比蘋果更暴利的行業: GMAT運營商利潤驚人

Sixty years ago on Feb. 6, 1954, slightly more than 1,000 people sat down in 100 different places around the world to take a test for the very first time. It was the precursor to the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT), the de facto entry exam to the best business schools in the world.

60年前的1954年2月6日，1,000多名考生坐在全世界100個不同的地方，首次參加一項考試。它正是GMAT（管理學研究生入學考試）的前身，也就是全球頂級商學院事實上的入學考試。

Back then, the 1,291 prospective students paid just $10 each to take the paper-and-pencil exam. It was offered only three times a year in five countries, and candidates had to wait three to four weeks to get their results. Only 54 business schools accepted GMAT scores at the time.

當時，1,291名潛在學生只需支付10美元的筆試費。考試只在5個國家進行，每年只考3次，考生必須等待3至4個星期，才能拿到成績。那時候，只有54家商學院接受GMAT成績。

Today, the computer-adaptive GMAT costs $250 a pop and if a test taker wants the results sent to more than five schools, there's an additional $28 charge for each score report. The test is offered year round at more than 600 sites in 113 countries. Anxiety-ridden test takers receive their scores within five to seven days, and more than 2,100 schools all over the globe now require the GMAT for admission.

今天，計算機自適應GMAT考試的費用已經漲到了250美元，如果考生希望考試成績被遞送給5所以上的院校，他或她就需要爲每份成績單額外支付28美元。113個國家的600多個考點全年無休地進行這項考試。焦慮不安的考生在5到7天內就能收到成績單，全球超過2,100所院校現在把GMAT成績作爲入學條件之一。

The growth of the test itself mirrors the spectacular rise in popularity of the MBA degree, arguably the most successful educational product of the post-war period. The credential's prosperity has made the GMAT a hot "product."

這項考試爆炸式增長本身映射出了 MBA學位一路看漲、蔚爲壯觀的受歡迎程度。MBA學位可以說是戰後最成功的教育產品。這頂文憑的繁榮使得GMAT考試成爲一款熱門“產品”。

For the organization that oversees the test, the Graduate Management Admission Council, profit margins on the exam are even better than the margins Apple (AAPL) makes on the iPad and the iPhone. GMAC says it collected $87.7 million in fees in 2012, yet it cost the organization only $45.7 million to administer the test, according to documents filed with the Internal Revenue Service. The effective gross profit on the actual exam is roughly 47.9%, nearly 11 points higher than Apple's current gross profit margins.

對於GMAT考試的監管機構研究生入學管理委員會( Graduate Management Admission Council，下文簡稱GMAC)而言，這項考試的利潤率甚至超過了蘋果公司(Apple)的iPad平板電腦和iPhone手機。GMAC表示，它在2012年收取了8,770萬美元的考試費，但美國國稅局(Internal Revenue Service)的文件顯示，GMAC管理這項考試的成本開支僅爲4,570萬美元。GMAT考試的實際毛利率大約爲47.9%，比蘋果公司目前的毛利率高出近11個百分點。

All told, GMAC reported that its "program service revenue" came to $92.7 million in 2012, up from $88.5 million a year earlier. The organization's "investment income" alone amounted to another $30.7 million. When you kick in other revenue, GMAC recorded total revenue in 2012 of $125.1 million, up from $92.7 million a year earlier. Though it is a non-profit and does not have to pay taxes, the organization reported a tidy $22.4 million in cash after paying all its expenses for the year.

總收入方面，GMAC報告稱，它2012年的“項目服務收入”爲9,270萬美元，較一年前的8,850萬美元有所增長。另外，僅“投資收益”一項就達到了3,070萬美元。加入其它收入項，GMAC在2012年的總收入爲1.251億美元，較一年前的9,270萬美元大幅增長。儘管GMAC是一家沒有納稅義務的非營利性組織，但在支付了全年的所有費用後，它的賬面還剩餘高達2,240萬美元的現金。

GMAC says the expenses to administer its test do not include such things as test design, score reporting, test taker accommodations, and the cost of running its website, where test takers register for the exam. "These are all activities that are intrinsic to the delivery of the test and are not covered in those operating expenses," says Rich D'Amato, vice president of corporate communications at GMAC. "In addition, there's [a] smaller expense group around fulfilling our responsibility -- part of our being a nonprofit -- to invest in [the] promotion of graduate management education as a field of study."

