對于那些努力追趕創新步伐的大企業來說，最大的挑戰不是競爭本身，而是如何讓僵化的業務適應日新月異的形勢。

這是通用電氣新近發布的全球創新晴雨表中透露的。這項年度報道的調查對象是通用電氣認為屬于“具備一定知識水平”的企業管理人員和其他人士，調查的問題是，面對互聯網和聯網設備產生的海量數字信息，企業最大的挑戰是什么。

通用電氣將這種新形勢稱為“第四次工業革命”，還有人稱之為“物聯網”。《財富》雜志則將之命名為“21世紀企業”。

叫什么并不重要，關鍵在于，如此迅速獲取信息的途徑，改變了企業制造產品和提供服務的方式，也影響了客戶使用所購物品和服務的方式。過去，這種變化僅限于傳統的科技企業。如今，各行各業的企業都面臨這種形勢，因為科技在企業中的作用越來越大。

分析數據越深入，這種趨勢就越明顯。企業已經意識到需要創新。為了便于描述企業的這一心態，通用電氣套用了一個有點過時的說法“害怕錯過”——英文首字母組合為FOMO，并稍作修改為首字母合稱FOBO的“害怕被淘汰”。此次受訪的每五位高管之中就有至少四人（占比81%）擔心，因為無法適應科技的飛速進步而跟不上時代，從而產生了“害怕被淘汰”的心理。

有人也許覺得，企業高管受到刺激后就會采取行動。可通用電氣調查的結果顯示，許多大企業還是在迎合現有的業務和客戶，盡量在不影響已有業務的前提下發展新業務。通用電氣稱這種做法為“穩妥式”創新。調查顯示，57%的受訪高管更喜歡“穩妥”方式，追求漸進式創新，保護現有的核心業務。

通用電氣的首席數字官比爾?魯哈表示，這種擔憂和策略往往在較大的公司和發達經濟體的企業最為常見。在新興市場國家和初創公司，企業高管、甚至當地政府對顛覆、風險和創新的態度都更開放。魯哈認為，新興市場的企業患得患失的情緒會少一點。

但沒有哪家公司能承受裹足不前的損失。作為通用電氣推行數字技術的負責人，魯哈建議大企業破舊立新，摒棄沿襲老一套方式和舊生產線的“1.0模式”，而進入根據數字技術調整后的新經營方式——“2.0模式”。

魯哈稱，大多數企業犯的頭號錯誤是，在原有業務之外成立獨立的新業務部門，然后圍繞數字技術的2.0模式開展創新活動。“這很可能反倒讓形勢惡化，因為會受到官僚作風妨礙，很可能在還沒推進的時候就失敗了。”魯哈評價，“這么做還不如成立一家初創公司。”

企業迎接挑戰的另一種方式是，抽調擅長1.0模式的精兵強將直接轉入2.0模式，可那些干將未必是應對新挑戰的適合人選。

魯哈主張采用通用電氣的做法，雖然很復雜，但起碼目前已經讓通用電氣看到了成效。通用電氣的做法是，命令從事1.0模式和2.0模式兩種類型工作的員工合作，這樣可以充分利用公司龐大的客戶關系網，以及1.0模式下的員工數十年積累的經驗心得。

這意味著，每種傳統業務都配備相應的數字技術業務團隊，數字業務團隊同時要向首席數字官魯哈匯報工作和相關業務部門的負責人匯報。也就是說，他們有兩個領導。“有人向杰夫（通用電氣首席執行官杰夫?伊梅爾特）抱怨的時候，他就會回答：‘確實很復雜，今后還會更復雜，努力挺過去吧。’”魯哈如是說。

但魯哈沒有掩飾挑戰的存在。他說：“有時會發生沖突，不得不強制解決糾紛，然后找出解決方案繼續推進。萬里長征才過半，現實就是我們在邊干邊創新。”

這么做也意味著承受更高的風險。不過，轉型就不能回避沖突或者風險。“多數大企業都基于六西格瑪管理方法管理組織，流程精準嚴密，一成不變，”魯哈說，“大企業的做事方式和硅谷截然相反，硅谷中需要締造創新的企業文化。”

魯哈希望團隊很快經歷失敗，但不想讓團隊一再重復同樣的失誤。因為在通用電氣，任何失敗與經驗都會被追溯。這便是將大企業文化與“初創公司氣質”相結合的具體做法，調查中81%的受訪者都表示，倘若這種做法成為鼓勵創新的常規方式，就可以真正證明自身的價值。假如企業能找到鼓勵創新、追蹤創新的具體過程，既輕松復制創意，又避免讓員工停滯不前，那么，大企業就可能打造出孕育創新的企業文化。

在魯哈領導下，通用電氣正努力介入物聯網相關的軟件和服務，希望能創造價值數十億美元收入的業務。四年前，該公司就制定了這項雄心勃勃的計劃，現在其中一些已經看到成果。艾默生電氣公司、運動裝及配件供應商UnderArmour、電信運營商AT&T和IBM等大公司也開始大踏步走進數字業務領域。和犯錯相比，他們更害怕被淘汰。（財富中文網）

譯者：Pessy

校對：夏林

For large companies trying to keep up with the pace of innovation, the biggest challenge isn’t the competition. It’s adapting their sclerotic businesses to rapid change.

