the box Digitisation will not just transform how goods are moved around the world, but also how the world shops 數(shù)字化不僅會變革全球商品的流通手段，還會改變世界購物的方式THE Munich Maersk, which entered service in June 2017, is a testament to the technological marriage of information and transportation.于2017年6月開始服役的“慕尼黑馬士基”號（Munich M?rsk）集裝箱船是信息與運輸實現(xiàn)技術(shù)聯(lián)姻的見證 Its bridge looks like a very spacious cockpit. Packed with computer screens, it is all glass, no brass—with a wheel that looks more like a pilot’s control column. 她的艦橋看起來像一個非常寬敞的飛機駕駛艙，里面擺滿了電腦屏幕，全部由玻璃制成，沒有黃銅，而方向盤看起來更像是飛行員的操縱桿Sailing her 214,000 tonnes from port to port takes a crew of just 28. Loading and unloading the 20,000 containers she carries only needs the supervision of one crew member. 從一座港口到另一座港口，21.4萬噸體量的她只需28名船員。裝卸她運載的2萬個集裝箱只需要一名船員的監(jiān)督The Munich Maersk, though, is a high-end exception—one of the best ships in the up-to-the-minute fleet of the biggest shipping company in the world. 不過，“慕尼黑馬士基”號是一個高端的例外——它是世界上最大的航運公司擁有的最先進(jìn)船隊中最好的船之一。It shows what can be done. But at the moment the industry’s big issue is what is being left undone. 它展示了我們能夠達(dá)到什么樣的水準(zhǔn)。但這個行業(yè)目前的大問題是還有哪些事情沒有做Between 1985 and 2007 trade volumes rose at around twice the rate of global GDP. 從1985年到2007年，貿(mào)易額增速約為全球GDP增速的兩倍In the 1990s the world’s largest container ships only had space for 5,000 or so containers; 90年代，世界上最大的集裝箱船只能容納約5,000個集裝箱now it boasts giants like the Munich Maersk. 現(xiàn)在，行業(yè)里已經(jīng)擁有了像“慕尼黑馬士基”號這樣的巨人The global logistics industry had revenues of $4.3trn (€3.3trn) in 2014, according BCG, a consultancy.根據(jù)咨詢公司BCG的數(shù)據(jù)，2014年全球物流行業(yè)的營收達(dá)4.3萬億美元（3.3萬億歐元） But though the flows and the pipes have got bigger, the principles of the industry’s plumbing have changed little since they took their modern form in the 1950s and 1960s. 但是，盡管流量和“管道”都已變得更大，自該行業(yè)在上世紀(jì)五六十年代達(dá)到現(xiàn)代形式以來，這套“管路系統(tǒng)”的原理卻沒有多大變化Use containers of standard sizes that can be loaded onto trains, lorries or ships as needed; use scale to cut costs; co-ordinate the whole thing with a physical paper trail. 使用能夠按需要裝上火車、卡車或輪船的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)尺寸集裝箱；利用規(guī)模削減成本；用一堆紙質(zhì)文件來協(xié)調(diào)整個流程When in doubt, buy something bigger. The economic slowdown following the global financial crisis hit this way of doing things hard. 如果吃不準(zhǔn)，買艘更大的船就對了。 全球金融危機之后經(jīng)濟放緩，讓這種操作方式遭受巨大打擊Although giants like Maersk continued to buy enormous ships, smaller lines with worse balance-sheets could not. 雖然像馬士基這樣的巨頭繼續(xù)購買龐大的船只，但資產(chǎn)負(fù)債狀況較差的小型船隊卻難以為繼Airbus, which had hoped to sell a freighter version of its A380 superjumbo, abandoned its plans. 本想銷售A380巨型貨機的空客公司放棄了這項計劃Freight rates plunged as demand for shipping did not keep up with supply. Between 2012 and 2016, the Shanghai Containerised Freight Index, a measure of prices, fell by 73%. 航運需求增長趕不上供應(yīng)增長導(dǎo)致運費暴跌。2012年至2016年間，衡量價格的上海集裝箱運價指數(shù)下跌了73%，At the same time, the growth of e-commerce saw more aware, more dem

