双语文章:福特的雄心壮志

Listen to enough auto executives detail their growth plans, compare them to forecasts of the global auto market and you quickly realise that their collective market shares would have to be well over 100 per cent. But who will walk the walk as well as they talk the talk in this zero-sum game?

听多了汽车公司高管们对他们制定的增长计划的雄韬伟略, 再将它们与全球汽车市场预测相对比, 你很快就会发现, 他们所提及的各自的市场份额总和一定超过100%. 然而在这场零和游戏中, 谁又能说到做到呢?

Ford, which unveiled plans on Tuesday to raise unit sales by 50 per cent by the middle of this decade, has more credibility than most to back up such bold goals. If industry forecasts of emerging market auto demand are correct, then this new target “only” means a global market share gain of a single percentage point to around 8.2 per cent, comparable to its progress in the US market recently.

福特汽车公司于周二宣布要在2017年之前将汽车销售量提高50%. 这个宣布比其他许多汽车公司公布的计划更具有可信度. 如果对新兴市场的汽车需求的行业预测是正确的, 那么福特的这个目标仅仅意味着其全球市场份额只增长一个百分点, 达到8.2%左右, 与其最近在美国市场的增长进程相当.

But repeating this globally is far more ambitious. It will require a continuation of Ford’s shift to smaller cars and playing catch-up in China and India. In the past decade it has quadrupled its proportion of sales to Asia and Africa and hopes to double it again to nearly a third by 2020 through entering more segments. Doing so at a competitive price will rely on its still-incomplete “One Ford” programme, begun in 2006 to launch five global platforms. Ford hopes that this, along with an improving brand image, will allow it to increase global margins to 8-9 per cent from 6.1 per cent today.

但是, 要将这个增长趋势扩展至全球则需要更多的雄心壮志. 它将要求福特继续地将其生产转移到排量更小的车型, 并且在中国和印度市场上奋起直追. 在过去十年里, 福特在亚洲和非洲的销量增长了三倍, 希望在2020年通过进军更多的领域, 将销量增长再翻一番, 达到该地区市场份额的三分之一. 要以有竞争力的价格来实现这个目标需要依靠福特本身的尚未完成的 “一个福特” 计划. 这个计划始于2006年, 意在创建五个全球平台. 福特希望通过将这个计划与提高自身品牌形象结合起来, 将其全球利润率从现在的6.1%上升到8%--9%.

Among US manufacturers, Ford was seen as most likely to gain global share in a survey of auto executives surveyed by KPMG and released just before the earthquake hobbled Japan’s manufacturers. That country’s manufacturers ranked low, cramped by a strong yen, but others – Volkswagen as well as Chinese, Indian and Korean manufacturers – ranked higher. Even as Ford’s momentum of the past two years suggests it can keep outpacing larger rivals such as Toyota and General Motors to help meet its ambitious goals, it must keep an eye on the overtaking lane.

毕马威曾对汽车行业高管进行调查并于日本地震重创日本汽车制造商之前发布调查结果. 调查显示, 在美国众多汽车制造商中, 福特被认为最有可能提高其全球市场份额. 由于受到日元汇率强劲趋势的影响, 美国的汽车制造商排名较后, 而其他国家的汽车制造商, 如德国的大众以及中国, 印度以及韩国的汽车制造商, 则排名靠前. 尽管福特过去两年的强劲势头说明其增长步伐可以超越丰田和通用汽车公司, 实现其雄心壮志, 但是它也要时刻留意竞争对手, 防止它们 “超速行驶”, 赶在它的前面.