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国际化经营

工商企业日趋国际化，但他们中大多数不是出于战略上的选择，而是经历了一个缓慢的“循序渐进”的过程。有些公司开始被吸引到国际市场上来，是因为收到了找上门来的定单，在发现新的机会之后，通过一系列步骤走向国外建立生产广家。有些公司主动进行国际经营是为了对付寡头卖主垄断的威胁。还有些公司则是碰上了特殊机遇，通过在国外经营来开发资源供应，获得外国技术或提高生产效率。许多公司在成为全球性企业的某一阶段，都被生动地描绘成由一种特别关系网把不同国家各种各样的公司联系在一起的投资组合。
这些早期的经营措施，很难说是完整的全球战略的一部分。但是由于国际范围的竞争、国家控制措施和公司日渐意识到增效利益而产生压力时，越来越多的公司在制定全球战略，采用全球规划程序。全球战略是表示企业战略的一项计划，考虑到地理来源和地理机遇及限制，从其有限资源的地理分布中，最大限度地扩大选择的目标。
全球战略，除了包括公司如何进入新的市场、要拥有些什么和如何进行全球运作外，还包括制定规划、选择时机和确定公司的经营地点和资源。合理地制定全球战略，需要认真评估全球各种可选择的方案和每个方案涉及的风险。制订全球战略，决策者绝不要对任何国家充满盲目性，必须先考虑到世界市场及世界资源的分布，再考虑单独某一国家的市场和资源。全球战略旨在于在多国的基础上取得最大的效益，而不是把国际经营活动当作不同国家的业务组合。
需要有一个全球战略的基本原因，是多数产品和生产要素市场超越了国家的界限，但最终决定经营的竞争，并不局限在个别的地点和国家市场。因此，为了保持具有竞争性，或者变为具有竞争性，大多数公司的战略范围必须包括国内外市场的威胁和机遇。如果国内竞争者的视野拓宽，规模扩大，而这家公司仍旧小规模经营，就会发现自己不能在研究或产品开发方面与他人并驾齐驱。即使国内竞争没有迅速扩展到其他市场，外国公司也会采取气势逼人的战略。当日本的公司大规模地打入欧美传统市场的时候，欧美许多产业的公司对这种竞争性的挑战大都毫无准备。凡在全球战略中没有包括日本人锐意争取的那些价格区段的汽车公司，立即在成本上处于不利地位。在摩托车工业中，把迅速增长的市场拱手让与日本竞争者的情况更为严重。很多著名的公司完全销声匿迹。
在美国市场上，取得成就会领先，所以美国公司过去在产品寿命的最初阶段不必从全球的角度来考虑。由于美国人口众多、工资率高、可自由支配的购买力大，并且勇于创新，美国市场多年来对许多产品的容纳率和增长率，在世界上都是名列前茅。反过来看，美国以外的公司则从产品开发一开始，就需要进行全球通盘规划。采用先进技术的英国公司、，很可能发现美国的需求比英国的需求增长得快。如果把英国的需求拱手让与美国的竞争者，那么美国竞争者的销售额和经验很快会超过英国公司。现在美国的工资率和人均国民生产总值不再高出欧洲很多，也许轮到美国公司应该按照欧洲市场的需求来设计产品，因为在欧洲市场上销售这些产品，很可能会超过美国市场。
凡是由于未能选择最廉价的货源而在竞争中落后的公司，都暴露出缺乏全球战略思想。在其他一些情况下，企业也许已经获得世界市场的份额和廉价的货源，但是这是以财政优势或比其外国竞争者相对灵活为代价取得的。借助于需要变动和技术变革，较小的竞争者已经能够超过他们。
世界上国家很多，跨国公司必须要在选择市场时树立优势，根据市场进行战略评估和选择经营任务。必须决定战略评估是根据一个主要的单一市场，许多单一市场，还是许多市场中的某些部分进行的。这家公司还要决定为负责贯彻这一战略评估如何进行组织，是由总部来进行，由多国委员会来进行，还是由本国的公司来进行？
单一主要市场方法，也叫做中心市场方法。在这种方法中，公司根据一国市场选择经营任务，建立营销组合，以后再扩展到其他国家的市场。这一方法减少决策问题，由于地域扩展的边际成本低，还可以带来高利润。但是公司应该选择哪一个为中心市场呢？通常公司从国内市场开始，但是这不一定是最好的选择。一些日本和欧洲公司，已经为某些有选择的产品选择了收入高和要求高的美国市场。美国的市场巨大，有利也有弊。许多欧洲人对在这样巨大的市场上进行通讯和协调工作所需要的代价望而却步，因此不敢把首先在美国市场上进行生产作为其世界产品战略的一部分
多元市场方法意味着高度的分散。如果当地情况特殊，需要比如化肥和农药之类的某些特殊商品，大规模经济生产并不重要，公司的竞争优势取决于生产能力而不取决于先进的产品设计等，那么在这些情况下，多元市场方法也许是最好的战略。比如对像铝锭之类的工业产品，产品的使用方式、顾客的态度和目标客户团体等市场特点，可能在许多国家都大致相似，因此最佳战略可能是集中开发更经济的生产过程，形成具有竞争力的成本优势。
在细分市场方法中，企业要在国内市场中认准那些在境外能够受到不同对待从而获利的细分市场。有些细分市场很小，在任何一个国家都没有充足的理由使单一国家的企业开发适宜的产品或为开发市场进行必要的投资。然而，在世界范围内或在若干国家之中，为这一细分市场付出这样的代价则完全是正当的。
归根结底，全球战略的制订是由管理人员的全球经营思路决定的。全球战略的设计和实施，要求总公司和子公司的管理人员，都要遵循同一全球策略，既不能视子公司为只是跟着总部指挥棒转的附属机构，也不能视为是独立的城邦，而要看作是整体的一部分，无论从全球目标还是从当地的目标来说，都要如此。全系统的每一部分都发挥各自的特长，做出各自的独特贡献。这种方法通常被称为“地心说”，是总公司和子公司齐心协力制订出全球的统一标准，但根据各地情况允许统一标准略有差异，并据此做出重大决策。但是，地心说要求对子公司的管理人员实行奖励制度，鼓励他们为全球目标努力，而不只是仅仅为了达到本国的目标。
在国际化的企业中，总公司对子公司的定位一般有三种类型：（重视本国的）民族中心主义型、（重视所在国的）多中心型和（重视全世界的）地球中心型。
民族中心主义态度的特点可以归纳为：“我们本国人比总公司和子公司中的任何外国人都优越、可靠和值得信任。”在这样的公司里，工作标准和决策规则一般要根据本国的标准。民族中心主义是和全球战略背道而驰的，因为这种方法缺少良好的反馈，并且熟悉经营地区当地情况的管理人员的经验和看法在制定决策中得不到适当的重视。
多中心的公司走向另一个极端，认为当地人对情况最为熟悉，他们的想法对公司总是最有利，跨国公司在所在国开设的企业在特色和做法上部应该尽量当地化。这类公司更像是一个半独立的子公司的联合体。多中心的管理政策可能会牺牲跨国经营的大部分统一和增效利益。多中心主义的代价是重复劳动和对本国经验不能有效利用所造成的浪费。这种方法的优点是能够充分利用当地的资源和人力，而付出的代价是牺牲全球的增长和效率。
地心主义也有代价，大部分是通讯旅行费用，由于想要对人员进行全球目标的教育和取得共识而在决策上花费的时间，以及有一个相当大的总部官僚机构所花的费用。但是这些代价的回报却是整个企业更加客观的经营，利用整个世界的资源，提高地方公司的管理水平，对全球目标更多的责任感，以及最后，但并非最不重要的一点是利润。当然，全球型企业的成功取决于它是否有足够的全球型的管理人员。

本文摘至：Richard. E. Caves., Management and Administration, Macmillan Press Ltd., 2005

Going International
