辦公耗材史泰博的戰略啓示

In 1986, Tom Stemberg opened the first Staples superstore in Massachusetts. Stationery retailers have not stood still since. By 1990, Mr Stemberg’s disruptive bright idea had spawned dozens of lookalike office supply warehouses. “When people asked how it felt to be the father of the industry, my answer was ‘I wish I’d used a condom’,” Mr Stemberg tells me.

1986年，湯姆•施滕貝格(Tom Stemberg)在美國馬薩諸塞州開了第一家史泰博(Staples)大型超市。文具零售商自那以來就沒有了安穩日子。到1990年，從施滕貝格那具有顛覆性的奇思妙想中，已誕生了幾十家相互酷似的辦公用品倉儲超市。“當人們問我對成爲該行業之父有何感想時，我的回答是‘我多希望自己當時戴了安全套’，”施滕貝格對我說。

Consolidation followed, but in 1997, regulators blocked Staples’ bid for Office Depot. Last week, Office Depot again agreed to be bought by Staples, for $6.3bn. Antitrust approval is not a given, but what the US Federal Trade Commission deemed a potentially dominant position 18 years ago now looks more like a defensive necessity.

隨後興起了整合潮，但在1997年，監管機構拒不批准史泰博收購歐迪辦公(Office Depot)。今年2月初，歐迪辦公再次同意以63億美元出售給史泰博。這項收購還不一定能獲得反壟斷機構的批准，但美國聯邦貿易委員會(FTC)在18年前認爲可能形成市場支配地位的這項收購，如今看來更像是一次迫在眉睫的防禦之舉。

So is that it for the category-killing, big-box retail trend of which Staples was part? Almost certainly not. The industry can still teach others a few lessons about strategy — and they are not all gloomy.

那麼，對於品類殺手型超大賣場零售趨勢（史泰博便是該趨勢的一部分）而言，大勢已去嗎？幾乎可以肯定地說，並非這樣。在戰略方面，該行業仍有一些東西可以教給其他人——這些教訓並不都是消極的。

• Do not count on staying dominant. As Rita Gunther McGrath noted in her book The End of Competitive Advantage , with few exceptions, “stability, not change, is the state that is most dangerous in highly dynamic competitive environments”.

• 不要過分依賴市場支配地位。正如麗塔•岡瑟•麥格拉思(Rita Gunther McGrath)在其著作《競爭優勢的終結》(The End of Competitive Advantage)中所述，除了極少的例外情況，“在高度動態化、競爭性的環境裏，最危險的狀態不是變化，而是穩定”。

Mr Stemberg and others fired the staple-gun that launched a new era, in which the half-life of dominant companies has shortened dramatically. A strategy that had served stationers and their customers well for centuries withered in 1986, but Staples’ approach barely survived 10 years before it too was under attack.

施滕貝格等人按下了釘槍，啓動了一個新時代，在這個新時代，佔市場支配地位的公司的“半衰期”大幅縮短了。爲文具商及其客戶成功服務了幾個世紀的戰略，在1986年失效了，但史泰博的經營方式在遇到挑戰前僅勉強維持了10年。

• Stay competitive on price. Staples and others launched at a point when the cost of office machines was starting to fall. Sales of computer and printer equipment provided a solid foundation for growth, underpinning the discounts on pens, paper and notepads and other bulk supplies. It soon became clear, however, that . . .

• 保持價格競爭力。在史泰博等公司創立之時，辦公設備的價格開始下降。計算機和打印機設備的銷售爲這些公司的增長奠定了堅實基礎，對鋼筆、紙張和便條簿等大宗物品的降價銷售提供了支撐。不過，不久後顯而易見的是……

• . . . in retail, your biggest competitor is the internet. Two years ago, when it approved a merger between Office Depot and OfficeMax, number three in the market, the FTC conceded that customers now “look beyond” superstores. In fact, if the commissioners had glanced up in 1997, they would have seen Amazon, which went public that year, on the horizon. At the time, Staples rightly argued the internet would increase price transparency. But it was still early days: the commission concentrated instead on the deal’s impact on the fraction of the market served by superstores.

