馬爾喬內：菲亞特的“修理工”
Andrew Nusca
2018-08-21
|
汽車界有個段子，說菲亞特開不了多久就得修。Fiat(菲亞特)？意思是“Fix It Again, Tony.”（托尼，你又要修車了。）意大利公司菲亞特收購破產的克萊斯勒后于2011年重返美國市場，結果因為這個段子在英語世界經久不衰，菲亞特順勢在2014年的電視廣告了用上了。廣告里意大利修理工面對一輛壞了的本田思域，把它換成了一輛菲亞特500X。“我們修好了”，他們告訴一臉迷茫的思域車主，開懷大笑。 修好了菲亞特的那個人——塞爾吉奧·馬爾喬內卻在不久前去世了，享年66歲。他的死十分突然，因為肩部手術的一系列并發癥引發了致命病癥，令人震驚。這位出生于意大利阿布魯佐德的菲亞特CEO，穿著他標志性的寬松黑毛衣，奮起反抗差點讓這個意大利工業巨頭徹底沉睡的全球市場力量。而就在他安排人接班掌舵時，卻遇上了致命的健康問題，實在過于諷刺。（菲亞特克萊斯勒吉普品牌的英國主管麥克·曼利被任命為馬爾喬內的接班人。“現在是充滿悲傷又困難重重的時期”，他在宣布公司本季度業績的電話會上說。） 但馬爾喬內喜歡諷刺。他2004年擔任菲亞特掌門是在公司主席翁貝托·阿涅利去世不久后，翁貝托是菲亞特創始家族阿涅利王朝的其中一位繼承人。當時就像《紐約時報》描述的那樣，他的去世引發了“一系列戲劇性的周末操作”，從而把菲亞特檢測機構SGS的CEO馬爾喬內推上了寶座，掌管這顆都靈皇冠上的明珠。馬爾喬內肩負著讓歐洲汽車業前任龍頭企業重塑輝煌的重任，他把汽車生產部門從和通用汽車的合資企業中獨立出來，控制了克萊斯勒的資產，拆分了菲亞特的部分業務，既包括拖拉機生產商CNH工業，也包括頂級超跑法拉利，把資金投入新平臺，為阿爾法、羅密歐、茱莉亞等暢銷車型提供了有力支持。 馬爾喬內撒手人寰，留下的菲亞特克萊斯勒卻幾乎沒有凈債務，有的是開發電動汽車、自動駕駛技術、向顧客直接提供購車籌資方案等具有豐富利潤前景的五年計劃。但它遠不能高枕無憂。汽車業又要掀起一番巨變，通用、福特等公司已經在大幅收緊生產目錄，將精力主要集中在利潤高的SUV上。菲亞特克萊斯勒旗下擁有吉普和道奇，具有先天優勢，但也必須做出調整。而且現任美國總統已經說得很明白，他想要美國車（和美國制造的一切）。 但馬爾喬內成功做到了他之前的CEO沒做到的事：修好了菲亞特。“他還是個建造師”，公司主席、菲亞特創始人喬瓦尼·阿涅利的玄孫約翰·埃爾坎恩2014年和馬爾喬內共同接受采訪時這樣評價這位已故CEO。“既是修理工，又是建造師。”（財富中文網） 譯者：Agatha |
There’s an old joke in the automotive industry that a Fiat won’t run for very long before needing repair. Fiat? You mean “Fix It Again, Tony.” The punchline for the Italian automaker, which reentered the U.S. market in 2011 following its acquisition of a bankrupt Chrysler, has been so persistent among English-language speakers that the company turned around and embraced it in a 2014 television ad. In the spot, Italian mechanics fix a broken down Honda Civic by replacing it with a Fiat 500X. “We fix it,” they tell the Civic’s bewildered owner, beaming. On Wednesday, the man who fixed Fiat, Sergio Marchionne, died at age 66. His death was sudden—a surprising turn of events following complications from shoulder surgery. For 15 years, the Abbruzzese executive, clad in his signature slouchy black sweater, had stood up in defiance of global market forces that seemed almost certain to put the Italian industrial giant to bed. That his health were to take a fatal turn as he was arranging for his replacement to take the helm seems too ironic. (Mike Manley, the British head of Fiat Chrysler’s Jeep brand, has been named Marchionne’s successor. “This is a very sad and difficult time,” he said during a conference call announcing the company’s quarterly results.) But Marchionne delighted in irony. His ascendance to Fiat’s top job in 2004 happened only after the death of chairman Umberto Agnelli, one of the heirs to the dynasty of Fiat’s founding Agnelli family, setting in motion “a series of dramatic weekend maneuvers,” as the?New York Times?aptly described it at the time, that put Marchionne—then the CEO of its testing services unit SGS—in control of Turin’s crown jewel. Tasked with turning around what was once Europe’s leading automaker, Marchionne extracted the carmaker from a joint venture with General Motors, took control of Chrysler’s assets, and spun off parts of Fiat—from tractor maker CNH Industrial to supercar icon Ferrari—to give it the cash to invest in new platforms that underpin well-received models such as the Alfa Romeo Giulia. Marchionne leaves behind a Fiat Chrysler with nearly no net debt and a five-year plan studded with electric cars, autonomous driving technology, and ample profit potential, in part by offering vehicle financing directly to buyers. But the automaker is hardly out of the woods. Another sea change is afoot in the auto industry, and rivals General Motors and Ford are aggressively slimming down their portfolios to focus on profitable SUVs. With Jeep and Ram, Fiat Chrysler is well positioned, but it too must adjust. Meanwhile, the sitting U.S. president has made his preference for American-made cars (and everything else) clear. But Marchionne managed to do what few executives did before him: fix Fiat. “He’s a builder, too,” chairman John Elkann, great-great-grandson of Fiat founder Giovanni Agnelli, said of the late CEO in a joint interview with him in 2014. “A fixer and a builder.” |
