Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 481: Zhiyun, which ships more than million devices annually

At the beginning of August, when the entire Zhiyun Group was busy preparing for the launch of the S18 mobile phone, Galaxy Life's headquarters in faraway Africa also conducted a technical review of the HT197 project.

Subsequently, the technical committee of Galaxy Life Headquarters issued a conclusion report, believing that the HT197 project has great potential in increasing immunity and anti-aging fields, and recommended increasing project investment and raising project priority.

Subsequently, the Executive Committee of Galaxy Life Headquarters formally approved the large amount of R&D funding for the next phase of the HT197 project, and planned to invest US$ billion in R&D funds for in-depth research and development of the project.

Twenty billion US dollars may not seem like a lot for an important project, but you have to know that Galaxy Life has many R&D projects.

There are seven or eight projects in total that also focus on anti-aging, have huge potential, and have already been invested in.

In addition to anti-aging projects, Galaxy Life also conducts research in other fields of life and health, which are also relatively expensive.

Although Galaxy Life receives funding from the world's super-rich every year, as well as part of the profits handed over by its subsidiary Galaxy Pharmaceuticals, it is not easy to maintain such a large R&D business.

Even this is based on many preliminary clinical trials in Africa, India and other places, which greatly saved the R&D funds for clinical trials.

If Galaxy Life's many R&D projects were conducted in Europe, America or China, the funding for clinical trials alone would be an astronomical figure.

Galaxy Life went to Africa and India to conduct clinical trials not only to circumvent legal restrictions in some civilized countries, but more to save costs.

This is also a common practice among many multinational pharmaceutical companies.

This can be seen from Xiluokeda's research and development process!

The drug actually didn't cost much in the early stages of research and development. The basic theoretical research and development was completed at a domestic research center. After simple animal testing, it was sent to Africa for clinical trials. Thousands of clinical trials were conducted, but the total cost was not high.

Instead, after completing basic clinical trials in Africa and figuring out the basic broad-spectrum anti-drug effects and basic side effects of the drug, in order to obtain legal marketing approval, we went to China and other countries such as Europe, the United States, and Japan to conduct legal clinical trials.

Clinical trials at this stage are very expensive. For example, clinical trials conducted in the United States cost more than 50,000 US dollars per person.

Arranging clinical trials for just 100 people would cost 5 million dollars.

Clinical trials are often conducted in three phases in total, with the scale getting larger and larger... In order to be legally marketed and sold in the United States, Xiluo Keda underwent three phases of clinical trials, and the cost of clinical trials alone reached 130 million US dollars.

Clinical trials of Xiluokeda in other countries, including in China, are not cheap either.

Of course, the reason why Xiluo Keda's clinical trials are expensive is also related to its broad-spectrum characteristics... Other drugs conduct clinical trials for only one indication, while Xiluo Keda's previous clinical trials were directly aimed at sixteen indications.

With more indications, the cost of clinical trials will naturally be very large.

It can be seen from Xiluokeda's legal clinical trials that it is very expensive for pharmaceutical companies to conduct legal and compliant clinical trials, especially in Europe, the United States and China where the laws are well-developed.

Therefore, all major pharmaceutical companies will try their best to avoid conducting clinical trials in these places...especially the first phase of clinical trials in the catching-in-the-big-pot stage.

Because out of the one hundred drugs that undergo phase I clinical trials, the vast majority fail to pass phase I clinical trials.

And these are the costs!
This is also why the cost of new drug research and development is so high... The research and development cost of a single drug itself is actually not that high, but pharmaceutical companies still have a lot of failed drug research and development. When the final cost is calculated, the research and development costs of these failed drugs need to be spread over the successful drugs.

Out of a hundred R&D projects, only one is successful. You cannot just calculate the cost of one successful project, you have to include the cost of the hundred projects as well.

This ultimately leads to extremely high drug research and development costs, so high that only large pharmaceutical companies can afford it.