anding corporate customers insist on ever better handling of what is called logistics’“l(fā)ast mile”—moving purchases from their distribution warehouses to the people who bought them. 與此同時，電子商務(wù)的發(fā)展讓更多更具革新意識、要求更高的企業(yè)客戶開始強調(diào)要更好地處理所謂的物流“最后一公里”——把采購的產(chǎn)品從分銷倉庫送到買家手中Though today’s talk is all of delivery drones and driverless vans, the key to this transformation has been not new equipment but new ways of handling data: knowing where hundreds of millions of things are and where they are going, and being able to act on that data as things change.盡管如今的熱門話題都是關(guān)于無人機和無人車送貨，但這種轉(zhuǎn)變的關(guān)鍵不是新設(shè)備，而是處理數(shù)據(jù)的新方法：知道上億件物品都在什么地方，要往哪里去，還要能夠在情況有變時根據(jù)這些數(shù)據(jù)做出調(diào)整 Now companies that have been crucial to these changes at one end of the distribution chain—Alibaba and JD, which are Chinese, and Amazon, which is American—are eyeing the rest of it. 現(xiàn)在，一些深刻影響了分銷鏈其中一端變化的公司——中國的阿里巴巴和京東，以及美國的亞馬遜————開始把目光投向這個鏈條的其余部分The business of moving goods internationally from factory to factory and warehouse to warehouse requires many more capabilities than shifting items from local warehouses to doorsteps. 將貨物跨國從一家工廠運到另一家工廠，從一個倉庫運到另一個倉庫，這種業(yè)務(wù)所要求的能力要比把貨物從本地倉庫送到家門口高得多But it also accounts for 90% of the logistics’ industry’s global revenue. 但它占到了物流行業(yè)全球收入的90%How far the intruders can displace the incumbents and what new business models come out of the struggle will help determine how much world trade can grow and who the winners and losers from that growth will be.這些入侵者能夠取代在位者多少，以及這場斗爭中會出現(xiàn)什么樣的新商業(yè)模式，將在一定程度上決定世界貿(mào)易能有多大增長，以及增長帶來的贏家和輸家分別是誰 Adrift in a sea of paper Firms looking to move components through their supply chain or finished goods to retailers have two main options. 在紙張的海洋中漂流 如果有公司要在供應(yīng)鏈中運送零部件，或是把成品送到零售商處，它們的選擇主要有兩類Express-delivery services such as DHL Express (part of Deutsche Post DHL), FedEx and UPS are fast and flexible—all the more so now they have embraced new data-management systems. DHL快遞（德國郵政DHL的子公司）、聯(lián)邦快遞和UPS等快遞服務(wù)快速而靈活——如今它們采用了新的數(shù)據(jù)管理系統(tǒng)后就更是如此But they are also expensive—especially for long-distance air freight. Shipping a 70kg parcel from Shanghai to London with DHL Express takes three times longer, and costs four times as much, as buying a human of the same weight an airline ticket. 但它們也很貴，尤其是長途空運。用DHL快遞把一個70公斤的包裹從上海送到倫敦，所花的時間相比給同樣重量的人買一張飛機票要多三倍，價格則要翻兩番The passenger gets a baggage allowance and free drinks, too. 話說旅客還可以免費攜帶一定重量的行李和享受免費飲料呢So most goods wend their way across the world using the second option—containerised freight. 所以，大多數(shù)商品都是利用第二種選擇——集裝箱貨運——來緩緩橫穿世界的The non-domestic cargo business has revenues of $2.6trn a year, according to BCG. And a lot of those revenues go to middlemen. 根據(jù)BCG的數(shù)據(jù)，非國內(nèi)貨運業(yè)務(wù)的營業(yè)額為每年2. 6萬億美元。這些收入中很多都給了中間商Dealing with customs clearances, insurance, transfers between sea and road and rail and all the other physical, procedural and bureaucratic hold-ups that freight is heir to requires the services of a freight forwarder. 要處理海關(guān)清關(guān)、保險、海上與公路和鐵路之間的轉(zhuǎn)運，以及貨運中會遇到的所有其他實體的、程序的和官僚的阻礙，就需要貨運代理人的服務(wù)These companies account for over a fifth of the logistics industry’s revenues (see chart 1); in some cases they receive as much as 45% of the total delivery cost. 