THE ADDED VALUE OF A GROUP/ 中國崛起改變英國經商基本規則

THE ADDED VALUE OF A GROUP

保罗•特瑞尔 为英国《金融时报》撰稿

Babel Media is a company that could, in theory, be based anywhere. It provides the video games industry with outsourced services such as localisation and quality assurance. Most of its 1,000 staff need only computers and reliable internet connections to do their jobs. Yet they are concentrated in just a handful of places worldwide to take advantage of specific local conditions.	Babel Media是一家理论上可以在任何地方落脚的公司。该公司面向视频游戏行业，提供本地化和质保等外包服务。它的上千名员工中，大部分只需电脑和可靠的网络 连接就能开展工作。然而，他们却聚集在寥寥几个地方，就为了利用当地特殊的环境。
The company was founded in 1999 in Brighton, on the south coast of England, partly because the city has one of the highest concentrations of young foreign workers and students in the UK. Its latest production office was opened in 2005 in Montreal, Canada – again a source of young, multilingual talent but also, critically, home to one of the world's fastest-growing “business clusters” for video games production.	该公司1999年成立于英格兰南部海岸的布赖顿(Brighton)。之所以选这里， 部分原因是布赖顿是英国年轻外国工人和学生最集中的城市之一。该公司最新的一处制作基地于2005年开始运营，位置在加拿大的蒙特利尔，那里同样云集着大 量年轻的多语种人才。但更为关键的是，全球发展最快的视频游戏“产业集群”之一就坐落在这里。
The concept of the business cluster has become an increasingly important part of regional development and corporate strategies since 1990, when Michael Porter of Harvard Business School published The Competitive Advantage of Nations. In the book and subsequent research, Prof Porter found that as more companies of the same type cluster together in the same place, so they derive more benefits from their “colocation”.	1990年，哈佛商学院的迈克尔•波特(Michael Porter)出版了《国家竞争优势》(The Competitive Advantage of Nations)一书。自此之后，产 业集群的概念，就成了地区发展和企业战略中日益重要的一部分。在该书及后来的研究中，波特发现，成群分布在同一个地方的同类型公司越多，这些公司从“共 址”中获得的利益就会越多。
Companies have long recognised that siting themselves near to rivals could make life easier for customers, cut supply chain costs, and – most important – make it easier to recruit specialists. However, Prof Porter identified other benefits such as increased productivity, innovation and start-up activity.	企业早已意识到，选择在邻近竞争对手的地方安身，既方便顾客，又能降低供应链成本，最 重要的是便于招募专业人才。但波特又列举出了其它多种好处，包括有利于提高生产率、推动创新和创业。
In his latest paper on the subject, written with Mercedes Delgado and Scott Stern and due to be published this month, he finds that strong clusters produce “higher growth in new business formation and start-up employment” and “contribute to start-up firm survival”.	波特在与默西迪丝•德尔加多(Mercedes Delgado)和斯科特•斯特恩(Scott Stern)合著的最新相关论文中指出，强大的集群，会造就“数目更多的新企业，初创企业的雇用人数也会更多”，并且“有利于初创企业的生存”。
For Babel Media, the benefits of being part of the Montreal cluster are numerous, says Steve Kingswell, the company's chief financial officer. “It provides an enhanced labour pool, so recruiting is easier,” he says. “The colleges and universities here are encouraged to offer courses in the creative media and technology, and research in the universities gets tailored to our industry. Also, the companies in the cluster can lobby together for changes in the locality.”	Babel Media首席财务官史蒂夫•金斯韦尔(Steve Kingswell)表示，对该公司而言，属于蒙特利尔集群的一分子，好处数不胜数。他表示：“它提供了一个一流的人才库，所以招聘也就更容易。本地大学 院校被鼓励提供创意媒体及技术方面的课程，大学里的研究也会根据我们行业的需要进行。而且，集群里的企业可以一道游说，影响当地的变化。”
