Chapter 752 Chinese Pager
In fact, many aspects of the business world are similar to the political arena. It has always been a situation where you are in me and I am in you.
Especially in economically and financially developed regions, the equity structure of a company is very complex. In addition to the actual controller, there are many other shareholders, including its competitors.
To give the simplest example, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are both very famous in later generations, and even now they are still well-known in the computer industry.
Bill Gates founded Microsoft in 1975. In 1980, through cooperation with IBM, Microsoft's DOS system became the monopoly operating system for PCs, thus starting Microsoft's rise.
In November 1983, Microsoft released the earliest version of the WINDOWS operating system, thus entering the field of graphical operating systems.
On March 13, 1986, just one month ago, Microsoft officially went public. In the next few years, Microsoft's stock will continue to soar from the initial $0.08 , becoming a huge high-tech company, and Bill Gates will become the world's richest man.
As for Jobs, there is no need to mention that Apple was founded slightly later than Microsoft, in 1976, but Apple's development is faster than Microsoft.
Apple officially went public in 1980. Due to the hot sales of Apple computers, Apple became one of the most famous computer companies in the world. The reason why IBM launched the PC computer project and found Microsoft to join forces was to put pressure on Apple and use PC and Apple computers to compete in the personal computer market.
From this point of view, Microsoft and Apple are rivals in two camps, and Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are also competitors.
But this did not affect the personal , and Bill Gates himself continued to hold shares in Apple. For a period of time, his shares even directly influenced Apple's major decisions.
In the future, Jobs was kicked out of Apple and lost control of the company. But who would have thought that it was Microsoft and Bill Gates who supported Jobs in taking back Apple.
From this point we can see that business competitors are often also partners, and there is a mutual dependence between them, rather than a clear distinction between the two.
At its current size, if Shenghua continues to focus on operations without attracting new shareholders and partners, it will inevitably be excluded from the circle and become an outsider in the eyes of others. This is not a good thing for Shenghua, so during this year's Spring Festival, Song Yuanchao was already thinking about this issue while spending the New Year in Hong Kong, and began to work on the listing.
But even if it was listed, Song Yuanchao had no plans to list Shenghua as a whole.
Shenghua’s current core businesses fall into two categories. One is the traditional textile and clothing industry, which is the foundation of Shenghua’s business.
The other category is Shenghua Telecom, which is the focus of Shenghua's future development and is also what Song Yuanchao pays particular attention to and values.
In addition to these two categories, there are also real estate businesses and other businesses, such as Shenghua’s equity in Sit, logistics and warehousing in the Mainland, etc.
After careful consideration, Song Yuanchao decided to split and reorganize Shenghua, reset the group's business, and then spin off the original textile and clothing businesses for separate listing.
The benefits of doing so are obvious. On the one hand, Song Yuanchao is ready to gradually remove the textile and clothing business from Shenghua's main business, and slowly reduce his shareholding ratio through listing, and choose to directly transfer (sell) it at the appropriate stage, so as to achieve the purpose of transforming operations and getting rid of burdens.
The second aspect is to attract new shareholders and partners through this listing, thereby resolving the current pressure on Shenghua from all parties, enabling Shenghua to better integrate into the Hong Kong business community and expand Shenghua's network channels.
Song Yuanchao has a long-term vision. He knows very well how long this part of the business will last. Although Shenghua's business is still in the rising stage and brings considerable profits and benefits, as time goes by, by the mid-1990s, the textile and clothing industry will gradually decline. By then, it will be difficult for Shenghua to divest and transform. It is better to take advantage of this opportunity to make arrangements in advance.
Originally, Song Yuanchao planned to discuss this matter with Qin Zhengguo, Li Daqi and others after the spring trade fair was over, but since Qin Zhengguo asked about it today, Song Yuanchao roughly told him his thoughts.
After listening to Song Yuanchao's words, Qin Zhengguo thought for a moment and nodded, "This is good. Although it is not a full listing, it can solve some problems. Besides, I don't think it is necessary to get involved in Shenghua Telecom's business. The profit of this business has far exceeded the original textile and clothing industry. It is appropriate to directly spin it off."
