可口可樂 在外包策略上建立起來的含糖飲料帝國

From the very beginning, Coca-Cola had a drug problem.

可口可樂誕生源於一個藥物問題。

The brand’s founder, Atlanta pharmacist John Stith Pemberton, was addicted to morphine, a narcotic many suspected Pemberton began using after suffering a series of debilitating wounds while defending the city of Columbus, Georgia, during the Civil War. By the 1880s, Pemberton was not well, and he was also hurting financially. In 1872, Pemberton filed for bankruptcy and a few years later watched helplessly when two fires ravaged his Atlanta business. In 1886, he had finally clawed his way out of debt but was still strapped for cash.

可口可樂（Coca-Cola）品牌的創始人是亞特蘭大藥劑師約翰o彭伯頓。他在美國內戰中參加過保衛佐治亞州哥倫布市的戰鬥，據很多人猜測，因爲參戰導致傷病纏身，他染上了吸食嗎啡（一種麻醉劑）的惡習。19世紀80年代，彭伯頓的健康狀況非常糟糕，同時經濟上也遭受打擊。1872年，彭伯頓申請破產。幾年後，他又眼睜睜地看着自己在亞特蘭大的生意在兩場大火中被付之一炬。1886年，他終於擺脫債務纏身的窘境，但是手頭依然缺錢。

That was the year Pemberton introduced Atlanta to Coca-Cola. Pemberton patterned his drink after a French patent medicine called Vin Mariani, a Bordeaux wine mixed with coca leaves, which had become quite popular in international markets by the end of the 1870s, and why not? Here was a drink that was essentially cocaine-laced wine, inducing quite a buzz for the habitual consumer. All sorts of luminaries testified to its restorative properties, including U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant and Pope Leo XIII.

就在這一年，彭伯頓在亞特蘭大推出了可口可樂。19世紀70年代末，一種叫做Vin Mariani的法國專利藥物在國際市場非常暢銷，這種藥是由混合了古柯樹葉的波爾多葡萄酒製成。彭伯頓的可口可樂就是仿照這種藥物飲料而來。爲什麼不呢？這種藥物飲料實際上是一種帶可卡因成分的葡萄酒，習慣了這種味道的消費者對其趨之若鶩。衆多大牌名人認爲該飲料有滋補復元之功效，其中包括美國總統尤里西斯o辛普森o格蘭特和羅馬教皇利奧十三世。

Cash-poor Pemberton believed it made smart business sense to create a knockoff of this popular beverage, which is exactly what he did, selling his own French Wine of Coca in 1885. The problem was, Protestant clamoring for prohibition led to citywide restrictions on alcohol consumption in Atlanta, forcing Pemberton to replace the wine with carbonated water. Thus, Coca-Cola became a kind of temperance drink in 1886.

爲錢所困的彭伯頓看到了商機，認爲仿製這款熱門飲料一定是個不錯的生意。而他真就這麼做了，1885年，他開始售賣自己的飲料品牌：法國古柯葡萄酒（French Wine of Coca）。但是問題是，當時的清教徒呼籲禁酒，導致亞特蘭大全城推行禁酒令，於是彭伯頓不得不將葡萄酒換成汽水。於是在1886年，就有了這種無酒精飲料可口可樂。

The decision to switch to water was more than just an expedient solution to a prohibition problem: it allowed Pemberton to outsource roughly 80% of his product’s volume onto others. That’s because it was soda fountain operators who mixed the water—at least five ounces per one ounce of syrup—into Pemberton’s finished beverages. All Pemberton sold was a dark, syrupy concentrate, which allowed him to save enormous amounts of money on transportation costs. Of course, the soda fountain water ultimately came from the municipal tap.

