178: Chapter 178 Jiuxiang Foods' Overstocked Inventory! Learning from the Snack Giants!

Chapter 178: Jiuxiang Food's Backlogged Inventory! Keeping Up with Snack Giants!

After establishing Jufan Holdings, Su Yang began hiring, primarily for finance and human resources.

After all, he was now the owner of six companies.

Some management personnel and employees were simply transferred from the six subsidiaries.

For the position of Chief Financial Officer, Su Yang transferred Guo Xueqin, the manager of the finance department at Spark Fitness.

She was a finance manager who didn't have much of a presence.

Or rather, the Spark Fitness headquarters had always lacked much of a presence!

However, Guo Xueqin excelled due to her outstanding abilities, harmonious family life, and a loyalty level exceeding 85.

Among the finance managers of all of Su Yang's companies, her loyalty ranked second.

It was quite rare to find an executive who had so little contact with Su Yang yet saw such a rapid increase in loyalty!

Subsequently, Su Yang used a headhunting firm to poach Dong Zengjie to serve as Administrative Director, responsible for human resources and the office.

Dong Zengjie was in his forties and had been serving as the administrative director for a local conglomerate in Rongcheng.

Su Yang only managed to poach him by offering an annual salary of six hundred thousand yuan!

Once Dong Zengjie joined, he took charge of recruiting headquarters staff.

However, Jufan Holdings would not have many formal employees in the short term.

After all, Jufan Holdings did not engage in production; its primary responsibility was management.

For the legal department, Su Yang transferred Fan Jinding, the former legal manager of Jiuxiang Catering.

He also hired Zhou Jianjun from Hongyu Law Firm to serve as legal counsel.

Following the establishment of Jufan Holdings, Su Yang gathered the general managers, directors, and vice presidents of the six companies, including Jiuxiang Catering, for a meeting.

The main purpose was to let everyone get acquainted to facilitate future coordination and cooperation between the companies.

This, after all, was his original intention for forming the holding company!

By the time the holding company's affairs were settled, it was mid-May.

During this period, Weimeijia under Jiuxiang Catering leased two more storefronts for renovation.

At Jiuxiang Food, the cafeteria managed by Weimeijia was also under renovation and was expected to open in June.

Development in Shancheng was proceeding smoothly; with the help of the Market Expansion Department staff, Jiuxiang Catering had leased another good storefront, and all locations were currently being renovated.

The employees recruited from Shancheng were still undergoing training, including the reserve store managers!

Overall, Jiuxiang Catering's expansion in Shancheng was quite low-key.

It felt very much like 'sneaking into the village'!

At Jiuxiang Food, the turnover for April exceeded twenty-five million yuan.

This was an increase of over eight million from the previous month, which was a fairly impressive result.

If this continued, Jiuxiang Food would soon reach a break-even point.

However, Jiuxiang Food's development wasn't actually that smooth.

Beneath the seemingly beautiful sales growth trend, a crisis was actually brewing!

Tan Yanghong had already reported to Su Yang that Jiuxiang Food was facing significant inventory pressure, with a large portion of its working capital tied up in the warehouse.

If this continued, the inventory pressure would only grow!

Snacks aren't like clothes or other industrial products; their shelf life is relatively short.

If the inventory couldn't be sold in the short term, it would have to be destroyed!

If nearly ten million yuan worth of goods were destroyed due to expiration... Su Yang felt like he would cough up blood!

Five hundred skilled workers, even with weekends off, working eight hours a day produced a terrifying amount of output!

So now, Su Yang didn't plan on giving the employees raises or pep talks for a while.

Otherwise, the harder those five hundred employees worked, the more inventory would pile up in his warehouse.

This was the first time Su Yang experienced the downside of having too many factory workers!

Of course, facing a somewhat apprehensive and worried Tan Yanghong, Su Yang still smiled and comforted him.

He couldn't blame Tan Yanghong; after all, back when he was frantically hiring, Tan Yanghong had mentioned the possibility of inventory pressure!

In a normal factory, you only hire and expand when business is good.

Su Yang, however, had expanded his scale first!

Currently, his company's accounts weren't losing much, but in reality, a lot of capital and profit were being squeezed into the warehouse.

