研一英语翻译.docx

Customers first: the message for this or any other year- 翻译 Customers first: the message for this or any other year 客户第一:永恒的主题 By Michael Skapinker 迈克尔斯卡平克 What, the caller from Hewlett-Packard wanted to know, did I think the big business issues would be this year? 来自惠普的电话调查员想知道在我看来今年的重大商业问题是什么。 Well, I replied, in thought the issues should be that my new HP printer-scanner-copier refused to scan when I bought it and it took me weeks to sort it out. 嗯,我回答说，在我看来问题应该是当我购买了新的惠普打印扫描复印一体机后，它拒绝扫描，而这花费了我数个星期去解决问题。 Also the machine could not print on lightweight card, as it was supposed to, without Jamming. 还有就是这台机器并不像预想的那样，可以不卡壳儿的在轻量级卡片上打印。 The man from HP laughed nervously. 惠普的电话调查员尴尬（紧张）的笑了笑。 Were there any other big Business issues I would like to mention? 问我还有没有其他重大的商业问题想说。 No, I said. 不,我说。 If HP took care of those small ones, the big ones would take care of themselves. 如果惠普能处理好这些小问题，那么那些大问题可以自行解决。 I could have talked for longer, but I had to call Powergen. 我本可以谈更长时间，但我不得不给尓根产品服务热线打电话。（不确定Powergen的翻译） I should not have been using the FTs time to sort out my electricity difficulties but no one had answered the 24-hour Powergen helpline the previous evening. 我不应该一直使用在金融时报的上班时间解决我自己的电子产品的问题，但是昨天晚上24小时尓根产品服务热线却没有人接电话。 This time I got through and, after a few false starts, they sorted out my problem. 这次我终于接通了电话，在尝试几次失败后，他们解决了我的问题。 Why is it so hard for companies to get things right? 为什么对公司来说把事情做好久这么难呢？ The British utilities seem to have surrendered all their post-privatisation customer-service improvements. 英国公用事业似乎在私有化之后放弃了他们所有的顾客服务改进。 Some have gone back to their tricks of 20 years ago, including not turning up at the appointed time and then claiming to have rung the doorbell and found no one home. 一些公司的顾客服务回到了20年前的把戏，包括不在约定的时间出现，然后又声称按了门铃却没有人在家。 Many banks, retailers and the rest are no better. 许多银行、零售商和其他的一些公司也好不到哪去。 Some seem to have cut back on the essentials of customer service training: please, thank you - that sort of thing. 一些公司似乎削减了像“请、谢谢你之类的”必要的客户服务培训。 I know this is not just a British phenomenon: every time I write about deteriorating customer service, many of you e-mail from elsewhere with the same complaints. 我知道这种现象不仅仅在英国出现：每次我写关于不断恶化的客户服务的文章，都会收到来自世界各地的邮件抱怨相同的问题。 What is the problem? 问题是什么？ Some of it is industry specific: either there is insufficient competition or dissatisfied customers cannot be bothered to change because they doubt they will find anything better. 一些问题是行业特有的: 要么是缺乏充分的竞争，要么是不满意的顾客由于怀疑是否可以找到更好的商家而懒得去改变。 But I sense a deeper problem: many companies seem to have forgotten what business is about. 但是我意识到了更深层次的问题：许多公司似乎已经遗忘了商业是怎么回事。 They think it is about cutting costs: hence the Mania for outsourcing. l am not attacking outsourcing as such, it is not, on its own, responsible for deteriorating customer service. 他们认为生意就是削减成本：因此引发了外包的狂热。我并不这样抨击外包，外包本身并不应该对不断恶化的客户服务负责。 Rather, the problem is the mindset that so much outsourcing represents, the idea that a startling reduction in employment costs is all you need to succeed. 相反,问题在于外包所代表的理念，这个理念是为了成功，对人工成本进行惊人的削减是所有你需要做的。 Costs do matter. 成本的确重要。 If they exceed revenues, you have no profit and no company, or individual, can carry on for long without profits. 如果成本超过了收入，你将没有利润，没有公司或个人可以不盈利的长期运行。 But making a profit, essential though it is, is not the purpose of business either. 尽管盈利是必须的，但商业的目的不在于此。 It is its consequence. 盈利是经营的结果。 As Peter Drucker wrote: Profit is not the explanation, cause or rationale of business behaviour and business decisions, but rather the test of their validity. 彼得德鲁克写道:“利润不是商业行为和商业决策的解释，原因或论据，而在于测试商业行为和商业决策的效度。” The purpose of a business is to provide something that a customer wants at a price he or she is prepared to pay. 