這些公司的收入占整個物流業(yè)的五分之一以上（見圖1），在某些情況下它們收取的費用占到了總運費的45%In 2016 Deutsche Post DHL’s in-house freight-forwarder made over $26bn in revenues.2016年，德國郵政DHL的內(nèi)部貨運代理公司收入超過260億美元 Its smaller rivals Kuehne + Nagel, of Switzerland, and DB Schenker, of Germany, made $20bn and $17bn respectively. 在比它規(guī)模小一些的競爭對手中，瑞士德迅集團（Kuehne + Nagel）和德國的德鐵信可鐵路（DB Schenker）分別賺取了200億美元和170億美元For the most part, freight-forwarding companies charge a percentage of the total cost of the shipment; this gives them little incentive to drive costs down. 大多數(shù)情況下，貨運代理公司會按照運貨總成本的百分比收費，這導(dǎo)致它們沒有什么動力來降低成本In a free and transparent market where all the shipping options were easily discoverable, this problem would be solved through competition. 如果有一個自由而透明的市場，讓人們能夠輕松發(fā)現(xiàn)所有的運輸選擇，那么這個問題就可以通過競爭來解決But the complicated world of shipping contracts is a long way from that ideal, and the incumbents have clear reasons for keeping it so. 但這個航運合同滿天飛的復(fù)雜世界距離這樣的理想還很遙遠(yuǎn)，而且既有企業(yè)有顯而易見的理由來維持現(xiàn)狀Zvi Schreiber, founder of Freightos, a website headquartered in Hong Kong that is introducing some transparency by allowing users to compare and book different options, says many firms may take two or three days to quote a price for taking an air-freight? or a shipping container from A to B. 總部位于香港的Freightos網(wǎng)站的創(chuàng)始人茨維·施萊伯（Zvi Schreiber）表示，要提供把空運貨盤或集裝箱從甲地運到乙地的報價，許多公司可能要花費兩三天的時間And forwarders are often unable or unwilling to say whether the goods will get from China to Europe in one month or two. 而且貨運代理通常不能或不愿意擔(dān)保說貨物是否能在一兩個月內(nèi)從中國運到歐洲The industry’s backwardness can be seen in its thrall to paperwork. 這個行業(yè)的落后從其受制于紙面文書就可見一斑Systems based on e-tickets that say who is entitled to go where, and how, have been mandatory in air-passenger transport for ten years. 航空客運強制使用電子票已經(jīng)有十年了，票上說明了誰有資格以什么方式去哪里But half of air cargo still travels with paper “bills of lading” rather than e-tickets. 但是航空貨運中仍然有一半使用紙張?zhí)嶝泦味皇请娮悠?。In the world of containerised shipping things are even worse: freight forwarders deal with shipping firms, airlines and hauliers mainly by fax. 在集裝箱運輸部門，情況還要更糟：貨運代理商主要是通過傳真來和航運公司、航空公司以及陸路運輸公司打交道The cargo on each voyage of the Munich Maersk generates a library of documents—many of which then need to be sent to the ship’s

destination by some other means. 慕尼黑馬士基”號每次航行運載的貨物都會生成一個文件庫，其中許多文件需要通過其他方式發(fā)送到目的地That secondary shipping is not foolproof, either: vessels and aircraft are often delayed in port because the paperwork has not caught up with the goods that they carry.這項額外的運送同樣并非萬無一失——船舶和飛機經(jīng)常在港口延誤，因為其攜帶貨物的文書還沒有送到 The cost of all this is enormous. Removing administrative blockages and outdated practices would, by some accounts, do more to boost international trade than eliminating tariffs.所有這些問題的成本是巨大的。根據(jù)一些人的估算，去除行政障礙和過時做法對國際貿(mào)易的促進(jìn)作用比取消關(guān)稅還要大 The UN reckons that putting all the Asia-Pacific region’s trade-related paperwork online could slash the time it takes to export goods by up to 44%, cut the cost of doing so by up to 31%, and boost exports by as much as $257bn a year. 