It was not the first time that Li Mu had quarreled with other companies. If a friend had intervened to make him give up his demands, then Makino Technology would not have reached such heights today.
Therefore, when Spielberg was entrusted to call Li Mu to ask for a favor, Li Mu did not give Spielberg any room to mediate.
As a businessman with a strong sense of business, Spielberg understood the importance of this matter to Roland Mass and the entire Mars Company. He knew that if he could leverage Li Mu through a favor, it would be of great value to Roland Mass and Mars. In the future, Roland Mass would definitely thank him with practical actions, so he tried to plead for Roland Mass.
The Jews were very good at doing business. In Spielberg's eyes, he could be a middleman in this matter. He could use a favor to "buy" forgiveness from Li Mu upstream, and then sell the forgiveness to Roland Mass downstream in exchange for practical benefits.
In his opinion, this was a profitable business with no capital. If he succeeded, he would make a lot of money. If he failed, there would be no loss.
Therefore, after Li Mu refused, Spielberg still pleaded, "Mr. Li, Roland is also an old friend of mine. I know him well. Sometimes he is impulsive, but he is not a bad person. Moreover, the reason for his conflict with you this time was that his CEO made a wrong decision. He did not want this, so I hope you can be magnanimous …"
Li Mu said in a serious tone, "Steven, we are good friends and partners, so when I refuse your request, you must distinguish the stakes."
With that, Li Mu paused for a moment and said, "I refuse your request, not because I don't want to give you face, nor do I want to make things difficult for you. It's just that this matter can't be solved by just one person. No matter how powerful a magnet is, it can't absorb plastic, because this is the existence of two different dimensions. Do you understand?"
Spielberg immediately understood the meaning of Li Mu's words. He knew that Li Mu had refused very thoroughly. If the favor between him and Li Mu was compared to a magnet, then the contradiction between him and Roland Mass was plastic. He could use the magnet to absorb objects containing iron, but it was useless for plastic.
Based on the extremely high return on investment, Spielberg wanted to give it another try, but the rationality in his mind warned him that he had already touched Li Mu's high-voltage line. It was not too late to retreat immediately. Otherwise, he would not be able to help Roland Mass, and his relationship with him might be greatly affected.
Thus, Spielberg immediately said, "Mr. Li, I understand what you mean. Don't worry, I won't say this again in the future."
Li Mu grunted with satisfaction and said, "Since you have a friendship with Roland Mass, tell him for me that no one can touch my porcelain. Since he touched it, he must pay the price. Otherwise, there are so many companies all over the world lining up to touch my porcelain. How can I make an example out of him?"
Li Mu said it lightly, but the unquestionable firmness and decisiveness in his tone still made Spielberg feel tremendous pressure. He was frightened by Li Mu's words. At this time, he understood that Li Mu had already made Roland Mass a target to make an example out of him. He wanted to fight a crushing war in front of the world's entrepreneurs. On the one hand, he would punish Roland Mass, and on the other hand, he would make others fear him and even submit to him.
The rapid rise of Makino Technology was like a huge country that had just been established and was developing rapidly. It was surrounded by those old powerful countries.
In order to establish its strong image, Makino Technology must respond to all provocations with all its strength. Once a country showed its teeth to it, it must be held down and beaten until it screamed and begged for mercy.
This was the only way to make the other powerful countries that were eyeing them covetously fear them. Only then would they be able to gain enough respect and a period of peaceful development.
To a large extent, Li Mu's strategy was based on the great strategy of the founding leaders. A newly rising country must go all out in the first foreign war, so that those wolves, wolves, tigers, and leopards in the world would be afraid of them.
Hua Xia's decades of peaceful development were inseparable from the great and arduous battle in the northern part of the peninsula.
As a legitimate son of Huaxia, Li Mu naturally knew the importance of this "first time". There were thousands of companies all over the world that wanted to blackmail him. If he didn't beat the first one to death, cripple, and convince him, how could he live in the future?
…
The moment Roland Mas received a call from Spielberg, he was expecting him to bring him good news. He didn't expect that the news he brought was much worse than he expected.
He originally thought that Li Mu was just unhappy and wanted to go against Mars, but Spielberg's call made him understand that Li Mu wanted to use him as a warning to others.
In addition to the literal meaning, there was also a layer of subtext: The chicken may not have committed a crime worthy of death, but because he wanted to kill it for the monkeys, he "committed a crime worthy of death."
