和創始人一起當CEO，是什么感覺？
Jonathan Vanian
2018-12-27
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幾個月前，商業軟件巨頭Salesforce任命了基思·布洛克作為公司的聯席CEO，與之前長期擔任CEO的馬克·貝尼奧夫一同工作，Salesforce也成了業內又一家同時擁有兩位CEO的“雙核”公司。 Salesforce認為，雙CEO架構對于公司增長十分重要。布洛克于五年前加盟Salesforce，此前他曾在數據庫巨頭甲骨文公司就職。Salesforce的軟件主要通過云服務交付，目前該公司的股價在130美元左右，較2013年上漲了一倍以上。 布洛克表示，在五年前，Salesforce的客戶主要還是美國的中小企業?，F在，它的客戶已經包括了豐田、美國運通和State Farm等世界知名企業。 在此次采訪中，布洛克談到了他的搭檔馬克·貝尼奧夫、舊金山的流浪者問題，以及信任的重要性。采訪稿有刪節。 《財富》：Salesforce為什么需要兩位CEO？ 布洛克：這一切都是為了幫助公司擴大規模。我們經常講，到2022財年，要讓公司的銷售額達到230億美元（2017年該公司的營收為84億美元），現在我們把目標定在了300億美元以上。因而我們希望有一個架構能使我們更快地進行決策，劃分權責，攻城略地，專注于我們的優勢。 你們以前為什么不能做到這一點？ 我們這樣做已經有很長時間了。重點是要強化角色和責任，固定一個運營模式。我認為這很重要，因為運營中如果有任何不明確的地方，都會影響效率。 有沒有哪些決策是你會做而貝尼奧夫不會做的？能舉個例子嗎？ 比如關于財務部門運作方式、后臺基礎架構、企業銷售策略，再比如與Mulesoft有關的戰略問題等等（Mulesoft是Salesforce今年早些時候以65億美元收購的一家企業軟件公司）。 也有些事情需要我們一起做決定，比如進入一個新的市場、收購一家有價值的公司，等等。 我們的公司增長得非常迅速。五年前我們的業績只有30億美元，今年我們的業績已經超過了130億美元，明年我們要做到160億美元以上，后年我們要做到230億美元。因此你不能再用老辦法管理公司，你要充分利用之前的成功經驗，同時也要添加能幫你擴大企業規模的新流程。 馬克喜歡思考公司戰略、產品戰略和企業文化的問題，而我的優勢是公司的日常運營，同時我也非常關注客戶。 在你服務的行業里，有沒有一個大家共同關注的主題？ 一切為客戶服務。在本世紀初，大家都十分關注降低成本，這也將始終是一個所有人都關注的話題。另外，所有企業永遠都想提高效率。但現在也有一種新的趨勢，即全球性的數字化轉型現象，轉型的目的是為了增長。企業的CEO們也需要增長，你不能自己斷了通往繁榮的道路。 最近公眾很關注數據隱私問題，這對你們的業務有影響嗎？ 沒有企業因為數據隱私問題找上我們。我們的核心價值始于信任。每家公司都需要有一個數據戰略，每個人都要關心信任問題，同樣，每個人也要擔心安全問題。 你信任哪些公司？ 我非常信任State Farm公司，我認為他們的CEO邁克爾·提普索爾德是一名世界級的商業領袖。他非常關心自己的員工，而且在公司打造了一種信任文化?；萜展镜牡衔獭ぞS斯勒也是一名世界級的商業高管，我認為他在惠普干得非常出色。巴克萊銀行的杰斯·斯特利也出色的扭轉了這家銀行的局面。 為了擴大規模，Salesforce是否需要進軍核心的客戶關系管理（CRM）產品以外的領域？ 首先，我們所在的市場基本上是由我們自己創造的，它是增長最快的企業細分市場。目前，市場上有做操作系統的，有做數據庫的，有做ERP的，也有做CRM的，而CRM是增長最快的細分市場，而且它也將是最大的一個細分市場。我們的增長速度是市場增長率的兩倍以上。 所以我認為，堅持我們的重點是很重要的。我們不必像其他的傳統公司一樣。他們有巨大的產品組合，有些產品之間的親緣未必很近。你看到他們的情形可能會說：“你為什么要做這個？你為什么要做那個？” 你們為什么要收購Quip（一個文字處理工具）？是要打造一款與微軟Office競爭的產品嗎？ Quip本身不是一種生產力。但對于一名想提高效率的銷售人員或服務人員來說，它天然接近于一種生產力。我們通過收購所做的一切，都是為了這種天然的接近。人們習慣于將Quip看作是一種類似于微軟Office的文字處理工具，但它實際上是一個出色的協作工具，我們的每名員工都在用它。 馬克·貝尼奧夫經常參與政治活動，在社會問題上直言不諱。這也是你想做的事嗎? 我們都對政治和社會問題抱有熱情，只不過是以不同的方式。我們有自己的風格。我們都對公司的文化充滿熱情。如果是一些對我們的員工十分重要的社會問題，我們是會采取堅定立場的。比如你可以看看我們在印第安那州的立場（印第安那州制訂了一項法律，要求企業不對同性伴侶提供某些服務，Salesforce對此表示了反對立場）。那項法律讓我們的員工感到了威脅和不安，因此我們采取了強硬立場。 在男女同權和同酬的問題上，我們也必須為員工做正確的事情。（Salesforce此前表示，公司已經調整了員工的薪酬結構，消除了所有性別差異。） 最近在“C提案”的問題上，我也跟馬克一起談過。（指舊金山出臺的一項提案，該提案擬對部分企業征稅，以對流浪者提供資助。）我和我妻子就住在這座城市里，這是一座美麗的城市，流浪者的問題顯然是必須解決的。這個問題是整個城市的問題，是整個社會的問題，也是我們的客戶所面臨的問題。 舊金山的流浪者問題對你們的客戶有何影響？ 我們的客戶希望當他們來到這個城市時，他們是安全的，是受到歡迎的，這里的人是能夠得到照顧的。我對馬克說，我從來沒有見過這樣的問題。我曾經在紐約和世界各地工作過，我也曾在波士頓居住過。我們需要做這件事，而且整個公司也支持我們。 其他公司也應該持有同樣的立場嗎？ 大多數公司都會參加一些慈善活動，每家公司都有自己的文化，我認為你必須尊重其他公司的文化。 我認為，人們與我們的政府之間存在某種信任危機，甚至可能與社會組織和企業之間也存在某種信任危機。這產生了一些需要填補的空白。 我認為，通過企業高管和CEO們的大聲疾呼，是可以填補這一空白的。公共部門與私營部門應該建立更多的合作。只有政府，或者只有CEO，都是不夠的。 我也認為，更多的CEO應該站出來大聲疾呼，因為他們代表著成千上萬的人。而且這關乎他們的文化和價值。我認為大家不能保持沉默。（財富中文網） 作者：Jonathan Vanian 譯者：樸成奎 |
It’s been just a few months since business software giant Salesforce promoted Keith Block to co-CEO alongside longtime chief Marc Benioff. Salesforce pitched the move as crucial for growth—something the company is well acquainted with since Block joined Salesforce five years ago after a long stint at database giant Oracle. Shares of Salesforce, known for delivering sales software via the cloud, are now at around $130, more than double their price in 2013. Five years ago, Salesforce’s customers were mostly U.S.