聯(lián)合國認(rèn)為，如果能將亞太地區(qū)所有與貿(mào)易有關(guān)的文書工作放到網(wǎng)上，出口商品所花費的時間可以縮短多達(dá)44%，成本可降低31%，同時推動出口每年增長2570億美元The burden is felt throughout business. Two-thirds of the American importers who responded to a recent survey undertaken by Freightos said that over a quarter of their deliveries from abroad arrive late.這種負(fù)累整個行業(yè)都感受得到。在Freightos最近的一項調(diào)查中，回答問卷的美國進(jìn)口商有三分之二表示，來自國外的產(chǎn)品有超過四分之一晚到 Some 42% said they spend more than two hours on paperwork to arrange a shipment. And 83% said they struggle to track items as they move across the world. 約42%的人表示安排一項發(fā)貨需要在文書上花費兩個多小時。83%的受訪者表示他們很難追蹤世界各地的在途貨物That leaves many frustrated. “Amazon Prime can deliver to your house from its warehouse at a set time,” Mr Schreiber says. “Why can’t you do the same with air and sea freight?”這讓許多人倍感挫敗。施萊伯說：“亞馬遜Prime可以在約定的時間里從倉庫發(fā)貨到家，為什么空運和海運就做不到呢？”? One answer is regulation; there are a lot of institutional obstacles to reform. For instance, in 2008 a UN convention put electronic documents in international shipping on a firm legal footing. 一個答案是監(jiān)管：改革面臨很多體制性障礙。例如，2008年，聯(lián)合國大會為國際航運的電子文件提供了堅實的法律基礎(chǔ)But for these “Rotterdam rules” to come into force, the agreement must be ratified by 20 countries. 但是，要使這些“鹿特丹規(guī)則”生效，該協(xié)議必須得到20個國家的批準(zhǔn)Owing to a lack of interest in the subject among politicians the tally so far is just four: Cameroon, Congo-Brazzaville, Spain and Togo. 由于政客們對這個問題缺乏興趣，迄今為止只有四個國家簽署：喀麥隆、剛果布拉柴維爾、西班牙和多哥Poor communications used to be partly to blame, too, but that excuse has fallen overboard.通訊不佳一度也是原因，但如今這個借口已經(jīng)不成立了 Inmarsat, a company originally set up by the International Maritime Organisation to provide satellite services for ships at sea, today offers data rates for ships that are over 100 times faster than they were 20 years ago. 國際海事衛(wèi)星組織公司（Inmarsat）最初由國際海事組織設(shè)立，為海上船舶提供衛(wèi)星服務(wù)它在今天提供的數(shù)據(jù)速率已經(jīng)比20年前快了100倍以上。Various companies rushing to provide new mobile-broadband services will improve things further. 各種急于提供新型移動寬帶服務(wù)的公司將會進(jìn)一步改進(jìn)現(xiàn)狀Not just ships and planes, but the individual packages and containers within them, can increasingly be tracked in real time.不僅僅船和飛機越來越容易被實時跟蹤，甚至它們內(nèi)部的單個包裹和集裝箱也一樣 The Cincinnati kids Such data can help integrate the legs of a journey, for example by making sure that lorries do not wait for a ship that is behind schedule, or that they arrive early for one that’s ahead.辛辛那提小子 這些數(shù)據(jù)可以幫助把旅程中的各個航段整合起來，以確保貨車無需苦等晚到的船，或者提前迎接那些早到的 They open the possibility of redirecting items along quicker or cheaper routes as they become available—if the shipper can find out about them.這就創(chuàng)造出一種可能性，即在更快或更便宜的路線出現(xiàn)時改變貨物的運輸路徑——前提是發(fā)貨人能夠找出這些新路線 The hard-to-get information which lets people find spare shipping capacity will power the real revolution, according to Martin Stopford of Clarksons, a shipbroker. 這種難以獲得的信息可以讓人們找到閑置的運力，從而推動真正的革命，船舶經(jīng)紀(jì)公司Clarksons的馬丁·斯特福德（Martin Stopford）說Matching spare capacity to cargo in need of transport on the fly would allow the “Uberisation” of the freight business. 