Author: anonymous Source: enterprise culture network
In order to meet the challenges of market competition and the arrival of the era of strategic competitiveness, we have to become a world-class, we must have a world-class cultural competitiveness.
We have to become world-class because the world has been globalized. Globalization is the globalization of markets, resources, technology, management and talents. It makes everything compete globally, on a global first-class level. When we go out, it is a globalized competitive environment; when we hold our ground, it is the world's top companies that come in and compete with you. You make airplanes, there are Boeing, Airbus and you fight; you make cars, there are Renault, General Motors, Ford, Toyota, Daimler Chrysler and other behemoths with an annual sales volume of more than 4 million units, as well as Rolls-Royce, Ferrari, Volvo, and other classic car series to compete with you. There is De Beers for diamonds, L'Oreal for cosmetics, Wal-Mart for supermarkets, McDonald's and Pizza Hut for fast food, Coca-Cola for beverages, and Procter & Gamble for toothbrushes and toothpaste. Behind almost every product that can be globalized are world-class companies, brands, products and competitors with globalized production, marketing and services. Behind these world-first companies, there is a large group of world-first companies right behind them. For example, after Beck's and Budweiser, there are Heineken and Asahi, and Blue Ribbon and Suntory.
Globalized networks and media have made it possible for most information to be delivered directly to everyone around us, and the Internet has brought the world, and information, to everyone. Most operators and consumers around the world can know which product has the best performance-price ratio and which brand is the best in the world. Globalized companies have the ability to broadcast the same advertisement in over a hundred countries around the world at the same time, giving billions of people around the world access to consumer intelligence in a very short period of time. Today, a blockbuster movie, a piece of computer software that costs hundreds of millions of dollars in public relations, advertising, and promotions can be sold immediately around the world. The globalization of information forces us to be world-class, or you will soon be eliminated by the market and perish on this battlefield without smoke.
The world's first or first-class companies to take a concise and powerful development strategy, is a product (service) or a part, or even raw materials to achieve the world's first or first-class, and then in the global chain, expansion or sales. The world music market is monopolized by the five major record companies in the United States and Europe. Wal-Mart, Carrefour, although they do not make cars, but the vast majority of the world's cars have parts made by them, to a certain point (steering wheel, mouse, paper, cowhide) to the world's best, and then in the global sales and maximize the expansion strategy is enough to strengthen the strength of global competition. And global procurement, global allocation of business methods, more concentrated in the global resources, capital, management, talent, technology and other advantages, so that the comprehensive competitiveness and enhance to the global level. Now the manufacture of a car, its main components from more than 20 countries and regions around the world, each part is not only in the performance-price ratio is the most ideal, and each part is the world's best, the engine is General Electric or Mercedes-Benz, the chair is the United States, the chair screws are Japanese, the chair's wrapping skin is Italian, filled with rubber is Malaysian, lacquer is German. This means that if you build an airplane, you should be world class, and if you just build a tire under the airplane, you should be first class, even if you are not first in a bolt on the tire, you must be first class. The globalization of the economy and the globalization of the market does not leave a place for the second-rate. one of the laws of the market in the IT industry is that if the world's No. 1 company or product automatically gets 60% of the world's market. Add to that the market share swallowed up by the world's second and third and a group of first-rate companies, and it is conceivable that very little is left. In industries that can be mass-produced and satisfy universal needs, most of the world's top 10 companies control 70 to 80 percent of the global market, including automobiles, refrigerators, televisions, rice cookers, film and television equipment, media, music, and movies.
In the state of economic globalization, as a company (including a city, a region) may have four ways out: first, to become the world's first-class or No. 1 company, and in a particular industry or product to maintain leadership; second, to become the world's first-class or No. 1 company's subsidiaries or service companies (to enter the procurement, production, sales or service sequence); third, in the globalization of the industry can not be globalized Third, to survive and grow in industries that cannot be globalized (e.g., medical, food, education, etc.); and fourth, to survive and grow in regions where globalized companies have not yet arrived. The first two ways out, we must become the world's first-class or the first to have; the last two ways out, is must become the domestic or regional first-class or the first to have; and become the first-class or the first to have them ****, the global first-class or the first to be their ultimate way out.
However, what makes them world-class and makes them extremely competitive? It's culture, the universally conscious system of ideas and ways of a people, country or company. How do we become world class? It is also the need for culture, i.e., to make us culturally competitive by strengthening culture and raising it to the level of cultural strategy, which is a new requirement imposed by strategic competitiveness.