In order to save R&D costs, Galaxy Pharmaceuticals and other multinational pharmaceutical giants choose to conduct their preliminary clinical trials, especially the first phase clinical trials, in countries such as India or Africa.

The reason is simple: it is cheap to conduct clinical trials in these places!

Even if clinical trials are conducted in many countries with imperfect legal systems, they are not recognized by developed countries, but this does not matter... because preliminary clinical trials are a self-screening process for pharmaceutical companies.

It would be enough as long as the first phase of clinical trials are completed in India, Africa and other places, and a few drugs that have passed the first phase of clinical trials are selected from a hundred drugs.

Subsequently, these pharmaceutical companies will take drugs that have completed the first phase of clinical trials to major market countries such as Europe and the United States to conduct legal and compliant clinical trials, even if they have to repeat the first phase of clinical trials for this purpose.

Even an open pharmaceutical company like Galaxy Pharmaceuticals has done this, not to mention Galaxy Life, which is hidden beneath the surface.

Galaxy Life's research and development, including the early theoretical and animal experiment stages, were all carried out in research and development centers located in China, Europe, and the United States. After entering the clinical trial stage, it went directly to Africa.

For some more sensitive projects, even animal experiments are carried out in Africa.

The HT197 project is one of such sensitive projects!
After the success of the initial animal experiments in Africa, Galaxy Life will conduct clinical trials on the drug. At the same time, it will continue in-depth research and development to try to make better anti-aging drugs based on this technical route.

And it’s not easy!

When Galaxy Life began to conduct in-depth research on the HT197 project, some of Galaxy Life's donors also knew some of the news.

They are keeping a close eye on this!
Even more resource support will be provided!
In fact, they hope that the HT197 project or other similar projects will be successful more than Xu Shenxue... After all, Xu Shenxue himself doesn't need this thing. Instead, it is the old men in the consortium who urgently need anti-aging drugs like HT197.

As a result, a strange situation emerged. These consortiums competed with Xu Shenxue's companies in various ways, and the security companies under their control fought against each other from time to time.

But at the same time, they increased their financial donations to Galaxy Life, and also transferred a number of their scientists to join in the research and development of the HT197 project.

There will definitely be competition. If the HT197 project is successful in the future, it may even trigger a new round of competition among consortiums.

But... not now!
The cake isn't even made yet, what are you grabbing for?

Xu Shenxue also kept an eye on the situation at Galaxy Life, and also to prevent those consortiums from directly snatching away the HT197 project or several other potential projects after they achieved technological breakthroughs. He also allocated more funds to Galaxy Security for the recruitment and training of security personnel and the purchase of more security equipment.

The previous Black Swallow UAV and Swarm UAV are very useful when combined together. The feedback from Galaxy Security has been very good and it is very suitable for use in low-intensity combat.

Therefore, Xu Shenxue arranged for Dongning Technology to produce another batch of these two types of drone systems and send them to Galaxy Security to further enhance the strength of Galaxy Security.

In addition, some more advanced equipment was also obtained through some secret channels, such as armored vehicles and various types of artillery.

As for some conventional individual soldier or relatively less technologically sensitive equipment, these are even simpler and you can buy a lot of them in that crappy place in Africa.

Galaxy Security is an important force in ensuring the safety of overseas assets of Galaxy Life and other companies under Xu Shenxue, and Xu Shenxue has always attached great importance to it.

The existence of Galaxy Security has actually benefited many domestic companies that have gone overseas, especially those that have gone to Africa to mine.

Many domestic companies go to Africa to do business, especially some relatively strong companies with sufficient funds, most of which will hire security personnel from Galaxy Security to obtain security services.

Even some companies in other countries will turn to Galaxy Security for security services.

Therefore, in addition to protecting Xu Shenxue's companies, Galaxy Security also provides security services to the outside world, and earns a lot of revenue and profits every year to maintain the operation of its own business.

Galaxy Life and Galaxy Security, these two relatively special companies, although unknown to outsiders, are still quite important in Xu Shenxue's career map.

