金蝶的夢想之旅

Robert Xu took a hammer to his laptop three years ago and a few months later was bashing a data server like a piñata. As foibles go, his are not typical of a chief executive — least of all one based in Shenzhen, the one time fishing village bordering Hong Kong that is better known for its mass manufacturing of laptops and other gadgets.

三年前，徐少春(Robert Xu)拿一把榔頭砸了自己的筆記本電腦，幾個(gè)月后又像砸陶罐一樣砸掉了一臺服務(wù)器。就這一癖好來說，尤其就一家深圳企業(yè)來說，他不是一個(gè)典型的首席執(zhí)行官。毗鄰香港的深圳曾是一個(gè)小漁村，現(xiàn)以大批量生產(chǎn)筆記本電腦和其他電子產(chǎn)品聞名。

Yet his antics, which may not be out of place among the eccentric tech entrepreneurs of Silicon Valley, provide a vivid illustration of Kingdee’s own ascent up the value chain, and to an extent the evolution of China’s technology sector.

不過他的荒唐舉止——也許放在硅谷那些古怪的科技創(chuàng)業(yè)者中間并不出格——以非常生動的方式讓人們看到，金蝶(Kingdee)提升了自己在價(jià)值鏈上的位置，一定程度上也折射出了中國科技產(chǎn)業(yè)的進(jìn)步。

Founded in 1993, Kingdee is one of a breed of Chinese companies that — at least in their home market — are producing innovative technology instead of importing know-how from the West. Social platform Tencent combines features of Facebook and WhatsApp, for example, while Alibaba is China’s version of Amazon.

金蝶成立于1993年，是(至少在本土市場上)自主生產(chǎn)創(chuàng)新性科技產(chǎn)品、而不是從西方借鑒引進(jìn)技術(shù)的中國公司之一。比如社交平臺騰訊(Tencent)就兼具了Facebook與WhatsApp的特色，阿里巴巴(Alibaba)則是中國版的亞馬遜(Amazon)。

Kingdee originally sold accounting software based on Microsoft Windows to Chinese companies before developing a range of other products for domestic customers, mainly small and medium-sized enterprises. Later, Mr Xu noticed what Microsoft and others were doing — decanting companies’ data centres on to the cloud to securely store emails and all the other information generated in the course of business and decided he could do it too. Hence his laptop and server bashing — his way of showing clients they did not need a lot of computer memory to run their businesses any more.

金蝶最早面向中國企業(yè)銷售基于微軟(Microsoft)操作系統(tǒng)Windows的會計(jì)軟件，然后為國內(nèi)客戶，主要是中小企業(yè)，開發(fā)了一系列其他產(chǎn)品。后來徐少春注意到微軟等一些公司正在做一件事：將企業(yè)數(shù)據(jù)中心轉(zhuǎn)移到云端，把業(yè)務(wù)過程中產(chǎn)生的電子郵件以及其他所有信息安全地存儲起來。這讓他做了個(gè)決定，他也可以做這件事。所以他才砸筆記本電腦、砸服務(wù)器，用這種方式來向客戶表明，他們再也不需要大量計(jì)算機(jī)內(nèi)存來運(yùn)行自己的業(yè)務(wù)。

“In the IT industry there’s a new major wave every 10 years,” he says. “The PC-based IT has evolved from MS-DOS at an early stage and now we are heading into the cloud computing era,” he explains.

徐少春說：“在IT行業(yè)，每十年就會出現(xiàn)一次新的浪潮。以PC為基礎(chǔ)的IT行業(yè)已從早期的MS-DOS進(jìn)化了，現(xiàn)在我們正進(jìn)入云計(jì)算時(shí)代。”

The basic tenet of Kingdee’s business is that the Chinese executives it serves can work anywhere with only a smartphone to access everything they need — documents, spreadsheets, colleague details and the ability to hold group conferences, either by voice or video.

