Chapter 167: Kimura Eiji's Collapse
March and April of each year are financial settlement months for most Japanese companies, including Shirakawa Electric.
However, since the company had been investing in increasing production last year, it made almost no real profit and even had to borrow money from the bank.
So apart from some necessary taxes, Shirakawa Electric does not have too much tax burden.
But in addition to financial settlement, March and April are also graduation season. Now Baichuan Feng has been promoted to a junior student.
Speaking of his current name, he was definitely well-known during the Meiji period.
Some people may not have heard of Takeshi Kitano or Tatsuro Yamashita, but they have definitely heard of the name Shirakawa Kaede.
The copyright infringement incident that made headlines in the newspapers some time ago, and the embarrassing appearance of Shirakawa Kaede on the news program.
His name quickly spread throughout the campus, after all, it was far from the entertainment industry.
Things happening around us seem more real, and more importantly, Baichuan Feng is still reading!
How could a student quietly become the president of a company?
Moreover, he started his own business independently, not inheriting a family business, or it was just a gimmick of a shell company.
Even many students on campus are using the Walkman produced by Shirakawa Electric, after all, it is much cheaper and more affordable.
Many students looked at the Walkman in their hands and felt that it was a little unreal.
The founder of Shirakawa Electric, who is already quite famous, is in the same school as me? And maybe he is taking classes in the building next to me now?
As a result, many students could not wait and started to inquire about the location and time of the Business Administration class, just to see the legendary president.
Then one day, a business administration student who was always lazy came to school for classes and was almost treated like a giant panda.
With the help of the school staff, they finally left the scene. When things calmed down, Baichuan Feng had a thick stack of envelopes in his arms.
Looking at the various kawaii covers and fonts, you don’t have to guess what the content is.
After meeting him in person and satisfying their curiosity, everyone's enthusiasm for this legendary Meiji student decreased slightly.
For Shirakawa Feng, although he was treated as a rare animal and watched by people, this also brought him or Shirakawa Electric another benefit.
During today's graduation season, there are obviously more students choosing to intern at Shirakawa Electric.
Especially in the clerical management category, Shirakawa Electric's talent pool was filled instantly.
Moreover, since Tokyo Institute of Technology is in the honeymoon period of cooperation with each other, Shirakawa Kaede also recruited some science and engineering talents.
Although these students have just graduated and have relatively little experience, as long as they train for a few years, they will become the backbone of Shirakawa Electric.
The reason why Shirakawa Electric's recruitment was so successful this year is closely related to its gradually emerging reputation.
Sure enough, after the company became a little famous, it became much easier to recruit talents.
Of course, the premise is that the reputation is positive, rather than a reputation for plagiarism.
It is said that Senior Brother Nakajima is currently having a headache over Aihua's annual recruitment of new students.
Tsk, the old employees resigned and new employees didn’t come, it’s really a bit difficult to deal with.
Baichuan Feng smacked his lips, took a sip of coffee leisurely, and began to look down at the latest financial report of Baichuan Electric.
Since January this year, sales of Walkman have been increasing steadily.
Basically, Shirakawa Electric's monthly shipments can be maintained at more than 100,000 units, and its monthly net profit alone is as much as 800 million to 900 million yen.
The main reason why such rapid growth can be maintained is the market gap and further exploration.
However, the lack of other competitors is another necessary factor.
Sony currently accounts for 60% of the portable player market, and the rest is basically taken by Shirakawa Electric.
Such a large market share is shared by only two companies, which is almost equivalent to a semi-monopoly.
What’s more important is that this piece of cake is still getting bigger, and the profits are increasing.
Baichuan Feng can only say one thing: It smells good! It smells really good!
In commercial competition, patent moat is indeed a means of dimensionality reduction attack.
Unfortunately, this method has a limited period of use. Baichuan Feng can already imagine what a chaotic situation the portable player market will be like next year.
But these are all later stories. For now, let’s just lie down and make money.
Bai Chuanfeng glanced at the financial report in his hand and made a secret estimate.
The funds that Shirakawa Electric can mobilize on its books now have reached tens of billions.
Of course, this does not mean that all this money belongs to him. There is also the balance for raw materials and various costs that have not been deducted.
However, most of them are liquid funds, which Shirakawa Electric can use directly.
Now that he had money, Baichuan Feng started thinking about spending it again.
Perhaps the new factory site and Shirakawa Electric's headquarters can be considered.
When it comes to land assets, Baichuan Feng's idea is very simple: take action as soon as possible and never delay.
With every year that passes, the total price increases by a little more than 10%.
If it is a large-scale land transaction, the difference between the inflow and outflow can be more than 10 billion.
So don’t hesitate, once you have money, buy these two properties that are in great demand.
"President"
Just when Baichuan Feng was thinking about spending money, Assistant Kosatsu suddenly knocked on the door and interrupted his thoughts.
"Hmm?" Baichuan Feng raised his head.
"That Kimura-san is here again..."
Swish, before Assistant Xiaosong could finish his words, a figure rushed in.
Before Baichuan Feng could react, the figure had already arrived in front of the desk.
There was a muffled "thump" sound. "Shirakawa-san, please save Kimura Manufacturing."
