欲善其事先利其器

开篇：润墨网以专业的文秘视角，为您筛选了一篇欲善其事先利其器范文，如需获取更多写作素材，在线客服老师一对一协助。欢迎您的阅读与分享！

奥地利EFS汽车咨询公司总裁

市场成熟度一直是中国汽车专家反复讨论的话题。市场饱和与客户需求增长如何导致品牌整合，如何进行具体化、专业化运营，弄清楚这些并非难事。事实上，中国汽车市场的成熟比预期来得早，而且影响力也已形成。为什么我要这样说？因为2013年最后一个季度新品或扩张计划未能成为热点新闻，成本降低反倒一跃成为当今的热门话题。

再也没比生产商降低成本更清晰的市场成熟信号了。多数中国汽车厂商，无论自主还是合资品牌，从某种意义上都在解决这一问题。市场饱和、厂商竞争促使管理者第一次将降成本看做是与企业生存发展息息相关的战略活动。

我们目睹了成本战的双重国际化：一方面自主品牌凭性价比优势来取悦发展中国家日益壮大的中产阶级，并像平板电脑和笔记本取代传统个人电脑那样挑战高端产品，他们将知名汽车厂商从舒适与自满中唤醒；另一方面跨国大鳄利用规模效应、企业成熟度以及可用平台在中国低价汽车阵营争夺市场份额。虽然轻型商用车市场已在瓜分之列，但其他细分市场也在跨国厂商目标范围内。

降低成本的方法有很多，人们往往注重价值链从产品开发到售后服务的特殊阶段，偶尔还会探索新的方法。江淮汽车是个好例子：它跳过传统经销模式，直接采用互联网销售紧凑型汽车并取得不错的效果，成功招揽了既想拥有汽车，又看重家庭用途（实用性、目录选车甚至无需试驾）的新型客户。有的汽车厂商则将研发工作外包给专业工程公司或简化测试需求、削减开发预算。尽管我们还有一些诸如降低产品技术规格或简化企业结构等降低成本的优化方法，但实施其最恰当的方式究竟是什么呢？

我认为短期方案不可行，真正、可持续地降低成本是一项长期活动。真正有效的、长期的成本优化在企业内部表现出两大重要特征：成本状况意识和直接流程负责制。我们先谈第一大特征。

很多时候，汽车业管理者容易忽略掉一个事实——未能觉察价值链不同阶段的成本状况，从而不能优先发展成本优化策略。这在产品设计方面非常重要。详实、可靠的汽车和零部件成本计划是应对利润率萎缩、投资受挫、隐形渗透最好的解药。通常，成本计划可降低成本，也就是说过多冗余的成本在首次成本考核时将被消减。

了解了企业的成本状况后，企业理念就能更好地在此基础上生成。跨职能工作非常重要，企业需要依据成熟有力的管理架构进行经营。然而，中国的汽车厂商如今具有什么样的理念呢？

在汽车业，像江淮汽车那样异军突起的案例仍有发展空间，我们非常有必要进行全面思考。但总的来说，市场成熟意味着更强烈的客户需求，更昂贵的劳动力，更高的质量标准——跨职能支配型的企业战略就应运而生了。

让我们再看看产品开发，没有技术所有权很难形成长久发展。逆向开发总在牺牲质量，外包设计总在让路价格谈判。更糟的是，企业应对非预期市场环境改变的能力受到影响，即使在内部发展情况下，点对点的方法本应对特定产品起到较好的成本控制，但整个投资组合需要模块化才能赢得长期的竞争力。

对买家来说，同供应商讨价还价或许会造成供应商疲惫这样的负面影响。解决这一问题有个办法就是去开发那些具有相同成本意识的供应商。

至于生产方面，中国的人工成本优势最近几年已大幅削减，产品价格也因此大幅增长。模块生产战略等复杂方法为产生类似于工具标准化以及规模经济这样的深远影响提供了可能。甚至于被人们认为非常先进的高度复杂性活动，比如虚拟生产仿真，正成为众多汽车厂商面对成本压力时常用的方法。

但仅仅具有理念远远不够。方法成功实施需要透明度和以业绩为导向（而不是以状态为导向）的管理架构，从这个角度看，小型民营厂商较国营厂商更有优势。因此，我认为真正的成本优势只有通过掌握技术来实现，这在汽车业可以理解为掌握技术所有权以及精益流程设计。成本优化以及成本意识必须成为企业关注的重点。正如故事里所讲，为了砍树时提高效率，你需要学会磨快斧头。

Sharpening the axes

Cost optimization activities and cost awareness have to be high in the priority rank of the corporation. As the tale goes， to improve the efficiency at cutting down trees one has to take breaks to sharpen the axe.