金蝶基本經(jīng)營宗旨是，讓自己服務(wù)的中國高管可以在任何地方辦公，只用一部智能手機(jī)就能訪問他們需要的一切，文檔、電子表格、員工資料，而且還能召開語音或視頻小組會議。

As for the data-server vandalism, this came after Kingdee pulled out of its own business running the large groups of networked computer servers that are the backbone of cloud computing. It has struck a joint venture with Amazon Web Services to make its software available on the US company’s cloud. This has allowed Kingdee, not huge by Chinese standards, to focus on its niche business helping Chinese SMEs run systems.

砸數(shù)據(jù)服務(wù)器之前，金蝶退出了本來的業(yè)務(wù)——運(yùn)營大批的相互連接的計(jì)算機(jī)服務(wù)器，這些設(shè)施是云計(jì)算的支柱。金蝶與亞馬遜云服務(wù)(AWS)簽署了合作協(xié)議，約定在這家美國公司的云端提供金蝶軟件。這讓金蝶——一家以中國標(biāo)準(zhǔn)衡量并不算大的企業(yè)——得以專注于自己的特色目標(biāo)業(yè)務(wù)，即幫助中國中小企業(yè)運(yùn)營系統(tǒng)。

“I want the company to focus on [the ]applications cloud so [the] enterprise applications services market is our main market, our goal,” Mr Xu says.

徐少春說：“我希望公司專注于云應(yīng)用，因此企業(yè)應(yīng)用服務(wù)市場是我們的主要市場，我們的目標(biāo)。”

To illustrate this point to staff, the grey tower block Kingdee inhabits boasts a simulated beach with recliners, hammock and palm tree. On the fake sky is a projection screen showing its smartphone apps that can run a business from anywhere.

為了向員工表明這點(diǎn)，金蝶所在的灰色大樓里搞了個(gè)模擬海灘，有躺椅、吊床和棕櫚樹。模擬天空上有塊投射屏幕，上面展示著金蝶的智能手機(jī)應(yīng)用，無論身處何方，都可以用它們運(yùn)營業(yè)務(wù)。

Kingdee has a healthy 14 per cent operating margin, while post-tax profits rose from Rmb126m in 2013 to an estimated Rmb378m this year ($55m). It also has 8,000 staff serving some international clients as well as millions of domestic SMEs.

金蝶的營業(yè)利潤率為14%，相當(dāng)可觀;2013年稅后利潤為1.26億元人民幣，今年預(yù)計(jì)為3.78億元人民幣(約合5500萬美元)。金蝶擁有8000名員工，為數(shù)百萬國內(nèi)中小企業(yè)以及一些國際客戶服務(wù)。

Speaking in his vast, split-level office, replete with tall Ming vases and his rowing machine, Mr Xu (who is Robert to all employees, including his driver) lacks many of the trappings of the traditional Chinese chief executive.

徐少春的所有員工，包括他的司機(jī)都叫他“Robert”。他的辦公室很大，復(fù)式結(jié)構(gòu)，滿滿當(dāng)當(dāng)?shù)財(cái)[放著碩大的明代花瓶、他的劃船機(jī)等東西。在自己辦公室里侃侃而談的徐少春，少了許多傳統(tǒng)中國老板的擺設(shè)。

Like many of his peers, his English is threadbare. Yet instead of the usual boardroom photos of the boss shaking hands with Chinese leaders, the picture in pride of place is of him rowing. He dresses just one shade too funkily, pairing Gucci brogues with a shirt printed with flowers and monkeys.

就像許多同輩人一樣，他也說著很老套的英語。不過辦公室顯眼的位置上掛的不是常見的那類會議室照片——老板與中國領(lǐng)導(dǎo)人握著手——而是徐少春劃船的照片。他的穿著顯得有點(diǎn)太潮了，腳上是古馳(Gucci)的布洛克皮鞋，上身則搭配了一件印著花朵和猴子的襯衫。

His story, however, is a familiar one for China’s self-made men and women. Growing up on a farm in Hunan, a province known for spiced food and being the birthplace of Mao Zedong, he wanted to change the difficult lives of those he saw around him.

他的故事倒很常見，就是那類中國人白手起家的故事。在湖南一個(gè)農(nóng)場長大的他想改變周圍人所過的那種艱苦生活。湖南省以吃辣聞名，是毛澤東的出生地。

“Just as there is [the concept of] the American dream, this is the Chinese dream,” he says.