After saying this, Eiji Kimura lowered his upper body and touched the ground with his forehead, waiting for his decision without saying a word.
Shirakawa Feng glanced towards the door and signaled the stunned Assistant Komatsu to step back first.
Only after the office door was closed did Baichuan Feng stand up from behind his desk.
Looking at Mr. Kimura, who is almost sixty years old, kneeling upright in front of him and performing the ceremony of kneeling down from the ground.
Baichuan Feng's heart was also touched, but it only lasted for a moment, and he hardened his heart again.
"Kimura-san, why are you doing this?"
Kimura Eiji raised his head tremblingly, "Shirakawa-san, Kimura Production is finished!"
After saying this, Eiji Kimura actually knelt on the ground and burst into tears.
At this moment, he was no longer the shrewd and dignified man that Baichuan Feng had seen when he first met him.
Not only did his hair become thinner, but most of it had turned white. The rosy glow disappeared, and wrinkles appeared everywhere.
The light in his eyes had faded, and now they were filled with turbid tears. His hoarse voice was like the cry of an old crow, which was unpleasant to the ears.
Seeing his tearful appearance, Baichuan Feng sighed deeply.
After all, I still felt a little soft-hearted, so I wanted to reach out and help him up.
However, Kimura Eiji knelt on the ground and refused to get up. "Shirakawa-san, please save Kimura Production. Please."
After saying this, Eiji Kimura bowed his head again.
It’s no wonder that Eiji Kimura was so desperate at this time, because his Kimura Manufacturing has also become famous now.
Just two weeks ago, the outside world thought that the storm was officially over because Aiwa, Shirakawa Electric and Sony issued announcements at the same time.
A "decryption" article in "Weekly Bunshun" has completely put Kimura Manufacturing and Oda Manufacturing in the spotlight.
The article describes in detail the entire process of how Aihua obtained the circuit design drawings of Shirakawa Electric.
The narrative perspective is so leisurely that it seems as if the author is personally present at the scene.
It is said that this is accurate information from insiders of Aiwa, with 100% authenticity.
Through this article, people learned how Shirakawa Electric lost its technical drawings and how Aiwa plagiarized them.
The whole story is full of ups and downs and is much more interesting than those conventional reports in newspapers.
There is no doubt that Oda Production and Kimura Production definitely helped a lot in the whole incident.
As a result, Kimura Manufacturing, whose reputation had already been tarnished by the newspaper, completely collapsed in terms of credibility.
If you can’t even protect your clients’ top-secret technical information, who would dare to hire you for OEM?
Less than a day after Weekly Bunshun was published, all orders for Kimura's productions were cancelled.
Not only were orders cancelled, but calls of complaints came in one after another.
The moment he saw the magazine report, Eiji Kimura knew that Kimura Productions was finished.
If you have not experienced it personally, you will never understand such detailed inside information so clearly.
Even he himself only found out what had happened at Oda Manufacturing after reading the content of the article.
Without mentioning the curses he was shouting at Jun Oda in his heart, Eiji Kimura was still struggling desperately.
I called all previous clients one by one to explain the situation, but without exception, they all rejected me.
In just two days, Kimura Manufacturing was completely deserted. The workers in the workshop had nothing to do all day, and even cleaned the shop several times.
A week later, the situation was still worsening, and Eiji Kimura knew that if he didn't find a solution, Kimura Manufacturing would not be able to last much longer.
Moreover, after this incident, the company's name will definitely be well-known in the industry circle, and no customers will place orders with it anymore.
So who can solve the current predicament of Kimura Manufacturing?
Eiji Kimura bowed deeply to the young man in front of him again.
"Mr. Shirakawa, as long as it can save Kimura Manufacturing, I will consider any conditions."
Any conditions? Shirakawa Feng was stunned. It seemed that the situation of Kimura Manufacturing was worse than he had imagined.
"Mr. Kimura, please get up first." The attitude that needs to be expressed has already been expressed, and there is no need to keep doing it.
Eiji Kimura still refused to give up because he didn't get any guarantee from Shirakawa Kaede.
"Even if we want to talk about something, we can't do it here."
Baichuan Feng glanced at the slippery floor under his feet, indicating that this was not a good place to discuss things.
When Eiji Kimura heard Shirakawa Kaede talking about something, he became excited. Is there a way?
So he stopped pretending, stood up quickly and walked to the sofa, bowed, and sat opposite Baichuan Feng.
"Shirakawa-san, as long as we can save Kimura Production, all conditions are negotiable."
Before Shirakawa Kaede could speak, Kimura Eiji had already gritted his teeth and expressed his attitude.
Because Kimura Manufacturing has really reached a point of desperation, the OEM industry is different from the mass consumer end.
It deals with relevant physical companies in the industry, and if a technical data leak occurs, it will almost certainly be blacklisted.
If that happens, no company will ask you to do processing for them anymore, as technical data is the lifeblood of an enterprise.
Especially core technology, once it leaks out, it will be almost a fatal blow to the company.
After all, it’s not possible to copy the logo every time you borrow it.
Therefore, the moment the name of Kimura Production was revealed, its fate was almost sealed.
"Mr. Kimura, have you really considered what conditions you are willing to accept?" Shirakawa Kaede looked at Kimura Eiji with burning eyes.