將閑置運力與需要運輸?shù)呢浳飳崟r匹配起來，會帶來貨運業(yè)務(wù)的“優(yōu)步化”There are already signs of this in haulage. America’s lorries travel empty more than a quarter of the time: the wasted capacity is equivalent to 200,000 lorries travelling 1,000km every day. 在陸路運輸中已經(jīng)有了這種跡象。美國的大貨車有四分之一以上的時間都在空駛：浪費的運力相當(dāng)于每天20萬輛大貨車行駛1,000公里This is because it is hard for forwarders to find return cargoes using phone or fax. 這是因為轉(zhuǎn)運商很難通過電話或傳真找到返程貨車Now apps have appeared to match loads with drivers, just as the Uber app pairs passengers and drivers.現(xiàn)在，已經(jīng)出現(xiàn)了將貨物與司機匹配起來的應(yīng)用，就像優(yōu)步應(yīng)用匹配乘客和司機那樣 Indeed Uber Freight is one of the contenders.實際上，優(yōu)步貨運（Uber Freight）也是競爭者之一 Cargomatic, a startup based in Los Angeles, and Trucker Path, a rival in Texas that was bought by a Chinese firm in December, are competing with it for the freight business, while Amazon is testing “Amazon Flex” as a way of getting gig-economy drivers to make deliveries.總部位于洛杉磯的創(chuàng)業(yè)公司Cargomatic和得克薩斯州的競爭對手Trucker Path（去年12月被一家中國公司收購）正在與之爭奪貨運業(yè)務(wù)，而亞馬遜正在測試“亞馬遜Flex”來讓打零工的司機送貨 The vision of many in the industry is that such services will eventually cover all sorts of different transport modalities all over the world.行業(yè)內(nèi)許多人的愿景是，這類服務(wù)最終將覆蓋全世界所有不同的交通方式 In the past, realising the benefits of an integrated global network of ships, planes and lorries required owning such a network, a task too big for even the largest logistics firms.過去，要實現(xiàn)這樣一個由船舶、飛機和貨車構(gòu)成的綜合全球網(wǎng)絡(luò)的好處，就需要擁有這整個網(wǎng)絡(luò)，而這即使是對最大的物流公司來說也太過艱巨 Maersk, one of the world’s largest container-terminal firms as well as its largest containership operator, ran its sea- and road-logistics businesses almost entirely separately until 2016. 馬士基是世界上最大的集裝箱碼頭公司之一，也是最大的集裝箱船運營商，直到2016年，它的海運和陸路物流業(yè)務(wù)仍幾乎完全分開運營Most companies chose to specialise and hand co-ordination over to the forwarders. 大多數(shù)公司選擇專攻一項，而將協(xié)調(diào)的工作交給貨運代理Smartphones and sensors mean that, with the right platform or platforms, a freight forwarder, or a tech firm that had taken on such a role, could co-ordinate things much better than is possible today—and without any faxes. One of those seeking such changes is Amazon. 智能手機和傳感器的出現(xiàn)意味著一旦有了一個或多個恰當(dāng)運作的平臺，貨運代理公司或承擔(dān)這一角色的技術(shù)公司的協(xié)調(diào)能力將比現(xiàn)在好得多，也再不需要用到傳真了尋求這種變化的公司之一是亞馬遜In 2017 it spent $25bn on logistics. It thinks it could get better value for money by expanding what it does itself from last-mile to all-the-miles. 2017年，它在物流上花費了250億美元。它認(rèn)為，把自己所做的“最后一英里”拓展到“所有英里”，將可以獲得更好的投資回報It has created its own logistics division and acts as its own freight forwarder.它創(chuàng)建了自己的物流部門，充當(dāng)自己的貨運代理 Its cargo airline, Amazon Air, is still a tiddler compared with FedEx, with just 33 jets in its fleet.它的貨運航空公司“亞馬遜航空”（Amazon Air）與聯(lián)邦快遞相比還只是個業(yè)余玩家，其機隊僅有33架飛機 But the cargo hub in Cincinnati on which the company is spending $1.5bn will have room for 100 jets. It has also been granted a licence to act as a maritime freight forwarder. 但公司投資15億美元興建的辛辛那提的貨運樞紐將可容納100架飛機。它還拿到了海運貨運代理的許可Freight forwarders and transport giants alike claim that they do not see Amazon’s move into logistics as a threat. 