迎接挑戰的英國百年書店

Walking around the labyrinthine 25,000 sq ft Blackwell’s bookshop in the heart of Oxford, David Prescott has to restrain himself from rearranging a display. Once a shop manager, always a shop manager.

徜徉在英國牛津市中心2.5萬平方英尺、有如迷宮般的布萊克韋爾書店時，戴維•普雷斯科特（David Prescott，見上圖）總要壓抑住自己想要重新排列書籍的衝動。當過書店經理的人，一輩子改不了職業病。

Mr Prescott’s first job after university was in “goods in” — unpacking books and cataloguing — at the chain of specialist booksellers. Having worked his way up, he is now chief executive of Blackwell’s, with more on his plate than fanning novels into a beautiful shape: chiefly, keeping the company afloat in an industry battered by the digital juggernaut Amazon.

普雷斯科特大學畢業後的第一份工作，就是在這家專業書籍連鎖書店管理“貨物陳列”——把書籍拆包並且按分類陳列。他一步步晉升，如今已經是布萊克韋爾書店(Blackwell)的首席執行官，不再只需要把小說擺成漂亮的扇形，而是有更多、更重要的事務要處理：主要來說，就是要讓企業在一個受到數字化巨頭亞馬遜(Amazon)重創的行業中維持經營。

In contrast to the organised chaos of the various book departments, the 43-year-old’s office is sterile. The mock pine desk bears just a few papers and a laptop. The only decoration on the walls is a framed copy of the company’s shared values, which are strikingly simple and free of jargon, or “not American” as Mr Prescott puts it. One such value is “putting customers first”, which in turn demands that “I will always give every customer my undivided attention”.

相比書店各部門亂中有序的景象，這位43歲的首席執行官的辦公室空蕩蕩的。仿松木辦公桌上只放着幾張紙和一臺筆記本電腦。牆上唯一的裝飾物是一塊企業標語相框，上面寫着的企業共同價值觀是一些極其簡潔的大白話，用普雷斯科特的話來說就是絲毫“不像美國企業那樣”故弄玄虛。其中一條價值觀是“顧客第一”，這反過來要求員工做到“我永遠全心全意對待每位顧客”。

These values were forged as part of the plan to give each of the 550 permanent employees — from sales assistant to chief executive — an equal share of the company’s profits as part of a John Lewis-style partnership.

這些價值觀被打造成爲企業合夥計劃的一部分。布萊克韋爾實行約翰劉易斯(John Lewis)式合夥制，從銷售助理到首席執行官的550名永久員工，都是企業的合夥人，都能分享等額的一份企業利潤。

Toby Blackwell, the present owner, whose great-grandfather founded the bookshop in 1879, has long wanted to hand it over to staff. Yet this ambition could only be fulfilled, Mr Prescott points out, if the company was on a firm financial footing. Finally, after years of decline, the company has made a very modest operating profit of £600,000 for the financial year ending June 2014, compared to a loss of £2.8m the previous year.

現任老闆託比•布萊克韋爾(Toby Blackwell)長久以來一直希望能把書店所有權移交給員工。他的曾祖父於1879年創辦了這家書店。不過，普雷斯科特指出，只有當企業擁有了堅實的財務基礎，這個遠大目標纔有可能實現。在經營業績連續多年下滑之後，這家企業終於在截至2014年6月的財年中實現了微薄的營業利潤——60萬英鎊，相形之下之前的那個財年則虧損了280萬英鎊。

This comes amid signs that the market for physical books is stabilising after years of being eroded by ebook sales. There will be no profit in 2015, however, according to Mr Prescott, as he is ploughing the money back into the company, investing particularly in digital products.

眼下有跡象顯示，在市場份額被電子圖書銷售蠶食多年之後，實體圖書市場正在企穩。然而，普雷斯科特表示，2015年將不會有盈利，因爲他要把利潤重新投入到企業經營上，特別是要投資於電子產品。

There is no date for the company to be handed over to its employees, yet. “The reality is you have to meet certain financial tests.” When will that be? “We hope it’s going to be in the foreseeable future but we can only launch it when we know that the business is self-sustaining.”

