The Fourth Disaster Begins at the Dawn of the Millennium

Therefore, potential consumers who have pessimistic expectations for the future and see neither security nor any opportunity to obtain stable income are just potential consumers. They really cannot afford to buy new products.

The pressure cooker factory did not set the price of the new product too outrageously, but it certainly would not sell it at a loss. After all, the latter would really damage its own "prestige" and would not be conducive to the long-term development of the company. The mission is also stated: it does not seek to make huge profits, but at least to maintain a balance between income and expenditure.

So, the problem is that the entire Northeast is entering a wave of layoffs at this time. A large number of workers are either laid off or can only make a living with the minimum wage. In this case, they must use the old pots at home to make do. If that doesn’t work, buying a traditional old pressure cooker is also a more cost-effective option. Smart electric pressure cookers, which were high-end products in the 90s, are in short supply.

There are definitely people who can afford it locally, but they are definitely not many. In addition, smart electric pressure cookers are not products that consume quickly. It is foreseeable that after a short-term buying spree, those who can afford it will not buy it again for a long time, and those who cannot afford it will never be able to afford it again..........

At this time, the "grassroots" nature of the player group was once again exposed. Logically speaking, the first step in designing any product is to research the market to see if the product can match the market. As for the current situation, the smart electric pressure cooker that Huanyu Group spent a lot of money to develop cannot match the Northeast market, where consumption capacity is declining.

"Damn it, the local NPCs are too poor. They have been squeezed dry and have no money to spend!" A player couldn't help but complain in the chat group, "The saddest thing is that even our company's own NPC employees don't seem to be willing to spend money on our own products. They imply that they have suffered hard times in the past and dare not spend money recklessly. They are afraid of being poor..."

"There's nothing we can do about it. This can't be changed overnight. Most people in the world will spend money when they have it. When they don't have money, it's useless to stimulate them to spend. So, we have to wait for everyone's wallets to swell up for a while before we can do this."

"Or there is another way. Let's not focus on the local market in Northeast China for now. We still have players in the US branch. Let them help us develop the North American market. There must be many Americans who can afford this product. You see, their cooking skills are terrible, and there must be some people who don't want to eat fast food every day. Then we can market the smart electric pressure cooker as a high-tech and healthy diet must-have appliance, which is just right for those Americans..."

"We don't have to limit ourselves to the area where we are currently operating. I think it's time to explore new maps. There's no air wall in this game anyway, so why don't we send some people to explore new maps? Go to the south to 'strike gold'! Go there to open up sales channels, open branches, and enter other industries!"

"Damn it, I'm so excited just talking about this! I think everyone in this group will be the chairman of the various branches of Universal Group in the future!"

Chapter 49: Prologue to Branching Out

"First of all, I would like to congratulate our pressure cooker factory and all of us. Decades ago, it was in this factory that China's first pressure cooker was made. Now, you have made the first intelligent electric pressure cooker. Thank you to our scientific researchers for their tireless research and development of new products, and thank you to our workers for sticking to their posts and strictly ensuring product quality. The glory belongs to you!"

At the general staff meeting, Chairman Chen Gong once again praised everyone present. In addition to honorary awards, material incentives were also necessary. First, according to the contract promise, cash and cars were given to reward scientific researchers. After the patent application is approved, the intellectual property rights belong to the company, and all R&D personnel can extract a considerable portion of the patent's operating profits as dividends every year.

As for the ordinary workers, they were all envious after listening to the chairman's praise for the scientific research team.

Some are going to get home from get off work today and immediately focus on their children's academic performance, so that they can get into a good university in the future! Look at those college students, they use their knowledge to make money, how amazing!

Some people began to compare themselves with people who were similar to them, such as Master Zhang, who was also a skilled worker. Many people present felt that they had worked in the factory for so many years and had solid skills, not worse than Master Zhang, so why couldn't they join the R&D team as a skilled worker? Oh, because Master Zhang had won the technical competition championship for many years, then, next time there was a technical competition, I had to show off my skills to the leaders and at least get the top three in the technical competition, so that I could be a technical reserve talent and have the opportunity to join the next R&D project.

Next, the chairman began to talk about other company regulations at the meeting, such as the annual leave system, the convalescent system, etc. Considering that the joint venture factory's running-in period is about to end and with the birth of new products, the company will have to continue to expand its scale, recruit more people, and even open branches in other places, so various systems must be confirmed first.

