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Business Totvs
商业报道
Local hero
地方英雄
Brazil's biggest software firm sees a sluggish economy as an opportunity
巴西最大的软件公司把经济不景气看做机会
IN THE late 1970s Bill Gates predicted a computer on every desk and in every home. Laercio Cosentino, an engineer at SIGA, a Brazilian maker of software for mainframes, concluded that therefore every small firm in his country, even the ubiquitous street-corner padari a, would eventually have one.
在20世纪70年代晚期比尔盖茨曾经预测到每张桌子上和每个家里都将有一台电脑。Laercio Cosentino，SIGA的一名工程师，一个巴西大型机软件制造者，得出一个结论因此在他国家的每个小公司，甚至是随处可见的街角面包房，最终也会拥有一个。
In 1983 Mr Cosentino, then just 22, convinced his boss to set up a separate business to concentrate on serving small and medium-sized enterprises.
1983年 Mr Cosentino，当时仅仅22岁，说服他的老板设立一个独立的业务部门专门为中小型企业提供服务。
Thirty years on, the company, nowadays called Totvs, dominates Brazil's 1.9-billion-a-year market for enterprise software.
30年来，这家公司，今天被称为Totvs，占据了巴西每年19亿公司软件市场份额。
Investors have piled in.
投资者们涌入。
On October 22nd Totvs disclosed that the world's biggest fund manager, BlackRock, had increased its stake to 5%.
10月22号，Totvs透露世界上最大的基金经理，黑石基金，将它持有的股份增加到5%。
Brazil has the world's seventh-largest economy and is ninth in terms of the number of PCs installed.
巴西拥有世界上第七大经济体并且在个人电脑安装量上世界排名第九。
Totvs supplies roughly half of all business software and services on its home turf, either directly or through franchises, reckons Gartner, a research firm.
Totvs大致上在国内提供了一半的商业软件和服务，通过直销的或者经销代理的，Gartner，一家研究公司预计。
The share exceeds 60% among SMEs.
在中小型企业中该份额超过了60%。
This makes Totvs the world's sixth-biggest business-software firm.
这让Totvs成为了世界上第六大的商业软件公司。
However, outside Brazil it is all but irrelevant.
但是，在巴西之外它是几乎是落后的。
Totvs's home market provides 98% of its annual revenues of 1.5 billion reais.
Totvs'的国内市场提供了它每年15亿里奥98%的收入。
Some might regard it as folly to be so reliant on an economy where growth slowed to 0.9% in 2012, and may be little more than 2% this year and next.
有人可能认为这一点是挺讽刺的它是如此的依赖一个2012年缓慢增长了0.9%的经济体，并且可能今年和接下来比去年多了一点增长到2%。
Mr Cosentino insists it is an opportunity.
Mr Cosentino坚持它是一个机会。
The days of growth fuelled by cheap labour are over, he says.
这段时间被廉价劳动力驱动的增长结束了，他说道。
With labour costs rising because of low unemployment, firms must invest in IT, to improve their workforces' productivity.
随着劳动力成本的增加因为低雇佣率，公司必须投资到IT行业中，去提高他们的劳动力的生产效率。
This is especially true among the SMEs that Totvs serves.
这个在Totvs服务中的中小企业中特别的明显。
Luis Azevedo of Bradesco, a bank, estimates that perhaps 15% of Brazil's SMEs use enterprise software of some sort.
巴西贴现银行的Luis Azevedo估计大概15%的巴西中小企业使用某种企业软件。
Plenty of padarias are still waiting to join the computer age.
许多街边小店仍然在等待加入计算机时代。
However, many of them will be discouraged from doing so by patchy access to broadband internet outside the largest cities.
但是它们中的许多通过最大城市之外的宽带网络的不顺畅渠道这样做而沮丧。
This means that, in particular, cloud-based software-as-a-service, an area in which Totvs has invested heavily, may be slow to take off.
这意味着，特别是，基于云技术的软件服务，这个Totvs重点投资的地方可能很难马上成功。
In its early years Totvs benefited from Brazil's high import tariffs, which kept foreign competitors out.
在它的早些年间Totvs受益于巴西阻止外国竞争者的高进口关税，
But even as these have fallen, competitors have found it hard to tropicalise their offering, as Brazilians say, whereas Totvs's franchise system has helped it spread into the country's fast-growing provincial towns.
但是甚至他们已经下跌，竞争者也发现它们很难热销他们的提供产品，如同巴西人说的那样，因为Totvs的经销商系统已经帮助它分销到这个国家快速增长的省城中去了。
Good governance has endeared the company to investors, as did Mr Cosentino's willingness, rare among tech founder-CEOs, to surround himself with professional managers.
