????福喜對丑聞毫無頭緒，因為這家私有公司給了經理人很大自主權。有時候這種做法很管用，比如在華爾街，投資公司允許個人獨立決定股票投資，無需集體決策。但在福喜這樣的大規模食品加工業務中，全球標準需要每個人嚴格遵守，并確保落實。

????私有企業福喜的這種權力分散型業務模式給中國經理人留出了自行決策的空間。這一策略曾幫助福喜于上世紀90年代初在中國實現了快速擴張。但如今看來，顯然其中是有問題的。福喜沒有進行足夠的檢查，無法確保公司伊利諾伊州總部制定的標準得以貫徹，也沒有對距其6600英里之遙的中國工廠進行監控。

????語言障礙也成為一個問題：中國經理人用中文起草文件，不作翻譯，因此，只會英文的員工往往不了解相關的具體經營情況或數據。

????被派駐至中國的福喜危機管理團隊所做的事情相當簡單。那就是，確保每家工廠都遵循全球標準，同時用中文和英文起草文件。他們在工廠增架了攝像頭，并投入160萬美元開展食品安全研討會?！斑^去這是一家創業型公司，在某種程度上可以按自己的規定辦事，”福喜的一位員工表示，“如今，有人進來說，‘我們現在要這么做。’”

????這種標準流程是麥當勞最大肉類供應商在任何地方都應遵循的。但福喜過去顯然沒有做到。

????上周福喜發表聲明，證實有6位員工在上海被批捕，并承認過失。該公司表示：“福喜集團將繼續全力配合政府有關部門的工作，同時支持政府一貫執行相關食品質量安全法律?！?/p>

????早些時候，82歲的福喜集團所有人、肉類食品行業大佬謝爾頓?拉文表示：“如此可怕的錯誤竟然發生在了我擁有的公司，令我震驚無比。”

????尚不清楚這對福喜自身產生了多大的傷害。麥當勞的一位發言人上周告訴《華爾街日報》（The Wall Street Journal），該公司不排除引進其他長期供應商取代福喜的可能性。如果麥當勞割斷雙方的聯系，這將是歷史性的，因為從1955年麥當勞在伊利諾伊州德斯普蘭斯開設首家麥當勞餐廳起，福喜就一直在為其供應牛肉餅。

????我遇到的這兩位福喜員工都為麥當勞在危機中一直與他們共進退感到自豪。而肯德基沒有這么做?！敖o我們第二次機會，”其中一位說，“我們應該得到第二次機會。”

????或許吧。漢堡吃不死人，過期的凍肉實際上更多是食品質量問題，而不是食品安全問題。但如果對于自己中國業務的情況毫不了解，那就不配有多次機會了。

????麥當勞主要供應商福喜暴露出來的管理問題，對其他在華經商的外資企業是個有益的警示。（財富中文網）

????OSI was clueless because the private company gave managers a lot of autonomy. Sometimes that works, like on Wall Street, where investment companies allow individuals to independently wager on stocks to avoid groupthink. But in Big Food Processing, OSI’s business, global standards need to be exactly followed by everyone—and verified.

????The private OSI’s decentralized business model allowed Chinese managers leeway to make their own decisions. The strategy that helped OSI expand quickly in China since the early 1990s. But it’s now clear there were problems. OSI didn’t audit enough to ensure Chinese plants followed standards coming from OSI’s Illinois headquarters and didn’t monitor its plants located 6,600 miles from headquarters in Aurora, Illinois.

????Even the language barrier was an issue: Chinese managers wrote documents in Chinese and didn’t translate them, so English-speaking employees often couldn’t understand operations or data.

????The OSI crisis teams flooding into China are engaged in pretty simple stuff. Namely, ensuring every plant is following global standards, and writing documents in both English and Chinese. They’re adding cameras in plants and spending $1.6 million on food safety seminars. “Before, it was an entrepreneurial company and you could sort of follow your own rules,” said one OSI employee. “Now, people are coming in and saying, `This is how we’re doing it now.’”

????It’s the type of standard procedural stuff that you expected McDonald’s largest protein supplier to follow everywhere. But it didn’t.

????OSI’s press statement last week, confirming the arrests of six employees in Shanghai, expressed some culpability. “OSI Group will continue to cooperate fully and in good faith with the authorities,” the company said. “We support the government’s consistent application of the country’s food quality and safety laws.”

????Earlier, OSI’s owner Sheldon Lavin, an 82-year with a place in the Meat Industry Hall of Fame said, “It was terribly wrong, and I am appalled that it ever happened in the company that I own.”

????It’s not yet clear how badly OSI hurt itself. A McDonald’s spokeswoman told the Wall Street Journal last week the company couldn’t rule out the possibility of replacing OSI as a supplier over the long term. If McDonald’s cuts ties, it would be historic: OSI supplied beef patties to the first ever McDonald’s in Des Plaines, Illinois back in 1955.

????The two employees from OSI I met with were proud that McDonald’s had stuck with them through the crisis. KFC had not. “Give us a second chance,” one said. “We deserve a second chance.”

????They might. No one died eating a Quarter Pounder, and expired frozen meat is really a food quality issue more than a food safety problem. But when you don’t have a clue what’s really happening at your Chinese business, you don’t deserve many chances.

????The problems at OSI, a key supplier to McDonald's, are a salutary lesson to companies doing business in China on the need for proper supervision.