ebonymovies Chapter 965 North-South Conference
Chapter 965 North-South Conference
"Also, from now on, we will try to gradually localize all equipment!" Chen Yifeng blurted out after thinking for a moment.
"Mr. Chen, localizing parts? How is that possible? Even if it were possible, customers wouldn't buy it." A senior employee in charge of technology scratched his head.
"It's nothing. Many domestic products have risen to prominence now and are no worse than imported ones. As the industry leader, of course we have to create a shining example of Chinese products!" Chen Yifeng glared at the person who had just spoken.
The termination of cooperation with Germany is almost a certainty, but this cannot be said directly to the employees.
"Huh? Didn't Mr. Chen used to say that domestically produced cars were garbage and only imported ones were the way to go? He even said that you should only drive imported cars and never buy domestic ones. How come it's reversed now?"
The employees were all puzzled.
"The company's reforms are almost complete now; it's no longer the semi-family business it used to be. The factory's atmosphere has also been greatly improved. Now we need to recruit talent from outside! You should start recruiting from prestigious universities like Huazhong University of Science and Technology and bring over the top technical talent..." Chen Yifeng walked to a whiteboard, picked up a pen, and began writing down the task requirements.
Upon seeing this, the employees all picked up their notebooks and began to take notes.
Huade has never used PowerPoint or computers for meetings; everything is done by hand.
The reason is that Chen Yifeng still likes to show off his calligraphy skills deep down, and he requires his employees to practice it deliberately as well.
"Beep beep beep!" Just as Chen Yifeng was writing with great enthusiasm, the phone on the table suddenly rang.
He didn't answer the first time, wanting to show how important the meeting was.
But the phone rang three times in a row, and Chen Yifeng lost interest. Only after he had his employees leave did he pick up his phone with a frown.
The call was from my old classmate, Sun Cheng. As soon as I answered, I heard his urgent voice: "Hey, Lao Chen. Have you seen the news?"
"What are you looking at?"
"Several media outlets have reported on the issue of items being lost or switched at our auction house. You should be aware of this, right?"
"Damn it, that bastard Shi Danai!"
"what?"
Upon hearing this news, a figure immediately came to mind for Chen Yifeng.
"It's nothing. Quickly contact the media to suppress this matter. Say it's a misunderstanding, the news is untrue! Someone is deliberately smearing our auction house, and our auction house will take legal action against the rumor-mongers!" Chen Yifeng said before ending the call and immediately dialing Shi Danai's number.
"Shi Danai, you bastard!" As soon as the call connected, before the other party could even speak, Chen Yifeng started cursing.
"President Chen, why are you scolding me? What did I do to offend you?" Shi Danai replied slowly from the other end of the line.
"Stop playing dumb! If you didn't do what's in the news, who did? You're the only one who knows about this!"
"Don't wrong me! What do you mean I'm the only one who knows? There were a whole bunch of people there that day."
"Come on, they're here to investigate a case and gather information. Only you would be so bored as to leak this information, trying to force me to pay you to side with you. I'm not one to be coerced, so don't try to threaten me! Dream on! Let me tell you, if you offend me, Chen Yifeng, I'll retaliate tenfold! Your so-called Taishan Society, just you wait!" Chen Yifeng rattled off a whole bunch of things, he was truly furious at this moment.
"I really don't know what you're talking about. I know people in the media. Mr. Chen, should I call them and suppress this rumor? Don't worry, I'm a representative, after all, they'll give me face." On the other end of the phone, Shi Danai scratched his bald head, barely suppressing a laugh.
“I bought a watch last year @#@!@…” Chen Yifeng finished cursing and slammed his phone down on the table.
On the other end of the phone, Shi Danai put down his phone and couldn't help but laugh: "Hahaha, that's hilarious! I bet Chen Yifeng is furious right now. That guy always went against me. I kindly lowered myself to try and get him to join the group, and he didn't even appreciate it. Serves him right!"
Across from him, Lu Qiang, the CEO of Fan Hai Group, shook his head: "Why did you bring him in? You should have asked other people. The number of members in the Taishan Club has increased quite a bit in the past few years..."
"Those people already asked, they just don't want to get involved with banks. Trying to make money off of a mess will only make them look bad!"
“I think there are a few people we can still try to win over, such as Li Hong, Guo Chang, and Xu Rong.” Lu Qiang stroked his chin.
The people he mentioned were the CEOs of Baidu, Fuxing, and Hengdian Group. These people were either in the internet industry, or in technology and film and television companies—basically, all of which are currently popular industries.
Since its establishment, the evolution of the industries of its members has been a condensed history of the development of the private economy.
Members who joined at different times bear the distinct marks of their era in terms of industry affiliation.
