Chapter 756 Guidance
Song Yuanchao looked at Guo Tao with some surprise. Firstly, he didn't expect Guo Tao to say these words to him, and secondly, he didn't expect the situation in the factory Guo Tao went to be so serious.
Guo Tao's words made him think of the situation when Lin Yuhang took over the company and when he went to a branch factory. Most of the companies with poor performance are in similar situations: products cannot be sold, the company is burdened with heavy expenses, performance is poor, etc.
"Yuan Chao, you and my wife are old classmates, so we are not strangers. Although we have known each other for a short time, I know you are a capable person." Guo Tao threw the cigarette butt he had smoked a few puffs on the ground, stomped it out with his foot, took out his own cigarette from his pocket and lit another one, sighing: "When you looked at our products just now, I saw that you were not optimistic about our products. But this is normal. To be honest, our products don't have any advantages. There are more similar manufacturers in China than cow hairs, and our factory's manufacturing technology and equipment have not been updated for many years. The sales of our products in this city and surrounding areas are getting worse year by year. As for supply and marketing, haha, you have also met Lao Cui. He is a person... hey..."
Guo Tao shook his head and said, "These problems are all left over. My most important task now is to restore the vitality of the factory, get orders, and sell the products. Only when I have money can I solve the following problems step by step."
"Didn't your superiors provide any support?" Song Yuanchao asked.
"Being able to participate in this trade fair is equivalent to support. As for other supports, hehe..." Guo Tao shook his head.
Song Yuanchao began to understand what Guo Tao meant. It seemed that the so-called connections he mentioned before were with the higher authorities, and this time he had gotten the opportunity to participate in the trade fair through much persuasion.
Guo Tao is a very smart and capable person, especially he has a strong observation ability. When no one else noticed, Guo Tao keenly discovered Song Yuanchao's opinion on his factory's products.
It was precisely because of this that Guo Tao's heart sank. As he said, he was going to the trade fair with all his might this time, hoping to break the deadlock at the fair and thus reverse the difficulties faced by the factory.
If the transaction fails to meet expectations, it will not only make the current situation of the factory worse, but the prestige of Guo Tao, the newly appointed factory director, will be more seriously damaged.
Song Yuanchao didn't want to say anything just now, because they were just strangers, and it was inconvenient for Song Yuanchao to say something to remind Guo Tao. But now Guo Tao has noticed it himself, and he has said such a thing to Song Yuanchao, it would be too unkind for Song Yuanchao to hide it.
After thinking about it, Song Yuanchao told Guo Tao that he was indeed not optimistic about their products, because in terms of product quality, their tools and hardware products could not compete with those of some large companies.
Especially some famous foreign tool and hardware companies, their products are much better than those of Guo Tao's factory.
In fact, there is nothing wrong with Guo Tao's idea of attending this trade fair, because in Europe and the United States, the market for tools and hardware is very large, because many ordinary families in Europe and the United States will have one or several sets of tools and hardware, and the probability of using them in daily life is also very high.
This is because labor costs in developed countries are high. In order to save money, people in developed countries have strong hands-on skills, from small things like repairing a door to big things like setting up a tool room in their home to make some things, etc. From this point of view, Guo Tao's choice is not wrong.
But the problem lies in the quality of the product, which Song Yuanchao has mentioned before. Due to the frequency of use, users in developed countries have higher requirements . In this case, they tend to choose tool products from big brand companies and rarely use small brand products.
For this reason, Guo Tao and his colleagues' products are destined to have no chance of entering the European and American markets unless their factory can implement product upgrades and improve technology to a level similar to that of high-end tool and hardware products.
But now this is simply unrealistic, which not only requires a large amount of capital investment, but also related technical issues. Even if these are solved, there is still the material aspect. Don't underestimate a simple tool hardware product. The materials used in some big brands of tool hardware products are very unusual. These materials cannot be produced in China at present, even the famous Hugang in Shanghai cannot do it.
In his previous life, Song Yuanchao remembered that his unit had a high-end laminator imported from Germany. The principle of this laminator was very simple. It simply used electric heating plates to heat the plastic. In this respect, it was no different from domestic laminators.
However, there is a key problem, that is, when the laminator is pressed down and automatically lifted up, there is a spring steel. This spring steel looks very simple. It is an ordinary steel wire about 8 mm thick. The steel wire has a 90-degree right angle. One end is fixed on the left side of the laminator, and the other end is connected to the laminator cover. When in use, just press it down, and it will automatically bounce up after the laminator is completed.
It doesn't seem to have much technical content when expressed in words, right? But this spring steel is a very critical consumable part , because once there is a problem with this spring steel, the laminating machine will not be able to automatically spring up, which will lead to deviations in the laminating effect after the laminating is completed.
