执掌百事公司（Pepsi）的卢英德正面临着严峻的领导力考验。公司制定了今后数年的宏观战略方案后，形势已经有所缓解，但依然严峻。这种情况在商界是家常便饭，但没有哪个首席执行官会喜欢这种考验。对百事公司的雇员、股东以及卢英德本人来说，未来数月内她的表现如何显得至关重要。

    百事公司股票的差劲表现是卢英德最明显的问题。百事股价在去年5-9月间下跌了15%，引发了一些投资者的恐慌。更重要的是，自从卢英德五年半之前开始担任首席执行官，百事公司的股价就一直不见起色。怒火中烧的投资者指出，可口可乐公司（Coca-Cola）这几年的股价却上涨了大约四成。

    如果这种对比就此打住，倒也不是太严重的问题。但对这两家公司进行简单对比并不太公平。卢英德刚接手百事时，可口可乐的股票已持续数年下跌。因为时任可口可乐首席执行官的传奇性人物罗伯托•古兹维塔去世后，可口可乐就陷入了管理不善的境地，并持续七年之久，因此其股价有较大的上升空间。而百事公司一直以来管理良好，股价也稳中有升。卢英德接手百事之时正处于经济扩张最高点，公司股价充分反映市值，甚至有可能被高估。人们进行这样的比较，不能不说卢英德运气欠佳。

    但她现在确实面临更深层次的问题。她在任期内已经多次未能达到曾经承诺的盈利目标，投资者认为这是无法饶恕的过失。尤其是公司的旗舰产品——饮料类产品在北美这一全球最大饮料市场惨遭溃败。去年汽水行业重新洗牌，作为长期以来排在可口可乐之后的千年老二，百事甚至将碳酸饮料亚军的位置也拱手让给了健怡可乐（Diet Coke）。

    汽水行业座次的变化对投资者震动颇大，因为投资其他行业都不如投资名牌软饮料更有吸引力。这一行业对资本要求低，而利润率相当可观。如果在这方面出了状况，那么百事无疑发生了根本性的变化，同时也将丧失对投资者的吸引力。

    Indra Nooyi is in a leadership crucible. It isn't quite as hot as it was, now that the company she runs, PepsiCo, has laid out a broad strategic plan for the next couple of years. But it's still an extremely demanding test, the kind that no CEO enjoys but that most CEOs confront. For Pepsi's employees and shareholders, and for Nooyi personally, a great deal is riding on how she leads over the next several months.

    Nooyi's most obvious problem is Pepsi's stock. Last year between May and September it dropped 15%, which panicked some investors. More fundamentally, the stock has gone nowhere since Nooyi became CEO about five and a half years ago. During that same period, angry investors point out, Coca-Cola stock is up about 40%.

    If that comparison were as far as the complaining went, it wouldn't be much of a problem. The comparison is unfair. Back when Nooyi got the job, Coke (KO) stock had been falling for years, the result of seven years of poor management after the death of legendary CEO Roberto Goizueta; the stock had plenty of room to move up. But Pepsi (PEP) stock had been rising steadily through years of continued strong management; Nooyi took over near the height of the economic expansion, and the stock was fully valued, perhaps overvalued. The unflattering comparison with Coke is bad luck for Nooyi, nothing more.

    But she faces a deeper problem. During her tenure Pepsi has often failed to hit her stated profit targets, which investors consider an unforgivable sin. Specifically, the company is getting beaten up in its flagship product category, drinks, in the world's largest market, North America. The soda pop planets shifted in their orbits last year when Pepsi-Cola was displaced as America's eternal No. 2 carbonated soft drink (after Coca-Cola); the new No. 2 is Diet Coke.

    That reordering is especially distressing to investors because there is scarcely a more beautiful business in the world than producing branded soft drink concentrate. Capital requirements are low, and profit margins are stratospheric. If Pepsi was now making a mess of that franchise, then it was becoming a fundamentally different and much less attractive company.

