金融学的起源——东西方金融创新的早期历史

在金融历史发展过程中,时间、机遇和风险、市场以及企业法人等四个主题是永恒的。大约早在1000年前,金融的各种主要要素便都已经存在了,后来经过逐步发展和成熟,演化成今天无数的金融创新。     

The risky business of hiring stars

With the battle for the best and brightest people heating up again, you're most likely out there looking for first-rate talent in the ranks of your competitors. Chances are, you're sold on the idea of recruiting from outside your organization, since developing people within the firm takes time and money. But the authors, who have tracked the careers of high-flying CEOs, researchers, software developers, and leading professionals, argue that top performers quickly fade after leaving one company for another. To study this phenomenon in greater detail, the authors analyzed the ups and downs of more than 1,000 star stock analysts, a well-defined group for which there are abundant data. The results were striking. After a star moves, not only does her performance plunge, but so does the effectiveness of the group she joins--and the market value of her new company. Moreover, transplanted stars don't stay with their new organizations for long, despite the astronomical salaries firms pay to lure them from rivals. Most companies that hire stars overlook the fact that an executive's performance is not entirely transferable because his personal competencies inevitably include company-specific skills. When the star leaves the old company for the new, he cannot take with him many of the resources that contributed to his achievements. As a result, he is unable to repeat his performance in another company--at least not until he learns to work the new system, which could take years. The authors conclude that companies cannot gain a competitive advantage or successfully grow by hiring stars from outside. Instead, they should focus on cultivating talent from within and do everything possible to retain the stars they create. Firms shouldn't fight the star wars, because winning could be the worst thing that happens to them.     

斯里兰卡大坝安全监测计划

在斯里兰卡,为了蓄水、防汛抗旱、引水灌溉而修建了大量规模不等的水坝,由这些坝形成的大坝网络在该国发挥着重大的作用,但是,由于长期的运行,对其进行大规模的维修已成为当务之急.世界银行拟参与斯里兰卡大坝安全监测计划的实施.     

Unleash innovation in foreign subsidiaries

In multinational corporations, growth-triggering innovation often emerges in foreign subsidiaries from employees closest to customers and least attached to the procedures and politeness of the home office. But too often, heavy-handed responses from headquarters squelch local enthusiasm and drive out good ideas--and good people. The authors' research into more than 50 multinationals suggests that encouraging innovation in foreign subsidiaries requires a change in attitude. Companies should start to think of foreign subsidiaries as peninsulas rather than as islands--as extensions of the company's strategic domain rather than as isolated outposts. If they do, innovative ideas will flow more freely from the periphery to the corporate center. Basing their arguments on a rich array of examples, the authors say that encouraging such "innovation at the edges" also requires a new set of practices, with two aims: to improve the formal and informal channels of communication between headquarters and subsidiaries and to give foreign subsidiaries more authority to see their ideas through. The challenge for executives of multinationals is to find ways to liberalize, not tighten, internal systems and to delegate more authority to local subsidiaries. It isn't enough to ask subsidiary managers to be innovative; corporate managers need to give them incentives and support systems to facilitate their efforts. The authors suggest four approaches: give seed money to subsidiaries; use formal requests for proposals as a way of increasing the demand for seed money; encourage subsidiaries to be incubators for fledgling businesses; and build international networks. As part of the last approach, multinationals also need to create roles for idea brokers who can link entrepreneurs in foreign subsidiaries with other parts of the company.     

The kinesthetic speaker. Putting action into words

Speeches and presentations offer an interesting catch-22: executives don't want to spend long hours creating them, and people don't want to sit for long hours listening to them. Ultimately, though, executives can't live without them. That's because a good speech or presentation has the power to inspire people to act on the speaker's behalf and create change. Author Nick Morgan, a longtime speech-writer and speaking coach, says what's most often lacking in today's speeches and presentations is what he calls the "kinesthetic connection." Many good speakers connect aurally with their audiences, telling dramatic stories and effectively pacing their speeches to hold people's attention. Others connect visually, with a vivid film clip or a killer slide. Some people do both, but not many also connect kinesthetically. Morgan says the kinesthetic speaker feeds an audience's primal hunger to experience a presentation on a physical, as well as an intellectual, level. Through awareness of their own physical presence--gestures, posture, movements--and through the effective use of the space in which they present, kinesthetic speakers can create potent nonverbal messages that reinforce their verbal ones. In this article, Morgan describes techniques for harnessing kinesthetic power and creating a sense of intimacy with an audience--a closeness that is more widely expected from speakers since the advent of television. For instance, kinesthetic speakers should make use of audience proxies--individuals in the crowd who serve as representatives for the others. Ultimately, the author says, a speech or presentation offers something of great value to business executives: it's the best vehicle for winning trust from large groups of people--be they employees, colleagues, or share-holders.     

Strategies to fight low-cost rivals

Companies find it challenging and yet strangely reassuring to take on opponents whose strategies, strengths, and weaknesses resemble their own. Their obsession with familiar rivals, however, has blinded them to threats from disruptive, low-cost competitors. Successful price warriors, such as the German retailer Aldi, are changing the nature of competition by employing several tactics: focusing on just one or a few consumer segments, delivering the basic product or providing one benefit better than rivals do, and backing low prices with superefficient operations. Ignoring cutprice rivals is a mistake because they eventually force companies to vacate entire market segments. Price wars are not the answer, either: Slashing prices usually lowers profits for incumbents without driving the low-cost entrants out of business. Companies take various approaches to competing against cut-price players. Some differentiate their products--a strategy that works only in certain circumstances. Others launch low-cost businesses of their own, as many airlines did in the 1990s--a so-called dual strategy that succeeds only if companies can generate synergies between the existing businesses and the new ventures, as the financial service providers HSBC and ING did. Without synergies, corporations are better off trying to transform themselves into low-cost players, a difficult feat that Ryanair accomplished in the 1990s, or into solution providers. There will always be room for both low-cost and value-added players. How much room each will have depends not only on the industry and customers' preferences, but also on the strategies traditional businesses deploy.     

Clueing in customers

Leonard L. Berry and Neeli Bendapudi When customers lack the expertise to judge a company's offerings, they naturally turn detective, scrutinizing people, facilities, and processes for evidence of quality. The Mayo Clinic understands this and carefully manages that evidence to convey a simple, consistent message: The needs of the patient come first. From the way it hires and trains employees to the way it designs its facilities and approaches its care, the Mayo Clinic provides patients and their families concrete evidence of its strengths and values, an approach that has allowed it to build what is arguably the most powerful brand in health care. Marketing professors Leonard Berry and Neeli Bendapudi conducted a five-month study of evidence management at the Mayo Clinic. They interviewed more than 1,000 patients and employees, observed hundreds of doctor visits, traveled in the Mayo helicopter, and stayed in the organization's many hospitals. Their experiences led them to identify best practices applicable to just about any company, in particular those that sell intangible or technically complex products. Essentially, the authors say, companies need to determine what story they want to tell, then ensure that their employees and facilities consistently show customers evidence of that story. At Mayo, the evidence falls into three categories: people, collaboration, and tangibles. The clinic systematically hires people who espouse its values, and its incentive and reward systems promote collaborative care focused on the patient's needs. The physical environment is explicitly designed for its intended effect on the patient experience. In almost every interaction, an organization's message comes through. "Patients first," the Mayo Clinic's message, is not the only story a medical organization could tell, but the way in which Mayo manages evidence to communicate this message is an example to be followed.