[2006.05.11] For whom the Dell tolls whom, Dell, For, tolls

dgrkl

For whom the Dell tolls
戴尔为谁敲响了警钟
May 11th 2006
From The Economist print edition

The world's biggest computer-maker is stumbling
世界上最大的计算机制造商陷入了困境



EVER since Michael Dell started a company to sell computers from his University of Texas dormitory room in 1984 at the age of 19 with a mere $1,000, he has profited from big shifts in the technology industry. First it was the commoditisation of components; then the rise of the internet as a sales channel through which to reach customers. However, the very forces that the company relied on for success are now responsible for its troubles.
　1984年，19岁的Michael Dell以1000美元起家，在德州大学自己的宿舍内创立了电脑销售公司，从那时起，他就从对技术行业的几次创新中受益匪浅。一开始是为用户组装电脑，后来是更多的利用互联网做为销售渠道与消费者直接接触。凭借这些独门绝技，他的公司取得了辉煌的业绩，然而今天他们却使公司陷入了困境。　

This week Dell said its quarterly earnings, due on May 18th, would fall at the low end of its estimates. Dell's share price immediately tumbled 6% to around $25, its lowest level in three years. It follows a year of other stumbles. Dell's market share has declined and its growth rate has fallen behind that of the industry as a whole.
Dell本周透露，到5月18号公司的季度收入将会降至预期的最低值。它的股价立即下跌了6%，降至25美元，三年来的最低水平。公司还有其它麻烦，它的市场占有率下降，增长率也低于整个行业的平均水平。

Dell remains the largest PC vendor in the world, shipping 37m machines worldwide last year and commanding nearly 20% of the market (32% in America). Yet the firm, with a business model that was once the envy of the industry, has found that its chief advantages—the lack of a physical sales channel and the ability to squeeze suppliers—have become the chief sources of its woe.
戴尔公司依然是世界上最大的PC销售商，去年它在全球卖了3700万台机器，占整个市场的近20%（占美国市场的32%）。他的商业模式曾经让整个行业艳羡不已，可如今他却发现做为自己主要优势的直销渠道和压榨供货商的能力却让他陷入了困境。

　　This is because the market for computer equipment has radically changed, but Dell's business model has not adapted in response. In the past Dell used its extremely efficient supply chain, lack of sales staff, paltry inventory and direct link to customers to offer low prices that rivals could not seem to match. But that tactic no longer works. Over the past year, as Dell slashed prices, it failed to gain market share as it had hoped.
这是因为计算机配置市场已经发生了根本的变化，然而戴尔却并没有随之改变。过去戴尔凭借他高效的产品供应链和其直销模式打出了令竞争对手无法企及的低价。但是这个策略如今却不再行之有效。在过去的一年里，戴尔大幅降价，然而却并没有获得他所预期的市场份额。

　Dell says the problem is that it dropped prices too much. Kevin Rollins, the company's chief executive, says it now plans to “reinvigorate growth” by investing in customer support and improving quality. On the surface, Dell seems the victim of the law of large numbers. It has become so huge—last year its revenues were $56 billion—that its double-digit growth rates have proved to be unsustainable. But deeper, more threatening forces are also now at play.
戴尔认为问题在于他们降价的幅度太大。公司的首席扫行官Kevin Rollins说他们现在计划通过投资售后服务和提高产品质量来使市场占有率重新增长。表面上看，戴尔似乎是大数法则的受害者。去年他的营业额高达560亿美元，对于规模如此庞大的公司而言，两位数的增长确实是难以维持的。但实际上，有着更深层次的原因。

　　This is because the market for computer equipment has radically changed, but Dell's business model has not adapted in response. In the past Dell used its extremely efficient supply chain, lack of sales staff, paltry inventory and direct link to customers to offer low prices that rivals could not seem to match. But that tactic no longer works. Over the past year, as Dell slashed prices, it failed to gain market share as it had hoped.
这是因为计算机配置市场已经发生了根本的变化，然而戴尔却并没有随之改变。过去戴尔凭借他高效的产品供应链和其直销模式打出了令竞争对手无法企及的低价。但是这个策略如今却不再行之有效。在过去的一年里，戴尔大幅降价，然而却并没有获得他所预期的市场份额。

　Dell says the problem is that it dropped prices too much. Kevin Rollins, the company's chief executive, says it now plans to “reinvigorate growth” by investing in customer support and improving quality. On the surface, Dell seems the victim of the law of large numbers. It has become so huge—last year its revenues were $56 billion—that its double-digit growth rates have proved to be unsustainable. But deeper, more threatening forces are also now at play.
戴尔认为问题在于他们降价的幅度太大。公司的首席扫行官Kevin Rollins说他们现在计划通过投资售后服务和提高产品质量来使市场占有率重新增长。表面上看，戴尔似乎是大数法则的受害者。去年他的营业额高达560亿美元，对于规模如此庞大的公司而言，两位数的增长确实是难以维持的。但实际上，有着更深层次的原因。