To put it in the tone of a big boss, it means that the company will relieve all employees of the burden of accommodation, medical care, and children's education in the future, so that employees can work lightly and work hard to make money for the company; and the company values ​​sustainability and maximizes the surplus value obtained from employees, so employees cannot be disposable, and will be given vacations and recuperation so that employees can work for the company until retirement. Even as long as the company does not go bankrupt, everyone can still have a pension in their old age.........

As for whether the treatment provided by the company and the lack of performance appraisal will make employees lie down and slack off, and make them lack the motivation to "struggle", this will most likely be a minority case.

On the one hand, management is a powerful way to restrain all kinds of lazy and slack behaviors. It can achieve more pay for more work, which will naturally reduce the behavior of lying down. But how responsible are managers in terms of management? First of all, the new generation of middle and grassroots managers have no right to deprive anyone of their right to work. It is unlikely that you can expect these managers to sacrifice their personal relationship with the workers and treat every worker 100% strictly in accordance with the rules and regulations. After all, the managers themselves cannot directly obtain personal economic benefits from the increase in production efficiency or output.

However, for the sake of personal status, they cannot be lax or neglectful in production efficiency and quality management, especially if quality accidents and safety accidents occur, their hope of promotion will be slim and they may have to stand aside. Therefore, these middle and grassroots managers often need to study the "art" of management, to ensure good production while not damaging their relationships with everyone. After all, if they want to maintain their management positions, they have to accept supervision from employees (especially those who like to find faults, which is the most troublesome); if they want to continue to move up, they cannot escape the employee voting link. If they are partial to others, they will be voted down by the employees.

On the other hand, it is really because...the external environment is really not good, the fate of employees is highly tied to the company, and there is a high degree of identification within the collective. Those who slack off unscrupulously will be subject to huge peer pressure and collective sanctions.

What if someone really can't do it anymore and really wants to lie down? That's fine, just stand aside.

At this point, Chen Gong told everyone about a joke he had heard before. He said:

"I remember last month, I read a newspaper that recorded a reporter's interview with a private entrepreneur. I saw a passage related to our company. The entrepreneur said that Huanyu Group is a welfare home, and it is a fantasy for our welfare home to survive in the market economy."

When the workers in the audience heard the chairman say this, they were so angry that their teeth were itching. Damn it, he actually cursed our welfare home... No, he actually cursed our company to go bankrupt. If the company is finished, who will take care of our housing, medical care, children's education, and retirement?

Then, everyone heard the chairman say, "I personally don't take the private entrepreneur's remarks seriously. Because in the company he founded, most of the employees are worried about being fired by the boss one day, or being laid off immediately when the market goes bad. Everyone says that company competition is a business war, a war. Since it is a war, I don't understand how a divided army can defeat a united team like ours."

"The chairman is right. If we unite, we can definitely defeat them!"

Chen Gong: "You are right. In the near future, we will definitely get involved in the industry of the boss who said we can't survive. We will use all means to seize market share and kill our competitors bit by bit, so that the boss can see how his business was defeated by our welfare home!"

...............

Players want to explore new maps, which means that Universal Group must also follow the players' footsteps and expand to other places.

The first thing that players in the US branch thought of was to bring the Los Angeles model to other cities in the US (i.e., on the one hand, they openly conduct security business to obtain stable income; on the other hand, they secretly rob banks and casinos to obtain windfalls). Not only the US, but also Latin America, which is very close to the US, must also need the services of Giant Security.........

Secondly, they thought of taking advantage of the current trend of large-scale investment in the IT industry by the US capital community to set up companies that provide "Internet portals and search engines"; set up companies that provide "e-commerce, online auctions and shopping platforms"; set up companies that provide "social media platforms, video sharing platforms"...

“We need to start with them. We don’t necessarily need to make all these companies the most advanced in their industries right now, immediately, but we should start with them first. We still have time to catch up. When the world enters the 21st century, when everyone picks up their phones and opens their computers to use the Internet, the software they use the most will all be from our Universal Group!”

