Chapter 83: Targets

After the jokes were over, Li Dong regained a serious tone and said, "Last year, Yuanfang performed very well, and that's thanks to everyone's hard work."

Everyone immediately applauded.

Li Dong gestured for them to be quiet and continued, "Let me talk about Yuanfang's goals for this year."

"Last year, we opened six stores. This year, my plan is to expand to thirty stores!"

As soon as he finished speaking, everyone's expression turned serious.

Sun Tao spoke up and asked, "Mr. Li, opening twenty-four stores in a year seems a bit too fast, doesn't it?"

Opening twenty-four stores in a year means two new stores every month, which is quite challenging for Yuanfang at the moment.

Li Dong shook his head.

Jiangbei has 16 prefecture-level cities, 42 municipal districts, and 66 county-level cities.

Even without considering towns and villages, just opening one store in each county would require at least over one hundred stores.

To fulfill Li Dong's dream of having Yuanfang spread across Jiangbei before his graduation, opening twenty-four stores a year is just the minimum requirement.

Seeing this, Sun Tao stopped arguing and asked, "So does Mr. Li plan to use the fifty million yuan on the books?"

Li Dong nodded first, then shook his head, "We can't use all that money; otherwise, there could be endless problems."

Although he was eager to expand, he wasn't reckless.

In the past, moving a few million yuan around was manageable, and in emergencies, Li Dong could cover it up.

But once fifty million yuan was diverted, if any part of the operation encountered problems, Yuanfang's financial chain could break, leading to bankruptcy.

The underlying issue was Yuanfang's insufficient foundation and poor risk resilience.

Large supermarkets don't need to worry about such things; with thousands of stores, they can easily mobilize billions of yuan in funds.

Li Dong explained, "My plan is still to use store profits to fund store openings. We'll initially invest twenty million yuan to open ten to twelve stores in the first half of the year. Once the new stores start generating income, combined with the support from the existing six stores, we'll be more financially comfortable in the second half of the year and can then open the remaining stores."

Twenty million yuan should be enough to open ten stores, and it's crucial to ensure that Yuanfang still has sufficient funds as reserves.

The remaining funds should be enough to handle unexpected situations unless something major occurs.

Others nodded in agreement. This was essentially the same approach Yuanfang used last year.

However, last year, they could only rely on the Dongping store for funding, so the new store openings were slower.

Now, with sufficient funds and support from the six stores, opening twenty-four new branches in a year wasn't too difficult.

Since the others were only responsible for their own areas, they naturally had no objections.

Sun Tao, however, frowned and said, "In that case, we'll have a significant shortage of staff, and with a large influx of new employees, it might not be beneficial for the company's development."

Li Dong remained silent but glanced at Qi Yunna and the others.

Sun Tao, having worked with Li Dong for so long, quickly understood his intentions.

Li Dong intended to reassign Qi Yunna and others. The Qingyang branches were gradually stabilizing, making these store managers ideal candidates for expansion.

New employees would be recruited and trained in the existing stores for a few months before being deployed to new locations.

Sun Tao glanced at Xie Hong and the others, noticing their confusion, and couldn't help but suppress a smile.

These guys still thought it didn't concern them. Did they believe Mr. Li would allow anyone to remain idle?

Let alone others, even the management team at the Dongping store was constantly directed by Li Dong.

Yang Yun had gone to Pingchuan to manage the logistics company, Fang Hao took charge of the Dongping branch, and Sun Tao himself was always on call, hardly having any free time last year.

Sun Tao didn't remind them and changed the topic, "So, which areas will be our primary focus for development this year?"

Jiangbei has sixteen prefecture-level cities. Apart from Qingyang and Pingchuan, the other fourteen cities naturally couldn't all be targeted at once.

The best approach was to expand gradually, just like with Qingyang.

Li Dong already had an answer in mind and replied promptly, "In the first half of the year, we'll focus on Fucheng, and in the second half, we'll target Tongshan."

"Fucheng? Tongshan?"

Everyone thought for a moment and quickly understood Li Dong's plan.

Looking at the map of Jiangbei, Pingchuan is at the center, and Qingyang is at the southernmost point.

