Things like steel mills are too small and not environmentally friendly.
It's not that Allen cares about environmental protection, but it's too small. The authorities will shut it down in the name of environmental protection. If you are stubborn and don't want to close it, you have to pay a fine. The fine is huge, and you will go bankrupt within a few days of paying it.
However, large-scale steel mills require huge investments, whether it is equipment, personnel, or purchasing corresponding raw materials, a large amount of money must be invested.
Moreover, the steel plant's products are ordinary primary processed products with poor marketability. If they want to make money, they can only go the special steel route. But both R&D personnel and equipment require huge investments. Allen is not interested in opening an Internet cafe just for a mouse.
…
Seeing that Allen didn't care, Old Carl reminded him, "Master, weren't you still thinking about the tinplate factory at home a while ago?"
"Is there any connection between these two?"
Alan poured a cup of tea himself and pushed it to old Carl, then leaned back on the chair and sighed.
There is more business at home now, so he has to worry about it no matter what.
At the very least, we must ensure that all factories continue to operate.
He had heard of some of these factories before, or had come into contact with some of them, but he had no idea about some of them.
He has no ability to invent anything. These things are ready-made. Even if he wants to make some changes, they are either inappropriate, limited by the environment, or technical conditions, and he cannot change them.
…
"Master, look, if you buy a few small steel mills and move the production lines to Australia, you already have a layout there... Australia also has iron ore, and the price of raw materials is low, so you can move the tinplate factory there and produce other things."
"Um?"
Alan frowned and motioned for Old Carl to continue.
"I have been in America for the past two years and found that many of their food packaging is in metal packaging, such as biscuit boxes, candy boxes, etc. When I was on vacation in Australia at the beginning of the year, weren't you still worried about these things? I wondered if it would be possible to transform the tinplate factory and also produce these packaging for food factories?"
"?"
After listening to what Old Carl said, Allen suddenly had a moment of sudden enlightenment.
This guy has a bit of inertial thinking, and he has never paid attention to such trivial matters.
The main reason was that he seldom had the opportunity to eat his own snacks. They were all prepared by the servants and placed on plates or in special small containers for him to eat.
After a certain gap between his life and that of ordinary people, he has ignored these small details.
Now that it was suddenly brought up, it made his thoughts diverge a little.
For a long time, the food manufacturing factory at home has been limited by costs, so basically all snack packaging is either plastic bags or paper boxes. As for metal boxes?
Where can I use that...
In the old count's mind, using an iron box was a waste of things.
…
But Allen doesn't think so now. Packaging is a bonus to the product!
Good packaging can at least increase the price of a product several times.
For example, very common snacks can be sold at a higher price if they are packed in plastic bags or in iron boxes, even if they are the same thing, with only a different packaging.
Until now, Allen still remembered that when he was a child in his previous life, he liked to collect these tin boxes of food packaging, and use these tin boxes to store some picture cards, trump cards, and other small toys.
It's an old sentiment. Later, this kind of excessive packaging became more and more popular. It was very common to package various candies, chocolates, moon cakes, etc. in tin boxes.
The tinplate factory can produce these thin iron sheet processed products, and not only for food packaging, Alan instantly thought that this thing can also be used as clothing packaging.
For example, the wool processing factory at home is sponsoring team uniforms for Manchester United.
Produce a batch of white T-shirts, print some fancy patterns on them, put a hard-to-pronounce brand on them, and use thin tin boxes as packaging. Wouldn't the price go up immediately?
This is all trend!
Trends are expensive.
In this way, the several factories in the family will have new growth points and will no longer be in the half-dead state they are now.
…
"Haha, it's you, old Carl. Your suggestion is good. Is there enough money in the account in the United States?"
Although he agreed with old Carl's proposal, Allen did not want to build a steel plant that was too large. He just wanted to have enough steel for his own factory. This is called self-production and self-sales.
"Master... that's enough. I just think now is the right time to buy it. Besides, you forgot one thing."
Old Carl stretched out his hand and pointed to the east.
"What?"
