スウエーデンの面白いものたち


by nyfiken
カレンダー
S M T W T F S
1 2
3 4 5 6 7 8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16
17 18 19 20 21 22 23
24 25 26 27 28 29 30
31

スウェーデンのやる気のあるビジネスマンSkype創始者


H&M loves Kylie Minogue
H&Mは、北欧の澄んだ透明感のあるイメージをフルに活用している。



スウェーデンでは、H&Mの新社長交代。創業者から孫にあたる36歳が日本や海外進出の担当を成功させたといった評価があり、先代の社長父親と同じ年若干30代後半で社長としてすべての事業を総括することが先日スウェーデン本社で決定した。多くの企業が悪戦苦闘するなかで、H&Mは独特の戦略ビジネスのやり方で不況にかかわらず、業績を伸ばしている。

ひとつには、この若い社長の就任が決まった。3代目にもかかわらず、家庭ビジネスを継承し、内部で、成績を伸ばしていることに評価があるため。また、不況が逆に在庫を抱え込まない、自社工場をもたない、独自のH&Mのビジネスシステムがある。今後この新社長により、有名デザイナーとのコラボレーション以外に、特別の高級路線部門もでてくる可能性が考えられる。次は、H&MスウェーデンのマネージャーがスウェーデンH&Mの内部人事について、新しいCEO社長に就任が決まったその件について次のように述べている。2009.02.11

I am very excited by the news that Karl-Johan Persson has been appointed by the board as our next CEO! He has shown such keen interest for promoting sustainability within H&M and for making it a shared responsibility for everyone within the company. During 2008 he has been actively engaged in the development our new sustainability strategy that includes a balance between people, planet and profit. I am really looking forward to working with him in the coming years!

個人的に気になった部分に下線をひいてみた。SUSTAINABILITY継続性。この言葉に注目したい。H&Mがスウェーデン企業でも、めだって世界の不況にかかわらず事業の成績がいいのは、その独自のシステムにもよる。企業研究としてすでにアメリカの経済専門をしている大学生や院生によってそのスウェーデンビジネスの成功例として研究テーマとされている。私個人としては、次のものがとてもよく特徴を捉えていると思う。復習参考までに。H&Mがなぜ不況に強いシステムとなっているのか。





さて、スウェーデンのビジネス。テトラパック。IKEAなど、世界の企業は、車産業だけではない。
実際現在多くのひとが恩恵をうけているインターネット電話スカイプの創始者のひとりもスウェーデン人であり、まだ40代1966年生まれに注目したい。また彼のチャレンジャーとしての荒波を前に進んでいくすがた。企業が国内だけではなく、国を超えていく時代に一歩先をいく企業を作り出す。才能ある人間は、とかくグリーデイで欲深な人間(ひとを利用して利益をちゃっかりとせしめるといった)に翻弄されがち。彼がそうならないことを願う。

いろいろな紆余曲折はビジネスをするかぎりあるが、絶えずチャレンジする姿は、とても評価したい。このたくましさ、嵐の中をでていく姿は、スウェーデンの暗い寒い冬で培われた根性なのだろうか。

注目をしているビジネスマンは、二クラス ゼンストルーム氏。nicklas Zennstrom 以下は関連する動き。





 米eBayは、同社の完全子会社であるSkypeの共同創業者Niklas Zennstrom氏がCEOを退任したと発表した。

 Zennstrom氏は2003年にSkypeの創業メンバーの1人となり、eBayに買収された後にもSkypeのCEOを務めていた。同氏は今後、Skype取締役会の非常勤会長となる。eBayは後継CEOを探しており、それまでの間はeBayの最高戦略責任者であるMichael van Swaaij氏がCEOを代行する。