• ……在零售業，你最大的競爭對手是互聯網。兩年前，當批准歐迪辦公與OfficeMax（市場中的老三）的合併案時，美國聯邦貿易委員會承認，顧客目前“不僅僅關注”大型超市。事實上，如果委員們在1997年擡頭一看，他們應該能看到當年上市的亞馬遜(Amazon)正嶄露頭角。當時，史泰博正確地指出，互聯網將提高價格透明度。但那時互聯網仍處於發展早期，聯邦貿易委員會關注的是該筆收購對大型超市所服務的那部分市場的影響。

• But do not ignore your offline competitors. Big suppliers proved susceptible to death by a thousand paper-cuts on main street and in malls, as the likes of Costco, the retail club, Target and Walmart’s supermarkets and Walgreens’ pharmacies extended their stationery departments.

• 但也不要忽視你的線下競爭對手。零售俱樂部好市多(Costco)、超市Target和沃爾瑪(Walmart)、以及藥店Walgreens等等都擴展了文具部，被街邊和商場中的競爭對手用紙劃傷上千次，大型文具零售商也是很容易陣亡的。

• Dominance opens a (small) space for specialists. Tablets and smartphones may have cut bulk orders of printer ink and paper, and offered consumers alternatives to pad, pen and pencil. But specialist stationers are starting to fill a niche for retail customers with bespoke, high-end or quirky ranges of the same paper-clips, ballpoint pens and notebooks sold by the discounters. James Ward, author of an offbeat history, Adventures in Stationery , says devices “change the meaning of stationery” as the lightbulb changed the meaning of candlelight: “The flaws in a technology, once it gets replaced, become its charm.”

• 大型文具零售商的市場支配地位給專業廠商留出了（很小的）空間。平板電腦和智能手機可能已奪走了打印機油墨和打印紙的許多訂單，併爲顧客提供了便條薄、鋼筆和鉛筆之外的選擇。但專業文具商開始填補一個小衆市場，即針對折扣商店銷售的回形針、圓珠筆和筆記本，爲零售顧客提供定製的、高端的、或奇特版產品。講述一段不尋常歷史的《文具歷險記》(Adventures in Stationery)的作者詹姆斯•沃德(James Ward)表示，各種新設備“改變了文具的含義”，正像電燈泡改變了燭光的含義一樣：“某一技術的缺陷，在該技術被取代之後，反而成了它的魅力。”

• The category killer is not dead. Staples is closing stores and will go on doing so. But the office supply group, which would have more than 4,000 outlets if this final consolidation goes ahead, also operates a vast ecommerce site and has large contracts with corporate and government clients (the likely focus of any FTC attention).

• 品類殺手沒有死。史泰博正在關閉一些門店，並將繼續這麼做。但這家辦公用品集團——如果此次最終合併成功的話，將擁有逾4000家分店——還經營着一個大型電商網站，與企業及政府客戶簽有大筆合同（可能成爲聯邦貿易委員會關注的焦點）。

• Size still counts. Mr Stemberg, now a partner with the Highland Consumer Fund, is a director of pet product retailer Petsmart (1,400 stores), which is about to be taken over by private equity, and CarMax, the chain of 140 used-car superstores. He points to Total Wine & More, with over 100 wine hypermarkets across the US, as another example of the category-killer model still hard at work.

• 規模仍然重要。施滕貝格目前是Highland Consumer Fund的合夥人，也是即將被私人股本公司收購的寵物產品零售商Petsmart（擁有1400家門店）、以及擁有140家二手汽車大型超市的連鎖企業CarMax的董事。他以在全美擁有逾100家葡萄酒特大型超級市場的Total Wine & More爲例，證明品類殺手模式仍在努力運作。

In its combination of frenzied investment and copycat ideas, US retail in the late 1980s looks a bit like the dotcoms a decade later. But, as Staples’ founder says, “a lot of great companies came out of that era”. Some survived many years. A few are still going. Before consigning their strategies to a $6.79 Staples trash can, remember that few entrepreneurs in any industry — let alone veterans of the dotcom bubble — will be able to make that boast.

在狂熱投資和思路抄襲的綜合作用下，1980年代後期的美國零售業有點兒像十年之後的互聯網熱潮。但正如史泰博的創始人所說，“很多偉大的公司誕生於那個年代”。有些公司持續存活了很多年。有幾家仍在經營中。在把這些公司的戰略扔進6.79美元的史泰博垃圾桶之前，請記住，任何行業中都沒幾位企業家敢於誇下這個海口，互聯網泡沫中的老油條就更不用提了。