Business enterprises have become increasingly international but most of them go international by a process of creeping "incremental-ism" rather than by strategy choice. Some firms are first attracted to foreign markets by unsolicited export orders and, after discovering new opportunities, move through a series of stages to the establishment of foreign production facilities. Other firms initiate international activities in response to threats to an oligopoly position. Still others respond to specific opportunities for developing supplies of resources, acquiring foreign technology, or achieving greater production efficiency through foreign operations. And at some stage of becoming a global enterprise, many firms could be best characterized as a portfolio of diverse and separate country companies tied together by a network of ad hoc relationships.
Rarely are these early moves part of a comprehensive global strategy. But as pressures arise from competition in an international scale and from country control programs, and as firms become increasingly aware of synergistic benefits, more and more are building global strategies and adopting global planning procedures. A global strategy is a plan expressing an enterprise's strategy for maximizing its chosen objectives through geographical allocation of its limited resources, taking into account competition from whatever geographical source and the geographical opportunities and constraints.
A global strategy encompasses the planning, timing, and location of a firm's activities and resources as well as its strategies for how it will enter new markets, what it will own, and how it will manage the global operation. The construction of a global strategy on a rational basis requires a careful assessment of the global alternatives and the risks involved for each. To build a global strategy, the decision maker must be free of any national blinders and consider world markets and world resource locations and now simply the markets or resources of a particular country in isolation. A global strategy aims at maximizing results on a multinational basis rather than treating international activities as a portfolio of separate country business.
The basic reasons for having a global strategy are that most product and factor markets extend beyond the boundaries of a single country and the competition that ultimately determines performance is not constrained to individual locations and country markets. To remain competitive, or to become competitive, the strategy horizon for most firms must, therefore, encompass threats and opportunities of both domestic and foreign origin. If its domestic competitors extend their horizons to include a broader scale base, the firm could find itself unable to maintain the same pace of research or product development given its smaller scales base. Even where domestic competition is not moving rapidly to other markets, foreign firms may be developing strategies that pose a threat. European and U. S. firms in a number of industries were largely unprepared for the competitive challenge when the Japanese firms broke into their traditional markets x>n a significant scale. Automotive firms that had failed to build global coverage in the price segments the Japanese attacked were at an intermediate cost disadvantage. In the motorcycle industry the effects of leaving rapidly growing markets to Japanese competitors were even more dramatic. Many well-known firms disappeared completely.