 この発表にあわせて、eBayが2005年にSkypeを買収した際に契約していたアーンアウト契約の結果も明らかになった。アーンアウト契約とは、企業を買収する際に買収金額を一括して支払うのではなく、一部の金額を支払った後に一定期日までに特定の条件が満たされた場合に限り、残りの金額を支払うという内容の契約のことだ。

 eBayがSkypeを買収した際には、2008年から2009年初頭までにSkypeが達成すべきアクティブユーザー数、売上、純利益などの数字に基づき、最大12億ユーロ(約17億ドル)を支払う契約が交わされていた。

 今回明らかになったのは、Skypeがこの目標を達成できなかったとして、3億7,500万ユーロ(約5億3,000万ドル)がSkypeに対して支払われたということだ。これは当初予定されていた最大額の3分の1に満たない。eBayではこの金額の算定がSkypeのアクティブユーザー数など、期待されていたSkypeの成長度合いを考えると妥当だと説明する。

 eBayのSkype買収に関しては、買収が発表された時から成功が疑問視されていた。実際、現在に至るまで両社の間のいわゆる“シナジー効果”は生まれておらず、買収がうまくいっているとは言い難い。また今回の発表では、Skypeに社長として出向していたeBayのHenry Gomez氏が、eBayのコーポレートアフェア担当シニアバイスプレジデントとしてeBayに戻ることも発表された。SkypeがeBayの戦略上どのような役割を果たすことになるのか、それとも別の道を歩く選択肢も考慮されているのか注目されるところだ。

 一方、Zennstrom氏は、P2P技術に基づくインターネットテレビ企業のJoostにも参画している。奇しくもJoostは1日、招待状に基づくプライベートベータテストを終え、ベータ版クライアントソフトウェアを誰もがダウンロードできる公開ベータテストを開始したばかりだ。これによってJoostはついに本格的にビジネスへ向けて踏み出したことになる。それ以外にも同僚と設立した投資会社のAtomico Investmentsを通してFON、Last.fm、Technoratiなど数多くの有望企業への投資を行なっている。


これは、2年ほど前のものだが、現在の動きも気になるが。スカイプを作り上げた人間が、どのようにしてスウェーデンからでたのかも興味がある。少なくてもチャレンジャーといえよう。
スウェーデンのやる気のあるビジネスマンSkype創始者_f0157298_228240.jpg


Niklas Zennström (born 1966) is a Swedish entrepreneur. He first gained fame as the co-founder of the KaZaA peer-to-peer file sharing network. After selling KaZaA he and his KaZaA-founding partner Janus Friis created Skype peer-to-peer internet telephony network. He is currently working on Joost, an interactive software for distributing TV shows and other forms of video over the Web.

He has dual degrees in Business Administration (BSc) and Engineering Physics (MSc) from Uppsala University in Sweden. He spent his final year at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA.

参考までに、イギリスのサンデイタイムズの記事。ウプサラ大学から世界に羽ばたいた若いビジネスマン。新聞によると。
Skype chief takes his place as tech hero from zero
London-based Niklas Zennström sold his internet start-up for $2.6bn last month. But don’t ask him how he is going to spend his share

WHEN I WALK IN, Niklas Zennström is peering into his computer.
“He will be with you shortly,” says his assistant, but from where I am standing, Zennström’s long, hunched figure seems more likely to climb into his screen.

Eventually he disengages and ambles over, offering a muted greeting and a hesitant handshake. Zennström, 39, looks like a tousled schoolboy dressed to meet the City: pale blue shirt, pinstripe suit hanging awkwardly, floppy hair brushed Bill Gates-style across rectangular glasses. Only the slight paunch on his 6 ft 4 in frame shows his age.

He seems embarrassed to be there, an effect doubled by his lazy left eye, which looks one way while his right moves the other — making conversation unsettling, as if Zennström is permanently distracted.

He is not, of course. He is, in his Swedish-inflected English, an intense and articulate speaker with a lot to say — so long as you don’t ask him about money. That’s because London-based Zennström, who sold his internet telephony start-up Skype to Ebay for $2.6 billion (£1.5 billion) last month, is understandably wary about his new status as tech millionaire hero.