Strengthening cultural construction, building and forming culture as a strategic competitiveness has reached the stage of operation and implementation; planning and introducing cultural strategy has reached the stage of tactics and battle. Cultural strategic competition has been unfolded. Taking the company as an example, the world's famous big companies will adjust their cultural strategies when the market condition and competitors' situation change and when they carry out cross-cultural development, merger and marketing. The setbacks suffered by Silicon Valley in the course of its development have caused them to re-examine its culture, and some industry leaders in Silicon Valley are thinking about what they can learn from the Microsoft industry in Seattle; and Coca-Cola has made adjustments to its own cultural personality with a view to obtaining a larger share of the market. Some of the world's top companies, such as Allianz, Cisco, DaimlerChrysler, Hewlett-Packard, and others, are now making strategic moves to make their cultures more precise, clear, and systematic, in order to improve their strategic competitiveness and support the continued development of their businesses.
Because this culture is an ultimate competitiveness, it can not only determine the fate of a community, but also the first competitiveness of a company. Here, we will analyze the following principles of culture as a competence and the first competitiveness, and take a few companies as examples to see how the cultural personality supports these companies to become world-class.
One, seize the time to change the corporate culture
The timing of corporate culture change is a very important issue, the right time to move, half the effort; against the clock, half the effort. In the following periods, enterprises should pay great attention to corporate culture change, at least a comprehensive assessment of the culture.
1, the initial period of enterprise construction
Strictly speaking, this time is not a change in corporate culture, but the construction of corporate culture. When the enterprise is first built, everything is new. Especially the new team, new employees from all over the world, each with their own past experience and the culture of the original unit. During this period, it is the most intense period of multi-cultural intermingling. If there is no dominant corporate culture to regulate their thoughts and behavior, it is difficult to form a unified will, unified norms and unified action. Therefore, the initial period of enterprise construction, it is necessary to put the construction of enterprise culture and plant, equipment and other hardware construction in the same important position, for comprehensive integration. At the same time, we should also see that the initial period of enterprise construction is also the time of the lowest cost of enterprise culture construction. This is because the initial period of enterprise culture is not stereotyped, is still in the development period, there is no resistance to change, a blank sheet of paper can draw the most beautiful picture. Some new domestic enterprises, the beginning of the venture, in the management of the two things to grasp, a grasp of the international quality assurance system, the second grasp of the corporate image construction (CS), and through these two work to drive the overall management of the enterprise. This experience is worth learning.
2, when the enterprise is doing nothing or even worse
Blah means decline, this time we need to conduct a comprehensive review. You can always find problems with the culture of a business, and that requires change.
3, when the rapid growth of the enterprise
There are three main reasons for the need for cultural change in the period of rapid growth. First, the period of rapid growth is always accompanied by a dramatic expansion of the workforce. The culture of such a period is characterized much like that of a start-up. New employees should be taught not only what to do, but also how to do it, so that they can be quickly integrated into the corporate culture. Secondly, the rapid growth of the enterprise is most likely to produce pride and even arrogance of thought and emotion. As the saying goes, "The proud will lose." If it is only the pride of the key managers, it seems that the problem is not so serious. The scary thing is that during a period of rapid growth, it is often the entire enterprise that is so self-absorbed that it cannot be stopped. This is when a change in corporate culture is needed. Third, a period of rapid growth is often the easiest time to neglect management. Business orders such as snowflakes flying, such as nuclear fission of the workforce as a dramatic increase in busy, busy, which have time to grasp the management, so the enterprise inevitably contracted the "rapid growth".
Additionally, when the business environment has changed drastically, but the company's actions are still driven by the original culture, but also change the corporate culture should not miss the time.
Two, corporate culture personality
Corporate culture design should be from the enterprise's own actual starting point, the enterprise's internal existing cultural foundation of nuclear culture conditions, the enterprise's external cultural environment and the direction of the enterprise's future development of a comprehensive and detailed diagnosis, based on the overall design of the corporate culture. Corporate culture should have great attraction, cause enterprise staff, consumers and the community's widespread concern; but also have the feasibility, with the enterprise material and technical conditions, management conditions, personnel quality, enterprise macro and micro-environmental compatibility. From Microsoft's brilliant performance, it is not difficult to find its success lies not only in scientific and technological innovation and excellent management, but more importantly, the creation of a knowledge-based enterprises unique cultural personality.