GMAC表示，管理這項考試的費用不包括考試設計、成績報告、考生住宿和運營考生報名網站的成本。“這些都是交付考試所固有的活動，並不在經營費用的核算範圍內，”GMAC企業傳播事務副總裁裏奇?達馬託說。“此外，還有一項小開支與履行我們作爲一家非營利性組織的責任有關，即推動作爲一個研究領域的管理學研究生教育。”

The reported expenses on the test do not include another very big line item in the organization's budget: its salaries and benefits to GMAC staffers. In 2012, GMAC's total compensation amounted to $25.9 million for a staff that numbered only 141 people.

考試的管理費用也不包括這個組織預算的另一項大開支：GMAC員工的薪金和福利。2012年，GMAC發放的總薪酬高達2,590萬美元，而它的員工團隊其實僅有141人。

At the very top of the non-profit are some very generously paid people. David Wilson, who until Dec. 31 of last year was president of the GMAC, was paid $1,914,845 in salary, benefits, and deferred compensation in 2012, more than three times the $662,000 that Harvard Business School Dean Nitin Nohria made in 2011. Indeed, Wilson made substantially more than Educational Testing Service President Kurt Landgraf, who was paid $1.3 million in the same year for leading an organization with total revenues that are eight times greater.

這家非營利性組織給予其最高領導者非常豐厚的薪酬。去年12月31日卸任的GMAC總裁大衛?威爾遜2012年獲得的工資、福利和遞延報酬合計1,914,845美元，是哈佛商學院(Harvard Business School)院長尼廷?諾里亞2011年薪酬（66.2萬美元）的3倍以上。事實上，威爾遜的薪酬遠高於教育考試服務中心(Educational Testing Service，下文簡稱ETS)總裁庫爾特?德格拉夫在同一年的收入（130萬美元），而ETS的總收入要比GMAC多8倍。

What's more, at least 15 other officials at GMAC make at least a quarter of a million dollars a year in pay. Margaret Jobst, an executive vice president, made $539,058, according to GMAC's government filing. Julia Tyler, an executive vice president for global market development, pulled down $562,378. Robert Rosecrans, chief information officer, made $465,327. In all, six-figure bonuses were paid to nine GMAC officers, including a $448,000 bonus for Wilson, whose 2012 annual compensation was especially inflated due to $745,485 in deferred pay.

此外，至少還有15位官員獲得了25萬美元以上的年薪。GMAC提交給政府的文件顯示，執行副總裁瑪格麗特?約布斯特掙了539,058美元。負責全球市場開發的執行副總裁朱莉婭?泰勒拿到了562,378美元。首席信息官羅伯特?羅斯克蘭斯賺了465,327美元。共有9位GMAC官員獲得了6位數的獎金，其中包括獲得44.8萬美元獎金的威爾遜，因745,485美元延付薪酬的緣故，他的2012年度薪酬上漲得尤爲厲害。

GMAC defends those salaries, saying that they are not out of line with what peer organizations pay their top leaders. "We are a global revenue generating enterprise with a not-for-profit mission," says D'Amato. "We were recruiting to 'build' a company, not just staff an existing organization in a very competitive recruitment market."

GMAC辯稱，這些高薪並沒有脫離類似組織支付給最高領導者的薪資水平。“我們是一家懷抱非營利性使命、渴望創造收入的全球性企業，”達馬託說。“如今的招聘市場競爭激烈，我們希望招募而來的高管‘構建’一家公司，而不僅僅是爲一家現有的組織招募員工。”

The majority of GMAC's staff, including its most senior officers, work on two quiet floors of a modern office park in Reston Town Center, Va., where Google (GOOG), Rolls-Royce, and the College Board also lease space. The brightly lit facility features what its architects call a "monumental" open staircase with a two-story waterfall structure, a cafe, and a testing center.

