凯翰·克里彭多夫（Kaihan Krippendorff）超越思想者智库（Outthinker Networks）创始人、佛罗里达国际大学兼职讲师
罗伯特·C·沃尔科特（Robert C. Wolcott）布斯商学院创业学副教授、凯洛格创新网络（Kellogg Innovation Network）创始人
2024年10月23日发表于英文版《哈佛商业评论》
Talk to a group of business strategists today, and many will tell you that their organizations are in a state of decision paralysis, overwhelmed by the implications of a bunch of rapidly developing trends – AI, IoT, digitization, and 3D printing to name just a few.
如果你今天与一些商业战略专家交谈，许多人会说，他们的组织正处于决策瘫痪的状态，被一系列快速变化的趋势（人工智能、物联网、数字化、3D打印等等）搞得焦头烂额。
We have identified one simple, strategic concept that can help executives make sense of these burgeoning and often overlapping trends. It helps strategists and leadership teams see how these key tools and technologies interconnect, identify what impact they are likely to have on their industry and envision how they can manage and exploit them for future success. We call this concept “Proximity.” It’s core premise is that, thanks to digital technologies, value is being created closer and closer to the moment of demand … not just in time but also physically closer. This is true across every sector – from energy and agriculture to health and education.
而我们发现了一个简单的战略概念，它可以帮助高管搞懂这些新兴的、经常相互叠加的趋势。它可以帮助商业战略专家和领导团队了解趋势间的相互联系，预判可能对其行业产生的影响，并构思如何管理和利用这些趋势，实现未来的成功。我们称这个概念为“接近”（Proximity）。这一概念的核心前提：借助数字技术，价值的创造越来越接近需求产生的时刻……不仅在时间上，在空间上也是，能源、农业、健康、教育，每个领域都是如此。
In this article, we explore the meaning of “Proximity”, share examples of how it is already being utilized by a number of major players, and set out four steps to help leadership teams develop their Proximity strategy.
在本文中，我们会探讨“接近”的含义，并分享案例，展示企业如何利用“接近”这一概念，另外，我们将提出帮助领导团队制定“接近”战略的四个步骤。
The Trends Stopping Strategists in Their Tracks
那些让战略家止步不前的趋势
From our research and conversations with 100 heads of strategy, across a range of industries, it is clear that executives who are charged with keeping their organizations looking over the horizon are feeling swamped by the very task of keeping track of trends. They are often struggling to separate the hype from the reality, think through their implications, and to understand which of the latest tools, technologies, and platforms will add real value to their firm.
根据我们的研究以及与不同行业100名战略负责人的对话，我们清楚地看到，负责让组织保持前瞻性的高管们对追踪趋势这一任务感到不知所措。他们经常要费很大力气才能区分某一趋势是炒作还是现实，然后思考这一趋势的影响，并了解有哪些最新工具、技术和平台能为他们的公司带来真正价值。
Just think about the deluge of technological advances we have seen in the last few years alone. Connected devices (everything from tractors to fridges) are increasingly making their way into our homes, farms, and workplaces, changing the very nature of customer interaction. Advances in automation, from dark factories to direct human-machine communication, are forcing a rethink of the practices of everything from manufacturing to medicine. After a challenging period, spatial computing (think Virtual Reality or the Metaverse) is starting to gain wider acceptance and show real-world, near-term promise. 3D printing accelerated adoption is making its mark in manufacturing, while advances in APIs are making customer data more accessible, and shareable.
想想过去几年看到的技术进步的洪流。网器（从拖拉机到电冰箱等等）越来越多地走入我们的家庭、农场和工作场所，改变了与用户互动的本质。从黑灯工厂到人机直接交互，自动化进步的步伐正迫使人们重新思考涵盖从制造业到医学的一切实践。经过一段充满挑战的发展，空间计算（比如虚拟现实或元宇宙）开始获得广泛接受，并显示出对现实世界的影响。3D打印的加速应用正在制造业崭露头角，而API的进步则使用户数据变得更易于访问和共享。
There’s the wider context to consider, too. Geopolitical uncertainty is leading to risk and unpredictability across the globe, customers are demanding increased speed and personalization, while climate change concerns and costs elevating the demand for sustainable solutions create a challenging backdrop.
