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  • 宝洁：是“她”还是不是“她”？

    2007-08-21

    [2007.08.09][Briefing] P&G: Will She? Won't She?

    文章太长，第一次翻，而且暂时只翻了上半部分，请大家多给意见，以便我提高翻译水准，继续翻译下半段。谢谢！

    Briefing

    Procter & Gamble
    Will she, won't she? “她”会吧， “她”不会吗？Aug 9th 2007 | CINCINNATI
    From The Economist print edition
    Having bought Gillette and focused on big brands, the world's largest consumer-goods company is betting that scale is the way to success并购吉列公司(Gillette)，专注于大型品牌—世界最大的消费品公司正把赌注压在“规模至胜”上。

    Landov


    IN THE corner of a meeting room next to the bosses' office at the headquarters of Procter & Gamble (P&G), a large sculpture of a woman in a hat watches over proceedings with a serene smile. “She is at the centre of all our decisions,” says Richard Antoine, head of human resources and confidant of Alan Lafley, the company's chief executive.
    在Procter & Gamble (P&G)总部老总办公室旁会议室的角落里，有一座大大的，戴着帽子的女人的塑像—“她”带着恬静的微笑俯视着一切。公司行政总裁Alan Lafley的心腹，人力资源部门负责人Richard Antoine对此介绍说“她可是我们一切讨论的中心！”

    Founded in 1837 by William Procter, a candlemaker, and James Gamble, who made soap, P&G is the world's biggest consumer-goods company. It sold $76.5 billion-worth of them in the year to June 30th. And it probably knows more about consumer marketing than any other firm on the planet. Interestingly, many people at P&G do not use the word “consumer”. Nor might they ask if a “customer” or “shopper” would buy a putative new product. They are more likely to ask: “Would ‘she’ buy it?”
    1837年由蜡烛制造商William Procter和肥皂制造商James Gamble共同创立的P&G是目前全世界最大的消费品公司。在6月30日结束的财政年度内，公司的消费品销售额达到765亿美元；这家公司对消 费品营销的了解程度可能超过世界上其他任何公司。有意思的是在P&G，很多人并不使用“消费者”这个名词。他们在提出新产品时，讨论的不是“顾 客”或“购物者”是否会购买这个产品，而是“她”是否会购买这个产品。

    Women have long accounted for four-fifths of P&G's customers. Over the years, the way P&G sells to them has changed dramatically. In the 1930s it sponsored radio shows—the original soap operas—to encourage women (usually housewives) to buy its detergent. Now radio has been surpassed by television and the internet as a means of promotion; and “she” has become ever more independent, demanding and fickle. The variety of products on offer has exploded, not just from makers of branded goods, like P&G, but also from the big supermarket chains that now dominate the retail end of the business and sell their own labels alongside the big brands.
    长久以来，女性在P&G 的顾客中一直占据着45%的比例。而P&G针对女性消费者的销售方式在多年中也发生过戏剧性的变化。1930年代P&G赞助电台的广播剧 （即肥皂剧的原型）以鼓动女性（一般为家庭妇女）购买公司的清洁剂产品。如今电视已经取代了电台，互联网也成为了宣传手段；而“她”已经变得更独立，更有 需求，而且更善变了。市场上可选择的商品种类激增，不仅有类似P&G这样的厂商品牌商品，主导零售终端的大型超市连锁也在大品牌的边上卖他们的自 有品牌产品。

    “She is in control now,” says Mr Antoine. The consumer-goods giant is spending lots to find out what she actually wants. Staff from its Consumer and Market Knowledge division tour the world and spend entire days with women to observe how they shop, clean, eat, apply their make-up or put nappies on their babies. They try to understand how a woman reacts in the first three to seven seconds after she sees an item in a shop (the “First Moment of Truth”, in P&G-speak) and when she tries it at home (the “Second Moment of Truth”).
    Antoine告诉我们“现在都是由 “她”来掌控了。”P&G这位消费品巨头正花费大量金钱，以试图了解究竟“她”要的是什么。消费者及市场知识部门的员工们周游世界，整天的和女性 泡在一起，以观察她们是如何购物，打扫，饮食，化妆，以及给孩子换尿布的。他们希望搞清楚女性在商店第一眼见到一件商品时那3-7秒之间的反应，（用 P&G的话来说，“第一时间的真相”）以及当他们在家试用时的反应（即“第二时间的真相”）