換成汽水不僅僅是應對禁酒令的權宜之計，這也讓彭伯頓得以將約80%的產品生產外包出去。冷飲店的經營者們需要做的，僅僅是按一定比例將水兌入彭伯頓製成的飲料（至少五盎司水兌一盎司糖漿）。如此一來，彭伯頓出售的就只是黑色的濃縮糖漿，從而可以節省大筆運輸費用。當然，冷飲店冰櫃裏的水就是自來水。

This model continued under Pemberton’s successor, Atlanta pharmacist Asa Candler, who signed the first bottling franchise contracts for Coca-Cola in 1899. Initially hesitant to approve this distribution method—considering the rudimentary nature of most bottling operations at the time—Candler came to see that bottling enabled Coke to reach rural markets far removed from city centers. What made the deal even sweeter was the fact that independent businessmen in small towns covered the tab for this expansion. Bottlers fronted the capital to buy the machinery, packaging, and municipal water, as well as the trucks and tires that spread Coke’s syrup through the nation’s commercial arteries.

1899年，亞特蘭大藥劑師艾薩o錢德勒與可口可樂簽訂了首份裝瓶授權合同，並接管公司，之後沿用了這種經營模式。錢德勒開始並不同意採用這種分銷模式，因爲當時大多數裝瓶業務很不成熟，但是他後來認識到，裝瓶分銷可以讓產品深入遠離市中心的農村市場。這種經營模式更大的好處在於：位於小城鎮的獨立企業主們自掏腰包助力市場擴張。裝瓶公司們墊款購買機器，支付包裝、市政用水以及卡車和輪胎的費用，可口可樂的糖漿也由此迅速滲透到全國各地的商業大動脈。

But Coke’s outsourcing strategy didn’t stop there. On the supply side, Coke also shunned ownership of factories and plants. The company did not own sugar plantations in the Caribbean, high-fructose corn syrup wet mills in the Midwest, or decaffeination facilities in the Southeast. Rather, the company relied on a host of independent businesses—the Monsanto Chemical Company, Cargill, Hershey Chocolate Company, among many others—to mine, process, and refine the critical ingredients that went into its finished beverages. In short, Coke was averse to vertical business integration, and instead acted as a kind of commodity broker, making money by transferring materials from independently owned producers and distributors.

然而，可口可樂的外包戰略並沒有就此止步。在供應方面，可口可樂還儘量避免持有工廠和廠房。比如，該公司既沒有在加勒比海擁有糖種植園，或在中西部持有高果糖玉米糖漿的溼磨廠，也沒有在東南部持有脫咖啡因的設施。相反，公司依賴大量獨立的企業，如孟山都化學公司（Monsanto Chemical Company）、嘉吉公司（Cargill）、好時公司（Hershey Chocolate Company）等等，來對成品飲料中的關鍵成分進行採掘、加工和提煉。總之，可口可樂不喜歡垂直的業務整合，而是作爲某種商品經紀人，通過在獨立經營的生產商和分銷商之間傳輸材料來賺錢。

I call this money-making approach Coca-Cola capitalism. Coke followed this path throughout the 20th century. It involved getting others, whether it was government-owned water works or vertically integrated sugar refineries, to invest in the production and distribution systems needed to turn the “Real Thing” into a real thing. What made Coke great, in other words, was not really what it did, but what it didn’t do. It proved incredibly adept at getting independent businesses and local governments to bear the majority of the costs of producing and distributing its products.

我將這種賺錢之道稱之爲“可口可樂資本主義”。整個20世紀，可口可樂都是這麼做的。它讓其他人，不論是政府的自來水廠還是垂直整合的煉糖廠，都投入生產和分銷系統，共同完成“Real Thing（真傢伙）”（來自可口可樂的廣告語）的生產。換言之，真正讓可口可樂成爲一家偉大企業的，不是它做了什麼，而是它沒有做什麼。事實證明，可口可樂長袖善舞，擅於調動其他企業和當地政府，爲其承擔產品的大部分生產和分銷成本。

Take municipal recycling systems. Here was a publicly financed program that helped soft drink companies expand their productive capacity on the taxpayer’s dime. Once again, Coke did little of the work, letting municipalities and private citizens invest in elaborate reclamation infrastructure in the 1980s and 1990s that conveniently brought copious quantities of packaging materials back to local centers near its corporate distributors. Rather than having to pay for the waste they produced, Coca-Cola received a kind of public subsidy that in the long run enabled them to continue to produce tremendous quantities of one-way, throwaway containers (72% of which, in the case of plastic PET containers, ends up in American landfills today). As it had with public water supplies, the company was simply tapping into another municipal stream, only this one contained packaging materials, not water.

