Riding the wind of rebirth

Chapter 1750 Not So Great

"Uh...is there?" Zhou Zhi was stunned for a moment before he thought of this question.

The relationship between demand and supply determines whether it is a buyer's market or a seller's market, and also determines which party occupies an advantageous position in the business.

From the current perspective, the market demand gap for information technology companies is difficult to fill for the time being. Companies like Clover are still the flying pigs in the wind. Even when signing contracts with the government or management departments, the terms are strictly drafted in accordance with market requirements, and the other party still does not raise any objections.

Now that Zhu Dazhang reminded him, Zhou Zhi finally remembered the difference between himself and later generations.

In my previous life, I worked in the information technology department of a central enterprise. I had signed development outsourcing contracts with many technology companies and witnessed the transformation of programmers from "prodigies" to "code farmers".

All we can say is that things change over time. Every industry has its own cycles, the only difference is the length.

This is getting off topic, but the real estate industry has similarities with the information industry and is also just emerging, so Zhu Dazhang can fully learn from the experience of Clover Company.

"Can we add a clause like this," Zhou Zhi pondered for a moment: "If one of the two parties encounters financial difficulties, the party with the shortage of funds can use the real estate under construction or already built as compensation, and the partner has the right to receive it first?"

"That is to say, if one day the local government cannot pay the subsequent development fees they should pay, they can take out a portion of the properties that have been built in the previous phases to repay you, and you can invest the funds equivalent to this part of the properties in the later construction to complete the contract between the two parties."

"Of course, after this part of the property is developed, you cannot encroach on the rights and interests that belong to the local government. This is the only way to ensure fairness to both parties and ensure that the contract can be fulfilled."

"But there is a problem." Zhu Dazhang felt that it was still a bit inappropriate: "If this is the case, then the local government can use this contract to invest only part of the funds in advance, and then start compounding the interest, and in the end most of the funds will be invested by me?"

"It depends on what the local government needs," Zhou Zhi said. "Do they need the grand achievement of Binjiang Road renovation, or do they need the profits from real estate development to fill the fiscal deficit? If they need the former, then they can do as you say, using a small amount of money to leverage a large market, but they will have to give up most of the profits from this market."

"If they need the latter, they need to find enough funds to support their ideas. Rights and obligations need to be relatively balanced, which is the premise of fairness. Otherwise, there is no need for cooperation."

"We will wait until the supply and demand relationship changes in the future, and then make adjustments. As for now, I think it is better for everyone to make the contract more detailed to avoid difficulties in handling disputes in the future."

"I'll send you a few copies of our company's contract samples when I get back. They were all drafted by our legal representative, Professor Lu, the one who was locked out of the house by the security door and sued me and my cousin An Xin."

There is no doubt about how limited the management, business and legal skills of today's entrepreneurs are. Many of them don't even have such awareness at all. This has also led to many famous private entrepreneurs either suffering losses or taking more than they deserve in the course of their operations due to the laxity of contracts. In the end, they paid a heavy price and disappeared in the long river of history.

Confusing "partiality for personal gain" with "escorting" will still have a huge market, not to mention today, even in a few decades, many public intellectuals talk about "business environment" and "protecting investment", but they ignore a huge premise - whether the behavior of those they want to whitewash is illegal or violates public order and good morals.

A contract with strict specified terms not only protects yourself, but also serves as a form of self-restraint in this era when the business environment is still relatively extensive.

After everyone sat down at the table, Zhou Zhi introduced e-commerce to the two of them.

In fact, similar online business applications had been adopted as early as 1983, and the business giant Walmart launched a corporate satellite that year.

The following year, Wal-Mart began to use category management software, and in 1990, it began to build an electronic data interchange system, and then went a step further and built an automatic supplier ordering system. In , Wal-Mart began to use automatic scanning guns and anti-theft systems, and then in , it became the largest user of electronic data interchange systems.

According to business intelligence, Walmart is now working on shared forecasting methods and e-commerce with suppliers.

Last year, Amazon was also established. Previously, the company was just an online bookstore and its name was CADABRA. Later, in order to attract venture capital and facilitate roadshows, it changed its name to Amazon, which is easier for everyone to accept.

However, because CEO Bezos' business philosophy was too stable and conservative, the roadshow was not very successful.

In today's age when the Internet economy is touted by Wall Street as the savior of the world, the business strategy of various technology companies is to use the funds of the big guys to frantically grab land, then go public and cash out.

Amazon's business strategy is completely against the wind, so apart from the investment from AXA Fund, there are not many other funds that are optimistic about Amazon.

Not to mention Bezos, even AXA's behavior was despised by everyone, and even Li Laosan felt that he could not figure out Zhou Zhi's vital point.

Previously, AXA Investment was also quite aggressive, and was known for its boldness, stubbornness and good luck in investing in high-risk technology markets. The key was that each investment yielded a good return, which gave Li Laosan a survivor bias and made him believe that Zhou Zhi was a demigod.

The sudden change in style made Li Laosan afraid that something had happened to Zhou Zhi, so he called to ask.

Zhou Zhi did not explain too much, just smiled and said that fortune needs to be balanced. Let's use Bezos, who is managing steadily, to balance the radical projects of those young people found in the campus incubator.

When many people talk about Walmart's satellite checkout network, their first reaction is how high-end it is. In fact, this is a misunderstanding.

Due to bandwidth limitations, the functions of the satellite settlement network are actually far less complete and convenient than the e-commerce websites that people have seen in later generations. Its core is actually an electronic accountant, responsible for daily settlement of incoming and outgoing goods, and making some reports of concern to management based on the details of the account, to facilitate management to understand the operating conditions of the company.

To put it bluntly, this system is actually closer to the information network that domestic banks are building, except that one uses satellites as communication links, and the other uses dedicated telecommunications lines as communication links, that's all.

Today, the convenience store settlement software designed by Clover is more advanced than Walmart's EDI and even Amazon's e-commerce software, except for the non-satellite network.

Walmart's only win now is that it has a unique satellite network that can conduct global settlements, that's all.

These are just digressions. In short, Zhou Zhi is not unfamiliar with the operating models of Walmart and Amazon, nor is he as superstitious about these two companies as later generations.

Therefore, you can see many things that later generations cannot see.

(End of this chapter)