Chapter 239 Turn the tide
"You're welcome, in a sense we're in the same trench."
"Although that said, it has different meanings to both parties. Come on! I wish you a glass of Brother Zhou!" Dong Li smiled and raised the wine in his hand and stood up. Zhou Liwen also got up with a smile and clinked a glass with the other party.
Mr. Li looked much older than when he was in Shanghai. He was already thinner due to the group's difficulties and looked like an ordinary old farmer on the street. However, today, Mr. Li was in the best mood in the past few months. Although the group has not been able to get out of the difficulties, he has at least seen hope.
Just a month ago, Li Dong, who was already in despair, suddenly received a call from Zhou Liwen. At first, he didn't want to talk to the other party because his side in Shanghai was still fresh in his memory. At that time, in order to save the brand he created, Li Dong lowered his figure and took the initiative to ask Zhou Liwen for help, and even offered generous conditions. But who would have thought that the other party would open his mouth and put forward the request to take control of TCL, which was something that Li Dong would not accept even if he died.
In Li's opinion, TCL is like his own children. Which parents are willing to give their own children who have been raising for decades to others? Although Li is a farmer and has a low level of education, he still has the arrogance and self-esteem brought by his bones. If it is only for some reason that he is forced to ask for help from others, or even kneel down and begs his grandfather to sue his grandmother, but if he wants to easily take away his life's achievements, Li absolutely disagrees. In his opinion, instead of giving the career he has worked hard to others for nothing, it is better to destroy it with his own hands. No one can get what he can't get.
But Dong Li never expected that Zhou Liwen's call was not as expected. During the call, Zhou Liwen agreed with Dong Li's request last time in Shanghai, but needed to make some modifications in the details. At the same time, in order to show sincerity, Zhou Liwen also took the initiative to propose that it could help Dong Li get out of the predicament in a very short period of time.
Zhou Liwen's sudden olive branch surprised Dong Li very much. He couldn't understand why Zhou Liwen suddenly changed his mind. You should know that TCL is completely different from a few months ago. Most of the business of the entire group has basically been paralyzed, liquidity has been exhausted, and brand reputation has been damaged. It is currently limited to the brink of bankruptcy. If it weren't for the hard work of Li Dong Li's efforts to support him, the group would have collapsed long ago.
But no matter what, Zhou Liwen's call was like a drowning man catching the last straw. The doubt in Li Dong's heart flashed and was soon left behind by him. Since the other party agreed to his original proposal, what else could he think about? The worst result was that the group went bankrupt and closed down. Li Dong had already become aware of this ending. But if it succeeded, wouldn't his TCL come back to life?
Without thinking too much, Li Dong agreed to Zhou Liwen's request without hesitation. The next day, the two parties signed an agreement. Orz invested US$35 million plus 5% of the equity in exchange for 24% of the equity of TCL Group. The two companies will carry out comprehensive cooperation in business, R&D, market and other aspects to form a strategic alliance.
The signing of the agreement immediately gave TCL a shot in a strong heart, which quickly stabilized the internal situation of TCL. Zhou Liwen became the vice chairman of TCL and was appointed as the group CEO at the board of directors, fully responsible for the current TCL operation.
During the board of directors and senior meetings, Zhou Liwen made adjustments to the current TCL departments with the support of Director Li. Due to the difficulties faced before, many of the middle and senior TCL's middle and senior executives have left, and there was no resistance to the adjustment. Then, Zhou Liwen instructed the TCL Legal Department to announce MediaTek. This punch not only surprised Director Li, but also shocked the rest of the TCL's senior executives.
However, Mr. Li didn't have any good feelings for MediaTek. When he learned that Zhou Liwen was really interested in doing this, he agreed with both hands. In addition, when Zhou Liwen injected a large amount of funds, the local government also expressed support. After all, TCL is a local pillar enterprise, and no one wants to see such a large group company collapsed. On the day Zhou Liwen entered TCL, the local government changed its previous attitude and agreed to Zhou Liwen's request to borrow RMB 500 million from the bank with TCL assets. At the same time, due to the alliance between the two companies, the Xiangjiang Stock Exchange also expressed close attention and agreed that as long as the TCL group tends to stabilize, the possibility of stock review will be considered immediately.
Several consecutive combination punches caused TCL to recover from a dying situation. In addition, with Orz's technical support, the original technical problems of TCL mobile phones were also solved. Zhou Liwen then used the media to create a big news and poured all the dirty water on MediaTek's mobile phone problems on MediaTek, and also provided the test evidence from the original research institute. This insider disclosure instantly caused a huge uproar in the outside world, especially those large and small companies that made counterfeit mobile phones. These people were already making trouble because of MediaTek's mobile phone chip system problems. As soon as the TCL incident was disclosed, it immediately caused their chain reaction.
