In 1978, I was admitted to Harbin Institute of Technology

Chapter 145 High-tech products make money faster than robbery. Principal Li straightened his back
"Department stores are currently our main business development direction; however, this sales model is too passive, and department stores will only settle accounts with us after the goods are sold..."

In the school-enterprise office, Xie Wei said to Wu Tao and Wang Zheng.

Regarding the sales of calculators, Wu Tao and Wang Zheng first proposed the traditional sales channel: distributing products to department stores in various cities.

Xie Wei actually disagrees: department stores are indeed the best sales channels for various industrial products in the country, but department stores do not take the initiative to develop the market and wait for customers to come to them every day.

Another major problem is that department stores will not pay first to stock the goods.

This will result in a large backlog of payments.

"It's already June, and the fees that the school-enterprise office promised to pay to the school will be in place before January."

"..."

Xie Wei's words immediately silenced the two men.

Since its establishment, the School-Enterprise Office has not had much income.

Not only did he spend the meager income, but he also owed loans.

It is not clear how much of the profits will be shared between Hongguang Factory and Huadu Oil Factory; Factory 14 has not received many orders so far, and has also incurred an additional 80 yuan in equipment procurement costs.

Chemical plants and sanitary napkin factories are all in manual production and need to raise funds to build and upgrade large-scale production lines.

“Therefore, the plan of distributing products to department stores and department stores in major cities across the country is not suitable for us at the moment!”

"What should I do?"

Wu Tao asked Xie Wei, "Do we need to take the initiative to sell to your door?"

"Yes! We will take the initiative to sell door-to-door. We will turn passivity into initiative and find the market ourselves instead of the market finding us. Of course, if someone is willing to become an agent, we can provide them with profits and let them sell the products..."

Xie Wei looked at the two of them calmly.

Sales promotion is still a little difficult for both of them to accept.

At present, the domestic economy is still dominated by a planned economy, and the transition to a market economy has just begun. Even most of them are still in a wait-and-see state.

"But the sales department of the school-run enterprise..."

Wang Zheng was a little embarrassed.

"What about the sales staff you recruited through assessment? Scatter them in the market. What can you train by just focusing on training in schools? Tell them that as long as they sell, you will get a commission based on the sales volume! Give them 2% commission for each scientific calculator; if an individual sells more than 50 units, give them 3%... Set the ratio like this, as long as the sales commission does not exceed 10%!"

"..."

The proposal put forward by Xie Wei left the two of them dumbfounded.

Some of them couldn't understand that the school-enterprise office recruited sales personnel, and the school invited marketing-related teachers to conduct the training. During the training period, the school-enterprise office paid the interns' wages and various subsidies...

Let them develop the market and still give them such high commissions.

"If someone can find an agent, they can place large orders right away..."

"Even if someone is able to get an order for tens of thousands of scientific calculators, I will give them a commission!"

Xie Wei interrupted Wang Zheng.

Wu Tao, who had been frowning, finally came to his senses: "Sales staff are given so much commission. Once we find an agent, how will the agent's profit be distributed?"

"According to this plan, they can completely take advantage of the regulations, and multiple people can come together to combine all the orders. How to deal with it?"

Wu Tao’s words made Wang Zheng suddenly anxious.

In this way, the operating space in the middle is increased.

"We want them to exploit loopholes in the rules! What we need is huge sales. Whether it's sales staff or agents, just control the total expenditure. In this regard, try not to exceed 15%. As market competitors join in, we will need to increase advertising and other investments..."

Xie Wei had already thought of the plan.

"Especially in the early stages, we must push the product into the market as quickly as possible at a suitable price, and use large-scale production to reduce costs. The school-enterprise office cannot simply consider the problem... As for how to allocate this ratio, you can discuss it."

Xie Wei was not unaware of the loopholes in the plan he proposed.

He did it on purpose.

The main purpose is to find people with keen insight among sales staff or agents.

Only such people can quickly roll out the products of the school-enterprise office's subordinate units in the market in the initial stage.

