金蝶的梦想之旅
三年前，徐少春(Robert Xu)拿一把榔头砸了自己的笔记本电脑，几个月后又像砸陶罐一样砸掉了一台服务器。就这一癖好来说，尤其就一家深圳企业来说，他不是一个典型的首席执行官。毗邻香港的深圳曾是一个小渔村，现以大批量生产笔记本电脑和其他电子产品闻名。
Yet his antics, which may not be out of place among the eccentric tech entrepreneurs of Silicon Valley, provide a vivid illustration of Kingdee’s own ascent up the value chain, and to an extent the evolution of China’s technology sector.
不过他的荒唐举止——也许放在硅谷那些古怪的科技创业者中间并不出格——以非常生动的方式让人们看到，金蝶(Kingdee)提升了自己在价值链上的位置，一定程度上也折射出了中国科技产业的进步。
Founded in 1993, Kingdee is one of a breed of Chinese companies that — at least in their home market — are producing innovative technology instead of importing know-how from the West. Social platform Tencent combines features of Facebook and WhatsApp, for example, while Alibaba is China’s version of Amazon.
金蝶成立于1993年，是(至少在本土市场上)自主生产创新性科技产品、而不是从西方借鉴引进技术的中国公司之一。比如社交平台腾讯(Tencent)就兼具了Facebook与WhatsApp的特色，阿里巴巴(Alibaba)则是中国版的亚马逊(Amazon)。
Kingdee originally sold accounting software based on Microsoft Windows to Chinese companies before developing a range of other products for domestic customers, mainly small and medium-sized enterprises. Later, Mr Xu noticed what Microsoft and others were doing — decanting companies’ data centres on to the cloud to securely store emails and all the other information generated in the course of business and decided he could do it too. Hence his laptop and server bashing — his way of showing clients they did not need a lot of computer memory to run their businesses any more.
金蝶最早面向中国企业销售基于微软(Microsoft)操作系统Windows的会计软件，然后为国内客户，主要是中小企业，开发了一系列其他产品。后来徐少春注意到微软等一些公司正在做一件事：将企业数据中心转移到云端，把业务过程中产生的电子邮件以及其他所有信息安全地存储起来。这让他做了个决定，他也可以做这件事。所以他才砸笔记本电脑、砸服务器，用这种方式来向客户表明，他们再也不需要大量计算机内存来运行自己的业务。
“In the IT industry there’s a new major wave every 10 years,” he says. “The PC-based IT has evolved from MS-DOS at an early stage and now we are heading into the cloud computing era,” he explains.
徐少春说：“在IT行业，每十年就会出现一次新的浪潮。以PC为基础的IT行业已从早期的MS-DOS进化了，现在我们正进入云计算时代。”
The basic tenet of Kingdee’s business is that the Chinese executives it serves can work anywhere with only a smartphone to access everything they need — documents, spreadsheets, colleague details and the ability to hold group conferences, either by voice or video.
金蝶基本经营宗旨是，让自己服务的中国高管可以在任何地方办公，只用一部智能手机就能访问他们需要的一切，文档、电子表格、员工资料，而且还能召开语音或视频小组会议。
As for the data-server vandalism, this came after Kingdee pulled out of its own business running the large groups of networked computer servers that are the backbone of cloud computing. It has struck a joint venture with Amazon Web Services to make its software available on the US company’s cloud. This has allowed Kingdee, not huge by Chinese standards, to focus on its niche business helping Chinese SMEs run systems.
砸数据服务器之前，金蝶退出了本来的业务——运营大批的相互连接的计算机服务器，这些设施是云计算的支柱。金蝶与亚马逊云服务(AWS)签署了合作协议，约定在这家美国公司的云端提供金蝶软件。这让金蝶——一家以中国标准衡量并不算大的企业——得以专注于自己的特色目标业务，即帮助中国中小企业运营系统。
“I want the company to focus on [the ]applications cloud so [the] enterprise applications services market is our main market, our goal,” Mr Xu says.
徐少春说：“我希望公司专注于云应用，因此企业应用服务市场是我们的主要市场，我们的目标。”
To illustrate this point to staff, the grey tower block Kingdee inhabits boasts a simulated beach with recliners, hammock and palm tree. On the fake sky is a projection screen showing its smartphone apps that can run a business from anywhere.
为了向员工表明这点，金蝶所在的灰色大楼里搞了个模拟海滩，有躺椅、吊床和棕榈树。模拟天空上有块投射屏幕，上面展示着金蝶的智能手机应用，无论身处何方，都可以用它们运营业务。
Kingdee has a healthy 14 per cent operating margin, while post-tax profits rose from Rmb126m in 2013 to an estimated Rmb378m this year ($55m). It also has 8,000 staff serving some international clients as well as millions of domestic SMEs.