The decision to open an office in Montreal, however, was largely influenced by generous incentives from the Quebec government. Software producers in Montreal can, for example, claim tax relief on up to 30 per cent of the salaries of their production staff, or up to 37.5 per cent if their work is published in French.	不过，该公司决定在蒙特利尔开业，主要是受魁北克政府慷慨的激励政策的影响。譬如，蒙 特利尔的软件开发商可针对制作员工薪酬的至多30%申请税收减免，如果所开发软件以法语发行，减税幅度最高可达37.5%。
Other governments are employing similar tactics to help create jobs and lure businesses. “There is a growing realisation that just working on the framework conditions for growth (say, good infrastructure and education) is insufficient,” explains Prof Porter. In the past, he argues, national governments have either tended to think too broadly, focusing only on general business environment conditions, or too narrowly, cherry-picking “winners” in specific sectors by giving them special treatment.	其它地区的政府也在采取类似的策略，以推动就业和吸引企业前来。波特解释说：“政府日 益认识到，仅仅致力于营造有利于增长的大环境（如优良的基础设施和教育）是不够的。”他认为，过去各国政府不是考虑得过宽，就是想得太窄，前者是单纯侧重 于总体的商业经营环境，后者是在具体行业中选出“赢家”，给予特殊待遇。
For companies, a cluster can offer a raft of benefits, provided its members start talking to each other. Prof Porter learnt this in Massachusetts in the mid-1990s, he says, while chairman of the state's Governor's Council on Economic Growth and Technology. “We discovered that we had about 400 medical device companies in the state, but these firms didn't see themselves as part of a cluster,” he recalls. All were benefiting in various ways from their colocation – for example, the cluster had drawn a high number of parts suppliers to the region – but there was no co-ordination.	对企业来说，集群能够带来诸多好处，但前提是群内成员能够开始相互交谈。波特表示，他 是上世纪90年代中期在麻萨诸塞州认识到这一点的，当时他担任该州“州长经济增长和技术委员会”(Governor's Council on Economic Growth and Technology)的主席。他回忆说：“我们发现，全州大约有400家医疗设备企业，但这些企业并不把自己当作集群里的成员。”各企业都以不同的方式 从共址中获益——例如，集群把大量零部件供应商吸引到该地区——但相互之间毫无协调。
Prof Porter organised a networking event for the chief executives of the top 25 companies in the cluster, at the headquarters of a leading defibrillator manufacturer. “All these CEOs – some of whom were rivals – came only because the governor invited them,” he says. “For the first hour, they were all looking at their watches and dying to leave. But then we asked them to identify the most important challenges they were facing.” All were concerned about how to plug certain skills gaps and about the inefficiency of the regulator, the Food and Drug Administration. “Suddenly, they began to see how they could help each other.”	波特在一家领先的除颤器制造商的总部组织了一次交流活动，邀请集群内前25家企业的首 席执行官参加。“所有这些CEO都是看在州长的面子上前来的，他们中有些人是竞争对手。头一个小时里，他们都在看手表，就想赶紧离开。然后，我们请他们讲 讲他们当前面临的最重要挑战。”所有人都关心如何填补某些技能空白，以及监管机构——食品和药物管理局(FDA)的低效率。“突然之间，他们开始考虑如何 互相帮助。”
