Chapter 238: Cleansing Internal Troubles and Dividing the Cake
As the police left, the shouts and pleas for mercy gradually faded away.
The conference hall was so quiet that one could hear a pin drop.
Li Dong scanned the room, noticing that nearly everyone instinctively avoided his gaze.
Li Dong didn't mind and said, "I, Li Dong, believe I've treated you all fairly. What's rightfully yours will not be lessened, but what isn't yours must be kept out of reach!"
"This time, Liu Hai and the others are suspected of embezzlement and misappropriation of company assets amounting to millions. They'll likely be imprisoned for three to five years."
Li Dong then looked at Qi Yunna, whose face was slightly pale, and said, "Your assistant in Fucheng has been apprehended. No one who dares to stretch their hand recklessly will escape!"
Qi Yunna trembled slightly, lowering her head without speaking.
Li Dong snorted and continued, "Fucheng Manager Qi Yunna, due to poor management, caused significant losses to the company. After company deliberation, we have decided to revoke her position as Fucheng City Manager!"
With this announcement, the conference hall stirred again.
Everyone felt colder and more apprehensive. Were the bloodstained knives still not put away?
With the logistics manager already taken down, now another city manager was removed. This was clearly a major purge!
Li Dong let them discuss among themselves, waiting for the noise to die down before continuing, "Has Guo Mingzhi arrived?"
When called, Guo Mingzhi immediately stood up and said, "I'm here!"
Despite the cold weather, Guo Mingzhi was sweating profusely.
He was truly frightened today. With Fucheng's seven store managers, including the newly appointed one and Cao Chun, a total of six were taken away!
In other words, Fucheng's management had been completely wiped out, leaving Guo Mingzhi as the sole survivor.
Even the city manager Qi Yunna was implicated and directly removed from her position.
Guo Mingzhi didn't know why Li Dong called him, and he was a bit scared, fearing that Li Dong might be holding him accountable for something.
To be honest, who among store managers had a perfectly clean record?
Although Guo Mingzhi had not been corrupt or misappropriated company funds, almost everything his family used came from the supermarket.
If an investigation were to occur, he too might not escape.
Li Dong glanced at him and nodded, "This time, Store Manager Guo adhered to the bottom line and did not collude with them. This is the only thing that reassures me. A few months ago, Fucheng's store performance was among the best, and Manager Guo is also an old-timer at Yuanfang. With Qi Yunna's removal, Guo Mingzhi will take over as the City Manager."
Guo Mingzhi was stunned by this unexpected windfall.
He was to become a city manager?
He hadn't done anything to earn it, yet he was given the position of a city manager?
Not just Guo Mingzhi, but others were also stunned, followed by a low murmur of discussion.
Guo Mingzhi was indeed lucky!
Yuanfang had only a few city managers: one in Tongshan and one in Fucheng. Now, with the removal of the Fucheng manager, Guo Mingzhi would become the only city manager.
In the sales system, a city manager was one step below the top and above thousands.
Although Guo Mingzhi was originally a level-two store manager, without this accident, he wouldn't have had a chance to be promoted to city manager for a long time.
This wasn't just a change in status but also a change in benefits.
City managers had company cars and a salary increase of about a thousand yuan. But the key benefits were the commissions and bonuses!
Store managers could only receive commissions from one store, but city managers received commissions from the total sales of the entire city.
For example, Qi Yunna previously managed a city with over a hundred million in sales each month and earned millions in profits.
Qi Yunna's commission alone was tens of thousands a month, plus a base salary of ten thousand, additional bonuses, and annual bonuses. In total, Qi Yunna earned at least around three hundred thousand a year.
If performance improved, earning five hundred thousand annually was also feasible.
An annual salary of three hundred thousand in 2005 was comparable to a top executive in Beijing or Shanghai.
This didn't include performance-based rewards. Qi Yunna had even received a house in Pingchuan as a bonus.
If they became city managers and achieved great performance, Yuanfang would surely reward them with a house.
With a car, a house, and a high salary, they would be winners in life!
At this moment, everyone was no longer afraid of the recent events. They thought more about the potential opportunities for themselves!
The recent arrests had left many high positions vacant.
With Guo Mingzhi taking over Qi Yunna's position, Fucheng now had an opening for a level-two store manager, and Guanhai Store One also had a vacancy for a level-two store manager.
In total, there were vacancies for one logistics manager, one deputy logistics manager, a financial supervisor, a supervision team leader, two level-two store managers, and five level-three store managers.
Any of these positions could be appealing, even the level-three store manager role.
Among the attendees were several level-four and level-five store managers. With five level-three store manager vacancies, their chances were substantial!
Everyone looked at Li Dong with burning eyes, their earlier fear fading.