The first is the resurgence of rivals, which have caught up with Dell's low-price model. By driving prices down, Dell has unintentionally cut costs for its rivals too. “The supply chain has become as standardised as the components—the money has been wrung out,” explains Nicholas Carr, the author of “Does IT Matter?: Information Technology and the Corrosion of Competitive Advantage”. Dell, by not working through retail outlets, is still more efficient, but the cost benefits that this once brought have been whittled away.
首先，戴尔的竞争对手们正在奋起直追，他们现在也可以打出戴尔所擅长的低价。通过压低配件价格，戴尔也无意的降低了对手们的生产成本。“信息技术是否举足轻重？：信息技术与竞争优势的衰退”一书的作者Nicholas Carr解释道：“产品供应链也已经像零部件那样标准化了，价格优势已经消失。”戴尔公司不依靠零售代理，仍然非常的高效，不过这种销售方式曾经给它带来的生产成本优势却不复存在了。

The second factor hurting Dell is that growth in the computer business is coming from the consumer market and emerging countries rather than the corporate market, in which Dell sells around 85% of its machines. Increasing sales to consumers is difficult for Dell because individuals tend to want to see and touch computers before buying them. They also like to be able to return the machine easily if it breaks. Dell's lack of retail presence, once ballyhooed as a benefit, has turned into a grave disadvantage. Likewise, sales in countries outside America are often based on the advice of sales staff, which places Dell's “direct-only” business model at a disadvantage.
第二，戴尔计算机交易的增长主要来自个人用户市场和渐渐显露的国外市场，而不是他卖掉了差不多自己85%机器的团体市场。日益增加的个人用户销售对戴尔来说有些困难，因为人们大都希望在购买之前能够亲眼看看摸摸，他们也希望在机子坏掉的时候能够很容易的退货。这样一来，戴尔曾经大放肆宣传的无须零售商的优势却变成了一个致命的缺点。同样，国外市场的产品销售往往基于销售人员的建议，这也让戴尔的只做直销的商业模式成为一个不利因素。

The absence of physical stores has also stymied Dell's attempts to expand beyond PCs, which account for more than 60% of its sales, into consumer-electronics products such as televisions. And large companies are increasingly purchasing their computer equipment as part of a package of services from consultancies to address specific business problems, says Matt Eastwood of IDC, a research firm. Dell has tried to develop a services division to remedy this, but it has nothing like the clout of rivals such as HP and IBM.
戴尔的PC业务占据了其销售总额的60%多，他想将业务拓展到比如电视机之类的电子产品方面，但由于其零库存策略，这种努力便很艰难。IDC调查公司的Matt Eastwood说，现在大公司为了解决特别的生意难题渐渐地开始从顾问服务公司购买计算机装备以做为一种打包服务。戴尔也设法发展了客服部门来弥补这种不足，但是这根本无法与惠普、IBM这样的竞争对手的实力相提并论。

A third problem facing Dell is its exclusive use of Intel chips rather than lower-priced (and in some cases better-performing) ones made by Intel's sworn rivals, AMD. This arrangement lets Dell buy chips inexpensively and benefit from Intel's generous co-marketing programmes. But it has started to harm Dell's sales for higher-margin computer servers. In March Dell acquired Alienware, a maker of high-end gaming PCs based on AMD chips. That could represent a long-awaited first step away from its Intel-only strategy.
第三，戴尔的机子全部采用了Intel芯片组，却对Intel的死敌AMD生产的价格更低（有时候表现也更好）的芯片组充耳不闻。戴尔的这种策略使得他以便宜的价格购买芯片，并且从Intel大方的市场合作计划获益。不过同时它也伤害了戴尔在高利润计算机服务器领域的销售。三月份戴尔收购了基于AMD芯片的高端游戏机生产商Alienware。这一收购行为表明戴尔迈出了他远离其“只选Intel芯片”策略的第一步。