    At first P&G struggled in the new world of empowered she-consumers. In 2000, after a big drop in profits, its share price took a tumble (see chart below). Mr Lafley, a company veteran, took over that year (P&G is a great believer in promoting from within). The company he leads has such a reputation for insularity that employees are known as “proctoids”, but Mr Lafley has been trying to open up more to the outside world and to streamline P&G's notorious bureaucracy. He also needed a clear strategy for the company's growth. That, he concluded, lay in investing more in the power of brands: the strongest brands, he reasoned, would be sought out by consumers everywhere.
    刚开始的时候，P& G面对这个由具有能力的女性消费者构成的新世界有些不知所措。2000年公司利润大幅下滑，股价暴跌（见下页图表）。于是公司内部比较资深的Lafley 先生开始接手P&G （P&G一直坚信从内部提拔人材的理念）。那时他所领导的这家公司大致给人的印象是比较僵化，员工的绰号是Proctoids（译者注：公司创办人及公司名字是Proctor，Proctoids可能是Proctor + Idiot (P&G的呆瓜)的意思）Lafley于是开始尝试让公司对外部世界更加开放，并且对其臭名昭著的官僚体制进行改良；他还需要一个清晰的战略以有利于公司的成长，对此战略他总结为，加大投资以增强旗下品牌的能力，他的理由是无论在哪，消费者总是去找最强的品牌。





    Mr Lafley began with the acquisition of Clairol, a hair-dye company, in November 2001. Two years later he paid $6.9 billion for Wella, a family-owned German beauty firm. But the biggest deal, in January 2005, was the $57 billion purchase of a company known for serving men rather than women: Gillette, which controls three-quarters of the world market for razors and shaving foam.
    以2001年11月并购染发产品公司 Clairol作为开始，两年后他支付了69亿美元并购德国的美容厂商，家族企业Wella。而最大的并购则发生在2005年1月，公司以570亿美元并 购了吉列这家以为男性而不是女性服务著称的公司—吉列占据了全世界剃须刀和剃须水市场份额的3/4。

    Has the huge Gillette purchase paid off? Mr Lafley admits that he took a big risk. Four out of five mergers don't work out, he says, and big deals fail more often than small ones. But he has a list of five reasons why mergers fail. On all counts he says P&G is now doing fine.
    那么花这么多钱并购吉列是否已经回本了 呢？Lafley先生承认说其实他承担了巨大的风险。他告诉我们虽然大约4/5的并购案都是不成功的，而且往往越大的比小的更容易失败。但是他有一份导致 兼并失败的5大原因的清单，他觉得针对这五大原因目前P&G都做得还不错。

    Strategy is first on Mr Lafley's list. Mergers of companies that are either not at all complementary or pursue completely different strategies tend to fail. But both P&G and Gillette are strong companies, and their brands and international coverage match each other well. P&G is good at innovation, understands consumers and knows how to nurture brands. Gillette's strengths are technology and the ability to roll out new products within a few weeks. And of course there is the chance to learn about marketing to the other sex. This year Gillette launched Pure Divine, a body wash for women. P&G is working harder to sell High Endurance, which it claims is America's first body wash for men. New Gillette products for women and new P&G products for men are on the way.
    在Lafley的清单上的第一条就是公 司战略。要是去并购完全不能与其产生合众力；或者公司战略完全不同的公司往往会失败。但是P&G和吉列都是非常强大的公司，它们两家的品牌及国际 覆盖都匹配得挺好。P&G的优势是创新，熟悉消费者，并且知道如何开发品牌。而吉列拥有技术优势，以及在几周内推出新产品的能力。并且这样的并购 也是一个互相学习如何对异性顾客营销的好机会。今年吉列推出了女性沐浴露Pure Divine。而P&G则正努力销售号称是美国第一个本土男性专用沐浴露产品的High Endurance—你看吉列针对女性以及P&G针对男性的新产品正在推进。