This is no coincidence.
Because Taishan Club has always maintained a strict entry threshold.
Member companies must be among the top in the country in terms of size and total wealth.
As the domestic economic trends shift, the most lucrative and influential industries change with each era, and the new entrants naturally bring new faces.
The association was founded over twenty years ago, its members ranging from those who first became wealthy in Zhongguancun's technology and early real estate and finance sectors, to traditional manufacturing, consumer goods, and basic energy, and now to internet upstarts and global conglomerates. It's fair to say that many members are industry leaders.
Chen Yifeng had naturally met the membership requirements long ago, but he looked down on such an organization. After all, if someone like Shi Danai, whom he despised, could join, then the members must all be no good.
Ultimately, these domestic companies are just working for banks; if they want to truly transcend social classes, they must control the banks.
The Underworld Bank is one of the more complex commercial banks, and it's also the easiest to get involved in. Other banks have deep backgrounds that are beyond the reach of ordinary people, so Lu Qiang was determined to get his hands on this lucrative piece of meat.
However, the people he just mentioned are not easy to win over; the members of the Taishan Society are not a monolithic group.
They gather together primarily for mutual benefit. The business world is vast; you might be on good terms with A but not with B. Conversely, someone else might be on good terms with B but not with A. As membership grows, internal conflicts within the association will inevitably intensify.
If your friends in your club start hanging out with your competitors, you might not become friends with them later.
A week later.
Although the company has hired many live streamers, the results of their live-streaming sales have left the three women frowning.
The drawbacks of the inclusive strategy have become apparent: the uneven distribution of traffic has resulted in the absence of a dominant player. The data is alarmingly poor, with some live streams failing to sell a single item.
"Look at all this! I said it's not allowed to falsify data or inflate traffic, but this data is just too outrageous!" Zhao Lingshan slammed a stack of documents on the table and then rubbed her forehead.
“There’s no other way, now it’s all about manipulating data! Chen Xi told me that Yang Dan used to do this. All the platforms cooperated with him, and the data was all fake. Now that Yang Dan has fallen, these platforms are cooperating with other people. Consumers search for products first, look at the good and bad reviews, sales volume, and then decide whether to buy or not. If your data is not good, they will think that the product is garbage and no one wants it…” Jin Nana complained from the side.
"So, the company still needs a few top performers to attract people. Isn't this something we expected all along? What's there to complain about? Now it's our turn to step up!" Saori clenched her little fists, her face showing no sign of dejection.
"Heh, just say you want to see me embarrass myself on stage." Zhao Lingshan sneered. "Yeah, I just want to see you embarrass yourself. Anyway, I'm a foreigner, I'm not afraid of losing face!" Saori made a face at her.
"You little dwarf, see how I deal with you!" Zhao Lingshan stood up from her chair in anger.
"Come on, come on!" Saori said as she ran, sticking out her tongue, and after a few steps she would turn back to continue mocking.
"My God, are you two ever going to stop?!" Jin Nana sighed helplessly as she looked at the two clowns.
On the other hand, there's Kuaishou Network.
Zhang Feng and Zhang Yun were sweating profusely as they gesticulated wildly in front of the phone camera.
They recently signed a contract with the platform.
The contract, filled with exorbitant penalties for breach of contract, stringent daily livestreaming time targets, and unilateral termination clauses, clearly demonstrates that this is a complete servitude contract.
The two are known for their comedic style, but due to a lack of a professional writing team to consistently produce high-quality scripts, their comedic ideas have long since dried up.
It's impossible to make people laugh non-stop every single day when it comes to being funny.
At that moment, Zhang Feng was wearing a red and green floral cotton-padded jacket, with exaggerated blushes on his face. Zhang Yun picked up a bright yellow plastic basin and slammed it down on her brother's head, making a crisp, muffled sound.
Then, the two pointed at each other and burst into an extremely exaggerated and affected laugh in front of the camera.
For four consecutive hours, the live stream lacked any substantial content, and the two performers' act degenerated into illogical self-indulgence. While they were laughing hysterically on their end, the atmosphere in the live stream room was icy cold.
The table was piled high with cheap spicy strips, colorful, low-quality jellies, and unknown puffed snacks.
Although the shopping cart in the upper left corner of the live stream showed that 3850 orders of this bag of spicy strips had been sold, the actual transaction record in the backend was a paltry 4 orders. This false prosperity of several thousand orders was entirely due to the fake order-boosting software installed by the company in the backend to artificially inflate the figures.
The sporadic scrolling comments on the screen shattered this false prosperity.
"What are these two doing? Jumping and hopping around like idiots, it's not funny at all."
"It was such an awkward performance, it gave me a severe case of cringe. Go back to making your own funny short videos!"