商业的目的在于为顾客提供他或她所准备支付价格的所需的商品。 In Prof Druckers words: It is the customer who determines what a business is. 德鲁克教授说:“是顾客决定了生意是什么。 It is the customer alone whose willingness to pay for a good or for a service converts economic resources into wealth, things into goods. 惟有愿意为商品或服务付款的顾客才能将经济资源转化为财富，将物品变为商品。” It is a simple idea. 这是一个简单的理念。 You provide goods or services that customers are pleased with - so pleased that they come back, and tell all their friends to buy from you too. 你提供能使客户满意的商品或服务，顾客如此高兴以至于他们不仅会再次光顾，还会告诉他们所有的朋友从你这里购物。 You then sell more. 然后，你可以销售更多的商品。 Result: happiness 结果:幸福 Carrying this out, of course, is less simple. 当然,实施起来就不那么简单了。 Others may have found a way of providing the same goods at far lower prices, in which case costs will have to be looked at again and you may have to move jobs to low-wage countries. 其他商家可能已经找到了以更低的价格提供相同商品的方法，在这种情况下，成本再次被关注，你可能不得不将工厂搬到低工资国家。 There is also the difficulty of execution: the bigger your business becomes and the more widespread your suppliers and customers, the harder it is to deliver. 还有执行的困难：企业变得越大，相应的供应商和消费者所覆盖的范围更广，（信息）传递更加困难。 You may need information technology systems to keep track of supplies and to ensure that when your customers call, it takes you no more than a few seconds to call up the information you need. 你可能需要信息技术系统进行供应跟踪，和确保当顾客打电话时你能迅速的找到所需要的信息。 But when the new IT system has been installed, or the foreign factory built, or this or that activity put out to contract, there is only one test of whether it was worth it: are the customers happy? 但是当安装了新的信息技术系统或在国外新建了厂房，或将这样那样的活动承包出去，只有一个测试可以测出这些是否值得：顾客满意吗？ It is with the customer that all business decisions should start and end. 顾客是所有商业决策的起点，也是所有商业决策的终点。Making a corporate marriage work-翻译 Making a corporate marriage work（By Stefan Stem） 使企业联姻成功 Bringing two companies together is an enormous task. 将两家公司合并是一项巨大的任务。 There are grand, big picture questions that need to be resolved, such as the new groups strategy and direction. 像新集团的战略和发展方向之类的重大的，大局的问题需要解决。 There are also administrative, logistical and technical challenges. 也有来自行政、后勤和技术方面的挑战。 Will new contracts of employment be required? 是否需要新的雇佣合同？ Where should the headquarters of the combined operation be located? 联合运营的总部应该设在哪里？ How can the companies information technology systems be integrated? 如何将两个公司信息技术系统整合？ It takes a certain humility to make a merger work, says Charles Hampden-Turner, co-author of Building Cross-cultural Competence. “要使合并成功确实需要谦逊，”查尔斯汉普登特纳，建设跨文化能力的合著者，他说。 It doesnt follow that your company is a better one simply because it has taken another company over. “仅仅由于你的公司兼并了另一个公司，并不意味着你的公司更好。 It just means that youve got more money and have been prepared to pay: he says. 它只是意味着你有更多的钱并准备好为此支付”他说。 Work on bringing the partners together should start well before the deal becomes public knowledge. 应该在交易成为公共信息前，努力将合作双方撮合在一起。 But how can executives start planning integration without the news leaking out? 但高管们如何开始计划整合却不泄露消息呢？ Some use a so-called clean room, where both sides to a deal can meet and discuss future plans confidentially. 一些人使用所谓的“无尘室”，在那里交易双方可以会面并秘密地商讨未来计划。 Computer manufacturers Hewlett Packard and Compaq, for example, adopted this approach in their $25bn (13 3bn) merger. 例如,电脑制造商惠普公司和康柏电脑公司就在其250亿美元的合并中采用了这种方法。 Speed is of the essence. 速度是非常重要的。 Roger Pudney of the UKs Ashridge business school says; There is often a tendency for companies to relax once the deal is signed, but this is precisely the point at which speed of implementation becomes crucial.英国阿什里奇商学院的Roger Pudney表示,“公司常常倾向于在签署合约后放松（警惕），但是此时恰恰是实施速度变得至关重要的时点。 