包括最高層在內的大多數GMAC員工都在弗吉尼亞州雷斯頓城鎮中心 (Reston Town Center)兩個安靜的樓層辦公，谷歌(Google)、勞斯萊斯(Rolls-Royce)和美國大學理事會(College Board)也在這棟現代化寫字樓中租用了辦公空間。辦公區燈火通明，除了一間咖啡廳和一個測試中心外，還有一個兩層的瀑布結構，它被建築師稱爲“紀念碑似的”開放式樓梯。

Such generous compensation and treatment at a non-profit comes largely because of GMAC's near-monopoly on the entrance test for graduate business programs. "It has been a very healthy business because of the growth in the underlying industry," explains Paul Danos, dean of Dartmouth College's Tuck School of Business. "People have to take the test to apply to the best business schools. But several thousand schools don't require the test. The question is: Do schools see a value in it, especially schools that will grow in India, China and Latin America?"

一家非營利性組織能夠提供如此優厚的薪酬和待遇，主要是因爲GMAC在管理學研究生項目入學考試領域佔據着近乎壟斷的地位。“由於它的支撐行業不斷增長，這門生意一直非常健康，”達特茅斯學院(Dartmouth College)塔克商學院(Tuck School of Business)院長保羅?達諾斯解釋說。“想申請最好的商學院，就必須參加GMAT考試。但也有幾千家學院對這項考試沒有要求。問題是：商學院是否認爲它有價值，特別是那些位於印度、中國和拉美，規模在未來會不斷增長的商學院？”

In fact, many of the newer business schools in developing economies do not require the GMAT, in part because of the test's cost. Devanath Tirupati, dean of the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore, estimates that as much as two-thirds of the global market for business programs doesn't require the exam. "The GMAT is too expensive and not accessible," says Tirupati, who notes that the cost of the more widely popular Common Admission Test (CAT) in India is about 1,500 rupees, or less than $25, compared to about 15,000 rupees for the GMAT. Nearly 175,000 students took the CAT last year in India. And 195,000 people took the CAT exam in 2012, while only 22,803 Indian residents took the GMAT that year.

事實上，許多成立時間不長、位於發展中經濟體的商學院並不要求申請人出示GMAT成績，而這項考試的高成本就是背後的原因之一。班加羅爾印度管理學院(Indian Institute of Management)院長德文納特?蒂魯伯蒂估計，在全球商業教育市場上，多達三分之二的項目對這項考試沒有要求。“GMAT考試太貴，缺乏親和力，”蒂魯伯蒂說。他指出，在印度更受歡迎的普通入學考試(CAT)的成本約爲1,500盧比（約合25美元），而GMAT的考試費用約爲1.5萬盧比。去年，近17.5萬名印度學生參加了CAT考試，2012年的這個數字爲19.5萬，而當年參加 GMAT考試的印度學生僅有22,803人。

Some business deans also express concern that the GMAT fails to measure attributes of candidates that are as important as the quant and verbal skills the test assesses. "I think we need different instruments to identify different skills today," says Santiago Iniguez de Onzono, dean of IE Business School in Spain. "If we want to attract entrepreneurs, then the GMAT is useless. It mostly measures analytical skills, but if you think about the importance of leadership, innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship, the GMAT doesn't measure that."

一些商學院院長也表達了另一個憂慮：GMAT考試偏重於評估定量和口頭表達能力，但沒有衡量申請人身上其他一些同樣很重要的特質。“我認爲我們現在需要不同的工具來識別不同的技能，”西班牙IE商學院(IE Business School)院長聖地亞哥?伊涅蓋茲?德佐伊諾說。“如果我們想吸引創業者，那麼GMAT考試就沒有什麼用處。它主要衡量的是分析能力，但如果你非常看重領導力、創新精神、創造力和企業家精神，GMAT考試沒辦法衡量這些特質。”

Much of the success of the organization behind the test can be attributed to David Wilson, a tall, lean Canadian accountant who was recruited to become president and CEO of GMAC in 1995. Wilson, who in his early career had been a B-school professor at the University of Texas and Harvard Business School, had just taken an early retirement from Ernst & Young. He had left his job as national director of professional development and was thinking of returning to teaching when he got a call from a Korn/Ferry headhunter during the Thanksgiving Day holiday in 1995.

