19 Every Cloud has a Silver Lining (1/2)
”I have a plan,” Li Zhicheng said gradually, ”I'll outflank SMQ.”
Lin Qian was a bit confused. The first thing that came to her mind was Li Zhicheng's lack of experience. Was ”outflank SMQ” what she understood it to be?
What it meant to outflank a competitor, was to blaze a trail to besiege the rival.
Burger King's ”grilled but not fried” strategy to challenge Mcdonald's and KFC was a foreign example. Domestically, Shunfeng Express's insistence on air transport made it to the top of the industry after being in the market for only a short while.
In the former instance, it was impossible for McDonald's or KFC to substitute their fried chicken on a global scope; and in the latter one, other express delivery companies couldn't just give up their original land transportation and change the whole internal logistics process just to buy new planes.
The trick to succeed in outflanking was not to introduce brand-new products that had never been seen in the market, but to make the products competitive in an original way and to make the existing market leader incapable of emulating them.
Outflanking was much more difficult than it seemed.
Lin Qian stared at Li Zhicheng after hearing this. Aida was struggling to merely survive now. How could it possibly outflank SMQ?
Li Zhicheng just looked at her, calmly and steadily.
Lin Qian looked at the documents he had just brought. She was astounded after reading only a few lines.
Li Zhicheng dared to…
...
Chen Zheng was very complacent these days.
The Ming Sheng project was not going to be highly profitable. But from his perspective, this move succeeded in both challenging New Bori and suppressing Aida.
One must think in the long term if he wanted to be the lead in such a meager-profit industry.
When his subordinates brought up some doubts about the Ming Sheng project, he immediately dismissed them.
”Mr. Chen, we promised Ming Sheng Group in our bidding document that our supply price won't be 30 yuan more expensive than that of the similar products on the market. And in the past, we have always provided an 11-percent discount on our luxurious bags. Should we do that this year? Will Ming Sheng ask us to further lower our price if they know?”
Chen Zheng sneered upon hearing this. ”Do you really think a huge group like Ming Sheng will care about our price? Don't worry about it. We'll continue this year.”
The subordinate nodded his head and said, ”And by the way, our supply cycle is three months, which means in the coming few months, we will be in shortage of high-end bags.”
Chen Zheng thought for a moment and said, ”As long as we can pull through these months then everything will be fine. Don't lose a great deal by trying to save a little. Our focus should be the Ming Sheng project now.”
After the subordinate left, Chen Zheng sat in his chair, swirled around, looked at the scenery outside and started to contemplate.
Indeed, he wasn't worried about the issues brought up just now. For domestic manufacturers, sales of high-end bags only made up a small portion; it was borderline meaningless, though it was not bad enough to be given up. However, it was also like an appealing yet poisonous fruit, an unattainable Arcadia. There was no way one could possibly compete with those foreign luxury brands. Aida had tried that before, and look where it had gotten them now?
What did he need to worry about? Aida's insurgency by a sharp increase of high-end bags sales? Even New Bori couldn't accomplish that, not to mention the company was being run by that inflexible soldier and the only-slightly-witted Lin Qian.
He shook his head, assuring himself that was impossible.
However, his spy in Aida had been discovered, which was a bit unfortunate. But he had nevertheless sent the full text of Aida's tender, helping him strike a deadly blow to Aida. He also hadn't confessed anything in the holding cell and hadn't brought any trouble to SMQ. In a way, he'd ”retired” after winning merit.
...
Lin Qian took the elevator from the top floor to the floors below and arrived at the marketing department first.
In contrast to being desolate in the past, the department was fraught with people today. Even the office of the general accounting department downstairs had been temporarily taken over.
Following the CEO's orders, two hundred employees with great sales records, a willingness to stay at Aida, and more than three years experience were called upon to the headquarters and had formed this temporary ”customer services center.”
Lin Qian walked through the office area hearing phones ringing, typing, and footsteps, all of which made a person tense. She walked into the office of marketing. Xue Mingtao beamed upon seeing her. ”Ms. Lin, you have a good grip on literature. Would you mind helping me check what I just wrote?”
Lin Qian smiled and walked to him, took the paper, read it and nodded her head, ”I think it's pretty good.”
Xue Mingtao looked a bit tired. He stared at the staff all buried in work and said, ”They've been doing overtime for a whole week sending messages and emails to thirty thousand old customers. What they'll now do is call them one by one, starting tomorrow. I hope we can have a good start when the project starts.”
After inspecting the process of the marketing department, Lin Qian took the elevator down to the IT department.
She was still holding the document Xue Mingtao had just given her. It was the full text of emails and messages the temporary customer services center sent to old customers. And these old customers had bought middle-end or high-end bags in one of Aida's branches in the past three years.
”Thank you so much for your support for Aida. We will have a 60%-off special promotion in our online flagship store on the fifth day of this month. Only the first 2,000 people can get the discount. One bag for each account with a one-million-yuan giveaway. The odds of winning are 100%. This promotion is for online sales only and we are doing it for our old customers.
”President of Aida,
”Li Zhicheng.”
This is how Li Zhicheng planned to outflank SMQ. The idea was very simple: a price discount.
However, a price discount was something everything would and was able to do. Doing it effectively was the real challenge.