(2) The following two reprots are about MITTLESTAND. The (a) describes the French want to emulate Germany and create its own mittlestand, whereas (b) talks about the contribution of America's mittlestand. Please recall that Taiwan is dominated by mittlestand.
(a) Mid-sized companies | Why Doesn’t France Have a Mittelstand? Envy of Germany’s medium-sized family firms sparks a desire to emulate them
http://www.economist.com/news/bu ... desire-emulate-them
("Strictly, a Mittelstand firm has fewer than 500 employees and turnover of less than €50m ($66m), though in practice the term also applies to larger firms. * * * But for Ludwig Erhard, the economics minister who crafted West Germany’s post-war revival, the Mittelstand was never just about numbers. 'It is more an expression of a state of mind and a specific attitude,' he wrote in 1956")
(b) Mid-sized companies (2): America | The Mighty Middle; Medium-sized firms are the unsung heroes of America’s economy.
http://www.economist.com/news/bu ... a%E2%80%99s-economy
Quote:
(i) America has around 197,000 medium-sized firms, defined as those with annual revenues between $10m and $1 billion, according to data from the National Centre for the Middle Market at Ohio State University. Together, they employ over 40m people in the country population [which US Census Bureau estimated to be 314 million on Oct 24, 2012] and account for around one-third of private-sector GDP
"Some 82% of medium-sized firms survived the dark years of 2007-10, compared with 57% of small firms. And although the survival rate among the 2,100 big firms (with revenue over $1 billion) was 97%, these giants shed 3.7m jobs during those years. Mid-sized companies, by contrast, added 2.2m jobs.
(ii) America’s mid-sized firms have much in common with the Mittelstand businesses that are admired (see article) as the engine of Germany’s economy. They are concentrated in the industrial heartland, rather as Mittelstand firms are in southern Germany. They have typically been around a while; the average age is 31 years. And they tend to be privately owned: 31% by a family, and a further 40% by some combination of private equity and family. Only 14% are traded on a stockmarket. By contrast, two-thirds of big firms are publicly owned. The freedom from short-term stockmarket pressures is one reason why middling firms have been more willing to invest for the long term despite the tough economy, says Anil Makhija, who runs the National Centre for the Middle Market.
Lately, they have done strikingly well in industries where a dominant big firm has run into trouble. In the motor-vehicle parts industry, in 2010-11, after Lear Corp filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, its medium-sized competitors such as Standard Motor Products in Long Island City increased their combined revenue by 13% and their employment from 106,000 to 147,000. After Borders was liquidated in 2011, medium-sized booksellers such as Books A Million (from Alabama) and Half Price Books (a Texan chain) have together increased employment by 4.1%, to 49,150.
Mr Makhija has studied the fastest-growing mid-sized firms, to see what they were doing differently. They turn out to be more focused on what their customers want (those with social-media strategies did especially well) and to use more state-of-the-art management methods. They also tend to be remarkably globalised, again like Mittelstand firms.
(ii) "America’s mid-sized firms have much in common with the Mittelstand businesses that are admired (see article) as the engine of Germany’s economy. They are concentrated in the industrial heartland, rather as Mittelstand firms are in southern Germany. They have typically been around a while; the average age is 31 years. And they tend to be privately owned: 31% by a family, and a further 40% by some combination of private equity and family. Only 14% are traded on a stockmarket. By contrast, two-thirds of big firms are publicly owned. * * * Lately, they [America’s mid-sized firms] have done strikingly well in industries where a dominant big firm has run into trouble. [in the motor-vehicle parts industry and bookstore chains, for example] * * * They turn out to be more focused on what their customers want * * * They also tend to be remarkably globalised, again like Mittelstand firms.
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发表于 10-24-2012 10:58:05
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