It is understandable that Xu Shenxue keeps paying attention. However, these things have nothing to do with ordinary people. After entering August, ordinary people are paying attention to the S18 series of mobile phones that Zhiyun Group is about to release.

----

August 9th, just after the beginning of autumn.

Xu Shenxue convened a high-level meeting of vice presidents and above at the Zhiyun Group headquarters. Participants included Ji Chenghe and Gu Zhiming, who had just returned from abroad.

The purpose of this meeting is very simple, which is to review and discuss the launch of the S18 mobile phone and subsequent global launch related matters.

Gu Zhiming, the head of the supply chain, was the first to report at the meeting: "According to the sales forecast report of the marketing department, our S18 series mobile phones have already stocked million units. At the same time, our foundry will maintain a peak production capacity of million units per month. This peak production capacity will be maintained until the sales volume drops in the early stage of listing and enters a stable period. We predict that the time is early October!"

"To this end, the three major foundries and hundreds of supply chain manufacturers have been making various preparations since April. From equipment to workers, they are ready to maintain high-intensity production capacity until early October!"

"In order to further improve the transportation efficiency in the supply chain, our company's Zhiyun Airlines has purchased a number of cargo aircraft since last year, and has also reached in-depth cargo cooperation agreements with many domestic and foreign aviation companies!"

"We will have sufficient air transport capacity to gather the raw materials and spare parts scattered around the country to the OEM factories, and at the same time, air transport the finished mobile phones produced by the OEM factories to markets in various countries!"

"In the past half month, more than a hundred cargo planes have been shuttling between domestic production bases, overseas markets, etc. for our supply chain operations!"

“At any given moment, right now, there are at least fifteen cargo planes in the sky serving our supply chain!”

"Just half a month ago, the first batch of mobile phones destined for the European market arrived in Paris via Zhiyun Airlines' cargo plane."

"In order to meet the stocking needs of various overseas markets, we have deployed dozens of cargo planes from Zhiyun Airlines and partner airlines to shuttle non-stop between China, ASEAN, Europe, South America, India, Russia and many other regions!"

"Just yesterday, we sent more than 30 cargo planes of different capacities to deliver the last batch of 3 million mobile phones overseas."

"At present, we have already shipped and stocked more than 18 million S phones to various overseas markets in advance, mainly in Europe, followed by major markets such as Japan, Canada, Brazil, India, and South Korea!"

"As for the domestic market, we have already completed the stocking and delivery to the first-tier channel dealers at each province level, the three major operators, and major e-commerce platforms, with a total of 30 million S series mobile phones delivered!"

"For the domestic part, we have also mobilized a large number of air transport aircraft, trucks and other transportation capabilities!"

“In the month before and after this, the world will witness the most top-notch, most efficient and largest supply chain transportation event!”

When Gu Zhiming said this, he looked proud!
On the planet today, Zhiyun Group's supply chain is recognized as the most efficient, technologically advanced, and even the largest.

This is not only reflected in the huge scale of each production base, the technological research and development and production of supply chain companies, but also in the huge transportation capacity.

There are 300 million smartphones and more than 100 million computers, tablets, Bluetooth headsets, AI glasses, smart watches and other types of smart terminals every year. The smart terminals alone account for more than 400 million.

What does the shipment volume of more than 400 million smart terminals mean?
Even if we average it out every day, the shipment volume has reached millions of units!
About half of them are exported to overseas countries!

This means that every day, Zhiyun Group will provide more than 500,000 smart terminal devices of various types to various cities overseas!
Taking a large cargo aircraft like 747 as an example, with the European market as the destination, the daily transportation volume of each aircraft is roughly calculated to be units (the specific products will vary greatly, this is just a simple example).

This means that Zhiyun Group needs to airlift at least five large cargo planes to overseas every day!
Of course, unless it is the season for new product launches, some non-urgent products are often transported by sea in order to save transportation costs. If it is transported across continents, the cost of air transportation can be more than ten times that of sea transportation. Therefore, Zhiyun Group also uses sea transportation.