金蝶的营业利润率为14%，相当可观;2013年税后利润为1.26亿元人民币，今年预计为3.78亿元人民币(约合5500万美元)。金蝶拥有8000名员工，为数百万国内中小企业以及一些国际客户服务。
Speaking in his vast, split-level office, replete with tall Ming vases and his rowing machine, Mr Xu (who is Robert to all employees, including his driver) lacks many of the trappings of the traditional Chinese chief executive.
徐少春的所有员工，包括他的司机都叫他“Robert”。他的办公室很大，复式结构，满满当当地摆放着硕大的明代花瓶、他的划船机等东西。在自己办公室里侃侃而谈的徐少春，少了许多传统中国老板的摆设。
Like many of his peers, his English is threadbare. Yet instead of the usual boardroom photos of the boss shaking hands with Chinese leaders, the picture in pride of place is of him rowing. He dresses just one shade too funkily, pairing Gucci brogues with a shirt printed with flowers and monkeys.
就像许多同辈人一样，他也说着很老套的英语。不过办公室显眼的位置上挂的不是常见的那类会议室照片——老板与中国领导人握着手——而是徐少春划船的照片。他的穿着显得有点太潮了，脚上是古驰(Gucci)的布洛克皮鞋，上身则搭配了一件印着花朵和猴子的衬衫。
His story, however, is a familiar one for China’s self-made men and women. Growing up on a farm in Hunan, a province known for spiced food and being the birthplace of Mao Zedong, he wanted to change the difficult lives of those he saw around him.
他的故事倒很常见，就是那类中国人白手起家的故事。在湖南一个农场长大的他想改变周围人所过的那种艰苦生活。湖南省以吃辣闻名，是毛泽东的出生地。
“Just as there is [the concept of] the American dream, this is the Chinese dream,” he says.
他说：“就像美国梦一样，这就是中国梦。”
Mr Xu’s own dream unfurled with two years of government-assigned work in a factory in Wuhan and another two years with a local tax bureau before he wound up in Shenzhen, a place that has symbolised China’s economic development ever since former leader Deng Xiaoping declared it a “special economic zone” in 1980, spurring decades of breakneck growth in the city and across China.
徐少春的个人梦想之旅则是这样展开的，毕业后他被分配到武汉一家工厂干了两年，接着在地方税务局又干了两年，再之后就跑到深圳发展。1980年中国领导人邓小平宣布深圳为“经济特区”，从此启动了深圳以及全中国几十年的高速经济增长，深圳也成了中国经济发展的象征。
Armed with degrees in computing and accountancy and Rmb5,000 borrowed from relatives, he then set up his own business — a precursor to Kingdee.
拿着向亲戚们借来的5000元人民币，拥有计算机和会计双学位的徐少春在深圳成立了自己的公司，也就是金蝶的前身。
He attributes the company’s success to harnessing talent. “Human capital accounts for 65 per cent of costs,” he says. “Its also our biggest asset.”
他将公司的成功归结于善用人才。他说：“人力资本占了65%的成本。这也是我们最大的资产。”
He rewards employees well. Last year an outstanding performer won a Rmb5m apartment. Graduate hires are referred to as “pure gold”, a play on the company’s Chinese name, which translates as “golden butterfly”.
他对员工的奖励很大方。去年一位杰出员工获得了一套价值500万元人民币的公寓。大学生员工被称为“纯金人才”，取自公司名称“金蝶”中的金子之意。
The smartest employees work in the research institute, headed up by Zhang Liang-jie. He is one of an annual crop of “thousand talents” of highly skilled Chinese scientists whom the Beijing government woos home from overseas.
那些最聪明的员工进入研究院，在张良杰手底下工作。张良杰是中国政府“千人计划”的一员，属于从海外引进回国的高层次中国科学家。
Dr Zhang is investigating artificial intelligence and virtual reality — for example exploring applications for business customers that will automatically trigger a warning device when the electricity bill hits the budgeted level, or shift workforces to night-time work when electricity rates are lower. 张良杰博士正在研究人工智能和虚拟现实，比如为企业客户开发一种应用程序，当电费达到预算水平时就自动触发警告装置，或让工作人员转到夜间工作，夜间的电价要低一些。
It is fitting stuff for Chinese employers, who are focused on cutting costs at the same time as softening economic growth has thinned industrial profits.
这种东西正合中国雇主的需要，在国内经济增长放缓导致工业利润变薄之时，企业正一心降低成本。
“Cloud services lower [companies’] costs and increase their efficiency,” Mr Xu says. An economic topic on which he is coy, however, is what Donald Trump’s policies may mean for Chinese exports to the west. Instead he is jocular. “He’s an entrepreneur, like me. Maybe I should have a career change too?”
徐少春说：“云服务降低了企业成本，提高了效率。”但有一个他不愿多谈的经济话题就是，唐纳德•特朗普(Donald Trump)的政策，对于中国向西方的出口将意味着什么。他开玩笑地说道：“他是个企业家，跟我一样。也许我也该换个职业?”
