Chapter 1022: No Tolerance
"Old Zheng!" Pushing open the door of the private room, I saw Zheng Guoyuan sitting inside with a pot of tea in front of him and a half-smoked cigarette in his hand.
Zheng Guoyuan seemed to be thinking about something. He didn't react when Song Chaoyuan came in. He only came to his senses when Song Chaoyuan called him.
"Oh, you're here." He stood up and invited Song Yuanchao to sit down. Song Yuanchao waved his hand and told him not to be so polite. He and Zheng Guoyuan were not only superiors and subordinates, but also old colleagues and friends. In addition, with the relationship between Li Daqi and Zheng Li, he was not an outsider either.
"How long has it been? Why didn't you call me? I was so busy that I almost forgot the time." Sitting next to Zheng Guoyuan, Song Chaoyuan asked with a smile.
"Why are you calling when we've already agreed on this? Besides, no matter how busy you are, you still have to eat. You'll remember to eat when you're hungry, right?" Xiaoxiao picked up the teapot in front of her and poured a cup of tea for Song Chaoyuan, then said, "I've ordered the dishes. Can someone serve them right away?"
"OK!"
Zheng Guoyuan pressed the bell at the table, and a waiter brought the food a moment later.
The meals they ate were not delicacies from land and sea. To be honest, people of their level no longer cared about the luxurious meals that ordinary people considered. Except for the necessary external banquets and business activities, both Song Chaoyuan and Zheng Guoyuan ate very simply, and every meal was nothing more than ordinary home-cooked meals.
Just like today, although Zheng Guoyuan invited Song Chaoyuan to dinner, the food served was just three dishes and one soup, a stir-fried vegetable, a steamed fish, a shredded pork with fish flavor, and then a loofah and egg soup, and then two bowls of rice. Apart from the fact that the dishes were fresh and the chef's cooking skills were good, there was nothing special about these dishes.
When the food came, the two of them didn't talk about anything else. They just filled their stomachs first.
Holding the bowls and chopsticks, they started eating. They all ate quickly. After a while, they finished all three dishes, one soup and rice. After they finished eating, Song Chaoyuan touched his comfortable belly, shook his head and sighed, "Today's fish-flavored pork shreds are good. I accidentally ate too much rice. I might get fat again tomorrow..."
"If you get fat, then so be it. You're almost fifty, are you still afraid of getting fat? Look at me, my belly has grown in the past few years to be almost as big as when my wife was four months pregnant with our first son. When you get older, many things are out of control. If you don't get fat at your age, what's the problem? You want to be a young man like you were when you were young, even though you might have grandchildren in a few years?"
Zheng Guoyuan touched his protruding belly and smiled, but even so, his eyes were still envious of Song Chaoyuan's good figure. Compared with more than ten years ago, Song Chaoyuan was indeed a little fatter, but this fat was not noticeable, and because of his age, Song Chaoyuan now looked more elegant, unlike him who had been out of shape for a long time, not only his belly was bulging, but also his face was round.
As he spoke, he picked up the teapot and poured a cup of tea for Song Chaoyuan. He pointed at the tea and said that drinking tea can help lose fat. Then he took out a cigarette and gave it to Song Chaoyuan, and lit one for himself.
"What do you want from me?" Song Chaoyuan asked after lighting a cigarette and taking a sip of tea.
"Haha, why do you ask that right away?" Zheng Guoyuan asked back.
Song Chaoyuan rolled his eyes at him and said, "Don't I know you? You came to Shanghai so early in the morning and prepared a table of food for me. If you have nothing to do, why would you look for me like this? Okay, just say it if you have something to say. I have an internal meeting this afternoon."
Zheng Guoyuan smiled. He knew that he couldn't hide it from Song Chaoyuan. They had known each other for so many years and knew each other too well. Besides, he had come to Shanghai today specifically to discuss something with him.
"Take a look at this first, and we'll talk after you finish reading it." Zheng Guoyuan reached out and picked up a briefcase from the chair on the left. After opening it, he took out a document and handed it to Song Chaoyuan.
Song Chaoyuan took it and started flipping through it while smoking. After reading it for a few times, he was slightly stunned and looked up at Zheng Guoyuan.
Zheng Guoyuan nodded and said nothing, motioning Song Chaoyuan to continue reading. Song Chaoyuan's face showed a bit of solemnity, and the smile just now disappeared. He put the cigarette in the ashtray beside him and continued to read attentively.
Song Chaoyuan spent more than half an hour reading this document, reading it twice. After finishing reading it once more, he put the document down, lit a cigarette and took a long puff.
"When was this discovered?"
"The first feedback came from after-sales service last month. At first, we thought it was a production problem. After investigation, we ruled out the production link. Then we traced back step by step, and finally found this result after checking the raw materials through quality control." Zheng Guoyuan said with a serious expression.
"Didn't the quality control department inspect the incoming raw materials according to the procedures?"
"I have checked the quality control, and the normal inspection reports are all there, and all the information is complete."
Song Chaoyuan was silent for a while. He had completely understood what Zheng Guoyuan said. His face suddenly became gloomy and ugly.
This is no small matter. Fortunately, Zheng Guoyuan discovered it early. Although generally speaking, it has little impact on product standards, in fact, as fast-moving consumer goods, especially food and beverage products, differences in raw materials will lead to changes in taste, thereby causing a decline in product reputation.
Site and Nandu have been insisting on product quality over the years. The products of the two companies have gained an excellent reputation through long-term persistence. Why did Nandu fail in the past? Song Chaoyuan knew very well that in addition to Nandu's management problems, the arbitrariness of product production and the so-called cost compression led to changes in raw materials and formulas, which made Nandu's products taste worse than before, resulting in a large number of consumers leaving.