This plastic sealing machine is fully automatic. The temperature control and spring steel control are automatically connected. When the appropriate temperature is reached, the control system of the machine will automatically open the cover box through the spring steel, thereby perfectly completing the plastic sealing work.
After more than a year of use, the spring steel will gradually weaken in strength due to material fatigue and high temperature caused by long-term use. At this time, the spring steel needs to be replaced in time with new spring steel.
Therefore, this spring steel is an essential consumable. According to the manual of the machine, there is a special note on its expiration date. The German supplier also specifically reminded us of this when we purchased it, but the company did not take it seriously when actually purchasing it.
When purchasing, considering the high price of spring steel accessories purchased together with the equipment, in order to save costs, we did not follow the German supplier's advice to purchase a batch of spare spring steel, because in everyone's opinion, it is nothing more than a piece of steel wire. At most, when it is needed to be replaced, can't we just buy one in China? If the diameter is the same, can't it be used?
Unexpectedly, when the original spring steel needed to be replaced a year later, the unit took the disassembled spring steel to Shanghai Steel. The technicians of Shanghai Steel took one look at the spring steel and directly stated that they could not provide similar products.
The purchasing staff was stunned. It was just a spring steel. How could they not provide it? After the people from Shanghai Steel explained it in detail, they finally understood that this spring steel should not be underestimated. This spring steel belongs to the category of special steel. Its material formula and processing technology are very advanced. It cannot be produced at all with the current domestic technology.
This made the purchasing staff anxious. Without this spring steel, the plastic sealing machine would be useless. They immediately asked the people of Shanghai Steel to think of a solution. After thinking for a while, the people of Shanghai Steel gave the purchasing staff a suggestion, which was to temporarily use the best special steel material in China to process it into spring steel as a temporary substitute. However, they also told the purchasing staff that this material was only a temporary substitute and could not be a complete replacement. It could only be used for emergency purposes at most.
Helplessly, the purchasing staff bought domestic spring steel as suggested by the other party. After installing it, they tried it and it really worked. But before the users were happy for a few days, the domestic spring steel stopped working in less than a week. Under repeated fluctuations and high temperatures, the substitute spring steel quickly lost its function and had to be replaced again...
As a result, due to the problem of spring steel, this expensive imported laminator became almost useless. Because of the problems from time to time, the laminator effect dropped sharply and it was impossible to use it properly. Finally, we had no choice but to ask the German supplier for help again. However, at that time, because the accessories were purchased separately instead of with the equipment, the price of the single accessories from Germany was very high. In addition, it took at least more than a month to ship from Germany to domestic customs clearance and installation. Not only did it delay the work, but it also cost several times more than the original cost to finally get it done .
The importance of materials can be seen from this incident. It is very difficult for the products of Guo Tao's factory to reach the same standards as those of large international companies. Even if they change the production process and improve the technology in the future, they can only reach a medium level at best.
Moreover, this situation cannot be solved by Guo Tao's factory because it involves the basic materials and metallurgical capabilities. Even Song Yuanchao cannot solve this problem, let alone Guo Tao.
"Let me give you an idea." Song Yuanchao thought about it under Guo Tao's expectation. After all, he was the lover of his old classmate. In addition, Song Yuanchao had a good impression of Guo Tao. Since things have come to this, he has to help if he can.
"Okay, okay!" Guo Tao was overjoyed and nodded repeatedly, looking at Song Yuanchao with expectation.
"You don't have to consider the markets in European and American countries." Song Yuanchao defined Guo Tao's products as soon as he opened his mouth and gave a brief explanation.
Then Song Yuanchao said: "The only advantage of your factory's products at present is the price. The low price is the only key to impressing customers. In addition, the country has implemented an export tax rebate system since last year. I don't know what the tax rebate ratio is for tool hardware products, but you can find out for yourself. According to the tax rebate ratio, even if your products are exported and sold at cost price, plus the tax rebate, you can still make money, not to mention that you earn foreign exchange."
"Yes, yes, to be honest, I have also considered this." Guo Tao said quickly. He had checked the policies in this regard before coming to the exhibition and made similar plans.
"It's OK as long as you consider this aspect." Song Yuanchao nodded and said, "Then the next step is to choose the merchants. I just said that you don't have to waste time on merchants from developed countries in Europe and America. I suggest that you focus on negotiating with merchants from certain regions, such as merchants from some backward small countries in Africa, Southeast Asia, and South America. These countries have low consumption power and pay more attention to the latter than the quality of the product. As long as the price can impress them, the possibility of purchasing a batch of products is very high."
"Oh, why didn't I think of this?" Guo Tao slapped his forehead and suddenly realized something, and a look of joy immediately appeared on his face.
