Presenter: The much talked about 'global market' is seen by nearly everyone in the business community today as being the only market. We know that advances in technology mean you could be offering your products and services to people in Brighton, Beijing or Buenos Aires at the same time. But is it really that easy? And is it really the solution that everyone is looking for, or needs? We talk to three very different companies about their very different experiences of trying to go global. Nicola Melizzano of Caffè Perfetto:
主持:今天,商界人士廣泛討論并大多認(rèn)為:“全球市場”是唯一的市場??萍既招略庐悾@意味著無論在布萊頓、在北京,或者在布宜諾斯艾利斯,客戶都可以同時(shí)間享受到商家的產(chǎn)品和服務(wù)。但真的如此簡單嗎?這真的我們追求的最佳方案嗎?已經(jīng)達(dá)到客戶需求的最大化了嗎?我們將與三家不同企業(yè)進(jìn)行對話,他們將談?wù)劯髯栽趯で笕蚧^程中的不同經(jīng)歷。有請Caffè Perfetto公司的Nicola Melizzano。

Nicola: I didn’t think it was for us at all... We’re a small family company, founded by my grandfather. We produce small amounts of high quality coffee, and supply mostly to bars – we don’t do much in the way of direct retail at all.
Nicola: 一開始我覺得尋求全球化發(fā)展一點(diǎn)都不適合我們,因?yàn)槲覀兪且患倚⌒偷募易迤髽I(yè),是我祖父成立的。我們出產(chǎn)少量的優(yōu)質(zhì)咖啡,主要供應(yīng)給酒吧,沒有直接零售。

Presenter: Yet things changed very quickly for this small company after an unexpected offer.
主持:然而,在接受了一筆意想不到的交易后,這個(gè)小公司很快發(fā)生了大變化。

Nicola: The local chamber of commerce had invited a group of Japanese investors to the area. They saw our factory, tasted our product – and wanted to buy as much of it as we could produce!
Nicola: 當(dāng)?shù)氐纳虝?huì)曾經(jīng)邀請一批日本商人來投資。他們視察我們的工廠,品嘗了我們的產(chǎn)品,并決定買我們的產(chǎn)品,我們生產(chǎn)多少他們就買多少!

Presenter: This was followed up by a trip to Japan.
主持:然后你們?nèi)チ艘惶巳毡尽?/span>

Nicola: It was great, people loved our coffee – mostly (I think!) because of the retro 50s style packaging...! The Japanese contacts just grew and grew, and now we export all over south-east Asia, and we’re moving into China too. Two years ago, we didn’t even have a website!
Nicola: 非常棒的一趟旅程,我們的產(chǎn)品在當(dāng)?shù)睾苁軞g迎,我想主要是因?yàn)槲覀兪褂昧?0年代風(fēng)格的復(fù)古包裝。與日本客人的交易越來越頻繁,現(xiàn)在我們的產(chǎn)品出口已經(jīng)覆蓋了整個(gè)東南亞地區(qū),同時(shí)我們還準(zhǔn)備進(jìn)軍中國市場。而兩年前,我們甚至連自己的網(wǎng)站都沒有。

Presenter: Nicola admits he’s been in the right place at the right time.
主持:Nicola承認(rèn),當(dāng)時(shí)可謂天時(shí)地利人和。

Nicola: There’s been a worldwide growth in coffee sales over the last ten years, it’s a really fashionable thing to drink, all these coffee chains. Plus, coffee is something that’s drunk all over the world, in pretty much every culture. I think luck helped us as much as the changing global situation.
Nicola: 過去十年,所有咖啡生產(chǎn)鏈上的咖啡銷售都得到全球性增長,它是時(shí)下流行的飲料,而且,全世界各種文化的人都會(huì)喝咖啡。我覺得上天的眷顧和當(dāng)時(shí)全球形勢的轉(zhuǎn)變都幫了我們大忙。

