Story of a Big Player from Gangnam

Chapter 654: End of Year Promotions (2) - Part 1

President Song said, "I have several things that I'd like to discuss with you, sir. The first thing is about changing our organizational structure. The position of the product quality team is vague. During the Mulpasaneop era, it reported to the plant manager, and at some point, it was placed under the research center as well. Currently, the product quality team is reporting to me—the president—for convenience. But, I think it should be an independent department, just like the research center and the production department."

"Hmm."

"Moreover, we now have to maintain our status as a five-star quality certified facility. And, the role of the product quality team is critical for it. Therefore, I suggest that we promote the product quality team's manager to a director, so it doesn't have to report to another department."

"The manager at the product quality team has been in the manager position for only two years."

"That's right. For that reason, I was thinking that maybe we can promote the senior manager at the research center to the product quality team's director, and relocate the current product quality team's manager to the research center."

"It will result in those two people switching teams. Do you think that won't cause any problem?"

"I believe that having different work experience at a young age is a precious experience individually. Also, it's good for the company as well. Through the job rotations, we will learn those employees' strengths and weaknesses while they gain more knowledge of the company as a whole. That way, we will grow and find our next general directors."

"What's the second thing that you wanted to discuss with me?"

"This one was actually from the plant manager—Director Jong-Suk Park. Now, we have an additional production site B where most of the assembly work is done. We want to divide the production department into two—manufacturing site and assembly site. And, we promote the current production supervisor to manager and place him to the production department two which is the assembly site. He has enough experience and years of working with us at the production site, and his work performance is excellent as it was evaluated by Director Park."

"We will then have two managers in the production department?"

"Yes. And two managers of the production department one and two will report to Director Park."

"Hmm."

"We can have three supervisors under those two managers and have them supervise three teams at the production department. We can divide it into three teams as an extruding team, molding team, and testing team, or we can simply call them as team one, team two, and team three."

"Sounds good. I agree with the two suggestions that you just made. Do you have a third one?"

"Yes. We will soon have our financial document concluding this year. We made roughly 5 billion won net profit this year after tax."

"Hmm, I see."

"We've been diligently paying the debts we owed to the financial institutes so far. As a result, we now have 35 billion won debt left."

"That's still a lot."

"Our accounts payable has reduced dramatically as well, but we still have 20 billion won to go."

"That's a lot."

"It's not so bad if we think of the time when our company was Mulpasaneop. We used to have more than 70 billion won of accounts payable when the Mulpasaneop was undergoing the court receivership. At that time, the sales were half of what we are making right now, and we were losing money every day. That's why President Se-Young Oh gave up the company. Since then, the company has grown twice larger."

"Hmm."

"I don't mean to be presumptuous, sir, but I think we should pay to the financial institute for the debt with this year's profits in the same way we did last year—we distribute dividend to you as you are the sole shareholder, and you reinvest those funds back in the company and increase its capital. That way our debt will be reduced to 30 billion won. As to the accounts payable, we can pay our suppliers gradually as we continue doing business with them."

"That will make our capital 10 billion won."

"It will work favorably when we apply for the registration with KOSDAQ. I'm positive that next year, our debt with the financial institute will be reduced to 20 billion won, and our accounts payable will be somewhere around 10 billion won. That size of debt and accounts payable won't negatively affect our registration with KOSDAQ considering that our company is large enough to generate a sales revenue of 100 billion won annually."

"Of course."

"GH Mobile will be able to go public after a year. If a company is generating profits without debt, and it doesn't require a substantial amount of funds to operate, you don't actually need to go public."

"A profit-generating company doesn't necessarily have to go public?"

"Right. Look at DAS Corporation that people suspect that it is owned by MB (Former President—Myung-Bak Lee). That company is currently generating 720 billion won yearly, but it's still a private company without being registered with KOSDAQ. If we include their sales revenues of its subsidiary companies scattered worldwide in the U.S., China, India, Brazil, Czech, Turkey, etc., their sales revenue will exceed 1.2 trillion won."

"Whoa! 1.2 trillion won?!"

"Guess what is their amount of capital. It's not 290,000 won that our former president—Doo-hwan Chun—claimed as that was all he had, but it's 2.9 billion won. Yes, only 2.9 billion won. He accumulated most of his wealth with the earned surplus from that company."

"That means that I don't have to raise the capital if I'm not going to have the company registered with KOSDAQ."

"That's right, sir."

"I see. Well, since we still have time, let's think about it."

"I will go back to work then. I have your approval on the restructuring around the product quality team, and the promotion of a manager to its director position. All other promotions for the position below a director, I will handle after discussing with other executive officers."

"Okay."

"Thank you, sir."

After President Song left the office, Gun-Ho sat at his desk for a while, thinking about something before heading to Dyeon Korea.

Gun-Ho was sitting in his office at Dyeon Korea. When it was lunchtime, Director Kim entered Gun-Ho's office.

"Sir, a new restaurant just opened around here. It specializes in grilled fish dishes. Would you like to go there for lunch today?"

"Sure. Let's bring other executive officers with us."

"Mr. Adam Castler left earlier; he had a dentist appointment. Director Yoon left for a client site this morning. The chief research officer is in the office."

"Let's bring him with us to lunch then."

Director Kim made a call to the chief research officer who was holding a temporary position.

"Brother? It's me, Director Kim. We are going to a good restaurant to have grilled fish dishes. Why don't you join us?"

Gun-Ho, Director Kim, and the chief research officer got in Gun-Ho's Bentley and headed out to the restaurant. When they were passing the front gate, the security officer came out and gave a military salute to the three high-ranking officers in the company.

The restaurant that Director Kim recommended was a luxurious restaurant located downtown Asan City. Each booth seat was divided by a partition that was made of fabric. It was neat.

"What do we want to have?"

"I think we should try different types of grilled fish, and we can share them. That way, we can taste several different fish."

Director Kim ordered mackerel, tuna, and mackerel pike.

The food came out with lots of complementary side dishes including eel on a small plate.

"I guess this is for you, brother. You need to boost your stamina."

Director Kim pushed the eel dish to the chief research officer's side with a smile.

"What's wrong with you? You are caring for me now, huh?"

The chief research officer whose hair was fully covered by gray hair said.

"I am the only one in the company who cares for you, brother. You didn't know that?"

Director Kim teased the old man.

Gun-Ho laughed and chipped in, "How long have you two worked together since the Mulpasaneop era?"

Director Kim replied as he looked at the chief research officer's face, "It has been about twenty years since I've known him."

The chief research officer added, "I joined Mulpasaneop right after I obtained my Ph.D., so I guess it's about twenty years as you said."

The main dishes came out. The chief research officer knew how to eat a grilled fish neatly. He held one side of the fish and pulled out the bone at once. He looked skillful.

"That's the way how to neatly make a whole grilled fish ready to eat. I didn't know that."

Director Kim teased the chief research officer again, "I guess that our chief research officer has been researching how to eat a fish neatly, rather than researching our product."