Story of a Big Player from Gangnam

Gun-Ho wanted to know what President Song would think about sending Director Jong-Suk Park to India.

Gun-Ho asked President Song, “The new president of Dyeon India—Mr. Brandon Burke—is requesting that we send Director Park to the India location. He wants him to take their plant manager position.”

“Oh, he wants Director Park? No way, sir. GH Mobile can’t possibly manage the production site without Director Park.”

President Song was very firm about not sending Director Park anywhere.

“GH Mobile has many managers and engineers who are very competent. Do you absolutely need Director Park here?”

“Of course, sir. We must not lose Director Park. Having him in this location is critical. The Mr. Brandon Burke person is making an unreasonable and ridiculous request. Director Park was a direct apprentice of the world-renowned Japanese engineer—Mr. Sakata Ikuzo. He trained Director Park himself. Director Park is rough sometimes, and I rebuke him sometimes too, but he is an absolutely essential worker for GH Mobile.”

“Hmm, I understand what you mean.”

“Oh, and I talked with the secretary-general of Gongmyeong Party earlier. He seemed to be worried a lot about the upcoming by-election. He truly appreciates your contribution of 100 million won in supporting them, and he is feeling even more pressured that he had to make a positive outcome in this by-election.”

“You are talking about the political party where Minister Jin-Woo Lee belongs to, right? I’m sure everything will be fine.”

“According to the public opinion poll, it’s a neck-and-neck election race. His opponent candidate—the formal news anchorman—holds a lot of votes. We can’t be certain that Minister Jin-Woo Lee will win at this moment. A Electronics seems to be trying hard to help our business, and I’m worried that we might see a negative result against their hope.”

“It won’t. Everything will be fine.”

“Huh?”

“We can’t even predict what would happen tomorrow in politics. Anything can happen. Oh, I thought that you were on your way out somewhere. Don’t you have to go now?”

“I have a meeting that is hosted by S Group for their vendor companies. As you know, I used to work there, and its chairman sometimes wants to see me. So, I need to attend the meeting.”

“Their vice chairman, who is the son of the chairman, is the one who actually runs the entire S Group, isn’t he? Is he leading the company well?”

“Yes, he is doing fine so far without any noticeable issues. The problem is Egnopak. Egnopak’s president’s son is the one who causes a lot of troubles that affect his business.”

“Right. Hmm.”

Gun-Ho and President Song were still standing at the front entrance of GH Mobile’s building while conversing. A few workers came to the entrance to buy some beverages from the vending machine installed there. When they saw both Gun-Ho and President Song there, they slowly walked away.

“Egnopak’s president wants his son to join his company, but it seems that he is hesitating because his son could very possibly bring a lot of troubles to his company.”

“Isn’t Egnopak’s president’s son working as a managing director of Egnopak in LA?”

“Yes, he is supposed to run the company there as its overseas president, but the fact is that its vice president actually oversees the company’s daily operations. I know its vice president very well personally.”

“Hmm, is that right?”

“Well, sir, I guess I’d better get going now. I have to leave for the meeting to arrive on time.”

“Sure. I will talk to you later.”

Gun-Ho walked up to the second floor and went into his office. He then called for the general affairs director.

“You wanted to see me, sir?”

“How’s the parking space matter going? Did we make a contract with the storage building next to the church?”

“No, sir, we haven’t yet.”

“Why? Is the property owner asking for a really high rent?”

“That’s not it. The property owner is not available to sign the contract. He went on a trip to Zhangjiajie City in China with his wife. I was told that he would come back either today or the day after tomorrow. Once he comes back, we will sign the lease contract for the space.”

“Hmm, okay.”

“I learned an interesting thing about the church though, that we previously tried to lease the parking space from.”

“What interesting thing can be there for a church?”

“The church built a huge and large building when he moved its location in this area, as you see the building. But, not many people are coming to their church as they initially expected, and consequently, they seem to be in financial trouble. I heard that they will place the property on the market soon.”

“Are you saying that we want to buy that church?”

“Well, I’m just giving you relevant information, so you can make an informed decision, sir.”

“The property is for religious activity, and the transfer tax in acquiring the property is exempted accordingly. That’s why the price of the property is probably lower than other properties in the same area. However, what are we going to do with the church building? We wanted to use their parking space, but their building won’t be very useful for our business.”

“That’s true.”

“They did a nice job building the enormous and beautiful building, but we can’t use the building to manufacture products. All we can do with the building is to use it as our office building. Moreover, I’m sure that the land is not classified for a factory purpose. That means that currently, it doesn’t have an electricity system, sewer system, and ventilation system, etc. that we need. And, it’s far from our factory to connect those systems.”

“I’m not suggesting that we should buy that property, sir. I’m just giving the information that I learned while searching for the parking solution.”

“Please focus on making the good lease contract for now with the storage building’s owner once he comes back from his trip to Zhangjiajie, China for a low price. We don’t want our workers to get stressed because of the parking problem. It could affect the production capacity of our factory.”

“Understood, sir.”

“Don’t rely on the parking space that we are about to get. We need to find other ways to ease the problem too. Implement the carpooling system efficiently, and find out about public transportation near our factory too. A bus doesn’t run often in provincial cities, unlike Seoul. So, you want to watch the bus schedule closely, and see if our workers can take the bus on time after work. If that works, I do recommend that they use public transportation too.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Also, think about giving transportation incentives to those workers who don’t bring their personal vehicles in commuting.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Since you are here, let me give you a project.”

“A project, sir?”

“Why don’t we talk about it while having a cup of tea?”

Gun-Ho asked the secretary—Ms. Hee-Jeong Park—to bring two cups of green tea. Gun-Ho said slowly while sipping his tea, “You know that we have about 30 client companies that we provide with our products.”

“Yes, I know that, sir.”

“Our major client companies had been S Group, Mandong Company, and Egnopak until recently. And, when the volume of product orders from A Electronics and H Group increased substantially, these two companies became our two major clients.”

“That’s correct, sir.”

“We can’t predict the future of a business with certainty. Our major client company could be no longer our client tomorrow, and we might have a new enormous client company the following day. We just don’t know for sure. Conglomerates in Korea, for example, we see the changes there too, which we hadn’t expected before. The ranking order in conglomerates ten years ago looks different from the ranking order for today, doesn’t it?”

“That’s true, sir.”

“Our company is located in Jiksan Town, Cheonan City right now. But many of our client companies are located somewhere else. Do you know which area?”

“I would say that many of our client companies are scattered in Dangjin City, Changwon City, Ulsan City, Suwon City, and Gumi City.”

“Right. That means that it would be better that our factory is situated in Dangjin City and Changwon City, right? To make our business more efficient.”

“That… that’s right, sir.”

“Do you know how many factories S Group has within the country? If we don’t count their subsidiary companies overseas.”

“I believe they have five domestic factories, sir.”

“Exactly. That’s what I was getting to. We need more factories, maybe our third factory in Dangjin City and fourth factory in Changwon City.”

“I absolutely agree with you, sir.”

“We shouldn’t buy a church building that has no use to us, just because it’s a newly constructed building and very well made. Here is your project. Keep an eye on the market for the properties in Dangjin City and Changwon City, and see if there is a good factory building available for us to acquire. Do it quietly, and you have plenty of time to do it. We are not in a rush to have another factory yet. This is just one of the efforts that we make for our future.”

“Yes, sir.”