一位英國人在華創業的經歷

Jim James is recalling how he watched with some trepidation as a group of potential buyers put his very expensive inventory through its paces on a recent wintry afternoon. He holds the Morgan Motor Company’s only China import licence and, taking ad­vantage of an empty expanse of tarmac at a small airport near the Great Wall, his guests drove in tight circles at high speed in cars that retail for as much as Rmb2.7m ($440,000) after tax.

金寶(Jim James)還記得，在一個寒冷的午後，自己如何略帶忐忑地看着一羣潛在買家測試他那非常昂貴的存貨的性能。金寶持有英國摩根汽車公司(Morgan Motor Company)唯一一張中國市場進口許可證。那天，他的客人們借用了長城附近一座小機場空曠的柏油碎石路面，在那裏駕駛着稅後零售價高達270萬元人民幣（合44萬美元）的摩根汽車，高速兜着小圈。

Tyres squealed. Rubber burned. But no damage was done, he says – unlike on other occasions when Chinese inspection and quarantine officials have crashed his cars while testing them. “That caused some difficulties because we then had to send the car back to the UK to be repaired,” says Mr James of one particularly bad inspection incident. “It was in a sort of no-man’s-land because we had already paid the [import] taxes.”

輪胎髮出刺耳的摩擦聲，可以聞到橡膠燒糊的氣味。但金寶表示，這次試車沒有給車輛造成任何損害；與之相反，中國檢驗檢疫官員進行的幾次試車把他的車給撞壞了。“這製造了一些難題，因爲接下來我們只能把車送回英國修理，”金寶在提到一起尤爲嚴重的檢驗事故時說，“這就像進入了一個三不管地帶，因爲我們當時已經繳過（進口）稅了。”

In his designer showroom at Beijing’s Workers Stadium, Mr James ticks through a catalogue of mishaps, big and small, with typical British understatement. “That cost us a lot of time and money but it was a hiccup,” he says of the inspectors’ accident.

在北京工人體育場(Beijing’s Workers Stadium)他那由設計師設計的汽車展廳裏，金寶以英國人那種典型的輕描淡寫的態度，列舉了自己遭遇的一系列大大小小的麻煩。在談到檢驗人員造成的那起事故時，他說：“那讓我們損失了大量的時間和金錢，但它只是個小插曲。”

An entrepreneur in China cannot pause to reflect on what goes wrong, he says. “We’ve had leaky ceilings, we’ve had cars not starting, we’ve had cars disappearing. But if you think about those things you’d probably not want to get up and try every day.”

他表示，在中國，創業者不能停下來反思哪裏出了問題。“我們的頂棚漏過水，車輛曾無法啓動，還丟過車。但如果你總想這些事情，你八成就不想每天起牀努力打拼了。”

The Morgan Motor Company, located in the Malvern Hills near the English-Welsh border, has been hand-building cars since 1909. Its 180 employees, many of them craftsmen, produce only about 500 four-wheel vehicles a year. Germany, the UK and France have traditionally been Morgan’s biggest markets, but China is catching up fast.

摩根汽車公司位於英格蘭-威爾士邊界附近的馬爾文山(Malvern Hills)，自1909年以來一直堅持手工製造汽車。該公司有180名員工，其中很多都是能工巧匠，每年僅生產約500輛四輪汽車。德國、英國和法國曆來是摩根汽車最大的市場，但中國市場正迅速迎頭趕上。

As a marketing executive for AMS Neve, which makes music studio equipment, in the mid-1990s Mr James travelled to Asia regularly for trade shows and was inspired by the sheer energy he saw: “I sold the house and moved to Singapore.” There he established his own company, Eastwest Public Relations, before moving to Beijing in early 2006.

上世紀90年代中期，金寶曾任音樂工作室設備製造商AMS Neve的營銷高管，他經常到亞洲參加貿易展，亞洲的強大活力令他感到鼓舞：“我賣掉了房子，搬到了新加坡。”他在那裏創建了自己的公司——易思聞思公共關係諮詢公司(Eastwest Public Relations)，而後在2006年初搬到了北京。

Mr James was appointed as Morgan’s first general distributor in China in November 2011 – more or less by accident. Driving his own Morgan Roadster in Beijing, he was surprised by the enthusiastic reception it received. “The reaction was amazing,” he says. “So I rang Morgan and said where is your local dealership? They said there isn’t one . . . So I wrote them a business plan.”

