永續經營在於策略運用
作者：Economist Newspaper The fast-spreading popularity of priva tisation and deregulation in the 1980s a nd 1990s also threw up a host of possibi lities for new corporate acquisitions. I n deregulated telecoms and airlines in t he United States, for instance, takeover activity was particularly lively. The A merican airline industry today is unrec ognisable from what it was in 1980.
1980到90年間快速擴散的民營化與自由化風潮，也增進了許許多多企業收購的機會。例如在美國，自由化後的電訊與民航興起接收風。今日的美國民航業與1980年的經營狀況有著天壤之別。
Amid all this often wild M&A activity, however, some warning bells were soundi ng, A manager with time to do more than draw breath might have asked why many of the world greatest companies, such as T oyota, Volkswagen, Wal-Mart and 3M, had not grown up that way. For many, the mer ger binge ended as it had to: with high interest rates and recession. The highly leveraged buyouts of the late 1980s wer e the Chapter 11 bankruptcies of the ear ly 1990s. The final outcome of the overs tretched deals of the late 1990s has yet to be seen.
但在這幾近瘋狂的購併風潮裡，已經響起一些警訊。除了喘口氣之外還有時間思考的經理人，也許會自問為何許多世界級企業，例如豐田汽車、福斯汽車、華爾百貨與3M，都未依此模式成長茁壯呢？對於許多企業來說，購併風潮最後不得不終止，因為利率居高不下、景氣盤旋谷底。1980年代後期運用高融資買下的案子，到了1990年代前期成了破產案。1990年代後期過度擴張的購併案，下場目前還看不出來。
Disenchantment with the results obtain ed from hostile takeovers, combined with the frustrating slowness of internal gr owth in mature markets, led companies in the 1990s to look more closely at the o nly other option open to them: alliances . Hugh McColl, a chairman of Nations Ban k and a merger maniac in the 1980s and 1 990s, says: "Acquisitions are the old pa radigm. The new one is alliances."
惡意收購的悽慘下場令人美夢破滅，加上成熟市場導致企業的內部成長緩慢得令人洩氣，使得1990年代的企業，不得不更仔細地考慮唯一可行的替代方案：聯盟。美國眾國銀行的董事長休‧邁寇在1980到1990年代曾經是個併購狂，現在他說：「收購是過去追求的模式；現在的模式是聯盟。」
Alliances cover a range of different c orporate relationships that fall into th e large space between full acquisition a nd arms-length supplier. Joint ventures, franchising and licensing are all obvio us forms of alliance.
所謂聯盟，範圍甚廣，涵蓋許多不同企業間的關係，從完全收購到與供應商間維持一定距離的關係都算。合資企業、加盟與授權都是明顯的聯盟方式。
Alliances require little investment an d are highly flexible. They are quick to be assembled and easy to unwind. As a c onsequence, though, it can take a lot of management time to hold them together a nd to make them work. Companies have, ne vertheless, been forming them in ever-in creasing numbers. Accenture, a consultin g firm, has calculated that IBM set up s ome 800 different alliances in a five-ye ar spell in the early 1990s, and that se veral other firms created more than 100 significant alliances during the same pe riod.
聯盟不需要什麼資金，而且彈性很大。因為結合得快，拆夥也容易，所以要使聯盟持續發揮效益，就得投入大量的管理時間。縱使如此，聯盟的數量仍是有增無減。根據埃森哲顧問公司的統計，國際商業機器公司於90年代初期，5年之內便簽訂了約8百個聯盟關係。在同一時期，其他幾家企業也建立了超過1百個重要的聯盟。
Alliances are all about sharing, of bo th risks and rewards. "The purpose of an alliance", says an executive from the F ord Motor Company, a firm with several h undred alliances of its own, "is to do s omething which the individual participan ts cannot do, or cannot do as expeditiou sly, on their own."
策略聯盟需要共同承擔風險或是利潤。擁有數百個策略聯盟的福特汽車公司的一位高階主管指出：「策略聯盟的目的，就是去做那些個別成員無法獨力完成，或是無法獨力快速完成的工作。」
Many firms have found alliances to be a good way of putting their toes into ne w industrial waters. Hence they are part icularly popular with industries that ar e going into new business areas -- for e xample, computers, telecoms and banking. Likewise, alliances are a good way of g oing for a test drive in a new market, o r (as it were) of putting down an option on that market. Partly because of this feature, some three-quarters of all alli ances are reckoned to have taken place a cross borders, initiated by companies wi shing to try out a new geographic market .
許多企業發現策略聯盟是試探新產業領域的好方法，因此對於有意跨足新領域--例如電腦、電訊與金融業--的公司而言，這種方法特別風行。同樣地，聯盟也是測試新市場，或是可以說是保留進入該市場的選擇權的一個好方法。這個特色構成了約四分之三的聯盟關係起源於有意欲測試國外市場的公司主動跨越國界促成的部分原因。
Globalisation accounts in particular f or much of the popularity of alliances w ithin the automotive and airline industr ies. Link-ups such as that between Ameri can Airlines, British Airways and Qantas , and the Star Alliance involving Air Ca nada, United Airlines, Lufthansa, SAS, T hai Airlines, South African Airways and Varig, are good examples.
就汽車與民航業而言，國際化考量更是策略聯盟風行的主因。美國航空、英國航空與澳洲航空間的結合是一例；由加拿大航空、美國聯合航空、德國航空、北歐航空、泰國航空、南非航空與巴西航空組成的星空聯盟是另一例。
Wise firms will avoid rushing into all iances with the same wild enthusiasm tha t some of them put （fatally） into M&A. There is already plenty of evidence to suggest that managing a large network of strategic alliances is quite as dauntin g （and as likely to fail） as the integ ration of a new acquisition.
聰明的企業懂得避免過度興奮地進行策略聯盟，因為它們當中有些已經吃過瘋狂購併的虧（甚至因此一敗塗地）。已經有許多證據顯示，經營龐大的策略聯盟，就如同收購企業後的整合一樣，是一項極為困難（而且很容易失敗）的工作。
This leaves companies with the option of inventing and developing their own gr owth internally. But this is never the e asy option. Even in industries that are heavily dependent on the invention and p roduction of new products -- such as the pharmaceuticals industry -- few firms h ave sufficient resources of their own to produce a continuous stream of winners. They rely increasingly on the alliances that they have with small inventive fir ms, and the stakes that they sometimes h old in those firms, for their re-generat ion. Winning strategies for the future w ill have to combine all three routes to growth: internal （or organic, as it is often termed）, M&A and alliances.
企業剩下的選擇，就只有創造與推動內部的成長了。但這也絕非易事。就算是在極度依賴新產品研發製造的產業--如製藥業--也鮮有企業具備足夠的資源能夠持續不斷地獨力製造出成功的產品。它們愈來愈倚賴與小型而富創意的公司結盟，或甚至倚賴他們所持股的那些小公司的表現，以促進新機。未來的贏家策略將包含3條成長之道：內部成長（又常被稱為有機成長）、購併與聯盟。
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