Market maturity has been a recurring topic among industry experts in China for a long time now. It wasn’t unusual to read about how market saturation and growing customer demands would lead to brand consolidation and a different level of practice and professionalization on the OEMs side. Actually， maturity has arrived earlier than expected， and its effects are already to be seen. Why do I say that？ because in this last quarter of 2013 the big headlines are not being made by new product launches or expansion plans. On the contrary， the new trending topic of the time is “Cutting costs”.

There is no clearer sign of market maturity than the fact that producers feel forced to reduce their operation costs. Most OEMs present in China， fully domestic or joint ventures， are addressing this question in one way or the other. Market saturation and competition from other OEMs is pushing managers to， for the first time， face cost reduction as a strategic activity crucial to the survival and success of their companies. On top of that， we might see an interesting ‘double internationalization’ of the cost battle： on one side Chinese products start to appeal to the growing middle classes of developing countries， offering basic performance at a very affordable price. They challenge higher-end products almost the same way notepads and tablets almost brought the traditional （and heavily overspecified） PC to extinction. Their arrival has shaken more established OEMs out of their comfort zone and the self-complacency that they were enjoying. But on the other side multinational OEMs are taking advantage of scale effects， corporate maturity and available platforms to compete for market share in lower price ranks of the Chinese market. While this is particularly true for light commercial vehicles， other market segments are also within target.

There is an unlimited number of approaches to reduce costs. One can focus on a particular step of the value chain， from product development to aftersales network， and explore new radical approaches. It comes to my mind the good example of JAC， who decided to skip traditional dealer networks and go straight to an internet-based sales model for its compact car division， with very good results. They succeeded to address a new type of （less emotional） buyer that faces car ownership at the same level as other household utilities： pragmatic， choosing out of the catalogue， not even requiring test drives. Other OEMs are outsourcing their R&D efforts to specialized engineering companies or trying to streamline the testing requirements and cut development budgets. Other obvious means of optimization are reducing production costs， downgrading product specifications or streamlining corporate structure. But which way is the most appropriate to implement each one of them？

As good as radical solutions might look like in the short term， I am of the opinion that true， sustainable cost reduction is a long-term activity. A really effective and long-lasting cost optimization requires two important characteristics to be present in the company： cost situation awareness and direct process ownership. Let’s start by the first.

As trivial as it might sound， managers of all industries tend to overlook the fact that one can’t effectively prioritize cost optimization strategies without being aware of the cost situation of the different steps in the value chain in the first place.

This is particularly important in the case of product design： a sound and exhaustive cost planning of all vehicles and parts is the best antidote against shrinking profit margins， portfolio flaps and hidden sinks. Moreover， cost planning activities normally bring cost reduction as a by-product： there is a lot of redundancy that can be directly smoothed out after a first examination.

Once the cost situation of the company is known， it is the right moment to start with the generation of ideas. For this purpose cross-functional work is essential， and the company needs to have a mature and dynamic management structure to run it successfully. But which kind of ideas are available to Chinese makers today？

Of course there is still room for one-hit-wonders like the mentioned case of JAC， and it is very necessary to do a lot of thinking outside the box. But in general， market maturity also means sharper customer demands， more expensive labor and higher quality requirements： cross-functional， overarching strategies are required.

Looking at product development， it is difficult to achieve durable effects without true technology ownership. Reverse-engineering efforts will always compromise quality； outsourced design leaves blank price negotiations as the only possible way for further optimization. Even worse， the company’s ability to react to unexpected market environment changes is seriously compromised. And even in a situation of internal development， design-to-point approaches might have a better cost result in a particular product， but the whole portfolio will require modularization to be competitive in the long term.

For purchasers， tough price negotiations with suppliers might cause supplier exhaustion as a side effect. The suggested alternative is to foster supplier development in the same cost awareness culture that one requires his own company to have.

In the case of production， China’s labor-cost advantage is shrinking in recent years， and commodity prices are also on the rise. More sophisticated approaches like modular production strategies offer the possibility to achieve deeper effects such as tool standardization and economies of scale. Even highly sophisticated activities such as virtual production simulation， once considered state-of-the-art， are becoming common practice for many industry agents abroad as cost pressure builds up.

But generating ideas is not enough： Successful implementation requires transparency and a performance-oriented （rather than status -oriented） management structure. In this sense， small， private OEMs can have an advantage over state-owned makers.

Therefore I am of the opinion that true cost advantages can come only through one’s mastery of his own art， which in the automotive industry translates into technology ownership and lean process design. Cost optimization activities and cost awareness have to be high in the priority rank of the corporation. As the tale goes， to improve the efficiency at cutting down trees one has to take breaks to sharpen the axe.