Top of the Great Era

Chapter 1790 IT Infrastructure Department

In the afternoon, we arrived at Cologne, the fourth largest city in Germany, which is the headquarters of Lufthansa.However, Lufthansa's IT infrastructure department is in Munich, so first talk to Lufthansa's group executives.

Germany is the second most attractive market for IT talent in the world.

However, the second Germany is not the same as the first United States.

The IT industry in the United States is very strong and comprehensive, and it is oriented towards the global market. The core backbones are several giants such as Microsoft, Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Yahoo, which will directly target individual users.

Germany is different, mainly for the European market.

It mainly provides information services.

For example, a company in the Netherlands wants to make some artificial intelligence or data mining products, but it really lacks the talent advantages of China and the United States.

The Dutch have only commercial needs, but lack technical capabilities.

At this time, you can find a company in Germany that is engaged in artificial intelligence research to cooperate and purchase outsourcing services from them.With the technical support provided by German IT companies, the Dutch companies only need to do some commercial design, improvement and integration.

Germany is the core of the European Union, not only because Germany's GDP level is the first in the European Union, but also because Germany dominates Europe in the field of science and technology.

Europe... To be precise, IT talents in the European continent often have major outflow directions, one is to Silicon Valley, and the other is to Germany.

In Germany's IT industry, the number of foreign employees exceeds 50%.Especially some emerging German IT companies adopt a bilingual system of German and English.

Zhou Buqi is not very satisfied with many policies, measures and social environment in the European continent.It is indeed very good for ordinary people, and the benefits are very high.But for a capitalist like him, it is too unfriendly, and the various situations are too complicated.

In comparison, Germany is the best.

More importantly, the relationship between China and Germany has always been very good. The domestic automobile industry was built with the help of the Germans, and even the ideology is based on the Germans as the highest belief.

Zhou Buqi had an overall plan early on, and it would be difficult for Ziweixing International to gain the upper hand in the competition with American Internet giants in the US market.

The core market of Ziweixing International should be placed in Europe, and it will develop by taking advantage of the competition between Europe and the United States.

The core of Europe should be chosen in Germany.

Zhou Buqi has come to Germany many times, and established the first Ziweiyun cloud data center in the European continent in Germany. The first phase of the project has been running stably for more than half a year, and the effect is relatively good, at least better than Amazon cloud .

When we arrived in Cologne, someone came to pick us up.

Half an hour later, at the gate of the Lufthansa headquarters park, I saw Mr. Maier Huber, the No. [-] figure of the Lufthansa Group, Chairman of the Board and CEO.

This is the second time the two have met.

Lufthansa has shown great enthusiasm and trust in being able to cooperate with Ziweixing.This is often the case, business cooperation is mutual.Lufthansa is the earliest foreign aviation group to enter the country. Although the domestic aviation industry is highly nationalized, the level of domestic aviation groups is too low and they rely heavily on outsourcing.

The aviation solutions and industry solutions provided by Lufthansa are the earliest reliance of the domestic civil aviation industry, and even the aviation food is under the overall responsibility and control of Lufthansa.

In view of the friendly cooperative relationship between China and Germany over the years, and the increasingly sharp competition between Germany and the United States, the cooperation between Ziweixing International and Lufthansa seems to have become a matter of course.

However, Lufthansa's total investment in the IT infrastructure sector exceeds 25 billion US dollars. This is a super large project, and the human factor is only a reference value.The core elements that determine success or failure are the quotation of the project and the future development plan after the spin-off.

After a brief visit, Mr. Maierhuber invited Zhou Buqi to his office, and said bluntly: "We have officially decided to spin off and sell the IT infrastructure department. There are many buyers. "

"Oh? Who is there?" Zhou Buqi is quite confident. Given the current economic environment in Europe, he doesn't think any IT giant in Europe has the strength to make a move.

At least he had communicated with Mr. Hope.

SAP Group, Europe's largest IT giant, will not participate in the case.

Maierhuber said: "There are many, about a dozen. However, there are probably...three companies with strong competitiveness, IBM, Oracle, and Atos from France."

"what?"

Zhou Buqi's complexion suddenly changed.

With the involvement of US emperors, this matter will not be easy to handle. IBM, Oracle... Damn, from China to Europe, these two goods are really indispensable everywhere!

Kurian sat next to him and asked, "What kind of company is Atos?"

Maier Huber said with a smile: "It's an IT service company in France."

To put it nicely, it is a high-tech information service company that actually does outsourcing.

Zhou Buqi smiled, "Will you sell the property to a French company?"

"We will make the choice that best suits Lufthansa's interests, but..." Maierhuber showed an enthusiastic attitude, "However, you are the first team to come here for inspection, and we have already felt your sincerity and willingness .”