這家組織的成功在很大程度上應該歸功於大衛?威爾遜，這位身材高瘦的加拿大會計師於1995年被聘爲GMAC總裁兼CEO。威爾遜在職業生涯的早期曾是一位商學院教授，先後任教於德克薩斯大學(University of Texas)和哈佛商學院。1995年感恩節假期期間，威爾遜剛剛從安永會計師事務所(Ernst & Young)加拿大分公司專業發展主管任上提前退休，正在考慮重返教師崗位，突然接到了光輝國際諮詢顧問公司( Korn/Ferry)一位獵頭打來的電話。

Though GMAC was little known outside the business school world, its early roots could be traced to a meeting between nine business school deans and the Educational Testing Service in 1953. The pow-wow was arranged to discuss the possibility of an exam that would assess applicants on their potential for success in business and management courses. But it wasn't until 1970 that the deans of 30 graduate business schools launched the organization as independent from ETS. GMAC, however, didn't even have an office until 1982, when the council hired its first president, Bill Broesamle, then an associate dean at UCLA's business school. He worked out of a small office in Santa Monica, Calif. with five employees who largely oversaw one very large external contractor, the Educational Testing Service. "Many people didn't know what GMAC was," says Broesamle.

雖然GMAC在商學院圈子之外鮮爲人知，但它的根源可以追溯到9家商學院的院長與ETS在1953年召開的一場會議。安排這場聚會是爲了討論，是否可以創建一項考試，用以幫助商學院評估申請人在多大程度上具備成功完成商業和管理課程的潛力。但直到1970年，30家商學院的院長才發起了這家獨立於ETS的組織。然而，GMAC當時甚至連一個辦公的地方都沒有，這種狀況一直持續到1982年。就在這一年，GMAC聘請加州大學洛杉磯分校(UCLA)商學院副院長比爾?布勒扎姆勒出任組織的第一任總裁。他與5位員工在加州聖莫尼卡一間小辦公室辦公，主要工作是監督一家規模非常大的外部承包商，即ETS。布勒扎姆勒說：“許多人當時連GMAC是做什麼的都不知道。”。

Wilson, who has an MBA from UC-Berkeley's Haas School, saw the promise of the opportunity, interviewed with board members in Los Angeles, New York, and Cleveland, and was eventually offered the job to become the second president and CEO of the organization. Now 72 years old, Wilson, recalls that the organization's total revenues in 1995 were about $14 million, of which $12.3 million went to ETS. "Even the guidebooks and budget was prepared by ETS and they managed our money, too," he says. "We would ask for a couple of hundred thousand every month to pay for payroll and our lease."

擁有加州大學伯克利分校(UC-Berkeley)哈斯商學院(Haas School)MBA學位的威爾遜洞察到了GMAC的發展前景。輾轉洛杉磯、紐約和克利夫蘭等地、經過委員會成員的面試之後，他最終被聘爲該組織第二任總裁兼CEO。現年72歲的威爾遜回憶說，這家組織在1995年的總收入大約爲1,400萬美元，其中的1,230萬美元落入了ETS的口袋。“就連考試指南和預算都是ETS準備的，我們的資金也是由他們來管理，”他說。“我們每月都得向他們要大約20萬美元，用來支付工資和租金。”

Wilson moved the organization to an office park in the Washington, D.C. suburbs of Virginia and set out a three-pillar strategy for growth: 1) To go global, 2) To embrace technology in all aspects of the business, and 3) To put GMAC on a solid financial footing. Back then, the organization had little more than 45 days of cash to run its business.

威爾遜把這家組織搬到了華盛頓郊區一個隸屬於弗吉尼亞州的辦公園區，還提出了一個由三方面組成的發展戰略：1)走向全球，2)所有業務層面均採用先進的技術，3)穩固GMAC的財務基礎。當時，GMAC的賬目資金幾乎只能滿足45天的營運需要。

One powerful trend that Wilson had in his favor was the meteoric growth of the MBA degree. Some four decades ago, U.S. colleges graduated near equal numbers of lawyers and MBAs. Today, MBA grads outnumber J.D. grads by nearly four to one. And with many law schools struggling to fill classes, that ratio is likely to tip further in favor of the MBA. Outside the U.S., the growth in both business schools and the degree has exploded.

