Why progress requires ambition and risk
Sarantel is a small UK company with a big idea: a radically new design of miniature antenna for mobile phones and other wireless devices that is not only more efficient than conventional aerials but also promises to reduce significantly the amount of radiation reaching the heads of mobile phone users.
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The company was subscribed five times when it floated on the UK's junior Aim market earlier this month, raising ￡18m to expand manufacturing capacity and valuing the company at about ￡60m. David Wither, its US-born chief executive, is optimistic about the future: “Now we have the funding in place, we see no barriers to reaching the next stage in our development. This is a global product so we see no problems with markets whether we are selling in Munich or in Taipei,” he says. The technology is proven, the company is financially sound and demand for the Sarantel antenna in a progressively wireless but radiation-shy world seems undeniable.
Is it then surely set to become another Cisco, the US group whose fortune is founded on the humble network router, or Dell, the personal computer assembler par excellence?
Probably not. In the 58 years since the invention of the transistor sparked off the modern information technology revolution, only a handful of Europe-based companies have managed to become world leaders in electronic technologies and many of those through luck rather than judgment. Meanwhile, US companies set the pace and stretch their lead.
Look at the world's biggest companies by market capitalisation. The US boasts Microsoft, the world's largest software group, Intel, the world's largest semiconductor manufacturer, IBM, not only the world's largest computer maker but a huge force in IT services, and Applied Materials, the leader in microchip fabrication equipment. Hewlett-Packard, Comcast, Oracle, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments . . . the list goes on and on. Europe, by comparison, can point only to the UK's Vodafone, the world's largest mobile phone operator, Germany's SAP, a leader in business software, Finland's Nokia, still the largest manufacturer of mobile handsets and ST Microelectronics, the Franco-Italian semiconductor group. To this shortlist can be added a few technology giants Siemens of Germany, Philips Electronics of the Netherlands and Alcatel of France whose size and longevity qualifies them for the first rank.
Europeans are undoubtedly as technically inventive and managerially competent as their US counterparts. A glance at the number of European-born executives running US companies is proof, reinforced by the success of companies such as ARM and Autonomy of the UK and Logitech, the mouse-maker, from Switzerland. The question is this: why is it that nascent European technology companies have repeatedly failed to become world-beaters on the scale of a Microsoft?
Neither the question nor the answers are novel. They are:
■ a lack of appropriate funding and tax arrangements
■ the absence of a large homogeneous home market
■ an inability to bring products rapidly to market
■ a lack of entrepreneurial culture and spirit
■ an inability for countries to put aside their differences for the common good: there is no real will to create a “Europe Incorporated” in order to take advantages of the economies of scale available to a population of half-a-billion or so.
Finance and the difficulty of raising it runs through the issue like a scar. Virtually every new company complains about the difficulty of raising seed capital. Mr Wither of Sarantel says: “The biggest challenge is funding. We could have been three years further ahead at this point if it had been easier to find adequate funding. European technology is fine but companies fail because they areunderfinanced.”
Peter Cochrane, a former head of technology for British Telecommunications, who founded Concept Labs to invest in small, promising companies, concurs: “The banks here don't understand small businesses and the stock market is very hard to please. I wouldn't start a company in the UK and list on the London Stock Exchange. I would list on Nasdaq.” US start-ups have a huge advantage in a large, homogeneous home market where economies of scale mean that success can provide the means for a well-funded push abroad. European companies, on the other hand, must first conquer their home markets and then invest in tailoring their products to the local tastes of foreign markets. Swiss-based Logitech avoided the problem by treating the US as its domestic market. “We were in business in Europe from day one but we ran the company from the US,” says Guerrino De Luca, Logitech's chief executive.
Sage, an accounting software group specialising in small and medium-sized companies and the UK's biggest listed technology company, took a different approach, buying leading players in France, Germany and the US. That gave it instant access to the local accounting culture. It faces an uphill struggle in the US, however, where the competition includes Microsoft and Intuit. “The US is not the easiest market to break into,” says Paul Walker, chief executive. “It's easier to do on the back of a large home market.” He thought European companies were penalised by the lack of “relationship capital”, venture capitalists who provided support and management expertise as well as cash.