Many U. S. firms did not need in the past to think globally at the early stages of a product's life because leadership coincided with achievement in the U. S. market. With its large population, high-wage rates, high discretionary spending power, and high propensity to innovate, the U-S. market was for many years the leader in adoption and growth rates for many products. Conversely, firms outside the United States had more need to plan globally from the beginning of any product development. A U. K. firm introducing a technological advance was likely to find that U. S. demand grew more rapidly than U. K. demand. If U. K. demand was left to U. S. competitors, the sales and experience of U. S. competitors soon outpaced that of the U. K. firm. Now that U. S. wage rates and per capita GNP no longer have such a lead over Europe, perhaps, U. S. firms in their turn should be designing products against European markets that might lead the United States in adoption of those products.
Absence of global thinking also shows up where firms have been left behind in the competitive race because they failed to tap the cheapest sources of supply. In still other cases, firms may have achieved global market share and cheapest supplies, but at the expense of their financial strength or flexibility relative to foreign competitors. Assisted by a fluctuation in demand or technological changes, smaller competitors have been able to overtake them.
Since there are so many countries in the world, the multinational firm must establish priorities for selecting those markets against which it will make this strategic evaluation and choice of its business mission. It must decide whether strategic evaluation is carried out against one major single market, many single markets, or some segments of many markets. It must also decide how it is going to organize the responsibility for carrying through this strategic assessment. Will it be done by central headquarters, by multinational committees, or by national units?
In the major single market, or central market, approach, the firm selects its mission based on one national market and establishes a marketing mix, and later expands to other national markets. This approach reduces decision problems and can bring high profits because of the low marginal cost of geographic extensions. But which central market should the firm choose? Normally, the firm begins with its home market, but this may not be the best choice. Some Japanese and European firms have selected the high-income, sophisticated U. S. market for selected product lines. The sizes of the U. S. market have both advantages and disadvantages. Many Europeans see the cost of communications and coordination efforts in such a large market as a deterrent to producing products first in the United States as part of their world product strategy.
The multiple market approach implies a high degree of decentralization. It may be the best strategy in situations where special local conditions require particular products, such as fertilizers and pesticides, where economies of large-scale production are not important, and where the firm's competitive advantage depends upon capabilities other than advanced product design. In the case of an industrial product such as aluminum ingots, for example, the market characteristics such as product usage patterns, customer attitudes, and target customer groups may be quite similar for many countries, and the best strategy may be to focus on developing a more economical production process to bring a competitive cost advantage.
In the market segment approach, the firm identifies segments of national markets that could profitably be given separate treatment across national boundaries. Small market segments in individual countries may be insufficient for any one country unit to justify development of an appropriate product or to make the necessary investment in market development. World-wide or for a number of countries, however, such a segment may readily justify the expense.
In the last analysis, developing a global strategy depends upon the way executives think about doing business around the world. The design and implementation of a global strategy require that managers in both headquarters and subsidiaries follow a worldwide approach which considers subsidiaries as neither satellites nor independent city-states but as parts of a whole, the focus of which is on worldwide as well as local objectives. And each part of the system makes its unique contribution with its unique competence. This approach, which has been popularized as "egocentrism", involves collaboration between subsidiaries and headquarters to establish universal standards and permissible local variations on the basis of which key decisions are made. However, egocentrism requires a reward system for subsidiary a manager that motivates them to work for worldwide goals and not just to defend country objectives.
In international enterprises, there are three general types of headquarters' orientation toward subsidiaries; ethnocentric (home-country oriented), polycentric (or host-country oriented) , and geocentric (world oriented).
The ethnocentric attitude can be characterized as: "We, the home-country nationals, are superior to, more trustworthy than, and more reliable than any foreigners in headquarters or the subsidiaries.” In such firms, performance criteria and decision rules are generally based on home-country standards. Ethnocentrism works against a global strategy because of a lack of good feed back and because the experience and views of managers familiar with local conditions in the areas of operation do not carry appropriate weight in decision making.
Polycentric firms go to the other extreme by assuming that local people always know what is best for them and that the unit of the multinational enterprise located in a host country should be as local in identity and behavior as possible. A polycentric firm is more akin to a confederation of quasi-independent subsidiaries. A polycentric management philosophy is likely to sacrifice most of the unification and synergistic benefits of multinational operation. The costs of polycentrism are the waste due to duplication of effort and inefficient use of home-country experience. The approach has the advantage of making intensive use of local resources and personnel but at the cost of global growth and efficiency.
Egocentrism also has costs, largely-related to communication and travel expense, time spent in decision making because of the desire to educate personnel about global objectives and to secure consensus, and the expense of a relatively large headquarters bureaucracy. But the payoffs are a more objective total enterprise performance, worldwide utilization of resources, improvement of local company management, a greater sense of commitment to worldwide goals, and, last but not least, more profit. A globally oriented enterprise, of course, depends on having an adequate supply of managers who are globally oriented.

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2009年3月12日