After Song Chaoyuan took over Nando, he started working on this aspect, re- strengthening the raw material procurement and production process links, and completely abolished the previous cost-only management model, thus rebuilding the reputation of Nando products.
It is precisely because of this that Nandu’s products have once again gained recognition from consumers in this way. Coupled with Nandu’s subsequent successful research and development and promotion of new products, Nandu has come back to life again.
Quality is the life of an enterprise. This statement is indeed true for Song Chaoyuan. This is what he did when he took over the first branch factory. It is also for this reason that Song Chaoyuan established a quality control system in the first branch factory at the earliest, so as to control it from the source.
But I didn't expect that in just over a decade, such serious problems would arise in the procurement of raw materials for Si Te and Nandu, and I didn't even know about this problem until Zheng Guoyuan told me today.
This is a big deal for a company. Once a company's reputation goes wrong, the company's future is gone. To give a simple example, there is a well-known company in the fast-moving consumer goods industry called "Laoganma". This private company started from scratch and achieved unimaginable success for a private company by relying on its product reputation.
At its most glorious moment, it was well-known not only in China but also abroad. However, when the founder retired due to age and his son took over the company, the entire enterprise quickly went from glory to decline.
In just two years, the new business managers calculated costs in pursuit of greater profits. In order to save costs, they directly changed the formula, replacing the original special raw materials with lower-priced raw materials, which made the product taste much worse than before.
In the short term, the company's profits did increase a lot, and it seemed to be successful. But consumers are not stupid, and they know whether the product is good or not. As time goes by, consumers' awareness of the product begins to weaken, and even leads to a deterioration of word of mouth.
Soon, the market, which was originally in short supply, became oversupplied, actual sales volume plummeted, product reputation declined, and corporate profits decreased...
In the end, the original founder had no choice but to come back to the business world and once again take over the company in an attempt to save the situation, but it was too late. Although he had spent countless efforts and invested more money, the consequences could no longer be restored to the way they were before.
Although the current situation is somewhat different from that of this company, because Song Chaoyuan and Zheng Guoyuan are both sensible people, they will not do anything to drain the pond to catch fish. This time the situation is completely an internal problem of the company, or it can be said that some people in the company use this method to make profits for themselves, and thus do small tricks without the headquarters knowing.
"How many people are involved in this matter?" Song Chaoyuan asked with a dark face.
Zheng Guoyuan mentioned a few names and departments. Song Chaoyuan asked if there were any more. Zheng Guoyuan shook his head and said, "That's basically it. Fortunately, we found it early."
Song Chaoyuan was slightly relieved. Fortunately, the problem was not too big and the impact was not much. However, the essence of the matter made Song Chaoyuan extremely angry.
"Old Zheng, what are you going to do?" After thinking for a while, Song Chaoyuan asked directly.
"According to company regulations, situations like this must be dealt with strictly, and they must return all the benefits they have taken! In addition, dismissal or even expulsion is necessary!" Zheng Guoyuan said in a stern tone.
"That's too soft, that's not enough!" Song Chaoyuan shook his head. He said seriously, "Let the Ministry of Justice step in and call the police to get the judiciary involved. Their actions have violated the law. Since they have done this, they must bear the most serious consequences!"
"Yuan Chao, isn't this too harsh? If you do this, you will go to jail! After all, some of them are old employees of the company and have made contributions to the company over the years. I think it is enough to make them spit out everything they have eaten and then fire them." Zheng Guoyuan hesitated.
Song Chaoyuan said firmly, "The bridge is the bridge and the road is the road. This kind of thing must be dealt with strictly and there can be no leniency! Old Zheng, everyone is watching. If you raise it high and let it go gently, can you guarantee that similar things will not happen again in the future? People have a fluke mentality. You should understand the principle of killing a chicken to scare the monkey. I don't need to explain this. Moreover, the impact caused by this incident still needs to be solved by the company later. How can we let them go so easily?"
"That's right! Stop using the raw materials in the warehouse immediately, and seal up the unused materials! Suppliers who collude must also be severely punished. The company will stop these suppliers from supplying goods, and all unsettled accounts payable will be deducted. If they have any objections, just let the legal department communicate with them."
Song Chaoyuan's move was ruthless. The supplier qualifications of Si Te and Nandu were very important. Now Si Te and Nandu are both well-known fast-moving consumer goods companies in China, and they use huge amounts of various raw materials every day.
Except for a part that is imported, that is, raw materials provided by Yingjia from abroad, which are then imported by Luoyang's trading company and supplied through Shenghua channels, the rest is provided by domestic suppliers.
These raw material suppliers are big and small, and the raw materials they supply are also different, but one thing is real, that is, once you get the qualification of being a raw material supplier for Si Te and Nandu, you can live a very comfortable life with the support of these two companies.
Shenghua is quite good to suppliers. In addition to the large demand and reasonable purchase price, the payment cycle to suppliers is also very timely, which is very beneficial to ordinary suppliers. But now Song Chaoyuan is clearly planning to take ruthless actions, not only to throw all the people involved in the incident into prison, but also to punish these suppliers who colluded with each other.
Once the cooperation with suppliers is terminated, these suppliers will lose their largest customer. In addition, Shenghua will directly deduct the payables without settlement, so the other party's losses will be even greater. It is possible that the supplier's capital chain will be broken and it may go bankrupt because of this reason.
As for asking the Ministry of Justice to intervene, Zheng Guoyuan knew what was going on. Song Chaoyuan meant that he was not afraid of a lawsuit, even if it lasted for several years. In short, he either did not take action, or once he did, he would teach the other party a severe lesson, so that the industry could see his determination and means.