2011年11月，他被任命爲摩根汽車的首位在華總經銷商，這一結果多多少少是出於偶然。在北京駕駛自己的摩根Roadster汽車時，這輛座駕引起的熱烈反響讓他感到意外。“反響相當驚人，”他說，“因此我給摩根汽車打了電話，問他們的中國經銷商在哪裏？他們說在中國還沒有經銷商……於是我給他們寫了一份商業計劃書。”

Twelve months and some 14 Chinese ministry approvals later, he began business in earnest, making Morgan and its accidental China rep rare exemplars of the entrepreneurial spirit that UK politicians hope British businessmen can bring to bear in emerging markets everywhere.

金寶花了12個月時間拿到約14項中國部委的批文，然後鄭重其事地啓動了業務，由此讓摩根汽車及其偶得的中國經銷代理成爲彰顯創業精神的罕見範例——英國政治人士希望，英國企業家能在各個新興市場彰顯這種精神。

When London mayor Boris Johnson and George Osborne, chancellor of the exchequer, travelled together to Beijing in October, Mr James’s dealership was centre stage at an exhibition of British industry. The mayor lit up when he saw the Morgans, boasting to the press how fast they were. During their brief encounter, Mr Johnson and Mr James were a study in contrasts – the expatriate entrepreneur trim and neat, London’s mayor in his usual famous state of disarray.

當倫敦市長鮑里斯•約翰遜(Boris Johnson)和英國財政大臣喬治•奧斯本(George Osborne)去年10月訪問北京時，金寶的車行在一個英國工業展會上成爲了焦點。在看到摩根汽車後，約翰遜非常開心，他向媒體誇耀這些汽車能跑多快。金寶和約翰遜進行了短暫的會面，兩人的儀表對比鮮明：移居國外的創業者衣着整齊利落，倫敦市長則像往常一樣，是出了名的邋遢。

To be representing British business alongside Marks and Spencer and Jaguar Land Rover was never the most likely outcome as Mr James pursued his new entrepreneurial venture.

在金寶創辦他的這家新的創業型企業的過程中，讓它與馬莎百貨(Marks and Spencer)和捷豹路虎(Jaguar Land Rover)一道成爲英國企業的代表，始終都不是最有可能出現的結果。

Securing the necessary government ap­provals to import and distribute cars was Mr James’s first challenge, especially as he was operating as a mom-and-pop outfit with his Chinese wife Erika Chen, a former IBM executive. “Some government officials didn’t believe an independent foreign entrepreneur could own an import lic­ence for a foreign car brand,” he says. “All the other [luxury carmakers], like Porsche or Bentley, they do it themselves. I had to meet with the Customs officers, show them my passport and company share certificates. They were still slightly bemused but at the end of the conversation they were like, ‘well done’.”

拿到必要的汽車進口與經銷的政府批文，是金寶面臨的第一個挑戰——考慮到他的車行只是他與華人妻子、前IBM高管Erika Chen開的一家“夫妻店”，這裏面的難度更是可想而知。“一些政府官員不相信，一名獨立的外國創業者能擁有一個外國汽車品牌的進口許可證，”他說，“所有其他（豪車製造商），例如保時捷(Porsche)和賓利(Bentley)，都是自己做。我不得不拜會海關官員，向他們出示我的護照和公司股份證書。他們仍略感困惑，但在談話結束時，他們大多會對我說，‘做得不錯’。”

Throughout the process, Mr James kept an online blog – “Experiences of an entrepreneur in China” – that covered how he negotiated the bureaucra­t­ic approval process, including the wrangling that ensued after the inspectors’ expensive car crash.

在整個過程中，金寶一直撰寫在線博客“一名創業者在中國的經歷”(Experiences of an entrepreneur in China)，記述了自己如何成功通過官僚審批程序，還有在檢驗人員製造了那起代價高昂的撞車事故後如何與對方爭吵。

“It’s essential to have someone you trust and is also bilingual,” he says – in his case, his wife. “None of the documentation was readily available online. Erika and I had to go to various offices around Beijing, and sit there, and take a number, and find out who it is you have to supply documents to. We make it sound streamlined [on the blog] because if you don’t think of it that way you couldn’t keep going”

金寶說：“身邊有一個你信賴且會說雙語的人是至關重要的。”在他的例子裏，這個人就是他的妻子。“所有文件都不是能輕易放到網上的。我和Erika不得不走遍北京，去各種各樣的辦事處，坐下來，取個號，等着看你到底應該把文件遞給誰。我們（在博客上）把這一切寫得聽上去挺簡單的，這是因爲，如果你不保持那樣一種心態的話，你就沒法繼續下去。”

Paperwork finally in hand, Mr James then confronted a funding dilemma. Reluctantly, he had to sell his most valuable asset – his own Morgan car – to raise the money for his Beijing showroom. “We had a capital constraint,” he says. “My solution, not a pleasant one I have to tell you, was to surrender the car we brought in.” He points to a picture of it on the wall.