Taken together, the changes in how computers are made and sold no longer favour Dell's business model, explains Ben Reitzes, an analyst at UBS, an investment bank. As a result, he believes Dell's best days are behind it. The commercial environment now benefits HP, with its established sales channel, large and well regarded services division and efficient supply chain—a dramatic reversal of fortune, since the firm's dependence on sales teams and retail outlets had only recently seemed hopelessly anachronistic. In the past year HP's market share increased from 13.8% to 14.9% according to Gartner, a research firm, while Dell's shrank slightly, the first time this has happened since it became one of the chief PC vendors a decade ago. But in the cut-throat computer business, success never lasts too long.
UBS投资银行的分析家Ben Reitzes说，所以这些都说明，计算机组装和销售方式的变化已经不再亲睐戴尔的商业模式。因此，他认为戴尔的辉煌期已经过去。现在的商业环境对惠普非常有利。惠普凭借其已经建立的销售渠道、被看好的规模甚大的分区服务和高效的产品，现在发展态势良好。这真是一个戏剧性的变化，就在不久前这个依靠销售小组和零售渠道的公司还被认为是一个无望的时代错误。根据调查公司Gartner的数据，过去的一年里惠普的市场占有率从13.8%上升到14.9%，而戴尔的却出现了轻微的下降，这是自从十年前其成为全球主要PC销售商来的第一次。但是在变化莫测的计算机行业里，成功是从来都不会持续太久的。

[ 本帖最后由 shiyi18 于 2006-12-23 17:33 编辑 ]

dgrkl

终于把文章弄出来了，可是还有很多不确定的地方（黄颜色），当然其它地方也有，我可能没有发现．请各位朋友多多指教．

对于戴尔以前的几种优势，我翻译的不是很准确，懂行的朋友多指点一下．

同桌的bug

dgrkl实在辛苦啊。有几个问题探讨一下：
1.customer support   我是用google搜的，一般都译为“客户服务”

2.On the surface, Dell seems the victim of the law of large numbers.
the law of large numbers（大数法则）：较小的经济体较容易实现快速增长，较大的经济体要实现快速增长则困难得多。而并非译文中“庞大销售数字影响了他们的增长率”。个人认为直译在这里是可以的，因为是经济类文章的背景。但victim不好处理，我意译为“解释”，不知是否妥贴？
我的译文：表面上，大数法则可以解释dell的低增长率。

3.—that its double-digit growth rates have proved to be unsustainable
其中“unsustainable”不能译为“难以想象的”。可理解为：两位数的增长被证明是难以维持下去的。

4. “Does IT Matter?: Information Technology and the Corrosion of Competitive Advantage”
《信息技术是否举足轻重？信息技术与竞争优势的侵蚀》

5.The absence of physical stores 零库存

6.And large companies are increasingly purchasing their computer equipment as part of a package of services from consultancies to address specific business problems
a package of services一揽子服务方案。
越来越多的大公司将购买计算机配件作为解决特定商务难题的一揽子咨询服务方案的一部分。

7.and in some cases better-performing 有时性能更优

8.services division
division是部门的意思。客服部门。

9. Alienware, a maker of high-end gaming PCs based on AMD chips
Alienware是一家生产基于AMD芯片的高端游戏PC的公司。可不是赌博机啊。

simurgh

挑错

the commoditisation of components
配件的商品化，基本就是你所说的“为用户组装电脑”

lack of a physical sales channel and the ability to squeeze suppliers

lack of a physical sales channel and the ability to squeeze suppliers

lack of a physical sales channel and the ability to squeeze suppliers
排除了实体销售渠道　因为ｄｅｌｌ模式是避免了代理分销的传统，而且采用网上直销没有实际的商店


investing in customer support
加大客户服务的投入　就是售后服务了

In the past Dell used its extremely efficient supply chain, lack of sales staff, paltry inventory
lack of sales staff,没有多余的销售员工 paltry inventory　极低的库存

Does IT Matter

翻译成“ＩＴ重要么？”是不是好些？　2003年5月美国《Harvard Business Review》刊载了尼古拉斯.卡尔（Nicholas G. Carr）题为《IT Doesn’t Matter》的文章　后来他就出了这么一本书　

physical stores
我认为是实体商店的意思

And large companies are increasingly purchasing their computer equipment as part of a package of services from consultancies to address specific business problems, 现在大公司为了解决特别的生意难题渐渐地开始从顾问服务公司购买计算机装备以做为一种打包服务。
基本上没问题，clout有infulence的意思

基于AMD芯片的赌博机生产商Alienware　
这个错啦　Alienware是生产高端游戏ｐｃ和ｎｂ的厂商　不是赌博机估计gaming　看成gambling了

he believes Dell's best days are behind it　他认为戴尔的辉煌期已经过去
　我理解也是这个意思

dgrkl

谢谢"同桌的bug"和simurgh的指导，我已经将发现的错误改正过来（红色），但蓝色感觉仍有待进一步探讨．