三井物产社长：鼓励开拓精神
要猜测三井物产(Mitsui & Co)社长心中所想曾经非常容易。作为日本巨型“综合商社”中最侧重资源业务的一家，铜价、铁矿石供应和能源的地缘政治状况决定着公司的成败。
As he approaches his fourth year in charge, Tatsuo Yasunaga’s preoccupations include mayonnaise deployment at McDonald’s, Earth-mapping micro-satellites, Indonesia’s appetite for yoghurt and whether a convoy of trucks can cross the US without drivers.
在安永龙夫(Tatsuo Yasunaga)掌管三井物产即将进入第4个年头时，他关注的事情包括麦当劳(McDonald’s)蛋黄酱的使用、绘制地球地图的微型卫星、印度尼西亚对酸奶的兴趣以及卡车车队能否在没有司机的情况下穿越美国。
He is not running a grand old mansion of salarymen, he insists from an office overlooking the grounds of the Imperial Palace in central Tokyo, but a hothouse of entrepreneurs: “We are finding new markets . . . industry-wise, business-wise, penetrating new frontiers.”
在可以俯瞰东京中心皇居(Imperial Palace)庭院的办公室里，他坚持表示，他管理的不是一座安置支薪人士的旧式豪华宅邸，而是一座培养企业家的暖房：“我们正发现新的市场……无论是就行业还是业务而言，以及进军新的前沿。”
The bewildering splay of Mitsui’s trading and investment interests — animal feed to air cargo; prosciutto to passenger trains; telecoms to tailoring — is not new. Its 2017 negotiations over a port investment in Colombo that could transform Japanese trade routes, for example, are certainly not hindered by Mitsui subsidiaries having built Sri Lanka’s parliament building in 1982. Even the activities Mitsui considers core — chemicals, machinery, infrastructure, healthcare and retail — are diverse.
三井物产的贸易和投资业务无所不有，令人眼花缭乱(从动物饲料到航空货运;从熏火腿到客运列车;从电信到服装制造)，这并不是新近出现的状况。例如，2017年该公司就科伦坡一港口投资的谈判(这笔投资可能会改变日本的贸易路线)，肯定受益于如下事实：该公司的子公司1982年建造了斯里兰卡的议会大厦。甚至连三井物产认为核心的业务(化工品、机械、基础设施、医疗和零售)都种类繁多。
For many years, Japan’s trading companies, led by Mitsui and Mitsubishi, have been steadily turning into something between private equity houses and venture capitalists. There have been “significant failures” along the way, admits Mr Yasunaga, and shareholders have demanded investment discipline.
多年来，以三井物产和三菱(Mitsubishi)为首的日本贸易公司一直在稳步变成介于私人股本集团和风投资本家之间的某种企业。安永龙夫承认，在此过程中遭遇过“重大失败”，股东已要求不要乱投资。
But Mr Yasunaga’s mission now is to accelerate the shift away from resources. He is pushing the venture capital and private equity themes, and hoping that Mitsui’s “DNA-rooted” entrepreneurialism will create new business lines to take its investments deeper into consumer markets and absorb new technologies. The trading house model, he says, is well placed to make it happen. And unlike pure private equity groups such as Bain and KKR, he adds, Mitsui is used to taking a very long view.
但安永龙夫现在的任务是加速向资源业务以外的其他领域的转型。他正推动风投和私人股本主题，希望三井物产骨子里的那种创业精神，将缔造新的业务并令其投资更深入地进入消费市场并吸纳新的技术。他表示，这种贸易行模式非常有利于实现这个目标。他补充称，与贝恩(Bain)和KKR等纯私人股本集团不同，三井物产习惯于把眼光放长远。
He talks with unusual bluntness for a Japanese CEO of streamlining Mitsui’s headquarters and of introducing artificial intelligence and internet-of-things technology. He has taken, he says with pride, to confronting Mitsui staff — especially those in the core competency of risk management — with the question: “When can your job be replaced by AI?”
他以日本首席执行官不常见的直率口吻，谈到三井物产总部的机构精简和引入人工智能和物联网技术。他骄傲地表示，他直截了当地问三井物产员工(特别是那些位于风险管理核心职位上的员工)这个问题：“你的工作什么时候可能被人工智能取代?”
The funding side of this endeavour involves earmarking $200m from Mitsui’s published investment plans of $5bn-$6bn to 2020, for a special account to spend on new ventures. These may fall outside Mitsui’s comfort zone and will, Mr Yasunaga says, involve the company “sharpening pencils”.
