and feel designed by Toshiba. These brandy vendors have unique value to their target customers.
2. The sales channel. The special designed sales channel show why Lenovo’s brand has more advantages than others. For example, Dell innovate direct-sell on-line business model, and Acer build more profitable for channel in Europe.
3. What is the thinking logic of Lenovo’s value proposition to break the price/cost battle in PC industry? The winning solution is crucial in highly sensitive and competitive price/cost ratio of PC industry. The business experience shows that the cheap is nowhere to go except “more cheap”.
4. Where is Lenovo going? Lenovo must clearly state their unique strength among brand, channel, management, or something else.

An enterprise is going to failure if it doesn’t invest on developing the product what customers exactly want, and if it doesn’t strive for sales power but focus on buying market share in the same pie.

I admire the quotation from Peter Job, CEO, Reuters, “Acquisitions are about buying market share. Our challenge is to create markets. There is a big difference.” and the quotation from Chan Kim & Renée Mauborgne (INSEAD), from Blue Ocean Strategy: “Value innovation is about making the competition irrelevant by creating uncontested market space. We argue that beating the competition within the confines of the existing industry is not the way to create profitable growth.” The Apple Computer is a typical example to contemplate.

We are looking forward to observing Lenovo’s evolution and change, and happy to see Lenovo’s success in the future. The result will come out by given enough time.

Ref:

IBM press releases: Lenovo to Acquire IBM Personal Computing Division

Tom Peters Web site

儘量犯錯

"錯誤的政策比貪污還可怕" -- 政府犯錯, 全民買單.

但是商學院的老師卻教學生: 一個好的失敗是值得獎勵的, 而即使是平凡的成功也不值一顧.
“Reward excellent failures. Punish mediocre successes.” by Phil Daniels, Sydney exec
但是在公司裡面, 每年每季每月都訂有目標. 沒有達成目標就換人做, 這是很現實的問題.
怎麼可能允許員工犯錯? 公司又有多少資源可供員工如此的犯錯來揮霍.
問題是由誰來判斷 excellent failure or mediocre success?
舉兩個例子, Apple 當年把 Steve Jobs 趕走, 股價長期在10元以下, 面臨了微軟的強勢銷售, 即使大家對 Apple 的產品愛不釋手, 卻仍不見銷售有任何起色. 直到把前任 CEO fire 再度把 Steve Jobs 請來掌舵. --- 董事會犯的錯, 員工及投資人買單.
另一個例子是 HP, 今年初把 Fiorina 花了 2110 萬美金資遣之後, 股價才再度爬上近30元. 雖然目前仍無法看出是好或壞, 但短期內似乎結果不如預期. ( HP 希望能趕上 IBM, 怪不得 Tom Peters 說: "Acquisitions are about buying market share. Our challenge is to create marketz. There is a big different." )
這些公司花的代價是獎勵還是懲罰? 又獎勵了誰, 懲罰了誰呢?

鄧小平同志說, 不管黑貓白貓，會抓老鼠就是好貓. -- 這句話簡潔易懂.
看來商學院的話, 也只是些名詞句子而已.

Ref:
Tom Peters quotation, http://ryskamp.org/brain/business/tom-peters-master-of-quotation
Steve Jobs, http://www.fastcompany.com/articles/1999/11/steve_jobs.html
Carly Fiorina, http://www.networkworld.com/news/2005/0211fioritoge.html

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English version: Encourage to failure!!

In Chinese proverb, "The fallacious policy is much dreadful than corruption"; the government made mistake and the consequence is the people suffered.

“Reward excellent failures. Punish mediocre successes.” -- Phil Daniels

In a company, you are easily degraded or laid-off if you didn’t achieve the goals which set by monthly, quarterly, and yearly. This is a realistic problem. It is dangerous for a company to invest its precious resources on a person who fail in the end. I doubt how many times the company can afford expensive resources to such failure investment unless the scope of failure is under management.

My questions are who make the judgment to decide excellent failure or mediocre success? And who would be awarded or punished? What is the extent of failure and success? How long is to measure the result?

Two examples, Apple Computer stock price had been struggle since Steve Jobs resigned from his co-fund company in 1985. Apple didn’t perform well until the board fired ex-CEO and Steve rejoined the company as Apple’s CEO. The board and company made a great mistake to let Steve leave and the consequence was whole company and investors punished.

Another is Hewlett-Packard. HP’s stock price soars near $30 recently which is close to the peak of price during five years period. One of reasons was that the board finally made the decision to pay the severance package $21.38 million to ex-CEO Fiorina. We can’t conclude good or bad about merging between HP and Compaq, but the short-term result shows obviously in stock market. (This example matches the quotation “Acquisition are about buying market share. Our challenge is to create markets. There is a big different”)

These companies had paid huge price on their failure of decision. Who get the award and who get punished?

Deng Xiaoping, Chinese ex-leader, said that no matter the cat is white or black, the one who can catch the mouse is the best! I thought the quotation is easy and clear to understand which no matter the success is good or bad is worth to admire.

品牌精神分裂

Brand Schizophrenia by Jack Trout,
Pasted from <http://www.forbes.com/2005/10/14/coke-mcdonalds-generalmotors-cx_jt_1017trout.html?partner=commentary_newsletter>

做生意很重要的一點是 "擦亮你的招牌", 但當你是世界名牌時, 要如何擦亮你的招牌或還是要讓你的品牌精神分裂? 舉 Mercedes Benz 為例, 在歐洲, 當你走進車行你會看到各種 Mercedes Benz, 包括A-Class, B-Class, C=Class, E-Class, S-Class, CLK, CLS, CL, SLK, SL, M-Class, and G-Class, 價格從兩萬到廿萬歐元不等, 結果是現在歐洲不再認為 Mercedes Benz 是頂尖的品牌反而被 Audi A8, BMW, Maserati and Jaguar 所取代.

這種情形在消費性產品上屢見不鮮, 像是 Coca-Cola, 有16種版本的Coke, 一旦 Pepsi 定位清楚的打出 "choice of the new generation" 因此把 Coke 拉下馬來(目前 Pepsi 股價 $58.98, 創十年新高 ($23.2~$58.98), 而 Coca-Cola 股價 $42.55 接近十年新低 ($34~$88.9), recorded at 2005/11/3.

好玩的是, 在商場上這樣的故事一而再, 再而三的上演, 到底是誰來做 brand schizophrenia 的決定? 一旦消費者無從選擇的時候, 那就只好不做選擇.

以前企業強調多元化. 我想一個長久經營的企業, Focus, Simplicity and Persist 才是重要的元素.