Successful Mergers & Acquisitions companies stress the importance of quick wins as a way of demonstrating that the new combination is already producing added value. 成功的并购公司强调速效方案作为一条说明新组合已产生附加值途径的重要性 HP and Compaq ran a series of Fast Start seminars for their staff as soon as the deal was announced, to provide reassurance and a sense of direction - seminars that had been planned in advance in the clean room. 惠普和康柏电脑公司一宣布合并交易，就为他们的员工进行了一系列“快速启动”研讨会，为员工提供安慰和方向感，这些研讨会是提前在“无尘室”中计划好的。 Offering employees detailed information is essential at the early stage. 在早期为员工提供详细的信息是至关重要的 An internal human resources website set up for HP and Compaq staff received 2m hits on the day the merger was unveiled. 一个为惠普和康柏电脑公司员工设置的内部人力资源网站，在宣布合并当天获得了2百万（2M是什么的缩写不清楚）的点击率。 Managers will inevitably be occupied with practical, administrative changes, such as establishing new terms and conditions and pushing through any redundancies. 经理将不可避免地忙于应对实践的、管理的变化，例如制定新的合同条款和推进冗余的消除。 Yet dealing with the cultural issues in a merger is more subtle and challenging. 然而处理合并过程中的文化问题更微妙和更富有挑战性。 And when things go wrong in this context they can go wrong very quickly. 当事情在这种情况下出错时，他们可能非常容易出问题。 Michelle Bligh, a professor at Claremont Graduate University, California, has suggested measures leaders should take to avoid the worst consequences of mergers. 米歇尔布莱，加州克莱蒙特大学的教授，她建议领导者应该采取措施以避免兼并最坏的后果。 After studying a merger of health organizations in the US, Prof Bligh advised leaders to avoid taking a dictatorial, top-down approach or micro managing the transition They need respond as the new situation demands, she says, and must help followers negotiate, modify and even manipulate cultural similarities and differences in the post- merger environment. 在研究了一家美国健康机构的合并案例后，布莱教授建议领导者避免采取独裁的，自上而下的方法或者对过渡进行微管理。他们需要回应新形势的要求，她说，在合并后的环境中必须帮助追随者协商、修改甚至控制文化异同。 Prof Bligh identifies a few simple ground rules. 布莱教授认同一些简单的基本规则。 Managers should recognize cultural differences between the companies, for example, by learning about the history of the new partner. 经理应该认识到公司间的文化差异，例如，通过学习新伙伴的历史。 They should give employees reasons why change is necessary, and find practical ways of communicating. 他们应该为员工解释为什么变化是必要的，并找到实用的交际方式。As one manager told her: When you sit down and start showing employees the nitty-gritty, you get buy-in a lot quicker 一个经理告诉她：“当你坐下来，向员工说明事情的本质是，你更快的得到支持。” Symbolism matters too. 象征意义也很重要。 Instead of making great speeches, Dr Hampden Turner suggests, why not start acting different and providing a lead that way? “取代进行大型的演讲，”汉普登特纳博士建议，“为什么不改变行动，为其树立榜样呢？” Words are too easy, but actions will be noticed. 语言太单薄了,但行动会被注意到。 Even apparently simple gestures can count. 即使是明显简单的手势也算。 Discussing employees new working conditions and being visible on the shop floor, for example, may reassure staff that management has an interest in their well-being. 例如，讨论员工的新工作环境，在“生产车间”出现，可能安抚员工，让其相信管理者关心他们的福祉。 One manager in Prof Bligh study said: We have to start with the little things: they really matter to people. 布莱教授研究中的一个经理说:“我们必须从小事做起：他们对人们真的很重要。” How do the most successful acquirers handle the process of merger integration? 最成功的收购方是如何处理兼并的整合过程的呢？ General Electric, the US engineering conglomerate, has made more than 400 acquisitions in the past 20 years But it is still1earning how to make these deals work better. 通用电气，美国工程集团，在过去20年中已经完成了超过400收购，但它仍在学习如何使这些交易更好地运转。 When GE bought Amersham, the UK bioscience company, for $9bn, it made a big effort to reassure the acquired business that it would not be steam-rollered. 当通用电气用90亿美元购买英国生物科技公司安玛西亚公司时，通用公司做出了巨大的努力来安抚被收购企业，保证该企业不会被迫做一些事情。 Talk of a revival in merger and acquisitions activity is on the rise. 关于并购活动复习的讨论正在增加。 Investment bankers and management consultants are once again seeking out potential deals and making flattering noises as they lead candidates to the altar. 