以城市再循環系統爲例，這是一個由納稅人出資幫助軟飲料公司擴大生產力的公共資助計劃。20世紀八九十年代，可口可樂又一次不費吹灰之力，讓市政府和市民出資修建了精良的回收基礎設施，讓大批包裝材料可以非常便利地回到公司分銷商附近的當地回收中心。可口可樂公司不但沒有爲其生產的垃圾支付任何費用，甚至還享受了一項政府補貼，這項補貼從長遠上幫助其不斷生產數量巨大的一次性飲料包裝（其中72%是PET塑料瓶，它們現在都躺在了美國的垃圾填埋場）。於是除了公共用水外，可口可樂公司動用了又一項公共資源，只不過這次不是水，而是包裝材料。

Coca-Cola has not been the only company to follow this path to big profits. Software firms, such as Microsoft MSFT -0.25% , have made tremendous revenues selling its Office suite, relying on other businesses to produce expensive hardware that can turn Microsoft’s code into consumable products. You can find an extreme version of Coca-Cola capitalism on Wall Street, where brokers do not manage any kind production or distribution infrastructure but instead make money off transaction fees as commodities flow from one buyer to another.

用這種方法謀取暴利的不止可口可樂一家。像微軟（Microsoft）這類軟件公司，他們通過銷售辦公軟件獲取高額利潤，但是依靠的是其他企業生產的昂貴硬件，從而將微軟的編程變成消費品。在華爾街，你可以見到可口可樂資本主義的一個極端案例：股票經紀人從不管理任何生產或分銷基礎設施，而是通過商品在買家中的流通賺取交易費。

In short, Coca-Cola KO 0.36% capitalism has become the model for some of the most profitable firms of our time. This is what 21st century capitalism rewards.

簡而言之，可口可樂資本主義已經成爲這個時代最賺錢的一類企業模式。這就是21世紀資本主義的回報。

But the question remains: does this system benefit the public at large? The history of Coca-Cola reveals that the firm demands a great deal of public resources—recycling systems, subsidized municipal water, corn subsidies, etc.—and it is not at all clear that Coke transforms these investments into goods that serve the interests of the nation (do we really need more sugar water in a country in which over 30% of the population is obese?).

但是問題依然存在：這個系統能否惠及廣大民衆？可口可樂的發展史顯示，該企業對公共資源的需求極大，例如回收系統、補貼性城市用水、玉米補貼等等，可口可樂公司把這些投資變成商品，但是我們卻根本不清楚這是否利國利民（在一個肥胖人口超過總人口30%的國家，我們真的需要更多汽水麼？）。

While Coca-Cola is shifting towards healthier drink options, especially bottled water, the price for providing this service should appear unconscionable to the informed consumer. Americans pay more than $4 for a gallon of Dasani water when they could easily enjoy the same quantity of clean water from their tap for a fraction of a cent. Perhaps our money could be better spent fixing public water systems—which currently need over $500 billion in repairs, according to the EPA—rather than purchasing Coke’s bottled water. After all, as Coke’s history makes clear, private citizens and Coca-Cola need public pipes to survive.

雖然可口可樂開始推出更健康的飲品選擇，尤其是瓶裝水，但是對於明智的消費者來說，其價格並不合理。一加侖Dasani礦泉水售價超過4美元，而擰開水龍頭美國民衆就可以喝上等量的淨水，價格不過是幾釐。與其購買可口可樂瓶裝水，我們還不如把錢用在完善公共供水系統上。據美國環保署（EPA）估計，公共供水系統維修需要的費用超過5,000億美元。畢竟，正如可口可樂的發展史清楚展示的，無論普通市民還是可口可樂公司，都是靠公共水管存活的。（財富中文網）