Finally, what they thought of was to get on a plane and open a new base in Europe, to go to Western Europe to get money and technology, and to go to Eastern Europe to get arms and Russians. Oh, by the way, don't forget the wonderful small countries around the world, where there is also a scene of thriving vitality and everything competing...

Players in the Chinese branch also have their own plans.

"Let's go to Shenzhen Special Economic Zone and Pudong New Area to try our luck and open up branches there! Let's establish sales channels for new products there!"

"We can also go north to the Russians and do some business! I think we can do that. Our Giant God Security Company is still short of heavy equipment. I think the heavy equipment over there is pretty good. Maybe they can even accept barter and exchange pressure cookers for arms. If all else fails, we can still buy it with US dollars."

Chapter 50: Branching out (I) “Gold Digging” and “Junk Picking”

There are still too many factories and enterprises in the Northeast waiting to be acquired by the Universal Group, including steel, machinery, automobiles, tractors, etc. The pressure cooker factory is just the first step for players. In the process of operating the pressure cooker factory, players have personally felt how difficult it is to manage a factory properly, but... players are not stupid. In order to play the game better, this group of people has also been inspired to study hard.

For example, Chen Gong, the chairman of the pressure cooker factory, is a student majoring in applied statistics. He has changed from a lazy life of "60 points is the best" to a person who "can't put down the book". As long as Chen Gong thinks that the content that has not been covered in class, such as statistical models and probability analysis, and the use of data analysis tools, he will learn these contents in advance, and use these tools and methods to help himself understand the various complex data of the pressure cooker factory, and then help himself formulate corresponding plans and resource allocation strategies for NPCs in the game.

In addition to the content of his major, Chen Gong also considered searching the Internet for all information related to the development of the pressure cooker industry and home appliance industry, as well as knowledge related to corporate management while he was idle in the game. Not only did he read it himself, he also pulled all the players working in the pressure cooker factory into a "study group", stuffing information into it every day, and everyone learned together, and no one could escape.

"This game is too real and contains too much information. If we don't study, we can't play the game well..."

"Hey, do you think this pressure cooker factory will become the Whampoa Military Academy for management talents for various home appliance companies of the future Universal Group..."

"Anyway, I just want to shoot. This thing is a headache. When new players come, I will give up my current position. Whoever wants to be a senior executive of the online company can come..."

In addition to bringing more gaming experience, the game's over-simulation will also bring some "burden" to players because of being too serious. The pressure cooker factory with only 2,000 people, the plot and tasks derived from it, almost drained most of the energy of the players in the Chinese branch. It is really hard to imagine what it will be like when more companies are acquired in the future. Players can't become monsters with three heads and six arms, so in order to expand new maps and develop new plots............

"We need more players!"

On a sunny day, the airport hall was bustling with people, passengers dragging their suitcases, their faces filled with hurried or expectant expressions. Flight information was constantly flashing on the high electronic bulletin board, and the announcements from the radio reminded passengers about to board to get ready. At the entrance of the terminal, several game characters were saying goodbye to the people sent by the company to see them off.

Players all knew that there was nothing to worry about on this trip, it was just a new dungeon. But the workers in the factory were still worried about these "colleagues" who went to the south to open up sales for everyone. Some said they must be careful of robbery by motorcycle gangs, and some said they must get temporary residence permits as soon as possible to avoid being arrested and sent to a shelter. Although these player characters used to fight fiercely, they would inevitably encounter times when two fists could not beat four hands.

"Once you get there, you'll be unfamiliar with the place and you'll still have to be careful. It's not like here. If something happens here, everyone will pick up their weapons and come to rescue you. But if something happens over there..." said the driver who drove them there from the factory.

"I know, I know, don't worry..."

As if in response to the players' calls, when these players boarded the plane and it was about to take off, new faction mission prompts popped up in the task bars of all players.

Mission Name: Sparks Mission Description:

(From the acquisition of the first pressure cooker company to the establishment of Giant Security, the Universal Group has gone through a lot. Now, let’s start a new journey of our business, from a grass-roots team to a global giant enterprise!”

Corporate warriors, our business has gradually established itself in this world. Not only have you made our business bigger and stronger, but your efforts have also benefited thousands of people. More importantly, you have subtly spread our business in the minds of thousands of people, and it will slowly take root in their hearts. The board of directors of the Universal Group is very satisfied with your achievements and encourages you to keep up the good work and bring our business to other corners of the world. In order to achieve the goal, the company will recruit more staff and expand the group's staff to 500 (number of players)

Mission Objective 1: Establish a total of 5 branches (second-level subsidiaries).