投资银行家和管理顾问再次开始寻找潜在的交易，并献上谄媚的话语，引领候选人走向圣坛 But marriages succeed or fail in the years following the wedding. 但在结婚仪式后的几年，婚姻会成功也会失败。 Even before the hangover has worn off, the hard work has to begin. 甚至在宿醉过后，不得不开始艰辛的工作。Keeping your clients relationship afloat-翻译 Keeping your clients relationship afloat. （By Morgan Witzel） 维持客户关系 The passengers of the Aurora had every right to be angry. 奥罗拉号的乘客完全有理由生气。 The round-the-world cruise for which they had paid thousands of pounds was cancelled after persistent engine problems. 他们为环球航行支付了数千英镑，但由于持续的引擎问题航行被迫取消了。 Yet there was little anger among the passengers. 然而乘客们几乎没有一点儿愤怒的情绪。 While the ship was held off the south coast of England, the passengers remained calm and even cheerful. 当船期被延迟，被迫在英格兰南部海岸停靠时，乘客们保持冷静，甚至有些高兴。 Though many expressed regret as they finally disembarked, they were not hostile towards the ships operators, P&O. 尽管很多乘客对他们最终登岸表示遗憾，但他们对船舶运营商P&O并没有敌意。 This may have been due to the companys management of the crisis. 这可能是由于公司的危机管理。 Dealing with a service failure is a formidable task for any marketing manager. 对任何市场(销售)经理而言，处理一项服务失败是一个艰巨的任务。 If poorly handled, the consequences can be bad public relations, desertion by customers and even lawsuits. 如果处理不当,后果可能是招致糟糕的公共关系，被客户遗弃，甚至导致诉讼。 The Aurora story shows how managers, if they move quickly, can avoid some of the worst effects of service failures. 奥罗拉号的故事展示了管理人员如果行动迅速的话，可以避免一些服务失败导致的最恶劣的影响。 While high-profile cases are still relatively rare, companies everywhere may regularly suffer small service failures. 然而备受瞩目的案例仍相对罕见，世界各地的企业可能经常需要忍受小的服务失败。 Plumbers fail to fix leaking drains, restaurant meals are often undercooked or holidaymakers find their hotel room is directly above an all-night disco. 水管工未能修复渗漏的排水管，餐厅的菜肴经常是未煮熟的，或游客发现他们的酒店房间的正上方是一个通宵的迪斯科。 Every failure is bound to create a dissatisfied customer, which in turn creates other problems for the company. 每一次失败一定会产生一个不满意的客户，这接下来产生了公司其他的问题。 Unhappy customers tend to tell others of their experience. 不满意的顾客倾向于告诉别人他们的经历。 Studies in the US have shown that dissatisfied customers tend to tell around ten other people of their bad experience; even worse, they can take their stories to the press.美国的一些研究表明，不满意的客户倾向于将他们糟糕的经历告诉大约10个人；更糟糕的是，他们可能（个人觉得“可能”比“可以”好一些）将自己的故事寄至报社。 Dissatisfied customers also defect to rival businesses. 不满意的客户也会叛逃到竞争对手公司 Although every service failure will be different, some basic principles can assist in recovery. 虽然每个服务失败都是不同的，但一些基本原则可以帮助恢复。 The first is early recognition of the problem. 第一个原则是尽早识别出问题的所在。 In P&Os case this was easy: everyone involved knew that the large ship was not going anywhere. 在P&O案例中，这一点很容易做到：所涉及到的每一个人都知道这艘大船会去任何地方。 Other failures are harder to detect, especially when management is asleep at the wheel.其他失败更难察觉，尤其是当管理者在方向盘上睡着时。 The second principle is accepting responsibility. 第二个原则是承担责任。 Many companies prefer to argue with customers over where responsibility lies, without realizing that damage is being done regardless of who is at fault. 许多公司更愿意与客户争辩到底是谁的责任，却没有意识到无论是谁错了伤害都已经产生了。 Although there are limits to the responsibilities companies should accept _ such as accidents and injuries that were not the companys fault - there is usually little profit in scoring moral victories over customers. 虽然对公司应该承担的责任也有限制例如事故和伤害不是企业错误通常在道德方面战胜客户没有意义（直译的话用“利润”，要求不高的话“意义”好理解）。 Hence clothing retailers often have a no-questions-asked policy on returned goods, believing that the harm done by the occasional dishonest customer is more than outweighed by the satisfaction created among the rest. 因此服装零售商往往实行无理由退货政策，他们相信偶尔不诚信客户所造成的伤害远不如让其他客户满意重要。 Once responsibility is accepted, the two m