Why do companies fail? Considering how important this question is to entrepreneurs, investors, and even society as whole, I can find little widely available research into it. If we understood the answer better, less capital would be misallocated and fewer lives wasted by founders in pursuing doomed schemes.
企业为何会倒闭？与这个问题对于企业家、投资者、甚至整个社会的重要性相比，我能找到的让人们普遍能看到的研究资料却很少。如果我们能更好地理解这个问题，就可以减少资金配置不当的问题，企业创始人也能在追求注定失败的计划上少浪费些资源。
I think start-ups and established businesses typically fold for different reasons. CB Insights published a fascinating study of 101 Silicon Valley postmortems based on submissions from the individual founders, analysing the various reasons for closure. Easily the single biggest cause was a lack of sales. After all, without revenue, every company is bust. This is stating the obvious — but it is extraordinary how many entrepreneurs overestimate the market for their idea. The second biggest explanation was a lack of money — but often I suspect this is a result of other problems. The third was a bad management team. Other factors cited included too much competition, low margins, poor customer service and an uncommercial business model.
我认为，初创企业和成熟企业通常因不同的原因倒闭。CB Insights根据个人创始人提交的信息，发表了一份关于101家硅谷企业倒闭分析的有趣报告，分析了导致企业倒闭的多种原因。最大的单一原因无疑是销售额不足。归根结底，没有营收，所有公司都会垮掉。这个结论是显而易见的——但不同寻常之处在于，有如此多的企业家高估了其想法所拥有的市场。第二大原因是缺钱——但通常我认为这是其他问题引发的结果。第三个解释是糟糕的管理团队。该报告提到的其他因素包括竞争太激烈、利润低、客户服务差以及业务模式不具商业性。
I can confirm that a combination of these played a part with every early stage venture I’ve backed which flopped. I was surprised that more Silicon Valley founders didn’t acknowledge flawed technology as a contributor to the demise of their project. All the risks can never all be correctly identified before launching a business; and of course there are usually multiple reasons why a business shuts down. But no corporate death is identical to another — each is a unique tragedy, normally a blend of poor luck and rotten judgment.
我可以肯定，在每一项我支持过的失败初期创业中，以上原因都联合发挥过作用。更多的硅谷创始人不认为有缺陷的技术是造成其项目流产的罪魁祸首之一，这令我吃惊。在创办企业前，人们永远无法正确辨别所有风险；当然通常情况下有多种原因导致企业倒闭。但是没有一家企业的倒闭是与另一家相同的——每一次失败都是独一无二的悲剧，一般都参杂着坏运气和烂决断。
So why do established companies go wrong? One can enumerate the principal ones: they can no longer innovate and new rivals steal their customers (Borders, BlackBerry and Nokia); they take on too much debt and banks break them up (EMI); they become distracted by acquisitions and diversifications which underperform (Time Warner and AOL). Most start-ups go broke because of over-optimism; established companies are wrecked by complacency and hubris. As they say, “The path to oblivion often goes through a triumphal arch.”
那么成熟企业为什么会出问题？人们可以列举出几个主要的原因：有的是不再创新，而新对手窃取了他们的客户，如Borders、黑莓(BlackBerry)和诺基亚(Nokia)；有的是举债过重，银行将其拆分，如百代(EMI)；有的被收购和表现不佳的多样化经营扰乱了注意力，如时代华纳(Time Warner)和美国在线(AOL)。多数初创企业因过度乐观而破产；成熟公司则被自满和傲慢摧毁。正如他们所言，“通向湮没无闻之路常常穿过凯旋门。”
It is apparent to me that each sector has its particular recipe for disaster. In the restaurant trade, a majority of the operators who founder do so because they take on premises at too high a rent or spend too much on fitting the site out. This leaves them with unbearable fixed costs and liabilities, which eventually crush them. In the food processing sector, operators are ruined by becoming too dependent on one customer — who then cancels their supply contract; or they crash thanks to exposure to major commodity price swings; or occasionally they cease trading owing to factory fires or similar catastrophes. Meanwhile banks are peculiarly vulnerable to fraud, which killed Barings and BCCI among others.
在我看来，每一个行业都有酿成灾难的专属配方。在餐饮业，多数失败的经营者之所以如此，是因为场地租金过高或是在装修上花费太多。这使他们陷于不可承受的固定成本和负债之中，并最终被这些压垮。在食品加工行业，经营者因过于依赖一个顾客、结果供应合同遭取消而被摧毁；或因对主要大宗商品价格波动的风险敞口而倒闭；又或者偶尔因工厂火灾或类似灾难而停止生意。与此同时，银行业特别容易受欺诈影响，这是拖垮巴林银行(Barings)和国际信贷商业银行(BCCI)等银行的原因。
Of course all companies that go down in flames do so because the management made mistakes: the human factor always features prominently. Otherwise, how does one explain the way within the same industry, certain businesses adapt and prosper; others crumble and expire?
自然，所有引火烧身的公司之所以会这样，都是因为管理失误：企业倒闭中的人为因素一直都很突出。否则，人们如何解释，在同样的行业，某些企业能够适应并取得成功，而其他企业却崩溃并倒闭了呢？
Most companies die relatively slow deaths, rather than suffering a sudden collapse; assorted issues gradually drain the enterprise of life, and its leadership of hope. Difficulties usually develop from qualitative matters, such as an inappropriate product offering or faulty facilities, which then translate into financial pressures. Sometimes extinction is inevitable because the business is so fundamentally deficient or structural changes in markets mean the business model becomes uneconomic. But frequently companies can be saved by radical action if the decay is not too extensive. Turnround specialists are the experts at knowing why businesses are broken — and fixing them. I have achieved nothing more satisfying in my career than on those rare occasions where I have helped salvage an ailing company from the Grim Reaper’s scythe.
多数企业的倒闭过程相对缓慢，而不是遭受突然崩溃；五花八门的问题逐渐耗尽企业的活力，消磨尽领导层的希望。困难通常由质量问题而起，如不合适的产品供应或是有故障的设备，这些问题随后转化为财务压力。因为企业存在根本缺陷，或市场结构变化使得商业模式不再具有赢利性，有时倒闭是不可避免的。但是很多情况下，只要腐朽不至过深，企业可以被激进措施挽回。企业危局扭转专家是找出企业倒闭原因及修复企业的行家。在我的职业生涯中，我曾在为数不多的时候从死神手中救出处境艰难的企业，没有比这更令人满足的事了。
By necessity, this modest survey of corporate failures is superficial. I would like The Centre for Entrepreneurs, our think-tank, to investigate this vital subject rather more comprehensively next year and see what lessons can be learnt, so that entrepreneurs, investors and policy makers may adopt Samuel Beckett’s advice: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”
不可避免地，这个关于企业失败的有限调查是缺乏深度的。我希望我们的智库——创业家中心(The Centre for Entrepreneurs)未来一年更全面地研究这一关键课题，看看能学到什么教训，或许能让企业家、投资者和政策制定者采纳塞缪尔•贝克特(Samuel Beckett)的建议：“尝试过。失败过。没关系。再尝试一次。再失败一次。败得有进步一些。”