This situation was not confined to the two Walmart stores managed by Bieber. Similar incidents occurred in all Walmart documents involving collaboration with Oriental Amazon. All Oriental Amazon managers extended invitations to their counterparts to attend gatherings, fostering an atmosphere of unparalleled harmony and familial closeness between Walmart and Oriental Amazon. After all, who wouldn't appreciate someone who constantly treated them to meals and drinks?
Naturally, Walmart's senior management soon became aware of these events. Some found it inappropriate, believing Oriental Amazon was corrupting Walmart's lower ranks and plotting something.
A few leaders even directly ordered their subordinates to refuse such invitations. However, these directives were immediately rejected by Walmart's union organizations. This was because these were benefits and activities enjoyed by Walmart's entire grassroots workforce, and the expenses were not borne by Walmart. Anyone who dared to prevent employees from participating would risk a strike.
After much deliberation, Walmart's senior management concluded that this approach caused no tangible harm to Walmart and even improved employee morale and happiness. As long as warehouse data was monitored to prevent theft, there was no issue.
Consequently, the entire group tacitly accepted these occurrences.
***
"One week, and the entertainment expenses alone amounted to 40 million US dollars. Furthermore, there will be a monthly fellowship expense of 10 million dollars going forward. Your boss truly dared to approve this plan of yours!" Liu Xiangjiang exclaimed in amazement as he reviewed the reported entertainment costs from various regions.
"Indeed. Only our chairman would dare approve my plan. Any other company would probably have called me insane!" Liu Qiangdong said with a chuckle.
His words were quite accurate. Any company's boss who learned that their subordinate had spent a staggering 40 million US dollars in just one week to socialize with the lower-level employees of another company would undoubtedly erupt in a torrent of curses.
Of course, currying favor with other companies was not inherently a bad thing; in fact, such practices were commonplace in the business world. However, these typically involved appeasing the management of other companies. Liu Qiangdong's approach, on the other hand, was to completely disregard Walmart's upper management and solely focus on providing benefits to the lower-level employees, which was exceptionally rare.
From a superficial perspective, appeasing senior management could lead to preferential policies and numerous orders, thus generating more profits.
However, ingratiating oneself with lower-level employees, whose positions were at most store managers, had never been seen before. In fact, even the store managers themselves were encountering this type of appeasement for the first time in their lives, especially this top-tier Chinese-style social hospitality, which was entirely unprecedented.
When Liu Xiangjiang first saw the plan drafted by Liu Qiangdong, he was startled and instinctively believed Liu Qiangdong had gone mad, and that Huang He would never approve such a plan.
Yet, the plan was approved that very day, and Mr. Huang even personally called to offer high praise, urging Liu Xiangjiang to provide his full cooperation.
"Old Liu, who do you think is more worth appeasing for us: these grassroots employees or Walmart's senior management?" Liu Qiangdong, in a great mood, took the initiative to explain, noticing Liu Xiangjiang's lingering confusion and doubt.
"Since you're appeasing these grassroots employees, you must believe they are more important!" Liu Xiangjiang replied.
"I'm not asking who you think I believe is important, but who *you* think is important!" Liu Qiangdong began to speak in riddles.
"..." Liu Xiangjiang remained silent.
"Old Liu, tomorrow our Oriental Amazon website will officially go live again. We've already spent nearly 10 million US dollars on advertising across the entire network. Simultaneously, due to the previous media buzz, all the world's media outlets are following our company and website.
Based on our data models, there's a strong possibility that user traffic tomorrow will exceed 20 million. If only 1% of these 20 million people place an order on the website, that would be a staggering 200,000 orders in a single day. Spread across 3,000 Walmart stores, that's about 80 orders per store.
Due to recruitment constraints, each store currently has only one order picker and two delivery personnel. Considering these 80 orders, where do you think the biggest challenge will lie?" Liu Qiangdong continued to question.
"Timeliness of delivery! And cooperation from Walmart warehouses!" Liu Xiangjiang responded without hesitation. In fact, Liu Xiangjiang himself had rehearsed the scenario for the opening day many times in his mind.
Although Liu Qiangdong had meticulously arranged many details, and with what Liu Xiangjiang perceived as near-perfect speed and efficiency, he had managed to establish the company's logistics network within just one month, leveraging the strength of Walmart, enabling Oriental Amazon to deliver throughout the entire United States.