As long as you build a reputation and create a brand effect, more agents will join in.

Losing money?

You will never lose money.

It’s just that various media were not well developed these days, and even advertisements placed in newspapers would not reach too far, unless the advertisements were placed in the People’s Daily.

There are not many televisions in China, and in the 1990s, in order to achieve huge effects on television advertising, the color television industry still needs to develop rapidly.

The Internet had not even started to be built...

The only way is the traditional sales channel.

Xie Wei never thought of letting the school-enterprise office build its own traditional channels because the cost was too high and it would take too long.

"This……"

After Xie Wei left, Wu Tao looked at Wang Zheng.

"We don't have a better solution. Although we may suffer losses in the early stages, if we can't get large-scale production orders for the HZ80 chip, the cost won't be reduced..."

Wang Zheng sighed.

Xie Wei began to put pressure on the School-Enterprise Office.

"Then let's discuss it and formulate a plan, and then let Xie Wei review it. The sales staff who passed the exam have been trained for such a long time, it's time to let them go to the market."

Helpless, Wu Tao had no choice but to accept it.

With the plan proposed by Xie Wei, the two of them would not be at a loss as to where to start.

“The school’s own project, its own metalworking workshop, still needs to pay?”

Li Rui's eyebrows were raised, "Xie Wei, do you think it's appropriate?"

"It's very suitable. It's not like the school-enterprise runs production without cost!"

"No money! At worst, we can just not use it. We usually use slide rules, and we've been using them for so many years."

Li Rui just gave up.

If the school has to pay, then just don't bother.

"In fact, it's not impossible not to pay..."

Xie Wei knew that it would be very difficult to get money from Principal Li now, and his purpose in coming to Li Rui was not for the school's few orders.

"Talk about it."

If it were someone else, Principal Li would be excited when he heard that they would not be paid.

But the other party was Xie Wei.

A money-grubber suddenly says he doesn't want money. Principal Li naturally won't believe that Xie Wei has changed his character. The most likely possibility is that not wanting money requires a greater price.

"Our scientific calculator, which is specially designed to facilitate various research tasks, can not only provide more accurate calculation results, but also reduce the workload of calculations and save a lot of time."

"Just tell me the purpose!"

Li Rui didn't want to listen to Xie Wei's nonsense.

The more the other party talks, the worse it seems.

"How about you go to the ministry? There are so many scientific research projects in our ministry that require a lot of calculations. These calculations take up too much manpower. Isn't our school short of people? If the ministry purchases a batch of calculators from the school, we can get some people here..."

"???"

Li Rui looked at Xie Wei in confusion, quickly analyzing the information in his words.

"You want me to sell the calculator developed by the school to the Ministry?"

It took a while for the principal to react.

"How can you say such an ugly word as 'sales'! President, we are trying to speed up the progress of the project in the department and free all scientific researchers in the country from tedious and boring mathematical calculations..."

"Stop talking about those high-sounding words and let me do the sales!"

Although he didn't give a good look, Principal Li approved of this plan in his heart.

There are results!

Or it is a result that will greatly promote the scientific research system. Isn't this an opportunity that comes right to me, allowing me to ask for funding from the ministry?

He made a decision quickly in his mind, but Principal Li didn't want Xie Wei to see it.

"This is not a sales pitch! President, haven't Peking University and Tsinghua University always been suppressing us? Don't you often say that you can't even hold your head high when you are with the leaders of Peking University and Tsinghua University? Our calculator can help them reduce a lot of calculations..."

"Where is the thing? I'll go there tomorrow!"

Li Rui no longer wanted to hear Xie Wei's reasons.

Both are among the first six key universities in New China, but because they are located in the capital, they have access to more resources, and the quality of their students is better than that of Harbin Institute of Technology, so naturally they have achieved more results.

"President, don't forget the other universities. Now that we have it, we must help other schools know about it as well."

Xie Wei did not dare to suggest speeding up the research progress of projects in other schools.