Crispin O'Brien, head of technology for the consultancy KPMG, believes European companies have a cultural tendency to overdevelop their products. He points to the speed three to six months with which Japanese manufacturers get products to market. “European manufacturers would take three to six years,” he says.
It indicates a lack of entrepreneurial spirit in Europe, Mr Wither says. “In the US, you know from the start you are on your own. Nobody is going to look after you there is no healthcare or safety net. It breeds a competitiveness, which is part of the culture.” So can Europe be written off as a promising location for technology companies? “We would not be here if we thought that was the case,” says Fearghal O R”ordáin of Accel Partners, a US venture capital group with a $500m European technology fund. “Europe is handicapped by fragmented technology markets, a scarcity of venture capital and few role models. But there is increasing evidence of companies like Cambridge Silicon Radio dominating their market segments.” But Mr O R”ordáin warns that it is only those companies ready to take aggressive risks and with significant ambition willing to look, for example, beyond local markets that will attract finance. “There is plenty of money for the right company,” he says.
欧洲企业需要“胆商 ”
Sarantel虽然是家英国的小公司，但有个“大创意”：一种微型天线的革命性全新设计，它可用于移动电话和其它无线设备，不仅比传统天线效率更高，而且可以大幅降低移动电话用户头部受到的辐射量。
本月早些时候，该公司在伦敦较小的另类投资市场(Aim)上市，获得了4倍超额认购，筹集了1800万英镑用以扩大产能，公司市值达到约6000万英镑。美国出生的首席执行官戴维?威瑟(David Wither)对未来表示乐观：“现在资金已经到位，我们认为没有什么能阻碍我们进入下一个阶段发展。这是个全球产品，因此我们认为，不管是在慕尼黑还是台湾销售，市场方面都没有问题。”他说。公司技术成熟，财务状况稳健，而且在无线设备逐渐发展，但人们对防辐射要求越来越高的背景下，对Sarantel天线的需求似乎是毋庸置疑的。
那么Sarantel肯定会成为另一家思科(Cisco)或者戴尔(Dell)吗？美国公司思科的财富是建立在不起眼的网络路由器上，而戴尔则是卓越的个人电脑组装公司。
美国掌握全球电子科技脉搏
或许不会那样。晶体管的发明引发了现代信息技术革命，但此后58年里，只有少数几家总部位于欧洲的公司成为了全球电子科技的领导者，其中许多是靠运气而非判断力获得成功的。与此同时，美国公司控制着节奏，保持着领先地位。
