The Industrial Giant Reborn

A Marriott hotel in downtown Detroit, inside the presidential suite:

While pouring the red wine in his hand, Henry Morgan said: "This is a collection I got from a European nobleman. It was preserved in the 10s, and I can't buy it even if I want to."

"Good wine, tastes good." Chen Zhiwen took a sip, nodded and said, "It is really difficult to buy this kind of antique wine now."

Many people know about Lafite in 1982, but it is not yet 82 years old. The best wine on the market is from the 10s and 20s. During that time, because of the food problem, many places banned alcohol, and the demand In order to obtain higher profits, a large number of wine merchants have to produce better wines to gain the recognition of high-consumption groups. At that time, the ones that can stay are naturally high-quality goods, especially after keeping them for a long time. Tastes better.

"Actually, it's not difficult to buy. Many declining nobles in Europe have some castles in their hands. In these castles, apart from historical feelings, there are all kinds of wine left. You also know that in Europe, they have always liked to drink. The idle nobles I like to hide wine even more." Henry Morgan said with a smile.

"You mean you want me to buy those ancient castles?" Chen Zhiwen asked.

"If you are interested, you can go and have a look. It is not necessary just for wine, but this kind of ancient castle, like antiques, is always stable in quantity, and may become less and less, so it has a strong value preservation Investment value, since last year, after the price of gold plummeted, many European and American capitals have begun to speculate on these ancient castles. Besides, these ancient castles themselves are also valuable, and many of them have large tracts of land, just like farms in Europe and America. Many are well-established vineyard farms," ​​said Henry Morgan.

"If I'm free, I'll go and have a look. You bought it too?" Chen Zhiwen nodded and said, if you really find something you like, it doesn't matter to buy one, just treat it as buying a place to live in Europe.

"Yes, I bought a manor in France. Look, here are the photos." Henry Morgan smiled and took out a few photos from his pocket.

"Very good, the scenery is very good." Chen Zhiwen nodded and said, this castle is on the edge of a lake, surrounded by several trails, and many green plants climb on the walls of the ancient castle, giving it a unique flavor.

"Of course, but it cost me 20 million dollars." Henry Morgan said.

"It's quite expensive. It seems that your business has been doing well these days." Chen Zhiwen said with a smile.

"It's up to you. I didn't expect it at all. The sales of red and white consoles and handheld consoles in just three states surpassed that of arcade consoles. It's incredible." Henry Morgan said.

"Normally, the civilian market is the largest market in the world." Chen Zhiwen said. Whether it is supermarkets, electronic products, games, automobiles, etc., they are all connected end users, and even banks are the same. Among the world's top 500 companies, most of them are such enterprises.

Henry Morgan has a long history of cooperation with Chen Zhiwen, and the family behind him has also been of great help to Chen Zhiwen. Therefore, Midea's red and white phones and handhelds in California, New York and Maryland are all authorized He, however, has to exclude large supermarkets. Midea cooperates directly with large supermarkets in Europe and America, and local distributors mainly focus on various small stores.

"Eric, I heard that Midea launched a personal computer? Are you ready to make a big splash in this market?" Henry Morgan asked with a smile.

"Of course, I can tell you that Midea's current achievements in the game field are far behind the potential of the future personal computer market. The future consumer electronics market will mainly focus on computers." Chen Zhiwen said with a light smile. I probably understood the reason why Henry Morgan came to him on his own initiative, obviously because he was interested in the personal computer market.

"Really so powerful?" Henry Morgan's eyes lit up, and he said, "I also know that many people in the financial market are hyping personal computers, but I didn't expect that there would be such a big space."

"It's much more powerful than what Wall Street can imagine now." Chen Zhiwen said. When a technology product is born, no one knows how much potential it will have, not to mention laymen, even insiders are the same. For example, Jobs, who later launched the Apple mobile phone in 2007, said at the press conference that ultimately The goal was to obtain a 1% share of the global mobile phone market. Although this figure was small, it was considered a big goal for Apple at the time, but the final result exceeded his imagination.

The same is true for personal computers. No one would have imagined that the Internet will be born later, linking all human beings, and countless software and so on.

