Chapter 206: Objections at the bidding meeting

Zhou Ming brought Su Han to the Lakeside Building once again. At this time, almost all the company's senior management, including the general manager of the company, Zhao Jun, the marketing manager, Li Qingyuan, and the two deputy general managers, were in the meeting room. Zhou Ming pushed open the door to the meeting room, and these people, led by Zhao Jun, suddenly stood up and bowed to Zhou Ming and Su Han together.

'Everyone, don't be so formal, just sit down. This is a company, not the meeting hall of some rebel army.'

Zhou Ming said this as he sat down in the seat at the head of the table that had been reserved for him. Everyone laughed at Zhou Ming's words, and after everyone had sat down, Zhou Ming said again, 'Hello everyone, I came here today to call this meeting for one reason, and that is about the order from the shipping company.'

'I also came to the company yesterday to talk about this order, and I had a private chat with Managers Zhao and Li. The order has now been handed over to Marketing Manager Li Qingyuan for full responsibility.' Zhou Ming said, reaching out to indicate Li Qingyuan, and then said, 'Manager Li, you may speak.'

Most of the people present were not surprised by Zhou Ming's statement. Some of them had already heard the news, while others did not show it.

Li Qingyuan, who had been named by Zhou Ming, nodded to Zhou Ming, and then stood up and said, 'First of all, I am very grateful to Boss Zhou for giving me this opportunity to be responsible for such a large order...'

Before Li Qingyuan could finish, Zhou Ming waved his hand and said, 'Let's skip the pleasantries and get to the point.'

Li Qingyuan nodded and said okay, while opening a folder: 'The bidder this time is Sino-Ocean Shipping Company, which is a very large shipping company in our Binjiang Province. There are thousands of seafarers alone. Their bidding activity this time is mainly for the supply of ocean-going freighters for the coming year. Simply put, it is to provide food and other supplies for the shipping company's freighters.'

Having said this, Li Qingyuan deliberately paused for a moment before continuing: 'And according to the latest information I have learned, the shipping company has already raised the price tag for this time to 10 million yuan.'

As this figure was mentioned, many people on the scene, including a deputy general manager, subconsciously gasped in shock, clearly taken aback by the number.

After all, this was ten million yuan, which was nothing to Zhou Ming, but for the vast majority of people in this era, it was still an astronomical figure, even in his own congee branch.

Perhaps the Hangzhou branch usually has monthly sales of 3 million, but at that time, for the entire Binjiang Province, it was also the cumulative result of countless small orders. But now Li Qingyuan is talking about 10 million, and it's just one order. So the answer to the question of which is more shocking, 10 million for one order or 10 million for thousands of orders over several months, is beyond doubt.

No wonder Boss Zhou didn't agree with Zhao Jun's previous arrangement and wanted to actively pursue this order. It turns out to be such a big order.

Everyone was thinking this in their hearts, but along with this thought, there was also a more important question: since this order is so large, can we win it?

Before anyone could think about this question in depth, Li Qingyuan continued, 'In fact, this bidding is a bold attempt by the shipping company after the chairman was replaced. The main purpose is to reduce costs and provide quality at the same time through bidding. It is also for this reason that this bidding activity adopts a comprehensive scoring method, and is not simply determined by price or the preferences of a certain person in charge. This also shows that this bidding activity will be as fair as possible.'

Li Qingyuan turned to the next page of the document: 'As of just now, five companies have confirmed their participation in the bidding. In addition to us, there are Hangzhou City Supply and Marketing Cooperative, Hangzhou West Lake Food Co. and New Tide Food Co.

'Among them, Hangzhou City Supply and Marketing Cooperative is the most likely to win the bid due to its own strength, coupled with their long-standing cooperative relationship with shipping companies. It is the one we need to pay the most attention to; the one that comes in second is White Rabbit Food Company. This White Rabbit Company is an old company that existed before the founding of the People's Republic of China. Its own strength is not weak, but due to the contraction strategy it has been adopting in the past, it is not strong in other provinces, so its competitiveness is not as good as the Supply and Marketing Cooperative.'

Li Qingyuan analysed these companies one by one according to the textbook: 'As for Xihu Food Company and New Wave Food Company, their strength is much weaker compared to the others. They are both newly established food companies, and although each of them has the backing of Taiwanese capital, they were established too recently, so their competitiveness is even weaker. I judge that they will participate this time purely because they were invited, and they have no real intention of winning the bid.'

Li Qingyuan walked over to the blackboard in the meeting room while he was talking, picked up the chalk and wrote Supply and Marketing Cooperative on it.

'According to the information we have received so far, Supply and Marketing Cooperative is still bidding in the same way as before, and has not made many changes to the price and variety. This shows that Supply and Marketing Cooperative is very confident in their public relations capabilities, or it can also be said that they are not taking this bidding seriously. I think we can definitely make some noise in this area and catch them off guard.'