That’s the message from General Electric’s Global Innovation Barometer released recently. The annual survey asks business executives and members of what GE dubs “the informed public” about the biggest challenges facing companies amid a huge influx of digital information from the Internet and connected devices.

GE calls this new reality the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Others call it the Internet of things.Fortune has dubbed it the 21st Century Corporation.

It doesn’t matter what you call it, the fact of the matter is that rapid access to information changes how businesses make products and provide services. It also impacts how customers use what they buy. This used to be true only for traditional tech companies, but now it is true for all companies as technology becomes a bigger part more and more businesses.

A clearer picture emerges by digging further in the data. Companies are aware that they need to innovate. GE has taken the slightly dated phrase“fear of missing out,” or FOMO, and reapplied it to the corporate world as FOBO, or fear of becoming obsolete. More than four in five executives (81%) worry about being left behind as technology evolves faster than they can adapt, creating this “fear of becoming obsolete.”

One might think this would spur executives to action. Yet the survey’s results indicate that many big companies are trying to walk the line of catering to their existing businesses and customers while nurturing new lines of business for as long as they can without cannibalizing their existing ones. GEcalls this “safer” innovation. The study reports that 57% of executives favor this “safer” approach, pursuing incremental innovation and protecting their core business.

Bill Ruh, the chief digital officer at GE, says this fear and practice is seen most often in larger companies and those in established economies. In startups and emerging countries, executives and even governments are more open to disruption, risk, and innovation. Ruh says, they have less to lose.

But no company can afford to stand still. And as the head of GE’s efforts, he has advice for large organizations seeking to move from what he called Mode 1, the old way and old product lines, to Mode 2, which is a new way of doing business that is influenced by the digital world.

Ruh says the first mistake most companies make is that they build a new separate business line dedicated to the digital-focused Mode 2, and let that create new innovations. “But that’s no better off than a startup,” Ruh says. “It’s probably worse off because it’s hindered by bureaucracy and then it fails when it can’t get momentum.”

The other way companies tend to handle the innovation challenges is to take the best and brightest working in Mode 1 and put them on Mode 2 challenges. But they may not be the right people to handle the new set of challenges.

Instead, Ruh suggests what GE has done, which is complicated, but has so far been paying off for the industrial conglomerate. GE forced Mode 1 and Mode 2 to work together, and took advantage of the massive customer relationships and knowledge that the folks on the Mode 1 side had built up in their decades of experience.

This meant that each traditional business line had a digital counterpart, and the digital team reported to Ruh as the chief digital officer and also to whomever was in charge of the individual business unit. That meant people had two bosses. “When people complained to Jeff [Immelt, CEO of GE] he would say, ‘It’s complicated and it’s gonna be complicated. Just get over it,'” Ruh says.

And he doesn’t sugarcoat the challenges. “Sometimes, there is conflict and you have to force the resolution of that conflict so you can come to a resolution and build on that,” he says. “We’re only on step 17 of what is a 36-step process, and we accept that we’re inventing it as we go along.”

Part of that also means accepting more risk. This shift isn’t for the conflict or risk averse. “Most big organizations are built on Six Sigma where you take all of the variation out of a process and never change it,” Ruh says. “That world is the opposite of Silicon Valley and what you need to create a culture of innovation.”

Ruh wants his team to fail fast, but he doesn’t want them to make the same mistakes over and over again. And because it’s GE, those failures and learnings are tracked. That’s where this marriage of big corporate culture and the “startup ethos” that 81% of the survey’s respondents say is becoming the norm for encouraging innovation can really prove it’s worth. If companies can find ways to encourage ideas and then track them so they can be replicated without bogging people down, big-names businesses could better create cultures that foster innovation.

Ruh and GE are trying to build a multi-billion dollar business around software and services associated with the Internet of things. It’s a bold plan laid out four years ago, but already some of its efforts are bearing fruit. Emerson, UnderArmour UA 0.34% , AT&T T -1.77% , and IBM IBM -4.88% are among the companies that have taken big steps to become digital players by emphasizing the fear of become obsolete over their fear of making mistakes.