The car giant started by marrying the daughter of the king

Chapter 383 Buy, buy, buy!
If BMW Technology relies solely on itself to deal with international machine tool giants, although it can buy most machine tool products, it will definitely be difficult to get preferential prices.

As the design director of General Motors, Austin knows a lot of people.

Apart from anything else, the purchasing director must be very familiar with him.

General Motors needs to purchase a large number of high-precision machine tool products every year and has close ties with many equipment manufacturers in the United States.

Let Austin help take the lead in purchasing the high-end machine tools needed by BMW Technology. In the end, even if the trading company designated by Austin earns some management fees, BMW Technology may not necessarily spend more money.

After all, if you go shopping on your own, you will also be ripped off.

Instead of doing this, it would be better to let Austin earn the extra profit, so that the losses can be made up from other places.

Austin is not stupid, so he naturally understands the ins and outs of this.

He was happy to see this kind of help.

General Motors will have to spend tens of millions of dollars every month to import Mercedes-Benz cars from China. If these dollars can be converted into equipment purchase amounts, it will definitely please a large group of people.

Who knows, Austin's position in General Motors may be even higher in the future.

Many people think that Japan and Germany are the countries with the highest level of machine tools in the world. In fact, the level of equipment production in the United States has always been very high.

When it comes to some high-end products, America is even at the top in the world.

It’s just that China uses more machine tools from Japan, so people think that Japan is doing better in this industry.

"Jiang, I have arranged for the sales directors of the three equipment manufacturers, Haas, Hardinge and Xie Lan, to come and meet with you in person. As long as it is the machine tool you need, no matter what type it is, we can have a good chat."

Austin acted quickly; he didn't want to miss this opportunity to make money.

"Haas is a machine tool manufacturer headquartered in the United States. Founded in 1983, it specializes in the production of CNC lathes and grinders and is a leading CNC machine tool manufacturer in the West."

“They produce a complete line of CNC vertical machining centers, horizontal machining centers, turning centers, 5-axis machining centers and rotary tables, as well as a broad selection of fully integrated automation solutions, including automatic part loaders, multi-pallet systems and associated robotic systems.”

Wang Feng, who is in charge of purchasing business for BMW Group, also flew over from Shenzhen this time to assist Jiang Hui in completing this large-scale purchase of machine tool equipment.

Austin said that he would arrange for several machine tool manufacturers to come and negotiate directly with Jiang Hui. Naturally, Wang Feng had to report the situation of these machine tool manufacturers to Jiang Hui.

After all, some things have different meanings when reported by him and when introduced by Austin.

"Hartinge is also a machine tool manufacturer from the United States. It was founded in the late 19th century and has a history of about 100 years."

“Hardinge specializes in turning centers and their turning centers are recognized as industry leaders in ultra-precision machining and hard turning applications.”

"Nanshan Mould and Nanshan Engine are actually related machine tool products that are in great demand."

"As for Xielan, they mainly produce CNC lathes, milling machines, drilling machines, band saws and other metal processing machinery, and many of their products are what our factory wants to purchase."

Wang Feng is full of expectations for this procurement negotiation.

Normally, even if he wanted to meet the other party’s sales director, it would not be that easy.

Without a middleman, American machine tool manufacturers have many concerns about selling high-end equipment to Chinese companies.

Even though the company that signed the contract with them was BMW Technology in Hong Kong, they actually understood that these equipment would eventually be transported to China for use.

In other words, China now has a very good relationship with the United States, otherwise the other party would not even want to have contact with Chinese companies.

"We are planning to expand a gearbox production line, which will require a large number of gear, bearing and shaft processing equipment."

"The production capacity of Nanshan Engine is also insufficient, and we need to expand a workshop, which also requires a large number of die-casting and machining equipment."

"In order to prepare the molds for the relevant parts, I also plan to expand Nanshan Mold and make it the largest mold processing center in Asia, which involves a variety of machine tool products."

"Austin, we hope that these equipment manufacturers can provide us with a list and parameter information of the machine tool products they are mass-producing, and then we can select the equipment we need."

Jiang Hui would definitely not miss such a good opportunity.

If we get the information of these American equipment manufacturers back, it will be much easier for Nanshan Equipment to imitate the same products.

After this round of “buying, buying, buying”, BMW Technology will most likely no longer purchase equipment on a large scale from the international market.

Of course, according to the equipment procurement cycle, except for some products that were in stock, the delivery cycle of many machine tools was estimated to be until 1986. Even some large machine tool products were not delivered to the port city until 1987.

Normally, the service life of a machine tool must be more than ten years, and there is no problem using it for several decades. The only problem is whether the technology can still remain advanced.

Jiang Hui plans to determine the equipment needs of BMW Group-related companies for the next three years this time.

As for the equipment produced three years later, Nanshan Equipment will need to find a way to get it done on its own.

Nanshan Equipment has been established for two years. It would be unreasonable if it fails to produce any results in another three years.

After all, Jiang Hui was personally involved in the design work of some machine tool products.

From the moment of design, we have been ahead of the world.

When the batch of equipment purchased by America arrives, the quality of the various accessories produced will inevitably be greatly improved, which will also invisibly help Nanshan equipment improve its level.

If those American equipment manufacturers knew the scene a few years later, they would probably be depressed.

But now people’s thoughts are completely different. They feel like they have met a big fat sheep.

"Austin, it's not that no Chinese companies have contacted us in the past two years, but they are always stingy and can't afford the price at all."

"You called all of us here this time. Isn't it just another false alarm?"

