Chapter 2058 Competition

In Hollywood, Viacom's big boss, Summer Redstone, who is in his eighties, personally hosted a meeting.

Unlike the wedding Feng Yiping was attending, this meeting was very depressing.

Because of his anger, the rich man who survived the catastrophe looked like his mouth was obviously crooked.

"I just have one question, why was Myspace acquired by News Corp for $580 million when our budget was $500 to $800 million?"

While talking, he couldn't help but keep tapping his fingers on the table.

It has to be said that men are all aggressive, and everyone will have their own competitors.

And some of these competitors will be regarded as their mortal enemies.

For Mr. Redstone, Murdoch is his mortal enemy.

What does it mean to be a rival? No one can lose to him even if he loses to him.

But this time, he lost to Murdoch's bitter rival in the bidding for Myspace.

The key is that Murdoch's acquisition price is still a lot lower than the upper limit of the acquisition price he gave, which makes him really unable to control his anger.

Viacom CEO Tom Freston glanced at Redstone. This issue has been brought up many times in recent meetings, and the blame has always been focused on him. Today, he is too lazy to respond.

After these days of twists and turns, Freston rarely felt stupid and naive.

Previously, like many analysts, he optimistically believed that he should be the successor of this older and older gentleman. But now, like the previous CEOs, he can only end up giving up. It's like a broken penis.

Such an illusion was deliberately created by this old guy who still seemed to have no plans to retire.

What's even more stupid is that I believed it was true before and foolishly followed his instructions to do so many things.

He said the same old thing without raising his head, "This time, it was our M&A team that didn't respond quickly enough, and the time for talks..."

"I think it may not be the problem of our M&A team," Redstone said without even looking at this subordinate who had shown great admiration before. "Is it that all our companies and all our teams are not working enough now?" active?"

Sally Redstone, Redstone's daughter, who had just become the vice chairman of Viacom, glanced at the somewhat depressed Tom Freston and said, "Even the important acquisition projects decided by the board of directors can be changed because of Procrastination leads to failure, and I also think that many of our colleagues should conduct a self-review,"

Tom Friston raised his head and glanced at this woman who was almost fifty years old, shook his head, and couldn't help but sneer in his eyes. This was another guy who was just as stupid and naive as he was before.

Do you think you can take over Viacom after I leave?

Remember it for a long time!

Why don't you think about your brother?

In 2003, Redstone suddenly announced that in order to better manage the company, he would let his son and three other directors resign from Viacom in order to introduce more independent directors - in fact, he would completely change the company. His own son was expelled from his company.

At the time, Freston was Redstone’s right-hand man in accomplishing this.

Now he understands that it was not for "better governance of the company" at all, but for Redstone to consolidate his control over the company and prevent his son from having the opportunity to challenge him.

Freston is now very sure that this old man, who was already 80 years old at that time, may not have thought about any retirement plan at all, and even cares more about the power in his hands than when he was young.

But it seems that some people have not thought of these things, or in other words, are not aware of this issue.

The look in Freston's eyes naturally made Sally very unhappy. You have made such a big mistake. What qualifications do you have to put on such a posture in front of me?

Do you think, as everyone said, that you are the best person to take over our company?

"I suggest that this matter should be investigated in detail to clarify the responsibilities of the relevant people,"

"We all know how popular social networks are now, and how rare products like Myspace are. I think such a major mistake is unforgivable,"

Freston didn't even bother to respond. Anyway, I know that I'm about to be kicked out by that old bastard of yours, so why should I bother to explain?

Redstone was noncommittal about his daughter's words, and seemed to be quite unconcerned about Freston's reaction, because he then talked about another thing, "I think it's time to focus on rectifying the problem of a lack of positive work attitude. "I looked at the April report. We have Blockbuster with thousands of physical stores, but the gap with Netflix in the DVD rental field is getting wider and wider." He turned his attention to the person in charge of Blockbuster, "The business situation is so pessimistic, can Blockbuster's team still sit still?"

The person in charge of Blockbuster, who originally felt a little relaxed, was stunned. Wasn't this just to kick Freston out and build momentum? Why did it suddenly turn to me?

"The share of Netflix has increased significantly, mainly because of the help provided by NEXTDOOR. A large number of NEXTDOOR users have been successfully converted into Netflix users,"

Well, he actually said this reason more than once.

"Is this the main reason?" Lei Shidong asked, "Our stores are all over the United States, which are convenient for users to pick up and return at any time. We have more and newer sources for rental. Why is the customer flow still getting smaller and smaller?"

So our costs are also high. The person in charge of Blockbuster was about to say another old reason, but Lei Shidong did not give it a chance to speak, "I know you must have a lot of reasons. They are asset-light and we are asset-heavy; they communicate with text across the Internet, and we communicate with users through the staff of physical stores, and the attitude of the front-line staff cannot always be very enthusiastic..."

"So, what about the online platform we invested a lot of money to develop? Why is there still no improvement?"

After Walmart sold its online DVD rental business to Netflix last year, Blockbuster, no matter how slow it was, realized that it was getting worse and worse to rely solely on offline, so in January this year, their carefully prepared online rental platform was also launched grandly, almost completely copying Netflix's model.

And the monthly membership fee is lower than Netflix.

In addition, with physical stores all over the country, users can pick up the movies at any time, unlike Netflix, which relies on mailing and takes at least a day to get the movies they want to watch. In addition, Blockbuster has been the most popular DVD rental company for many years... They think that once it goes online, it will inevitably have a major impact on Netflix.

However, more than three months have passed, and the impact that everyone expected has not yet appeared.

Now it is not a matter of delay, but a matter of never seeing it.

Lei Shidong feels that this is as incredible as the failure of the acquisition of MySpace.

"The biggest problem is the conflict between online business and offline business," the person in charge of Blockbuster became nervous. Is this going to fire me at the same time?

"Because the main benefits brought by users who order DVDs online belong to the network department, physical stores are not active in developing such business,"

Not only do you not have to pay to pick up DVDs in the store, but the store employees also have to help prepare the DVDs ordered by users online, and at the same time help to collect the DVDs they return, and at the same time review the number of DVDs they watch...

So much work is done offline, but the sales and profits generated by these businesses are mostly online, and the company also assesses the monthly sales of each store. Which store is willing to let its old users become online members of its own company?

"Our own stores are relatively supportive of relevant policies, but those franchise stores are very resistant to these businesses, thinking that online is just stealing their business,"

"We always encounter problems of one kind or another, but the biggest question is, why don't we actively find ways to solve them when we see them?" Lei Shidong asked.

"Where is our initiative? Or do you want me to do it myself because you can't solve these problems?"

"We can solve them," at this time, how can we say no.

"Give me a feasible solution within one month," Lei Shidong coldly set a deadline.