Chapter 537 The Helmsman of Kodak

After the Fan Wubing siblings stirred up the real estate storm in Beijing, they soon had no time to pay attention to things here.

At the request of his elder sister, Fan Wubing hurried the team that designed and decorated the house for him to go to the inner city, and then began to carry out a full-scale three-dimensional packaging of the purchased property. Not only did they have to make the interior decoration meet Fan Ting's requirements, but they also had to make some more personalized features in the exterior space to show that the building has been completely bsp; As for the property of the community, the company sent a special person to take care of it. From logistics and sanitation to security, all are well-trained professionals. The three floors below are divided into parking lots and activity fitness centers, and there are also music teahouses that can be used by their own people, which is conducive to the physical and mental cultivation of the owners.

The entire company is talking about the welfare housing that President Fan bought for everyone this time, but if you want to live here, you must be a senior executive of the S Club, and the kind of senior executive who has outstanding performance and made great contributions to the company.

This is also a driving force for everyone to be positive and upward. Only when you see how much real benefits the upward goal will bring to you, can you really devote yourself to work, so as to realize your ideal as soon as possible and live in such a super luxurious residence.

Although many senior managers of the S Club have the ability to live in such high-end residences with their own income, the concept of buying it with your own money and rewarded by the company boss are two completely different concepts. Being able to live in a residence purchased by the boss himself shows that your status in the S Club cannot be ignored.

After Fan Wubing wandered around in Beijing for two days, Boss Zhu’s people contacted him and said that Kodak’s president Pei Xuede had arrived and wanted to meet Fan Wubing secretly, and everyone sat down to talk about cooperation.

Because Pei Xuede wanted to be low-key, Fan Wubing received Pei Xuede and his party at the headquarters of the S Club, Fan Ting’s president’s office.

Pei Xuede is still very famous. He is 61 years old this year and can be regarded as a veteran professional manager.

At the end of 1993, the board of directors of Kodak Company voted to remove the chairman of the board and replaced him with 56-year-old Pei Xuede. Pei Xuede was the CEO of Motorola and enjoyed a high reputation in the business community. As soon as he took office, he made drastic reforms.

For a long time, the production and sales of photosensitive materials in the world have been monopolized by a few large companies, known as two and a half, one is Kodak in the United States, one is Fuji in Japan, and half is Aike in Germany. The others are all small and not worth mentioning.

Before the 1980s, Kodak had always been the leader of the world's film industry and had no regard for Fuji. However, in the 1980s, Fuji quietly rose with the help of the Japanese government's domestic market protection measures, and swallowed up a quarter of Kodak's market in a blink of an eye.

When Kodak came to its senses, the seat of the leader was no longer Fuji.

The reason for Kodak's loss of power lies in the system. For a long time, Kodak's thinking was rigid, the organization was bloated, and it did not want to change, and could not adapt to the ever-changing world market. As a result, costs rose, profits fell, and stock prices fell again and again. According to Kodak's own statistics, it lost nearly $6 billion in the Japanese market alone.

Faced with this situation, Pei Xuede proposed to expand international business space and open up marketing channels, calling on the Clinton administration to formulate a specific plan to help open up the Japanese market, and suggested that the US government consider increasing tariffs on imported Fujifilm. At the same time, Kodak closed its poorly managed Australian factory and increased its investment in developing countries.

At the beginning of 1994, Pei Xuede, who had only been in office for two weeks, led a Kodak delegation to China and expressed Kodak's intention to the Chinese government, which was to acquire Chinese photosensitive material factories across the industry and establish a world-class photosensitive industry in China.

When Pei Xuede explained to the press why Kodak was optimistic about the Chinese market, he said that as long as half of the Chinese population took a 36-film roll every year, it would be enough to expand the world's imaging market by a quarter. If China took 500 more photos per second, it would be equivalent to having an additional market equal to Japan or the United States. China's potential is better than anywhere else.

At the end of last year, Kodak's board of directors announced that it would spend $1 billion to lay off 10,000 employees within two years. In the previous few months, the company had cut more than 200 mid- and senior-level management positions. This year, Kodak's research and development expenses will also be reduced by $100 million on the basis of $1 billion to reduce expenses.

In recent years, the economic downturn in the West has affected the photosensitive material industry, making the competition in the industry increasingly fierce. Kodak and Fuji have been seeking new ways to reduce costs and expand the market.