當時對威爾遜非常有利的一點是，MBA教育正在呈現勢不可擋的飛速增長趨勢。約40年前，美國大學培養的律師和MBA人數大致相同。現在，MBA畢業生數量已經遠超法學博士畢業生，比例接近4比1。鑑於許多法學院依然難以完成招生指標，這項比率很可能將進一步向MBA傾斜。在美國之外，商學院和MBA學位也出現了爆炸式的增長。

For the past 18 years, until Dec. 31, when Wilson retired as GMAC's top official, he had been the most visible cheerleader for the MBA degree. As he puts it, "What the MBA allows people to do is to build a foundation. You can use the degree to change your career or to accelerate your career."

威爾遜執掌GMAC的18年裏，他一直是MBA學位最引人矚目的倡導者，直到他去年12月31日光榮退休。在他看來，“MBA學位爲人們打造了一個馳騁職場的基礎。人們可以藉助這項學位來改變或加快自己的職業生涯。”

Once in charge of GMAC, Wilson immediately applied his accounting skills to his biggest cost center, ETS. Among other things, he noticed that ETS was selling 140,000 copies of three guidebooks with the GMAC imprimatur. "I couldn't understand how you could sell that many copies each year and lose money," says Wilson. It was largely because two of the guidebooks -- on schools and financial aid -- were money losers, and in this pre-Amazon era, ETS was responding to fax requests to ship copies of the books. Wilson also put the organization's money management to bid and moved that task away from the testing contractor.

剛剛成爲GMAC掌門人，威爾遜就立刻把他的會計技能應用在了最大的成本中心ETS身上。別的不說，他注意到，ETS正在賣掉大約14萬套獲得GMAC出版許可，由3本書組成的考試指南。“我就想不明白，你每年賣這麼多書，怎麼還賠錢呢，”威爾遜說。主要原因是，這套指南書中的兩本——一本是各大商學院簡介，另一本介紹財政資助申請政策——是賠錢的；那個年代沒有亞馬遜網站(Amazon)，ETS通過傳真確認書籍預訂請求。威爾遜還採用招標方式選擇合作伙伴幫助這個組織處理資金管理業務，最終把這項任務從ETS身上剝離了出來。

Despite the group's limited resources at the time, he also pushed forward to eliminate the rather limiting paper-and-pencil test and move to a computer exam that would adapt to each test taker's answers. The effort cost GMAC between $10 million and $12 million, but once GMAC was able to launch its new test in 1997, the organization could deliver the same exam everywhere, every day.

此外，儘管GMAC當時擁有的資源有限，但他依然全力推動這個組織取消筆試，轉而採用一種能夠根據每位考生的答案自動調整的計算機考試。這番努力耗費了GMAC大約1,000萬到1,200萬美元。功夫不負有心人，GMAC終於在1997年成功啓動了這項新測試，從而能夠隨時隨地提供相同的考試服務。

The single biggest contributor to the growth of the organization took place in 2003, when GMAC broke with ETS. Some 12 years later, Wilson vividly recalls the details of the rupture. On Nov. 11, 2001, he received a phone call from the CEO of the testing service. "He said they were closing six test sites in Europe and it wouldn't affect me," says Wilson. "On Dec. 7, the head of the program and the CFO would come and talk to me about it. When they came down, they said they were closing 116 sites. They weren't there to seek our input. They were there to advise us."

對GMAC的成長貢獻最大的事件出現在2003年，也就是它正式與ETS分道揚鑣。大約12年後，威爾遜依然能夠生動地回憶起這起事件的細節。2001年11月11日，他接到這家考試服務中心的CEO打來的一通電話。“他說他們準備關閉歐洲的6個考點，還說這樣做不會影響我們，”威爾遜說。“12月7日，ETS的項目主管和首席財務官親自登門，跟我商量這件事。他們開門見山地說，ETS準備關閉116個考點。他們來這裏不是爲了尋求我們的意見，而是來下達通知的。”

ETS' decision undermined Wilson's global ambitions. But his contract with the firm required him to give ETS two years notice if he wanted to fire them. The existing contract would end in just three weeks. So he went to ETS' Princeton, N.J., headquarters to negotiate a two-year extension so GMAC could, in his words, "learn a whole lot more."