当然，我们还需要考虑更大的环境。例如地缘政治的不确定性正导致全球范围内的风险和不可预测性提升；用户要求交付速度和个性化程度越来越高；以及气候变化问题、成本催生的对可持续解决方案的需求，所有的这一切都在创造一个充满挑战的环境。
Why Proximity Is a Clarifying Concept
为何“接近”这一概念能帮我们看清趋势
With so many fast evolving, consequential trends in their sights, it is no wonder strategists and business leaders are feeling inundated. The situation is akin to the way we might look at a mosaic. As we marvel at the individual pieces and the intricacies of the pattern, we don’t necessarily consider how the different elements interlink to make up the cohesive whole.
战略专家和商界领袖看到如此多的快速发展、影响深远的趋势，感到不知所措是意料之中的事。这个过程就像我们看一张马赛克图片。当我们惊叹于每个新颖的色块以及复杂的图案时，不一定会考虑到这些不同的色块其实可以相互联系并构成一个有机整体。
A better solution is to heed the advice of US Airforce fighter pilot turned strategist COL John Boyd, who theorized that if we want to successfully read our environment, we must always be observing our situation, pulling things apart (analysis), and putting them back together (synthesis) in new combinations to make sense of current conditions. Put simply, if fail to synthesize the parts that compose the situation into a new picture, we risk putting ourselves at a strategic disadvantage because we are slow to orient ourselves to the new reality.
一个更好的方法是听听前美国空军战斗机飞行员，现企业战略专家的约翰·博伊德（John Boyd）上校的建议，他有个理论：如果我们想成功地解读我们的环境，我们必须一直观察我们的处境，将事物拆解（分析），然后再以能让当前情况讲得通的新方式进行重组（合成）。简而言之，如果不能某一趋势的各个部分合成新的图景，我们就有可能处于战略劣势，我们适应新现实的速度就太慢了。
Proximity can help. By Proximity we mean that the value companies create (through products, services, or experiences) is moving closer to the moment of demand in time and space.
采用“接近”原则会简化这一过程。我们所说的“接近”是指公司（通过产品、服务或体验）创造的价值在时间和空间上越来越接近需求时刻。
In other words, thanks to technological advances, we can now afford to procrastinate. We can wait for as long as possible, until we have a specific customer, with a specific set of needs, before we produce or provide a product or service. This goes beyond simply competing on the basis of speed; there is now an unprecedented opportunity to deliver personalized solutions, to a growing band of digital customers, at the point of demand.
换句话说，由于技术进步，我们现在可以“稍作拖延”。比如，我们现在可以有越来越多的时间进行等待，先找到具有特定需求组合的特定用户，然后再进行生产、并提供产品或服务。
Thanks to the aforementioned trends and technologies, there are four key shifts that enable proximity:
得益于上述趋势和技术的发展，我们发现有四个关键转变推动了“接近”的实现：
- From physical customers to digital customers
从实体用户到数字用户
The domination of Amazon, Google and Netflix in their respective markets is to a large part down to their ability to turn physical customers into digital customers. This shift isn’t just about delivering speed and convenience to the customer - it’s a shift which is also putting continuous flows of highly valuable customer data in the hands of the firm. That data can subsequently be used by manufacturers and service providers to track trends, identify what improvements they might make to existing products, and come up with ideas for new ones. The Electric Vehicles (EVs) that Chery’s customer drive, like those of Tesla and others, can constantly track information (how quickly the driver accelerates, how far they drive, when they drive, where and when they charge) which provides a continuous real-time stream of user feedback.
亚马逊、谷歌和网飞获得各自市场的主导地位很大程度上取决于它们将实体用户转变为数字用户的能力。这种转变不仅为用户提供了速度和便利，还持续不断地让公司获得高价值的用户数据。制造商和服务提供商可以使用这些数据来跟踪趋势，了解可能对现有产品进行哪些改进，或提出新的产品。用户驾驶的奇瑞电动汽车，与特斯拉和其他公司的电动汽车一样，可以实时分析数据（油门偏好、行驶距离、驾驶时间、充电地点和时间等），实时提供连续的用户反馈流。
This ongoing interaction with the customer empowers the second strategic shift.