At present, the world's consumption level of photosensitive materials is that Americans consume an average of 37 lottery tickets per year, Japanese consume 31, and Chinese consume only 0.1, but the annual growth rate of China's photosensitive material consumption is four times that of the United States and five times that of Japan. It is expected that in six years, China will surpass the United States and Japan to become the world's largest photosensitive material market.

It is precisely because of this that Kodak, Fuji and Aike have all turned their attention to China, hoping to expand their market share in China and then monopolize the Chinese market.

Before these giants entered the Chinese market, it should be said that China's photosensitive material industry still had a certain foundation. There were seven photosensitive material factories in Tianjin, Shanghai, Shantou, Xiamen, Wuxi, Liaoyuan, and Baoding. However, in the face of the massive attack of foreign goods, these enterprises were defeated one after another. Six enterprises were in a state of suspension and loss, and the largest one had a debt of more than 4 billion. Only Lucky Film still had a little resistance.

One of the means by which foreign goods entered the Chinese market was to sell at a low price. In the United States, the retail price of Kodak color film is about five US dollars, and in Japan, Fuji color film is roughly at this price. In the international market, Kodak sells for 2.6 US dollars and Fuji sells for 2 US dollars. However, at the coastal price in China, Kodak and Fuji only sell for 1.3 US dollars.

The second is to set up a large number of exclusive stores. With their strong financial resources, Kodak and Fuji established sales websites and color enlargement stores throughout China. They adopted promotional means such as free decoration of storefronts, preferential provision of developing equipment, concessions on developing and expanding, high rebates, overseas training, and tourism to seize the domestic retail market, resulting in no imaging stores willing to use domestic film.

In the 1980s, Fuji dominated the Chinese color film market, with a market share of half at its highest. However, since Pei Xuede's trip to China, Fuji's days in China seem to have become difficult.

According to some Fuji stores in Beijing, Fuji accounted for 80% of the films developed in the store in 1995, but only 60% in 1996. A market survey conducted by a third party this year showed that Kodak's color film market share in China has reached 50%, surpassing Fuji.

Now some people also vividly call China's color film market the red, yellow, and green war, that is, red Lucky, yellow Kodak, and green Fuji. In this battle, Kodak's advantages are gradually emerging.

Fan Wubing was sure that even the strongest domestic company, Lucky, would not be able to compete with Kodak, because he knew Lucky's technology very well, and the gap between them and Kodak was huge, and when it came to R&D investment, the difference was even greater.

Pei Xuede was very enthusiastic, and Fan Wubing naturally treated him with a smile and courtesy. The two sides had a heated discussion on the conditions for cooperation. As expected, as Fan Wubing expected, Pei Xuede was most nervous about monopolizing the Chinese market. As for the technology of digital cameras, he was not very concerned. He believed that since Fan Wubing would not develop digital camera products within three years, it would not pose any substantial threat to Kodak, and Fan Wubing's plan to invest 200 million US dollars could also objectively ease Kodak's financial pressure.

"I think Mr. Fan's proposal is a win-win situation." Pei Xuede affirmed Fan Wubing's conditions.

The most important thing is that Pei Xuede has understood the power behind Fan Wubing. If he can pull Fan Wubing's Fan Investment Group into his own camp, Kodak will save a lot of effort in the promotion of the Chinese market. At least, Fan Wubing will definitely cooperate very well in excluding Fuji.

However, Pei Xuede was a little curious about Fan Wubing's love for digital camera technology and asked the reason.

Fan Wubing said half-truthfully, "My fiancée is very interested in digital cameras. Not only did she get the latest digital camera from your company, but she also liked this new thing. She also asked me to keep an eye on the latest developments in digital camera technology, so I made this request."

Pei Xuede naturally couldn't believe Fan Wubing's nonsense, but it was really difficult to determine whether it was true or false, so he laughed and said, "Mr. Fan is really a caring person. Your fiancée must be very happy."

"It's inevitable for young people to be playful, but fortunately it doesn't cost much money." Fan Wubing said nonchalantly.

Pei Xuede did not stay in Beijing for long. After discussing with Fan Wubing, he needed to go back to consult with the board of directors. He introduced his full-power agent in China to Fan Wubing and said that if there were any questions, he could contact the agent.

Fan Wubing noticed the agent, who was a Chinese woman in her fifties. She looked like a middle-aged woman with a charming appearance. From the way she talked, she seemed like a Taiwanese.

The woman who could be entrusted with such an important task by Pei Xuede should not be an ordinary person, Fan Wubing commented secretly.