    Next comes company culture. Though they had their similarities, these two old American companies also had important differences in style. Management at P&G is consensus-driven whereas Gillette's was hierarchical. To ease unification Mr Lafley set up a special team to work out how to take the best from the two cultures. The chief of P&G North America is a Gillette man. Mr Lafley managed to keep around 95% of Gillette staff who were asked to stay. Still, many top Gillette people chose to go, their decision eased by the large pay-offs specified in their employment contracts should the firm be taken over.
    接着是公司文化，虽然这两家老牌美国公 司还算比较类似，但是在风格上却也存在着非常重要的差异。P&G的管理层是民意导向型的，而吉列则是等级制的。为了更好的互相融合，Lafley 专门成立了一个团队来解决如何获取两家公司文化的精华的问题。P&G北美的头是从吉列过去的，而Lafley自己则正设法通过管理稳住那95%公 司希望保留的吉列员工。但是仍然有很多吉列最好的人才决定离职，主要原因是在他们的雇佣合约中规定了在公司被并购时必须支付给他们酬金。

    Bosses are third. Gillette and P&G made such an obvious strategic fit that their chiefs had already talked a couple of times in the 1990s. In the end James Kilts, the head of Gillette, made the first move because he wanted to avoid a takeover by Colgate-Palmolive, run by Reuben Mark, his arch-rival. Mr Kilts stayed on for a year after the merger to ease the transition. He and Mr Lafley seemed to get along well.
    老板是第三大原因。吉列和P& G在战略上如此匹配，以至于他们的头儿们早在90年代时就已经谈过好几次合并了。最后是吉列的老总James Kilts先行一步，因为他不希望被自己的夙敌Reuben Mark所经营的Colgate-Palmolive（高露洁）并购。Kilts在并购完成后多留了一年，以便平稳过渡。所以看起来他和Lafley处得 还算不错。

    Fourth, mergers often fail to produce the cost savings that companies promise. P&G and Gillette said that their union would yield efficiencies in manufacturing, marketing and distribution of some $1.2 billion annually by the end of the third fiscal year after the merger (ie, June 2008).
    第四，并购往往无法产生公司所承诺的成本节约效益。P&G 和吉列表示在他们两家联合后的第三个财政年度结束前（如2008年6月），可以达到在生产，营销，及配送上每年度节省大约12亿美元的效益目标。

    Fifth, what about revenues? Clayt Daley, P&G's chief financial officer, admits that a merger can truly be called a success only when the new entity hits its revenue targets too. P&G and Gillette promised about $750m annually by the end of the third year. Mr Daley says the merged company is on track to meet both cost and revenue targets, but is not there yet.
    第五，那么销售收入呢？P&G 的财务总监Clayt Daley承认只有在新的实体同时实现其销售目标时，并购才能真正算得上成功。P&G和吉列曾承诺在第三个财政年度结束前达到每年度（增长） 7.5亿美元销售额的目标。Daley表示合并后的公司正努力达到其设定的销售收入及成本目标，但目前暂未实现。

    On August 3rd the company said that net sales were 8% higher in the fourth quarter (April to June) than a year before, and rose by 12% in the whole year. Organic growth—ie, stripping out the effects of acquisitions—was only 5% in 2006-07, compared with 8-9% in the couple of years before the Gillette deal. The pre-merger figure was atypical, insists Mr Daley. The company's long-term goal is organic growth of 4-6% a year.
    在8月3日公司表示其4-6月净销售收入较上年同期增长了8%，全年销售收入则增长了12%。但与并购吉列之前几年8-9%的增长率比较，公司的06-07年度的“原始增长率”，即剥离并购产生的影响后的增长率，却仅为5%，此数据有些反常，但Daley辩白说每年4-6%的原始增长率是公司的长期目标。

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    发表于09:34 | 编辑 | 继续话题 | 转发 | 分享　0

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  • Proctoids 的典故可能來自 Altoids
    b6s | 发表于2007-09-19 02:14:23 [回复]
  • four-fifths是「五分之四」的意思，而非45%
    Jam | 发表于2007-08-21 11:32:26 [回复]