Story of a Big Player from Gangnam

Gun-Ho stood up from his seat getting ready to leave.

“Mr. President Moon, have a safe trip to China on Monday. I won’t be able to be at the airport to see you off. I guess I will have to say good-bye here. Let’s have a handshake.”

“No problem. I will do my best working in China. I will send you a daily report via email.”

“A daily report? No, don’t do that. A weekly report will suffice.”

“Haha, okay. But, I will still give you a daily report under some sort of special circumstances.”

“Don’t forget to send me the joint venture company’s bank account through email once you arrive in China.”

“Okay, I will do that.”

Gun-Ho said bye to his sister and brother-in-law as well.

“I’m leaving now. I won’t be able to come here often. Now, you are on your own in growing this company by increasing the number of its vehicles. Keep up the good work.”

“Okay. We won’t disappoint you.”

“Once again, the usual work such as hiring a new worker, buying a new vehicle, changing our current service providers like a bank, or a tax accountant office is all up to you. I won’t get involved in those sorts of work.”

“Got it.”

“Also, it’s your call to make a determination to change the workers’ salaries depending on their work performance as long as we can afford it.”

“Okay.”

Gun-Ho waved his hand at his sister and her husband before getting into his Bentley that was parked at the company’s yard.

As they were leaving Siheung City, Chan-Ho asked, “Sir, where are we heading now?”

“You know what? I’m starving. I haven’t even had my breakfast today.”

“Hahaha.”

When Chan-Ho laughed out loud, Gun-Ho asked, “What is so funny?”

“It’s just… It felt so funny when someone like you, who owns several companies, said you were starving.”

“When you haven’t eaten anything, you are supposed to feel hungry. There is nothing funny about it.”

“Well, it’s still funny, sir.”

“Let’s go to a hangover soup restaurant or somewhere. What time is it?”

“It’s a bit after 11 am. Would you like to have an oxblood hangover soup? I’m hungry too.”

“Why are you hungry? You haven’t had your breakfast today?”

“No, sir. I got up late this morning. I had to skip my breakfast.”

“Is that so? Let’s eat together then. How come you and I both are hungry today?”

Gun-Ho and Chan-Ho stopped by a hangover soup restaurant when they saw one on the way and had their first meal of that day.

After having the soup, Gun-Ho felt sleepy as he was sitting in the back seat. He said to Chan-Ho thinking that he might feel the same way since he just had his meal as well.

“Chan-Ho, do not doze off.”

“Of course, sir. I won’t.”

“Even though I might doze off, you shouldn’t. If you feel too sleepy, park the car somewhere and take a brief nap. You must feel sleepy as well since you just had your meal.”

“I do actually feel sleepy. I will park the car when I see a good spot to take a nap, sir.”

When Gun-Ho was dozing off while sitting in the back of his Bentley, his smartphone started ringing; they were passing by Bongdam Town.

“President Goo? It’s me, Jae-Sik Moon.”

“Hey, President Moon. Are you still in Siheung City?”

“Yes, I’m still here. I wanted to say this to you earlier but couldn’t since your sister and her husband were there with us.”

“What is it?”

“I wanted to say thank you for helping me with my wedding preparation. I know that you’ve done a lot to make it go smoothly.”

“Man, you don’t have to say that.”

“My wife actually cried a lot after the wedding. She said that she hadn’t really expected to wear a wedding dress in this life, but she did.”

“Really?”

“And, thank you for the condo in Incheon City. I feel so relieved that my parents are now living together in a condo like that.”

“You don’t need to thank me for it. You deserved it. It was a compensation for letting me use your name in buying and selling that land. You earned it.”

“Moreover, I do really appreciate that you set my salary to 1.8 million won and let me receive it in Korea.”

“That was suggested by my sister and her husband.”

“Still, it happened because you agreed to it. Now knowing my parents are living in a pleasant environment with enough living expenses, I feel so relieved that I will be able to focus on work even if I leave for China leaving behind in Korea.”

“I feel great since you feel relieved.”

“Once I settle in China, my wife will join me there after taking care of our current house and stuff. We will have our baby in China too.”

“Once the joint venture company finds you a place to live, you will get settled there quickly. Once you have your baby, you might want to hire someone to help with house chores. It’s not expensive to have a housekeeper in China, so think about it.”

“Thank you.”

“In the beginning, they will lease a car for you. But, once they receive the investment funds from me, they will buy you your own car.”

“Okay. It’s good that I had worked for GH Logistics before leaving for China. That was a really good work experience for me. I wouldn’t have felt this confident to start working overseas if I didn’t have work experience with GH Logistics in Korea.”

“Great. President Moon, I know you will do just fine.”

“Thank you.”

Gun-Ho arrived at GH Mobile in Jiksan Town. When he knew that President Jang-Hwan Song was in his office, he called for him.

“Let’s have a cup of tea.”

Gun-Ho asked his secretary— Ms. Hee-Jeong Park— to bring them two cups of green tea.

“I’ve noticed that you’ve been often working outside the office lately. It’s not easy work doing sales, is it?”

“I feel stressed for the fact that I don’t see any eye-opening progress even though I work hard.”

“We will reach the sales revenue of 90 billion won this year. That means that our company’s growth rate would be 10% which is not bad at all.”

“I don’t worry about this year, but my concern is next year.”

“What about next year?”

“We will soon reach our limit. The automobile parts manufacturing industry is currently dominated by companies like Hyundai Mobis and Hyundai Dymos. And it’s extremely hard to become their vendor company because they already have their own vendor companies. In order for us to start selling our products to those companies, we will have to take over one of their vendor companies’ business deals, which is not easy at all.”

“What about the home appliance manufacturing industry?”

“You need an established connection and network in the electronics industry as well. However, I think we should keep trying, hoping that a door will open to us sooner or later. While doing so, we shouldn’t be ignorant of any of our internal matters. We can’t afford to have internal matters that negatively affect our deals with our client companies.”

“Let’s say we would receive a huge volume of product orders in the electronics field. If that happens, do we have enough production capacity to handle it?”

“We can work day and night with our current machines. Or, since we have enough space in the backyard, we can build another production site there.”

“I’m more concerned with manpower rather than space. I wonder if our research center would be able to handle the work under the circumstance, also if we have enough workers.”

“It would depend on the types of product orders. If the product is hard to develop, it will take time and maybe we will even need more researchers. But, if the new product order doesn’t require us to develop a new product but use the existing product, then we can handle a high volume of production.”

Silence filled the air for a moment.

Gun-Ho continued to say, “You know of A Electronics, right?”

“Of course. A Electronics is the core company in A Group. Everyone knows of A Electronics.”

“It’s possible that we will receive a product order from them, like a huge volume of product order. It’s sort of too early for me to say, but I think you should be aware of the possibility, Mr. President Song.”