经济学人05: 清白先生 Mr Clean

 　　Mr Clean

　　清白先生
　　Ian King wants to transform the way the world's third-biggest defence company does business
　　伊安·金想转变世界第三大军工公司的经营之道
　　ON JUNE 27th last year, just six weeks after Mike Turner, the chief executive of BAE Systems, had been detained on arrival in America in connection with corruption 1 allegations, Ian King was announced as his successor. Mr Turner and another of the firm's directors were not held for long, and many felt that the Department of Justice, which seized their laptops and BlackBerrys, had acted heavy-handedly. But the incident, which stemmed from a long-running investigation 2 into claims that BAE had lubricated the £43 billion ($70 billion) “al-Yamamah” arms deal with Saudi Arabia with bribes 3 to government officials and members of the royal family, was yet another embarrassment 4 for the world's third-biggest defence company.
　　去年6月27日，就在英国BAE系统公司的首席执行官Mike Turner抵达美国即因牵涉腐败案件而被拘留之后六周，伊安·金被宣布接替他的职务。Turner先生和另一位公司主管并没有被扣押太久，很多人认为，收缴了他们的手提电脑和黑莓手机的司法部出手过重。但这一事件使这个世界第三大军工公司又一次陷入尴尬。这一事件源于一个长期调查，旨在证明BAE向沙特阿拉伯的政府官员和皇室成员行贿，以促成430亿英镑（合700亿美元）的“al-Yamamah”军火交易。
　　In some ways Mr King's appointment was a surprise. Dick Olver, BAE's chairman since 2004, has been on a mission to restore the reputation of a firm that has all too often found itself at the centre of corruption allegations. In 2007 he took the extraordinary step of asking a former Lord Chief Justice, Lord Woolf, to lead an independent inquiry 5 into BAE's ethical 6 standards. After he pushed Mr Turner into early retirement 7, it was assumed that Mr Olver would make a clean break with the past by choosing an outsider to carry forward his crusade. Indeed, several Americans were considered for the job (America is the British firm's biggest market). So when Mr King, the only internal candidate, got the nod, some suspected that the British government had used its “golden share” to veto the appointment of a foreigner.
　　从某些方面来说，金先生的任命出人意料。2004年上任的BAE主席Dick Olver一直都肩负着重塑公司声誉的使命，这个公司已过多地陷入腐败案件的中心。2007年他走出了不同寻常的一步，他请来前最高法院首席法官Woolf阁下展开对BAE道德标准的独立调查。在他迫使Turner先生提前退休之后，人们认为Olver先生将与过去做出果断的决裂，选择一位局外人来推动他的改革运动。的确，曾有几个美国人被考虑过担任这项职务（美国是这家英国公司最大的市场）。所以，当金先生，这个唯一的国内候选人，获得首肯的时候，有些人怀疑英国政府投出了它的“金票”来否决一个外国人的任命。
　　BAE executives deny that happened, but the government must have been relieved that the country's dominant 8 defence contractor 9 would be run by someone it knew well. Mr King began his career in 1976 as a trainee 10 accountant with Marconi, a defence-electronics subsidiary of Arnold Weinstock's GEC, Britain's biggest industrial conglomerate 11. In the late 1990s a wave of consolidation 12 hit the defence industry on both sides of the Atlantic and Marconi Electronic Systems, as it had become, was taken over by British Aerospace 13 to form BAE Systems.
　　BAE的执行官们否定了这种说法，但英国政府一定为这个国家最重要的军工商由一个它了解的人来管理而感到放心。金先生于1976年在Marconi担任会计实习生，从而开始了他的事业，这是Arnold Weinstock建立的英国最大的工业联合企业GEC的军防电子子公司。1990年代后期，合并浪潮席卷了大西洋两岸的军工业，Marconi成了Marconi电子系统公司，并被英国航空航天公司兼并，成为BAE系统公司。
　　John Weston, the abrasive 14 boss of British Aerospace asked Mr King, who had been finance director at Marconi for several years, to handle strategy for the merged 15 firm. A number of operational roles followed, which ultimately left Mr King running most of the business outside America. Mr King's background at Marconi may well have counted in his favour when it came to appointing a new chief executive. British Aerospace, which did the first al-Yamamah deal in 1985, had a buccaneering culture very different from that of GEC, where, says Mr King, Lord Weinstock always demanded the highest standards of commercial behaviour.
　　粗暴的英国航空航天公司老板John Weston要求担任Marconi财务主管多年的金先生来把握这个合并公司的战略。后续的几个运营管理角色接踵而来，最终让金先生掌握了除美国以外的几乎所有业务。到了任命新的首席执行官的时候，金先生在Marconi公司工作的背景也为他加分。英国航空航天公司在1985年做成第一单al-Yamamah生意，它海盗般的文化和GEC截然不同，金先生说，在GEC，Weinstock阁下一直都以最高的商业行为标准来要求他们。
　　After nearly a decade of steadily 16 growing profits and armed with a strong balance-sheet, BAE is in many ways in good shape. But the next few years are likely to be more testing. With the exception of Saudi Arabia, where the firm has recently completed another multi-year deal to sell and maintain fighter aircraft, BAE's major customers are pulling in their horns. Spiralling government debt in America and Britain means that “wars of choice” are no longer affordable 17 and the search is on for cuts in big procurement 18 programmes. The review recently undertaken by Robert Gates, America's defence secretary, resulted in the cancellation 19 of part of the Future Combat Systems programme, a big army-modernisation project for which BAE is a prominent contractor. In Britain, cuts to an already overstretched defence budget are only being postponed 20 until after next year's election.
