Chapter 773 The Wolf Is Coming

Almost the entire city of Detroit is full of auto processing plants, parts factories, and various auto modification workshops. Therefore, how prosperous it was before is how desolate it is now.

Many very advanced auto production lines, now there are no people in the factory buildings, only a few security guards at the gate. Along the way, Yang Dongxu couldn't help but feel a little nervous. Is it a wrong choice to open a branch here? However, this idea was just a flash. He had his own plans.

"Can you help me buy some auto smelting technology and some parts production technology?" Yang Dongxu couldn't help asking.

"There is a saying in the United States that I agree with very much. If you want to eat beef, you don't have to open a farm, because you are just a person who eats beef, not a person who is good at raising cattle." Dave turned his head and looked at Yang Dongxu and said.

Of course, if you can master the entire production chain of an industry, then you are the only boss in this industry, but such a behemoth cannot last long, because such an industrial chain is too bloated. Once one link collapses, the entire company will be split.

The wisest choice is to master some core technologies that are not easy to be cracked, such as engine technology and gearbox technology, and then use this as the core to purchase other auto parts to assemble a car.

When purchasing parts, you have a lot of autonomy. You don’t have to worry about the production cost of this part or how the technology is innovated. You only need to know whether this part is suitable for your own car. If it is not suitable, you can change to another one.

"I know what you mean. I don’t mean to hold the entire automobile production chain in my hands. After all, it is unrealistic and may attract antitrust laws. I buy these technologies to transfer them to some partners.

I don’t need to buy some too sensitive technologies. You can sell medium-level technologies. Then I buy them and sell them to others to make a profit." Yang Dongxu said.

"This." Dave hesitated and said, "If it was when China and the United States just established diplomatic relations, there would be no problem with what you said, and even buying some sensitive technologies would be fine, but now."

"Market price, don’t ask you to give those preferential prices to partners, you just give me an average market price. Then 5% of the final price of each technology purchased is your reward." Yang Dongxu said.

Some technologies that have been eliminated are more expensive than high-tech technologies.

"I need to think about this." Faced with the huge temptation, Dave chose to remain calm: "You know that the premise of freedom of speech is political correctness. If you invest in building a factory in the United States, I can give you unexpected discounts."

"Okay, this matter can be put aside for now. When you feel that it can be operated, we will talk about it again. Do you have any good suggestions for the purchase of automobile production lines now?" Yang Dongxu asked.

"I have taken you to see so many places and introduced so many things. I believe you know it in your heart. It is easy for you to buy an automobile production line in Detroit, and it is also easy to recruit skilled workers and engineers. As long as you have money, everything can be done, but have you ever thought about another way?"

"What way?" Yang Dongxu asked.

"Leasing or OEM." Dave said.

"Leasing or OEM?" Yang Dongxu raised his eyebrows, and then his eyes became brighter and brighter.

"Yes, leasing or OEM. After observing for the past few days, I found that you don't seem to care too much about the sales of cars in North America. You just want to assemble cars here and ship them back to China." Dave observed the changes in Yang Dongxu's expression.

"Then what?" Yang Dongxu's eyes flickered. He obviously didn't expect that Dave, the old man, was so sensitive. He knew the purpose of building a factory in the United States without saying anything.

"If this is the case, you just need to spend a lot of money to buy a better engine production line, and then give the other things to other automobile manufacturers. Or even renting an automobile production line is more profitable than buying it.

At the same time, it is easier and more convenient to operate this matter. After all, you are just looking for a foundry partner, or renting a factory instead of buying it. These become your private property, which will save a lot of trouble in the review."

"The engine production line is not sensitive?" Yang Dongxu glanced at Dave.

"But you produce it in Detroit, right? Besides, you are producing engines, not buying engine production technology. What's so sensitive about this? The British brought potatoes to the United States, can't they fry potatoes into French fries?" Dave said.

"It seems to be a good choice." Yang Dongxu touched his chin.