After learning about Li Mu's attitude toward him, Roland Mas immediately panicked. Now, the entire Mars Group had lost its voice. It was already a pipe dream to fight a publicity war with Li Mu. If this matter continued to develop, Mars would only sink deeper and deeper. If Mars' global sales collapsed, it would be equivalent to losing half of its life. It would be difficult to return to the peak position of the Fortune 500 and the top three private companies in the United States.
The operating model of the physical manufacturing industry was much slower, clumsier, and heavier than an internet company.
An internet company was like a lightweight, powerful car that was sensitive to steering and braking. It could brake, accelerate, and make sharp turns.
In daily operations, the internet company could directly see the number of active users on its own website and app on that day through intuitive data. If there were any fluctuations, it could immediately be detected and directly adjusted.
For example, a shopping website would normally have 500,000 online users at 10 am every day with 10 orders per second. However, on that day, there were 480,000 online users at 10 am with 8.5 orders per second. Such data would continue. By 10: 20 am, the CEO might have called the person in charge of operations to the office to scold him. At 10: 30 am, the person in charge of operations might have already led the team to find the reason.
If the user was not satisfied with the product that had just been released, they could immediately go offline after investigation and never come back. This was a brake.
If there was a bug in a certain section of the product that caused the user experience to decline, the technical department could immediately fix it. This was a sharp turn.
If the competitor's recent promotion efforts were too strong and snatched away some of the users, the marketing department could immediately invest more costs and resources to improve the promotion. This was a rapid acceleration.
Compared to an internet company, it was very difficult for a company like Mars to accelerate, decelerate, and turn. It was more like a giant oil tanker.
Every product of Mars had to go through a long period of research and testing. It was the same for food. After the research and testing, one or even several production lines had to be built before they could be released into the market. They had to recruit and train professional technicians before mass production could be carried out. This meant that the starting acceleration was very slow. They had to move forward step by step.
It was like a giant oil tanker. Although it had a large capacity, it started slowly and accelerated very slowly.
In daily operations, if there was a problem with a certain product, or if there was a problem with the entire product line, the company could not immediately reduce production. This was because the reduction of production represented the reduction of the production line and labor force, the increase of the unit cost of raw materials, the increase of the unit production cost, and the loss of market share.
The operation of the production line was more like the operation of a giant oil tanker. The process of accelerating from zero consumed a lot of power. However, once it was on the right track, it could ensure a stable and uniform continuous operation. If there was a need to decelerate in the middle, it could not be achieved by stepping on the brakes. Instead, it needed to consume a lot of fuel to push back. Once the speed dropped, to speed up again, it needed to move forward again.
If Mars was sure that its sales would not increase in the future, then reducing production now would be a wise choice. However, the problem was that Mars was not sure if it could raise its sales again in a short period of time.
Roland Mas was very clear that as long as there was a chance, Mars could not immediately reduce production.
His current situation was very similar to the operation of dairy farmers pouring milk into the river during the Great Depression in the United States.
On the surface, the evil capitalists would rather pour milk into the river than share it with the poor.
However, after careful analysis, in fact, it was not the capitalists who poured milk into the river, but the dairy farmers. These dairy farmers might be even more pitiful than the poor.
In that era, if the milk market did not fare well, the capitalists would immediately stop purchasing and hold onto their money to wait and see. This was because only money had no shelf life and no inventory pressure.
As for the milk in the hands of the dairy farmers, it would be difficult to sell because it could not be converted into cash. In the end, it was mostly the poor dairy farmers who poured the milk into the river.
Similarly, in that era, the shelf life of milk was only one or two days. If it could not be sold, it would rot and go bad. Even if the dairy farmers wanted to give milk to people who were poorer than them, the storage, transportation, distribution, and even marketing of the milk would need to invest a lot of money. How could it be cheaper than pouring milk directly into the river?
Moreover, the worst thing for the dairy farmers was that they knew that their milk could not be sold, but they still had to continue feeding and milking their cows.
The reason was that they could not slaughter their cows just because they could not sell their milk. They could not stop milking their cows and reduce the feeding of the cows just because they could not sell their milk. After all, they still had to rely on the cows to support their families in the future. No matter what, they had to hold on until the milk market improved.
This was actually the same logic as the production line.
Roland Mas could already foresee that Mars' next step would be to face the dilemma that the dairy farmers faced in the past.
At this time, he also began to be confused. Should he choose to fight head-on, or should he bow down to Li Mu?
Carrying a thorn and asking for forgiveness. Now that he thought about it, it did not seem so difficult to accept …
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