Tech startup: I really do make mobile phones!

Chapter 242 Lin Xiaoxia's Marketing Department

Shenzhen, Longhua.

In Building B of the Far Orange Building, floors 12 to 17 are all occupied by Orange Technology, while the entire 12th floor is occupied by the marketing department.

The door to the marketing manager's office was gently pushed open, and Lin Xiaoxia walked out.

She stood in the center of the open workstation area, clapped her hands, and her crisp voice echoed throughout the office area: "Group leaders of the Marketing Department, meeting in ten minutes in shared conference room number 12 on the 10th floor!"

As soon as the voice faded, the busy marketing staff in the work area looked up, their eyes filled with curiosity and inquiry.

The group leaders had different expressions and exchanged glances with each other.

After remaining silent for over a month, is the newly appointed Manager Lin finally about to make a move?

Is this just the first sign of a new broom sweeping clean, or is there another motive?

For the past two weeks, Lin Xiaxia has kept a low profile, but in reality, she has never stopped working.

What Zhao Tiezhu left her appeared to be a normally functioning department, but after getting to know it better, she found that it was more like a "mess" that relied on the employees' self-discipline and inertia to maintain.

The department lacks an effective communication and feedback mechanism, the division of responsibilities is vague, resource allocation is entirely based on the personal preferences of the previous manager, and a host of problems remain.

Lin Xiaoxia's first step was to immerse herself in the work and conduct a comprehensive investigation.

During the first week, she spent at least half an hour in-depth one-on-one communication with each of the 12 core members under the marketing department, including the team leaders and key employees of the operations team, channel team, supply chain management team, and warehouse team.

Her question was very targeted:
What are the core responsibilities of your position?
What are the biggest challenges and bottlenecks in my current work?

What are your aspirations for personal career development?
At the same time, Lin Xiaoxia also frankly collected everyone's honest evaluations of the work style of the former leader Zhao Tiezhu, as well as suggestions for the future development of the department.

She didn't put on an arrogant attitude; instead, she acted more like a colleague humbly seeking advice. This gradually opened up many employees who were initially wary of her.

In addition to the interviews, Lin Xiaoxia also coordinated with Gong Yun to obtain nearly six months of personnel turnover data for the marketing department, as well as performance appraisal results, from the human resources team.

Data doesn't lie, and she quickly identified three key employees who were highly capable and had excellent performance, but lacked promotion opportunities for various reasons.

We also noticed two employees who were in a performance warning state due to job mismatch or lack of motivation.

Meanwhile, after get off work, Lin Xiaoxia buried herself in piles of documents and materials.

Retrieve the marketing activity logs, channel cooperation agreements, advertising data, and e-commerce platform sales reports from the past year.
Like a seasoned detective, she systematically analyzed the performance of Orange Mobile in different channels (North China Strong Distribution, Nietzsche Distribution, and Direct Sales Distribution), and calculated the return on investment (ROI) of the core direct sales channels.

It assesses the stability and value of partnerships with key partners (offline distributors, online platforms, and hypermarkets).

Lin Xiaoxia also clarified the department's existing budget allocation ratio, material reserves, and key contact information for all external cooperative resources.

She also figured out the progress milestones and bottlenecks of the several unfinished projects left by Zhao Tiezhu, such as the "Orange 3 new phone pre-heating event" and the "offline North China strong channel acquisition plan".

Shared meeting room No. 2 on the 10th floor.

The four group leaders of the Marketing Department—Song Kaixuan of the Operations Group, Wang Haocun of the Channel Group, Chen Xibai of the Supply Chain Management Group, and Zhao Yangjie of the Warehouse Group—along with eight other key personnel, a total of 12 people, filed in and took their seats.

Lin Xiaxia walked in with a swift and decisive motion and sat directly in the main seat.

Her gaze swept calmly over everyone present, lingering briefly on Song Kaixuan's face.

Song Kaixuan, who was an "intern" at the same time as her, was once known as one of the "Four Heavenly Kings" of the marketing department two years ago, and was even almost sent abroad to develop the Greater Ross market.

