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Business
商業報道
Schumpeter
熊彼得
Fighting the flab
減肥大作戰
Corporate headquarters have put on weight, and need to slim down again
企業的總部體積膨脹，需要再次瘦身
“ONE of the most extraordinary corporate centres in America.”
“這可能是美國最奇怪的企業總部了 。”
This is how Trian Partners, a disgruntled shareholder of PepsiCo, described the headquarters of the snacks-to-soft-drinks company in a recent letter to its board.
特利安基金管理公司在給百事公司的董事會最近的一封信中抱怨道。特里安基金是這個銷售零食和軟飲料的公司的股東。
Set amid lakes and fountains in 100 acres of wealthy Westchester County, New York, PepsiCo's HQ features seven interconnected three-storey office buildings designed in the 1960s by Edward Durell Stone, a pioneering American modernist architect.
百事總部位于紐約市富裕的威徹斯特郡，坐落于湖泊與噴泉之間，占地約100英畝，中心是七座相連的三層辦公樓，此樓是美國現代主義先驅建筑師愛德華?斯通在1960年設計的。
Its crown jewel is the Donald M. Kendall Sculpture Gardens, named after a former chief executive, which has works by artists such as Alexander Calder, Henry Moore and Auguste Rodin.
百事總部最吸引人的景觀就是以其前總經理Donald M. Kendall名字命名，由Alexander Calder、Henry Moore 和Auguste Rodin三位藝術家共同建造的雕塑花園。
Mr Kendall reportedly intended the garden to reflect his vision for the company by creating an atmosphere of “stability, creativity and experimentation”.
據報道稱，Kendall是想要這用花園能展現他對公司的構想，即“穩定，創新和實驗性”。
Two years ago PepsiCo began a 243m upgrade of the complex to make space for more staff and “create a more collaborative and innovative work environment”.
兩年前，為了給更多的員工創造空間，并“建立一個更利于協作與創新的工作環境”，的百事公司斥資2.43億美元，開始對其總部的建筑群進行升級。
Trian, run by Nelson Peltz, a veteran activist investor, thinks shareholders would be better served by selling it and shedding many of its 1,100 workers, as part of a broader cost-cutting and productivity-boosting strategy that would see PepsiCo split in two.
由資深活躍投資人納爾遜佩爾茨運作的特里安基金則認為，百事應該把總部賣掉，并將其中的1100名員工裁掉大半，以此作為消減成本和提升生產力計劃的一部分，百事內部對此產生了分歧。
The raiders of the 1980s, who made fortunes by seizing and shaping up flabby conglomerates, were supposed to have put an end to corporate extravagance and administrative bloat.
上世紀八十年代的那些惡意收購者通過給臃腫的企業集團瘦身攫取了大量利益，人們本以為企業鋪張浪費的習氣和管理人員過剩的問題已經在那時被終結了。
But PepsiCo is not alone in now being accused of these.
可是，像百事這樣因這類問題被詬病的公司不在少數。
A recent report by Sanford C. Bernstein, a research firm, reckoned that Coca-Cola, which is spending 100m on upgrading its home in Atlanta, has overheads that are 30% of sales, almost as high as PepsiCo's 32%.
調研公司Sanford C. Bernstein最近的一份報告指出，可口可樂公司正花費1億美元升級其在亞特蘭大的總部，可口可樂公司的經常性開支占其營業額的30%，百事的則為32%。
Activist investors such as Trian, which also has its guns trained on DuPont, a chemicals firm, may find inspiration in other examples highlighted by Bernstein.
像特里安這樣的活躍投資者又把矛頭指向了化學公司DuPont，后者可能是受到了Bernstein強調的那些反面教材的啟發。
Procter & Gamble's overheads ratio is far higher than that of its consumer-goods archrival, Unilever; so is Estee Lauder's compared with that of L'Oreal, another big cosmetics firm.
日用消費品公司Procter & Gamble's的經常性開支比率比其主要競爭對手Unilever要高出一大截；化妝品行業大公司Estee Lauder同L'Oreal也形成了這樣鮮明的對比。
It is hard to think of many big companies that could not benefit from taking a fresh look at their overheads.
如果那些大公司能重新審視自己的費用開支，一定可以獲益良多。
One, perhaps, is Mars, a family-run confectioner with a tiny, frugal HQ in suburban Virginia.
瑪氏食品公司就是一個很好的例子，這個家族企業在弗吉尼亞州郊外的總部簡樸而精致。
Another is Berkshire Hathaway.
伯克希爾哈撒韋公司也是個很好的例子。
In this year's letter to shareholders, sent last month, the conglomerate's boss, Warren Buffett, broke a long-standing “no pictures” policy to show off his head-office team, just 24 strong.
上個月，這個大集團的的老板巴菲特在今年給股東的信中打破了其長期以來的“無照片”的傳統，展示了他僅由24名精英組成的總公司團隊。
Mr Buffett's last big acquisition, of Heinz, was made in partnership with 3G, a Brazilian private-equity firm whose boss, Jorge Paulo Lemann, has a passion for cost-saving.
巴菲特上一筆大宗收購，就是與巴西的私募股權公司3G資本合伙收購亨氏食品。3G的老板Jorge Paulo Lemann很熱衷于消減成本。
Heinz had already undergone a round of cuts under pressure from Mr Peltz.