Mission Objective 2: Expand the business of One World Group to more than 10 countries.

reward:

1. Mastery Points

2. Experience Points

3. Unlock more individual abilities

4. Unlock some 21st century technology

5. Expand the capacity of the character's "different-dimensional pocket" (Want to put the anti-tank bazooka in your pocket? Go for it!)

..................

In the players' impression, the southern coastal areas should be richer than the northeast at this time, and attract more foreign investment. Although the players have more money than when they first robbed the first bank, even if they can come up with tens of millions of dollars, it probably won't shock the local government like when they first bought the pressure cooker factory with 1500 million dollars. Therefore, for a while, the players were not sure what companies they should acquire, or whether they should simply set up a company on their own.

Indeed, the southern coastal areas make much more use of foreign capital than the northeast. As far as the whole country is concerned, the foreign capital approved by the state for use each year in the 90s amounted to tens of billions, and in some years it reached hundreds of billions. Most of them were in coastal areas, and the industry was mainly manufacturing. Even if the players working for the Universal Group worked hard to rob banks and casinos and made tens of millions of dollars, they would probably only be able to buy more factories (which is actually very impressive, but the players are "ambitious")

However, players overlooked a special current situation, namely the Asian financial crisis.

At this time, Asian countries, including China, are experiencing capital shortages. Prior to this, these capitals were used to develop industries in various countries around the world, but the profits from these industries were relatively slow. After all, the profits from producing jeans, shirts, toys, etc. are very low. But if the same money flows to the United States and is invested in new technology fields such as the IT industry, which is now "in full swing", there will be huge opportunities for returns. Capital will definitely go where it can make money. Since the returns in the United States are higher, foreign capital will of course flow back to the United States.

As a result, the capital that originally supported the development of industries in Asian countries, including China, flowed into the United States in pursuit of higher returns, driving the rapid growth of the new economy in the United States. At the same time, due to capital outflows, Asian countries have fallen into capital shortages and capital shortages. The lack of capital liquidity has exposed past bad debts.

The bad debt rate of Chinese banks is particularly high, so high that according to Western standards, all of them should go bankrupt. How do these bad debts come from? For example, banks are instructed to lend money to some half-dead companies to maintain their operations, but in the end, the companies can no longer maintain their operations, so the banks cannot collect the loans and the loans become bad debts.

Why did the bank follow the instructions and lend to the half-dead enterprises? Because the president of the bank is appointed by the local party committee organization department. If the local party committee leader asks the bank president to lend money, can the bank president refuse? Impossible, he can only do what his superiors tell him to do. Then who should be held responsible for the bad debts? Should we find the original leader? But at this time, he may have been promoted from county party secretary to municipal party secretary. How can you let him take responsibility?

As a result, banks have accumulated a large number of bad debts, or non-performing assets. At this time, banks are extremely troubled by the non-performing assets in their hands and are eager to find someone to take over. For example, a company that lent out 900 million yuan went bankrupt after paying back a few hundred thousand yuan, leaving behind a bunch of "worthless" "non-performing assets" such as factories, machines, and land use rights to the bank. For banks with rising bad debt rates, it would be great if they could sell these "non-performing assets" and recover 300 million yuan in funds.

However, these "non-performing assets" are not all bad debts in the true sense. Many of them are high-quality assets. It's just that when the economy enters a recession, these assets can't play a role. Many problematic companies and problematic assets are not dead, but it depends on how the managers operate. If they are abandoned in a one-size-fits-all manner, they will naturally become a burden. But if you can stabilize these assets and allow them to smoothly enter the next period of economic development, they can bring huge benefits.

It was under such circumstances that the workers of the Universal Group, who set out from the Northeast, arrived in Guangzhou by plane.

Chapter 51 Branching out (Part 2) For the sake of our business, please start “telling stories” to make money!

"The expected situation is better than we thought. The US dollar is also effective in the South. Now, many people from the government, enterprises and banks come to our door to deceive us who hold a lot of US dollars and want us to be the receivers."

