企業爲何倒閉 深挖解密原因
Why do companies fail? Considering how important this question is to entrepreneurs, investors, and even society as whole, I can find little widely available research into it. If we understood the answer better, less capital would be misallocated and fewer lives wasted by founders in pursuing doomed schemes.
I think start-ups and established businesses typically fold for different reasons. CB Insights published a fascinating study of 101 Silicon Valley postmortems based on submissions from the individual founders, analysing the various reasons for closure. Easily the single biggest cause was a lack of sales. After all, without revenue, every company is bust. This is stating the obvious — but it is extraordinary how many entrepreneurs overestimate the market for their idea. The second biggest explanation was a lack of money — but often I suspect this is a result of other problems. The third was a bad management team. Other factors cited included too much competition, low margins, poor customer service and an uncommercial business model.
我認爲，初創企業和成熟企業通常因不同的原因倒閉。CB Insights根據個人創始人提交的信息，發表了一份關於101家硅谷企業倒閉分析的有趣報告，分析了導致企業倒閉的多種原因。最大的單一原因無疑是銷售額不足。歸根結底，沒有營收，所有公司都會垮掉。這個結論是顯而易見的——但不同尋常之處在於，有如此多的企業家高估了其想法所擁有的市場。第二大原因是缺錢——但通常我認爲這是其他問題引發的結果。第三個解釋是糟糕的管理團隊。該報告提到的其他因素包括競爭太激烈、利潤低、客戶服務差以及業務模式不具商業性。I can confirm that a combination of these played a part with every early stage venture I’ve backed which flopped. I was surprised that more Silicon Valley founders didn’t acknowledge flawed technology as a contributor to the demise of their project. All the risks can never all be correctly identified before launching a business; and of course there are usually multiple reasons why a business shuts down. But no corporate death is identical to another — each is a unique tragedy, normally a blend of poor luck and rotten judgment.
我可以肯定，在每一項我支持過的失敗初期創業中，以上原因都聯合發揮過作用。更多的硅谷創始人不認爲有缺陷的技術是造成其項目流產的罪魁禍首之一，這令我吃驚。在創辦企業前，人們永遠無法正確辨別所有風險；當然通常情況下有多種原因導致企業倒閉。但是沒有一家企業的倒閉是與另一家相同的——每一次失敗都是獨一無二的悲劇，一般都參雜着壞運氣和爛決斷。
So why do established companies go wrong? One can enumerate the principal ones: they can no longer innovate and new rivals steal their customers (Borders, BlackBerry and Nokia); they take on too much debt and banks break them up (EMI); they become distracted by acquisitions and diversifications which underperform (Time Warner and AOL). Most start-ups go broke because of over-optimism; established companies are wrecked by complacency and hubris. As they say, “The path to oblivion often goes through a triumphal arch.”
那麼成熟企業爲什麼會出問題？人們可以列舉出幾個主要的原因：有的是不再創新，而新對手竊取了他們的客戶，如Borders、黑莓(BlackBerry)和諾基亞(Nokia)；有的是舉債過重，銀行將其拆分，如百代(EMI)；有的被收購和表現不佳的多樣化經營擾亂了注意力，如時代華納(Time Warner)和美國在線(AOL)。多數初創企業因過度樂觀而破產；成熟公司則被自滿和傲慢摧毀。正如他們所言，“通向湮沒無聞之路常常穿過凱旋門。”It is apparent to me that each sector has its particular recipe for disaster. In the restaurant trade, a majority of the operators who founder do so because they take on premises at too high a rent or spend too much on fitting the site out. This leaves them with unbearable fixed costs and liabilities, which eventually crush them. In the food processing sector, operators are ruined by becoming too dependent on one customer — who then cancels their supply contract; or they crash thanks to exposure to major commodity price swings; or occasionally they cease trading owing to factory fires or similar catastrophes. Meanwhile banks are peculiarly vulnerable to fraud, which killed Barings and BCCI among others.
在我看來，每一個行業都有釀成災難的專屬配方。在餐飲業，多數失敗的經營者之所以如此，是因爲場地租金過高或是在裝修上花費太多。這使他們陷於不可承受的固定成本和負債之中，並最終被這些壓垮。在食品加工行業，經營者因過於依賴一個顧客、結果供應合同遭取消而被摧毀；或因對主要大宗商品價格波動的風險敞口而倒閉；又或者偶爾因工廠火災或類似災難而停止生意。與此同時，銀行業特別容易受欺詐影響，這是拖垮巴林銀行(Barings)和國際信貸商業銀行(BCCI)等銀行的原因。Of course all companies that go down in flames do so because the management made mistakes: the human factor always features prominently. Otherwise, how does one explain the way within the same industry, certain businesses adapt and prosper; others crumble and expire?
自然，所有引火燒身的公司之所以會這樣，都是因爲管理失誤：企業倒閉中的人爲因素一直都很突出。否則，人們如何解釋，在同樣的行業，某些企業能夠適應並取得成功，而其他企業卻崩潰並倒閉了呢？Most companies die relatively slow deaths, rather than suffering a sudden collapse; assorted issues gradually drain the enterprise of life, and its leadership of hope. Difficulties usually develop from qualitative matters, such as an inappropriate product offering or faulty facilities, which then translate into financial pressures. Sometimes extinction is inevitable because the business is so fundamentally deficient or structural changes in markets mean the business model becomes uneconomic. But frequently companies can be saved by radical action if the decay is not too extensive. Turnround specialists are the experts at knowing why businesses are broken — and fixing them. I have achieved nothing more satisfying in my career than on those rare occasions where I have helped salvage an ailing company from the Grim Reaper’s scythe.
多數企業的倒閉過程相對緩慢，而不是遭受突然崩潰；五花八門的問題逐漸耗盡企業的活力，消磨盡領導層的希望。困難通常由質量問題而起，如不合適的產品供應或是有故障的設備，這些問題隨後轉化爲財務壓力。因爲企業存在根本缺陷，或市場結構變化使得商業模式不再具有贏利性，有時倒閉是不可避免的。但是很多情況下，只要腐朽不至過深，企業可以被激進措施挽回。企業危局扭轉專家是找出企業倒閉原因及修復企業的行家。在我的職業生涯中，我曾在爲數不多的時候從死神手中救出處境艱難的企業，沒有比這更令人滿足的事了。By necessity, this modest survey of corporate failures is superficial. I would like The Centre for Entrepreneurs, our think-tank, to investigate this vital subject rather more comprehensively next year and see what lessons can be learnt, so that entrepreneurs, investors and policy makers may adopt Samuel Beckett’s advice: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”
不可避免地，這個關於企業失敗的有限調查是缺乏深度的。我希望我們的智庫——創業家中心(The Centre for Entrepreneurs)未來一年更全面地研究這一關鍵課題，看看能學到什麼教訓，或許能讓企業家、投資者和政策制定者採納塞繆爾•貝克特(Samuel Beckett)的建議：“嘗試過。失敗過。沒關係。再嘗試一次。再失敗一次。敗得有進步一些。”