“I am an entrepreneur,” he shrugs, playing it all down. “I just want to run my company.”

Which begs the question as to why he sold Skype, even though he is staying on to guide its growth, but he has cogent reasons for that too. What he doesn’t want to reveal is just how much he and co-founder Janus Friis, a Dane, pocketed from the deal. They had already sold many chunks of Skype to venture capital, but are likely to have retained at least 15% each — stakes worth £225m.

“It is a private matter,” he says dolefully, sounding rather like Sven-Göran Eriksson.

Ah, these Scandinavians. Perhaps after the first £100m it doesn’t matter. You can buy a lot of pinstripe suits with that.

“Actually I had this suit from before the deal. I am meeting some people today so...”

It wasn’t just for me. He grins lopsidedly. Sitting in a long, glass-walled meeting room in Skype’s Soho adland base, Zennström, it is clear, is not your conventional entrepreneur.

For a start he is determinedly unmaterialistic — no car, no trappings of wealth — with an anarchic streak that makes some wonder how he can hold an organisation together. He is also an uneasy salesman, slow to warm up and so focused on his business that personable small talk is not on the agenda.

Added to that, he runs a surprisingly dispersed outfit: a finance and marketing team in London, a head office in Luxembourg, a software centre in Estonia. Little wonder he complains of spending most of his life in airports. But Skype, a free telephone service that allows you to talk to anyone else on the internet who downloads the same software, is a gem of a business that Zennström, advised by a small cadre of investor enthusiasts, is building rapidly. And it’s not his first.

Five years ago he and Friis launched Kazaa — they like nonsense names — a file-sharing service that grew to become a competitor to Napster, the music-download site. Then it hit copyright problems.

Zennström and Friis have since sold Kazaa, but its legacy leaves a long shadow. Continuing litigation by record companies to reclaim royalties from music downloads makes it “inadvisable” for either to set foot in America. Zennström describes the legal action as ridiculous.

Anyway, Skype, their next venture, which uses some of the same technology, has become even bigger. The amount paid by Ebay for the business surprised many — and that sum could rise to $3.9 billion if earnout targets are hit.

How could a two-year-old loss-making start-up be worth so much? Because its potential is huge.

Skype was not the first telephone service to use the internet, but it is among the simplest to install and use. And it got its timing right, launching as broadband became increasingly available across Europe and Asia.

Most important, Zennström, who started in Scandinavian telecoms, has waded through the difficulties of connecting Skype to other services, so users can make calls outside the network — that, plus various add-ons, is how it makes its money.

With handsets coming on the market that allow you to use Skype like a conventional phone, and 68m registered users worldwide (180,000 join each day), you can see why Zennström is confident. The national telecoms companies, he says, are simply too slow and too bureaucratic to catch up. ()

“Several telcos are trying to compete with us but I don’t see them as a threat — they don’t understand this business. Voice communication is no longer a telecommunications business, it’s a software business. Fixed-line telephony will disappear.”

That, he says, is why he teamed up with Ebay, to counter rival services from the likes of Microsoft and Google. Floating the firm — the alternative strategy — looked too risky.

“Ebay has an organisation we can use, the brand, the spread, they know how to deal with government regulators, and they run the largest online-payment service. From an operational point of view it’s a good thing to do.”

Zennström’s early backers insist it will be a good fit. “Ebay appreciates the way Niklas is and have given him a lot of legroom,” says Danny Rimer, partner at Index Ventures, a Skype investor. And despite Zennström’s history of working “against the grain”, adds Rimer, the Swede has proved himself adaptable in the past. Not being able to go to America may even prove an advantage.

Others have been more sceptical, suggesting that beneath the boffiny exterior, Zennström is an instinctive businessman who knows his start-up could be worth less when competition builds up. He is selling at peak prices.