The first four players who arrived in Guangzhou, Su Yu, Su Jian, Zhang Han and Deng Jiajun, each posted their own game screenshots and chat records in the chat group. They were all about arriving in Guangzhou and being visited and greeted by various well-informed people. Because they came so coincidentally and so timely, the players wondered if they, the "fat sheep", were targeted as soon as they got off the plane.

The players guessed correctly that some local people in Guangzhou have indeed set their sights on the Universal Group, which gives people the impression of "having ample cash reserves". So how did they notice the Universal Group? There are several reasons.

One was that the joint venture factory set up by Universal Group in Northeast China was featured on the front page of the economic section of the mainstream newspapers there. It was promoted as a model for revitalizing local flagship enterprises and alleviating the pressure of a large number of local workers being laid off. This was the first time that Guangzhou had an impression of Universal Group.

The other one is from Los Angeles. Coincidentally, in 1981, Los Angeles and Guangzhou established a friendly city relationship. The two cities have connections in economic development and cultural exchanges. So when the Los Angeles City Government repeatedly praised the Universal Group for its social responsibility and listed the Universal Group as an "excellent enterprise" to promote it, it once again attracted the attention of local people in Guangzhou. They noticed that the Universal Group acquired a company that was on the verge of bankruptcy in Northeast China, and used a series of methods to revive it, turning a "bad asset" into a "good asset" that can create jobs and generate tax revenue.

"It's the American imperialist capitalists who are so powerful that they spent so much money to make a bad debt come back to life. So what are we waiting for? Let this Universal Group take over from us!" People from all walks of life are making big plans and are eager to "sell off" the pile of non-performing assets in their hands through combination sales, packaged restructuring, online auctions, asset transfers, asset swaps, debt-to-equity swaps. As long as someone is willing to take over, they are willing to ask their superiors for research and then start selling.

After all, during the Asian financial crisis, when foreign capital was withdrawing and flowing into the United States, it was not easy to find a sucker who brought foreign capital from the United States to China. We had to seize the opportunity.

Because this game is too realistic, players can tell by just looking through history that many bad debts will become good assets in the future, and they are here to buy at the bottom.

But the NPCs didn't know that at that time, China had not joined the WTO to catch the globalization bandwagon, and it was also suffering from the Asian financial crisis. The domestic market had not been nurtured and expanded, and there were a lot of contradictions accumulating. For example, there was the problem of layoffs, economic structure problems, the huge economic gap between the eastern coastal areas and the central and western regions, and the prominent contradictions in the urban-rural dual structure. Many places were on the verge of "running out of fuel".

So, one side came with the mentality of buying at the bottom, and the other side came with the mentality of fooling the sucker to take over. I thought it would be a tit-for-tat conversation, but it turned out to be inexplicably harmonious. Except for some enterprises and industries related to national economy and people's livelihood that are the focus of the central government and are strictly controlled, in other aspects, as long as you have money, I dare to sell everything.

"Damn it, we're going to be rich!"

What was in front of these four players? There was a long list of names (non-performing asset packages that the bank helped to sort out) involving a large number of projects and companies. The four players sent this long list to the chat group, asking everyone to browse the content like opening a Taobao shopping cart, and see which projects to include in the "shopping cart" of the Universal Group.

"What are you doing? This piece of land is near my home and it's very expensive now. Why is the price in the catalog so cheap..."

“A bunch of cheap companies…”

“By the way, have these Tencent and Alibaba been established? If not, then we…”

"Hey, hey, hey, we don't have enough cash. We can't add everything to the 'shopping cart'... We can't buy everything either. We don't have money in our pockets."

"Fuck, we don't have enough funds during a tearful sale. How can this be allowed? We must get money immediately. Where is the most money now......"

"USA!"

"Then let's continue to do some big things?"

"Rob a bank? That's too slow. You know, compared to the cash accumulated by banknotes, there is a lot of wealth circulating in the stock market. Especially the US stock market, it's just crazy... But we can't rob stocks by robbing the stock exchange. What I mean is, maybe we can consider making money from the stock market..."

................

“Is it finally our turn for our major to shine?”

