Back to the prime of life

Chapter 189 Department
Lu Changge gave a long speech, and in the end, Wang Hongcheng agreed to everything.

This may seem like simply agreeing with one of his points, but it's actually quite difficult.

Because traditional or normal real estate doesn't operate by simply building projects steadily. Instead, it uses quasi-financial methods to continuously acquire land, mortgage it, and then pre-sell it at an extremely fast pace, continuing to acquire more land.

The faster the funds circulate within the company, the faster it can grow.

Moreover, since everyone plays this game, if you don't follow suit, you'll find that good locations are constantly being taken by your competitors, and because land prices are constantly rising, the later you acquire a property, the higher the cost you'll pay.

In conclusion, the subsequent state of the real estate market was not solely a matter of people; rather, it was the circumstances that forced people to act in that way.

Of course, some people choose the path that Lu Changge is currently taking, but the consequence is that the scale is not large and the market space is limited to a few cities or regions.

Wang Hongcheng works in this industry, and he understands this very well. That's why he said it wasn't easy for him to agree, at least for now he could resist the urge to make money.

For Lu Changge, it was a special feeling of participating in the urbanization process of Jiangzhou.

She was also thinking that since she was going to start doing this with Wang Hongcheng, she should take a closer look at Jiangzhou City at this time, so that she would have a clearer understanding of the different areas and plots of land. After all, there are differences between different subway-adjacent properties.

In the following two weeks, news of changes at Hailan Bay spread like wildfire.

Many people called him to ask why.

When speaking to Xu Weiguo, he said that he would focus more on making Lumang a success in the future. When speaking to friends who love swimming, he said that the buyers are more financially capable and that Hailan Bay will develop even better in the future.

Only when faced with Yin Anyan's suspicious chatter at home did he reveal the truth.

"...The ancients said that when one is poor, one should cultivate one's own virtue; when one is successful, one should benefit all under heaven. I wanted to do something that wouldn't harm others, but my abilities were limited, so I could only find a workaround in this way."

Yin Anyan didn't quite understand, "Why are you so concerned about this?"

Lu Changge pondered for a moment. He had thought about why, but couldn't figure it out. Since that was the case, he decided not to think about the reasons anymore. He would just do what he wanted to do, since it wasn't a crime like murder or arson.

Chen Xiaohe didn't understand this at all, because she thought Hailan Bay was a good place.

Lu Changge had already explained too much and didn't want to continue. He simply said, "I come from a relatively poor, ordinary family. Suddenly having money made me love buying houses. If I could become a businessman who builds houses, I would feel even better."

Chen Xiaohe didn't understand, but she didn't think it was fake.

Most of the remaining people in Lumangli didn't care much about this, and some even thought that Lao Lu had made a fortune again and wanted him to treat them to a meal.

Little did they know that Lu Changge hadn't received a single penny, let alone a meal.

With the Spring Festival over, sales seem to have entered a sluggish phase after the initial excitement, with daily sales hovering between 6000 and 8000 orders.

If you can't do your job well, what's there to celebrate?

Fortunately, Lu Changge wasn't under too much pressure. After discussing it with Chen Xiaohe, they decided to take advantage of this month to properly improve the internal structure.

He takes this very seriously, recalling the lesson of Vancl's overexpansion and eventual failure.

One reason is that there are too many SKUs.

At peak times, there are hundreds of thousands of SKUs. What system can handle such complex transactions? Are you trying to turn a small workshop into a ticketing system like 12306?

In addition, Chen Xiaohe started promoting sales performance evaluation and other things before the Lunar New Year.

Lu Changge then took this opportunity to hold a meeting, where he made three requests to everyone in an internal meeting, requests that had been carefully considered.

“I’ve heard a voice, a voice from the outside world that doesn’t understand us, that thinks we’re just simply taking offline clothes and selling them online. We even think that way when we’re joking or being modest.”

However, I want to make this clear at today's meeting: Lumang is not just a clothing sales platform; we need to have the mindset and awareness of a technology company. You've all felt the challenges of online sales lately, haven't you?

Can we honestly say we've perfected any aspect of order cancellations, complaints, payments, or logistics? I think almost every step has problems. That's why we're hiring and establishing a technical department. We want to build a system and use computers for scientific management. I don't even know how to do it, let alone how to write the code, but I feel we have to achieve this. That's the overall goal.

Secondly, although I have emphasized the importance of sales volume and sales revenue within the company, it does not mean that they are the only indicators. Now that we have gained a reputation, more and more factories are trying to get their products to us through various channels. In the past, we talked about controlling quality, but now I think we are about to enter a state of disorder.

So we came up with a solution: to strictly control the size of the SKUs. I am very certain that it is impossible to achieve sales growth through unlimited growth of SKUs.

However, the company's expansion into new product categories is a predetermined goal. In other words, there needs to be an exit mechanism for SKUs. For some SKUs with poor sales, I have authorized General Manager Chen to cut them if necessary.

These two goals made everyone tense.

The first is the technical department, and the second is the sales department.

The boss said no step is perfect, which was actually a criticism of the technical department for not doing a good job. For sales, if their SKUs are cut, it means poor performance. Everyone looked at Chen Xiaohe and found her expressionless. Some people guessed that such precise pressure was definitely not the idea of ​​Boss Lu; he wasn't good at that. It was clearly the idea of ​​Boss Chen, who had been in management for a long time.

