發現黑天鵝 Sense the Black Swan before It’s Too Late 華爾街日報報導(2012/06/15)，Nokia這家前手機王國宣佈全球裁員14000名員工。這到底怎麼了？「許多很有創意的想法被公司高層扼殺了」一位員工在接受訪問時這麼說。 這篇報導說，Nokia被黑天鵝攻擊了。所謂黑天鵝就是「蘋果手機」和「蘋果手機的商店」。 人們喜歡用「黑天鵝」去描述某些不應該出現的現象，在沒有被預期的時間和地點出現了。可是，經濟學家馬歇爾(Alfred Marshall)說：「大自然不會跳躍」。也就是黑天鵝不會突然出現，在所謂「黑天鵝」被確認之前，許多事情已經發生了。 事實上，在被確認前，黑天鵝只是個跡象，這時候如果採取行動，並不會太慢去阻止黑天鵝從一個跡象，變成一個不能改變的真實現象。但是如果沒有採取正確的行動，黑天鵝不會只是個跡象，衰退會持續，慢慢的失去平衡，跡象變成了具體的事件，就會產生麻煩的影響。這時候，採取什麼行動都太慢了，一段新的歷史就要開始了。 我們知道，我們不能阻止黑天鵝出現，像911恐怖攻擊或是日本311的地震與核災，不只讓很多人喪命，也永遠的改變了許多人的生活。可是，我們也要了解，黑天鵝是很難在產業裏出現的。因為發生在產業裏的改變，就算是相當快，也是需要時間的，也會有足夠的警示的。 憑一個公司就想要來改變世界是相當的困難的。現在的產業已經相的專業化，分工也很細密。一個公司的成長在產業裏就像「表面張力」一樣；當表面張力擴張了，產業裏的公司，不管好的、壞的，都有機會一起成長。但是若是有一個表現特別好的公司，想要突出於表面張力，表面張力也會把它拉下來。MP3不是一夜之間就竄出來的、蘋果手機也不是突然就到處都是、SSD要滲透進入個人電腦已經講了三年了、平板電腦的出貨量超過筆記型電腦已經講了好些年。可是，明顯的，雖然這些事都會來臨，但都不會一夜之間就來的。 試想一下這種不正常的狀況；產品的供給量短缺了，但是價格還是漲不上去。這狀況似乎就在說，消費者的需求在減少了。一旦消費者改變了他們的行為，是很難再改回來的。就像今天的個人電腦產業一樣，消費者已經從個人電腦，轉變為從手機或平版電腦收取e-MAIL和其他訊息了。當然，我們不能說傳統的個人電腦已經死了，但也不需要爭辯說消費者是否會回來。盡管如此，某些在個人電腦技術上有優勢的公司，還是不停的抨擊新趨勢的發展，認為這只是一時的熱潮。顯然的，這些公司不是不懂，只是在設法穩住公司短期內的股價而已。 產業泡沫會擴張，會破滅，會一再的重演。鐵路、電話、個人電腦、網際網路，整個產業上昇又下降，只有適應力最強的公司可以活在這個變動的世界裏。華倫．巴菲特說：「預見大洪水要來不是本事，把方舟造好才是本事。」所以，即使某些人感覺到所謂黑天鵝要來，這也不是什麼了不起的事。做一些事，調整自己，適應它，活下來，才是真本事。 發現黑天鵝 Sense the Black Swan before It’s Too Late According to The Wall Street Journal (2012/06/15), Nokia, the former cellular phone dynasty, announced that they will lay off 14000 employees. What went wrong? “There were many creative ideas that were killed by high-level managers,” said Nokia employees upon being interviewed. The report said that Nokia was attacked by the Black Swan, which is Apple’s iPhone and Apple’s App Store. People like to use the name the “The Black Swan” to refer to something unusual that happened in terms of unpredictable timing, place and so on. However, economist, Alfred Marshall, said, “Nature does not make jumps.” Before the so-called black swan event is identified, many things have already happened that contributed to the current bad situation. In other words, The Black Swan is simply mistaken for appearing all of a sudden. But actually, upon first being recognized, the black swan is simply a signal or symptom that something is going wrong, but, at that time, it’s not too late to act to prevent the black swan from materializing into a real phenomenon that can’t be corrected. But, if no corrective actions are taken, the decline will continue and the black swan will not simply be a symptom of things being out of balance, but, instead, will become a real entity that generates terrible effects, at which time, it really will be too late to do anything about it. And so, another phase of history will begin. We realize that we can’t stop a black swan from appearing, such as the 9-11 terrorist attack or 3-11 Japan earthquake and tsunami that killed so many and altered people’s lives forever. However, we also need to understand that it is pretty difficult for a true black swan to appear in the industry, because changes that take place in industry, though sometimes relatively rapid, still take time and provide some advance warning. It is extremely difficult for only one company to change the world. Modern industry is finely divided up into quite specialized sectors that don’t have a lot of direct influence on unrelated sectors. A company’s growth is affected by a kind of “surface tension” within the industry. When the surface tension expands, all companies in that industry—no matter whether good or bad companies—will experience growth at the same time, and vice-versa. And even if there’s one outstanding company in an industry, a stellar performer for a time, it will pull the rest of the industry up with it while simultaneously being pulled down towards average levels by the surface tension of the industry at large. MP3 players didn’t rise up in one day, much the same as Apple didn’t just quickly appear from out of nowhere. In electronics, the infiltration of SSD drives into PC’s didn’t occur in a day and still needs more time to fully transition. Similarly, tablet PC shipment volume won’t surpass that of notebook PC’s in a single day. However, the writing is on the wall, meaning that it is pretty clear that these developments will happen in the near future. Consider the atypical situation in which a product is in short supply but the price didn’t increase. Such a case would seem to suggest that end-user demand decreased. And once end-users change their consumer behavior, they may not so easy revert to their previous behavior. Take for example today’s PC industry: users have switched from using PC’s to using cell phones and tablet PCs for receiving e-mail and information. Of course, few are ready to say that that traditional desktop and laptop PC’s are dead, but it seems that it’s difficult to dispute that a significant change in user behavior has occurred and things are unlikely to ever go back to the former status quo. Nevertheless, some companies with vested interests in the older technologies have released public statements denouncing the new technologies, suggesting that they are passing fads. Apparently, such companies are in a state of denial or they are trying to stabilize their stock prices in the near term. Bubbles expand and burst again and again. Whole industries have risen and fallen in relatively short periods of time. Only the fittest companies can survive in this dynamic world. Warren Buffett said that “predicting rain doesn’t count, building arks does.” So, even if someone senses that a so-called black swan in industry is coming, such recognition is not the important thing but rather doing something to stop it or to adjust to it is the thing that counts.
Posted on: Sun, 04 Aug 2013 01:08:21 +0000
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