Story of a Big Player from Gangnam

President Song said to Gun-Ho, “That’s not exactly what I was saying, sir. I was thinking that GH Machines makes a final product by inserting the double metal ring that they would build, on their own, and they directly supply S Group with the product, without going through GH Mobile. In other words, we— GH Mobile— supply GH Machines with the EP rubber product, and GH Machines add those double metal rings to the products and send them to S Group. That way, GH Machines becomes S Group’s vendor company, instead of being GH Mobile’s vendor company.”

“So, you are saying that S Group asked GH Mobile to build an EP rubber product for them with some metal rings attached, but you will give that business to GH Machines. And, GH Mobile will build the EP rubber product for GH Machines, so they can just manufacture the metal rings and add them to GH Machines’ product, and send directly to S Group, right?”

“That’s right. If this product order was for auto parts, then GH Machines would have needed to get some quality or system certification such as SQ or five-star quality certification, to be a vendor company. But, since most of S Group’s products are home appliances, GH Machines can supply S Group with their products without any problems.”

“Hmm, I think that’s a good idea. How large is that EP rubber product order with S Group?”

“It will bring us about 1 billion won per month. So, it’s around 12 billion won per year. GH Machines’ entire annual sales haven’t even reached 10 billion won now. If they can get this product order from S Group, they can anticipate easily making 20 billion won per year. And, it won’t be a small company anymore.”

“Hmm.”

“GH Machines has no debt. If they work really hard for a year and achieve an operating profit of 15%, it will make 3 billion won. That’s more than enough money to buy a factory, so they can have their own factory.”

“Hmm.”

“With an annual sales revenue of 20 billion won, it can open a research center as well. And, the company will continue to grow like that. In the meanwhile, they might want to get a product quality certification like SQ. It will grow as big as Mulpasaneop in no time. Once they grow that big, they can prepare to go public too.”

“S Group is a large company. Do you think they will take the products that were built by a small and not-very-well-known company like GH Machines?”

“You don’t have to worry about it, sir. S Group’s plant manager knows President Jong-Suk Park. It’s not like GH Machines has to prove itself to earn the business with S Group. S Group’s plant manager and engineers there are well aware of President Park’s competency at work and the good product quality that he produces. When I meet with S Group’s vice president today for lunch, I will talk to him about it.”

“Haha. I hope it works well, but I’m not sure if S Group’s vice president will take the deal though.”

“S Group’s vice president was junior to me when I had worked there. I was supposed to be promoted to the vice president position at that time, but he took the position instead. He feels like he owes me because of it. Also, he is a relative of the S Group’s owner family; he has good authority to make a decision on his own for a business like this. I’m positive that he will take the deal for me.”

“Well, I’m crossing my fingers.”

Gun-Ho felt hopeful.

‘I’ve been worried about GH Machines. I guess President Song found a solution. I will probably be able to raise Jong-Suk Park’s salary.

As President Song suggested earlier, I should distribute 200 billion won to GH Mobile’s shareholders as dividends, and we can pay taxes in installments throughout a period of several years. And, giving GH Mobile’s product order that goes to S Group to GH Machines sounds really good. Hmm, President Song deserves receiving his dividend.’

Gun-Ho went to GH Machines pleasingly. When he arrived there, Jong-Suk Park was talking with a young man in the president’s office. As Gun-Ho entered the office, Jong-Suk Park quickly stood up from his seat and gave a deep bow to Gun-Ho and said, “Mr. Chairman. You are here, sir.”

Gun-Ho almost yelled at him, “Cut it out, man,” but he couldn’t since they were not alone. He just sat on the sofa in the office without saying anything.

Jong-Suk Park introduced Gun-Ho to the young man, “Please meet GH Group’s Chairman Gun-Ho Goo.”

“Hello, sir. I’m Hee-Young Noh.”

Jong-Suk Park continued to show his acute respect to Gun-Ho.

“This is our new employee, sir. He will handle our sales work. Dyeon Korea’s Vice President Kim recommended him. He used to work in Oshin Tech as an assistant manager in its sales department before joining us.”

“Oh, really? It’s nice to meet you.”

As Gun-Ho extended his hand to the Hee-Young Noh person, he held Gun-Ho’s hand while giving a deep bow to Gun-Ho.

“How old are you?”

“I’m 33 years old, sir.”

“Hmm, it’s a good age.”

After Mr. Noh left the office, Jong-Suk Park called for the interpreter lady.

“Ms. Mi-Ran Yang! Please bring us two cups of green tea.”

Jong-Suk Park’s voice was loud and brisk as always.

“Hey, you don’t have to shout all the time. That hurts my ears, man.”

“Hehe. Did I?”

When they were alone, Jong-Suk Park talked with Gun-Ho comfortably.

Gun-Ho said while sipping the green tea that the lady worker had brought to the office, “That new employee is a good-looking man. Is he 3 years younger than you, President Park?”

“Yeah, he is 3 years younger than me. I’m treating him like my little brother.”

“That’s good. When you worked in GH Mobile, everyone around you was older than you, and you had to call all of them as big brothers, right? Here, you are a big brother. You must enjoy that, do you?”

“Hehe. They don’t call me a big brother. They shouldn’t do that at work. They always address me as Mr. President.”

“I reviewed GH Machines’ profit and loss statement that you sent to me. GH Machines made 1.4 billion won this year. So, it made 700 million won per month since it has been in business for 2 months now. You did a good job.”

“We could make that much because of the machines that we built for Dyeon Korea. The thing is that Dyeon Korea doesn’t need new machines every month, and I think I’m screwed for the months when we don’t receive any product order from Dyeon Korea. I sometimes can’t sleep at night worrying about the company. I think that I was a lot happier when I worked as a plant manager in GH Mobile.”

“Hmm, you think so?”

“When I worked for GH Mobile, all I had to worry about was to build machines and fix machines. But, here, I’m worried about sales and revenues all the time, and I am stressed a lot. I feel anxious all the time. What if I don’t make enough money to pay my workers out there working now. I sometimes feel terrified thinking about possible bad scenarios that I could confront while running this company.”

“I see you striving to keep this business going.”

“I sometimes thought about going to see you and tell you that I want to resign from this president position. I truly think that all business owners have to be respected for their hard and very stressful work.”

“You received a product order from President Song, right? Manufacturing double metal rings.”

“That wouldn’t help much. We are supposed to manufacture 100,000 pieces of the double metal rings per month, and it will bring us about 15 million won. That’s it. Well, it’s still work for us, and we still make money from it anyway, so of course we will build them for GH Mobile. I’m pretty much taking any work at this point, that will bring revenues.”