When it comes to basic calculations, the abacus is too slow and the slide rule is not accurate enough.

"I know! Send the stuff over here quickly!"

Xie Wei was not surprised that he was able to convince Principal Li without any effort.

The Seventh Ministry of Machine Building has a large number of projects that require huge amounts of calculations. Although the calculator developed by the school is not as fast as a computer, let alone a supercomputer, even for simple functions, one only needs to input the formula to get the result directly. The ministry will definitely not refuse to purchase it.

The earliest Huitong calculator that Yu Guofeng asked his friend to bring back from abroad cost $300.

If foreign calculators enter the Chinese market, the price will not be lower than this.

The New?

Don't even think about it.

Why did Xie Wei support the development of a low-end calculator?
The current exchange rate of RMB to USD is 1.5:1, which means that even if Huitong's calculator enters China, the price will not be lower than 450 RMB.

The selling price of 98 yuan set by Xie Wei is almost a bargain!

"What the hell? Is this kid crazy? Such a good thing, the one with more functions is only 498, and the basic one is only 98? He really doesn't take the cost of the school seriously!"

When Li Rui heard Wang Zheng, who had delivered the calculator, say that Xie Wei had set the price like that, he got angry.

damn thing!
Don't miss the opportunity to make money.

"We also think that this price is too high... However, Xie Wei did not say that the price must be set at this level when the production cost is high at the beginning. I think it should not be lower than the cost price. The scientific calculator should be at least 598, and the basic one 198."

"Comrade Wang Zheng, as the deputy director of the school-enterprise office, you should be more ambitious. A scientific calculator is so helpful to various scientific research projects, it must be 998. And this basic one can also solve a large number of calculation problems, it must be at least 398!"

"..."

Wang Zheng was dumbfounded when the principal doubled the price of the scientific calculator and tripled the price of the basic calculator.

I want to give you a few reminders, but the 300 million yuan that the School-Enterprise Office should hand over to the school at the end of the year has not yet been settled.

If 10,000 scientific calculators can be sold, not only will the money to be submitted to the school be available, but the loan for the school-enterprise office will also be secured.

"998 and 398?"

Xie Wei was not too surprised that Li Rui raised the price to such an extent.

Seeing Xie Wei calm, Wang Zheng was stunned again, "This is a big difference from the price we agreed on before..."

"Purchasing by the department and other schools is different from the market. If the principal can sell it at this price, just accept it. Of course, if this is the price at the beginning, don't rush to lower the price to what we discussed before. Everything depends on market conditions." Xie Wei thought about it. If Li Rui really sold it at that price, and the School-Enterprise Office directly reduced the price by so much, it would have a very bad impact on the school's reputation.

Who would be willing to give up making more money?
The prerequisite is that Li Ruizhen can ask the ministry for orders and get orders from other universities and research institutes.

Theoretically, these units have a huge demand for calculators.

The calculator was invented to replace the slide rule, which was not accurate and difficult to use.

“Why is it 998 and 398, instead of an integer?”

Wang Zheng asked Xie Wei.

"Although it's only a 2 yuan difference, it doesn't have much impact on the price. If you were in my shoes, would you have the same mentality when buying something that costs a few cents and a dollar? Even if it's cents, wouldn't it still feel like a few cents, while a dollar..."

Xie Wei explained with a smile.

These prices are set based on people's consumption psychology and have been proven through long-term practice.

"..."

Wang Zheng was stunned. He had never thought that such a price would take consumers’ mentality into consideration.

"Pricing is the same as sales planning. It needs to be based on the psychology of the target customer group. To give a simple example, currently on the domestic market, as long as there are imported products, no matter how bad they are, domestic consumers generally believe that imported products are better. Everyone thinks that we are far behind the international market..."

Just like before, whenever he had the opportunity, Xie Wei would continue to instill in Wang Zheng what a market economy is and what marketing is under a market economy.

It's not just about Du Guowang's relationship, nor is it about Wang Zheng being nice to Xie Wei.