貨運代理和運輸巨頭們都聲稱自己并沒有把亞馬遜進(jìn)軍物流業(yè)看作威脅The explosion of e-commerce (see chart 2) allows DHL, FedEx and UPS to tell shareholders happy stories about their future. 電子商務(wù)的爆炸式增長（見圖2）使DHL、聯(lián)邦快遞和UPS都能夠給股東講述關(guān)于自己未來發(fā)展的動人故事The demand for parcel delivery is growing by more than 7% a year, sufficient both to maintain jobs and survive competition, according to Frank Appel, the boss of Deutsche Post DHL. 根據(jù)德國郵政DHL的老板弗蘭克·阿佩爾（Frank Appel）的說法，包裹遞送的需求年增長超過7%，足以保住業(yè)內(nèi)職位并讓大家都在競爭中存活下來Automation may mean it will soon take a third fewer people to deliver a given volume of goods, he says—but the increase in demand will still make the industry a net job creator. 他表示，自動化可能意味著遞送給定數(shù)量物品所需的人數(shù)將減少三分之一，但需求的增長仍將使該行業(yè)的工作崗位實現(xiàn)凈增長And it will also mean that there will be room enough for both DHL and Amazon to grow.? 而且這也意味著DHL和亞馬遜都會有足夠的發(fā)展空間。 如此這般樂觀的另一個原因是，到目前為止亞馬遜主要使用其網(wǎng)絡(luò)來服務(wù)自己的客戶Another reason for such optimism is that, so far, Amazon has mainly used its network to serve its own customers. But that will change. The companies with big e-commerce networks are keen to take on other firms’ logistics, too.但這一點是會變的。擁有大型電子商務(wù)網(wǎng)絡(luò)的公司也熱衷于承接其他公司的物流環(huán)節(jié) The idea is not to own all the ships and rolling stock—though they may own some particularly profitable bits of the system—but to control the platforms that make services available, and to bring the rest of the industry on board by simply being too big to refuse. 其構(gòu)想并不是要擁有所有的船舶和機動車——雖然它們可能擁有系統(tǒng)中一些利潤尤其豐厚的部分——而是要控制提供服務(wù)的平臺，然后簡單地通過變成“大到無法拒絕”而把整個行業(yè)拉進(jìn)來Perhaps the furthest down the road in this respect is Alibaba. Alibaba is a digital platform where buyers and sellers meet, rather than a retailer that holds inventory itself. 也許在這方面走得最遠(yuǎn)的是阿里巴巴。阿里巴巴是把買家和賣家?guī)У揭黄鸬臄?shù)字平臺，而不是擁有庫存的零售商It has thus always been focused on end-to-end logistics in a way that Amazon, which runs most of its business through warehouses to which goods are delivered by normal channels, is not. 因此，它始終專注于端到端的物流，這一點和亞馬遜大為不同，因為后者的大部分業(yè)務(wù)運作時都是利用普通渠道把貨物送到倉庫Alibaba says that last year it was the middleman in $550bn of transactions within China, serving over 500m customers. 阿里巴巴說，去年它作為中介經(jīng)手了中國境內(nèi)5,500億美元的交易，為超過5億客戶提供服務(wù)Through its logistics platform, Cainiao, it delivers 70% of all e-commerce parcels in China. Now Alibaba has its eyes set on international e-commerce. 通過其菜鳥物流平臺，它完成了中國70%的電子商務(wù)包裹的遞送。 如今阿里巴巴開始重視國際電子商務(wù)A study produced by Alibaba’s research arm and Accenture, a consultancy, in 2016 predicted that cross-border e-commerce shipments worldwide could rise from $400bn in that year to nearly $1trn by 2020. 其研究部門和咨詢公司埃森哲在2016年聯(lián)合進(jìn)行的一項研究預(yù)測，全球跨境電商出貨量可能會從當(dāng)年的4,000億美元增加到2020年的近1萬億美元Until recently, these international shipments tended to be restricted to fairly high-value goods.不久前，這些國際貨運往往還只限于相當(dāng)高價值的商品 But Alibaba now ships cheap, bulky things like nappies and milk powder from manufacturers in America to consumers in China. 