The Talent Behind 'China Inc.'
A stereotype is forming around China's acquisitions in the U.S. -- buy fast rather than build slow. Lenovo's buyout of IBM's PC unit, TCL's buyout of France's Thomson and with it RCA, and now Haier's bid for Maytag all suggest that China is in a hurry to go global and will freely spend low-cost money to acquire our brands and distribution access, plus secure an outlet for their low-cost products made in China.
The problem with this view is that China's most successful acquisitions to date in the U.S. have little to do with China's low-cost money and workers or buying our brands. They are instead all about Chinese management skill and U.S. workers. These no-name Chinese acquisitions are turn-arounds founded on hard-nosed Chinese business practices, and they import less product from China than most U.S. manufacturers do.
Haier in fact doesn't fit the mold either. It has spent 10 years building its own brand in the U.S. and now has its name on 10% of new U.S. refrigerator sales. Large units, too expensive to ship from China, are made in the U.S. Haier succeeded by partnering with a young, market-savvy U.S. entrepreneur, Michael Jemal, who created down-market, niche refrigerator products that the big U.S. brands ignored and won its own distribution access by customizing products for the big box retailers. Haier's bid for Maytag is a turn-around play premised on Haier's proven management practices. Otherwise, sophisticated co-investors like Blackstone and Bain Capital would not be aboard.
Chinese companies that are successfully building slow in the U.S. include Wanxiang and China International Marine Container (CIMC). Wanxiang Group, China's leading auto-parts maker, tried to export auto parts from China to the U.S. but found itself under-priced by Polish and Romanian imports. So it adopted a private equity role in building a U.S. business: it joint ventures or acquires stakes in struggling U.S. manufacturers, then restructures their management and operations based on what Wanxiang learned in China. The Group now has equity positions in over 30 auto-parts companies world-wide, and its U.S. sales of nearly $400 million are more profitable than its business back home.
CIMC may be the world's least visible globally dominant company, making 40% of all shipping containers. In the 1990s it consolidated South China's big container business -- much like GM rolled-up U.S. autos in the 1930s -- by buying up smaller local producers with non-voting stock, then rationalized production among these subsidiaries. Only then did CIMC acquire a U.S. truck-trailer maker from a bankrupt parent and turn it around, using Chinese-made container components and factory floor technology.
Chinese management is an under-rated asset in American discussions of China's global strategy. Almost all large successful companies in China are turn-arounds of formerly politically managed state-owned enterprises. The managers who took them over during the 1980s and 1990s reforms had to learn what any turn-around specialist does -- flatten layers, fire the pretenders, prune losing businesses, and hammer operating costs down. The CEOs of Haier, Wanxiang, and CIMC all started and spent their careers on the factory floor. China's low-cost mentality is just as much about cheap management as about cheap labor.
So it makes sense that China's first and surest global companies will be in mid-tech or modest brand businesses built on ground-level operating skills, opportunism, and local partnerships -- not high-profile consumer brands or high tech. These proven Chinese strengths also play perfectly to deep changes going on in the U.S. economy -- revitalization of distressed small manufacturers through new partnerships, private equity's growing role, and even lower income consumers' trading-down to lower-priced household durables.
Not all Chinese companies, however, think they have the time to build slow. Lenovo and TCL are in fast-moving businesses where strong global competitors are breathing down their neck in China -- especially, Dell, Samsung, Nokia and Motorola. Computers, flat-screen televisions, cell phones, and mobile consumer electronics devices of all kinds may be made in China but controlled by multinationals there who are pulling away from Chinese competitors.
This issue of pace is a problem for China. Product and marketing innovation is rooted in close contact with customers and close collaboration with adjacent, complementary technologies. Chinese state-owned companies have typically been separated from end customers by government-controlled distribution intermediaries. The result is China doesn't have what Silicon Valley and other innovation clusters have -- diffusion of knowledge horizontally and movement of technologists between firms.
Too much can be expected of China's high-profile companies now. The early rounds of Chinese globalizing favor less glamorous, hard-nosed Chinese companies who have a lot to offer to industrial America right now.
