1952年，時任波音公司（2016年世界500強排名第61位）首席執行官的比爾·艾倫說服了該公司董事會向一個未經驗證的想法投入1,600萬美元。當時波音主要制造軍用飛機，也就是著名的B-52轟炸機這樣成熟的噴氣式飛機。這些昂貴、復雜的飛機未能在客運航空市場順利轉型。放棄螺旋槳飛機的成本過高，航空公司不愿冒這個險。

但艾倫擁有遠見卓識。他深信乘客和航空公司都會被噴氣式飛機的速度和便利所吸引，因而將波音未來的業績押在了隨后的波音707上。這是首款跨越大西洋的商用飛機，并且很快成為一種文化象征。它改變了二戰后的航空旅行，還讓波音成為20世紀最主要的噴氣式客機制造商。

《財富》雜志將艾倫的這次“賭博”稱為史上最偉大的商業決策之一。然而，這位今年就要滿100歲的航空業巨擘和60年前的那家公司相比已經相去甚遠。2014年前CEO吉姆·麥克納尼表示，波音開發新飛機時再也不會追求過度的“高大上”，這也許是對現狀的最清晰詮釋。面對商用和軍用市場令人卻步的阻力以及華爾街對利潤的永不滿足的需求，波音對風險的欲望已經減弱。

對現任CEO丹尼斯·米倫伯格來說，在這家公司成為百年老店之際，弄明白究竟怎樣像以前的波音那樣創新，同時還要在種種困難的市場情況之下開展經營可能是他面臨的最大挑戰。剛剛上任滿一年的米倫伯格要兼顧三個不同的重大商用飛機項目（同時權衡是否再實施一個項目），還要重組波音的國防部門，后者既缺乏新業務，也未能如期推進現有項目。

In 1952, Boeing’s then-CEO Bill Allen convinced the company’s board to sink $16 million into a single, untested idea. At the time Boeing primarily built military planes, sophisticated jet-powered aircraft like the venerable B-52 bomber. Such costly, complex aircraft didn’t translate well to the passenger air travel market. The switch from propellor-driven airplanes would simply cost too much, and airlines wouldn’t take the risk.

But Allen had a vision. Convinced that both travelers and airlines would come around to the speed and convenience of jet-powered air travel, he staked Boeing’s financial future on what would become the Boeing 707, the first transatlantic commercial jetliner and soon-to-be cultural icon. The 707 remade air travel for the post-war world. It also remade Boeing into the 20th century’s premier builder of passenger jets.

Fortune has called Allen’s gamble one of the greatest business decisions ever made. But as the aviation giant marks its 100th birthday this year, Boeing is far from the same company it was 60 years ago—a fact perhaps best crystallized in former-CEO Jim McNerney’s declaration in 2014 that Boeing will no longer pursue “moonshots” when developing new aircraft. Facing formidable headwinds in both the commercial and military markets as well as a fickle Wall Street that demands margins remains strong, Boeing’s appetite for risk has tapered.

Figuring out exactly how to innovate like the Boeing of old while operating under a range of difficult market conditions could prove current CEO Dennis Muilenberg’s biggest challenge as the company hits the century mark. In just his second year at the helm, Muilenberg finds himself juggling three different big commercial aircraft programs (and weighing the launch of another) while shaking up a defense unit that’s short on new business and behind schedule on its its biggest existing program.

波音成立于1916年7月15日，剛剛走過一個世紀的它面臨著一些歷史上較為艱難的挑戰，這讓部分人懷疑這家百年老店是否還能像比爾·艾倫在任時那樣闊步前進，從而帶來又一個“707時刻”。

如何頂住下行壓力？

波音面臨諸多問題，米倫伯格也無法通過對公司的任何簡單調整讓自己的任務變得輕松一些。商用飛機方面，六年來客機訂單的迅猛增長看來已經開始放緩，特別是在波音基本上處于主導位置的遠程飛機市場。同時，歐洲競爭對手空中客車（2016年世界500強排名：100）正在鞏固自己在短程飛機市場的地位，而這個市場正是大多數飛機訂單的來源。

雖然波音成功克服了在生產787夢想飛機過程中遇到的好幾個難題，但這款造價超過300億美元的機型能否最終盈利仍是未知數。每交付一架787，波音仍會虧損數百萬美元，只是這個數字正在不斷下降。這款產品帶來的300億美元遞延開發成本仍是籠罩在波音頭頂的一片陰霾。

就在波音管理層兼顧新型737 Max窄體客機、新777X（定于明年投產）以及787夢想飛機的開發之際，市場需求卻在所謂的“市場中部”，也就是中程噴氣式客機出現了增長。這種飛機最多可搭載260名乘客，填補了最大的波音737短程客機和波音787那樣最小的遠程客機之間的空白。如果波音決定朝著這個方向努力，這樣的飛機有望在五年后問世。但在這之前，相關的開發和生產要消耗大量財務資源。

軍用飛機約占波音960億美元收入的三分之一。在這方面，波音面臨的是另一番景象——新飛機數量不足，而不是太多。就銷售和保持現有產品線而言，這項業務依然活躍。它的產品包括CH-47支奴干直升機、阿帕奇武裝直升機、F/A-18和F-15系列戰斗機。但波音已經吃了兩次敗仗，一次是美國國防部的下一代戰斗機訂單，一次是輸給了洛克希德-馬丁公司（2016年世界500強排名：197）的F35，另一次則是最近的一批隱形轟炸機訂單被規模較小的競爭對手諾斯洛普格拉曼公司（2016年世界500強排名：450）奪走。

As it crosses the century mark, the company faces some of the more daunting challenges in its history, prompting some to wonder whether a 100-year-old Boeing can still conjure the kind of Bill Allen swagger that might produce its next 707 moment.