至於何時將企業移交給員工，目前還沒有時間表。“事實上，你必須通過某些財務測試。”那會在什麼時候呢？“我們希望是在可預見的未來，但是我們只有在確定公司能夠自給自足時纔會啓動測試。”

The shared values were intended to remind employees of the purpose of the business: to sell books. It may seem obvious, but Mr Prescott says that “one of the challenges of being in a business that has been lossmaking for a long time is that you tend to run the company the wrong way up. You tend to run it on the needs of keeping your head above water, cost-cutting, finance and managing the accounts.”

共同價值觀的目的在於提醒員工企業的目標所在：賣書。這個目標或許看似顯而易見，但普雷斯科特稱，“在一家長期虧損的企業工作，面臨的一項挑戰是，你往往會用錯誤的方式想要讓企業改善業績。你總是疲於應對保持生存所必需的各種要求，削減成本、融資以及管理好賬目”。

Mr Prescott may be a business pragmatist, but he is not a philistine. On the topic of authors, fiction and non-fiction, he projects enthusiasm rather than expertise, though.

普雷斯科特也許是一個奉行實用主義的商人，但他卻不是個俗人。談到無論是虛構類還是非虛構類圖書的作者，他都興致勃勃、如數家珍，而不是從商人的角度談論他們的書好不好賣。

Asked to pick a quote for the back of his business card, unlike his colleagues who chose lines from novels, authors or poems, he picked some lines from The Clash’s “White Riot”: “Are you taking over or are you taking orders?, are you going backwards, or are you going forwards?”

印名片的時候，其他同事都選擇小說或詩歌中、或某位作家說過的一句話印在名片背面，他卻選擇了衝撞樂隊(The Clash)那首《白人暴動》(White Riot)裏的一句歌詞：“Are you taking over or are you taking orders?, are you going backwards, or are you going forwards?（你要讓別人聽你的還是你願意聽別人的？你要往後退還是要向前進？）”

Together with his wife, he is a member of his village book club. His most recent pick was The Wake by Paul Kings­north, which was on the 2014 Man Booker Prize longlist and is written in an adapted form of Old English. “Twenty pages in I thought, ‘I’ve killed the book club. They’re not going to read this.’ But actually everybody loved it.”

他和妻子都是鄉村書友會的會員。他最近挑選的書是保羅•金斯諾斯(Paul Kings­north)的《守靈》(The Wake)，該書獲得了2014年布克獎(Man Booker Prize)提名，是用一種古英語的變體寫的。“讀了20頁後，我想，‘我害死書友會了。他們肯定讀不下去’。但事實上大家都挺喜歡它。”

Because most of the Blackwell’s shops are on university campuses, staff need to buy in books according to what is being taught on the various courses. “Our shops live or die by the strength of their relationships with the university departments.”

因爲布萊克韋爾書店大多位於大學校園裏，店員需要根據不同課程教授的內容進書。“我們書店的生死存亡，取決於他們和大學各院系的關係有多密切。”

Like many retailers that have been hammered by digital competitors, Blackwell’s has had to overhaul its shops. It can no longer assume customers will visit its branches. “It used to be a very simple business,” reflects Mr Prescott, who became chief executive just over two years ago. The number of independent bookshops in the UK has fallen by a third since 2005 to less than 1,000. Shops must offer experiences rather than just products. He describes Amazon as a “logistics business”, getting things from A to B. “Our job is to give our customers a compelling reason to use Blackwell’s.”