"No matter what changes there are, or what changes there are in the Gulf region we have been observing, in short... as long as a war breaks out, their local supplies will definitely be insufficient. We can already produce canned products, so why not dig deeper in Australia and produce canned products such as kangaroo meat or rabbit meat? When the prices of these materials increase, they will all be hard currency!"
As expected, the old guy thinks things through carefully.
Allen has always been watching these things with a bystander mentality.
He always had a sense of anticipation and nervousness about witnessing history, but the only thing he never thought about was making any money from these regions and countries where big events were about to happen.
Because he doesn't know how to do things that are too righteous.
…
Now that old Carl reminded him, Allen understood instantly.
Selling these canned foods or civilian supplies to chaotic, unstable, or war-torn areas is a legal business.
And as long as he does it well, he can also earn fame, which is good for him.
Thinking of this, Alan narrowed his eyes slightly and glanced at Old Carl.
Old Carl looked at Allen with expectation and sincerity in his eyes, not at all like the cruelty he showed to outsiders.
Allen chuckled and said, "You are thoughtful and your reminder to me is very timely. When you return this time, you should start to acquire a few small steel mills. Just enough for your needs. Try to pick ones with newer equipment."
"Okay, I understand sir."
Neither of them mentioned anything about trace amounts of toxins in kangaroo meat or rabbit meat.
Drinking too much water can even cause death. These toxins are only in trace amounts. As long as it meets food standards, just do what you should do.
As for the problem that kangaroo meat is not tasty, this is also easy to solve.
We have Master Chef at home, so let him find a few cooks and they can study how to remove the fishy smell and woodiness as much as possible. As for canned food, it's good enough to have some to eat.
…
"Also, you can rest at home for a few days, and then go to Korea to check it out. I have already booked a place to stay there. I will take William to watch the Olympics, and you can accompany me this time."
"Oh? Master...that place doesn't seem to be very safe right now."
When Old Carl heard that they were going to Korea, he frowned instinctively, thought about what he had heard occasionally, and began to persuade them.
"It's because I'm feeling uneasy that I asked you to check out the place first. Besides... I'm going with the participating team this time, and our hotels are all together. Plus, if you check out the place in advance, there shouldn't be any problems."
"Okay, then I'll call America and ask them to transfer some more people. Master, you go ahead and do your work. I'll make the arrangements right away."
Since Allen insisted on going, Old Carl stood up without hesitation and prepared to make arrangements.
…
The 1988 Seoul Olympics were held from September 17 to October 2.
The delegation will arrive a few days earlier, but Allen does not have to go so early, as his charter flight departs on September 14th.
On September 7, after finishing his official duties in the morning, Alan changed to a car he seldom took and arrived in Cardiff, the capital of Wales, in a very low-key manner.
It is less than an hour's drive from here to the manor.
It is said to be the capital of Wales, but every time Alan comes to Cardiff, he always has a sense of déjà vu as if the villagers below are going to the county town.
Anyway, all the cities in Wales are not big, even Cardiff is just that small.
In the western suburbs of Cardiff, there is a large warehouse area, which is the headquarters of Alan’s newly established Blue Knight takeaway company.
Whether it is the office area, customer service area, or even the parking area, they are all here.
After several months of site decoration and employee training, the Blue Knight Group is now finally ready for trial operation.
The entire group currently has only two hundred customer service staff, two hundred drivers, or delivery "brothers", and less than thirty logistics staff and management staff.
This is the current status of the entire group.
The trial operation locations were also reduced from the initially planned three locations of Carmarthen, Manchester and Cardiff to just Cardiff.
…
The main thing is that this kind of large-scale takeaway model has never been done before, and Alan is afraid that he has rashly expanded the stall to be too big and it will be difficult to finish it up.
After getting off the car, Alan nodded to several managers who came to greet him. He put on a mask first. He didn't want to make any big noise today. He just wanted to simply inspect the results.
On the huge flat warehouse, the blue door is made very large, and the cartoon panda logo can even be seen from hundreds of meters away.
A panda wearing a blue vest with a row of English letters written below - Blue Knight.