Dave felt good, and he didn't mean to open the North American market directly. Or he has no intention of investing in a car manufacturing plant in Detroit to enter the North American market with this as a base.

What he really needs is just an assembly plant, and then resell the assembled cars as imported cars to the domestic market.

I don’t know since when, the price of a brand of car is at least 30% higher than that of a domestic joint venture, and some are even doubled.

This is certainly due to regional protection taxes, but more of it is the people’s distrust of the quality of domestic car production, and the feeling that driving an imported car is more face-saving than driving a joint venture car.

When Yang Dongxu acquired Maserati and opened BMW Automobile Company in China, he was not stupid enough to move Maserati into China to become the Chinese automobile industry.

Instead, he established BMW Automobile Company in cooperation with the Shanghai government in a joint venture. So currently, there are sports cars produced by BMW Automobile Company, and there are Maserati sports cars that are completely imported from Italy.

Now that the government uses more Audi cars and the commercial vehicle market is becoming more and more active. He needs to build a foreign production line for Audi and Mercedes-Benz commercial vehicles to meet the domestic market's demand for imported and purchased cars of these two types.

Although he himself does not worship foreign things, you have to admit that having completely imported cars is very useful for shaping one's own brand in China. When it comes to imports, everyone thinks of high-end, even if it is more expensive, they will bite their teeth and buy it.

Even if the internal parts of these cars are the same, only one is produced abroad and may use some foreign parts, and other things such as engines are no different. It's just that one is produced abroad and the other is produced by a joint venture.

So for the same engine, just add the word "imported" in front, and the car can sell for a lot more money. Why doesn't he make so much money?

After a brief tour of Detroit, Dave introduced a few friends to Yang Dongxu. Just a simple acquaintance to get familiar with each other, and to get to know each other better and see if they can cooperate with each other after the investment is settled.

After staying in Detroit for two days, Yang Dongxu flew to New York first, then flew to Shanghai, and then flew directly to Hangzhou without stopping.

Carrefour, which had been silent for a while, made a comeback, and this time it was even more aggressive. Because this time they completed the acquisition of Promeds, and became a giant in the European food retail industry and the second largest retail industry in the world.

With the momentum of the world's second largest international retail giant, Carrefour's senior management is ready to further increase investment in China and occupy this huge population bonus market.

"What's the specific situation?" In the Hangzhou office of Millennium Supermarket, Yang Dongxu did not adjust the time difference after returning, but came here directly.

"This time is more difficult to deal with than the last time. Someone above has already greeted me, suggesting that I can no longer fight a rough price war." Hu Dashan said with some worry.

This time, Carrefour not only attacked aggressively but also played tricks. Carrefour and Taiwan's Uni-President Enterprise are partners. So this time, when entering the mainland retail market, he did not come by himself, but used the mainland official's attitude towards Taiwan enterprises to pull Uni-President together.

However, although they cooperated with Uni-President, they did not want to share their cake with Uni-President, so they used the slogan of helping Uni-President to distribute goods. In other words, every time Carrefour opened a store, when there were overlapping products with Uni-President Food Enterprise, Uni-President's products would be preferred for listing, and extremely large discounts would be given in terms of some fees.

That's right, it is not the supermarket that pays the supplier of goods to put goods on the shelves, but the goods must first pay the supermarket before they want to enter the supermarket, such as the entry code payment and entry fee.

Suppliers of supermarkets have to pay opening fees for opening branches, and when the branches reach the anniversary celebration, suppliers have to pay festival fees. If suppliers want to send personnel to the supermarket for promotional activities, they must also pay management fees for the promotional personnel.

And this promotional personnel generally has to send at least two, one is a real promotion. The other is a porter for the supermarket to load and unload goods.

If a supermarket puts up a banner to promote a product, the supplier of the product promoted on the banner must also pay. In short, a supermarket not only makes a profit from the price difference of retail products, but also makes a lot of money from suppliers.

