Chu He had heard about Zhang Ji Walnut Cake's owner for a long time. After Ren Youzi mentioned it to him, he learned more about Zhang Yu and his company's background.
Although there was no time to conduct in-depth background checks such as financial reports, the general image of this person and his company had already been sketched in his mind.
"Talents that can be created come into being".
This was Chuhe's first evaluation of Zhang Yu. There is nothing surprising about Zhang Yu. In the final analysis, he just caught up with the "wind". To put it bluntly, he is a "pig taking off on the wind."
However, just "coming into being" is too simple. Thousands of people have been promoted by the Senate, and these people have changed their destiny, but the vast majority of people have stopped here. In contrast, this little brother followed the rhythm of the Senate every step of the way - not to mention the guidance of Elder Wu Hong behind this, this kind of courage and insight is not something ordinary people have.
It's better to meet him than to be famous, and let's go to his store and have a look. Even if you can't see anyone, you can at least tell something about it from the store.
Zhang Yu is currently in the main store of Great World.
Since he followed Zeng Juan's advice, he and his father separated and formed their own companies. His father's company remains in the same place, still using the old sign, and is still called "Zhang Ji Old Cake Shop". It operates a workshop-style production in front of the store and in the back. It mainly supplies old customers and some "new rich" who "come here because of its reputation". . He registered and established "Zhang Ji Food Co., Ltd.", purchased land outside the city and opened a factory to produce various packaged foods in a factory. It goes without saying that the main customer is the Senate. He took advantage of the situation and set up the company's headquarters in the Dajie store.
It can be said that everything he has comes from the gift of the Senate, and almost all his business is given by the Senate. "Keeping up with the Senate" is his guiding ideology in running the company. To this end, he has to stay in the place closest to the Senate - in Guangzhou, this place is the big world.
Since it was the headquarters, he covered the entire upper and lower floors of the store in one go. The first floor is the store, the second floor is the office and warehouse, and the third floor is the dormitory. In fact, most of his guys usually live in the dormitory in the big world instead of going home.
My parents' home has also been moved to a new place. They bought the old house of a gentry family. Because this family was involved in a trafficking and murder case, the whole family was exiled to Kaohsiung and their property was confiscated. The house was "auctioned" by the Guangzhou team of the Planning Institute's special search team.
The newly purchased mansion is not big, but the building is exquisite, which suits the wishes of Mr. Zhang and his wife. According to his father's thoughts, now that his son has established a business and purchased a mansion, it is time for him to "get married" - the number of matchmakers coming to propose marriages has almost broken the threshold, and among them there are many "high branches" that they never dared to dream of in the past. The daughter of the family.
But Zhang Yu is not in a hurry to find a wife. Firstly, he has no such intention at the moment. Secondly, he has been in love with the tofu shop owner's daughter for a long time. Although the two have not made a "private life", Zhang Yu always feels that he can't just do this. Marry someone else. In addition, the business was getting busier day by day, so this matter was dropped.
From the perspective of outsiders, Zhang Yu's current situation is smooth and everything goes well. Not to mention that his walnut pastry shop became very popular in Guangzhou, and everyone among the dignitaries was proud to taste his pastries. Just for the newly built factories outside the city, the goods produced are not worried about sales at all. Australian cargo ships will transport as much as they produce. There are only ships waiting for goods, but no goods waiting for ships. People in the city and outside the city say that the Zhang family is now "making money every day".
Zhang Yu was not happy at all. He ran into the trouble that all fast-growing businesses face.
The first is the lack of people. That’s right, Zhangji Foods is in a serious “labor shortage.”
Of course, he does not lack handymen who only need hard work. What he lacks are "workers" and "managers"
Many new machines are used in Zhangji Food Company. According to the opinion of the mechanical industry veterans, these equipment are not as good as the equipment of small food factories in the 1990s, and are at the level of "black workshops" at best.
But even if it's semi-mechanical and semi-manual work at the "black workshop" level, workers still need to be trained from scratch. The Lingao Machinery Factory that sold him the equipment naturally sent people to train him, but as soon as the trained naturalized master left, he started to have a headache: the brand-new operators did not have much practical experience, and they were not familiar with the operating procedures. I seem to understand but not understand. There were a lot of accidents of all kinds, and the equipment started and stopped working. It is rarely possible to work at full capacity. The worker's injury also cost him a lot of medicine. There were also a few people who had their fingers crushed and their arms broken. They originally wanted to give them some money to send home, but Elder Hong said that "the impact would be bad" and asked them to stay in the field and do whatever chores they could.
This is the second thing. In the past, Zhang Yu's family only opened an additional shop, with only two or three clerks and apprentices. Later, when it became larger, there were only a dozen or so clerks. Their whole family can take care of themselves when they go into battle. Now his factory alone has more than 200 workers. There are several workshops and two or three warehouses, and thousands of raw materials and finished products come in and out every day. There is a dire shortage of people in charge.