At this time, Cao Boyuan and several other players have arrived in New York and stood on Wall Street. The name of this street that stretches from Broadway to the East River is only one-third of a mile long and 11 meters wide. It is the transliteration of the English word "Wall Street". The street is narrow and short, with only 7 blocks from Broadway to the East River, but it is famous as the "financial center of the United States". The managers of banks, insurance, shipping, railways and other companies opened by the Morgan financial group, Rockefeller oil king and DuPont consortium are concentrated here, and the famous New York Stock Exchange is also here.

It is worth mentioning that the world's largest vault is also located in New York, which is the underground vault of the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States. In fact, the goal of Cao Boyuan and his team to come to New York was not to lock on Wall Street at the beginning, but to lock on this underground vault. Faced with the contradiction between the growing wealth needs of the Universal Group and the lack of rapid development in the efficiency of robbing money, the players thought of doing a super big one that would shock the world and make ghosts cry. In order to successfully rob the vault in one go, the players thought about various methods, including how to enter, how to take away the gold, how to transfer the gold, and how not to let the federal government suspect the Universal Group.

After all, robbing an ordinary bank might result in being chased and intercepted by the police, but robbing the world's largest underground vault might result in being chased and intercepted by the US military. The difficulty of both sides is completely different.

"We don't have enough manpower right now. If we rob a bank, we might be shot dead on the way... We still have to wait for the resurrection point in New York to be established and for more new players to come. And all those involved in this operation must sever their relationship with the Universal Group. Even if they are shot dead in the process and their bodies fall into the hands of the US government, they must not let the US government find out that the bodies have any connection with the Universal Group..."

Since the "force" way of making money is going to be delayed, now we can only use the "civil" way to make money. At a time when there are "stock gods" everywhere in the United States, a large number of Internet IPOs are rushing to go public to make money, and they are irrational.

For example, when most Internet companies went public, they did not have a stable business model and did not make money at all. So investors could not use the valuation method for the real economy to calculate how much the stock was worth. However, those international financial service companies that invested in these Internet companies proposed a model of burning money for growth, which is to use indicators such as "views, click-through rates, and user activity to value them. There is no need for the company to actually make a profit. It only needs to tell the "story" of this Internet company well, and then the money will come like water.

To put it more simply, for example, if a financial services company wants to hype up a browser company that has great potential, then it would do so like this: "After personal computers become popular, everyone will want to go online and use a browser. The browser company we recommend makes profits through browser advertising. The market is huge, and the profits are also huge." It was just such a simple story that caused the browser company's stock price to surge by more than 80% on its first day of listing.

The players will not accept this. In the era we live in, the stories we need to make up in order to go public and raise money have been updated to various versions. A simple story like yours can make a lot of money in the stock market. We come with a story from the 21st century, isn't this a dimensionality reduction attack!

Chapter 52: Branching out (III) Abstract Slavic Region

In the 90s, the rapid development of information technology and related industries brought about a rapid increase in productivity and huge profits, and stimulated a new round of investment boom. During the economic boom and favorable conditions, few investment projects suffered losses, so investors tended to overestimate the return on investment and underestimate the investment risks. In addition, the United States was the main supplier of global network technology and equipment at the time, which led to a large amount of funds pouring into the information technology field, resulting in overinvestment and serious overcapacity in the information technology industry.

On the other hand, the "Asian Financial Crisis" in 1997 made the United States a safe haven for global investors for a time, and a large amount of foreign capital poured into the U.S. stock market. At the same time, the corresponding industry operation and regulatory system norms were not established in a timely manner. In the environment of deregulation and weak audit supervision, as long as an Internet company could successfully go public, its stock price would double.

In this case, the company's board of directors, management, accounting firms and investment banks colluded to falsely report profits and drive up stock prices, making the ever-increasing virtual asset prices far away from the company's real value creation, while investors found it difficult to accurately assess the company's value.

The stock market was so frenzied at that time that an American stock investor boasted to his friend that his stock's annualized return rate reached 100%. However, his friend held him back when he was showing off because his friend said that his stock's return rate in just one week reached 100%.

Such a situation made a bull and horse player who works in a securities company sigh:

"This is truly a blue ocean market full of vitality and everything is competing! Speaking of Internet companies, we have core competitiveness. What core competitiveness? Storytelling! I have at least 9 stories in my mind right now to make money! I can't wait to reap the leeks of capitalism! Burn the money of Wall Street investors, then cash out and buy other places. Damn it, aren't we going to take off!"