Chapter One Hundred and Six: Strategic Priority

Gui A County.

With the children around her gone, especially with Little Second Girl and the others no longer chattering and making a fuss, the sudden silence made Lu Kun feel oddly unaccustomed to the house.

He looked up at the wall clock and saw that it was already past two in the afternoon.

Liu Liping had recently taken a liking to card games and was often crossing over to the park opposite to play with a group of idle women who had nothing better to do all day.

She was pregnant, and Lu Kun could not persuade her otherwise, so he had to let Big Girl follow her whenever she went out, helping carry her umbrella and bag and whatever else she might need.

A couple of days earlier, the Huakun Group had opened a total of twelve flagship supermarket branches and campus supermarket branches in Yu Heng City and Sha Lin City, creating quite a stir.

During these few days, Lu Kun took the opportunity to classify Huakun Group’s current branches into tiers, provisionally defining six levels.

Among them, flagship branches in county-level cities were designated as Level A stores, while those in prefecture-level cities were designated as Level AAA stores.

Of course, in his long-term vision, Huakun Group’s flagship branches in provincial capitals would initially be classified as Level AAAA stores, and its flagship branches in first-tier cities would be classified as Level AAAAA stores.

At present, Huakun Group only had Level A stores and Level AAA stores; all the other tiers were still missing.

As for Huakun Group’s campus supermarkets, Lu Kun had already separated them out to operate as an independent sub-brand.

After thinking for a moment, Lu Kun dialed Sun Bowen’s office.

Beep.

The call was answered after only one ring.

Sun Bowen briefly reported on the operating conditions of the newly opened stores and the old ones.

In a word, everything was going well.

Whether new stores or old stores, both management and sales performance were in a healthy state, exactly as expected, and had not fallen outside the previously defined reasonable growth range.

At present, Huakun Group had abundant capital on hand. Opening a dozen-odd medium and small supermarkets in one go had not put any financial pressure on the company.

The real problem now was that personnel management and training were beginning to lag behind.

If expansion continued without regard for consequences, the overall quality of the management team would inevitably decline.

Once an employee was promoted, it would be difficult to then push their position and compensation back down.

The problem of promotions that could only go up and never down was not merely an issue for bureaucratic institutions; for businesses, it was just as troublesome.

Lu Kun understood all this perfectly. He asked, “Old Sun, when can we begin opening a large number of branches in Nanming City?”

“Nanming City?”

Sun Bowen hesitated for a long while, unable to settle on an answer.

“Hmm?”

After some thought, Sun Bowen decided to speak frankly. “Boss, Nanming is the provincial capital. Since ancient times it has been a strategically vital place contested by all sides.

“Right now, there are already two medium-sized supermarkets and nearly ten small ones in Nanming’s urban area. Given our strength, if we move into Nanming and want to force them out of business, we’ll probably have to wage a price war.

“Of course, we’re not afraid of a price war. But it would consume a huge amount of our energy, and the pace of expansion into the other prefecture-level cities would have to slow down. That may not be worth it.”

“I’ve considered that as well,” Lu Kun said, tapping ash from his cigarette.

“But if Huakun Group is truly going to grow and thrive, Nanming City is unavoidable.

“Nanming is the provincial capital of An Gui. If Huakun is going to become truly big, we have to drive our roots deep into Nanming City.

“Not to mention the urban area itself; just the university town alone is a huge piece of fat meat.

“If we swallow it whole, our strength will grow explosively.

“Right now, we do have strength, but it is all superficial, just strength on paper.

“We need to turn our capital advantage into real, tangible store power.”

He paused briefly, then continued, “The information department has reported the latest movements of those supermarket owners in Nanming City.

“Those people are forming an alliance now, trying to use combined tactics to keep us Huakun Group out of Nanming City. They were probably frightened by the publicity the government did for us.”

At the other end of the line, Sun Bowen’s eyes narrowed sharply at the last words.

If Huakun Group moved into Nanming City now, it would be stealing food from the jaws of a tiger. But if they waited until the alliance among those medium and small supermarkets became unbreakable before entering, they might not even get a sip of soup.

If Huakun Group could not even break into the retail market of a provincial capital, then the situation would be disastrous. What, then, would become of the group’s cohesion?

Sun Bowen knew very well that ever since the day Huakun Group opened its branch in Gui An, it had regarded the entire province of An Gui as its own backyard. How could it stand by and watch those small fry in Nanming City band together to occupy that central city?

He thought about it for a long time on the other end of the line. In the end, gritting his teeth, he said, “Boss, let’s do it! Better yet, let’s move headquarters there this time too!”

Lu Kun’s eyebrows twitched. He had not expected Sun Bowen to be so decisive. He had thought he would need to call a full management meeting to discuss it before getting a reply.

“Moving headquarters to Nanming City is fine. After all, Nanming is the provincial capital, and Fengyang’s scale is too small. If we keep headquarters in Fengyang, we may have to move again before long,” Lu Kun said in a low voice.

In truth, in Lu Kun’s eyes, Nanming City was still not worthy of being Huakun Group’s headquarters. Its potential was too limited. In the future, it would only become one of Huakun’s branch bases.

But that was still far away.

...

Since the decision had been made to seize Nanming City’s retail market first, the previous plan had to be adjusted slightly.

Rather than waiting for the enemy to gather into a tight formation and then attacking, it would be better to strike first, catch them off guard, and beat them into the ground, sweeping those small fry straight into the trash heap.

The first thing to do now was to choose a headquarters location. That would be handled by the inspection team, since they were the professionals.

“As for the preliminary work for entering Nanming City’s retail market, we cannot make a big show of it. Remember this: slip into the village quietly, without firing a shot,” Lu Kun instructed.

“Rest assured, Boss!” Sun Bowen replied gravely.

Setting Nanming City as the strategic priority did not mean that the expansion of branches in the other prefecture-level cities would come to a complete stop.

...

Originally, Lu Kun had intended to proceed steadily and cautiously, never planning such a hasty advance.

But this time, the provincial government of An Gui had launched a publicity campaign at its own expense. Although every Huakun store saw a sharp rise in performance, it also put the other retailers on edge.

Now the retail industry across An Gui Province was spreading the word that a wolf had come.

“If they all insist on calling us a wolf, then let them see what a real wolf looks like,” Lu Kun murmured after hanging up the phone.