The Birth of Shanghai's First Conglomerate

After listening to her father's words, Chen An'an felt like she had grown up a lot, but she would return to her original state in a few days.

She's probably like this at her age!
In the evening, she still decided to take the little girl shopping so that she could learn about the current basic prices.

But she seemed to have forgotten one thing: her family always bought the best things.

They don't even look at the price.

There are many high-end shopping malls in Shanghai, but her favorite is still Global Harbor, a landmark shopping building in Putuo District.

When Chen An'an first arrived here, she met her best classmate, Yang Lele.

Yang Lele is different from Xiao Zi and Xiao Mi; she is the kind of person who studies very diligently.

I spent some time with her before, so I definitely gained some experience.

A superyacht worth over 200 million, a hilltop villa worth 2 billion.

Despite her circumstances, her mother, Zhang Cuicui, often taught her that as long as she studied hard, she would have everything she needed in the future.

Yang Lele clearly believed it.

The three of them were shopping together in a large shopping mall.

……

May Day holiday.

Tengying Group has announced a major deal: after more than a month of negotiations, it has acquired a complete set of vehicle technology from Russia for 78 billion RMB.

Thoroughly and pragmatically develop a complete set of technologies in the foundational sectors of new energy.

When the news reached China, it became another major global automotive acquisition for Geely after its acquisition of Volvo.

Volvo acquired the entire vehicle, while they only acquired the technology that Volvo had accumulated over a century.

Fortunately, the Americans can't control the Russians, otherwise such a massive technology import would definitely be subject to regulation.

To digest these technologies, Chen Pingsheng also announced at the headquarters of Tengfei New Energy that, in addition to Shanghai, Tengfei will also establish research institutes in Wuhan, Xi'an, and Beijing.

Each allocated two billion.

By then, he had almost run out of money.

As of May 2017, Tengfei New Energy had invested a total of 85 billion yuan, far exceeding those of other internet-based car manufacturers.

What's most strange is that they didn't even hold a press conference or release a single concept car.

Reporters who tried to interview Tengfei New Energy were turned away.

This is a huge difference from typical new car manufacturers. You have to understand that newly established brands, whether they need to raise funds or want to quickly gain brand awareness, are different.

All of this requires the contributions of journalists and major media outlets.

Since its establishment, Tengfei has only made the news a few times for its donations to universities.

After that, no further news was released to the public. Even after completing such a large acquisition, Tengfei kept it a secret.

This is completely inconsistent with the company's advertising.

The main reason is that Chen Pingsheng doesn't need financing at all. Secondly, his strategic goal is to first expand overseas and then expand domestically.

To be honest, Chinese people don't have a very good impression of domestic car brands.

The main issue is that compared to overseas brands like Honda, Toyota, and Volkswagen, domestic brands tend to have a lot of minor problems after a few years.

This has led to certain preconceived notions among people.

People often associate domestic brands with low-quality products and low brand value.

This is also the main reason why Chen Pingsheng wanted Tengfei to first gain fame in overseas markets.

He owns a Premier League football club, and once the Premier League season starts, Tengfei New Energy's brand logo will be displayed on it.

After more than a month of negotiations, Leicester City finally signed De Bruyne from Manchester City for a record-breaking transfer fee of 100 million euros.

This season's Premier League features two key players: Mbappe and De Bruyne.

The results should be pretty good.

If Leicester City can develop a world-class player, they'll hit the jackpot.

Football, by its very nature, is a sport that requires a lot of money.

If Leicester City can qualify for the Champions League from the Premier League, then Tengfei New Energy will also benefit greatly.

At the Tengfei headquarters, Chen Pingsheng meticulously planned every step that should be taken next.

New energy vehicle manufacturing is more than just a concept; it's a golden opportunity to leapfrog the competition. Beyond refrigerators, TVs, and large sofas, strict quality control is key.

To put it simply, quality comes not only from proprietary technology but also from the strict management of the entire supply chain.

A car is not made up of a single component; it requires thousands of components to work together.

From a small screw to a large tire support, everything requires extremely strict quality control management.

Chen Pingsheng had experience in this area long ago; any supply chain management is half successful as long as there is no corruption.

It's like a screw. You clearly want to purchase a top-quality 5A screw, but the purchasing agent has been bribed with a million-dollar bonus by someone else.

They immediately switched the rating from 5A to 3A.

Another situation is extreme pressing, which can also easily lead to quality problems.

To put it bluntly, in order to control costs, the component manufacturers in the supply chain only have a very small profit margin.

In order to make money, people have no choice but to sell inferior goods as superior ones.

It's no wonder that the product you assembled has problems.

A certain domestic brand that offers the best value for money has this problem.

Often, the first batch of products is quite good, but subsequent production batches will have more or less problems.

After three days of discussion with Xu Dong, Yan Donghui, and Zhang Qiming, Chen Pingsheng finally finalized his core supply chain management strategy.

First, it is essential to ensure that all large and small supply chain manufacturers on Tengfei New Energy have sufficient profits.

While this will increase the cost of manufacturing cars, the benefits are also immense.

If others don't make a profit, they won't upgrade to better products.

Secondly, if there is no profit, they will try every means to pass off inferior goods as superior ones.

This is very detrimental to the long-term strategy of any brand.

Furthermore, Tengfei New Energy plans to establish its own component supply R&D center.

To help our small and high-quality manufacturers grow together.

This can only be a future goal for now. It would be impossible to do this without a hundred or two hundred billion yuan in funding.

A large supply chain management and product selection team was established, directly overseen by Zhang Qiming, the former vice president of BMW.

All three of them hold 5% of Tengfei New Energy's shares, so you can calculate based on Tengfei New Energy's current net investment.

This share is worth four or five billion. No one would be stupid enough to take such a huge amount of income to gamble on a small bonus.

Moreover, his supply chain management is similar to that of Teng Hui Department Store's purchasing department; he reports corruption, and all the money others embezzle, whether it's a million or several million, ends up in his personal pocket.

If this rule is in place, everyone's eyes will be on the person next to them who wants to embezzle.

Investigating corruption has never been difficult; the key is an absolute system.

To date, Tenghui Department Store has not had any cases of purchasing staff embezzlement in the past year.

In the early days, there were quite a few, most of whom were reported by friends or subordinates and imprisoned.

The reason is simple: the temptation is too great.

You take the money cautiously, while I report it openly and honestly.

They can also get hundreds of thousands or a high-level position from you.

Forget about ordinary colleagues, I'd report even my own brothers.

"Every man for himself"—isn't that an old saying?
The Gigafactory is expected to be completed by August, making supply chain management an urgent priority.

Chen Pingsheng plans to spend six months perfecting the entire product selection team.

He finally understood why so many people who created a PowerPoint presentation and secured billions in loans couldn't actually build a single car.

Without 20 billion yuan in initial funding, it's impossible to build a good car.

Even if it were manufactured, it would only be a contract manufacturing operation.

This is completely inconsistent with his future expectations, until he has fully digested this batch of technology.

It is expected that Tengfei New Energy will be able to conduct offline field tests by this time in 18.

(End of this chapter)