This point was not obvious in China before, because it was a seller's market before. In terms of supply, there was no worry about selling the goods after they were produced. If you don't buy mine, someone else will buy mine. At that time, all the major stores begged suppliers to give them goods.

Now it is 1999, and the domestic economic development has been further liberated. Various factories and food factories have sprung up like mushrooms after rain. Major international food giants have also entered China. If they want their products to sell well and want to establish their own brand advantages, in addition to spending a lot of money on advertising, they must have in-depth cooperation with supermarkets and hypermarkets.

After all, online shopping has not taken off in China at all, and the only ports for selling goods are supermarkets, hypermarkets, small stores in communities, etc. Why should supermarkets display your products if you don't give benefits and don't cut some meat?

So the discounts given by Carrefour to Uni-President this time will definitely make them excited, and the more branches they help Carrefour open, the greater the discount will be. This is a win-win cooperation.

In addition to this, Carrefour has another policy, which is to increase localization and branch autonomy. Localization is easy to understand, and the most important one is to find local partners and borrow their resources to gain a foothold.

The stores that started in Hangzhou used this policy before, but they were forced back by Millennium Supermarket. But the fact that Millennium Supermarket can force it in Hangzhou does not mean that it can force it in all parts of the country. There are always local partners and Carrefour partners who are better than those who support Millennium Supermarket.

Branch autonomy is a major auxiliary to localization, which is to increase the power of each branch to put goods on the shelves by itself. After all, each place has its own specialties and the preferences of each local customer.

This autonomy can flexibly adjust the demand for goods by customers in major branches to the greatest extent, and it also increases the power of branches in disguise, allowing local partners to obtain more profits. Such cooperative people will naturally be more enthusiastic to help Carrefour develop.

"This time the wolf has really come, and it's a fierce hungry wolf. How is the membership system going?" Yang Dongxu rubbed his forehead.

Such a multinational company is not so easy to deal with, not to mention that it is the world's second largest retail company. If he doesn't have two brushes, how can he take the second place?

So he didn't think that it would be so easy to deal with Carrefour or other foreign retailers entering the country from the beginning. Although Hangzhou won a round, one is that he has a great advantage in resources in Hangzhou.

The second is naturally that if there is a long-term deficit, Carrefour's shareholders will naturally not want their own interests to be infringed. And this time the opponent came back with great momentum.

Obviously, the top management has unified their voices, and there will be no more opposition from shareholders to temporary losses. With the help of their own strong capital, they can pry open the iron door of this huge market in one fell swoop, and then occupy this market.

At this time, it is not so easy to win any price war, no matter how much he replenishes the blood of Millennium Supermarket. Can he have more money than the world's second largest retail giant?

Moreover, the country certainly would not allow him to do so. After all, the introduction of foreign capital has always been a strategy that has been resolutely implemented. Although Millennium Supermarket has the guise of Hong Kong capital in order to get discounts, it is the world's second largest retail giant.

If he succeeds in entering the domestic market, it will have a positive effect on the country's introduction of other foreign capital. As for Hong Kong capital, it has already invested a lot in the mainland, making money where it should be made and giving discounts where it should be given. And compared with real foreign capital, Hong Kong capital is actually not that strong.

"The membership system has been popularized, and in addition to a few points, it also gives certain pre-charge discounts. The number of supermarket members has reached 3 million." Hu Dashan said.

Hu Dashan didn't think too much about promoting membership cards before, thinking that it was just used to stabilize customer relationships. But now he finds that membership cards are not only used to stabilize customers, with so many loyal consumer members, the market value of Millennium Supermarket has been raised a lot.

Sometimes when negotiating with suppliers, even if he makes some harsh demands and the suppliers refute, he can say that Millennium Supermarket now has more than 3 million regular consumer members, and if your products are put on the shelves of Millennium Supermarket, it means that you can directly face 3 million consumer customers, thus winning a lot of benefits for the supermarket.