Therefore, Su Yang had to continuously increase the marketing budget for Jiuxiang Food.

After some thought, Su Yang decided to give Jiuxiang Food another fifteen million yuan—five million to maintain operations and ten million for marketing.

This was the largest single amount Su Yang had spent on promotion since he started investing!

This time, the marketing expenses wouldn't just go to Spark Media, but also to major e-commerce platforms.

Ten million actually wasn't that much!

Domestic snack giants easily spent over a hundred million, or even over a billion, on marketing every year.

Compared to the over three million in cash Jiuxiang Food returned to him every month, Su Yang wouldn't feel too much pain spending this ten million!

Moreover, with his current monthly income, there was no reason he couldn't spend over a hundred million on marketing to keep up with the food giants!

The snack business in China was quite profitable; it wasn't impossible for turnover to break several billion!

Of the remaining two million, Su Yang left one million for the parent company to maintain its operations.

The final million was transferred to Spark Media!

Although Jiuxiang Catering was still expanding, its cash flow was quite sufficient.

Last month, Su Yang had also transferred four million to Jiuxiang Catering.

Combined with Jiuxiang Catering's current monthly net profit of around two million, there wouldn't be any problems in May.

Once Jiuxiang Catering established a firm foothold in Shancheng, Su Yang expected to follow Ji Guoxiong's advice and slightly slow down the pace of developing the Nine Fragrance Hotpot chain.

Besides digesting the existing market share, they also needed to strengthen the assessment, management, and training of employees and store managers.

They also needed to increase their talent pool to provide more depth for Nine Fragrance Hotpot.

Jiuxiang Catering wouldn't be idle either, as there was still the Weimeijia brand.

Of course, this series of operations was now handled by the finance department of Su Yang's parent company, Jufan Holdings.

Su Yang only needed to transfer money into the parent company's account!

After finishing all this, Su Yang finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Then he received an invitation from Ou Xiaoning to go to another bar to listen to some music.

Su Yang immediately became interested.

After being busy for half a month, shouldn't he take a break?

Following the phone's navigation, Su Yang entered the bar and found it was different from the Qingse Bar he used to frequent.

Soothing light music played in the bar; the environment was relatively quiet, with no disco or go-go dancers.

The bar counter was large, and when he walked in, a handsome bartender was mixing drinks in a flashy way.

It seemed to be a lounge bar, and the atmosphere was quite nice!

Su Yang immediately spotted Huang Quan, Ou Xiaoning, and Zhan Qingfei.

Sitting in an empty seat, Su Yang asked curiously, "Li Hongrong didn't come?"

Ou Xiaoning curled his lip. "Probably off accompanying some woman!"

"That kid Li Hongrong changes girlfriends faster than he changes clothes!" Zhan Qingfei laughed. "I've always suspected he sticks to working out because he's afraid his body will collapse."

Huang Quan rolled her eyes at Zhan Qingfei. "You have the nerve to talk about him? You're no saint either!"

She hadn't forgotten the last time Zhan Qingfei had ditched her to go to a hotel with some woman.

Zhan Qingfei quickly said, "Alright! I'll shut up!"

Huang Quan complained, "You guys should learn from Brother Su and stop idling around all day!"

Zhan Qingfei looked at Ou Xiaoning; he actually had a job, whereas Ou Xiaoning was the one who was unemployed.

Ou Xiaoning, who was pouring a drink for Su Yang, felt depressed. Why was he suddenly the target of the conversation?

Not wanting to talk about work, Ou Xiaoning changed the subject. "Brother Su, where have you been playing lately? We couldn't even get a hold of you!"

Zhan Qingfei also teased from the side, "Exactly, even Huang Quan couldn't reach you. She was really frustrated at the time!"

Huang Quan glared at Zhan Qingfei and told him to shut up.

Su Yang took a sip of beer to moisten his throat. "I went traveling in April, and in May I was busy with company matters. I only just managed to squeeze out some time recently."

Huang Quan asked curiously, "Traveling? Where did you go?"

"Around Rongcheng. The company had things going on, so I couldn't go too far."

Huang Quan asked again, "With family?"

"With a friend!"

"Oh~ a 'friend'!"

Zhan Qingfei laughed meaningfully.

Ou Xiaoning also started laughing!