Jinping District, Hui City.
At the headquarters of Hui City Water Affairs Company, Lin Baijie, Jiang Hailin, and the others were discussing how to handle the situation with Du Tai, the newly appointed general manager of Hui City Water Affairs Company.
Holding the company roster, Jiang Hailin shook his head and scoffed. "What a wealth of talent!"
Du Tai, who had just taken office, looked equally troubled. Hui City Water Affairs Company had a staggering 1,088 active employees—more than the city's 954 sanitation workers.
The number of meter readers alone was unreasonable.
Lin Baijie gave his instructions. "Conduct a thorough assessment of every department. Dismiss anyone who fails, and streamline those departments that are all over the place."
"Oh, and summon everyone on this list to my office."
Du Tai took the list and glanced at it. It contained the employees who had been caught doing something wrong, mostly people from the company's middle and upper management.
"I'll notify them right away."
Half an hour later.
The company's former general manager walked in, his big belly seemingly making him feel the heat. Sweating profusely, he plastered on a smile. "Mr. Lin, Team Leader Jiang, what can I do for you?"
"We don't need anything from you. Just take a look at this." Lin Baijie handed him a document.
The portly man was on tenterhooks. As soon as he opened the document, sweat poured from his forehead like rain, and his breathing grew labored.
Lin Baijie said calmly, "Let's part on good terms. I'll pretend none of this ever happened. Understand?"
"Understood, understood. I wasn't up to the job. I'll go write my resignation letter right away." The big man was enormously relieved. He nodded like a pecking chicken, then handed the document back.
"Take it with you. I have more copies here."
"Heh." He gave a dry laugh and left the office. Before he went, he glanced at the desk and saw a large stack of identical folders. His lips, dry as dust, curled into a nervous lick.
After that, one water company employee after another entered the office looking apprehensive, then came out with complicated expressions.
In less than three days, more than two hundred people had resigned of their own accord. Some had been interviewed by Lin Baijie; others had a guilty conscience and chose to leave on their own.
Du Tai then promoted a large number of the existing employees and brought in a dozen or so people from Shanmei to form a new management team.
The company didn't launch a mass layoff of the remaining employees. Instead, it reassigned them, reducing the water company's workforce to around 450.
Those 450 reassigned employees would join Hailu Gas, Hailu Organic Fertilizer, Blue Era, and the Hui City branch of Suiren Company.
This gave them a chance. If they still couldn't pass their assessments after being reassigned, the company would have no choice but to let them go.
To help them adapt to their new jobs, the reassigned employees were all sent to the Shanmei headquarters. There, they were placed in suitable positions for a combination of work and training before being transferred back to the Hui City branch.
Meanwhile...
The French multinational Veolia Company, which had invested heavily in China, had also taken notice of the rising Suiren Company.
Veolia's domestic headquarters was in Beiping.
Huang Xiaojun, a vice president at one of its branches, had just received some information. He went straight to the office of David, the branch president.
"David, I've found a competitor with enormous potential."
The middle-aged, hook-nosed white man from the Mediterranean skimmed through the report and immediately dropped his earlier dismissive attitude. "Huang, this company really does have great potential. We could consider acquiring it."
Huang Xiaojun shook his head. "I doubt we could acquire them. Look here."
David's eyes fell on a page in the report. Suiren Company had a state key laboratory, and the lab's name had a suffix.
Having worked in China for nearly ten years, he knew exactly what that suffix meant.
The lab might involve confidential matters. Even if Suiren Company agreed to a sale, the authorities might not approve it. David abandoned the idea of an acquisition.
"Looks like we'll have to face a formidable competitor."
Huang Xiaojun shared an inside tip. "Perhaps we can cooperate with them. I heard Pengcheng wants to bring in Suiren Company's technology and contract out its sanitation services to them."
"Oh? Do you have any details?" David was interested.
"I'll ask the Pengcheng branch."
"Okay."
A little over two hours later, Pengcheng Water Affairs Company sent a fax of more than twenty pages to Veolia's Beiping headquarters.
When Huang Xiaojun and David met again and read through the fax, they realized that Suiren Company had an extraordinary appetite. It was demanding an annual payment of five billion yuan from Pengcheng for the sanitation contract—a staggering price.
There were a host of additional clauses, and even after formal negotiations, Suiren Company's lowest offer was still 4.2 billion yuan a year.
Pengcheng could also have opted for the arrangement used in Hui City, but it didn't own a water company outright. Unless it offered its gas franchise rights in exchange, Suiren Company wouldn't agree to cooperate.
Huang Xiaojun was getting a headache. "This deal is too complicated."
David, who had been silent, understood the problem too. Pengcheng had 35,000 sanitation workers, and wages and benefits alone would be an enormous expense.
Even a wealthy company like Veolia wouldn't dare take on a contract like this lightly. After all, the ultimate purpose of running a business was to make a profit.
It was extremely difficult to find a way to make money from a public service like sanitation.
But some of the technologies held by Suiren Company did have the potential to turn a profit.
David and Huang Xiaojun didn't know Suiren Company's operating costs. But from their professional perspective, without the gas franchise rights, there was no chance of making a profit by taking on Pengcheng's sanitation services.
That was why Suiren Company's proposal demanded a contract fee of 4.2 billion yuan. To David, the figure was entirely reasonable.
Without such a large contract fee, the company would have to keep cutting sanitation workers' wages and might even have to lay some of them off just to scrape by.
Yet sanitation workers at Suiren Company's Shanmei headquarters earned nearly twice as much in wages and benefits as those in Pengcheng. One was a fifth-tier city, the other a first-tier city. Wasn't that a slap in the face?
Clearly, Suiren Company had no intention of cutting wages to reduce costs. That made the 4.2-billion-yuan contract fee a necessity.
After thinking it over and discussing it with Huang Xiaojun for a while, David decided to wait and see how things played out between Suiren Company and Pengcheng.
Still, they weren't giving up entirely. Huang Xiaojun would personally lead a team to Shanmei to investigate Suiren Company's technology. If it proved suitable, they would try to take an equity stake, acquire the company, or bring in its technology.
However, their parent company had been affected by the subprime mortgage crisis that year. Internal disagreements over investment in China had significantly weakened its previous investment strategy.
As news of the partnership between Hui City and Suiren Company spread, other cities around the country began to take notice. Several interested cities gradually sent people to Shanmei to investigate.
Cities in Northwest China were especially interested. If Suiren Company's wastewater treatment technology could turn sewage into clean water, it could greatly ease water shortages and water-quality problems in the region.
As a result, more than a dozen cities in Northwest China sent inspection teams straight to Shanmei.
Thank you all for your support, and thanks to readers "Qingtianyi" and "Tingzipiao" for the tips! (˙ω˙)
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