这种与用户的持续互动就促成了第二个战略转变。
- From economies of scale to personalization at scale
从批量生产到大规模个性化定制
Thanks to AI, robotics, and additive manufacturing and other technological advances, the cost of customization is declining and the personalization premium is increasing. We are approaching a tipping point at which building a product not for a market or a segment but for an individual user, or even use, is becoming economical. The MIT team that helped Coca-Cola build its Freestyle vending machine, which can economically produce a single-serving of a personalized soda flavor, has applied the technology to doing the same with prescription drugs. A typical car manufacturer can produce 35 cars per hour on a single line. Chery, using COSMOPlat’s advanced AI, can produce 60 cars per hour, including traditional internal combustion, fully electric, hybrids, and extender vehicles, and a variety of models using multiple different brands, according to my interview with COSMOPlat executives. Their technology allows them to rapidly reconfigure the production line, enabling each vehicle to be built to each customer’s specifications.
得益于人工智能、机器人和增材制造等技术进步，定制成本在不断下降，而个性化溢价在不断上升。我们正在接近一个转折点，一旦过了这个转折点，仅为单个用户而非整个市场或细分市场生产的产品将获得规模效应。麻省理工学院团队帮助可口可乐推出了名为“Freestyle”的自动售货机，这种自动售货机可以兼顾经济性的情况下，按照口味的个性化要求，单份生产汽水。目前麻省理工学院团队已将该技术应用于处方药生产。一家传统的汽车制造商在一条生产线上每小时可生产 35辆汽车。但根据我们对卡奥斯管理团队的采访，奇瑞利用卡奥斯先进的人工智能技术，每小时已经可以生产60辆汽车，而且是涵盖了燃油、纯电、混动、增程等多类汽车的多个品牌。该技术使得奇瑞能够快速调整生产线，让每辆车都能按照单个用户的要求制造。
This ability personalize at scale, combined with the ability to shift from physical to digital customers, enables another shift – a move away from search and towards creation.
这种大规模个性化定制的能力，与从实体用户转向数字用户的能力相结合，实现了另一种转变——从搜索到创造。
- From search to creation
从搜索到创造
Google and Amazon grew to dominance by helping people search for information or products that were already produced. Today, a customer’s query can lead to the creation of entirely new things. In other words, companies no longer have to produce for predicted demand, they can produce only AFTER there is demand. For example, founded in 1999, QuickParts now uses advanced manufacturing approaches located in 150 locations around the world to produce customized parts on-demand, close to where its aerospace, automotive, and industrial products customers need them. In Chery’s case, for example, it doesn’t have to produce a batch of vehicles in advance of sales – because digitization has made the manufacturing process so much faster, it can wait until the order has actually come in. Thanks to COSMOPlat’s technology, it has been able to shorten the order-delivery time frame to as little as 15 days.
谷歌和亚马逊通过帮助人们搜索到已经生产出的信息或产品，从而占据了市场主导地位。而今天，我们作为用户的一次询问就可能触发全新事物的创造。换句话说，公司不再需要根据预测出的需求安排生产，他们可以在需求产生后再进行生产。举例来说，QuickParts公司成立于1999年，利用分布于全球150多个地点的先进制造技术，为用户提供按需生产的定制零件。这150多个地点紧邻需要该技术的用户所在地，用户来自航空航天、汽车和工业产品行业。在奇瑞的案例中，数字化使生产过程变得更快，因此奇瑞不需要在一批车卖掉前就把车生产出来，而是可以等到订单确认后再生产。得益于卡奥斯的技术，奇瑞从订单到交付所需的时间缩短到了15天。
From the manufacturer’s perspective, producing at the point of demand has a number of advantages. There is much less risk, because you don’t make your product until someone orders it, and it also reduces waste. Ten to thirty percent of clothing produced globally, for example, is never sold – and is simply thrown away. If you only produce what people order, waste would approach zero.
