Milady's Fine Gentleman 166 ABNORMALITY

"Crush all those rats." Shi Fani Hai gave a commanding order to his executives in one of their meetings. He was in an extremely ill mood that no one would want to cross paths with him. Thankfully the CEO had a designated elevator solely for his own use, and his appearance on hallways and in the foyer was always forestalled by his secretaries' appearance first. The employees could make the necessary adjustments whether to hide or turn around to where they came from.

Every single day, Shi Fani Hai had been wreaking such madness with his wrath inside their corporation. As the head of the selling end, an outlet for his anger presented itself- and that was to destroy all the other competitors. He had been awfully aggressive in manipulating market movements through pulling down their market prices drastically. Some of their competitors already surrendered in this game. They could not keep up with him. If they lowered down their prices, it meant negative margins, but if they did not follow the trend and keep the selling at market price, no one will buy from them. It's a dead end!

No one knew why the devil was on a rampage. At an ordinary day, he was already evil, but lately he was in an overly grave state which was notch and notch higher than his usual level of wickedness.

Only he knew the underlying reason.

It was because Teng Man Rui broke up with him.

'She dared. As if she could escape me.'

Whenever he was reminded of it, he would burst into vicious hell-like flames. Casualties of around four or five employees already suffered from his outbursts. They were terminated on the spot. It did not matter whether it was within or beyond reason.

Today was not an exception.

More so today, he was in an absolute madness because of some abnormality that his team of excellent professionals was seeing in the market movements.

"WHAT'S HAPPENING?!!" He roared. His executives all bowed down and averted locking eyes with him. Who knows if it's their turn to be terminated?

His merciless plan on giving out discounts and pulling the selling price to an extreme low was initially going on smoothly for weeks. He had been remarkably satisfied to see that the little oil players had already surrendered in his little game. It brought sadistic happiness to him.

However these past few days, when they even levelled up their plan and had implemented even lower selling prices, much to the Shi Corporation's bewilderment, the five or so oil companies could easily navigate in the market. Their competitors could even follow their trend obediently as if there were no repercussions on their business. They, too, lowered their selling prices to match Shi Corporation's, much to the dismay of Shi Fan Hai. That's why he was roaring currently in their meeting.

To note, smaller oil companies could only lower their prices to such extent before they get bankrupt. It's because selling lower and lower meant that not only would they not be able to regain their capital, but also sell at a great loss with negative margins.

However, such madness was introduced by the Shi Corporation wherein they were constantly lowering the selling prices, as if it's bottomless! Their competitors were forced to match just to sell or else, their previously acquired products would only sleep in their storage, which meant sleeping money, without market activity. Soon enough the market would have forgotten them. Consequently their market share would have been snatched by Shi Corporation and the others who thrived.

"Who's the market analyst in here?!" Shi Fan Hai asked, when he had deduced that no one's going to answer him. "Report!"

At first there was only awkward silence in the room.

All the other employees and executives knew who the market analyst was. All heads turned to him accordingly.

The market analyst was seated at the farthest end of the long rectangular table where they were convened. He was in his early thirties. He cleared his throat first.

"The other oil companies were able to keep up in lowering the prices…" He started.

"I can see that! Get to the point!" Shi Fan Hai hissed.

"That's because, as I have researched, those oil companies were working together in bringing in their cargoes, and in turn, sharing all the costs that entails into it, resulting to lower acquisition costs…"

"They are working together?" Shi Fan Hai repeated broodingly. "They were wise enough to group themselves together. However at the end of the day, we're all competitors, still. How long will they be able to withstand each other, I reckon?"

"Is there more to report?" He asked.

"Basically that's it. But one important thing to be mindful of, is that they will be able to keep playing the game we have started for a longer while. This whole sourcing strategy that they had adopted is their lifeline. However, we are… nearing our… nearing our own limit, Sir."

"DAMN IT!! How can that be?"

"For instance companies A, B and C consolidated all their requirements – bought it at the same time, and was delivered using the same ship, same freight costs. The freight cost of bringing it in, which is, say, a thousand bucks were divided equally into them, resulting to only paying a third of the expense. Whereas if we bring in the same product, say same size as company A, we shoulder full thousand bucks for a smaller parcel. We are the ones being penalized, Sir."

"How can they meet up and do this? We're all competitors!"

"Uhm, this is just a heresay… No more than a rumor… There were talks in the market of an innovative trading house. I guess this trading house is responsible in consolidating the resources for the other oil companies. Otherwise, they wouldn't be open among themselves to discuss their requirements, and share trade secrets to competitors."

Shi Fan Hai's face is getting more distorted by the second. "We cannot lose in our own game. Find out more about that trading house, and report to me as soon as possible!"

"All of you that are here in this meeting are responsible and should be able to give feedback to the market analyst. Any information about that trading house you have to share to him and to me!"

"Explore the concept of adopting that sourcing strategy too. Whatever benefits our competitors enjoy out of that setup, we should be enjoying too. We shouldn't be left out!"

Shi Fan Hai was terribly shaken. He had thought that he's the game changer in the landscape of petroleum trading. Here's the scenario now, that it's turning out, some stranger was a greater game changer than him!

Chapter end

Report