Presenter: 'Going global' happened in a completely different way for AKZ Engineering, a medium sized company based in the English Midlands. Derek Chalmers, their MD, explains.
主持:對于AKZ工程公司來說,“全球化”的影響則截然不同。這是一家總部位于英國中部的中小型企業(yè)。且看他們公司的總經(jīng)理Derek Chalmers怎么介紹。

Derek: In the mid-1990s things were looking bad for us. The global recession hit badly, many other firms round here were closing down or shipping out to China. We were forced to downsize, but then saw the changing situation as an opportunity, rather than a threat. We concentrated on our strengths – manufacturing small-size metal objects, anything from paper clips to staples up to parts for computers and televisions. Using web technologies, we managed to expand our turnover by around 300%, and now we export to Europe principally, but also the Americas and south east Asia, even...
Derek: 在90年代中期,我們公司的狀況非常不樂觀。金融風(fēng)暴帶來重創(chuàng),許多附近的公司不是停產(chǎn)就是轉(zhuǎn)移到中國去。我們公司被迫裁員,不過我們從這次轉(zhuǎn)變里看到更多的是機(jī)遇,而不是危機(jī)。我們將重心放在我們公司的強(qiáng)項(xiàng)——生產(chǎn)小型金屬制品,從文件鐵夾、訂書釘?shù)诫娔X電視零件等等。通過利用網(wǎng)絡(luò)技術(shù),我們的營業(yè)額擴(kuò)大到300%?,F(xiàn)在我們主要向歐洲出口,不過也有出口到美洲和東南亞等地區(qū)。

Presenter: A success story, then. Our third guest, however, has a different story to tell...
主持:禍兮福兮,這是一個(gè)成功的轉(zhuǎn)變。我們的第三位來賓,將跟我們分享一個(gè)不同的故事……

Heike: I’m Heike Zweibel, and I design lighting systems – though I prefer to think of them as 'light sculptures.' They’re more like art objects. Each one is built to order, depending on exactly what the client wants. I only employ one or two assistants, depending on how busy I am, because I prefer to do all the work myself. I’m not really interested in 'going global' – I have enough work for myself, I make enough money... I could expand, but wouldn’t want to compromise the quality of the work.
Heike: 我是Heike Zweibel,我的工作是照明系統(tǒng)設(shè)計(jì),盡管我更愿意管這個(gè)叫“燈光雕塑”,因?yàn)樗鼈兏袷撬囆g(shù)品。每一份設(shè)計(jì)都是根據(jù)客戶的要求來訂制的。我只雇用一兩位助手,視乎我的業(yè)務(wù)量而定,因?yàn)槲腋矚g自己包辦所有工作。關(guān)于“國際化”我并不太感興趣,我是指我有固定的工作穩(wěn)定的收入,我很知足。我可以擴(kuò)張生意,但我不想因此影響了產(chǎn)品的質(zhì)量。

Presenter: So you’d never go global?
主持:所以你沒有打算進(jìn)入國際市場?

Heike: Well, no, I wouldn’t say that exactly... I have a great website, and that leads to orders from the United States, or – more recently – Russia, a lot. I design, perhaps, two or three systems every year for overseas clients... so I don’t really know if that counts as 'global' or not!
Heike: 并不完全是。其實(shí)我有個(gè)精美的網(wǎng)站,這個(gè)網(wǎng)站吸引了來自美國客戶的訂單,最近還有大量來自俄羅斯的訂單。我每年大概會(huì)有兩三個(gè)系統(tǒng)是為海外客戶設(shè)計(jì)的。我不太確定這些算不算是“國際化”了。

Presenter: The advice, then, is to find the market that suits your company – whether it’s on your doorstep, or the other side of the planet!
主持:綜上所述,我們總結(jié)出這樣的經(jīng)驗(yàn):一定要找到適合你公司的市場。不管這個(gè)市場是在你家門口,還是在地球的另一端!
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