从制造商的角度来看，按需生产具有许多优势。首先，风险要小得多，因为在确认订单之前不需要生产产品。而且，也减少了浪费。全球生产的约10%到30%服装从未售出，只得扔掉。如果可以等到有人下单才进行生产，那么就能实现零浪费。
Producers can rarely deliver rapid, personalized, proximate in today’s interconnected world without the collaboration of suppliers and complementary products and services, however. Which brings us to our fourth strategic force at play: moving from a customer-centric to an ecosystem centric mindset.
然而，在当今互联互通的世界里，生产商很少能在没有供应商和配套产品与服务的协作下实现快速、个性化和接近性。这引出了第四种关键转变：思维方式从“以用户为中心”转向“以生态为中心”。
- From customer centricity to ecosystem centricity
从“以用户为中心”到“以生态为中心”
The fourth shift is a historic rebalancing from a focus solely on customers, towards to a focus that also includes employees and suppliers. As Felix Oberholzer-Gee of Harvard Business School points out, the value companies create derives not just from increasing their customers’ willingness to pay, but also their suppliers’ and employees’ willingness to sell. We are seeing, among our chief strategy officer and chief innovation officer community, a shift from a customer-centric perspective to a more balanced ecosystem-centric mindset, which recognized employees and suppliers as equally important stakeholders. Companies able to establish closer, more coordinated, relationships with them can deliver more timely, personalized experiences to their customers.
第四个转变是从仅关注用户，转向为关注员工和供应商的历史性的平衡恢复。哈佛商学院教授费列克斯·奥伯霍尔泽-吉（Felix Oberholzer-Gee）指出：公司创造的价值不仅源于提高用户的支付意愿，还源于提高供应商和员工的销售意愿。在我们接触的首席战略官和首席创新官群体中，我们看到了从“以用户为中心”向一种更加平衡的“以生态为中心”进行思维方式转型的趋势。这种新的思维方式将员工和供应商视为同用户一样重要的利益相关方，能够与供应商建立更紧密、更协调的关系的公司，也能够为用户提供更加及时和个性化的体验。
In Chery’s case, the company increases their ecosystem of 2,000-plus suppliers’ “willingness to sell” by being a great partner to sell to. For example, they help suppliers improve products or services and create new ones by providing customer insights derived from their infinite flow of user data. They try not to ask suppliers to produce parts until they have an order, so there is less risk of parts languishing in inventory or never being needed. When a supplier produces a part for them, that supplier knows they will be paid because there is already a customer who has placed an order. You might say that the company is not only selling cars; it is selling orders for car components to its ecosystem of suppliers.
以奇瑞公司为例，奇瑞链接了2000多家供应商，并通过帮助供应商成为优秀的销售合作伙伴，来提高供应商的“销售意愿”。 比如，奇瑞将用户洞见（源自奇瑞获得的无限的用户数据流）分享给供应商，帮助供应商进行创新，改进产品或服务，并创造新的产品或服务。在接到订单之前，奇瑞不会（或者很少）要求供应商提前生产零件，因此不存在零件滞留在库存中或永远不需要的风险。当供应商为奇瑞生产零件时，供应商知道他们一定能收到货款，因为已经有用户下单了。因此，奇瑞不仅销售汽车，还为其整个供应商生态系统提供汽车零部件。
These four forces – digital customers, personalization, production on demand and ecosystem centricity - are moving every industry toward proximity. What can firms do to identify near-term opportunities proximity provides?
这四种力量——数字用户、大规模个性化定制、按需生产和以生态为中心——正在推动每个行业走向“接近”。那么，企业如何识别接近带来的短期机会呢？
Four steps towards Proximity
达到“接近”状态的四步法
Our analysis has identified four steps can help strategists and leadership teams systematically identify potential strategic moves that proximity may offer. While some of these moves may be long-term and visionary, we have found that simple, inexpensive actions can deliver immediate advantages, too. It doesn’t require a big leap in proximity to create a substantial edge.