Mr. Hout is a senior adviser and Mr. Wong is senior vice president at The Boston Consulting Group's Hong Kong office. 中国企业界的卓越才干
美国人对中国企业的跨国并购行为渐渐形成了这样一个固定看法：中国企业通过收购借助外力、而不是循序渐进地依靠内部发展来实现企业的快速扩张。联想集团 (Lenovo) 收购 IBM 个人电脑业务、 TCL 集团收购法国企业汤姆逊 (Thomson) 及其美国市场品牌 RCA ，以及海尔 (Haier) 竞标 Maytag 等一系列事件无一不表明：中国企业急不可待地迈出国门、走向全球。为了收购美国的品牌和分销渠道，以及确保中国制造的廉价商品在美国的销路，它们随意挥洒唾手可得的资金。
但这种观点的失误之处在于，目前为止中国在美国进行的最成功的一系列并购交易不但与中国的低成本资金和劳动力无关，与购买美国品牌也没有多大的关系。有关的反而是中国人的管理技能和美国的工人。籍籍无名的中国公司将效益欠佳的美国公司纳入麾下，然后把自己极具竞争实力的经营策略嫁接过来，将美国业务扭亏为盈。他们从中国进口的产品比美国生产还少。
海尔却并非如此。十年来，海尔不辞劳苦，从零开始在美国树立自己的品牌形象，如今在美国新冰箱市场上占有率已经达到 10% 。把大型冰箱从中国运往美国销售的成本过高，因此海尔在美国市场出售的大型冰箱都是在美国制造的。海尔的成功与该公司的合作伙伴──颇有市场头脑的年轻企业家麦克尔?贾迈尔 (Michael Jemal) 密不可分。他面向低端用户推出了一种小型冰箱，并迅速占领了这块为美国知名家电企业所忽视的市场；此外，他还通过为冰箱大型零售商量身定制产品拥有了自己的分销渠道。以海尔久经考验的管理经验来看，相信此次如将 Maytag 纳入麾下又将上演一场扭亏为盈的好戏。否则， Blackstone 、 Bain Capital 等资本运营方面的行家里手又怎么能出手相助海尔呢？
此外，中集集团 (China International Marine Containers, CIMC) 和万向集团 (Wanxiang Group) 等中国企业也在美国慢慢发展起来，逐步站稳了脚跟。中国顶尖的汽车配件制造商万向集团曾试图把中国制造的汽车零部件出口到美国，但后来发现波兰和罗马尼亚等国产品的价格优势更大。于是，万向集团采用了私人资本运营商的做法来发展美国业务：组建合资企业，或者收购处境不佳的美国制造商的股份，然后根据自己在中国市场的经验重组其管理层及业务。如今，万向集团在全球 30 多家汽车零部件公司中持有股份，其美国业务销售额接近 4 亿美元，盈利水平甚至超过了国内业务。
中集集团或许是最不为人所知、却在全球享有举足轻重地位的企业，在全球航运集装箱运输市场上的占有率达到 40% 。上个世纪 90 年代，中集集团整合了位于中国南部的大型集装箱业务──类似 30 年代通用汽车 (GM) 整合美国汽车产业的做法──用不具投票权的股票收购当地规模较小的制造商，然后把制造业务合理化分配给这些子公司。直到这时，中集集团才从一家破产的母公司手里收购了它在美国的货运挂车制造子公司，然后引入中国生产的集装箱部件及生产技术，最终实现了扭亏为盈。
美国人在谈论中国企业的全球战略时往往低估了中国管理人才这项资产的价值。中国几乎所有的大型成功企业都是由先前计划经济时代的国有企业转变而来的。这些企业的管理者在上世纪八、九十年代中国经济改革期间接手企业后，不得不学习任何一位扭亏专家都会著手处理的事项──精简组织结构、开除滥竽充数者、剥离亏损业务、大幅度削减运营成本等。海尔、万向以及中集集团的首席执行长们都是从基层生产车间一层一层选拔上来的。中国的低成本人力资源不但意味著低成本的工人，也意味著低成本的管理人员。
因此，有理由相信：中国首批真正意义上的跨国企业将是那些具备基层管理技巧、善于把握机遇并在目标市场有合作伙伴的生产技术中流或者知名度尚可的企业，而不是那些具有较高知名度或者从事高科技的企业。这些得到成功验证的中国企业的优势与美国经济正在经历的深刻变革完美地契合在一起──通过建立新的合作关系，更大地发挥私人资本的作用，甚至面向低收入群体推出廉价家庭耐用品来带领那些处境不佳的美国小型制造商走上振兴之路。
但并不是所有的中国企业都认为他们有足够的时间逐步扩充自己的实力。联想集团和 TCL 集团身处迅猛发展的行业，实力雄厚的跨国企业在中国市场展开激烈竞争，尤其是戴尔 (Dell) 、三星 (Samsung) 、诺基亚 (Nokia) 和摩托罗拉 (Motorola) 等公司。各类电脑、平面电视、手机及移动电子消费品可能都在中国生产，却被跨国公司掌控，把中国同行甩得更远。
发展步伐这个问题困扰著中国企业。产品和营销创新同公司与客户的联系休戚相关，需要相关辅助技术的密切配合。而政府控制的分销渠道往往将国有企业与终端用户分割开来。结果就是中国缺乏矽谷那样的创新氛围──知识的水平扩散以及企业间技术的交流。
人们现在对中国的知名企业寄予了太多的期望。实际上，中国企业全球化的几轮初潮更多是由那些名不见经传但竞争实力强劲的公司掀起的，眼下他们可以提供给美国工业的很多。