Staying aloft amid downward pressure

There’s no singular issue facing Boeing, and no singular twist of the corporate dials that might make things easier for Muilenberg. On the commercial side, a six-year boom in passenger aircraft orders appears to be slowing, particularly in the long-haul market where Boeing generally dominates. Meanwhile, European rival Airbus ??is gaining ground in the short-haul market, where most of the aircraft volume lives.

Though Boeing has managed to move past several early headaches in the production of its new 787 Dreamliner, it’s still unclear if the jet—which cost the company more than $30 billion to develop—will ever turn an overall profit. Boeing still loses several million dollars per aircraft for every 787 delivered, though that number continues to shrink. That $30 billion in deferred development costs related to the Dreamliner still loom over the company like a specter.

Even as management juggles the development of the new 737 Max narrow-body, the new 777X (slated to enter production next year) and the 787 Dreamliner, market demand is growing for a so-called “middle-of-the-market” medium-haul jetliner. Seating up to 260 passengers and filling the gap between Boeing’s largest 737 short-haul jet and its smallest long-haul airliners like the 787, such an aircraft would come to market in the middle of the next decade should Boeing choose to pursue it. Its development and engineering would start burning through financial resources much sooner than that.

On the defense side, which accounts for roughly a third of the company’s $96 billion in revenues, Boeing faces different anxieties—not enough new aircraft rather than too many. Boeing still does a brisk business selling and sustaining its current aircraft offerings—which range from CH-47 Chinook heavy-lift helicopters Apache gunships to the F/A-18 and F-15 families of fighter jets. But the company lost competitions to build both the Pentagon’s next generation of fighter jets (won byLockheed Martin and the F-35) and, more recently, a new fleet of stealth bombers won by smaller rival Northrop Grumman .

With no major combat aircraft programs on the horizon and its current aircraft running out of orders to fill, Boeing could soon find itself shuttering its current fighter jet production lines, cut out of a market that has long been a core part of its defense business. “There’s a good chance the F-15 dies in 2019, with the F-18 winding down at about the same time,” says Richard Aboulafia, senior vice president for research at defense and aerospace consultancy The Teal Group. “So in the background of all of this, you’ve got the end of their most profitable defense platforms too.”

Boeing plans to remain competitive in the tactical jet space by focusing on both the sustainment of its current fleets of F-15s and F-18s around the world as well as by competing for a multi-billion-dollar U.S. Air Force program that will replace its current fleet of trainer jets, says Steve Nordlund, vice president of strategy for Boeing’s defense unit.

Others are not so optimistic that will be enough. Without a major Pentagon tactical jet program to fund research and development, Boeing’s long-term presence in the lucrative but competitive combat aircraft market will depend on how much the company wants to invest in keeping its fighter jet shop up to speed, says Byron Callan, a defense analyst for Capital Alpha Partners.

“If you have a really good idea, maybe it is worth it to start pushing it and taking some of that risk,” Callan says. “Otherwise, I don’t know how you survive in the fighter market five or six years after the F-15 and the F-18 are out of production.”

‘We know our future’s not guaranteed.’

In the immediate future, however, fighter jets are not Muilenberg’s key concern. Moving into Boeing’s second century, the larger battle will be managing the tension between shareholder growth and plateauing profits.

“It is a competitive marketplace,” Muilenberg told the?Financial Times earlier this month. “We know our future’s not guaranteed, so every day we have to relentlessly pursue additional actions to drive our competitiveness.”

Thus far, those actions have included job cuts within Boeing’s commercial unit (as many as 8,000 jobs could be cut this year), a management shakeup in the defense unit, and adjustments to its supply chain unlikely to be popular with suppliers. (For instance, Boeing will now take up to three times as long to pay its bills). In the relentless pursuit of shareholder value, Boeing’s employees have felt the pain as well, and relations between the company and labor remain somewhat strained.

Meanwhile, though the aerospace market is famously cyclical, the downward pressure on profits won’t necessarily be relieved during the next market upswing. Looking toward the long-term, the ruling Boeing/Airbus duopoly that has served the vast majority of the commercial jetliner market likely won’t last. Canada’s Bombardier recently shocked market onlookers by inking a deal with Delta Air Lines ?for 75 of its C-series narrow-body jets, stealing a piece of business from the market served by Boeing 737 and Airbus’s A320.