"Then can I obtain the agency rights of Midea's personal computer? Anyway, now that I have opened up the channel, it is easy to add another computer." Henry asked.

"The highest selling price of the red and white machine is 699 US dollars. This price is actually not a small amount of money for many American families, but it is still affordable. The cheapest personal computer of Midea is also close to this price. 3 times the price, so your previous channel will not work." Chen Zhiwen shook his head and said.

"So, Midea's personal computers are only used in large shopping malls and supermarkets?" Henry said a little disappointed.

"No, shopping malls and supermarkets will be one of the main channels, but not absolutely." Chen Zhiwen said: "With the gradual enrichment of Midea's product line, I plan to launch a dedicated channel system, 711 Supermarket, Henry, listen Have you been?"

"711? That small franchise store? I know, you mean, a professional franchise store?" Henry Morgan is also a smart person, and he understood it in an instant.

"Yes, many big brands, especially civilian commodity brands, will adopt this model, such as small supermarkets, clothing stores, shoe stores, etc. , all kinds of consumer electronics products such as game consoles, handhelds, and music players will be stationed here." Chen Zhiwen explained.

"So, is it ready to replace the current model?" Henry Morgan said.

"No, the coexistence of the two will become a normal state. The expansion of franchise stores requires a substantial amount of capital investment. It is not so easy to build them all over the world. However, it will definitely squeeze the interests of other small stores. Besides, , it doesn’t affect you much, no matter what the channel is, you need a dealer.” Chen Zhiwen said. It is the era of the mobile Internet. It will take many years for Apple and Huawei to establish franchise stores across the country, not to mention the low-efficiency era where mobile phones have not yet appeared. Besides, the brand monopoly of personal computers is far more powerful than Not on the phone.

"So, I need to persuade a lot of people to join us?" Henry Morgan nodded and said. Sure enough, it is not so easy to make money lying down. It took a lot of energy to reach channel cooperation with a large number of small shops. Ready to set up a franchisee channel.

"In the long run, the channel for franchisees has been opened up, which is more based on the expansion of our brand, and in the future, Midea will launch other games, other models of computers and other electronic products, all rely on others, and it will not last long .” Chen Zhiwen said again.

Although franchisees are not their own, to a large extent, they can use contracts and interests to carry out deep binding. In this way, all channels are in their own hands, and they can better guarantee after-sales service, etc. Although this In the sales system, distributors still exist, but when all channels are clear, it is the most convenient for brand companies and can obtain the greatest benefits.

"I understand, I will start to prepare for this matter." Henry nodded and said. When Midea became bigger and bigger and became a global electronics giant, he understood that he could no longer be like before. That way you can have a normal conversation with it, because the dependencies and completely changed, it would be nice to be able to continue to enjoy the shade under this big tree.

Building the entire franchisee distribution system is actually tantamount to making all of his own flow transparent. In the future, Midea will allow him to earn 100 US dollars, but it will be difficult for him to earn 110. But in general, when Midea is getting stronger and stronger, the product More and more abundant and popular, so even if his profit margin is low, he can still earn more overall.

"The specifics of how to cooperate still need to be decided according to the situation in the US market, and the initial stage is just testing the waters. It will not expand on a large scale for at least two or three years. You still need to manage the existing channels well." Chen Zhiwen He smiled and said.

"Okay, I understand." Henry nodded and said, "Then those home appliances under your banner, shouldn't they be put together?"

"No, home appliances is another sales network, but I haven't built it yet. At present, I mainly rely on large supermarkets and some trading companies. Midea Home Appliances currently doesn't have the ability to build other channels." Chen Zhiwen shook his head and said.

"It's a pity. Without channels, it's very difficult to grow and develop just relying on your own supermarket." Henry said.

"I know, actually I wanted to discuss this matter with you, but since you're here, it's just a coincidence." Chen Zhiwen nodded and said.

Costco is owned by itself, and Wal-Mart has a good relationship with itself. These two supermarkets combined, it is not a problem to support several medium-sized factories in Hong Kong or the Mainland. For Hong Kong people, this factory is not small, but compared with traditional home appliances The giant is completely a drop in the bucket.

If you really want to grow big, you can't rely on these alone. Therefore, Chen Zhiwen has long been thinking about how to break the situation.