批文終於拿到手後，金寶又遇到了融資難題。他只得不情願地賣掉他最寶貴的資產，也就是他自己那輛摩根汽車，來籌資建設他的北京展廳。“我們遭遇了資金緊張，”他說，“我的解決方案——我不得不告訴你那不是一個什麼令人愉快的解決方案——是拱手出讓我們買的這輛車。”他指了指牆上掛着的那輛汽車的照片。

That car was sold to a media executive. Other recent buyers of Morgan cars include a well-known singer and a not very well-known tailor from central China.

那輛車賣給了一位媒體高管。近期購買摩根汽車的人，還包括一位知名歌手和一位不是太知名的、來自中國中部的裁縫師。

Mr James’s capital constraint ex­tends to his advertising and marketing budget. He takes opportunities to display his cars at film premieres, air shows and other public events, and encourages people admiring the vehicles to post pictures of them on Weibo, China’s Twitter equivalent.

金寶的資金緊張也影響到了他的廣告和營銷預算。他抓住各種機會，在電影首映式、航空展和其他公開活動上展示他的汽車，並鼓勵愛慕這些汽車的人在新浪微博(Weibo)上張貼它們的照片。

While a government crackdown has damped Weibo’s popularity as venue for political discourse over the past year, Mr James says it remains invaluable as a marketing tool. Since January 2013, his Weibo following has grown to more than 1,200, helping to generate more than 20,000 unique visits to Morgan’s China website. “That’s without large budgets and by leveraging social media,” he says. “It is possible to build a brand here by using, if you like, guerrilla tactics.”

過去一年，中國政府的整治行動影響了微博作爲政治言論場所的聲望，但金寶表示，它仍是一種極爲寶貴的營銷工具。2013年1月以來，他的微博粉絲數量增至逾1200人，推動摩根汽車中國網站的獨立訪問數超過2萬。金寶說：“這是在沒有花費大量預算和有效利用社交媒體的情況下做到的。在這裏，如果你願意的話，是有可能以游擊戰術來打造品牌的。”

While Mr James’s outlet handles sales in the capital, he has appointed sub-dealers in Chengdu and Qingdao, and is in talks with a potential representative in Shanghai. Some of his partners are leading car distribution companies in their own right. But for a business whose supply is constrained by its own meticulous man­u­facturing process, keeping ord­ers in check to avoid long backlogs and unhappy customers may not prove easy. Mr James met his 2013 sales target of 18 Morgans – a number he chose because it is lucky in Chinese – and expects to sell 30 this year.

金寶的車行負責北京的銷售，他還在成都和青島委任了二級經銷商，此外他正與上海的潛在代理展開談判。他的一些合作伙伴本身就是知名的汽車經銷企業。不過，對一家產品供應因其自身極其注重細節的製造流程而受限的企業而言，控制訂單數量以防止長期積壓訂單和客戶不滿可能並不容易。金寶在2013年實現了售出18輛摩根汽車的銷售目標。他之所以選擇這個數字，是因爲它在漢語中代表幸運。金寶預計，今年將售出30輛摩根汽車。

He also worries about how “British” his pitch should be. “To some degree, the Chinese perception of British brands can be old-fashioned or staid.”

另一件讓他操心的事情是，到底應該在營銷宣傳中強調多少“英倫氣息”。“某種程度上說，中國人印象中的英國品牌可能代表着老式或古板。”

Instead, he hopes to associate the Morgan brand with “what might be a new Britain, almost like the Olympics Britain, more multicultural, a bit fresher, younger”.

他希望讓摩根品牌與“可能的新英國”聯繫在一起，這個新英國“就像是奧運英國，文化更多元，更清新、年輕一點。”

He is, after all, selling cars that look like antiques but can still do stunts on the tarmac.

畢竟，他銷售的汽車儘管看上去像古董，卻仍可在柏油碎石路面上表演特技。