-based small-to-medium sized businesses, Block said. Now, customers include some of the world’s biggest companies like Toyota, American Express, and State Farm. In this interview, Block talks about Marc Benioff, San Francisco’s homeless problems, and the importance of trust. The interview has been edited for length and clarity. Fortune: Why does Salesforce need two CEOs? Block: What this is all about is to help scale the company. We talk a lot about our goals of getting to $23 billion [in sales] by fiscal year 2022 [the company logged $8.4 billion in revenue for 2017], and we think about $30 billion and beyond. We looked to formalize a model that allows us to make decisions faster, divide and conquer, and focus on our strengths. Why couldn’t you do that before? Well, we’ve been doing it for a long period. It’s really about strengthening the roles and responsibilities and formalizing an operating model. I think that’s important because if there’s any ambiguity, then you’re going to have inefficiency. What’s an example of a decision you would make that Marc now wouldn’t? Anything from something strategic around how our finance organization is running to our back office infrastructure, or our sales go-to-market [corporate sales strategy], or something with Mulesoft [the enterprise software company Salesforce acquired earlier this year for $6.5 billion]. Something that we’d do together would be deciding on a new market that we think we should enter or an acquisition that we may go after—that sort of thing. We’ve had a pretty rapid rise. Five years ago we were a $3 billion company; this year we’ll do over $13 billion; next year we’ll do over $16 billion; in two years we’ll be at $23 billion. You can’t run the business the same way. You want to take the best of what you’ve had before and you want to add new processes that will help you scale the company. What Marc likes to focus on is thinking about company strategy, product strategy, and culture. Really, day-to-day operations is where my strength is, and a lot of focus on customers. What’s a common theme you’re seeing across the industries you work with? Everything is about the customer. In the beginning of this century there was this huge push on taking costs out, and that will always be there. Companies will always try to become more efficient. But there’s a new thing going on here—a new global phenomena on digital transformation, which is about growth. CEOs need to grow. You can’t cut your way to prosperity. Have any of the recent public concerns around data privacy impacted how businesses come to you? Companies are not coming to us about data privacy. Our core values start with trust. Every company needs to have a data strategy, everybody has to be worried about trust, everybody has to be worried about security. What companies do you trust? I have enormous trust with State Farm. I think they have a world-class CEO in Michael Tipsord. I think he’s a great example of a strong executive who cares about his people and whose built a culture of trust. Dion Weisler of HP, Inc., I think he’s a world-class executive. I think he’s done a fantastic job with that company. I think Jes Staley at Barclays has done a fantastic job turning around Barclays. Does Salesforce have to expand from its core customer relationship management [CRM] products to get bigger? No. 1, we’re in a market that essentially we created. It’s the fastest growing