Return to 1958 and build a century-old giant

Chapter 34 Heart-beating Opportunity

Yang Wendong shrugged and said, "If there's money to be made, how can I not do it?"

Wang Zhixian said with a smile: "Haha, Mr. Yang is really straightforward. Making money is not a problem. You know how big the Wharf Group is. For us, the return will definitely be very generous.

But we must also have results, otherwise, neither my boss nor anyone else will be able to explain to the Wharf Group.”

Yang Wendong thought for a moment and asked, "If it's a one-time mass extermination of rats, how do we know the effect? ​​It's not like our warehouse, where we can know the effect after a long time. We can't just look at the number of dead rats, right?"

Rat extermination is a difficult topic to define in itself, because we don’t know how many rats there were originally or what results have been achieved. Not to mention outsiders, many times even we ourselves don’t know clearly.

Wang Zhixian smiled and said, "Mr. Yang, you are very professional, but sometimes this is not good."

"Please give me some advice." Yang Wendong asked.

Wang Zhixian said: “No matter who it is, as long as he is highly professional, people who can understand his achievements generally need to be professionals.

But in actual business cooperation, the party that pays the money often doesn’t understand anything, and they can only see some results indirectly, such as the mouse corpses you mentioned.

Unless it is an industry like construction or conventional machinery, where there are many standards, professionals, and third-party testing agencies, it is not easy to operate.”

"I understand what Mr. Wang means." Yang Wendong nodded.

What Wang Zhixian said is very true. Many times, the Party A who does not understand the profession may only look at things from an ordinary person's perspective. As the Party B, sometimes you have to cater to the Party A's preferences and do some superficial work.

After all, if you can’t even do the superficial work well, how can you convince others that you have invested a lot in areas that others don’t understand or see? And you have done a lot of things that cannot be explained clearly?

Wang Zhixian added: "You are a smart person, you understand it immediately, but for this kind of thing, we have to move in this direction, but we can't just move in this direction.

Five points are to make it look good and be liked by others, and the other five points are to actually do the work and do it well, so that the greatest effect can be achieved.

Or, you may want to do everything, but that will seriously waste resources, time and money. This may be a good way to be a person, but not a good way to do business.

Because your costs are much higher, but in the eyes of customers, you are just a little better than others, and in the end you will just starve to death.”

"The real purpose of our business is to make money." Yang Wendong nodded and said.

Wang Zhixian smiled and said, "Yes, efficiency is the most important thing."

Yang Wendong asked again: "Mr. Wang, I feel that you are very knowledgeable. Why don't you start your own business?"

Wang Zhixian paused, as if lost in memory, then sighed and said: "This is a long story. In fact, I am a business student who graduated from Cambridge University in the UK. In 40, I returned to Hong Kong to start a business, but encountered the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong.

I didn't want to be a dog of the Japanese, but I didn't have the courage to resist, so I could only survive. All my businesses were taken over by the Japanese. It was my current employer who saved me, gave me a job, and allowed me to support my family.

After Japan was defeated, Hong Kong returned to normal, and I just followed him and never thought about starting a business again."

Yang Wendong nodded and said, "So that's how it is. It was indeed difficult back then."

If he traveled back to the 30s or 40s, maybe he would be a good businessman and use his money to support the anti-Japanese war. It shouldn't be a problem. "Haha, it's good to be like this now. Starting a business sounds glamorous, but behind it, there are so many hardships." Wang Zhixian laughed and said, "Mr. Yang, to eliminate rats at the Kowloon Wharf, we only need to follow two principles.

First, we must go all out to do our job well and try to eliminate rats on a large scale, killing as many as possible. However, we must also control costs because we also want to make money.

Second, the surface work must be done better. The more rat carcasses there are, the better. We must find ways to eliminate rats on a large scale not only inside the dock but also around the dock.

In this way, outsiders, especially the senior management of Wharf Holdings, will think that we are doing a good job; but in fact, we also need certain real results.

Otherwise, the people at the dock will still feel the same as before, with rats everywhere, and we will have trouble explaining it.”

"Okay, I understand." Yang Wendong nodded. If they wanted to achieve results while controlling costs, it seemed that they had no choice but to turn to him.

Again, rat extermination does not depend on the difficulty, but on how much you are willing to invest.

Wang Zhixian took a sip of tea, paused for a moment, and then asked, "How is it? Are you sure?"

"Mr. Wang, actually, what I meant was," Yang Wendong smiled and said, "Can we turn the wharf of Kowloon Wharf into a business like the current warehouse?"

"Long-term business? Do you want to contract the Kowloon Wharf like you do with the warehouse now?" Wang Zhixian said with surprise, "You are really ambitious, but for this kind of thing, even if you want to try, you can only do it after you have achieved results.

It’s also very difficult. The docks are very complicated. Even if I’m your boss, I may not be able to handle many things.”

"Yeah, I thought too far ahead." Yang Wendong nodded.

Wang Zhixian asked again: "If we want to take this business, what do we need to prepare? Just a mousetrap, mousetrap tube, etc. shouldn't be enough, right?"

Yang Wendong shook his head and said, "No, the dock is an open space, and the cargo inside is constantly moving. Without fixed walls, these mouse traps are of little use and will affect the normal work of the dock.

To kill rats at the dock, we have to use the most traditional method, which is to find the rats' nests and kill the rats directly inside. What methods have been used to kill rats at the dock in the past?"

Wang Zhixian said: “I checked a few days ago, the method used by the docks in the past was to raise cats, but the problem is that because there are many people nearby, the cats have no shortage of food and are not very willing to catch mice.

Another example is that they put out highly toxic food, which can kill cats and even children. Or these toxic ingredients can be brought onto cargo ships and found by customs in other countries.”

"Well, this is a troublesome matter." Yang Wendong nodded. Even with the development of biotechnology a century later, it is difficult to ensure that rat poison does not harm the environment or other animals.

Wang Zhixian added: "For things like rat extermination, Kowloon Wharf used to organize its own manpower to do it. This is the first time that we have hired outsiders to do it. In fact, it is because several companies that exterminate warehouses for rats have appeared in Hong Kong in recent times.

But you know what's going on with these companies. Among some warehouses in Hong Kong, only the dozens of them we are responsible for have good rat extermination results, while the others are just average.

What do you think of this number, Mr. Yang? "

After saying that, he placed a piece of paper with the number 5000 written on it on the table.

……

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(End of this chapter)