Zhou Buqi would not believe such nonsense, the next step is to look at the materials.

It is important to look at the material.

At least I know that the data Kurian gave before is not accurate enough. Kurian previously said that Lufthansa's IT infrastructure department can reach 8 million US dollars in annual revenue.

In fact, it is not, it is Lufthansa's entire system department with an annual income of 8 million US dollars.The Systems Department further includes the IT Infrastructure Department, Aviation Solutions Department and Industry Solutions Department.

Among them, the revenue of the IT infrastructure department accounted for 40%, and the profit accounted for 25%.

That is, the annual revenue is 3.2 million US dollars and the profit is 2400 million US dollars.

However, in the past 10 years, Lufthansa has invested more than 25 billion US dollars in IT infrastructure.Even if the large investment of US$25 billion is allocated over 30 years, the average annual investment is nearly US$1 million.

Operating profit is less than $3000 million!
In other words, the IT infrastructure department actually brought an annual loss of up to 7000 million US dollars to the Lufthansa Group.

This is a serious burden.

More importantly, in view of the lack of technology, Lufthansa's existing IT infrastructure can no longer meet the needs, and they need to increase investment.

The more you bet, the more you lose.

If you can see that this department has the hope of "turning losses into profits" in the future, it is actually okay, and you can continue to invest persistently.However, the appearance of Ziweiyun made Hansa despair.

Even SAP has turned to Ziweiyun.

However, Lufthansa did not give up completely, it is deception.In order to verify the reliability of Ziwei Cloud, Lufthansa even took the initiative to cooperate with Ziwei Cloud and used some services of Ziwei Cloud, and the effect was astonishing.

With the help of Ziwei Cloud, engineers no longer need to spend a lot of time debugging local servers and database deployments, and can spend more energy on business, and the overall work efficiency has increased by an average of 65%.

This is the end, seeing is believing.

Hansa gave up completely.

Mr. Maierhuber said sincerely: "The IT infrastructure sector mainly includes the Internet, including data centers and optical cable services. This sector requires a lot of high-density investment, but now the European environment has changed, and the aviation industry has been severely affected. We hope to find large companies that are willing to continue investing in this direction to cooperate with.”

Zhou Buqi smiled, "Of course."

Curian was overjoyed. Knowing that the big boss wanted to fully support him, his interest and enthusiasm rose immediately, "Mr. Maierhuber, what are your requirements, can you briefly talk about it?"

Maierhuber gave his assistant a look and told him to send out the documents. He said in an orderly manner: "There are three main aspects. First, of course, there must be a sincere price. We have invested a total of 25% in this business. One hundred million U.S. dollars."

Zhou Buqi took the materials.

very thick.

The first material is all the investment projects and investment amounts of the IT infrastructure department in the past few years, various charts and data, and then a total investment of 25 billion US dollars is summarized.

I don't know how much is true and how much is false.

Maierhuber went on to say: "Secondly, the department has a total of 1400 employees, 1000 of whom are in Germany. The European economy has encountered some problems. We don't want our partners to take over the business and make large-scale layoffs. It is necessary to leave a relatively stable job security for employees.”

This is a hard condition.

Lufthansa is a state-owned enterprise, which means that the company has extremely strong trade union forces.If the employees cannot be handled properly and exact commitments are given, it will be impossible for Lufthansa to complete the spin-off and sale of the IT infrastructure department.

Zhou Buqi said: "Of course, Ziweixing acquired this part of the business for the purpose of inheriting and developing, rather than closing down. The proportion of layoffs will be controlled within 5%, and only normal talent structure optimization will be carried out."

Mr. Maierhuber nodded, "Third, Lufthansa needs outsourcing services."

"Ok?"

"Lufthansa also needs a lot of Internet services. If this department is sold, we hope to reach a long-term cooperation agreement with the acquirer, and this department will continue to undertake Lufthansa's related business."

"Of course, it must be like this." Zhou Buqi was very happy, "We will not lay off employees. The part of the staff responsible for Lufthansa's business will continue to be in charge of Lufthansa's business as in the past. They have the most abundant and skilled experience. They can best for that part of the job."

Maierhuber laughed, "Mr. Zhou, we haven't reached an agreement yet!"

Zhou Buqi waved his hand, "Tomorrow I will go to Munich for on-site research. If it is suitable... I believe that the two parties can reach a complete consensus on the intention!"

Maierhuber reminded with a smile: "You have to face three powerful opponents, IBM, Oracle and Atos."

At this time, Zhou Buqi couldn't be cowardly, and showed great confidence, "It's okay, we still have time, I believe you will make the best choice."

(End of this chapter)