But now the "Four Heavenly Kings" of the marketing department have gone their separate ways, and Lin Xiaoxia is now his department manager.

Song Kaixuan remained a "junior" team leader, his face revealing an almost imperceptible hint of resentment and scrutiny.

Lin Xiaxia understood, but did not point it out.

She got straight to the point, first sharing what she had learned through research over the past two weeks.

It wasn't just a general discussion; it precisely pinpointed several pain points that are of general concern to everyone.

For example, the project resource application process is not transparent, cross-group collaboration and communication costs are high, and the contributions and rewards of some key members are not commensurate.

“I know that when General Manager Zhao was in charge, the department had its own way of operating.” Lin Xiaoxia’s tone was calm, but with an undeniable firmness: “But from now on, the marketing department will follow three principles: results-oriented, fairness and impartiality, and open communication!”

She announced that following this key personnel meeting, a department-wide meeting would be held as soon as possible to further clarify these principles and subsequent working methods.

Lin Xiaoxia did not rush to introduce her own "new policies," but instead spent more time listening to the key personnel present and their demands and suggestions.

She gave a clear response on the spot to the questions that everyone was generally concerned about, such as team atmosphere and project resource allocation rules, and promised to establish such rules as soon as possible.

Finally, she established a new communication mechanism.

"Starting tomorrow, we will establish a system of 'daily morning meetings + weekly routine meetings'."

Daily morning meetings should be limited to 15 minutes, focusing only on the core tasks of the day without further discussion.

Weekly meetings are used to review progress and coordinate solutions to cross-functional issues.

This meeting, like a stone thrown into a lake, created ripples throughout the marketing department.

Some people are watching and waiting, some are looking forward to it, while others like Song Kaixuan are mostly scrutinizing and skeptical.

What are you doubting?

Lin Xiaoxia was "washing away" some of the "departmental subculture" left by Zhao Tiezhu and fine-tuning the marketing department into a structure that suited her.

To truly take control of the situation, we must resolve the issues left behind by Zhao Tiezhu and unite the people in order to get things done!

She first tackled the historical issues.

For example, the operations team's content planning and the channel team's filming and BD had a long-standing grudge over the division of responsibility for promotional content and results.

Instead of trying to smooth things over, Lin Xiaoxia pulled up all the past advertising data, organized a special communication meeting, and, based on different product lifecycles and marketing goals, re-formulated clear and transparent rules for the division of responsibilities.

The priorities and approval processes for resource applications at different stages for the two positions were clarified.

Regarding the team-building rewards for outstanding employees that Zhao Tiezhu had promised but failed to deliver during his tenure, Lin Xiaoxia proactively submitted a report to the company to apply for them, and they were eventually implemented.

This action demonstrated her sense of responsibility and execution to the team, and their trust began to grow.

Next, Lin Xiaoxia began to optimize the team structure and division of labor.

She found that the original "channel development specialist" responsibilities were too broad, resulting in insufficient depth in both online and offline channel promotion.

Therefore, Lin Xiaoxia decisively split it into "offline channel specialist" and "online channel specialist".

The offline specialists are clearly defined to focus on expanding offline stores, maintaining and empowering dealer relationships, while the online specialists are focused on cultivating emerging channels such as e-commerce platform operation, article promotion, and social media marketing.

At the same time, based on the employees' abilities and strengths as assessed in the early stages, Lin Xiaoxia reassigned work tasks, allowing the three high-performing key employees to take the lead in core projects and giving them a stage to showcase their talents.

For the two employees who received performance warnings, a detailed support plan was developed, and senior employees were assigned to provide one-on-one mentoring.

During this process, Song Kaixuan became her main "focus".

Song Kaixuan is very capable, especially in operational strategies and data analysis, but he is arrogant and often outwardly complies with but inwardly opposes the new processes and systems introduced by Lin Xiaoxia.

