Capitalists are profit-driven!
— Das Kapital
Butler Karl’s efficiency was very high, and the results were gratifying; the owners of eight factories expressed a willingness to sell.
No one is willing to do business that doesn’t make money.
In the already industrialized Austria, flour processing plants were already a sunset industry, and the brutal competition made it impossible to see any future profit.
Ferdinand left the negotiations to Karl; after all, the old butler’s talent in this area made him feel ashamed.
Previous supermarket procurement had already proven this point; Ferdinand himself was simply not suited for bargaining.
In the end, Ferdinand acquired a flour processing plant named “Katve Porto” for the price of 18,000 pounds.
The machinery and equipment had been purchased a year ago, and it had over 180 skilled technical workers and over 50 employees; when running at full capacity, it could produce 2,000 metric tons of flour daily.
Since these machines were bought, Katve Porto had never operated at full capacity, and the staff had been reduced from its peak of over 500 people to its current number.
Even so, Katve Porto was barely holding on, hovering on the edge of loss and profit.
Ferdinand was very satisfied with this acquisition; a new boss must bring a new atmosphere, so he changed the name of Katve Porto.
“Shuanghui Food Development Group Co., Ltd.” — this high-end name was the new name for the flour mill, signaling a new beginning.
Well, actually, it was purely Ferdinand’s prank; he intended to pirate every familiar brand from the future.
Ferdinand retained the former factory manager, Wilian Schubert Schubert.
In the fiercely competitive Vienna, being able to break even at a flour processing plant was enough to prove his ability.
In fact, the original factory, Katve Porto, was running quite well; it was managed well inside and out, and costs had been compressed to the minimum.
However, in terms of sales, it was a total mess.
There was no brand and no major wholesalers, so the products were mainly sold to the vast countryside.
There was no help for it; as a latecomer, the city market had already been carved up.
Being able to open up the rural market was enough to show that the boss had strategic vision, but unfortunately, it was too ahead of its time.
The countryside in this era was dirt poor; dreaming of encircling the cities from the countryside was just that—a dream.
But now that they had Ferdinand, everything was no longer a problem.
Of course, in the short term, the supermarket’s sales volume was limited, so the rural market could not be abandoned immediately.
He made a promise in public never to delay wages and inspected the current state of the factory.
Finally, seeing that dark, unappetizing bread, he felt a pang of sympathy and announced that the original food allowance standard would be increased by 20%, which immediately won the support of the workers.
After sending in management personnel and thanks to the cooperation of the workers, the factory resumed operations after a short period of adjustment.
To improve production efficiency and stimulate the workers’ enthusiasm for production, Ferdinand proposed a constructive bonus plan to Wilian Schubert.
Wilian Schubert quickly came up with a practical factory reward system and submitted it to him.
Ferdinand was very satisfied with Wilian Schubert’s approach.
As the boss, he could be generous to the workers, but the opposite was true for managers.
Like many bosses, only he could be the “good guy” to win hearts and minds, while the managers had to be the “bad guys” to save him expenses.
According to Wilian Schubert’s plan, workers would be rewarded if the average monthly production increased based on the current level, or if the overall quality improved.
For every 1% increase in production or quality, the corresponding team would receive a bag of flour as a reward.
This measure was beneficial but inexpensive; the flour was produced by themselves, so the cost was very low.
The workers could take it home to eat, which had the same effect as giving out cash bonuses directly.
Ferdinand also discovered that Wilian Schubert still had a basic conscience; without compromising his own interests, he had increased the benefits for the workers as much as possible, which made Ferdinand even more satisfied.
“Mr.
Wilian Schubert, you have done a beautiful job with this plan.
Workers need incentives.
How about this: go down and take a census of how many family members the employees working at the factory have.
In the future, they can all buy their corresponding rations from the factory at the factory price.” Ferdinand once again threw out a strategy to win over hearts and minds.
“Very well, Your Highness!
I will handle it immediately!” Wilian Schubert said with some excitement.
From the factory to retail, the price of flour increased by at least 30%.
Moreover, flour was a staple food in Europe, so this would greatly reduce the workers’ living expenses, which was equivalent to an increase of 20% to 30% in their salaries.
This was the best method Ferdinand could think of to improve the workers’ living conditions as much as possible under the existing conditions without damaging his own interests.
Facts proved that Ferdinand’s strategy was correct.
In the future, when the labor movement was booming, his factories were always the most stable, and the influence of labor unions was much weaker there.
Time flew by, and the flour processing plant quickly got on the right track.
Production rose steadily, and quality also continued to improve.
When it finally stabilized, total production had increased by nearly 30%, and high-quality products had also increased by 11%.
And the price he paid was merely distributing a few hundred extra bags of flour each month; on average, every worker could receive two or three bags of flour.
When calculating the rewards, Wilian Schubert was very generous and basically gave the full amount.
However, when distributing the rewards, he shamelessly swapped the rewards for smaller bags.
Because it hadn’t been clearly specified at the time, the workers had nothing to say.
This was specifically developed to adapt to supermarket sales.
There were large bags of 50 kg, medium bags of 20 kg, small bags of 10 kg, and even smaller bags of 5 kg, and they even developed 1 kg mini-packages.
Of course, on average, the smaller the package, the higher the unit price.
Wilian Schubert finally showed a bit of human touch and didn’t swap them for the smallest packages; otherwise, the workers would have really been too upset to cry.
Now they were issued 10 kg bags of flour, and two or three bags were enough for one person’s rations, so the workers still happily took them away.
Fearing the formation of bad debts, Ferdinand had separated the finances of the factory and the supermarket very early on; even supermarket procurement had to be paid for, settled with reference to market prices.
Because of the increased sales channels from the supermarket, the flour mill soon began to make a profit.
By the end of the first month, it had made a profit of 300 pounds, although it still couldn’t compare to a supermarket.
However, Ferdinand was still very satisfied.
This was a good start.
The factory’s production capacity was only at one-third, and many products were sold to the countryside with almost no profit.
If everything could be self-produced and self-sold, there would still be a lot of room for improvement in factory profits.
Ferdinand came up with another trick commonly used by merchants in later generations.
He shamelessly changed into different packaging bags, created seven or eight brands for customers to choose from.
Just like the unscrupulous merchants of later generations, he sold the same flour at different prices, which actually yielded a handsome profit.