However, in reality, Mr. Chen was the one who took the blame.

All of these were Lu Changge's ideas!
As a seasoned manager, he understands this best. What is efficient management? Ultimately, it's about getting your subordinates to work efficiently and do a good job. At its peak, it's about getting everyone to work willingly and relentlessly, but that's more like a religion.

In reality, most management styles create a negative impression.

But Lu Changge isn't in a relationship, so he doesn't need everyone's approval.

"Thirdly, let me talk about this. When President Lu invited me here, his fundamental purpose was to hope that our Lumang Company could gradually get on the right track. Actually, this is a good thing, as it means that we are growing from a small company to a large company. In this process, we will also face a series of problems such as the expansion of the number of employees and the increase in departments. So I proposed that Lumang should be divided into departments and the responsibilities of each department should be clearly defined. To this end, I have investigated, thought about and had in-depth conversations with colleagues in different positions."

Internal management is indeed a meticulous task, but it is very important, and Lu Changge attaches great importance to it.

Chen Xiaohe nodded to a young woman, who then handed out a thin, blue-covered document.

"I have been in Lumang for some time now and have gradually become familiar with the situation and environment here. I am entrusted with a great responsibility by President Lu, and I must achieve something. What I am sending out now is my recent thoughts. Please take a few minutes to take a look."

Lu Changge had already reviewed this departmental function division plan. Such important matters were decided after multiple discussions with him, not by her alone.

However, in retrospect, it was Mr. Chen who submitted his "homework" a few months after arriving at Lumang Company.

"According to my vision, the company should be divided into three major categories of functional departments: core business departments, support and maintenance departments, and functional management departments."

Let's start with the core business units, which are divided into two departments: Operations and Marketing. I've already listed their respective responsibilities below. The necessity of these two departments is self-evident.

Secondly, the support and maintenance departments mean fulfilling Mr. Lu's requirements, namely, having a technology development department, a warehousing and logistics department, and a customer service department. These three departments basically cover the 'imperfect links' Mr. Lu mentioned earlier. Please take a close look; our workload is quite substantial.

The third major component is the internal functional management departments, such as the finance department, the human resources office, and the president's office. Our company is currently small, so the number of people in these three departments will be kept below five. The president's office position is currently vacant.

After Chen Xiaohe finished speaking, she looked at Lu Changge and asked, "Why don't we hear what the others think?"

"Okay. Although today's meeting is rather formal, I always advocate for an atmosphere where people feel comfortable speaking up. Everyone, please share your opinions. After all, those of you on the front lines know the actual situation best, so if your suggestions are indeed reasonable, we will make appropriate modifications. If there are no objections, then in the coming period, Lumang's operations must be gradually standardized."

I won't be introducing a bottom-ranking elimination system at the moment because we're only piloting a complete and scientific performance evaluation and reward mechanism on a small scale, and we still have a small team. It won't be ruled out later. It's not that I'm being strict; it's just that our company is expanding too fast. Monthly sales went from one million to ten million in just a few months. If we don't standardize things, problems will definitely arise.

Fortunately, given the current atmosphere of openness, it's not so bureaucratic that people below dare not utter a single word.

Perhaps many people simply don't know what to say...

That works too. For example, Ai Mai could be the first to speak, saying that she fully supports Lu Changge's decision and agrees that it's better for the company.

Next, Qin Jun made his statement. Lu Changge had hoped that he could offer some helpful suggestions, but perhaps because Chen Xiaohe was more thoughtful, he couldn't come up with anything and just agreed.

Li Ming, on the other hand, who usually seemed unreliable, surprisingly asked shyly this time, "May I offer a small suggestion?"

"You speak."

"I think we need to add a dedicated person to the operations department to be responsible for design and planning."

Lu Changge asked, "What's the reason?"

Li Ming said, "So far, I feel that our company has been directly selling products from various factories in Jiangzhou, and this has indeed had some effect thanks to low prices and suitable marketing gimmicks. But I've observed that the clothing industry still has trends. I've been thinking recently that once this phase passes, shouldn't we, as a clothing sales company, conduct our own market analysis? Based on this analysis, we can further develop product planning and design, ultimately forming our own unique brand designs. I believe that only when our own style is distinctive and gains consumer recognition can the Lu Mang brand have a solid foundation. That's all I have to say."

After Li Ming finished speaking, there was a moment of silence in the room.

Even Lu Changge was surprised. He hadn't considered this question himself, but it seemed to make some sense!

“I agree. We should seriously consider this when the time is right,” Chen Xiaohe suggested directly to Lu Changge.

Li Ming, on the other hand, started to feel a little embarrassed. He probably rarely gets to be in the limelight like this.

After him, others offered some suggestions, but none were as brilliant.

That works too. Anyway, Chen Xiaohe's system has been distributed, and everyone can implement it from now on. The only special case is that Lu Mang currently only has more than 60 employees, so it is unnecessary to divide up so many department heads. Therefore, we will first build the framework by having one person take on multiple roles.

If this is done in advance, the subsequent expansion of business scale and company size can proceed at a steady pace according to the currently designed route.

Finally, they escaped the chaotic situation of trying to do everything at once.

(End of this chapter)