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  THE BUSINESSMAN OF THE CENTURY
二十世纪最杰出的商人

 

 
显示原图☆Henry Ford
　Henry Ford (1863-1946) didn't invent the automobile, but he invented the automobile business. When he founded the Ford Motor Co. In 1903, cars were fussy, unreliable, costly novelties. Ford's genius was to make them simple, solid, and inexpensive necessaries. In so doing, he built the largest industrial organization of the early 20th century and amassed a personal fortune of $1 billion ($36 billion in today's dollars), but he also placed himself at the forefront of a social renovation that had an immeasurable impact on American life.
　　亨利·福特（1863-19460）没有发明汽车，而是发明了汽车生意。当他在1903年创建福特汽车公司的时候，汽车是难以伺候、不可信赖、价格昂贵的新奇事物。福特的天才在于使汽车变成简单、可靠、廉价的生活必需品。这样，他不仅建造了20世纪早期最大的工业组织，积聚了10亿（相当于今天的360亿美圆）个人财富，而且使自己处于对美国人民生活具有不可估量影响的一场社会革命的最前线。

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☆Alfred P. Sloan Jr.
　 　Alfred P. Sloan Jr. (1876-1966) invented the art of managing a large corporation. First he created a corporate office, whose job was to allocate resources and coordinate the company's operating divisions but not to run them. From corporate, every division got whatever it needed---money, factories, sales forces_to operate autonomously. To link the divisions, Sloan promulgated a set of "standard procedures"for budgeting, hiring, forecasting, reporting sales, etc., and also created interdivisional councils where executives and staff could share ideas or find ways to exploit economies of scale. Vowing to produce a car "for every purse and purpose"--- from the aristocratic Cadillac to the proletarian Chevrolet---he modified his lines accordingly. As a result, Ford's share of U.S. motor-vehicle sales fell from 55.7% to 18.9% between 1921 and 1940, while GM' rose from12.7% to 47.5%.
　　Alfred P. Sloan Jr.(1876-1966) 开创了管理大公司的艺术。首先是建立一个综合办公室，其职责是分配资源，协调各部门，但并不直接经营他们。从该办公室，各个部门得到任何所需资源--资金，工厂，营销人员等以独立运作。为了把各部门统一起来，他实施一套预算、雇佣、预测、销售报表等的标准程序，并设立部门与部门间的"议会"：一个供管理人员及员工交流思想或想办法来扩大经济规模的地方。他发誓要生产适合"每个钱包和每种用途"的汽车--从贵族化的"卡迪拉克"到平民化的"雪佛兰"，并随之改装了生产线。结果，福特汽车在美国市场上的销售份额从55.7%下跌到18.9%，而通用从12.7%上升到47.5%。

 

 

 


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☆Tom Watson Jr.
　　After taking over from his father as CEO in 1956, he led the company through one of the longest and most spectacular bursts of growth evesr seen. The IBM he shaped was the greatest success story of America's postwar boom---the company that sprang to mind whenever talk turned to the American corporation and the Organization Man. By the time Watson Jr. Left IBM in 1971, it had routed computer---industry rivals like General Electric, RCA, and Sperry---Univac; in size and importance, it had elbowed its way past the smokestack giants that had dominated American business.
　　1956年接替父亲成为IBM首席执行官后，他使公司走上了历时最长、情景最为辉煌壮观的发展之路。他塑造的IBM创造了美国战后繁荣时期最了不起的成功故事。没有人在谈到美国公司和"组织人"的时候不会不想起IBM。在他于1971年离职时，已经打败计算机行业诸对手如"通用电子"、 RCA和Sperry-Univac。IBM不论就规模还是重要性而言，都已经跻身于曾经主宰美国企业的工业巨人之列。

 

 

 


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☆Bill Gates
　　 The World's Richest Man, is usually portrayed as the consummate computer geek. But the reality is that Gates is, if anything, the quintessential fin de siecle businessman---a hypercompetitor who combines equal parts technologist, entrepreneur, and corporate architect. Thouth it's been decades since he actually wrote computer code, he still peruses the work of key programmers and makes detailed suggestions for specific products. Perhaps the shrewdest business strategist of the last quarter of the century, Gates has flummoxed much larger competitors like IBM and found ways to steal the march on brilliant IT innovators like Apple and Netscape. And unlike most techno-entrepreneurs of his generation, Gates' skills as an imaginative manager and leader have kept pace with his company's breakneck growth.
　　这位世界首富，通常被看作计算机迷的最高成就者。实际上，他是世纪末的商界精英--一位集技术师、企业家、综合建筑师于一身的超级竞争者。虽然已经有十多年没编程了，他仍然详细审察主要程序员的工作，并就个别程序给出具体建议。也许是上个世纪最后25年最精明的商业战略家，他不仅胜过要大的多的竞争对手如IBM，而且比光芒四射的革新者如Apple和Netscape都抢先一步。和同时代大多数技术型企业家不同，作为一个想象力丰富的经理人兼领导者，比尔·盖兹的领导技能是与公司惊人的增长率同步的。