    这正是投资者害怕出现的局面。卢英德大胆改变了百事公司的战略，除了继续发展如激浪（Mountain Dew）功能饮料和菲多利（Fritos）玉米片等休闲品类产品之外，还重点发展了桂格（Quaker）燕麦片等营养健康型产品。这一新战略很有远见，显然也适应当今社会需求的变化。但问题在于，健康类产品的利润率却比不上碳酸饮料产品。

    目前，卢英德面临的挑战是要向投资者证明，她在执行新战略的同时，也会继续推进公司最赚钱的传统业务。她对投资者作了一次重要报告，宣称今年将在广告宣传和市场营销方面追加5-6亿美元投资，大部分资金将投向高利润率的饮料和休闲食品业务。她承认，公司以前在营销方面投入不足，近来确实表现不佳。她表示，将采取措施加大市场营销的力度。她还将大幅削减成本，其中包括解聘8,700名雇员。这一次，她并未像以往那样抛出雄心勃勃的盈利目标；相反，她预计今年的利润将减少5%。毫无雄心壮志可言。

    投资者们已按捺不住，要求百事公司要么出售旗下的休闲食品业务，要么让卢英德下台，或者起码宣布一位合适的继任者接替她。关于此事，卢英德在报告中只字未提，反而又提出了一项需要两年时间才能见效的新方案，称该方案已获得董事会支持。但如果该方案在今年年底前未能明显见效，董事会可能将不再继续提供支持。因此，未来数月对卢英德来说可以用“不成功，则成仁”来形容。

    公司领导人面临的考验各有不同，但在某些方面也有相似之处。首席执行官承担着一项几乎不可能完成的任务，需要应付各种彼此冲突的需求，有时候会出现失误，打破平衡，卢英德即是如此。她在转换公司战略重点时，没有同时巩固有利可图的传统业务。公司的首席执行官们还会因行动迟缓而陷入麻烦，卢英德本人也承认，的确存在这方面的问题。

    卢英德告诉投资者：“我们本应该提前加大对于整体品牌、尤其是对北美饮料业务的支持。”她还说：“我同样也认为，我的某些人事调整决策本应该来得更早一些。”直到去年9月，她才对公司饮料业务美洲区主管进行了降职处理。

    卢英德的新方案看起来比较合理，尽管公司利润预期相当悲观，但投资者似乎愿意再做一次尝试。现在看来，卢英德别无选择，必须在动荡的经济环境中推行新方案，战胜强大而无情的竞争对手。形势依然严峻。

    译者：李玫晓/汪皓

    That's exactly what investors fear is happening. Nooyi has boldly changed Pepsi's strategy to emphasize nutritious, "good-for-you" products like Quaker oatmeal in addition to its "fun-for-you" (read: "bad-for-you") products like Mountain Dew and Fritos. The new strategy is visionary and clearly in harmony with societal changes. The trouble is that good-for-you products aren't nearly as profitable as branded sugar-water.

    Nooyi's challenge now is to show that while she isn't backing off from her strategy, she hasn't forgotten how Pepsi makes money. At a major presentation to investors, she announced that the company this year will spend an additional $500 million to $600 million on advertising and marketing, mostly for high-profit drinks and snack foods. She admitted that Pepsi marketing, besides being underfunded, hasn't been all that good lately and said she's taking steps to make it better. She'll cut costs significantly, partly by laying off 8,700 employees. And instead of announcing an over-ambitious profit goal, as she has often done, she said profits would actually fall 5% this year. Nothing ambitious about that.

    Irate investors have been calling for Pepsi to sell off its snack food business or for Nooyi to step down, or at least announce a likely successor. She did none of that at the presentation. Instead, by outlining a plan that will take two years to pay off, she showed that she has the board's support. But if that plan doesn't show clear signs of working before year-end, the board's support could evaporate. That's why the next several months are make-or-break for her.

    All leadership crucibles are different, but in some ways many of them are similar. CEOs are always in the impossible position of serving conflicting demands, and sometimes they get the balance wrong, as Nooyi has done in shifting to a new strategy without sufficiently maintaining a lucrative traditional business. CEOs also get into trouble by acting too slowly, and Nooyi acknowledged she had done that.

    "I wish we had stepped up our overall brand support, especially in North American beverages, earlier," she told investors. She added, "I also think some of the people moves that I made perhaps could have been made a bit earlier." She demoted the head of PepsiCo Beverages Americas only last September.

    Nooyi's plan looks plausible, and investors seem willing to give it a chance; they pushed the stock down only incrementally despite the surprisingly downbeat profit forecast. Now she absolutely must execute the plan against strong and merciless competitors in a volatile economic environment. The heat is emphatically still on.