The meeting led to the establishment of the Massachusetts Medical Device Industry Council, an organisation that now collaborates with local colleges on curriculum and skills development, and provides cluster companies with export assistance – all with minimal government intervention. “The less the companies feel responsible [for cluster development], the more these things tend to peter out,” says Prof Porter.	此次会议催生了麻萨诸塞州医疗设备产业委员会(Massachusetts Medical Device Industry Council)，该委员会如今与当地大学在课程和技能发展方面有合作，并为集群内企业提供出口支持——而政府在所有这些方面仅施加最小限度的干预。波特 表示：“企业（对集群发展）的责任感越弱，这类好事越容易消失。”
Michel Guay agrees. He is the CEO of Group Techna, a developer of software for the law enforcement sector, and the chairman of TechnoMontréal, the official steering group for Montreal's information and communications technology cluster.	迈克尔•奎伊(Michel Guay)赞同这一观点。他是专为执法部门开发软件的开发商Group Techna的首席执行官，并在蒙特利尔信息及通讯技术产业集群的官方指导委员会TechnoMontréal担任主席。
The board of his cluster includes representatives from municipal, provincial and federal governments, “but only as observers”. Official cluster activities are financed by 15 corporate members, which represent a cross-section of the sector and a variety of company sizes. Their combined contributions are then matched by each of the three levels of government, quadrupling the amount of money available.	该管理机构的成员中包含来自市、省和联邦三级政府的代表，“但他们只是作为观察员”。 集群的官方活动由15家成员企业提供部分经费。这些成员企业跨越各个子行业、规模各异。三级政府各自会与他们出同样多的资金，这样一来，总经费就达到成员 企业所出金额的4倍。
Each year, the government members of the board approve the cluster's three-year strategy, based on success criteria such as job creation, but that is as far as their intervention goes. “The government observers actually appreciate it when we ask for, say, better high-speed internet infrastructure, because they know they will get a good return on their investment. We are speaking on behalf of about 3,000 job-creators,” says Mr Guay.	政府代表每年度审批一次集群的3年战略，主要看就业创造之类的指标，这已是政府干预的 最大限度。奎伊表示：“当我们要求建设更好的高速互联网基础设施时，政府观察员其实很赞赏，因为他们知道，他们会从这些投资中获得好的回报。我们代表着大 约3000家就业创造者。”
Other cities and regions – notably in the US and elsewhere in Canada – have adopted or are adopting similar financial incentives in order to attract video gaming talent.	为吸引视频游戏人才，其它城市和地区（尤其是美国和加拿大的其它地方）已采取（或正在 采取）类似的财政激励措施。
However, research by Richard Florida, an urban studies theorist based at the Rotman School of Management in Toronto, suggests their success will depend on other factors.	不过，多伦多大学罗特曼管理学院(Rotman School of Management in Toronto)城市研究理论学家理查德•佛罗里达(Richard Florida)的研究表明，他们能否成功吸引视频游戏人才将取决于其它因素。
Montreal is “a key centre for emerging musical acts”, he points out. It is a great place to live, with a healthy stock of affordable housing. Overall, the city helps its clusters by “being open to creativity, mixing it with history and facilitating what we called ‘spill-acrosses' from technology to art and entertainment”.	他指出，蒙特利尔是“新兴音乐剧的主要中心”，也是个适合居住的好地方，有大量价格可 以承受的住房。总体而言，该市“对创造力持开放态度，再加上历史，以及推动从技术到艺术和娱乐的‘溢出'”，都对该市产业集群的发展有利。
Governments can help clusters become the “go to” destinations for particular industries, he concludes. “But it takes time. And it takes sustained investment in great universities and in people and, of course, in the physical fabric of the place.”	他总结说，政府可以帮助产业集群成为各具体行业“想去”的目的地。“但这需要时间，而 且，在优秀大学和人才，当然还有当地的物理基础设施等方面也需要持续的投资。”
	译者/杨远 ----