That fits with his dispassionately pragmatic approach. Hence Skype has the London office because of access to capital, the Luxembourg base for tax reasons, and those Estonian software experts because they are cheap (Estonia was a tech hub for the former Soviet Union). Sweden, his homeland, is too expensive to be in the equation.

It’s not ruthless, just thought-out, which is Zennström’s key characteristic. Brought up in the university town of Uppsala, the only son of two teachers, he has always been fiercely intellectual.

He studied engineering with computer sciences at university and considered a career in consultancy. Instead he joined Tele2, a rival to Sweden’s state phone monopoly, and was thrown into management, running its internet business.

He hired Friis, 10 years younger, as part of his team. The two have worked together ever since. They launched internet services for Tele2 in different countries before going it alone, Friis handling software development while Zennström organises.

Both, according to those who know them, are natural outsiders — Friis left school at 16 and spent time on the hippy trail in India. Both are keen to develop “disruptive technologies” that cut across established ways of doing business.

Earlier than most, they saw how useful the internet could be as a means of distribution. Scaling up need no longer mean a huge increase in spending. Hence Skype users push the service around their friends as they need others online, and Skype — unlike a conventional phone company — doesn’t have to spend fortunes gaining and retaining customers.

“It’s a huge transition we are moving through,” says Zennström. “Thirty years ago you needed to have big scale to have global distribution and to be a global player. Today you can take advantage of technology and be a global player yet still small. It’s a paradigm shift.”

It has not been an easy ride, however. The litigation against Kazaa put off many potential Skype investors. At one point the founders were asking friends and relatives for backing, and Zennström has been pushed to the limit financially.

“There are years of arduous labour behind his Skype success,” says Bundeep Singh Rangar, co-founder of Ariadne Capital, which advises Zennström. “It’s a great vindication for someone who was teetering on success before, but didn’t give up.”

Zennström says the money made from Skype’s sale will do little to change his lifestyle. “Perhaps,” he says lugubriously, “I will order more expensive wines in restaurants.” Then he gives a shy look that may indicate he is joking.

Is that it? He shrugs. “When you are entrepreneurial and building a business, that is where you spend your time because that’s what you are interested in. And when you are at home you just want to spend time with your wife.”

Zennström met his French wife at Tele2 and she understands his obsession. They have no children yet. He devotes himself totally to Skype, often getting home late to their flat in Kensington and travelling one week in two.

So don’t ask him what he will do with those millions — some, for sure, is going into seed money for other ventures, but more than that he doesn’t want to reveal.

“My ambition is to make Skype into the world’s largest online communication company. That’s the driver. Financial gain is secondary.” Then he makes an awkward goodbye and heads back to his computer, looking as preoccupied as when he started.

Niklas Zennstrom's Working Day

THE Skype chief executive wakes at his flat in Kensington at 7.15am. Niklas Zennstrom eats muesli for breakfast and checks his e-mails, before catching a taxi to his office in Soho.

He gets in by 9am. “I concentrate on growing the organisation, that’s one of the big things,” he says. “What’s important is how you organise yourself and communicate, making sure people know what they are supposed to do and who is doing it. Then there are reviews of products, strategies and deals.”

He entertains business contacts at lunch, and works until 8pm.

Zennstrom says he is more at home in London now than in Stockholm. “I feel quite international, and London is the international hub of Europe.”

Vital statistics

Born: February 16, 1966

2009年現在とこのインタビューが書かれた4年前ではいろいろな経済の状況が違う。しかしながら、少なくても、若手のスウェーデンのビジネスマンとしては、スカイプというわれわれの生活を変えた革命児がスウェーデンから飛び出したという事実に注目したい。スウェーデン人は保守的とかコンサバといわれるが、それは一般論であり、彼のように嵐のなかに飛び出していく若手のビジネスマンの存在を認識したい。今日は偶然に誕生日である。
by nyfiken | 2009-02-16 02:12