While both Boeing and Airbus benefitted from a number narrow-body jet orders from Asian carriers at the Farnborough Air Show in the U.K. this week, it’s only a matter of time before China leaps into the fray.

卡蘭說：“想一想左右全球航天市場的力量就會發現，今后100年亞洲航空業必將更加繁榮。波音怎樣應付這種局面，或者怎樣參與其中仍是個未知數。”

但波音面對的不全是阻力。在它身后，該公司還有約5,800架飛機的未完成訂單，價值4,000億美元。同時，波音本周早些時候公布的最新商用飛機市場20年展望顯示，今后20年的新飛機需求為39,620架，價值5.9萬億美元（競爭對手空客本周也發布了類似展望，只是樂觀程度略低一些）。

波音商用飛機營銷副總裁蘭迪·廷塞斯說：“我們的處境是很難讓未完成訂單出現增長，但我們可以做到這一點。更重要的是，這些訂單必須交付，而這正是我們的焦點所在。”

的確，波音很大一部分收入都來自交貨之際，而不是飛機售出時。因此，只要能順利增加交貨量，削減成本，或者出現二者兼顧的理想情況，波音就有可能只提升利潤，而不一定要提高銷售額。

該公司國防業務策略副總裁諾德蘭承認，國防預算（特別是美國）不斷縮水以及15年來美國國防部戰斗機業務的流失帶來了挑戰，但他認為波音前景光明，原因是它正在成為更加全球化的飛機制造企業。即將出口科威特的24架F-18價值30億美元，還有向卡塔爾出口36架F-15E的40億美元合同有望幫助波音的現有戰斗機生產線再運轉幾年（這兩筆交易都在等待美國政府的批準）。

但諾德蘭指出，除了軍用飛機出口，波音最近還跟印度塔塔集團簽約，雙方將在印度建立生產飛機零部件的合資公司。此外，波音還在英國和澳大利亞設立了業務部門。他說：“今后100年其實就是要把波音變成一家真正的全球化企業。”不光是出口飛機，還要在世界各地設點。

“If you think about the forces shaping the global aerospace market, over the next 100 years there’s bound to be a more robust Asian aviation industry,” Callan says. “How is Boeing going to deal with that, or participate in that—that’s an open question.”

But it’s not all headwinds for Boeing. At its back, the company has an order backlog of roughly 5,800 aircraft valued at $400 billion and—according to Boeing’s most recent 20-year commercial jet market outlook released earlier this week—a demand for 39,620 new planes worth $5.9 trillion over the next two decades. (Rival Airbus released a similar though slightly-less-rosy market projection this week as well.)

“We’re in a position where growing that backlog is difficult, but it’s something we can do,” says Randy Tinseth, vice president of marketing for Boeing Commercial Airplanes. “More importantly we’re in a position where we have to deliver that backlog, and that’s where our focus is.”

Indeed, the bulk of Boeing’s revenue is collected when planes are delivered rather than when they’re sold, allowing Boeing the opportunity to boost profits without necessarily boosting sales if it can successfully ramp up deliveries, cut costs, or—ideally—both.

Boeing’s Nordlund acknowledges the challenges posed by shrinking defense budgets (particularly in the U.S.) and the loss of Pentagon combat jet business over the past 15 years, but sees a bright future for Boeing as it evolves into an even more global aerospace company. A pending $3 billion sale of 24 F-18s to Kuwait and a similar $4 billion deal with Qatar for 36 F-15E jets could help sustain Boeing’s existing fighter jet production lines for a few more years (both deals are currently on hold pending approval by the U.S. government).

But beyond foreign military sales, Nordlund points to a recently-inked joint venture with India’s Tata to produce aerospace components in that country as well as business units Boeing has planted in the U.K. and Australia. “It really is about evolving Boeing in the next 100 years to be that truly global company,” he says—not just an exporter of aircraft, but a company with footprints across the world.

創新問題依然存在，波音愿為突破性理念冒多大風險的問題依然存在——這樣的理念或許會再次改變歷史以及波音的進程。它能既是數十年并購打造而成的大型國際性綜合集團，又像當年造出波音707那樣充滿雄心壯志，愿意冒險嗎？在一個面向未來的航天市場，一個依然可以創造“707時刻”的市場，埃隆·穆斯克的SpaceX已經拔得頭籌，這讓波音和洛克希德-馬丁這樣的老牌航天企業深感氣餒。

卡蘭說：“如果我是米倫伯格，那我最擔心的就是還有多少像SpaceX這樣的公司。這是個影響100年的問題。”(財富中文網)

譯者：Charlie

審校：詹妮

There’s still the looming question of innovation and how much Boeing is willing to risk on breakthrough ideas that might—once again—change the course of history and the company. Can a company be both a massive international conglomerate, a product of decades of mergers and acquisitions, as well as the kind of ambitious, risk-taking enterprise that produced the 707? In one future aerospace market—one that remains ripe for 707 moments—Elon Musk’s SpaceX has already seized the initiative, much to the dismay of legacy aerospace companies like Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

“If I were Muilenberg my biggest concern is: How many more SpaceX’s are there out there?” Callan says. “That’s a 100-year issue.”