However, this also created a fatal issue: Oriental Amazon's ability to deliver smoothly was not entirely within its own control but depended on Walmart, the partner, specifically on Walmart's warehouses.
Although Walmart and Oriental Amazon had reached a comprehensive cooperation agreement, this was merely a corporate-level accord. The actual cooperation had to be implemented at each Walmart store and warehouse.
Ensuring that Oriental Amazon employees received full cooperation from the warehouses was crucial. Otherwise, even without any malicious intent, if warehouse employees withheld information about product locations, an order picker might spend over an hour searching the vast warehouse, rummaging through countless shelves and boxes, to find all the items for a single order.
And this was just one minor detail of how warehouses could obstruct Oriental Amazon. If the warehouses were to be petty, they could cite reasons like "unsatisfactory hygiene" or "incomplete entry permits," or "documentation not fully processed." In short, warehouses had ten thousand ways within company regulations to create trouble.
They wouldn't outright prevent order picking, but they could certainly delay it. Consequently, after four hours, if an order couldn't be delivered on time, all the carefully crafted publicity and advertising would become a knife plunged into their own chest, severing their profits.
The more aggressively they advertised, the more brutally the sharp edge would wound them, which was a terrifying prospect.
"Good, an excellent answer!" Liu Qiangdong nodded. "In your opinion, in a practical situation, who would be more capable of causing trouble for us: the senior leaders or the local grassroots employees who actually manage the warehouses and stores?"
"Naturally, it's easier to deal with the King of Hell than the petty devils," Liu Xiangjiang responded without hesitation.
Liu Xiangjiang understood this better than anyone. As the head of the entire Jiangnan commercial sector, which was now China's largest large-scale commodity retail chain, he was intimately familiar with the internal issues of companies and knew precisely how his subordinates, the "petty devils," could torment suppliers.
Liu Xiangjiang was keenly aware that such behavior could alienate his own company from its suppliers, and he made it a point to crack down on such actions several times a year. His actual crackdowns confirmed that senior management generally did not engage in such practices.
It was too low-level, offered little significant benefit, and was easily reported. They disdained the act of tormenting suppliers; their true profit lay in facilitating supplier entry, not in enriching themselves through the operations of Jiangnan suppliers.
After all, Jiangnan Group consistently combatted such behavior, and suppliers had ample channels for complaints and reports, with many directly forwarding their complaints to Liu Xiangjiang's work email. Senior management had no reason to engage in such activities.
Yet, these incidents persisted because they were perpetrated by the "petty devils" at the lower levels. For various reasons, these subordinates would cause trouble for suppliers. What made it worse was that they were seasoned veterans, employing tactics that either adhered to company regulations or strictly enforced them, meticulously examining every detail. This allowed them to naturally uncover numerous issues with suppliers and subsequently process returns.
One might ask how to handle such a situation. Dismissing these veteran employees would leave the company with no one to enforce its management regulations.
However, if they were left unchecked, suppliers would face immense difficulties. Many of these issues were minor and insignificant. If all companies were to meticulously scrutinize every detail according to the rules, they would undoubtedly be the first to go bankrupt.
In essence, it's easier to deal with the King of Hell than the petty devils.
Liu Xiangjiang was not foolish. With Liu Qiangdong's hint, he fully grasped Liu Qiangdong's intentions. He took a breath and exclaimed, "You're incredible. No wonder the boss was willing to spend a fortune to merge your company just to bring you in to manage Oriental Amazon. If you were at the company headquarters, my position would eventually be yours!"
"I have no desire to go to headquarters!" Liu Qiangdong grinned. "Isn't it better to guard my 10% stake in Oriental Amazon? Besides, I don't want to have an omnipotent overlord breathing down my neck all the time; it's too unbearable!"
"Alright, I'll pass that sentiment along to our boss!"
"Don't bother. Tonight, the Playboy Club, my treat!"
The day soon drew to a close. Liu Qiangdong and Liu Xiangjiang did not return from the club. Instead, they remained in the company's backstage control room, as Oriental Amazon was officially set to relaunch at nine o'clock that morning. The entire world, watching with bated breath, anticipated this moment.