我们来看一下全球市值最大的公司。美国拥有世界最大的软件集团微软(Microsoft)、世界最大半导体制造商英特尔(Intel)、 IBM――不仅是世界最大个人电脑生产商，而且在信息技术服务业也是一家超强企业、此外还有微芯片制造设备业界领袖应用材料(Applied Materials)，以及惠普(Hewlett-Packard)、康卡斯特(Comcast)、甲骨文(Oracle)、高通(Qualcomm)、德州仪器(Texas Instruments)等等，名单后面还有长长一大串。相比之下， 欧洲只有世界最大移动电话运营商英国沃达丰(Vodafone)、商业软件领先企业德国SAP、目前仍是最大移动设备制造商的芬兰诺基亚(Nokia)，以及法国意大利半导体集团意法半导体(ST Microelectronics)。德国西门子(Siemens)、荷兰飞利浦电子(Philips Electronics)和法国阿尔卡特(Alcatel)等少数几家科技巨头也能加在这个最终入选名单上，较大的规模和悠久的历史使它们有资格成为第一梯队。
毫无疑问，欧洲人与美国人一样善于技术创造，精通管理。只需瞥一眼众多出生在欧洲却管理着美国公司的企业高管，就能找到证据，而如英国安谋(ARM)和Autonomy，以及瑞士鼠标生产商罗技(Logitech)等公司的成功更是进一步证明了这一点。问题是：为什么新成立的欧洲高科技公司却一再无法成为规模如微软那样举世无双的公司？
为什么欧洲企业无法匹敌？
问题和答案都没什么不寻常，它们是：
――缺少合适的资金筹措与税收安排
――缺少巨大的本土同质市场
――不具备将产品迅速推向市场的能力
――缺乏创业文化和精神
――各国未能为了共同利益撇开分歧： 建立“一体化欧洲”能够利用约5亿人口可形成的规模经济，然而各国缺乏这样做的真正意愿。
资金来源以及融资困难一直是这个问题的症结所在。事实上，每家新公司都在抱怨筹措原始资本的困难性。Sarantel公司的威瑟先生说：“最大的挑战是融资。如果当初能更容易找到充足的资本，我们现在的进展就会快3年。欧洲的技术很不错，但一些公司由于资金不足而失败。”
英国电信(British Telecommunications)前技术主管彼得?科克伦(Peter Cochrane)同意这种观点，说道：“这里的银行不理解小企业，股票市场又难以取悦。我不会在英国创立一家公司，然后到伦敦证交所(London Stock Exchange)上市。我会到纳斯达克(Nasdaq)去上市。” 他成立了概念实验室公司(Concept Labs)，对有前途的小型公司进行投资。美国的初创企业有一个巨大的优势，就是巨大的同质本土市场。美国市场的规模经济意味着，在这里成功将带来充足资金，从而为企业提供了海外扩张的途径。另一方面，欧洲公司必须首先征服它们的本土市场，然后投资改造它们的产品来迎合其它欧洲国家市场的喜好。总部位于瑞士的罗技通过将美国作为本土市场避免了这个问题。“我们从第一天开始就在欧洲开展业务，但我们从美国的角度经营这家公司，”罗技首席执行官陆瑞诺(Guerrino De Luca)说。
欧洲企业的出路
会计软件集团思智(Sage)专攻中小企业客户，是英国最大的高科技上市公司。它采取了不同的做法，即买下法国、德国和美国的领先企业。这使它即刻融入了本土会计文化。然而，思智在美国面临着艰苦的努力，因为竞争对手包括微软(Microsoft)和Intuit公司。“美国不是最容易打入的市场，”思智首席执行官保罗?沃尔克(Paul Walker)说，“在一个巨大本土市场的支持下，做事情更容易一些。”他认为欧洲公司由于缺乏“关系资本”而处于不利地位。所谓“关系资本”，就是那些既提供现金，也提供支持和专业管理技术的风险资本家。
咨询公司毕马威(KPMG)的技术主管克里斯平?奥布莱恩(Crispin O’Brien)认为，欧洲公司有过度开发产品的企业文化倾向。他指出，日本制造商将产品推向市场的速度是三至六个月，而“欧洲制造商要花上三到六年，”他说。
这说明欧洲缺乏创业精神，威瑟先生说。“在美国，你从一开始就知道，你得靠自己。没有人会照顾你，也没有保障或安全网络。这孕育了一种竞争力，而竞争力是美国文化的一部分。”那么，对于高科技企业来说，欧洲是否就是没有前途的地方呢？“如果我们这样认为，我们就不会来这里了。”美国风险投资集团Accel Partners的费尔高?奥?赖尔登(Fearghal ó Ríordáin)先生说。该集团拥有5亿美元的欧洲科技基金。“由于技术市场零散，缺乏风险资本，并且几乎没有示范的榜样，欧洲受到了阻碍。但越来越多的证据表明，诸如Cambridge Silicon Radio等企业控制了它们所在的细分市场。”但赖尔登先生警告说，企业只有准备好承受相当大的风险，并且具有豪迈的雄心，比如说愿意去到本地市场之外去开拓等，才能够吸引资金。“有大量的钱在等待合适的公司，”他说道。
