Our Glamorous Time

Chapter 19: Every Cloud has a Silver Lining

"I have a plan," Li Zhicheng said gradually, "I'll outflank SMQ."

Lin Qian was a bit confused. The first thing that came to her mind was Li Zhicheng's lack of experience. Was "outflank SMQ" what she understood it to be?

What it meant to outflank a competitor, was to blaze a trail to besiege the rival.

Burger King's "grilled but not fried" strategy to challenge Mcdonald's and KFC was a foreign example. Domestically, Shunfeng Express's insistence on air transport made it to the top of the industry after being in the market for only a short while.

In the former instance, it was impossible for McDonald's or KFC to substitute their fried chicken on a global scope; and in the latter one, other express delivery companies couldn't just give up their original land transportation and change the whole internal logistics process just to buy new planes.

The trick to success in outflanking was not to introduce brand-new products that had never been seen in the market, but to make the products competitive in an original way and to make the existing market leader incapable of emulating them.

Outflanking was much more difficult than it seemed.

Lin Qian stared at Li Zhicheng after hearing this. Aida was struggling to merely survive now. How could it possibly outflank SMQ?

Li Zhicheng just looked at her, calmly and steadily.

Lin Qian looked at the documents he had just brought. She was astounded after reading only a few lines.

Li Zhicheng dared to...

...

Chen Zheng was very complacent these days.

The Ming Sheng project was not going to be highly profitable. But from his perspective, this movement succeeded in both challenging New Bori and suppressing Aida.

One must think in the long term if he wanted to be the lead in such a meager-profit industry.

When his subordinates brought up some doubts about the Ming Sheng project, he immediately dismissed them.

"Mr. Chen, we promised Ming Sheng Group in our bidding document that our supply price won't be 30 yuan more expensive than that of the similar products on the market. And in the past, we have always provided an 11-percent discount on our luxurious bags. Should we do that this year? Will Ming Sheng ask us to further lower our price if they know?"

Chen Zheng sneered upon hearing this. "Do you really think a huge group like Ming Sheng will care about our price? Don't worry about it. We'll continue this year."

The subordinate nodded his head and said, "And by the way, our supply cycle is three months, which means in the coming few months, we will be in a shortage of high-end bags."

Chen Zheng thought for a moment and said, "As long as we can pull through these months then everything will be fine. Don't lose a great deal by trying to save a little. Our focus should be the Ming Sheng project now."

After the subordinate left, Chen Zheng sat in his chair, swirled around, looked at the scenery outside and started to contemplate.

Indeed, he wasn't worried about the issues brought up just now. For domestic manufacturers, sales of high-end bags only made up a small portion; it was borderline meaningless, though it was not bad enough to be given up. However, it was also like an appealing yet poisonous fruit, an unattainable Arcadia. There was no way one could possibly compete with those foreign luxury brands. Aida had tried that before, and look where it had gotten them now?