Li Qingyuan wrote the name of White Rabbit on the blackboard again: 'White Rabbit is a company from Binhai, although it is very large, it does not have any advantages in terms of public relations, so they will do their best to play up the price and variety. As for Xihu and Xinawave, they made it clear early on that they would do their best and leave the rest to fate, and they submitted their bids early. Personally, I don't think it's necessary to pay much attention to them.'

Saying this, Li Qingyuan drew two circles on the blackboard: 'Now the only ones we need to pay attention to are the Supply and Marketing Cooperative and White Rabbit Company. The Supply and Marketing Cooperative in particular is the opponent we must face in this bidding.'

After Li Qingyuan finished speaking, there was no applause in the meeting room. After a moment of silence, a project manager raised his hand and asked, 'I support the information that Manager Li has collected and the analysis based on that information, but I still have some questions.'

Li Qingyuan gave him a gesture of invitation, and the project manager continued, 'Manager Li believes that the supply and marketing cooperative is the biggest opponent, and White Rabbit Company is relatively much worse, right?'

'I didn't say much worse, I just said that the supply and marketing cooperative is the biggest threat and must be faced. Due to the location of White Rabbit Company, there are too many problems for them to come from Binhai to bid for the project. Only one of White Rabbit Company's distributors in Hangzhou participated in the bidding, so they are not desperate to win this order,' Li Qingyuan said.

'I see. But don't you think your thinking is contradictory, Manager Li?' the project manager said. "Manager Li believes that the biggest problem for White Rabbit to compete is the distance. They are a Binhai company and are not well prepared here in Hangzhou.'

Li Qingyuan nodded and said yes. The project manager then immediately asked in return, "Then aren't the problems White Rabbit has the same problems we have?'

The project manager glanced at Zhou Ming and, seeing that he didn't react, said boldly, 'Manager Li, you say that White Rabbit is not based in Hangzhou, but their distributor has been operating in Hangzhou for at least half a century. Otherwise, we Hangzhou people wouldn't be able to eat their White Rabbit milk candies. They are always intricately linked in every way. Our company, on the other hand, is a company that has only been established for a few months.'

'In addition, the other company, White Rabbit, is at least a large food company with mature channels in all aspects, while we are only a cooked food company that sells eight-treasure porridge. In that case, we are far worse than White Rabbit. I don't understand how Manager Li can say that White Rabbit, which has an advantage over us, is not to be feared,' the project manager said.

'I didn't say that. I only said that the supply and marketing cooperative is the biggest opponent, and compared to the supply and marketing cooperative, other companies are not that important,' Li Qingyuan said.

'But if we can't even deal with White Rabbit, how can we set our sights on the Supply and Marketing Cooperative? I can understand your determination to win this order, but first we have to be realistic. We can't even compete with White Rabbit, let alone the Supply and Marketing Cooperative!'

The project manager's words were echoed by the others: 'Yes! We have to take things one step at a time. We can't run before we can walk!'

Someone else analysed from another perspective: 'Moreover, White Rabbit Company and the supply and marketing cooperative are not connected. If they fail, they fail, and they have nothing to lose. But the supply and marketing cooperative is our major customer. If we fail, we will not only lose an order, but also offend our customer!'

Hearing these objections from the company's top management, Su Han wanted to say something, but she first glanced at Zhou Ming and saw that he was still sitting there comfortably, with no intention of making a statement. So she held her tongue.

Facing the opposition of almost everyone, Li Qingyuan's brows furrowed tighter and tighter: 'Manager Ye, I didn't mean what you said. I didn't mean to skip White Rabbit and go head-to-head with the supply and marketing cooperative. I don't think that just because of this order, the supply and marketing cooperative will completely turn their back on us and our sales will come to a standstill because of this bidding.'

Li Qingyuan desperately tried to explain, but the others simply would not listen to him. They just kept saying, 'Manager Li, you're being too rash. We're still a long way from being able to do this. We should join forces with the supply and marketing cooperative to get this order. That would be the right thing to do.'

Zhou Ming listened for a while, then waved his hand to indicate that everyone should be quiet before saying, 'From everyone's comments, it seems that you're not very confident about this bidding.'

Zhou Ming then turned to Zhao Jun: 'Manager Zhao, you're an old hand at the company, what do you think?'

Zhao Jun thought for a moment and replied: 'Mr Zhou, I don't have any aversion to bidding. In fact, I initially wanted to bid as well. But after analysing the situation, I don't think we need to put in too much effort on this bid. Like White Rabbit Company, we should just do our best and leave the rest to fate. Our top priority now is to consolidate our development and continue to explore the market in Binjiang Province in depth.'