Compared with Wu Tao, Wang Zheng is more malleable.

"So, even if you were losing money before, you still asked for that price?"

Wang Zheng seemed to be thinking about something.

"There are factors in this regard, but more importantly, it is to bring products to market faster. You know the situation of Factory 14. HZ80 chips need to be mass-produced to reduce costs. Factory 14 also needs large-scale production to speed up capacity development and upgrade production lines."

Looking at Xie Wei who was talking eloquently, Wang Zheng sighed silently.

The gap between him and Xie Wei, who is several years younger than him, is so huge.

There's no way to make up for it.

He had never thought about the issues that Xie Wei was considering.

The next day, Principal Li left the school again.

It’s different from the previous time when we asked for funding, and even the mentality is different from the last time when the school came up with a new formula that can effectively improve the combustion efficiency of liquid rockets.

This time, he brought samples!
Have enough confidence.

Because of the special status, when I arrived at the ministry, it didn't take much effort for me to meet Deputy Minister Ren.

Unlike before, this time Principal Li used a new tactic: instead of looking for Minister Zheng first, he went directly to find Deputy Minister Ren, who was in charge of technology.

Without saying the purpose of his visit, he directly took out two calculators and used Xie Wei's words to explain that they were for the purpose of speeding up the research and development progress of various projects in the ministry and freeing up the scientific researchers' time from tedious and boring mathematical calculations and so on.

Deputy Minister Ren is a technical person himself. Although he has not had much contact with Li Rui, he knows Li Rui's character.

I happened to have some data that needed to be calculated, so after getting the calculator, I used the scientific calculator directly and got the result quickly.

After verification, the results are correct.

The entire calculation process is very fast, especially when it comes to functions and exponential operations. You can get the result by inputting the formula...

If all the scientific research units under the Seventh Ministry of Machine Building use it, it will speed up all the projects of the Seventh Ministry of Machine Building that involve a large amount of basic calculations.

The national scientific research system...

OK!
Just thinking about it makes me so excited that I can hardly breathe.

"Good! That's great!"

Deputy Minister Ren looked at the small calculator with great interest, his face full of excitement.

Freed from the tedious and boring basic calculations, researchers can devote more energy to improving their research work.

“Can we mass produce it now?”

Deputy Minister Ren didn't waste any words either.

Things that are beneficial to scientific research must be distributed to every scientific research unit as soon as possible.

"Well, we can mass produce it, but..."

Principal Li suddenly looked embarrassed.

"Come with me to see Minister Zheng."

Seeing the expression on Li Rui's face, I knew there must be difficulties.

It should be because they couldn’t find a suitable factory to produce it.

The Seventh Ministry of Machine Building had many technologically advanced factories under it, so producing high-tech products was not a problem, nor was investing in building production lines.

"Mass production?"

Minister Zheng also thought that Li Rui came to him for large-scale production. "The foundation of the 771 Institute is good, but the production is full now."

771 is the best unit in China in terms of integrated circuit technology, from design to production.

But all that 771 involves is military use.

"Minister Zheng, we considered these issues during the previous research and discussion at the school. In order not to increase the burden on the department and not to squeeze out the productivity of our sister units, we acquired an electron tube factory in Shanghai..."

"Hey! Comrade Li Rui, you're using new tricks to get money!"

When Minister Zheng heard this, he was so angry that he laughed.

Li Rui asks for funds every time he comes.

Now, Manyi has changed her temper for him.

Before he had said a few words, his true intentions were revealed.

How can I not be angry!

"Leader, you are wronging me. Where do I need the funds?"

Li Rui was speechless.

Now we have something to sell, and it is high-tech that the ministry is in great need of. It can accelerate all the scientific research projects of the ministry. Why do we need more funds?
Asking for funds will eventually have an impact on your character.

Now that he is capable, Principal Li needs to stand up straight and speak with confidence!

"No funding? You bought the factory, do you have money to upgrade the technology or build a production line?"

Minister Zheng didn't believe it at all.

Unless the sun rises in the west.