从我们的分析中可以得出，四步法可以帮助战略专家和领导团队系统地识别符合“接近”模式的潜在战略举措。虽然有些举措可能是长期的、愿景性的，但我们也发现了简单、低成本的举措也可以产生即时的优势。在采用“接近”原则时，我们并不需要大跃步就能创造出显著的优势。
Step 1: Envision P=0
第 1 步：设想 P=0
Step back from your industry and envision the state we call “P=0,” the hypothetical point at which value is created at the same time and in the same place as need arises. For example, a food importer of plantains we worked with envisioned P=0, with the leadership team imagining a scenario in which kids at a middle school get hungry just as the bell rings for lunch. As they walk into the cafeteria, the plantains that had minutes earlier been seeds, have gestated, grown, ripened and then been cut and cooked, ready for the children to serve themselves and eat.
首先，先从行业现状跳出来，设想所谓的“P=0”的状态，在这个理论假设点，需求的出现和价值的创造发生在同一时空。例如，我们采访了一家进口大蕉的食品进口商，他们希望采用P=0模式，于是领导团队想出了这样一个场景：午饭的铃声响起，初中生饥肠辘辘，当他们走进食堂，桌上摆的是几分钟前刚刚完成了发芽、生长、成熟、收获、烹饪一系列过程的大蕉。
The scenario may seem preposterous but, envisioning P=0 immediate evokes barriers. The next step is to lean into those barriers, and systematically analyze them.
虽然这个情景听起来不太现实，但“P=0”设想可以立即引发对存在的阻碍的思考。而下一步就是系统地分析，并克服这些阻碍。
Step 2: Assess the barriers
第 2 步：对阻碍进行评估
This exercise predictably surfaced all kinds of barriers, including industry norms (school cafeterias tend to plan menus and place food orders in advance), technology (we can’t cut and cook plantains that quickly), regulation (we need time to conduct quality checks on the food), and even scientific understanding (its take a plantain 3-4 months to grow).
可想而知，这种头脑风暴很快会想出各种阻碍，比如行业规范（学校食堂通常会提前制定菜单，采购食材）、技术（不可能如此快地完成大蕉收割和烹饪）、监管（食品质量检验需要时间），甚至科学常识（大蕉生长期通常需要三到四个月）。
Build a robust, exhaustive list of barriers. Let all the fears and frustration be spoken and heard. Then pick a set of three to ten that, if removed, you think would have the greatest impact.
建立一份全面、详尽的清单，穷举所有阻碍。说出并倾听所有的恐惧和沮丧。然后选择消除后能产生最大影响的三到十个阻碍。
Step 3: Brainstorm Proximity trends
第 3 步：用头脑风暴识别出能体现“接近”概念的趋势
With a handful of key barriers documented, think through the trends that may open up new possibilities for removing them. Start with some of the trends highlighted above (AI, 3D printing, IoT, robotics, for example) and then brainstorm additional ones that may be specific to your sector (in the case of the case of the plantain importer, such trends include controlled environment farming, genetic modification, or precision farming).
在记录关键障碍之后，思考可能帮助克服这些障碍的新兴趋势。可以从前文提到的趋势（如人工智能、3D打印、物联网、机器人等）开始，再思考其他可能对您所在行业有特殊影响的趋势（例如，对这家大蕉进口商来说，相关的趋势包括控制环境农业、基因改造或精准农业）。
While it is tempting to focus solely on new technologies, this can be a mistake. Technologies may enable proximity, but other trends may also do the same thing. For example, rising geopolitical uncertainty increases the frequency of supply chain disruptions, which make importing from long distances more costly. At the same time, the premium customers are willing to pay for local products, may be rising.
虽然专注于新技术很有吸引力，但这可能是个误区。技术的确可以促进接近，但其他趋势同样重要。例如，地缘政治的不确定性导致供应链中断的频率增加，使得远距离进口成本更高。与此同时，消费者对本地产品的支付意愿可能也在上升。
Step 4: Map and prioritize opportunities
第4步：绘制机会映射图，确定机会的优先级
Finally, map the barriers (from step 2) to the trends (from step 3). Take one barrier at a time, and for each, tick through each of the trends asking, “How might this trend remove or reduce this barrier?” Let people brainstorm ideas: This will provide a list of opportunities to consider (e.g., using vertical farming to shorten plantain gestation times, using 3D printing create foods closer to schools).