Although Austin had already told the sales directors of several machine tool manufacturers about the situation on the phone, they naturally had to hold another closed-door meeting after they arrived at General Motors.

For example, they discussed how much benefit Austin could gain from this matter. "BMW Technology is different from ordinary Chinese companies. They are essentially a Hong Kong company, and can be considered an English company."

"The other party has established a series of subsidiaries in China. These companies are currently the largest automobile and engine manufacturers in China, with a monthly export value of various products exceeding 5000 million US dollars."

"Although China has very strict policies on the use of foreign exchange, as long as BMW needs to purchase equipment, its application for the use of foreign exchange can be approved."

"This is completely different from other Chinese manufacturers."

Austin first dispelled everyone's concerns and let them know that BMW Technology is not short of money to some extent.

Sure enough, when the heads of machine tool manufacturers such as Haas heard that the other party's monthly export earnings could reach more than 5000 million US dollars, they felt much better.

The US dollar is still very valuable now. Even the largest machine tool manufacturers in the United States only have annual sales of a few billion dollars.

If we can negotiate an order worth hundreds of millions of dollars this time, it will definitely be a very large order.

As for whether these orders will be affected by relevant departments, no one is actually very worried.

Even if real Chinese companies want to purchase, they are confident that their purchase orders will be approved.

What's more, the companies doing business with them are from Hong Kong and they can just withdraw completely without even applying for special approval.

"Since the other party has money, can we sell it at a higher price than the market price?"

As long as it is a mass-produced product, each company will definitely have its own market guide price.

Different customers may have some customized content according to their needs, and machine tool manufacturers will also provide some discounts on sales prices based on the customer's quality, but generally they are still at the same level.

After all, what they want to do is long-term business. If they leave an impression that their prices are too high in the industry, it will be difficult to do business in the future.

Unless your products can always remain world-leading, but in the current machine tool industry, there is obviously no such absolutely leading enterprise.

The level of the leading manufacturers is actually about the same, but the types of products they focus on are not exactly the same.

So this time, people from Haas and other manufacturers felt it necessary to discuss with Austin how to deal with the purchase of BMW technology.

"GM is very optimistic about the future development of BMW. After purchasing these equipment, many of the products produced will continue to cooperate with GM."

"I believe they will have more machine tool orders in the future, so please don't be too exaggerated about the price."

Austin was thinking that he could earn more money for a few more years in between, and it would be bad if he scared people away all at once.

After all, BMW Technology can purchase equipment from America, Japan, Europe and other places, so it is not without choice.

"Then we will treat it as a normal order and won't attach any special additional conditions."

Adrian, the sales director of Haas Machine Tools, knows a lot of information. The Chaoyang Motorcycle Manufacturing Plant invested by BMW Technology in China, together with relevant American departments, has provided a lot of products to Argentina for use in combating polar bears.

They are now considered players in the American interest circle. It is not time to slaughter the fat sheep yet, so let's keep them alive first.

"I roughly understand how to deal with this purchase. As long as the other party does not make any special requirements and only purchases machine tool products that are in mass production and are being sold externally, all of our Hardinge machine tools will be sold normally to BMW Technology."

"Of course, for sensitive equipment such as five-axis CNC machine tools, we must install a positioning system or ask the other party to agree to accept our regular supervision every year to ensure that these equipment are not used for other purposes."

Austin naturally agreed with what Kurland, the sales director of Hardinge machine tools, said.

He also didn't want any trouble to come out of this deal.

The countries in the world that are at odds with the United States are trying every means to purchase five-axis CNC machine tools. They all know this information.

Although the possibility of the equipment purchased by BMW Technology falling into the hands of rivals such as Polar Bear is very small, no one wants to take this risk.

At least these regulations should be there on the surface. As for whether they will be strictly implemented in the future, that is another topic.

Austin and everyone quickly reached a consensus and communicated well with Jiang Hui.

BMW Technology quickly listed the machine tools and equipment it needed.

There were various kinds of equipment, totaling more than 200 units, and the total purchase amount reached an unprecedented $1 million.

This is definitely the largest foreign equipment purchase order in China's history.

Of course, taking into account the special foreign exchange management reasons, Jiang Hui used the order of Mercedes-Benz cars exported to General Motors as collateral and asked Austin to coordinate a loan of 3000 million US dollars from an American bank as a deposit to pay to various equipment manufacturers.

This will avoid wasting too much time applying for foreign exchange quota, which will affect the subsequent arrival time of equipment.

"Jiang Hui, although the tight foreign exchange situation in China has improved in recent years, a one-time expenditure of hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign exchange will definitely require the approval of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange."

“What if we don’t get approval by then?”

Seeing that the contract had been signed, Zhu Ling finally couldn't help but express her concerns.

"Isn't this secured by our Mercedes-Benz car orders?"

"If it is really not approved, then GM will take out the payment for these cars to pay the bank, and eventually these equipment orders can go ahead smoothly."

"But then our relationship with the foreign exchange management department will be affected."

"But I think the possibility of such a thing happening is basically zero. We are now the largest foreign exchange earning enterprise in Lingnan Province. Importing equipment is to better expand the scale of foreign exchange earning."

"At worst, I can make a promise to the relevant departments that starting from next year, the foreign exchange earning target of BMW Group can be doubled based on this year's level."

After Jiang Hui said this, Zhu Ling felt a little relieved, but she also added, "Doubling it is too challenging, how about increasing it by 30%, no, how about increasing it by 20%!"

"No problem, I'll do as you say!"

(End of this chapter)