During a discussion about the offline pre-sale plan for "Orange 3", Song Kaixuan once again tried to stick to his old method, citing that "the new process is too cumbersome and affects efficiency".

Lin Xiaoxia did not refute him on the spot, but calmly asked him to explain the advantages and disadvantages of the old method, as well as the expected results.

Then, she immediately pulled up a set of data showing the direct losses and indirect brand damage caused by problems such as delayed delivery of promotional materials and inconsistent promotional statements when "Orange 2" was launched last year due to irregularities in the process.

"Team Leader Song, your experience is invaluable. We all hope that 'Orange 3' will be a huge success!"

Lin Xiaxia looked at him, her tone sincere but her gaze sharp.

"But precisely because we cannot afford to lose, we need a standardized process to mitigate known risks."

The process is not meant to stifle your creativity, but to ensure that your ideas are executed efficiently and accurately.

I hope you can understand and lead your team members to become optimizers and implementers of the new process, not obstacles!

Lin Xiaoxia's words were reasonable and well-founded, affirming Song Kaixuan's value while clearly pointing out the problems and the bottom line.

Song Kaixuan opened his mouth, but ultimately failed to refute it, though the resentment on his face did not disappear.

Lin Xiaoxia knew that talking about it wouldn't be enough.

She then organized a "Mobile Phone Market Trends Seminar + Outdoor Team Building" event.

At the seminar, Lin Xiaoxia specially invited Liu Jia, the head of the market research team of the market research department, to share the latest developments in the transformation of channels in the sinking market.

During the open discussion, she specifically asked Song Kaixuan to share his thoughts on the positioning features of the Orange 3 gaming phone.

Song Kaixuan is indeed a talented and eloquent speaker, and he put forward several marketing points that were quite topical, winning the approval of many people, including Liu Jia.

Lin Xiaoxia immediately affirmed his idea and decided to entrust him with full responsibility for one of his suggestions: "to unite flagship stores in the Southwest and West to carry out localized and trustworthy community marketing in residential areas."

During the subsequent outdoor team building activity, Lin Xiaoxia intentionally or unintentionally paired Song Kaixuan with the new leader of the channel team, whom he didn't usually get along with, in the team collaboration games.

Through working together on the task, the estrangement between the two seemed to have melted away somewhat. Song Kaixuan also vaguely sensed that this "classmate" who joined the company at the same time as him was not as he had thought, who only knew how to "bully others with his power".

A month later, Lin Xiaoxia officially began to adjust the marketing department.

First, she developed the "SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) for the Core Business of Orange Technology's Marketing Department" to help new employees become familiar with the business.

Lin Xiaoxia spearheaded multiple cross-group discussions and developed detailed standardized procedures for key tasks such as new product promotion, advertising, channel cooperation, and handling user feedback.

Each process clearly defines the key milestones, responsible persons, deliverables, and time requirements.

During the discussion of the "ad placement process," Song Kaixuan raised objections again, arguing that overly detailed ROI analysis would cause the best time to place the ad.

Lin Xiaoxia did not directly deny it, but let the data speak for itself.

She showed data from a recent small-scale campaign test conducted according to the new process, because thorough performance forecasting and audience analysis had been done beforehand.

Although the launch was slow, the final ROI was nearly 40% higher than the average of previous investments made blindly based on experience.

"To exchange half a day of caution for an efficiency improvement of over 40%, Team Leader Song, do you think this is a worthwhile trade-off?" Lin Xiaxia asked calmly.

Looking at the clear data comparison on the screen, Song Kaixuan clenched his fingers in resentment and fell silent for the first time, no longer arguing.

Having dealt with this "veteran" troublemaker in the marketing department, Lin Xiaoxia struck while the iron was hot and improved the performance appraisal and incentive mechanism.

The operations team's new performance evaluation system breaks down KPIs into quantifiable metrics such as brand exposure, channel sales, user growth rate, and advertising ROI, while also incorporating soft metrics such as teamwork and innovation contributions.

