世界500強(qiáng)CEO訪談 第65期:聯(lián)邦快遞弗雷德里克史密斯 世界將會(huì)改變(1)

Reporter: Where and when did you get the idea for Federal Express?

記者：您是在何時(shí)何地有了創(chuàng)辦聯(lián)邦快遞的想法的呢?

Smith: The original idea came in two parts. The first part was when... I was a student at Yale and I was writing a paper about the computerized society that was on the horizon. It was pretty clear then, with IBM installing the big computers around, that the world was going to change. And the paper was about how this was going to change a lot of things, and in particular it was going to change the way things had to be distributed and moved to support those automated devices. Then I sort of let that lie. I didn’t get a particularly good grade on it, as I recall. I don’t think it was prescient, or brilliant in any respect. When I graduated from Yale in 1966，I went into the service, like a great percentage of my classmates at that time. The Vietnam War had begun in earnest, and I spent four and a half years in the Marine Corps. That’s when I sort of crystallized the idea for FedEx on the supply side, how to solve the problem that had been identified in that paper. In the military there’s a tremendous amountof waste. The supplies were sort of pushed forward, like you push food onto a table. And invariably, all of the supplies were in the wrong place for where they were needed. Observing that and trying to think about ways to have a different type of a distribution system is what crystallized the idea. The solution was, in my mind, to have an integrated air and ground system, which had never been done. And to operate not on a linear basis, where you try to take things from one point to another, but operate in a systemic manner. Sort of the way a bank clearing house does, you know? They have a bank clearing house in the middle of all the banks and everybody sends someone down there and they swap everything around. Well, that had been done in transportation before: the Indian post office， the French post office. American Airlines had tried a system like that shortly after World War II. But the demand side and supply side had really not met at an appropriate level of maturation. By the early ‘70s when I’d gotten out of the service it was very clear that this new society was coming in earnest. And so, at that point I said, “What the hell, let’s try to put it together.” And that’s how FedEx came to be. And then from that point forward, the requirements for this type of system were so profound and so big, really for the next 25 years to this date we’ve simply been running just to keep up with the requirements. And that’s what led to the hundreds of planes and the thousands of trucks. I wish it was something that I could say I was so smart. And that’s what we’ve been doing for the last quarter century.

史密斯：我最初的想法可以分為兩部分。第一部分是當(dāng)我還是一名耶魯大學(xué)的學(xué)生的時(shí)候，那時(shí)候我準(zhǔn)備寫一篇有關(guān)于我們的社會(huì)即將成為一個(gè)計(jì)算機(jī)化的社會(huì)的論文。那時(shí)的形勢是，隨著 IBM在全世界范圍內(nèi)安裝大型計(jì)算機(jī)， 我們生活的世界將會(huì)發(fā)生改變。我的論文是關(guān)于這將會(huì)如何使很多事物發(fā)生改變，尤其是這將會(huì)如何影響人們遞送物品的方式，以支持那些自動(dòng)化設(shè)備的運(yùn)轉(zhuǎn)。后來我就把這件事情擱置下了。我記得，當(dāng)時(shí)我那篇論文并沒有取得一個(gè)好的分?jǐn)?shù)。我認(rèn)為，那篇論文無論從哪一方面來說都不是有先見之明或是突出的。在我1966年從耶魯大學(xué)畢業(yè)的時(shí)候，和那時(shí)我大多數(shù)的同學(xué)一樣，我開始服兵役。那時(shí)候越南戰(zhàn)爭爆發(fā)了，我在海軍陸戰(zhàn)隊(duì)待了4年半的時(shí)間。那個(gè)時(shí)候，我想要?jiǎng)?chuàng)辦聯(lián)邦快遞的想法才漸漸有了雛形，我才知道了應(yīng)該如何解決我在那篇論文中所提出的問題。在軍隊(duì)里，浪費(fèi)的現(xiàn)象很嚴(yán)重。供給問題被提了出來，就像把食物放到桌上一樣明顯。因?yàn)楹翢o例外，所有的供給都沒有被用到真正需要的地方?？吹竭@些，我便開始想怎樣才能有一種不同的分配體系，這樣我的想法開始具體化。我腦海中想到的解決方式就是，我們需要有一個(gè)完整的空中和陸地供應(yīng)體系， 這在那之前是并不存在的。這個(gè)體系的運(yùn)行不僅要能夠達(dá)到長度上的要求，即能夠?qū)⑹挛飶囊粋€(gè)地方運(yùn)送到另一個(gè)地方，還要能夠以一種系統(tǒng)的方式運(yùn)行。就像是銀行票據(jù)交換處的工作方式那樣。你知道在所有銀行所處地域的中間地帶，設(shè)置一個(gè)銀行票據(jù)交換處，然后每一個(gè)銀行都派一個(gè)工作人員去那里，進(jìn)行票據(jù)交換。這以前在交通方面出現(xiàn)過，比如說，印度郵電局、法國郵電局。美國航空公司曾經(jīng)在二戰(zhàn)結(jié)束之后形成了一個(gè)體系。但是當(dāng)時(shí)的需求方和供給方都沒有達(dá)到一定的成熟度。到上世紀(jì)70年代初期，我服完兵役之后，很明顯的就是一個(gè)新的社會(huì)正熱切地朝我們走來。然后那時(shí)，我說： "管他呢，讓我們把這些都組成一個(gè)整體吧! ”聯(lián)邦快遞就這樣誕生了。然后從那時(shí)起，人們對(duì)于我們這種服務(wù)體系的需求越來越多，在接下來的25年中直到現(xiàn)在，我們一直都只是在從事著滿足人們對(duì)于快遞服務(wù)的需求的工作。這也促使我們擁有了屬于自己的成百架飛機(jī)和成千輛卡車，我希望說自己在這方面做得還是很不錯(cuò)的，這也是我們?cè)谶^去的25年時(shí)間中一直在從事的工作。

Reporter: How would you describe your childhood?

記者：您怎樣看您的童年呢?

Smith: My childhood was autonomous, in the main. My father passed away when I was four. I had a lovely mother, but not having a father influence, I learned a lot of things on my own. I think that would be the best characterization of it.

史密斯：我的童年總體來說都是靠自己的。在我4歲的時(shí)候我父親就去世了。我有一位非?？蓯鄣哪赣H，但是由于從小沒有父親的幫助，很多事情都是我自學(xué)的。我想這就是對(duì)我童年的最好的描述。