2003: Starting with Foreign Trade

Chapter 688 New Year's Day Surprise Event

This year's Lunar New Year's Eve is particularly late, falling on February 13th, the 2th day of the twelfth lunar month.

For migrant workers, who yearn to return to their hometowns after New Year's Day, spending the Lunar New Year so late is pure torture.

During the Chinese New Year period, the human resources department is probably the biggest headache for companies.

Production cannot stop, but employees need to go home, so we need to hire a lot of temporary workers to complete the production tasks. In previous years, Flash Motors has held such recruitment activities during major holidays.

Temporary workers were hired to supplement production capacity, while some of the better-performing temporary workers were retained as long-term employees.

Compared to other large employers, Flash Group has a very low employee turnover rate. The end of the year is a good opportunity to join Flash Group, especially Flash Technology.

Other subsidiaries, such as Leichi New Energy and Weilai Automobile, which have been expanding their production capacity, never lack recruitment opportunities.

"Why are you hiring so few people this year? Aren't you going home for the Chinese New Year?"

"Yes, many people in our company bought houses in Beicang this year, so they won't be going back to their hometowns for the Spring Festival, which has reduced the number of people we are hiring."

This is infuriating to hear among those looking for temporary work, but there's nothing they can do about it.

After all, they really did take possession of their new homes this year, and I heard that a couple hundred people from the company have moved into their own new homes.

It's obvious that in the first year after buying a house, people will most likely not go back to their hometown for the Spring Festival, but instead bring their family members over to celebrate the holiday.

"Flash Technology has limited positions, but you can also take a look at other companies in our group, such as Weilai Motors, which has a very good development prospect and is currently in need of people."

The HR's words were somewhat misleading. Flash Group is no longer a small company, and the threshold for hiring is not as low as it used to be. Some basic technical and management positions are filled through campus recruitment.

Only the most junior employees are recruited through social recruitment, and only a very small portion are actually recruited through the job market. The majority are recruited through cooperation with local government labor bureaus.

For those recruited through social recruitment, the room for advancement is actually very limited.

However, HR considers this kind of rhetoric perfectly normal; everyone recruits this way.

At the same time, Beicang Weilai 4S store welcomed its first customers of the day at 10:00 a.m. Today is New Year's Day, the first day of 2010.

On winter mornings, there are usually few people. After more than two months of operation, Nie Ruoxi has begun to grasp the basics of running a 4S store.

"I wonder how many people will come to see the car today. It's a holiday, so there should be quite a few people."

Nie Ruoxi tucked her hair behind her ear and turned to look at Zhang Xupeng in the driver's seat, asking him a question.

"Hehe, how would I know? To be honest, neither Xiaotan nor I have any experience in opening a shop. We've never opened a shop before."

Tan Jincheng will be visiting the 4S store today, and there are also some small events going on for New Year's Day, so Zhang Xupeng accompanied Nie Ruoxi to take a look.

"However, there should be a lot of foot traffic. It's the dead of winter, and people finally get a few days off. Going to the 4S store is not only a good opportunity to look at cars, but also a chance to eat and drink."

Beicang Weilai 4S store provides lunch for all visitors during mealtimes, without any discrimination. This was a requirement set by Tan Jincheng when Weilai was run by himself.

Weilai Auto isn't short of money. After the transfer to Nie Ruoxi, she'll have to take care of it herself. However, she doesn't dare cancel these benefits. After all, neither of them necessarily wants to make money from this job; they're just looking for something to do.

Nie Ruoxi thought about it and realized that neither of them had ever run a shop before, so she changed the subject and said, "I wonder if Qingqing will come today."

The two concert tickets that Chun Ge's manager gave them were a bargain. The two of them flew to Beijing to watch a concert, and they didn't even have time to thank Tan Jincheng. Speaking of which, Nie Ruoxi used to vote for Super Girl when she was in school.

"I'm not sure, but they'll probably come. It's not a formal occasion today, so they'll probably come with Xiao Tan to relax. Maybe their whole family will come too."

As the company's vice president, Zhang Xupeng also participated in the Luzhou inspection tour the week before last.

He knew what Tan Jincheng had been busy with lately. Apart from year-end social engagements, he spent most of his time monitoring the finances of the two listed companies and the final sales figures of Weilai Automobile.

If you say he's busy, he's very busy; if you say he's very free, he's also very free.

Social engagements can be divided among different people, and he can decide for himself how long he needs to be present. As for the paperwork at the company, his secretary can simply deliver it to his home.

So whenever he wanted to find Xiao Tan, he would usually do so at her home, or sometimes even at Ningbo University.

Occasionally, Boss Tan would put aside his work or bring some small jobs to Ningbo University as a companion to his studies. Speaking of which, Tan Jincheng is still studying in that MBA program at Ningbo University. After so many years, he has hardly ever attended any classes. Ningbo University never mentions graduation to him, so he probably forgot about it himself.

Over the years, it's not that no one has suggested that Tan Jincheng get a degree to embellish his identity. A couple of years ago, Tan Jincheng was somewhat tempted, but now he has completely lost interest.

In the internet age, all information is traceable, so obtaining a fake degree is meaningless.