ETS的決定破壞了威爾遜走向全球的雄心。但根據他與ETS簽訂的合同，如果他打算終止雙方之間的合作關係，他必須提前兩年通知對方。而現有合同的存續期只剩下短短3個星期。所以，他去了一趟位於新澤西州普林斯頓市的ETS總部，雙方最終簽署了一份延期兩年的合同。這樣，用他的話來說，GMAC就有時間“學習一大堆東西”。

Wilson put together a task force, hired Booz Allen to oversee the study project, and brought aboard 11 MBA interns to take apart every facet of what ETS actually did to administer the test and deliver the scores. Half way through the study, at the end of 2002, he created four study groups to examine together with ETS such issues as next-generation technology for the exam, global reach, test security, and customer service. "But the next generation group kicked it down the road like a tin can. They didn't want to change, and we had real issues."

威爾遜組建了一個特別工作組，聘請博思艾倫諮詢公司(Booz Allen)監督這個研究項目，還招募了11位MBA實習生詳細分解ETS管理考試、下發分數等工作的各個層面。2002年年末，這項研究計劃進行到一半時，他又創建了4個研究小組與ETS一起審視下一代考試技術、全球性覆蓋、考試安全和客戶服務等議題。“但下一代考試技術小組舉棋不定，遲遲沒有行動。他們不想改變，我們碰到了真正的問題。”

What troubled Wilson more than any other issue was the security of the test. "Without a doubt, one of the most important things we do is provide schools with the assurance that the candidate who shows up on campus is the same candidate who took the test," says Wilson. In 2003, as GMAC's study of ETS and its procedures continued, the biggest scandal in the history of the GMAT erupted. A New York-based ring of five men and one woman were arrested for taking the test hundreds of times on behalf of other test takers in exchange for money. Federal and state investigators found that between January 2001 and July 2003, they sat for a total of 590 exams administered by ETS. A tip led investigators to the ringleader, Chinese-born Lu Xu, who was filmed on camera at a test center in Columbia, Md., not far from GMAC's headquarters in Tysons Corner, Va.

讓威爾遜最爲煩惱的是考試的安全性。威爾遜說：“毫無疑問，我們最重要的工作之一就是要向各大商學院保證，出現在校園的那位申請人與參加考試的申請人是同一個人。” 2003年，就在GMAC繼續研究ETS的工作流程時，GMAT考試爆發了有史以來最大的醜聞。一個居住在紐約、由5男1女組成的團伙因涉嫌代替其他考生參加數百次考試以換取金錢而遭到逮捕。聯邦和州調查人員發現，2001年1月至2003年7月間，他們共參加了590次由ETS管理的考試。一條線報把調查人員引向了這個團伙的頭目、華裔男子徐路（音譯）。馬里蘭州哥倫比亞市一個考點的攝像頭拍攝到了他的可疑行爲，而這個地方距離位於弗吉尼亞州泰森斯角的GMAC總部並不算遠。

"He was testing as himself in this case, and he was trying to capture questions with a camera velcroed underneath the desk," recalls Wilson. "We got his hard drive and discovered that he and a cadre of proxy test takers would take the exam up and down the northeast," recalls Wilson. "He [Xu] took it 160-odd times, sometimes for a lady, when he wore a bad wig, and sometimes for a man. He took the test with a forged driver's license or a passport."

“他當時假裝是在爲自己考試，正在企圖用一個隱藏在桌子下面的攝像頭捕捉問題，”威爾遜回憶說。“我們拿到了他的硬盤，隨即發現他和其他幾位槍手一直在東北部地區代替別人參加考試。他參加了160多次，有時候是戴着一頭拙劣的假髮替某位女生考試，有時候是代替某位男生。他通常使用僞造的駕照或護照來掩蓋自己的身份。”

Quickly, however, a conflict arose between Wilson and ETS officials over how to handle the problem. "ETS wanted to send a standard neutral test cancellation score letter to the schools," says Wilson. "Scores get cancelled for all kinds of reasons. You could have a brown out. You could have a tech failure. You could have somebody spill Pepsi on a keyboard, or you could have a candidate get sick partway through the test. But they would not change the letter for us to explain why these candidates had their scores cancelled."