與很多遭受線上競爭對手重創的零售商一樣，布萊克韋爾不得不徹底改革其書店的運營模式。它不能再理所當然地認爲顧客會光顧自己的書店。“這曾經是一門非常簡單的生意，”兩年多一點前才成爲首席行政官的普雷斯科特表示。2005年以來，英國獨立書店的數量減少了三分之一，現在不足1000家。商店必須提供服務體驗，而不再僅是商品本身。他把亞馬遜形容爲一家“物流公司”，把商品從A處運送至B處。“我們的工作，就是給我們的顧客一個讓他們心悅誠服地選擇布萊克韋爾書店的理由。”

“We are not short of ideas,” he says. Mr Prescott cites the Oxford branch’s Christmas line-up of author readings as the best one yet. On the events programme were London mayor Boris Johnson and Richard Adams, the author of Watership Down, as well as Vivienne Westwood, the fashion designer, and former Sex Pistol John Lydon. Although, he says, the real crowd-puller turned out to be Chris Hadfield, the astronaut.

“我們不缺乏創意，”他稱。普雷斯科特認爲牛津分店推出的聖誕節系列作家讀書會是迄今最棒的創意。該活動請來了倫敦市長鮑里斯•約翰遜(Boris Johnson)、《沃特希普荒原》(Watership Down)一書作者理查德•亞當斯(Richard Adams)，以及時尚設計師薇薇恩•韋斯特伍德(Vivienne Westwood)和性手槍樂隊(Sex Pistols)的前成員約翰•萊登(John Lydon)等名人。不過，他稱，真正吸引人氣的卻是宇航員克里斯•哈德菲爾德(Chris Hadfield)。

That is not to say the company can afford to focus purely on bricks-and-mortar. Blackwell’s has been encouraging customers to buy books on its own online platform since 1995. Amazon’s algorithms, he says, have yet to replace a good bookseller able to make canny recommendations. This is something he hopes Blackwell’s tech development team can improve on. The techies used to be based in London’s “Silicon Roundabout” in Shoreditch, but have now moved a few miles to Waterloo. Last year, Blackwell’s launched its academic ebook platform, which enables students to buy digital academic textbooks.

這並不是說布萊克韋爾有資本把重心純粹放在實體書店上。自1995年開始，布萊克韋爾書店便一直鼓勵顧客在它自己的網絡平臺上買書。他稱，亞馬遜的運算法則，目前尚無法取代可以提供精準推薦的優秀圖書銷售員。這也是他希望布萊克韋爾的科技研發團隊可以改進的地方。他們的技術團隊曾經在倫敦肖迪奇(Shoreditch)的“硅谷環島”(Silicon Roundabout)辦公，但是如今搬到了距離那裏幾英里的滑鐵盧（倫敦地名——譯者注）。去年，布萊克韋爾書店推出了自己的學術電子書平臺，讓學生能在上面購買電子教科書。

Managing a tech team was quite different to booksellers, many of whom have been with the company for decades. “We’re used to people coming and staying.” Technology workers, he says, are far more transient.

管理一個技術團隊完全不同於管理圖書銷售員，很多銷售員已經在公司工作了數十年。“我們已經習慣了新人來到我們這兒，然後就一直在我們這兒幹下去。”他稱，技術人員的流動性則要高得多。

More challenging, however, is overseeing a workforce besieged by years of digital disruption. “It’s a normal state of affairs. People are worried about the bookselling industry. They haven’t read many positive stories. It’s an emotional business.”

然而，更大的挑戰在於，如何管理一支已經被數字化顛覆圍困了許多年的隊伍。“這成了常態。人們對圖書銷售業憂心忡忡。他們沒有聽到多少好消息。這是個傷感的行業。”

He shrugs off any notions that he has a victim mentality, suggesting Blackwell’s should become a “digital disrupter”, rather than wait for the next threat.

他對說他有一種受害者心態的看法不屑一顧，反而認爲布萊克韋爾書店應該成爲“數字化的顛覆者”，而不是坐等下一個威脅到來。

Would he recommend the book business to his two girls (aged nine and seven)? Long pause. “Yes.”

他會推薦兩個女兒（分別爲7歲和9歲）進入圖書行業嗎？在停頓了很長時間後，他說：“會”。