So what if he only graduated from high school? It's perfectly reasonable for him to be a high school graduate when he's in the physical business, right? The future boss of a certain company, who is now the founder of a vertical website for the automotive category, just like Bitauto, also only graduated from high school.

There weren't many customers in the store in the morning. Zhang Xupeng looked around casually. To be honest, he rarely came to this 4S store, and he didn't have much free time to wander around.

The layout is two-story; the first floor displays some Yuechi A1 prototypes, while another corner shows a Yangzi pickup truck prototype. It looks incongruous, and in fact, it truly is incongruous.

As for the second floor, there are three Serenity supercars on display. This is the only 4S store in Weilai with Serenity supercars to showcase its brand. Many people come here specifically to see the supercars.

"There are still too few car models. It would be great if our CEO Tan could produce more car models, or even high-end models. That would make things more comfortable."

After wandering around, Zhang Xupeng returned to Nie Ruoxi's office.

"Haha, then go and mention it to President Tan. I wouldn't dare ask him about this casually. But things are already pretty good now. We sold more than 30 cars last month."

Selling more than one car per day on average is a very good performance among all 4S stores, and the profits are quite considerable.

Some people even wanted to buy Serena's sports cars from their store, but unfortunately, the three display cars were not for sale, and the right to sell Serena's sports cars did not belong to their store.

To put it bluntly, those three sports cars were just lent to them to make a good impression.

As expected, Tan Jincheng arrived with Gu Qingqing around 11 o'clock. By this time, the store was already quite crowded. People in Ningbo tend to have lunch early, and by 11 o'clock, there were already many people having lunch.

Some people were looking at cars, some were strolling around, and some were queuing up to eat. No one noticed that Tan Jincheng and Gu Qingqing had come over.

The visitors who followed Tan Jincheng in were somewhat surprised, because they saw the only Maybach in the Beicang District in the parking area.

Many people who came to the 4S store were there because of today's promotional offers, but no one knew that the president of Weilai Auto would come in person. Nie Ruoxi didn't dare to use Tan Jincheng for publicity, in case he was too busy to come, it would be a disgrace.

"Holy crap, isn't that Boss Tan's car? What's it doing parked here?"

"They said there's an event today, could it be that Boss Tan himself is attending?"

If that's the case, then coming today was totally worth it.

There were a lot of people on the first floor, and Tan Jincheng was afraid of running into Gu Qingqing: "Let's go upstairs to the office first. I saw Lao Zhang's car outside just now."

Gu Qingqing looked around and nodded.

The door to Nie Ruoxi's office was open. As you approached, you could see Zhang Xupeng sitting on the sofa with his legs crossed, fiddling with his phone, while Nie Ruoxi sat in front of her computer, focused on her work.

"Hey, what are you playing, Boss Zhang? You seem quite engrossed in it."

Zhang Xupeng exclaimed in surprise: "Hey, that scared me! Holy crap, I switched to a bomb!"

Before the iPhone 4 came out, the iPhone 3GS was truly amazing, changing many mobile phone usage habits. Tan Jincheng had experienced the superiority of smartphones, so he was mentally prepared.

However, this was the first time Zhang Xupeng and Gu Qingqing had ever used a smartphone, and they really enjoyed playing mobile games in their spare time.

Gu Qingqing would take time every day to play Talking Tom with little Tan Jinyue, while Zhang Xupeng would play a couple of rounds of Fruit Ninja whenever he had free time.

While waiting for Tan Jincheng to arrive, he had nothing to do, so he played a few games.

Tan Jincheng glanced at it and smiled, "Thank you, Mr. Zhang, for your strong support of the games developed by Orange Technology."

This thing may seem childish, but it's just the right size for adults to play with. However, the phone screen is still a bit small. When the iPad comes out, that will be the most enjoyable time to play with it.

It's worth mentioning that the games Tan Jincheng uploaded are selling quite well overseas, especially on iOS, where they consistently rank high on the download charts, providing a significant boost to Orange Technology's game division's transformation.

Orange Technology lacks the capability to develop large-scale games, but these smaller games are relatively easy to create as long as you have an idea.

There's a funny story about mini-games. The e-commerce website founded by Huang, the future richest man in China, aimed to compete with JD.com by selling 3C products. However, after several years of competition, it was no match for JD.com.

If the barely thriving e-commerce business is simply not enough to support the company's operations, then the chosen one is still the chosen one. Even without relying on powerful backers, he can still find a way.

That's right, he makes games. Like Orange Technology, his games are also sold on overseas platforms, except that his games are a bit erotic.

Those who know about color know what I mean. After all, LSP is the world's number one productive force. Although its e-commerce business is not doing very well, this business has made it very successful.

He managed to revive the company that was barely surviving.

"So, how's it going? Have the sales figures for December come out yet?"

Having already switched to the bomb, Zhang Xupeng didn't want to play anymore, so he simply put away his phone and asked about the hottest topic recently.

Honda CR-V is being heavily promoted as having annual sales exceeding 10 units. For an SUV with an average price of around 30 yuan, it's astonishing that annual sales can exceed 10 units.

And I must say, living standards have really improved, and this thing is also incredibly profitable, with sales of tens of billions.

"It's out! They sold 7872 cars in December and 19501 for the whole year. Isn't that amazing?"

(End of this chapter)