他說：“就像美國夢一樣，這就是中國夢。”

Mr Xu’s own dream unfurled with two years of government-assigned work in a factory in Wuhan and another two years with a local tax bureau before he wound up in Shenzhen, a place that has symbolised China’s economic development ever since former leader Deng Xiaoping declared it a “special economic zone” in 1980, spurring decades of breakneck growth in the city and across China.

徐少春的個(gè)人夢想之旅則是這樣展開的，畢業(yè)后他被分配到武漢一家工廠干了兩年，接著在地方稅務(wù)局又干了兩年，再之后就跑到深圳發(fā)展。1980年中國領(lǐng)導(dǎo)人鄧小平宣布深圳為“經(jīng)濟(jì)特區(qū)”，從此啟動了深圳以及全中國幾十年的高速經(jīng)濟(jì)增長，深圳也成了中國經(jīng)濟(jì)發(fā)展的象征。

Armed with degrees in computing and accountancy and Rmb5,000 borrowed from relatives, he then set up his own business — a precursor to Kingdee.

拿著向親戚們借來的5000元人民幣，擁有計(jì)算機(jī)和會計(jì)雙學(xué)位的徐少春在深圳成立了自己的公司，也就是金蝶的前身。

He attributes the company’s success to harnessing talent. “Human capital accounts for 65 per cent of costs,” he says. “Its also our biggest asset.”

他將公司的成功歸結(jié)于善用人才。他說：“人力資本占了65%的成本。這也是我們最大的資產(chǎn)。”

He rewards employees well. Last year an outstanding performer won a Rmb5m apartment. Graduate hires are referred to as “pure gold”, a play on the company’s Chinese name, which translates as “golden butterfly”.

他對員工的獎勵(lì)很大方。去年一位杰出員工獲得了一套價(jià)值500萬元人民幣的公寓。大學(xué)生員工被稱為“純金人才”，取自公司名稱“金蝶”中的金子之意。

The smartest employees work in the research institute, headed up by Zhang Liang-jie. He is one of an annual crop of “thousand talents” of highly skilled Chinese scientists whom the Beijing government woos home from overseas.

那些最聰明的員工進(jìn)入研究院，在張良杰手底下工作。張良杰是中國政府“千人計(jì)劃”的一員，屬于從海外引進(jìn)回國的高層次中國科學(xué)家。

Dr Zhang is investigating artificial intelligence and virtual reality — for example exploring applications for business customers that will automatically trigger a warning device when the electricity bill hits the budgeted level, or shift workforces to night-time work when electricity rates are lower. 張良杰博士正在研究人工智能和虛擬現(xiàn)實(shí)，比如為企業(yè)客戶開發(fā)一種應(yīng)用程序，當(dāng)電費(fèi)達(dá)到預(yù)算水平時(shí)就自動觸發(fā)警告裝置，或讓工作人員轉(zhuǎn)到夜間工作，夜間的電價(jià)要低一些。

It is fitting stuff for Chinese employers, who are focused on cutting costs at the same time as softening economic growth has thinned industrial profits.

這種東西正合中國雇主的需要，在國內(nèi)經(jīng)濟(jì)增長放緩導(dǎo)致工業(yè)利潤變薄之時(shí)，企業(yè)正一心降低成本。

“Cloud services lower [companies’] costs and increase their efficiency,” Mr Xu says. An economic topic on which he is coy, however, is what Donald Trump’s policies may mean for Chinese exports to the west. Instead he is jocular. “He’s an entrepreneur, like me. Maybe I should have a career change too?”

徐少春說：“云服務(wù)降低了企業(yè)成本，提高了效率。”但有一個(gè)他不愿多談的經(jīng)濟(jì)話題就是，唐納德•特朗普(Donald Trump)的政策，對于中國向西方的出口將意味著什么。他開玩笑地說道：“他是個(gè)企業(yè)家，跟我一樣。也許我也該換個(gè)職業(yè)?”