According to the practice of traditional enterprises, it is natural to first appoint family members and relatives, but Zhang Yu obviously cannot take care of his family. On the one hand, his parents need to keep their old positions, and on the other hand, the Zhang family is not prosperous and has no decent talents. His only biological uncle is a waiter in the teahouse, and the couple is also working for his father. His second daughter, Zhang Ting, is very smart, but unfortunately there is only one. Now she is the accountant of Zhang Ji Food, and she also takes care of the old shop. accounts, I can no longer do anything at all. Besides, she is just a girl who has not yet left the government, and she cannot show her face.
Zhang Yu's mother was not a local, so her uncle's family couldn't be counted on. Although they wrote a letter asking them to "come to Guangzhou quickly," the journey was long and the war was chaotic, so they couldn't be counted on immediately.
Zhang Yu was so busy now that he wished he could separate himself. While the factory is producing, there are "leakages" at the same time. Zhang Yu knew that the losses were serious, but he had to bite the bullet and maintain production. Fortunately, Gao Ju was willing to win over him at this time and helped him hire a few experienced stewards to reorganize the factory, and then the operation was generally straightened out.
Second, there is a shortage of funds.
It is naturally a good thing that Zhangji Food Company received a big order from Lianqin. But financial pressure also comes. With the Zhang family's original financial resources, it would have been impossible to accept an order of this scale. It was only thanks to Hong Huangnan that he helped him contact Delong Bank and borrowed a large sum of money using "Zhang's Old Shop" as collateral. This gave him the start-up capital to buy land and equipment.
If the formal lending process is followed, the collateral for this loan is obviously unqualified. Even with Hong Huangnan's guarantee, both Yan Ming and Meng Xian were very hesitant. Finally, the report was reported to Wen Desi, who made the decision to grant a special loan in the name of "supporting benchmark private enterprises."
This almost unsecured loan was issued several times. The accumulated numbers have reached a point that scares Zhang Yu.
"What if I can't repay the loan?" This thought has been swirling in his mind recently. The orders coming from Lianqin were getting bigger and bigger, and he had to continue to expand the scale, add equipment, and hire more workers. The debts owed for purchasing raw materials are also increasing.
Every time he looked at the account book Zhang Ting gave him, Zhang Yu had a feeling: after working so hard for a long time, he had made no money except a lot of accounts receivable and the ever-expanding factory.
Although the order given to him by Lianqin had very favorable cash and stock conditions, he could not get the payment until the goods were delivered. The amount of production costs that food companies advance up front is also staggering. At present, the supply between him and his suppliers still follows the old rules of "accounting during three periods." This has somewhat eased the financial pressure of Zhang Ji Food Company. But as orders continued to increase, suppliers began to complain: they couldn't hold on any longer - most suppliers had never encountered a customer of Zhang Ji's size.
In the past month, many suppliers have come, either through entrustment, or in person to ask for help, hoping that they can pay some bills properly. Some people begged so hard that they almost knelt down and kowtowed to him; some people were regular customers of the store in the past and asked their parents to come to ask for help; some people took the path of Zeng Juan... in short The Eight Immortals crossed the sea, each showing his magical powers. This made Zhang Yu very embarrassed.
For the sake of human relations and justice, Zhang Yu could not refuse sternly, so all parties could only deal with it and come up with a delaying strategy.
After this set of delaying measures, Zhang Ting gave him a very bad news. According to the existing delivery plan, accounts receivable and payable, cash flow... Calculated, the Lunar New Year's Eve in 1636 will be very sad.
According to Zhang Ting's calculations, no major expenditures can be made from now until New Year's Eve, and the year-end dividends originally planned to be paid to employees on New Year's Eve will have to be postponed until after the first month, so that Zhang Ji Food Company can just pay all the dividends. Accounts payable and bank interest will not cause big news about inability to pay.
Although Zhang Yu comes from a small business family, he fully understands the value of the word "credibility". When Dadou was about to retire, because he had no cash on hand, he would rather pawn his mother's jewelry and his longevity lock to pay for the goods. He clearly remembers these past events. Lao Dou once said: As long as you have credibility in business, you can survive even if you lose money. Once you lose your credit, nothing will work.
But please don't pay any extra expenses. Zhang Yu prayed secretly in his heart. He really couldn't bear any more stimulation now. However, things are still worrying one after another. Yesterday, he just received a message from Gao Ji, saying that the Nanyang Company newly established by the Senate was preparing to raise shares and sell bonds, and asked if he was interested in participating - if so, he was probably ready to invest. No matter how much money goes down, he can hold it high and prepare it so that he can have an idea of how much it will cost.
