经济大革命：全球经济重心南移

    你以为自己知道这一切：全球经济实力正在从北半球向南半球迁移。新兴市场的中产阶级正在激增；他们将变得越来越城市化，越来越年轻。世界各国政府都主张加强对各自国家重点行业和资源的控制。商业活动再也不会像从前那样了。你以前就已经听说过这些。

    拉姆•查兰的新书《全球倾斜：如何引领你的企业适应全球经济实力大变迁》（Global Tilt: Leading Your Business Through the Great Economic Power Shift）的一大优点是，它表明你对这些趋势的理解是多么地不充分。没错，你的确知道这些趋势，但许多来自南半球和北半球、未能把握这些趋势、甚至被它们压垮的商界领袖同样也了解这一现象。我们都知道这种变迁是巨大的；查兰表明，它比我们许多人意识到的程度大得多，而且要求我们改变企业的营运方式，这种改变的剧烈程度是大多数管理者做梦也想象不到的。

    虽然经济实力大迁移几乎会影响地球上每一家企业，但《全球倾斜》一书主要针对的是北半球那些根本不知道他们必须在多大程度上变革企业运行方式的管理者。查兰令人信服地表明，南半球是一个完全不同的世界（他指出，南北分界线大约位于北纬31度，大体上横跨墨西哥、非洲和印度的顶部）。南半球的企业往往以赚取现金，而不是以提高根据公认会计准则（GAAP）计算的每股收益为管理宗旨；资本成本高昂；公司大多数为私人所有，而不是上市公司——这一切都与北半球的规范截然相反。社交网络也完全不同；忠于职责、美德和进步的文化价值观对他们很陌生；而政府的作用则或许会令人困惑。

    查兰所做的不仅仅是指出这些差异，尽管他的确给出了一些很有说服力的例证。他还表明，在一个倾斜的世界中，成功的公司如何通过改变管理和领导方式赢得先机。比如，他阐述了印度电信巨头巴帝电信公司（Bharti Airtel）如何在17个非洲国家占据主导地位，该公司CEO马诺吉•科利如何通过掌握每个国家的当地环境而做到这一点的——社会、经济和政府治理差异要求这家公司对其在印度行之有效的商业模式作出改变。

    You think you know all this: Global economic power is shifting from North to South. Emerging-market middle classes are surging; they'll be increasingly urban and young. Governments worldwide are asserting stronger control over their nations' key industries and resources. Business will never be the same. You've heard it before.

    The great virtue of Ram Charan's new book, Global Tilt: Leading Your Business Through the Great Economic Power Shift, is that it shows you how inadequate your understanding of these trends probably is. Yes, you know about them, but so did the many business leaders from North and South who failed to take advantage of them or who even got steamrollered by them. We all understand this shift is big; Charan demonstrates that it's much bigger than many of us realize and will demand far more drastic changes to the way we run our businesses than most managers have dreamed of making.

    While the shift affects virtually every business on earth, Global Tilt speaks mainly to managers from the North who have no conception of how deeply they must transform their business lives. The South, Charan shows persuasively, is a different world. (The dividing line, he notes, is about 31 degrees north latitude, which runs more or less across the tops of Mexico, Africa, and India.) Businesses in the South tend to be managed for cash, not for GAAP earnings per share; capital costs are high; companies are mostly private, not publicly held -- all opposite of Northern norms. Social networks are radically different; cultural values governing loyalty, goodness, and advancement are unfamiliar; government's role can be baffling.

    Charan does more than just point out such differences, though he does that with strong examples. He also shows how successful companies are winning in a tilted world by changing the way they're managed and led. He shows, for example, how Bharti Airtel, the Indian telecom giant, is building a dominant business in 17 African countries, and how CEO Manoj Kohli is doing it by mastering the local context in each one -- social, economic, and governmental differences that require business model changes from what worked in India.

    大多数北半球组织无法作出调整，从而无法在南半球获取成功。预算和目标往往与老板宣示的赢取新领地的崇高愿望不匹配。绩效考核不能根据在南半球真正的获胜之道作出调整。重大决策也不是在正确的地方做出的。查兰对不可避免的失败，以及运行良好的公司如何避免这些失败做了一番解释。

    最发人深省的是，《全球倾斜》一书对南半球公司羞辱北半球竞争对手的种种方式进行了广泛的分类。许多人都知道起源自巴西的百威英博公司（AB InBev）如何通过充满活力的全球收购不断扩张，并最终收购了毫无准备的美国安海斯布希公司（Anheuser-Busch）。很少有人知道，一家名为 GMR，价值数十亿美元的印度公司屡屡击败北半球竞争对手，正在世界各地获得众多规模巨大的基建工程，原因在于，GMR的攀升速度远快于这些北半球公司。而在中国公司中，海尔集团（Haier Group）多年来一直出类拔萃，卓尔不群。这家专注于质量和品牌的公司现在已进入了161个国家，业已成为全球排名第一的家电品牌。北半球的管理者们知道这些家伙非常优秀，但当这些管理者体会不到南半球的对手究竟有多么优秀时，他们也就随之成为后者的手下败将。

    一如他此前所有的著作，查兰告诉我们必须如何做出改变，还进行了具体的展示，他的权威性几乎无人匹及。他是全球范围内一位顶级顾问，很早以前就构筑了一个良性循环：每个人都咨询他的意见，因为大家都这么做。因此，他比任何一位CEO都更加了解这些问题。他从不怯于告诉管理者们到底应该怎么做。北半球的管理者应该悉心听取他的真知灼见，勿犹豫，勿彷徨。（财富中文网）

    译者：任文科

    Most Northern organizations aren't tuned to succeed in the South. Budgets and goals don't match the boss's lofty stated aspirations for winning in new territories. Performance appraisals aren't aligned with what really wins in the South. Critical decisions aren't made in the right places. Charan explains the inevitable failures that follow and the ways well-run companies are avoiding them.

    Most sobering is Global Tilt's extensive taxonomy of all the ways Southern companies are humiliating competitors from the North. Many people know how AB InBev (BUD), with origins in Brazil, grew through energetic global acquisitions and eventually bought America's sadly unprepared Anheuser-Busch. Far fewer people know about GMR, a multi-billion-dollar Indian company that is beating out Northern competitors for huge infrastructure projects worldwide because it can scale faster than they can. China's Haier Group, uniquely among Chinese companies for years, focused on quality and brand; it's now in 161 countries and is the world's No. 1 appliance brand. Northern managers know these guys are good, but they suffer when they don't appreciate just how good they are.

    As in all his books, Charan tells and shows us how we must change, speaking with an authority few can match. He long ago established the virtuous circle of a top global consultant: Everybody calls him because everybody calls him. As a result, he knows more about these issues than any individual CEO. Charan isn't bashful about telling managers what to do. Managers shouldn't hesitate to do it.