　　拥有强有力的资产负债表，且保持近十年的利润稳步增长，从很多方面来说，BAE都状况良好。但接下来的几年可能会经受更多考验。除了沙特阿拉伯——BAE刚又跟它签署了一项多年的销售和维护战斗机的协议——之外，BAE的其他客户都在缩减开支。螺旋上升的债务使得美国和英国无力承担“选择之战”，对于大额采购项目缩减方案的搜索行动也开始启动。美国国防部长Roberts Gates最近展开的调查，令美国取消了部分未来战斗系统项目，这个庞大的军队现代化项目最主要的承包商就是BAE。在英国，对已经过于铺张的国防预算的缩减计划被推迟到明年大选之后。
　　Mr King appears unfazed. BAE is less dependent on big “platform” sales than it used to be and now sees itself as a provider of “through-life support” for complex systems, much like the aero-engine industry. He also believes that BAE's strength in army equipment, particularly armoured and mine-resistant vehicles, stands it in good stead for what he calls the “current fight” in places such as Afghanistan. It is all business as usual for an experienced operator like Mr King. What is not, however, is the company's effort to transform the way in which it does business. BAE admits to no wrongdoing over al-Yamamah, which was primarily a deal between governments, it says, nor over any of the other deals that are still under scrutiny 21 (in 2007, the British government said BAE contracts in six countries were being investigated by the Serious Fraud Office). But BAE has promised not just to implement 22 the 23 recommendations made by Lord Woolf in his report, but also to “embed” his ideas in its culture. To that end, Mr King has embarked 23 on a huge training programme to inform all 97,000 BAE employees worldwide of their ethical responsibilities.
　　金先生似乎并不担心。BAE已不再像过去那样依赖大的“平台”销售，它现在更将自己看作是复杂系统的“终身支持”提供商，这很像航空引擎业。他还相信，BAE在军队设备方面的强项，尤其是装甲车和防地雷车，让它在发生在像阿富汗这样地方的他称之为“当前战斗”之中，处于有利地位。对于金先生这样一个经验丰富的管理者来说，这只是日常生意。而不寻常的，是这个公司转变经营方式的努力。BAE不承认在al-Yamamah中有任何过错，他说，这主要是政府之间的生意，它在其他任何仍在接受调查的案件中也没有过错（2007年英国政府指出BAE在六个国家的合同正在接受严重欺诈办公室的调查）。但是，BAE承诺，它不仅将实施Woolf阁下在报告中提出的23项建议，而且还将把他的理念融入公司文化。为了实现这个目的，金先生已经着手开展一个庞大的培训项目，向全球9万7千名BAE员工宣讲他们的道德责任。
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　　道德品质免费热线
　　Mr King says he wants staff to be able to raise ethical issues in the same way they would an engineering problem—something to be discussed openly. Earlier this year BAE sent a 64-page code of conduct to each of its workers, with detailed 24 advice on how to behave in every situation. With the booklet came a small card, to be carried at all times, with a list of toll-free numbers for the firm's “ethics 25 helpline”.
　　金先生表示，他希望员工能够提出道德问题，就像他们提出工程技术问题一样，是可以公开讨论的事情。今年早些时候，BAE向它的每个工人发放了一本64页的行为准则，列明了各种情况下应该如何应对的详细建议。这个册子里还夹着一张便于随时携带的小卡片， 上面列有免费电话号码，可以打给公司的“道德帮助热线”。
　　It is easy to scoff 26 at the idea of an arms firm preaching ethics, particularly one that is still making money from deals concluded before its squeaky-clean rules were put in place. Nor is an industry veteran, such as Mr King, an obvious new broom. But he has all the fervour of a true convert. “You have to believe in it,” he says. “It's a journey you personally have to make.” Helpfully, a significant part of his own remuneration is, he says, linked to making BAE “a benchmark” for responsible behaviour in the industry. Shareholders 27, he claims, are supportive. They have accepted that it is better to lose business in some parts of the world than to expose BAE to reputational risk. As for the Saudis, Mr King says that they too now want to do things differently. And if a rival firm were to offer to do business with them in the “traditional” way? “Then the Saudis will have to make their choice,” he says.
　　要嘲笑一个军火商去鼓吹道德是很容易的，尤其是这个公司在实施它一尘不染的规定之前达成的那些交易还在挣钱的时候。一个身经百战的业内老兵如金先生者也不是一个新官。但他拥有进行真正转变的所有热情。“你必须相信它，”他说，“它是一条你必须亲自踏上的旅途。”有帮助的是，他说，把BAE塑造成业内负责任行为的“标杆”这一目标将与他自己酬劳的很大一部分相关联。他表示，股东们很支持。他们情愿接受在世界某地失去业务，也不愿BAE承受声誉风险。至于沙特人，金先生说，他们现在也想改变行事方法。那么如果一个竞争对手公司提出和他们用“传统”的方式做生意呢？“那么沙特人就必须做出他们的选择，” 他说。