但阿里巴巴現(xiàn)在正把像尿布和奶粉這樣廉價而笨重的東西從美國制造商那里送到中國消費者的手中Last September the company said it was going to invest $15bn in boosting Cainiao’s cross-border capabilities. These developments should increase the total volume of goods shipped around the world yet further.去年9月，該公司表示將投資150億美元用于提升菜鳥物流的跨境運送能力。 這些發(fā)展應(yīng)該還會進(jìn)一步提升全球貨運總量 But Rob Wolleswinkel of BCG counsels against seeing this as a rising tide for all boats. 但BCG的羅布·沃爾斯溫克爾（Rob Wolleswinkel）反對將這看作是雞犬升天的機會Amazon’s logistics division, he suspects, will seek to “cherry pick” profitable undertakings such as managing the system, leaving only low-margin activities, such as basic transport services, to the likes of Maersk and DHL.他疑心亞馬遜的物流部門會“精挑細(xì)選”最有利可圖的業(yè)務(wù)，比如管理整個系統(tǒng)，而僅把基礎(chǔ)運輸服務(wù)等低利潤業(yè)務(wù)留給馬士基和DHL等公司 The newcomers, he notes, have two things on their side that previous would-be disrupters did not. One is that the company that owns the data owns the consumer. 他指出，亞馬遜這樣的行業(yè)新來者有兩個特點是先前的挑戰(zhàn)者所沒有的。一是擁有數(shù)據(jù)的公司也擁有消費者Amazon knows a great deal about the people who use its platform, which is a lot of people; logistics firms know next to nothing about anyone. Second is the size of the tech giants. 亞馬遜對使用其平臺的龐大用戶所知甚多，而物流公司幾乎不了解任何人。其次是科技巨頭的規(guī)模DHL,

FedEx and UPS have been big enough to bat away competition from startups. The e-commerce titans are another matter. 雖然此前DHL、聯(lián)邦快遞和UPS已經(jīng)大到可以打敗創(chuàng)業(yè)公司的競爭，但電子商務(wù)巨頭是另一回事Some have woken up to the threat. Soren Skou, chief executive of Maersk, argues that it was a mistake for his firm to spend the past decade focusing so much on no-frills container freight between China and Europe. 有些人已經(jīng)意識到了這種威脅。馬士基的首席執(zhí)行官索倫·斯庫（Soren Skou）認(rèn)為，他的公司在過去十年中太過專注于中國和歐洲之間的基礎(chǔ)集裝箱貨運，實為錯誤決策That allowed freight forwarders to scoop out the profit that Amazon and Alibaba now covet.。這讓貨運代理商攫取了亞馬遜和阿里巴巴現(xiàn)在覬覦的那塊利潤 Maersk must become more integrated to compete against Amazon, he says: he wants to make it “the DHL of the sea,” offering worldwide door-to-door delivery. 他表示，馬士基必須進(jìn)一步整合各項業(yè)務(wù)才能與亞馬遜競爭，他希望把自己變成“海上的DHL”，提供遍及全球的門到門送貨服務(wù)He plans to replace paper bills of lading with digital ones secured using blockchain technology. The firm is already rolling out a digital “Maersk Line Operating System” to put shipping data into a common format. 他計劃使用由區(qū)塊鏈技術(shù)支持的數(shù)字提單取代紙質(zhì)提單。該公司已經(jīng)推出了數(shù)字版的“馬士基航運操作系統(tǒng)”，將航運數(shù)據(jù)轉(zhuǎn)為通用格式This promises to be hugely influential. As an executive at a smaller rival admits: “We just watch what Maersk does and copy it.”這勢必產(chǎn)生極大的影響力。一位較小競爭對手的高管承認(rèn)：“我們無非是看馬士基做什么，有樣學(xué)樣而已。” Et TEU, Brute In the past, the unreliability of container delivery has made it unsuitable for e-commerce; 集裝箱也能變靈活 過去，集裝箱送貨因其不可靠性，不適用于電子商務(wù)that has been good for other retailers, who can turn a profit importing items from China in bulk to Europe and America and selling them on. 這對其他零售商來說是件好事，他們可以從中國大量進(jìn)口到歐美出售以賺取利潤If Maersk, or anyone else, can make containerised shipping truly responsive and flexible it will have implications well beyond logistics. 