However, when launching new products, Zhiyun Group usually uses air transportation, not only for finished products, but also for raw materials and spare parts.

Especially in the one or two months before and after the official release of the S series flagship, Zhiyun Group will use extremely large-scale air transportation to ensure smooth production and timely delivery of mobile phones to various markets.

In addition, this can also compress the time it takes for the product to appear in the outside world as much as possible... Even all products in the stocking stage, especially those sent to various destination markets, are subject to very strict security and confidentiality measures. All products are strictly sealed and cannot be opened before the official launch conference.

But if the time is too long, there will always be some leaks... If there is a serious leak before the official release, and the outside media knows what the phone looks like, it will also cause a huge blow to the launch conference.

Because people have lost their curiosity!

Without curiosity, the press conference will receive less attention and the marketing impact will also decline.

This is unacceptable to Zhiyun Group.

Therefore, it is very necessary to keep strict confidentiality of new products before their official release.

In order to maintain confidentiality before listing, Zhiyun Group will also shorten the delivery time!

The product started production in early June, but it was not distributed to various places until the end of July.

However, when the products are distributed at the beginning, the scale will be very large, with millions of S18 mobile phones shipped out every day to the warehouses of domestic and foreign distributors.

Zhiyun staff and personnel from the cooperating security company will provide round-the-clock protection and monitoring of the warehouse to prevent relevant information from being photographed by media reporters.

This kind of intensive transportation in a short period of time also places great demand on air transport capacity.

However, Zhiyun Group is also familiar with this kind of thing. In addition to its own Zhiyun Airlines, it also maintains in-depth cooperative relationships with many domestic and foreign airlines. In July and August every year, the cooperating airlines will prepare cargo planes and crew members in advance and start transporting products for Zhiyun Group.

The above-mentioned efficient supply chain system is Gu Zhiming’s masterpiece and the accumulated result of his many years of work in Zhiyun Group.

It is also thanks to this supply chain system that Gu Zhiming is known as the number one person in the supply chain and enjoys an outstanding reputation in the supply chain field.

Many of his supply chain concepts, such as supply chain intelligence, high-frequency small-batch order models, etc., have become learning concepts for the supply chain departments of many large contemporary companies.

Of course, there is currently no one who can follow Gu Zhiming’s example and create such a smart cloud supply chain!

It’s not that it can’t be done. In fact, many large companies can do it if they have money, people and proper management... The problem is that it’s not necessary.

Smart cloud supply chain is a good thing, but it is expensive... In order to maintain the operation of the supply chain, various sensor equipment needs to be installed on the production line, a satellite communication network is needed, and then a supercomputer array is needed, plus a specially developed top-level supply chain production and transportation management system!

It is expensive to set up and maintain, and compared with the existing supply chains of some conventional large enterprises, this extreme supply chain system may only reduce costs by a few percentage points in all aspects.

The problem is coming!

If Zhiyun Group reduces costs by a few percentage points, that would easily amount to billions of dollars in cost reduction...

For other companies, reducing costs by a few percentage points may only save tens of millions of dollars!
Tens of millions of dollars are not enough to cover the daily maintenance costs of this top-level intelligent supply chain!
Therefore, it is not a good thing that is suitable for all companies.

However, companies such as Fruit and Sixin have been imitating Zhiyun Group to develop this kind of intelligent supply chain. Fruit once wanted to poach Gu Zhiming and rumor has it that he offered him a sky-high annual salary of 50 million US dollars.

The main reason is that the scale of these two companies is large enough, and their business is similar to that of Zhiyun Group, so they have a very high demand for this kind of intelligent supply chain.

It’s just that the supply chain system they developed is not as complete and intelligent as Zhiyun Group’s supply chain.

After Gu Zhiming finished talking about supply chain matters, Ji Chenghe also talked about marketing matters, especially some market feedback he got from his inspection trip to Europe and America this time!
(End of this chapter)