They were no longer afraid but rather wished Li Dong would continue to act decisively and eliminate more competitors.
Li Dong was calm, as this outcome was expected.
In this world, besides family and love, the most important thing is maintaining interests.
It is said that with 100% profit, one can trample all human laws.
Moreover, they weren't being asked to commit crimes but only dealing with some unruly subordinates, which had no direct relation to them.
The focus of the crowd had shifted from the recent arrests to contemplating their own potential benefits.
Li Dong didn't concern himself with their thoughts and began to announce the previously discussed decisions once everyone had quieted down.
"Xie Hong, the manager of Qingyang District, will be appointed as the manager of Guanhai Store One."
"Wu Liangnong, the manager of Qingyang Hechuan Store, will take over Xie Hong's position as the manager of Qingyang District."
"Li Hao, the deputy director of the Operations Department, will take over as the manager of Fucheng District..."
These appointments all involved level-two positions. As for the other level-three and level-four positions, Li Dong didn't need to address them further.
After this purge, the Qingyang faction gained a significant advantage.
Both Guo Mingzhi and Wu Liangnong were promoted to core positions at Yuanfang.
Although Xie Hong's rank didn't change, moving from a level-two store manager in a remote area to the largest level-two store manager in the provincial capital was almost like a half-level promotion.
All these new appointees were also old subordinates of Sun Tao.
Li Dong had purged some of Sun Tao's people but promoted others, leaving Sun Tao with no objections.
Li Dong's decision to have Qi Yunna demoted to a level-five store manager, a position reserved for his loyalists, was balanced by Sun Tao's people being promoted. This left Sun Tao psychologically satisfied.
Apart from the Qingyang faction, Deputy General Manager Wang Yue also gained from this reshuffle.
Li Hao, the deputy director of the Operations Department, was promoted by Wang Yue. While the Operations Department was important, a deputy director was more of a figurehead with numerous higher-ups.
Now that Li Hao was in charge, Wang Yue had inserted himself into the sales system.
Originally, the sales system was independent, with only Li Dong and Sun Tao having any influence. Store managers didn't need to consider others.
But with the Fucheng incident, Li Dong realized the previous decision was flawed.
Excessive independence could lead to an imbalance of power and potential issues.
If the Fucheng incident involved store managers with other backgrounds, it might not have led to such collective misconduct.
Li Dong, realizing this, decided to break the independence of the sales system.
Now the store system included people from Sun Tao, Wang Yue, and those who had risen from the bottom.
These people were divided into factions, such as local factions, Qingyang faction, Tongshan faction, and newly recruited university graduates.
There were also practical factions, comprising store managers who had risen from the bottom, starting as salespeople or clerks.
These factions weakened each other's power, and even Sun Tao and Wang Yue could not clearly define who was close to them or who was wary.
This was the result Li Dong wanted. Disorder was acceptable, but uniform alignment was not.
The store system was crucial for Yuanfang.
Li Dong didn't have the energy to train each store manager individually or the capacity to select them meticulously.
What he could do was maintain the balance within the system, ensuring that all store managers understood that they were part of Yuanfang's core, reducing the influence of others.
In the end, no matter whose people they were, they were all Li Dong's people.
This was the best result. As for temporary turbulence, Li Dong could bear it. He feared more significant losses in the future.
With dozens of stores, managing them would be even more challenging as they expanded.
Li Dong was impatient with these matters but knew they were inevitable.
Where there are people, there is a world of struggles. He wasn't omniscient and couldn't see everyone's true intentions.
Not even Sun Tao and Wang Yue,
the two top executives, could be fully understood by Li Dong.
His only task was to steer Yuanfang's ship, preventing it from sinking in the storm, while delegating other issues to others.
In addition to the few level-two positions, the most important remaining position was the logistics manager.
With the departure of both the logistics manager and deputy manager, only one deputy manager position remained.
This deputy manager, Xiao Baisong, was appointed as the new logistics manager.
Li Dong wasn't keen on giving the logistics manager position to him because Xiao Baisong was also a key figure in the internal conflict and a disruptor of this incident.
The reward list was delivered to Liu Qi's desk by Xiao Baisong.
Li Dong had never thought highly of such people.
But after much consideration, Li Dong decided to appoint him as logistics manager.
On one hand, it was a reward for his contributions. Although Xiao Baisong had his own agenda, he had indeed recovered significant losses for Yuanfang and helped clean up internal problems.
On the other hand, it was to signal to everyone that following Li Dong was the right path!
Look at Xiao Baisong and Guo Mingzhi. Why were they promoted?
Ultimately, it was because they were closely aligned with Li Dong.
After announcing these decisions, Li Dong didn't linger and left the Tianhu Hotel, leaving a group of eager store managers behind.