为了评估全球建筑公司的方式，我们采用了两种措施：第一个是深度，或者在国际边界之间发生了什么百分比的商业活动。第二个是广度，或者该活动在世界各地传播的程度。
The ENR Top 250 International Contractors survey provides an annual snapshot of the cross-border activities of the world’s largest contractors. Here, we take a longer perspective, using data from the 2005-15 surveys to analyze the globalization of the world’s largest contractors and identify actionable strategy implications.
In 2014, the top contractors earned 36% of their revenues overseas. There was wide variation by country: The top 50 European contractors earned 65% of their annual revenue abroad versus 38% for U.S. contractors and only 13% for Chinese contractors. Compared to other services, these statistics appear to be quite high, as only about 9% of value added in the service sector is traded across borders. However, the ENR Top 250 International Contractors are not representative of all construction contractors. A better benchmark is the Fortune Global 500, whose companies earned 46% of their revenues abroad.
Turning from depth to breadth, in 2014, only 25% of contractors’ revenues were outside of their home regions. Firms ranked in the Fortune Global 500 were also more globalized on this metric, with 36% interregional revenues. Looking only at contractors’ international revenues, however, 68% were interregional. Once contractors leave their home markets, they tend to do more business outside their region than within it. The interregional share of total revenues also varies widely by country. German contractors earned 79% of their total revenues outside of Europe, whereas only 9% of Japanese contractors’ business was from outside of Asia.
在过去的10年中，最高国际承包商的总收入几乎增加了两倍，达到了2014年的1.43万亿美元，从2004年的5002亿美元。％。在2004年，这是33％；而在2008年，它以40％的峰值达到顶峰。
The big change, as shown in the accompanying maps, is the rise of emerging economies both as markets and home countries. In 2004, Europe and North America alone accounted for 53% of international revenues of the top contractors. In 2014, those same regions provided only 35% of the group’s revenues.
地图的编码颜色描述了新兴经济体承包商的兴起。特别是，中国承包商在2014年将其国际收入的份额从2004年的5％增加到14％，主要是以欧洲的竞争对手为代价。
在转向国外市场之间的优先级之前，值得考虑的是在国际机会上相对于国内机会有多少重视。国内市场是已知的数量，外国市场就是这样。此外，数据表明，国际收入与2014年的新合同之间没有相关性。全球化是一种选择，而不是当务之急。
为公司选择海外扩张,we have built a statistical model of 11 years of top contractors’ data, which gives some clues as to where contractors succeed internationally. The model emphasizes cultural, administrative (political), geographic and economic differences among countries in explaining contractors’ revenues in each region.
在文化方面，我们发现拥有通用官方语言是一个重要的优势。所有其他同等的人，公司在与本国共享通用官方语言的国家的收入是其他国家的3.5倍。
Since corruption is a major concern, the model includes countries’ differences in rank on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index. Firms tend to find it harder to operate in countries with very different levels of corruption from their home countries. For a contractor based in the United States, the difference in corruption between the U.S. and China would be predicted to cut revenues to only one-quarter of what they would be in a country with an equivalent level of corruption (such as Ireland).
Unsurprisingly, distance also matters a great deal. If one foreign market is twice as far away as another, distance itself would be expected to reduce revenues by 58% in the faraway market relative to the close one.
经济差异对收入也是不利的。平均而言，如果一个国家的人均GDP是另一个国家的两倍或一半，则其承包商收入比人均GDP相同的国家低25％。该指标值得仔细考虑，因为它表明发达国家的承包商在其他发达国家中表现最好，而发展中国家的承包商在其他发展中国家则表现最好。
To succeed in foreign markets, most firms leverage strengths that are rooted in their home countries or regions. Companies from advanced economies will tend to have very different strengths from those in developing countries.
fo技术能力可能是一个主要的优势r firms from advanced economies, especially when they extend beyond simple quality differences to encompass integration across complex systems. As John Rice, vice chairman of GE, points out, “While [Chinese companies] might be able to steal a print of the dimensions of an aircraft engine and even make something like that … the complex interactions among the different parts of that engine and with the rest of the plane and its systems mean that I wouldn’t want to fly on [it].” Western companies also have more experience in complying with procurement and environmental standards. Countries that are working to cut corruption, for example, may be more apt to work with an advanced-economy firm with a strong code of ethics and domestic legislation that aims to curb international corruption.
On the other hand, developing-country firms also have many advantages. First, they are more likely to compete by offering services at a lower cost, with labor costs an obvious advantage. Chinese firms, in particular, also can benefit from cheaper capital equipment and, especially in the case of state-owned firms, low financing costs. Contractors from large emerging markets also can benefit from domestic economies of scale as their home countries build out the basic infrastructure that already exists in advanced economies.
Often, the greatest capability constraints to globalization are human, rather than technical. Firms from both advanced and emerging economies can strengthen their ability to succeed abroad by becoming more internally cosmopolitan. Many firms will have to boost diversity among their leadership ranks to get closer to the markets in which they seek to grow.
Locating senior leadership in key growth markets also can help. A study by the Boston Consulting Group found that firms from advanced economies that outperformed in emerging markets were three times as likely as underperforming firms to have more than one of their top 20 executives in those markets.
Pankaj Ghemawat is global professor of management and strategy and director of the Center for the Globalization of Education and Management at the Stern School of Business at New York University. Phillip Bastian is a research scholar at the center.