Simple and easy to remember.
…
After taking a closer look at the IC card in his hand, Alan felt a little emotional when he saw this thing.
The current IC card has only been invented for a few years, and the technology is already very mature, but it is most commonly used in phone cards and the like. Now the company has customized a batch of these cards to be used as membership cards, which look quite high-end.
I didn’t rush to visit and went into the office first.
"Your Excellency... Look, this is the service manual for distinguished members that we made."
"Um……"
Originally, Allen planned that ordinary members would have to renew their cards once a year. There was no handling fee for applying for the card, but they had to pay a deposit of one hundred pounds, which was the membership fee.
But after the membership fee expires, you can return it together with the card.
The money earned is the interest.
After its plan was optimized by professionals, VIP membership services were launched on this basis.
This is a higher-end service than ordinary membership.
The process for ordinary members to order takeout is to take a free "recipe" every month, which is the restaurant or supermarket in the member's location that has cooperated with Blue Knight. The takeout products they can provide will be photographed and printed into a book.
If you want to eat something, just call Blue Knight’s customer service number and place your order according to the number and price on the brochure.
…
The VIP membership service requires an annual membership fee of one hundred pounds, which is non-refundable!
In other words, there is a difference between the VIP membership card and the ordinary membership card. The card costs 200 pounds and is renewed once a year. The difference is that if you want to refund the 200 pounds at the end of the year, you can only get half of it, and the remaining 100 pounds is the VIP membership fee.
VIP members will receive a videotape every month. The products available from various merchants cooperating with Blue Knight in the customer's city will be filmed and displayed on TV as real objects, just like TV shopping. This will make it easier for VIP members to choose than with pictures.
Moreover, as long as the order is placed by a VIP member, it will be delivered first!
Although the routine is simple, it is this extremely obvious difference in treatment that makes it worth the price.
Anyway, it is in the trial operation period now, and we have to explore everything slowly.
…
Alan, wearing a mask, walked around the customer service area. The scene of hundreds of old ladies waiting in front of the phones was quite spectacular.
When the operation just started, the number of new customers was almost zero. These old ladies were all very idle. Some of them who were close by were even chatting in low voices.
Seeing Alan's gaze, the younger person in charge looked nervous.
But he had no choice. The main reason was that they were too idle, and they were just a bunch of old ladies. It’s not that they didn’t work seriously, but they were currently unemployed. He could only chat with them. He couldn’t just sit there and do nothing, right?
"Don't be nervous, we are just starting out, take it slow."
Alan didn't care. Instead, he kindly comforted the person in charge who was obviously a little nervous after seeing him.
"Let's go check out the parking lot."
…
There are not many electric cars these days, and there are no tricycles either!
The price of oil is not expensive, and the population in Wales is not dense and sparse, so riding a motorcycle is not very safe, so we can only buy a batch of second-hand cars for delivery.
Looking at hundreds of second-hand cars of various brands parked neatly in the parking lot, I have to say, the scene is quite spectacular.
Looking at these cars, Alan sniffed. Now the stall is still small and not very famous. Once it develops slowly in the future, he will be able to choose a few car brands and ask for sponsorship fees openly.
Not only sponsorship fees, but also sponsorship of cars!
…
After taking a look around the Blue Knights headquarters, everything was normal. On the way home, Alan sat in the car and looked out the window in a daze.
The reminder given to him by old Carl a few days ago gave him a lot of new inspiration, so much so that some plans had to be changed accordingly.
For example, the Blue Knight Takeaway Group.
Due to the limitations of current technology and communication conditions, this scale and convenience will definitely not be achieved in a few decades when people can order takeout by just tapping their mobile phones.
Just buying an ordinary membership card worth one hundred pounds will block a large number of customers.
But there is no way, this is a necessary threshold.
Now that the threshold has been set, we still don’t know how many customers the company will have in the future. However, according to the estimates of several consultants, in the short term, Blue Knight Group’s profit points will be relatively single, and it may not even be able to make a profit, and may even suffer a small loss.
In this case, we have to think of other profit points to open up the situation.
…