就资金而言，这种努力涉及从三井物产已公布的截至2020年的投资计划(500亿美元至600亿美元)中预留2亿美元，用于一个开发新业务的特别账户。安永龙夫表示，这种做法可能会让三井物产紧张，它肯定会“讨价还价”。
There is a personal flavour to this enthusiasm. In 2016, a year after taking over as chief executive, Mr Yasunaga became the first Mitsui president since the second world war to announce an annual loss, as his predecessors’ bets on metal and energy soured during a global commodities rout. It was humiliating stuff. For all the breadth of its portfolio, he had inherited a company whose profits (it disclosed at the time) fell ¥2.8bn ($23.7m) for every $1 per barrel drop in the price of crude and had been, just three years earlier, 90 per cent derived from resources and energy.
这种热情带有安永龙夫个人的印记。2016年，在接任社长一年后，他成为自二战以来三井物产首位宣布年度亏损的社长，他的前任们押注于金属和能源，在全球大宗商品价格暴跌时期这些投资遭遇亏损。这是一件丢脸的事情。尽管他接管的公司是一家业务组合广泛的公司，但根据当时披露的数据，原油每桶价格每下跌1美元，该公司利润就下挫28亿日元(合2370万美元)，而且就在3年前，该公司90%的利润来自资源和能源。
He vowed to “exhaust all possible means to return to profitability”, and the current strategy, in which 50 per cent of profits will come from the consumer side of the business, is the result. On that note, his current preoccupation is Russian male life expectancy.
他发誓将“穷尽一切办法恢复盈利”，当前的战略就是这一努力的结果：50%的利润将来自该业务的消费者领域。关于这点，他目前关注的是俄罗斯男性的预期寿命。
Russia has a population of more than 144m. “They need access to quality products,” says Mr Yasunaga, describing Mitsui’s recent investment in R-Pharm, the Russian drugs group. “This is a platform to penetrate the pharmaceuticals business in Russia, and we are bringing in Japanese products and devices.” He points out that the average healthy life expectancy for men was 66.5 in 2016, “so there is big headroom”.
俄罗斯的人口超过1.44亿。“他们需要获得高质量的产品，”安永龙夫在谈到三井物产最近对俄罗斯制药集团R-Pharm的投资时表示，“这是一个进军俄罗斯制药行业的平台，我们将带去日本的产品和设备。”他指出，2016年俄罗斯健康男性的预期寿命平均为66.5岁，“因此这方面有着巨大的提高空间”。
Mitsui’s core interests in Russia will continue to be its large and expanding resource-related investments, particularly in liquefied natural gas. But the R-Pharm move is about leveraging a history of engagement with the country (and more than 60 others to which Mitsui’s resource-trading background has given it access and expertise) into markets where the margins may be greater.
三井物产在俄罗斯的核心业务将继续是大规模日益扩大的资源相关投资，尤其是液化天然气。但投资R-Pharm的意义在于利用与俄罗斯接触的历史(三井物产还与其他逾60个国家有接触的历史，其资源贸易背景令其能够进入这些市场并享有专长)，进入利润率可能更高的市场。
“Thanks to our successful experience,” he says, “and efforts to keep good contacts through our governmental affairs activities, we can control to some extent our investment . . . so we would like to increase our exposure to Russia.”
“由于我们的成功经验，”他表示，“以及通过我们的政府事务活动保持良好联系的努力，我们能够在某种程度上控制我们的投资……因此我们希望扩大我们在俄罗斯的业务。”
Mr Yasunaga faces two challenges; both point to the difficulties of bringing cultural change to a company whose history dates back to 1876. Firstly, the Japanese corporate recruitment model — whereby a company takes a large bloc of entrants once a year — is inflexible. Mr Yasunaga has already increased to about 60 a year the number of people it hires from outside.
安永龙夫面临两项挑战;这两个都显示出，让这个历史可追溯到1876年的公司实现文化变革是困难的。首先，日本企业聘用模式不灵活，根据这种模式，公司每年一次大规模招人。安永龙夫已将该公司每年从外部招聘员工的数量增加到大约60人。
The second is the accusation that corporate Japan — and the country in general — erects barriers to entrepreneurship. The innovation of which he is most proud is a support system that encourages staff to create business start-ups within the company. Twenty proposals have been received in the first year.
其次是有人指责日本企业界(以及整个日本)针对创业设置障碍。他最引以为傲的创新是建立了一个支持体系，鼓励员工在公司内部创业。第一年就收到了20份提案。
“It encourages our young guys to . . . run the business themselves, utilising Mitsui’s business platform for legal, accounting, taxation and even marketing,” he says. Mitsui will offer co-investment but let the founders keep the stock option. “I’d like to encourage them to enjoy business,” he says.
他表示：“它鼓励我们的年轻人……自己管理企业，利用三井物产的法律、会计、税收甚至营销服务平台。”三井物产将共同参与投资，但会让创始人持有期权。他表示：“我想鼓励他们享受工作。”
Additional reporting by Peter Wells
彼得•韦尔斯(Peter Wells)补充报道