但在如何處理這個問題上，威爾遜和ETS官員很快就產生了衝突。“ETS打算向相關院校遞送一份中立性的標準考試成績取消函，”威爾遜說。“成績被取消可能出於各種各樣的原因，考試期間停電，技術故障，考生不小心把百事可樂(Pepsi)灑在了鍵盤上，或者考試中途生病，都有可能導致考試成績作廢。但他們就是不願意聽從我們的建議，覺得沒必要解釋取消這些申請人成績的具體原因。”

Furious, Wilson says he personally called the deans of every business school to which the scores were sent and told them the truth. He explained how Xu and his friends were caught and how the scores for the 160 applicants -- retrieved from Xu's computer hard drive -- were bogus. "One dean said, 'That is fascinating," says Wilson. "'We are just now in our boot camp and we can't figure why this one guy who scored well on the test is struggling so much on the easy stuff.' Another guy was doing a summer internship for the dean on ethics." The suspected cheaters weren't corralled, however, because of a lack of evidence.

震怒之下的威爾遜親自致電所有收到成績單的商學院，逐一向每位院長說明真相。他詳細解釋了徐路及其朋友被抓捕的過程，以及爲什麼說這160位申請人（這份名單源自徐路的計算機硬盤）的成績不真實。“一位院長說，‘還有這樣的奇事？我們正在進行新生訓練營活動，我們還在納悶爲什麼這個GMAT成績這麼優秀的學生竟然難以應對如此簡單的任務。’還有一個傢伙正在幫助一位負責學生行爲準則的院長從事暑期實習工作，” 威爾遜說。但由於缺乏證據，這些涉嫌作弊者最終並沒有受到懲處。

GMAC put the business up for grabs. ETS fought it out with three other rivals and lost its contract. The emerging winner was Pearson VUE, a part of Pearson Plc, the largest commercial testing company and education publisher in the world. Wilson contracted with ACT (American College Testing) based in Iowa for the development of the test, while Pearson took over the administration and distribution of the exam.

GMAC隨後開始採用公開招標的方式選擇業務合作伙伴。ETS與其他三家對手展開競爭，最終失去了它的合同。涌現出的贏家是培生VUE專業考試服務中心(Pearson VUE)，後者的母公司培生集團(Pearson Plc)是全球最大的商業考試服務公司和教育出版商。威爾遜與總部設在愛荷華州的美國大學入學測試中心(ACT)簽訂了測試開發合同，培生VUE則接手了考試管理和分銷業務。

The break with ETS led to a substantial increase in staff for GMAC. Today, the organization has in-house capability to do test design, research, marketing, and technology support. "We had to start managing our own research to build our own test questions so we added a psychometric group," explains Wilson. "We built a more efficient algorithm for choosing the questions."

與ETS的決裂導致GMAC的員工人數大幅增加。如今，這個組織已經具備了獨立進行測試設計、研發、營銷和技術支持的能力。“我們必須開始管理我們自己的研究工作，以構建我們自己的測試題，所以我們又增添了一個心理測驗小組，”威爾遜解釋說。“我們建立了一種更有效的算法來選擇問題。”

Wilson successfully fended off an aggressive effort by ETS to grab market share away when it began in 2011 to promote the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) as an alternative to the GMAT. ETS conceded recently that only 2% of surveyed respondents sat for its exam with the objective of applying to an MBA program. Wilson plowed ahead, launching in 2012 a next-generation GMAT exam with a new section called Integrated Reasoning, which measures a candidate's ability to evaluate information. In an R&D effort lasting more than three years and involving dozens of business school deans, admissions officials, faculty, and corporate recruiters, GMAC spent $11 million to get the section into the test.