She made it clear that bonuses and promotion opportunities would be tilted towards people and teams that truly create value, completely breaking the "iron rice bowl" phenomenon that existed to some extent in the past operations team.

Yes! Song Kaixuan's operations team was the first pilot project for Lin Xiaoxia's SOP.
At the same time, she began to follow up on the unfinished projects left by Zhao Tiezhu.

Regarding the "Offline North China Strong Channel Acquisition Plan," she found that the original plan was too aggressive and that it did not adequately assess the competitive landscape in some regional markets.

Instead of blindly pushing forward, Lin Xiaoxia organized her team to reassess and adjust the priority of target cities, choosing several third- and fourth-tier cities in central China with weaker competitive layouts but good consumption potential as a breakthrough point.

She also had the warehouse team secure more flexible supply policies and logistical support for these newly developed channels.

When the revised plan was announced at the weekly meeting, Song Kaixuan studied it carefully for a long time and finally had to admit that Lin Xiaoxia's strategy was more pragmatic, less risky, and more likely to succeed.

He realized he seemed to have been marginalized, so he had no choice but to take on the task of developing channels in two key cities in central China.

What truly convinced Song Kaixuan was the process of expanding distribution channels in the two cities he was in charge of.

He encountered a difficult distributor with strong distribution channels in North China, and negotiations reached a stalemate. The other party's conditions were extremely harsh, making it almost impossible for Orange to make a profit.

Song Kaixuan tried various methods, and even planned to apply for a "special fee" to smooth things over, as was his usual practice. The report was sent to Lin Xiaoxia.

Lin Xiaoxia did not approve this unclear fee. Instead, she personally reviewed all the distributor's historical cooperation data and cash flow records, and even learned about his business background and true demands through some public channels.

Over the weekend, she took Song Kaixuan on a trip directly to North China.

Lin Xiaoxia did not rush into negotiations, but first treated the other party to a casual meal. During the meal, she did not mention cooperation at all, but only talked about the market characteristics of the city where he distributed products and the purchasing habits of consumers.

Her understanding of the local market even surpassed that of the dealers across the street.

After the meal, Lin Xiaoxia produced a revised cooperation plan.

The plan did not increase the supply price, but instead reconstructed a win-win cooperation model from multiple dimensions, including marketing investment, support for store image upgrades, allocation of differentiated product resources, and tiered rebates based on sales growth.

She accurately grasped the other party's core demand: to achieve long-term, stable profits.

Ultimately, the negotiations were successfully completed, and the contract terms were far better than what Song Kaixuan had previously negotiated, and were completely compliant with regulations.

On the way back in the van, Song Kaixuan looked at Lin Xiaoxia, who was resting with her eyes closed, with mixed feelings.

He finally realized that the female manager, who was his contemporary, had honed her skills in building the western distribution channels, and that her abilities far surpassed his.

Her professionalism, her meticulousness, her depth of understanding of the business, and her ability to solve problems calmly and directly address the core issues far surpass his.

Song Kaixuan's arrogance, based on past experience and seniority, completely vanished at this moment, replaced by an appreciation and respect for the strong.

Since then, Song Kaixuan has become Lin Xiaoxia's most steadfast supporter and implementer of policies, and his abilities have been given greater play on the new platform.

By the time Lin Xiaoxia had fully integrated the marketing department, essentially eliminated the "traces" left by Zhao Tiezhu, and transformed the marketing department into a team with a clear structure, standardized processes, and strong execution capabilities, more than a month had passed.

Chen Mo has also returned from Shanghai.

Because he had spent several days in Shanghai with Lu Qingyue, Chen Mo returned to Shenzhen a little late. Coupled with the fatigue of the past few days, he accidentally overslept that day and arrived at the company late in the morning.

Fortunately, he's the boss, so no one cares about his attendance.

Xiao Zheng drove his black Mercedes-Benz S600 (W221) smoothly into the park's parking lot.

Chen Mo pushed open the door and got out of the car. The sunlight was a bit dazzling. Because the morning rush hour had passed, the park was quite quiet, with only a few employees passing by in a hurry.