"Are you kidding me? Who's buying all those thousands of orders in the top left corner? I seriously doubt it. Are they all bots?"
"What they're selling are clearly junk, unregulated products, full of artificial colors and preservatives. These snacks are not healthy at all; I wouldn't dare give them to my kids even if they were given to me for free."
Seeing the barrage of negative comments scrolling across the screen, Zhang Yun's fake smile froze for half a second. He secretly nudged Zhang Feng with his knee under the table.
Zhang Feng swallowed hard, and could only grit his teeth and hold up the bag of spicy strips oozing with red oil, shouting at the top of his lungs, "Family, these spicy strips are amazing! Five countdown, hurry up and grab them!"
In the cramped live-streaming room, only the two people's dry echoes and deliberately fake laughter remained.
"Look at what you've been doing all this time! You must have had the worst luck in the world to sign two idiots like you." As soon as the broadcast ended, General Manager Zhang walked in and started scolding the two of them.
"Boss... how about we switch to some other products..."
"Change what? I think you're the ones who need to be replaced! I hate people who make excuses and shift blame the most. Why do others achieve results, but you don't?"
Zhang Feng was interrupted by President Zhang as soon as he opened his mouth.
The two were scolded for a full half hour.
After Mr. Zhang left, the two brothers looked at each other, both regretting signing the contract.
"Ahem, you guys are new here, right? It's okay if your grades aren't great, as long as you work hard, you'll definitely improve! I was just like you when I first came here." At this moment, a fair-skinned young man walked in.
Zhang Feng and the others recognized this person; he was Xin Xin, one of the top ten streamers on the Kuaishou platform, with a staggering 50 million followers!
"Brother Xin, it's because we didn't perform well, and Boss Zhang was right to scold us..." Zhang Feng said with his head down.
“This product is so rubbish, there’s nothing we can do about it,” Zhang Yun argued.
“The product is indeed a bit inferior, but there’s nothing we can do about it. After all, you have to sell whatever the company wants to sell. Unless…” Xin Xin closed the door and took out a cigarette. The quick-witted Zhang Yun ran over like a lackey and lit it for her.
"Brother Xin, please give me some pointers!" Zhang Yun said obsequiously.
"Ahem, these days all platforms have unfair terms. If you want to make money here, you have to listen to them! But if you're really capable and generate a large portion of the platform's revenue, then the platform can't do without you. Then you can sell whatever you want and broadcast whatever you want!" Xin Xin exhaled a puff of smoke.
Seeing their bewildered expressions, he continued, "Don't be fooled by my current number of followers and sales volume not being as high as the top streamers. The real data shows that my sales revenue already accounts for about 15% of the company's total sales, and I'm confident I can break through 20% in a while! If I achieve this, the company will definitely need me. I can then start my own company to cooperate with the platform, instead of me working like a slave for the platform!"
"You mean you're saying you'll split the company and the platform 50/50? How is that possible? It's written in the contract..." Zhang Yun exclaimed in surprise.
“Nothing is impossible. Our contracts are different. The old contracts didn’t have so many unfair terms. Now that the platform has grown bigger, of course they want to take more! But you don’t need to worry about being stuck. As long as your performance continues to be this bad, the platform will naturally find a reason to kick you out first. After all, no company wants to waste money supporting useless people, right? If I become successful by then, I can come to my company and earn more than you do here.” Xin Xin smiled.
"Brother Xin, thank you so much! You're like a second parent to us!" Zhang Yun said, deeply moved, as he took the other man's hand.
On the other hand, since its entry into the north, Huodudu has encountered little hindrance. Its business has been expanding rapidly, successfully connecting with the southern region, which has greatly surprised all logistics companies.
They had thought that Chen Xi's delivery and Shunfeng would completely crush them, but the result was far beyond their expectations.
With the rise of the live streaming industry, e-commerce logistics prices have dropped again and again, officially ushering in the era of live streaming e-commerce.
Meanwhile, large-scale conferences were being held in the north and south.
Although it's called a conference, it's actually a business meeting where private enterprises take the lead, form cliques, probe each other's secrets, or stick together for mutual support.
These conferences have a strong sense of informality and informality. On stage, they talk about macroeconomics, while in tea rooms and drinking parties, they discuss project lending, equity betting, and how to get bank loans extended.
In the north, the organization is comprised of nearly a thousand prominent business figures, including members of the Taishan Society, such as Feng Yun, the owner of Lianxiang, and the owner of Fuyao Glass.
In the south, the conference, organized by Baidu, Tencent, and Suning, focused on the digital economy and the 5G era.
Of course, "north" and "south" don't represent where the entrepreneurs come from; they simply indicate the meeting location. (End of Chapter)