经典英语美文 （54）沃尔玛发迹妙诀
How did a peddler of cheap shirts and fishing rods become the mightiest corporation in America?The short version of Wal-Mart’s rise to glory goes something like this:In 1979 it racked up a billion dollars in sales. By 1993 it did that much business in a week;by 2001 it could do it in a day.
It’s a stunning tale – one that propelled Wal-Mart from rural Arkansas, where it was founded in 1962,to the top of the Fortune 500 this year. Sam Walton, Wal-Mart’s founder,pushed sales growth relentlessly while squeezing costs with sophisticated information technology.He exhorted employees to sell better with the“ten foot rule” (greet customers if they are that close).He was, in other words, an early evangelist forthe first commandment of today’s economy: Service rules.Wal-Mart, in fact, is the first service company to rise to the top of the Fortune 500.When Fortune first published its list of the largest companies in America in 1955, Wal-Mart didn’t even exist.That year General Motors was America’s biggest company, and in every year that followed, either GM or another mighty industrial, Exxon, was NO. 1.
Wal-Mart’s achievement caps a bigger economic shift – from producing goods to providing services.Manufacturing’s share of U.S. employment peaked in 1953, at 35%.It has been declining steadily since. In the decade that will end in 2010,the Bureau of Labor Statistics figures that goods producing industries will create 1.3 million new jobs,compared to 20 million for service industries.To look at it another way, today there are about four times as many people working in service jobs as in other kinds of jobs.And even within manufacturing, services are an increasingly large share of operations.
As America got richer consumption got more complicated. With more income to throw around,people started spending more on services movies and travel, mortgages to buy houses, insurance to protect those houses,the occasional decadent weekend at a luxury hotel.Economists call this a shift in the demand pattern;Fortune calls it the main reason that 64 of this year’s top 100 are service companies.Over the next few years, only three of the ten fastest growing occupations (software engineers, nurses,and computer support) pay middle class salaries.The rest could be called, well, Wal-Mart kinds of jobs – cashiers, retail assistants, food service, and so on. In short, the service economy is delivering more good jobs than ever before.
一个出售廉价衬衣和钓鱼竿的商贩是如何成为美国实力最强的公司的？沃尔玛百货公司的发迹史可以浓缩为以下三个阶段：1979年它全年的销售额为10亿美元；到1993年,一周就能达到这个数额;在2001年仅需一天之功。
这是一个惊人的传奇故亊——这家1962年始创于阿肯色州乡村地区的沃尔玛百货公司在今年一跃登上了〈财禽>500强的榜首。公司创始人萨姆·沃尔顿一面千方百计提高销售额， 一面以先进的信息技术降低成本。他以严格的”10英尺规则” (向在这距离之内的顾客致意）鼓励员工提高销售业绩。换句话说，他是当今经济戒律——服务规则——的第一位传道者。事实上，沃尔玛百货公司是第一个跃居（财富>500强榜首的服 务业公司。1955年，当《财富〉杂志第一次公布美国最大公司的排名时，沃尔玛甚至尚未问世。那一年，通用汽车公司是美国最 大的公司，此后不是通用汽车公司就是另一个大公司——埃克 森公司独占鳌头。
沃尔玛的成就还标志着一个更重要的经济转变——从生产商品向提供服务的转变。1953年美国制造业的就业人数占总 就业人数的比例达到历史最高点——35%。从此就开始逐年下降。根据劳工统计局的数据，到2010年底的未来10年间，制造业将创造130万个就业机会，而服务业创造的就业机会将高达 2000万个。换一个角度看，今天在服务业中工作的人数大约是其他行业的4倍。即使在制造业中，服务在业务经营中所占的比例也越来越大。
随着美国人富裕程度的曰益增高，消费也变得越来越复杂。人们开始把更多的钱花在接受服务方面看电彩、旅游、抵押 贷款买房、为房屋保险、偶尔到豪华饭店度个奢侈的周末。经济学家称这种现象为需求变化;〈财富〉杂志则认为这是本年度评出的100家最大公司中有64家是服务业公司的主要原因。在未来几年中，10种发展最快的职业中只有3种（软件工程、护士 和电脑支持）能够提供中等收入。其余都可称作沃尔玛式的职业——收银员、售货员、食品服务，以及诸如此类的职业。总之， 同过去相比，服务业正在提供更多相当不错的就业机会。