Although these bosses who attempted to make a fortune in counterfeit mobile phones, but were cheated by MediaTek did not understand technology, they were not fuel-efficient. These people have a wide connection and relationship. If they were single, it might not be a big deal, but ten, hundreds or even thousands would be amazing. Moreover, TCL was charging ahead and even came up with the test report of the institute as a basis, which was equivalent to throwing an extremely powerful bomb on the crater that was about to erupt.
In this case, the outside world's accusations against MediaTek are rising and falling, and consumers have gradually improved their quality problems that TCL had previously encountered. With the spread of some news, most consumers gradually believe that the culprit of TCL's quality problems is MediaTek, a chip system supplier. TCL is just a scapegoat and has suffered on behalf of others.
Immediately afterwards, Zhou Liwen's combination of punches continued to attack. He announced to the outside world in the name of TCL's CEO that in order to prove that the mobile phones produced are reliable, TCL decided to send 150,000 mobile phones to the society for free for consumers to collect and use. As soon as this news was announced, it caused a strong response in the market. Even consumers who had bought TCL phones before and returned the products due to quality problems were moved by it. After all, who doesn't like the free gifts? Moreover, since TCL Group dares to do this, it means that their mobile phones no longer have quality problems after solving MediaTek's technical defects.
Zhou Liwen, a mobile phone that was sent for free, used the Taobao e-commerce website that was just established to register and randomly selected lucky ones to send. This trick was equivalent to a large atomic bomb-like advertisement for TCL and the Internet company. The traffic of Taobao websites soared that day, and the click rate according to statistics increased by 1057%, surpassing the largest e-commerce platform in China, eBay.com.
In addition, in addition to the 150,000 free mobile phones of lucky people, TCL also carried out a "flash sale" campaign of 300,000 mobile phones, which was released on Taobao at a price of only 300 yuan. This made consumers more enthusiastic. In just a few days, the total of 450,000 mobile phones were snatched away. Feedback from consumer purchase comments showed that 99% of consumers were satisfied with the quality of TCL's improved version of mobile phones. Because of this series of activities, TCL's brand reputation began to rise. As time goes by, the impact of the quality crisis began to fade.
Zhou Liwen's series of measures made Li stunned. He never expected that Zhou Liwen's actions would easily solve the problems he had been troubled by, causing TCL Group to resurrect. In less than a month, TCL Group successfully recovered the crisis caused by mobile phone quality problems. Moreover, with the launch of the event, TCL mobile phones were recognised by consumers. In this case, other TCL products began to return to the market, and even the suppliers who had previously forced TCL to ask for payments came back one after another. In order to show sincerity in cooperation, they not only took the initiative to return the collateral that had been moved from the TCL Group's warehouse, but also proposed to give up part of the profits to obtain the possibility of continuing to cooperate with TCL.
In this case, although Director Li said that he did not agree to continue to cooperate with them, Zhou Liwen's advice was finally adopted by Zhou Liwen's persuasion and selected some "save" objects among these returning suppliers to accept it. Of course, this acceptance is not unconditional. These suppliers not only have to return what they took from TCL without authorization, but also provide TCL with the "behind the scenes" they did so when profit concessions are made. To put it bluntly, Zhou Liwen used these suppliers to ask them to submit a "vote letter". As expected, Zhou Liwen and Li both found MediaTek's shadow more or less. With these things in hand, Zhou Liwen believed that it was enough to have a pot of Cai Mingjie.
"What's the matter with Brother Soy Sauce?" Zhou Liwen put down his wine glass and asked while holding a chopstick of vegetables.
"Soy sauce?" Li Dong was stunned for a moment, and then he immediately realized that Cai Mingjie was not surnamed Cai, and Lao Cai is famous for his soy sauce. Isn't this Lao Cai the soy sauce brother?
"Not to say, this nickname is really good, Brother Soy Sauce? Hahaha!" Dong Li couldn't help laughing, shaking his head with joy.
He wiped the tears from the corners of his eyes with the paper, and Dong Li smiled and said, "What else can happen? This guy is probably in a state of anxiety now. So many things have come out together, but he has not responded yet."
"What? Haven't you reacted yet?" Although Zhou Liwen is now the CEO of TCL, he actually doesn't care much about specific matters except for the big decisions, especially MediaTek's legal department is mainly handled by TCL. It's better for Mr. Li to be responsible for this matter. When he heard that MediaTek has not responded yet, Zhou Liwen frowned and thought for a while and said, "Then don't wait, just sue it."
“Prosecution?”
Chapter completed!