Chapter 537 - Found a way to Backstab Ruan Guangjian! (1/2)

June 4th, Saturday…

At the Management Trainees’ regular meeting…

Obviously, the Management Trainees had become used to the work that Boss Pei had assigned them. Everything from gathering information to reporting to Boss Pei came naturally to them. They were practically professionals.

“The three new buildings for Sloth Apartments are being designed. Mr. Liang Qingfan seems to be designing the floor plans while in seclusion.”

Pei Qian nodded. He already knew about this, and so he did not pay much attention to this update.

The Management Trainee system’s main function was to keep Pei Qian in control of various departments’ daily operations and the potential to generate profits. However, it was obviously not a panacea.

For instance, Pei Qian could personally keep an eye on projects that had just started out. That meant the Management Trainees would know even less than Pei Qian himself did.

On top of that, the Management Trainees could only gather information during working hours. They would not know about whatever the department heads did in private.

Pei Qian had no way of dealing with that.

He could not possibly make the Management Trainees follow the department heads around and stare at them 24/7, could he?

Yet, although the system was not perfect, at least it was an improvement from before.

“Fish-Catching Take-Out is still investing huge sums of money into developing fitness meals and releasing different flavors. At the same time, it’s planning for the next batch of branches to expand its coverage.”

Overall, this sounded like good news to Pei Qian. However, there seemed to be some hidden dangers as well.

He had to admit that Rui Yuchen was daring when it came to spending money. Pei Qian appreciated this a lot. Everything from opening more branches and pouring money into the Gourmet Laboratory made Pei Qian want to clap his hands and cheer. In fact, he wished that Rui Yuchen would ramp up his efforts.

After all, for Fish-Catching Take-Out, opening one more branch meant incurring that much more losses. Where could Pei Qian find anything better than that?

As for developing new flavors for the fitness meals…

That sounded like a hidden danger. However, Pei Qian mainly had two considerations: First, the gym was still incurring losses at the moment. Fancy fitness meals would only encourage those who had already registered at the gym to persevere.

As long as the gym showed no signs of generating profits yet, Pei Qian could afford to keep an eye on the situation.

Second, the Gourmet Laboratory was already open. Something had to come out of pouring research funds into it, right? If Pei Qian prohibited Rui Yuchen from developing fitness meals, he could work on researching new dishes to improve Fish-Catching Take-Out instead. That seemed far more harmful.

Pei Qian had to choose the lesser of two evils; it would be much more worth the while to let Rui Yuchen continue developing new fitness meals.

“The nameless restaurant is starting its employee training. Employees would be allowed to work out at Deposit Fitness and spend time learning a foreign language. On top of that, the restaurant has hired top students who are proficient in multiple languages directly from Handong University to serve as waiters.

“New requirements have also been implemented for all waiters. They are now required to memorize the ingredients in each dish, how much heat is applied, how they are prepared, and the like.”

Eh?

This news piqued Pei Qian’s interest. He had stopped paying attention to Ming Yun Private Kitchen a long time ago. Now, it looked like Branch Manager Lin had learned a thing or two!

Pei Qian fell into deep thought. Compared to setting up new branches, investing in waiters seemed to have a lower price-quality ratio. What’s more, he was making his waiters pick up more languages… How many international friends could find out about Ming Yun Private Kitchen?

Jingzhou was not a cosmopolitan city to begin with. There were very few foreigners in the city, and Ming Yun Private Kitchen was located in a very deserted neighborhood.

Even if a few foreigners went to Ming Yun Private Kitchen for a meal and discovered that the waiters could speak their language, it would only serve to improve their experience. How dramatic could the effects be?

The price-quality ratio was indeed very low! Wait, was Lin Canrong only investing in something with such a low price-quality ratio to… spite Pei Qian?

He had been watching Fish-Catching Take-Out expand rapidly despite not being able to generate profits. On the other hand, Ming Yun Private Kitchen’s request to expand had been decisively rejected.

That’s why he’s spending all the money that he had earned on something meaningless just to spite me?

If that’s true, I can only say ‘well done’! Please, work harder!

“The plan for Thriller Hostel’s shopping mall is complete. It will be called the Golden Maze. Construction started on an urgent basis. This project will be extremely expensive, and Boss Li had to expend a lot of energy to convince other investors to invest in it.” Eh, they fell for my trick?

Pei Qian was overjoyed. Chen Kangtuo is quite obedient.

I only requested for them to make the shopping mall a luxurious maze to dupe Boss Li and the other investors. I wanted the renovation fees alone to give them a headache. Yet, he’s really working on a maze, and it’s called the Golden Maze at that. Just the name sounds expensive!

It’s no wonder that Boss Li had to expend a lot of energy just to convince other investors to buy-in. They probably didn’t think I would go so far as to request that much out of them, right?

Hmm, not bad… the cracks of dissension and discord are already showing. I only have to do this two more times before every single one of them would run away!

“Deposit Fitness’s manpower is still largely the same, and there are very few new customers. Old customers are more loyal now, and the number of people who are giving up halfway is falling.

“I’ve analyzed Deposit Fitness’s current data and discovered two main reasons for these trends: first, the improvement in the fitness meals has made it easier for people to persevere. More importantly, there’s survivor bias.

“The customers who can persevere have already gotten used to such fitness plans, and that’s why they can be increasingly loyal. However, that doesn’t mean the gym is doing better.

“After all, we can’t attract new customers. No matter how loyal these old customers are, they cannot help the gym to generate profits.”