Chen Mo led Xiao Zheng, walking unhurriedly towards Building B of the Yuancheng Building.

As I walked into the spacious and bright lobby on the first floor, two young female receptionists in uniform immediately stood up and greeted me in a clear, unison voice as I passed the front desk: "Hello, Mr. Chen!"

Chen Mo nodded slightly, a gentle smile appearing on his face as a response.

He then called Xiao Zheng to go to the convenience food counter next door and bought two simple sandwiches and coffee.

Then, he turned and walked toward the high-speed elevator reserved for executives, which was located in the corner and required a card to activate.

The elevator interior is made of mirrored and brushed stainless steel, giving it a somewhat cold and professional feel.

Xiao Zheng skillfully swiped his card and pressed the button for the 16th floor.

The elevator doors closed silently, followed by a slight push in the back. The numbers on the display screen jumped rapidly, and there was almost no noise. Only the slight pressure change in the eardrums indicated to Chen Mo that it was climbing at high speed.

After the elevator doors closed, the two young women at the front desk breathed a sigh of relief, exchanged excited glances, and began gossiping quietly.

"Hey! Did you notice? Mr. Chen is actually late today!"

"Yes, yes, he's always right on time to the office! Didn't you say last night?"

"Shh! Don't guess! But tell me, how much assets does President Chen actually have? I saw online that he has over 10 billion?"

"Over 10 billion? I bet it's more than that! Count them on your fingers: Orange Technology, Yuancheng New Energy, Orange Micro Motor, Orange Treasure Internet, Orange Home Smart, Zhicheng Procurement... so many companies! I bet it's well over 20 billion!"

"Wow, that's a lot of money! Do you think we have a chance?"

"Pah! You little slut, you watch too many TV dramas, don't you? Someone like President Chen is only worthy of a rich heiress or a Wall Street elite, right? Stop daydreaming!"

Another receptionist lowered her voice mysteriously.

"Let me tell you, I actually know some inside information."

That Xiao Wu from the Business Group of the Legal Department, he was talking to people from Morgan Stanley about a project last time, and he said he saw General Manager Chen and General Manager Lu from Morgan Stanley chatting privately on the hotel terrace, and they were smiling so gently!
I heard that Ms. Lu is a senior executive at Morgan Stanley's Asia Pacific region, and probably Mr. Chen's girlfriend!

"Really?"

On the 16th floor, the elevator doors slid open silently.

Chen Mo and Xiao Zheng walked out of the elevator lobby.

He immediately spotted his secretary, Zhou Yumeng, frantically stuffing something into a drawer, with a bit of breadcrumbs still stuck to the corner of her mouth.

After more than a year of experience, this once somewhat naive and unlucky young girl is now able to handle and coordinate various affairs of the Orange Group companies with ease.

The only thing she never changed was her "little hamster" habit of sneaking snacks at her workstation.

A barely perceptible smile flashed in Chen Mo's eyes, but he didn't expose her.

He walked to Zhou Yumeng's neatly arranged "L"-shaped desk and tapped the surface with his finger.

"Xiaomeng, please inform Lin Xiaxia from the marketing department to come to my office later. I have some questions for her."

Zhou Yumeng clearly still had food in her mouth, so she could only puff out her cheeks and nod vigorously with a serious expression that said, "You can rest assured that I can handle things well."

Chen Mo chuckled and waved to Xiao Zheng.

"I don't have much of an appetite, so give my breakfast to Xiaomeng!"

"Thank you, Mr. Chen!" Zhou Yumeng grinned, revealing the bread in her mouth, which completely exposed her secret.

Chen Mo shook his head and walked towards his office.

Xiao Zheng then walked to the lounge opposite Zhou Yumeng, which was reserved for bodyguards and assistants.

He opened a specially made, secure computer case provided by the national security department, which had no brand markings, and began his routine work log and security briefing for the previous day.

It contains detailed records of Chen Mo's activities, the people he contacted, and all the details that needed attention.

(End of this chapter)