To cite two small examples of Microsoft's culture, from which we can fully feel Microsoft's cultural personality. First, Microsoft has a comfortable environment, including the natural environment and human environment. The university campus is called campus, and the Microsoft Research Institute is also called campus, which is a reflection of Microsoft's comfortable natural environment. It includes a garden-style campus with a lot of flowers and lawns, as well as the beautiful Bill Lake. The basketball court and soccer field are also full of campus atmosphere. The comfortable natural environment provides Microsoft people with an elegant working environment, which guarantees efficient work. Secondly, in terms of communication, Microsoft has its own characteristics. Microsoft people believe that communication is the core of communication, an effective way to solve problems and the embodiment of team spirit. In Microsoft, communication methods include E-mail, telephone, individual discussion, etc., and "whiteboard culture" is the most typical. "Whiteboard culture" refers to the Microsoft office, conference room, and even the lounge have a special whiteboard for writing, so that at any time you can record some sparks of thought or some suggestions and so on. In this way, any problems can be communicated and solved in time. Here, employees are fully respected, and communication has become a kind of art.
From a general point of view, the formation of the personality of Microsoft's culture is mainly based on the following aspects: first of all, Bill Gates' personal character. Bill Gates' unique personality and superior skills have created the cultural taste of Microsoft. This shrewd, energetic and fantastical company creator, desperately seeking and appointing similar to his own managers who are both technically savvy and good at business. He has always emphasized a product-centered approach to organizing and managing the company, going beyond the operational function to boldly implement organizational innovation, and striving to find and appoint people as innovative and collaborative as himself, both within the company and among the applicants. Bill Gates is described by his employees as a fantasist, a person who is constantly accumulating strength and frantically pursuing success. His personal character has had a profound impact on the company. His strong stock of technical knowledge and his keen strategic vision, as well as the pool of savvy software developers and business people he has gathered around him, have placed himself and his company at the forefront of a rapidly evolving industry. Gates is good at seeing opportunities and seizing them, and can make his own personal style of spirit in the company to the end, so that the whole company's management and product development and other activities with Gates color.
Second, the team culture of managing creative talents and technologies. An important characteristic of a knowledge-based enterprise is to have a large number of creative talents. Microsoft's culture unites PC programmers who dislike rules, organization, and planning, and strongly oppose bureaucracy, following the strategic guideline of "forming cross-functional expert teams"; empowering professional departments to define their own work, recruiting and training new hires, and allowing flexibility in the type of work they do, so that people can maintain independent thought; members of expert teams can work together in the workplace; and members of expert teams can work together in the workplace to create a team of creative people. The members of the teams can learn on the job, from experienced people, without too many bureaucratic rules and interventions, without outdated formal training programs, without "professionalized" managers, without "political maneuvering", without bureaucracy, and without the culture of "political maneuvering". There is no culture of "political maneuvering" or bureaucracy. Managers are very competent and approachable, leading most employees to believe that Microsoft is the best place to work in the industry. This team culture provides employees with interesting and ever-changing work and plenty of opportunities for learning and decision-making.
Finally, Microsoft is consistently innovative. The core work content of the knowledge economy era is innovation, the spirit of innovation should be the essence of knowledge-based corporate culture. Microsoft people always as a pioneer to create or enter a potential large-scale market, and then constantly improve a good product that becomes the market standard. Microsoft's constant progressive product innovation and occasional major breakthroughs have created a mechanism of constant metabolism within the company so that few competitors can pose a threat to Microsoft. Its mechanism of continuous improvement of new products and regular elimination of old products has always made the company's products become or continue to become the industry standard. Innovation is the core spirit that runs through the whole process of Microsoft's business.
Three, the establishment of results-oriented
The culture of an enterprise is to a large extent determined consciously or unconsciously by the managers of the enterprise. If the president of a company is a frugal person, then usually the company will also be more aware of the cost. If the boss of a company is not a very frugal person, then the company can have a lot of rules, but can not change the habits of the whole enterprise wasteful. Mr. Kuhne is the founder and owner of Europe's largest shipping company, that is, Kuhne & Nagel, is one of Europe's richest people. When he walks into a meeting room, if the weather is nice, the first thing he does is turn off the lights in the room, because it's bright enough without turning them on. You can imagine what kind of corporate culture such a company would have. It's no coincidence that Germany's richest ALDI brothers also have the same habit. This is an extremely wealthy company, but the internal use of paper to be used on both sides of the use before throwing away.