威爾遜成功地抵擋住了ETS發起的市場份額搶奪戰——2011年，ETS開始推廣研究生入學考試(GRE)，希望它能夠代替GMAT考試。ETS最近承認，只有2%的受訪者參加了這項以申請MBA項目爲目標的考試。威爾遜奮勇向前，於2012年推出了下一代GMAT考試，其中包含一塊名爲“集成推理”( Integrated Reasoning)的全新內容，旨在測試申請人的信息評估能力。爲了讓這部分內容融入考試，GMAC進行了逾3年之久的研發工作，參考了幾十位商學院院長、招生官員、教師和公司招聘主管的意見，共花費了大約1,100萬美元。

All these changes occurred while GMAC became far more candid than ETS ever was about a test taker's ability to improve their performance on the test. Reminded that ETS used to tell prospective students that they couldn't really study for the exam, Wilson lets out a laugh. "There's no question that you can do better on the test if you study for it. That's a good thing. It's like any sport or any skill." GMAC's own research shows that 60 to 100 hours of study can improve a person's score by an average of 30 points. "There are some who jump by 100 points because they hadn't prepped at all," adds Wilson, who was succeeded as CEO on Jan. 1 by Sangeet Chowfla, a former executive at HP (HPQ).

談到考生如何提高應試能力，GMAC要比ETS坦率得多。當筆者提到ETS曾經對GMAT應考者說他們其實不必全身心地投入備考時，威爾遜發出一陣大笑。“如果你認真準備，你的成績自然會提高，這是毫無疑問的。這是件好事。這項考試跟任何體育項目或其他技能是一樣的道理。”GMAC自己的研究表明，認真學習60到100小時有望促使考生的平均成績提高30分。“有些人的成績飆漲了100分，那是因爲他們此前壓根就沒有做過任何準備，”威爾遜補充說。今年1月1日，前惠普公司(HP)高管桑吉特?舒夫拉正式接任GMAC首席執行官一職。

By all accounts, Wilson has done a spectacular job in making GMAC a highly professional organization with a secure financial footing. "I would give him the highest grade you could imagine," says Bill Broesamle, Wilson's predecessor at GMAC. "We had little staff, no infrastructure, and no reach beyond ETS. I think it had run its course. Dave was right to go in a much different direction."

業界一致認爲，威爾遜交出了一份特別出彩的答卷。在他的任職期內，GMAC成長爲一家高度專業化、擁有穩健財務基礎的組織。“我會給他打一個你能想象的最高分，”威爾遜的前任比爾?布勒扎姆勒說。“我們那時候幾乎沒有員工，也沒有基礎設施，合作伙伴只有ETS一家。我認爲它已經走到盡頭。是大衛把這家組織帶向了完全不同的方向，這個做法非常正確。”

For his successor, there is much uncertainty at GMAC. Can the organization find a way to test for innovation and creativity in prospective students? Will the exam survive competition from less expensive alternatives in emerging economies? Will the inevitable unbundling of education through free MOOC courses and online programs lessen the need for an entry exam altogether? If anything, thanks to Wilson, Chowfla has inherited a stable and strong organization with the financial clout to weather a storm.

但他的繼任者卻面臨着很大的不確定性。GMAC能否找到一種測試考生創新精神和創造力的方式？在新興經濟體不那麼昂貴的替代考試方案咄咄逼人的攻勢下，GMAT能否繼續生存下去？免費的大規模在線開放課程(MOOC)是否將從根本上減少參加入學考試的必要性？不過，拜威爾遜所賜，舒夫拉繼承了一家擁有雄厚財力的強大組織，足以幫助他經受住任何一場風暴的考驗。

Ask Wilson what his proudest accomplishment is over the 18 years he served as president and CEO and he will immediately give credit to the team he put together. "I managed to find 150 of the best people in the world," he says, "and they have pretty much carried me over the years."

當我問威爾遜在擔任總裁兼CEO的18年裏，他最爲驕傲的成就是什麼時，他立刻把這些成就歸功於這支由他一手打造的團隊。“我設法找到了全世界最好的150位精英，”他說。“正是在他們多年來的大力協助下，我才走到了今天。”

But he has also managed to create a significantly larger non-profit, with 30 times the number of employees he inherited, along with some very generously compensated employees. When a prominent business school dean was recently asked to guess what Wilson made in a year, he said about $400,000, which is not much more than one fifth of the reported compensation for GMAC's president and CEO in 2012.

但他還成功創造了一家規模大幅增長的非營利性組織。目前的GMAC員工數量是他履新時的30倍，其中包括好幾位薪酬極其豐厚的高管。有人最近讓一位傑出的商學院院長猜測威爾遜一年能掙多少錢，他說40萬美元左右吧。其實，這個數字還不到這位GMAC總裁兼首席執行官2012年總薪酬的五分之一。