好的管理使这家公司受到投资者的喜爱，如Mr Cosentino希望的那样，在技术创始人首席执行官中很稀有，让他自己被专业的经理们所包围。
This has made it easier for him to borrow money for a string of investments and acquisitions, culminating with the takeover of Datasul, a big rival, in 2008.
这让他更容易从一系列投资并购，最终在2008年被它的较大的竞争对手Datasul接手。
Totvs's revenues have quadrupled since its initial public offering in 2006, and its share price has quintupled.
Totvs的收入已经与它2006年首次公开发行相比翻了四倍并且它的股票价格已经翻了五倍。
Last year sales rose by 10%, even as Brazil sputtered.
去年销售上升了10%，甚至如同巴西快速增长。
Profits surged by 23%, to 207m reais.
利润激增了23%到2亿7百万里奥。
Add a healthy balance-sheet and it is little wonder that foreign fund managers are keen.
附带补充了一个健康的资产负债表毫无疑问，外国基金经理对此很热情。
In September Totvs secured a 659m reais credit line from BNDES, the national development bank.
在9月份Totvs从BNDES，国家发展银行，获得了6亿5千9百万里奥的最高承包额。
So it has the money to make more purchases.
所以它有钱去进行更多收购。
But it may be well advised to tread cautiously.
但是它可能被很好的建议小心行事。
Luis Claudio Mangi of Gartner notes that it took Totvs years to integrate its software with that of Datasul and Logocenter, another rival snapped up in 2005, into a seamless product for manufacturers.
Gartner的Luis Claudio Mangi强调Totvs花费了很多年来合并它和Datasul及Logocenter的软件成为为制造商设计的无漏洞产品。
As withits customers, the company's greatest challenge is productivity.
如同它的客户一样，这个公司最大的挑战是生产效率。
Mr Cosentino joins a chorus of Brazilian bosses lamenting a shortage of skilled workers.
Mr Cosentino加入了巴西为技术工人短缺而烦恼的老板们的阵营。
It used to take less than 90 days to train a new recruit, he says; now it can take up to six months.
把一个新手培养成熟需要花费至少90天，他说道：现在可能花费到6个月。
A tight labour market means he has to pay more for less.
一个紧缩的劳动力市场意味着支付更多获得更少。
To counter the problem Totvs pours the equivalent of 90m a year into R&D, more than Embraer, Brazil's much-admired aircraft-maker.
为了克服这个问题Totvs每年投入相当于9千万美元到研发部门，比巴西很受赞赏的飞机制造商Embraer还要多。
It is also doing more development work outside the country: last year it opened a new centre in Silicon Valley to add to the one it has in Mexico.
它也在国家之外做了更多的研发工作：去年它在硅谷开张了一家新的中心来加强它在墨西哥已经有的那家。
Though they have struggled to adapt to the Brazilian business climate, Totvs's foreign rivals are not giving up.
尽管它们已经挣扎着适应了巴西商业环境，Totvs的外国竞争对手不会放弃。
SAP of Germany, the global leader in enterprise software, has been courting Totvs's SME customers; its turnover in Brazil doubled, year-on-year, in the second quarter.
德国的SAP，企业软件的全球领导者，已经在设法获得Totvs的中小企业客户；它的营业额在巴西已经翻倍了，与上年同期数字相比，已经进入第二地区。
As companies expand abroad they tend to take their legacy IT systems with them. Switching providers is a costly mess.
随着公司们在国外的扩张它们倾向于带着它们的存留的IT系统。
Forrester, a research firm, estimates that only 7% ever risk it.
改换供应商是一个费钱的事。Forrester，一个研发公司，预计仅仅他们中的7%曾经冒险这么做过。
For multinationals entering Brazil that means sticking with SAP or Oracle, the industry's other big beast.
对于进入巴西的跨国公司来说这个意味着与SAP或者甲骨文公司绑定。
But it also means that Mr Cosentino can take comfort from a survey by Oxford Economics.
但是它也意味着Mr Cosentino能够从牛津经济学人的一个调查中得到安慰。
The consultancy found that 73% of midsized Brazilian firms expect to have foreign operations in three years, up from 53% today.
这个咨询发现73%中等规模的巴西公司期待在近三年拥有外国运营机构，从目前的53%上升。
He hopes that as his customers seek growth beyond the country's borders, they too will take Totvs with them.
他希望随着他的客户寻求超越这个国家边境的增长，他们也会把Totvs随他们带出去。