An important principle that effective managers must follow is results orientation. A business survives by achieving certain goals, and the point of management is to achieve certain results. Therefore, effective managers ask only for results and do not care about the process. When such a concept becomes the working principle of an enterprise from top to bottom, we can foresee that such a company will be an extremely efficient one. Shanghai Yangzirui credit five or six years to become the largest notebook computer distributor in East China - this principle as the first of their management philosophy, is very insightful. As a matter of fact, companies that really thrive have an extremely strong result-oriented culture, because the market does not believe in tears, and the market will not give favors to a person or an enterprise because of his or her efforts or inputs. The only thing the market believes in is results and output.
The world's largest corporations--Deutsche Bank and Roland Berger--are both examples of results orientation. In these companies, it is not your seniority, your past, or even how much you have contributed to the company that determines one's fate. What determines a person's promotion is your present performance and the value you can expect in the future. Working in such a company, you may sometimes feel that it is an ungrateful company with no memory; however, it is the strong future-oriented result orientation that enables such a company to maintain its competitive advantage and the vitality of its talents in the long run.
In China, corporate culture is often spoken of in opposition to results orientation. Speaking of corporate culture usually reminds people of how to treat their subordinates well, how to satisfy their employees, how to make them happy, and how to give them a greater sense of ownership. The way to do all this is to not put pressure on employees. But if a company forgets to be results-oriented while doing this, brutal competition may make it impossible for the company to survive.
Results orientation should be the foundation of a company's culture. On this foundation, a company can do a lot to improve employee motivation. Without this foundation, a business can only give a good feeling when the weather is good, but do nothing when the weather turns bad.
Four, the construction of "people-oriented"
Corporate culture construction is an important part of modern management. Modern management theory suggests that people have a dual position in management; both the manager and the managed. The main body of all aspects of the management process are people, people and human behavior is the core of the management process. Therefore, "human-centered" is the most important trend in the development of modern management.
Corporate culture theory is born in response to this trend of a new management theory, the central idea is "people-centered", so it naturally becomes an important part of modern management.
An enterprise, its material resources, financial resources, information resources are limited, while the development of human resources is never-ending. In China's productivity level is backward, capital, raw materials and other resources in short supply and human resources are extremely rich, the development and management of human resources can also be better utilized, the benefits of enterprises can be improved. For example: Ericsson is through the training of employees to fully mobilize the potential of employees.
Ericsson is a multinational company that produces communication products and related equipment, with branches in more than 130 countries around the world, occupying more than 40% of the market share of the communication industry, and occupying the position of global leader. Ericsson entered China in the early 1990s, and its development has been exceptionally rapid. Like many large multinational companies, Ericsson also attaches great importance to its development in China. As Ericsson's products are popularized and sold in the Chinese market, it becomes more and more important to train customers and our staff. Because communication products are high-tech products, we usually see the cell phone is only one of the terminal products, with which there are a series of large and small switches and computer management equipment. With the opening of each kind of equipment, there must be corresponding technical maintenance personnel, the customer's demand for Ericsson's training has become more and more urgent, Ericsson Beijing Training Center was established in 1994 under such circumstances. Before the establishment of the Beijing training center, the training of Chinese customers have to be carried out in foreign Ericsson training centers, even Ericsson's own staff training has to be carried out in foreign countries, which is a costly expense for both the customer and Ericsson China, after the establishment of the Ericsson Beijing training center, which greatly alleviates this contradiction.
When the Ericsson Beijing Training Center was first established, it had only about 1,000 square meters of classrooms and offices, and did not have its own instructors. All the training classes were taught by instructors from Ericsson's other training centers because only instructors certified by Ericsson's Swedish training centers were allowed to teach all kinds of technical courses. This caused two problems: firstly, the cost of hiring external teachers was high, and secondly, the teachers taught in English, which made it difficult to meet the requirements of Chinese customers. Therefore, Ericsson Beijing Training Center started to recruit and train its own teachers, gradually localizing them. By 1997, Ericsson Beijing Training Center had an office and teaching area of 2000 square meters, 40 teachers and 23 operation support staff, which largely met the needs of customers and our employees for technical training. By the end of 1997, **** completed the training of 30,000 students.
For many years, Ericsson has been a world leader in the supply of telecommunications and related equipment. Currently, Ericsson has more than 93,000 employees working in more than 130 countries to solve customers' telecommunication needs. One of the key environments for Ericsson's success in China and around the world is his ability to mobilize the full potential of his employees and his emphasis on employee and customer training.
The two cases cited here illustrate the power of culture, the first competitiveness that results from a generalized consciousness of culture, the strong cultural willingness to pursue development, and the compatibility of company culture with industry specificities, to create a large number of the world's top companies.