雖然亨氏之前就已經在Peltz的督促下進行了一輪開支消減。
But 3G found plenty more to trim, as it applied its “zero-based budgeting” approach, in which all spending must be justified from first principles each year.
但3G認為還有很多地方需要消減，才能達到它的“零基準預算”標準，即每一項開支都要以實現公司的年度目標為目的。
Swathes of managerial jobs were axed, as was the company's “aviation department”, which ran its corporate planes.
亨氏大片的管理層職位被砍掉，其中包括管理企業飛機的“航空部”。
Mr Buffett is impressed: hitherto he has mostly bought well-run firms that he could largely leave alone, but now he wants to do more deals like the Heinz one.
巴菲特對此印象深刻，想來只會收購那些自我運行良好，不需要他再多加關注的企業，但現在，他想多做幾次像亨氏這樣的收購。
Of course there are many reasons, other than differing levels of bloat, why businesses vary greatly in which functions are performed centrally, and in how many people and other resources are needed at head office.
除了不同程度的人員過剩之外，當然還有其他原因，造成了各企業在職能的重心取向方面和總部需要的人力物力多寡方面千差萬別。
But there is evidence that companies have piled on the pounds in recent years.
然而，的確有證據近年來企業有增重的趨勢。
A study by Sven Kunisch, a management professor at the University of St Gallen in Switzerland, and others looked at the head offices of 761 big companies in Europe and America between 2007 and 2010.
瑞士圣加倫大學的管理學教授Sven Kunisch及其同事以2007至2010年全球761個大型企業的總部為對象進行了一項研究。
By the end of the period, a quarter of them had more than 600 staff at HQ, whereas another quarter had fewer than 63.
截至年底,四分之一的公司擁有超過600名員工,而另一個季度已經不到63人。
Two-thirds of the firms said they had made significant changes during the period, generally strengthening centralised control over their divisions.
三分之二的公司表示他們已經取得了重大變化,普遍加強中央集權控制他們所存在的分歧。
Some 44% of the firms had increased the headcount at HQ, whereas only 28% trimmed.
截至2010年，其中四分之一的企業都加強了對其分部的控制，約44%的企業都增加其總部的人數，而只有28%進行了消減。
Of the 21 countries in which the head offices were located, only ones based in Denmark and Greece reduced staff numbers on average.
在此研究涉及到的21個國家中，只有位于丹麥和希臘兩國的企業總部的平均員工人數減少了。
All this at a time, in the wake of the financial crisis, when companies were striving to protect their profit margins by cutting jobs elsewhere in the workforce.
而這也是由于金融危機的影響，企業為了保證其利潤率，只得裁員以減少工資支出。
All aboard the mother ship
登上母艦
What might explain the return of head-office bloat?
是什么原因再次造成了企業總部的膨脹呢？
The crusade for leaner, more focused companies, which began in the 1980s, ran out of steam after the turn of the century.
上世紀美國刮起了一場主要集中于企業的精簡運動，從80年代一直持續到世紀末。
And three other issues moved up bosses' agendas, each seemingly justifying extra staff at HQ: globalisation meant that the mother ship had more far-flung operations to oversee; new digital technology made it easier, in theory, to centralise control and oversight; and, starting with America's Sarbanes-Oxley act in 2002, deregulation gave way to a growing regulatory burden, bringing with it a bigger head-office compliance operation.
三個原因使得這一運動開始轉向，每個原因似乎都為企業增加總部的多余人員提供了合理性：全球化意味著企業總部需要監管更多的海外業務；數字技術理論上也為企業實施集中控制和監督提供了便利；另外，美國在2002頒布的薩賓法案也加重了企業監管負擔，企業為了進行合規操作，不得不擴大總部。
Various events, from the September 11th 2001 terror attacks to the financial crisis, may have made bosses view the world as an increasingly complicated and uncertain place.
從2001年的911事件到后來的的金融危機，各種意外事件已經讓企業家們覺得這個世界正變得越來越復雜多變。
It would not be surprising if many of them responded in the same way as Jeffrey Immelt, the boss of GE: in his latest annual letter to shareholders, he confessed that “We attempted to manage volatility through layers and reviewers.
所以某些人的表現得像通用電氣的的老板伊梅爾特一樣其實并不奇怪:在最近的一封給股東的年度致股東信中，他進行了自我反省：“我們曾期望用層層審查來控制不確定性。
Like many companies we were guilty of countering complexity with complexity...more inspectors, multiple reviewers.”
像很多公司一樣，用復雜的系統來解決復雜的問題，我們對此感到很內疚…更多的監管人員，更多的審查者。”
The result was a “higher cost structure, an artificial sense of risk management, and we were insulating our people from the heat of the market.” Mr Immelt has now decided to reverse course.
這樣的結果就是“高成本的結構，一種風險得到控制的錯覺，而且還把我們的員工同市場隔離起來。”
GE has launched a new simplification strategy, with a goal of cutting overheads to 12% of sales from 16%, including a 45% reduction in the cost of the corporate headquarters, by 2016.
伊梅爾特現在決定轉變方向。通用已經開啟了一個新的精簡計劃，目標是在2016年之前把開支從占營業額16%減到12%，其中包括把企業總部的開支消減45%。
Other bosses would be wise to do the same, or expect to have Mr Peltz and his fellow activists on their case.
其他的企業老板最好也去效仿伊梅爾特，不然只好等著成為佩爾茨等的一眾活躍投資人的靶子了。