"I have no objection. Just do whatever you want with this matter." Li Daqi said with a smile, and then asked, "By the way, Yuanchao, if it is spun off and listed, should it be under the name of Shenghua? Or should it just adopt a new name?"
"It doesn't matter. What do you think? There are advantages to using Shenghua's name, and there are also advantages to not using it."
"Let me think about it. This is a big deal and I need to consider it carefully." Li Daqi replied.
"There's one more thing I forgot to mention." Qin Zhengguo suddenly said, "George asked me to tell you that the pager project you requested has been completed."
Song Yuanchao was stunned for a moment, then he was overjoyed.
The pager project was another project of Shenghua Telecom besides the programmable switching system project. At the beginning of the establishment of the American company, Song Yuanchao asked George's team to solve the problems of the pager project as soon as possible.
Pagers were not a problem for George's team, because the technology of pagers was already quite mature abroad. You should know that Bell Labs in the United States successfully developed the world's first pager as early as 1948. Later, Motorola came from behind and launched a practical pager, thus becoming the leader in this industry.
After decades of development, this technology has become very mature and is no longer considered advanced technology in itself.
Moreover, George was originally a technician from Motorola and was familiar with this technology. In addition, Song Yuanchao had authorized George to purchase the technical patents of the pager directly from Motorola at an appropriate price. George used his connections to spend some money to get these patents. In addition, he carried out targeted research and development based on Song Yuanchao's other requirements for existing technologies and quickly completed the task.
"Has the Chinese display problem been solved?" Song Yuanchao asked.
"It's solved. Thanks to George for recruiting several outstanding talents from Texas Instruments. Otherwise, the progress wouldn't have been so fast."
"Great!" Song Yuanchao said excitedly, "Please communicate with George about this as soon as possible. By the way, please make arrangements with Daqi Pengcheng Electronics to carry out experimental production and cost accounting as soon as possible. Notify me as soon as there is any result."
The technology is completed, and the next step is actual production.
Actual production also involves the cost of the product, among which the supply of parts is an important factor.
At present, Song Yuanchao is not clear about the localization ratio of this product, and what the cost would be if some parts were imported.
But no matter what, this is a technological breakthrough, especially the Chinese pager, which was not invented until 1991 by the domestic Inspur Company, and became popular in a very short time.
Pagers have been around for a long time, but they have always displayed Arabic numerals and English. Even in Hong Kong, there are still a large number of pagers that do not even have a complete display function. The only way to know the message information is to call the paging station after receiving the reminder.
However, it is not technically difficult to convert digital and English displays into Chinese displays. It is just that foreign pager manufacturers, such as Motorola, do not pay attention to this. This is probably their arrogance. In their view, there is no need to develop Chinese displays. It is enough for digital and English displays to be fully usable.
But later, with the emergence of Chinese display pagers, these manufacturers had to bow their heads in the face of the market's profit trend, and successively developed the Chinese display function of pagers, thus regaining market share once again.
From this we can see how great the market potential of display functions, especially Chinese display pagers, is. Once this product can be directly put into production and sold, the benefits it brings to Shenghua will be no less than the current programmable switching system project.
The first paging station in China has been established, but it has not developed very fast in recent years. However, Song Yuanchao is very clear that with the development of economy and the rapid development of China, the market of paging machines will soon become popular. For this project, Shenghua acquired a paging station in Hong Kong more than a year ago as preparation, and now the time has come.
Last year, the famous 126 paging station was born, which also marked the opening of the domestic pager market.
However, current pagers are very expensive, and their pure digital and character display makes them inconvenient to use.
Song Yuanchao has been eyeing this business for a long time. If the actual production goes smoothly, the domestic pager business will be launched soon. Moreover, Shenghua has a natural advantage over ordinary pager suppliers. This advantage is the basis of Shenghua's current cooperation with the post office (telecommunications). On this basis, it is not difficult to promote pagers.
Thinking of this, Song Yuanchao told Li Daqi to communicate with the current mainland cooperative companies about the pager business in advance and determine the cooperation mode and profit distribution as soon as possible. Shenghua Electronics will also divide its business in the future, temporarily into two parts: program-controlled switches and pagers, and will also set up new factories and assembly lines to prepare for the upcoming feast.