最后，将“阻碍”（步骤 2）映射到“趋势”（步骤 3）中。逐一查看每个障碍，并针对每个趋势询问：“这个趋势将如何消除或减少该障碍？”让团队成员自由头脑风暴，记录潜在的机会（例如，发展垂直农业缩短大蕉的成熟时间，或使用3D打印技术让食品在离学校更近的地方被生产）。
For each opportunity identified, ask two questions of each oppotunity: (1) how easy or difficult would it be to pursue this opportunity (considering technological feasibility, likely cost, time to market) and (2) if we were able to use this trend to remove that barrier, what would the impact be? You might plot the ideas on a 2 x 2 matrix of ease and impact. Don’t rule out potentially high impact opportunities that seem too difficult. In our experience, it is these types of seemingly “crazy” ideas that lead to the biggest leaps in advantage, because the technologies and other trends driving Proximity are moving so much faster than most people believe they are. What at first seems a joke, with a little digging, you find is actually happening.
对于每个识别出的机会，要问两个问题：（1）抓住这个机会有多困难或多容易（要考虑技术可行性、机会成本、产品上市时间）；（2）如果能够能够利用当前趋势消除某个机会的阻碍，这个机会会产品多大影响？你可以将想法绘制在一个2×2的矩阵中（维度分别为困难程度和影响力）。不要放弃那些看似困难，但却蕴藏高潜力的机会。根据我们的经验，正是这些看似“疯狂”的想法，推动了最大飞跃，带来了优势，因为如果某种技术或趋势可以驱动“接近”，它们的发展就会比大多数人想象的要快得多。乍一看似乎是个笑话，但只要稍微思考，就会发现它正在真实发生。
For example, these four steps eventually led the food importer to the idea of 3D printing food with a paste made from one of their core ingredients. The idea seemed potentially high-impact, but also inordinately difficult. They were about to laugh the idea off as a joke. But instead of dropping the idea, they did a little research and found that 3D food printing technology is actually far more advanced and affordable than they had thought. So, they funded a small step, that led to another, that put them on a path that could potentially lead to proximate advantage.
例如，遵循四步法，一家食品进口商想出了利用3D打印技术，把自己的核心配料“面糊”制作成3D打印食品的点子。这个点子蕴藏巨大的影响力，但也异常困难。这个想法本该被当作笑话一笑置之，但这家公司并没有这样做。他们进行了研究，发现3D食品打印技术实际上比他们想象的更先进、更便宜。因此，他们对这一小步进行了投资，然后又是一小步，这回让他们走上一条可能带来“接近”优势的道路。
These same four steps have led to leading edge developments in other industries too. A law firm began exploring a combination of human and AI-enabled solutions which would enable it to deliver legal advice to clients without the need for a meeting. A car wash chain envisioned building smaller form car washes that could be operated with fewer staff, and therefore be placed closer to residential areas to intercept customers before they got to the competition. A furniture company thought of ways to do more of the furniture assembly at their retail locations, facilitated by 3D printing of certain parts, to reduce inventory, shorten customer wait times, and provide more customized options.
四步法已经让其他行业的一些企业发展先人一步。一家律师事务所率先探索人和AI相结合的解决方案，使其能够在无需召开会议的情况下，向用户提供法律建议。一家洗车连锁店正在建造小型洗车设施，需要的运营人员更少，还可以部署在靠近住宅区的地方，在用户看到竞争对手之前就能“拦截”用户。一家家具公司也想出了好点子，用3D打印来制作某些部件，让在线下零售店的组装更加方便，这样可以降低库存，缩短用户等待时间，并提供更多定制选项。
Proximity may seem an abstract idea, but we have found that when applied systematically, it proves a powerful concept that can create strategic clarity and reveal tangible, valuable, near-term strategic moves.
“接近”这一概念似乎是抽象的，但我们发现，“接近”一经系统性应用，就能证明它的威力，“接近”可以让战略清晰，帮我们找到具象的、有价值的、近期就可以采用的战略举措。