中國崛起改變英國經 商基本規則

China's rise will change the nuts and bolts of British business

作者：英国《金融时报》专栏作家 蒂姆•哈福德

Should we feel threatened by the rise of China? The relentless progress of what my colleague Martin Wolf describes as the world's largest ant colony is giddying. Exports from China have risen by almost half in the past year, causing a political stink in Washington, while Chinese workers are reminding their employers, and rulers, that cheap Chinese labour cannot be taken for granted. China has a habit of outrunning any superlative we can apply to the place. (The statistics about China I included in my book The Undercover Economist – published in 2005 – have been shredded by the pace of Chinese growth.)	对于中国的崛起，我们应该感 觉到威胁吗？我的同事马丁•沃尔夫(Martin Wolf)把这个国家比作全球最大的蚁穴，它毫不停歇的发展令人眩晕。在过去一年里，中国的出口增加了近一半，这在华盛顿政坛激起了轩然大波，同时中国的 工人正敦促雇主和政府当局，别把中国廉价劳动力视作理所当然。不管你用多夸张的词语来形容中国，它都会一一赶超。（我在2005年出版的《卧底经济学 家》(The Undercover Economist)一书中，列举了许多有关中国的统计数据，但中国增长的步伐让它们化为了碎片。）
Philippe Legrain's new book Aftershock reports the most eye-catching statistic about China I have seen for a while: that China now exports every six hours as much as it did in the whole of 1978. Consumers have enjoyed cheaper goods, but now that businesses across the world have to compete with the “China price”, it's hard not to feel nervous about this new economic superpower.	近来最惹人瞩目的中国数据，来自菲利浦• 勒格兰(Philippe Legrain)的新书《余震》(Aftershock)中。书中称，如今中国每6个小时的出口，相当于1978年全年的出口。消费者得以享用更廉价的商 品，但如今世界各地的企业都必须与“中国价格”竞争。人们很难不对这个新的超级经济大国感到紧张。
China is also a business opportunity, of course. Peter Mandelson once cited a 19th-century commentator who remarked that “if everyone in China lengthened their shirt tails by a foot, the textile mills of England would spin for a year”. At a recent gathering of business leaders in Manchester, that 19th-century sentiment was going strong. These entrepreneurs were worried about the slump and the tight purse strings of the banks – but about China? Never: China was viewed as one big opportunity, even if shirt tails no longer top the list of Mancunian exports.	当然，中国也代表着商业机遇。彼得•曼德尔森(Peter Mandelson)曾引用19世纪一位评论家的话说，“如果每个中国人的衬衣下摆都加长一英尺，英国的纺织厂就得纺上整整一年”。近期在曼彻斯特举行的 企业领导人聚会上，这种19世纪出现的情绪变得强烈起来。与会企业家担心经济低迷和银行收紧银根——而关于中国呢？他们从不担忧：中国被视为一个重大机 遇，即使衬衣下摆不再是曼彻斯特最主要的出口商品。
This is the right attitude. It's not that doing business in China is easy. (It isn't, even for the Chinese: the World Bank “Doing Business” database lists 150 countries in which it's easier to set up a new business.) But the opportunities are there and they will grow.	这是正确的态度。这并不是说在中国经商很容易。（事实上并不容易，即使是对中国人来 说 也是如此。世界银行(World Bank) “经商”数据库列出了150个创业更为容易的国家。）但机会是存在的，而且越来越大。
Less obvious is the dynamic introduced into our economy by the rise of China, and here a simple economic model may help. Imagine a British economy with eight million workers producing eight million nuts, while four million workers in the more productive bolt industry produce eight million bolts – 12 million workers in total producing eight million nut-and-bolt pairs. When the Chinese arrive, offering to sell two nuts for every British bolt, the British nut industry goes bust and the unemployed workers are hired by the bolt industry. The total output of the 12 million workers is now 24 million bolts, of which 16 million stay in the UK and the rest are swapped for Chinese nuts. Every British worker is still employed and the British economy has twice as many nut-bolt pairs as before.	不太明显的一点是，中国崛起给我们的经济注入了活力。这一个简单的经济模型可能会说明 这点。假设英国有800万名工人在生产螺帽，单位时间产量为800万颗，同时有400万名工人生产螺旋，他们的生产效率较高，同样时间内可生产800万个 螺旋——总共有1200万名工人，生产800万副螺旋螺帽。这时中国人来了，提议以每2颗螺帽交换一个螺旋。于是英国螺帽行业倒闭，失业工人转而受雇于螺 旋行业。如今，1200万名工人的总产量为2400万个螺旋，当中1600万个留在本国使用，其余用来换中国的螺帽。每个英国工人仍然有工作做，而英国经 济中所有的螺旋螺帽是以前的2倍。
That is a sketch of the familiar calculations offered in economics textbooks to explain the gains from trade. The textbooks are largely correct, although they omit much, not least the juddering shock of workers having to try to switch from one industry to another.	这是经济学教科书上众所周知的用来解释贸易收益的大概计算方法。教科书大体上是正确 的，但也忽略了许多问题，特别是受到剧烈冲击的工人们不得不设法转行。
Yet what has always remained implicit in such accounts is the competition between domestic companies. The aggrieved nut industry might claim to have been put out of business by cheap Chinese competition, and in a way it has been. But it has also been put out of business by the efficient British bolt industry.	不过，在这类描述中，一向没有言明的是国内企业之间的竞争。愤愤不平的螺帽行业或许会 宣称，中国廉价商品的竞争抢走了他们的生意——现实中的确有这样的抱怨。但是，他们也遭到了本国高效的螺旋行业的排挤。
If someone invented a machine that would turn a bolt into two nuts or two nuts into a bolt, nothing important would change about the story. Rather than sending bolts to China, the bolt industry would pour them into the machine.	假如有人发明了一种机器，能够把一颗螺帽变成两个螺旋，或者把两个螺旋变成一颗螺帽， 整个故事也不会发生任何重大变化。螺旋行业不会把螺旋出口到中国，而是会把它们倒进这种机器里面。
The nut industry would still go bust and the bolt industry would still expand.This is the hidden story of trade. Rather than competing with British businesses, China is altering the playing field on which British businesses compete with each other.	螺帽行业依然会倒闭，而螺旋行业依然会扩张。这是贸易中难以发现的一面。中国并不是 与 英国企业竞争，而是在改变英国企业相互之间的竞争环境。
	译者/杨远