从灵活性说起吧。几年前我跟沃尔玛的副总裁谈到他们在竞争激烈的零售业中长盛不衰之事。他说的很多理由中,有一条非常突出,他说:“我们尽量让所有决策都有灵活性。”拿他们的主要决策之一——把沃尔玛的新超市建在哪里来说,这是个很大的难题。当你要投资这样一个资本密集型的固定资产时,保持灵活性是非常困难的。可这正是沃尔玛高层经理人力争做到的,而正是他们将灵活性作为主要关注事项这一事实使沃尔玛比它的大多数竞争者都更具灵活性。 Start with flexibility. A few years ago I talked to Wal-Mart’s vice president about their long-standing success in the highly competitive retail industry. One of the many reasons he said is very prominent, he said: “We try to make all the decisions have the flexibility.” Take one of their main decisions - to build Wal-Mart’s new supermarket where it is a very Big problem When you want to invest in such a capital-intensive fixed asset, maintaining flexibility is very difficult. But that’s exactly what Wal-Mart executives are striving to do, and it is their fact that flexibility is their primary concern, making Wal-Mart more flexible than most of its competitors.