Of course, if Costco, Wal-Mart, and Best Buy really become bigger in another ten or twenty years, they can become one of the home appliance giants only by relying on these few, but this time is too long, and in the future, Wal-Mart and Wal-Mart It's hard to say what will happen to the relationship.

"What can I do?" Henry Morgan asked curiously.

"Your Morgan family has a good relationship with General Electric, right?" Chen Zhiwen asked.

"Yes, decades ago, the Morgan family was the major shareholder of General Electric, and then slowly reduced their shares, but there are still some." Henry nodded and said.

"General Electric's new CEO, Welch, do you know?" Chen Zhiwen asked again.

"I know, but I don't know him. I heard that when he was the vice president of General Electric, his grades were very good." Henry said.

"Of course, the one who can be selected as the CEO of General Electric is of course one of the best." Chen Zhiwen said with a smile: "I know a little more than you. That is to say, in the field that General Electric will be involved in in the future, if you can’t be number one or number two, then you won’t do it.”

"Such an exaggeration?" Henry Morgan was taken aback after hearing this, and said, "Not even the third one?"

"It's a little exaggerated. If it is really the third in the world, I don't believe that General Electric will not want this business, but how to say, this is Welch's ruling principle, and as far as I know, although the home appliance business under General Electric is also Very good, but there is still a certain gap between the top ten in the world."

In the 21st century, economic weekly magazines of later generations screened out the top 100 CEOs in the world. Welch, the CEO of General Electric, is one of them, and of course also includes Lee Iacocca, who saved Chrysler.

Although General Electric in the 1980s was unprecedentedly powerful in terms of scale, Welch was well aware of the crisis. The entire company involved too many businesses. From complex aero engines to the simplest power tools, General Electric had more than a thousand businesses. , the management of the entire company is bloated, with hundreds of senior executives in charge of different businesses of the company, and each business has several or even dozens of large regional directors, etc., and even many senior executives themselves cannot figure out how many business.

In this case, a lot of management resources are consumed. In order to sort out the business of the entire company, Welch proposed the principle of being number one or number two. As long as it is not in the top three levels, or has the potential to become the top three levels of business, the others are all sold. , Regardless of whether this business is profitable now, if it is profitable, it will sell more money, and if it is not profitable, it will sell less.

This strategy has encountered great resistance within GE, and the revolution is the most difficult for itself. Those groups who will lose their interests because of the revolution will desperately resist. These people do not care about the future of the company, but only care about themselves.

And a powerful CEO, in addition to having a strategy, also needs to have the ability and courage to accomplish this goal. Welch is such a person. It took ten years to sell most of General Electric's businesses, and the rest were all The most cutting-edge top technology company above Blue Star.

"You want to acquire General Electric's home appliance business?" Henry Morgan was startled, and said, "Eric, although General Electric's home appliance business is indeed not the strongest, but the market size is not small. If you want to acquire, I'm afraid Without a billion dollars, it is unstoppable."

"The more money you have, the happier your investment bank is?" Chen Zhiwen said with a smile.

In the original history, General Electric sold the home appliance business to a European company a few years later. Even in the next year in history, Welch sold his own central air-conditioning business, because this business has only 10% in the US market. % share.

This share is meaningless for General Electric, which has a bloated management. After all, the competition in the field of household appliances has long been fierce, and the profit margin of this market is very low. However, for Midea, it is a breakthrough. It can obtain technology, It can also obtain channels. As for the problem of profit margins, it is of course profitable to produce in the United States, but if it is moved to Asia, or the mainland where the route is clearer in a few years, then there will be no problem.

"Okay, then I'll make a call later and discuss it with the people from Morgan Stanley. They should be very interested in this acquisition, and they may send someone over in the next two days." Henry nodded and said, thinking about it carefully , although the purchase price may be around one billion US dollars, it can borrow funds from investment banks. Given the development of Chen Zhiwen's several businesses, any investment bank will lend him money.

"Well, I'll wait for them here." Chen Zhiwen nodded and said that AMC had tried to cooperate with General Electric before but failed, which reminded Chen Zhiwen that in the 1980s, this giant sold a lot of business, and he, There is just a lot missing, and the combination of the two couldn't be more perfect.