Fucheng and Tongshan are located to the left and right of Qingyang. Li Dong's strategy was to capture the outer cities of Jiangbei first and gradually expand inward.

The final goal was to surround Pingchuan, which aligned with Yuanfang's strategic objectives.

...

After discussing the new store openings, Li Dong noticed that over an hour had passed.

He clapped his hands to get everyone's attention and said with a smile, "We won't discuss new stores any further today. Let's talk about something everyone is interested in."

Upon hearing this, everyone turned to listen attentively.

To be honest, the store managers didn't have high expectations for the year-end bonuses.

It wasn't because their performance was poor or because Li Dong was stingy.

Rather, it was because they had the shortest tenure, even Sun Tao and Fang Hao, who had worked for less than a year last year.

Xie Hong and the others had even shorter tenures, totaling less than three months.

In other companies, employees who hadn't completed three months wouldn't be eligible for year-end bonuses.

Li Dong didn't dwell on their thoughts and read out, "Manager Wu, your bonus is 23,000 yuan. You can collect it from Director Liu later. Manager Wu's performance last year…"

The others were no longer interested in what Li Dong had to say next.

What they were concerned about was that Wu Liangnong received over 20,000 yuan in bonus!

They knew that these managers' salaries were only around 3,000 to 4,000 yuan a month. This bonus was almost equivalent to six months' salary!

Wu Liangnong's smile was wide; the 23,000 yuan bonus was far beyond his expectations. He had initially thought a bonus of one or two thousand yuan would be good enough.

He didn't expect Mr. Li to give him such a big surprise, which was truly unexpected.

"Manager Guo, your bonus is 25,000 yuan…"

Guo Mingzhi was equally delighted, having received even more than Wu Liangnong, which made him happy.

"Manager Qi, your bonus is 30,000 yuan!"

Upon hearing she received 30,000 yuan, Qi Yunna immediately stood up and said, "Mr. Li, is this amount too much?"

Li Dong glanced at her and chuckled, "This is the result of your hard work!"

He then looked at the others and said, "Bonuses are linked to your performance. Manager Qi had the best performance among you, so she received the highest bonus. The Nanping, Hechuan, and Yanghe stores are of similar size. Manager Qi's store earned 2.82 million yuan last year. Is there any objection to her receiving a 30,000 yuan bonus?"

Guo Mingzhi and Wu Liangnong immediately shook their heads.

Even if they had objections, they wouldn't dare to show them.

Besides, Li Dong's comments had a bit of a reprimanding tone, reminding them that their performance fell short compared to Qi Yunna's.

Wu Liangnong, who had been excited earlier, felt a bit nervous. His performance was 500,000 yuan less than Qi Yunna's, which was no small amount.

Fortunately, Li Dong didn't mention this further and continued, "Manager Xie, your bonus is 30,000 yuan."

Xie Hong stood up to thank him and wasn't surprised by this amount.

Although Qingyang had the highest performance, receiving a bonus equal to Qi Yunna's was acceptable, given that Qingyang's branches were larger than others.

"Manager Fang, your bonus is 30,000 yuan…"

Fang Hao's bonus wasn't due to his position as manager but because he had worked longer than others, which everyone agreed with.

"Manager Sun…"

Upon hearing Sun Tao's name, everyone snapped back to attention.

They were eager to know how much Sun Tao would receive, but heard Li Dong laughing, "Manager Sun doesn't have a bonus. I'd rather have Manager Sun give me a bonus."

Everyone looked at each other in surprise, seeing that Sun Tao still maintained his smile, seemingly unconcerned about not receiving a bonus.

In fact, Sun Tao truly didn't mind. Last year, his dividends alone amounted to over two million yuan!

With such earnings, he wasn't concerned about an extra thirty or fifty thousand yuan.

Moreover, the company had provided him with a car last year, worth over 200,000 yuan, while Mr. Li didn't even have a car.

After finishing the bonus announcements, everyone was happy.

At lunch, everyone gathered for a meal. Afterward, Li Dong whispered to Sun Tao, "Don't forget about Manager Yang's situation; follow the same standard as Manager Qi and the others."

Sun Tao nodded. Even if Li Dong hadn't mentioned it, he would have brought it up.

After all, Yang Yun's performance last year was evident, and it wouldn't be right to exclude her.