“It really doesn’t require any funding.”

Li Rui patted his chest and said firmly, "If the department doesn't need it, I will ask other units that need it."

"Of course we don't need it! We do need a lot of it. We need at least 1000 scientific calculators and 2000 basic calculators. Although they are not very helpful for complex calculations in scientific research, they are very useful in data statistics and finance."

Deputy Minister Ren said without hesitation.

Looking at Li Rui's arrogant expression, Minister Zheng understood instantly, "Comrade Li Rui, do you mean that the ministry spent money on procurement?"

"Why not?"

Li Rui rolled his eyes and realized something was wrong the moment he finished the action, but it was too late.

He cursed Xie Wei in his heart, that little bastard, thinking that he had been in contact with him too much and had been infected.

"Leader, you don't think that the school is affiliated with the Seventh Ministry of Machine Building, and it raises funds to develop technology, and then raises funds to produce it, and provides it to the ministry for free... Even if it is planned for production, this is not justified!"

Li Rui was unhappy.

I have already figured out in my mind that 1000 scientific calculators would cost 99.8 yuan, and 2000 basic calculators would cost another 79.6 yuan.

According to the pricing set by Xie Wei, the extra money can be kept in school.

How can it be provided for free?

This is indeed much easier than asking for funding.

"what price?"

Minister Zheng also felt that what Li Rui said made sense, and he had no intention of allowing the factories under Harbin Institute of Technology to supply the subordinate units of the Seventh Ministry of Machine Building for free.

"The cost price of a scientific calculator is 998 yuan, and the cost price of a basic calculator is 398 yuan... According to the number mentioned by Vice Minister Ren, the total is 179.4 million yuan. To thank the ministry for its support, I will just remove the decimals and give it a straight price of 179 million yuan."

Principal Li felt a pang of pain in his heart.

4000 yuan!

This money will be used to improve the meals for all teachers and students in the school, so that each person can have two more meals of meat.

"What? So expensive?"

When Minister Zheng heard the number 179 million, he was also stunned.

As a single unit, it doesn't look expensive.

"Leader, this is really not expensive. Especially this scientific calculator, functions, exponents, logarithms, etc. can be calculated accurately and quickly. The HZ80 chip is used as the core data processor. You also know how good the performance of the HZ80 chip is, and the cost is not low... Of course, if the production quantity increases, the cost will be reduced. Otherwise, the department will wait for a while?"

"How long do we have to wait?"

"To reduce the cost by one third, we need to produce at least tens of thousands of scientific calculators. Together with the research funds for the HZ80 chip, the cost is more than 600 million. In order to improve production quality, after the school took over, Factory 14 invested nearly million to introduce new production equipment and upgrade the production line..."

At this moment, Principal Li was bragging without any preparation.

All kinds of expenses should be reported at double the amount.

"..."

"With this calculator, the progress of many projects can be accelerated. Especially for some complex calculations, the progress can be increased by more than half."

Deputy Minister Ren spoke up.

The research process of missiles and rockets involves a lot of calculations in all aspects.

When the computing power of supercomputers is not strong enough, many calculations need to be done manually.

There are only a few supercomputers in the country.

If calculation is required, you have to queue up in advance.

"How about 500 units each first?"

After thinking about it, Minister Zheng raised the point with some reluctance.

"Sure. We will have no problem. But if the ministry wants to place an additional order, we have to queue up on a first-come, first-served basis... There should be a lot of orders from universities like Peking University and Tsinghua University, as well as other mechanical industry ministries. Even the military has high demand..."

Principal Li looked calm.

The demand is great.

Since I was from the department, I went to my superiors as soon as possible.

By that time, there will be a lot of orders and the demand in the department will be great. If you want to get it first, you have to say yes first and you can’t cut in line.

"As Vice Minister Ren said, how long will it take to deliver the goods?"

After thinking for a moment, Minister Zheng sighed.

The funding of 179 million is nothing to think about, considering the accelerated progress of various projects.

(End of this chapter)