enterprise category there is. There’s the operating system, there’s database, there’s ERP, and then there’s CRM. CRM is the fastest growing category, and it will be the largest category. We’re growing at over twice the rate of the market. I think it’s important to stick to our focus—that we don’t try to be like these other legacy companies. They’ve got huge portfolios that are not necessarily adjacent. You have to look at them and say, “Why are you doing this, why are you doing that?” Why did you buy Quip [a word processing tool] — to create a Microsoft Office competitor? It’s not productivity onto itself, it’s productivity as a natural adjacent for a salesperson who wants to be productive, or for a service person who wants to be productive. Everything we do in acquisitions is a natural adjacency. People classically think of Quip as a word processing tool, something like Microsoft Office. But it’s a great collaboration tool, and every one of our employees uses it. Marc Benioff is involved with politics and is vocal about societal issues. Is that something you want to do? We’re actually both very passionate about it in different ways. We have our own styles. We’re both passionate about the culture of the company. If you look at what’s important to our employees, if you look at the position we took in Indiana [Salesforce opposed a controversial law that would have let companies deny services to same-sex couples]—it was a very strong position involving legislation that made our employees feel uncomfortable and threatened. When it came to equality and equal pay [Salesforce previously said it adjusted its employee compensation to eliminate any pay gap between genders], we had to do the right thing for our employees. The whole situation we recently had with Proposition C [Benioff publicly supported the San Francisco measure that would tax certain businesses to fund homeless programs], I remember sitting down with Marc. My wife and I live in the city—and this is a beautiful city, and there’s obviously a problem that has to be addressed with the homeless. It’s a problem with the city, the community, and for our customers. How does San Francisco’s homeless problem impact your customers? Our customers want to feel that they’re coming to a place where they’re safe and welcome and where people are being taken care of. I said to Marc, I’ve never seen anything like this. I’ve worked in New York, I’ve worked all over the world, I’ve lived in Boston, and this is something that we need to do, and the company lined up behind it. Should more companies take these kinds of stands? Most companies have some kind of philanthropic effort. Every company has its own culture, and I think you have to respect the culture of other companies. I think we have a trust crisis with our governments and, perhaps, organizations in our communities. I think it’s created a bit of a void that needs to be filled. I think executives and CEOs can fill that void by speaking out. I think there needs to be more of a public sector—private sector partnership. I don’t think it can be just the government and I don’t think it can be just CEOs. I do think more and more CEOs have to speak out, because they represent tens of thousands of people. It really is about their culture and their values. I don’t think people can be silent. |