如果馬士基或其他任何人能夠使集裝箱運輸真正變得響應(yīng)快速而靈活，那么它的影響力就遠(yuǎn)不止于物流了 It might seem fanciful to think of shipments on a behemoth like Munich Maersk being flexible in the way that vans tootling round suburbs with packages can be像“慕尼黑馬士基”號這樣的龐然大物，如果說它運起貨來要能和在郊區(qū)穿梭送包裹的面包車一樣靈活，似乎有點異想天開. But smart data management and good data analytics might get you a long way towards the goal. 但智能數(shù)據(jù)管理和良好的數(shù)據(jù)分析可能推動它向這個目標(biāo)邁出一大步If you really know where all the goods are and have control over where they will go, you do not necessarily need to wait for an order before you ship something. 如果你確切知道所有商品的位置，并且能夠控制它們要去的地方，那么就未必需要等到訂單出現(xiàn)才能發(fā)貨If you know roughly how many of the items in question the market is interested in, they can be shipped ahead of time, their e-ticket-like labels left deliberately vague. 如果你大概知道市場對商品有多少興趣，你就可以提前發(fā)貨，并把它們類似于電子票的標(biāo)簽故意留白When an order is actually placed, the relevant label will be updated with a precise destination in transit. 當(dāng)實際訂單到來時，相關(guān)標(biāo)簽將在途中被更新為精確的目的地 The ship takes on part of the job of the warehouse. Alibaba and Amazon are already pursuing this approach. 船承擔(dān)了倉庫的部分工作。阿里巴巴和亞馬遜已經(jīng)在追求這種方式To the extent that it can be made to work, such magic will eat into retail and wholesale margins—which for books and toys can be over 50% of the price.只要它能夠發(fā)揮作用，這種魔法將蠶食零售和批發(fā)的利潤——書籍和玩具的這部分利潤可能超過價格的50%。 This is already happening to some extent. In 2012 Amazon began to allow Chinese businesses to start selling through its marketplace programme, which fulfils third-party orders; they now outnumber American firms.這在某種程度上已經(jīng)發(fā)生了。2012年，亞馬遜開始允許中國企業(yè)入駐其電商平臺marketplace開展銷售，如今它們的數(shù)量已經(jīng)超過了美國公司 And Amazon has slashed the cost of delivering small items ordered from China to America. It is now lower than the cost of shipping within the United States (though delivery is slower). 亞馬遜削減了把小商品從中國運到美國的成本，現(xiàn)在已經(jīng)低于美國境內(nèi)的運輸成本（雖然送貨較慢）Other American retailers, online and off, are angry at what they see as a subsidy to their competitors.其他美國零售商，無論線上線下，都對這種在他們看來是對競爭對手的補貼感到憤怒 Some estimate that as many as 7.5m retail jobs will disappear in America over the next decade, in part because of the increased possibilities for e-commerce that better logistics will bring.有人估計，未來十年，美國將有多達(dá)750萬個零售業(yè)職位消失，部分原因是物流的改善為電子商務(wù)帶來了新的可能性 Others are more optimistic. Michael Mandel of the Progressive Policy Institute, a think-tank in Washington, DC, has pointed out that in America jobs in logistics are increasing faster than retail employment is falling. 其他人則更樂觀。華盛頓智庫“進(jìn)步政策研究所”（Progressive Policy Institute）的邁克爾·曼德爾（Michael Mandel）指出，在美國，物流業(yè)職位的增加快過零售業(yè)職位的減少Those new workers, though, are unlikely to be employed by old firms. As Mr Stopford notes, incumbents did badly last time technological change swept logistics. 然而，這些新員工不太可能是被老公司聘用的。正如斯特福德指出的那樣，技術(shù)變革上次橫掃物流業(yè)時，既有企業(yè)表現(xiàn)得很糟糕“Who today has heard of Blue Funnel Line?” he asks of the British firm which was one of the largest cargo lines in the world—before containers and Maersk came along.“今天還有誰聽說過藍(lán)煙通（Blue Funnel Line）？”他口中的這家英國公司曾經(jīng)是世界上最大的貨運航線之一——在集裝箱和馬士基出現(xiàn)之前。