Vol 5 Chapter 1233: competition

In Hollywood, Viacom’s big boss, Summer Redstone, who is over eighty years old, personally presided over a meeting.

Unlike the wedding Feng Yiping was attending, this meeting was very depressing.

Because of his anger, the rich man who survived a catastrophe seemed to have his mouth crooked obviously.

"I have only one question, why we gave a budget of 500 to 800 million US dollars, but Myspace was acquired by News Corp for 580 million US dollars?"

When talking, he couldn't help but keep tapping his fingers on the table.

I have to say that men are aggressive, and everyone will have their own competitors.

And some of these competitors will be regarded as rivals by them.

For the old Mr. Redstone, Murdoch is his rival.

What does the enemy mean? Even if you lose, you can't lose to him.

But this time, in the bidding for Myspace, he just lost to Murdoch's rival.

The key is that Murdoch's purchase price is still a lot lower than the purchase ceiling price given by him, which makes him really unable to control his anger.

Viacom’s CEO Tom Fleston took a look at Lei Shidong. This question has been discussed many times in recent meetings. In any case, the focus is on him. Today, he doesn’t bother to respond.

After the turning point of these days, it is rare for Freston to feel stupid and naive.

Previously, like many analysts, he was optimistic that he should be the successor to this older and older man, but now, like the previous CEOs, the final result can only be abandonment. It's like a mess.

Such illusions were deliberately created by this old guy who still seems to have no retirement plan.

What is even more stupid is that he believed it before and did so many things stupidly according to his instructions.

He didn't look up the cliché, "This time, our M&A team didn't react quickly enough, and the time to talk..."

"I think it may not be the problem with our M&A team," Lei Shidong didn't glance at this subordinate who had been very admired before. "Is it not enough for all our companies and all teams to work now? active?"

Shari Redstone, who has just become Viacom’s vice chairman, also Redstone’s daughter, glanced at the somewhat sluggish Tom Friston, “Even important acquisitions decided by the board of directors can be attributed to Delays lead to failure. I also think that many of our colleagues should conduct a thorough review."

Tom Friston looked up at the nearly fifty-year-old woman, shook his head, couldn't help but ridicule, this was another stupid and innocent guy just like him.

Do you think you can take over Viacom after I leave?

Long memory!

Why don't you think about your brother?

In 2003, Lei Shidong suddenly announced that in order to better manage the company, his son and three other directors would resign from Viacom, so as to introduce more independent directors-in fact, it is a complete Own son, expelled from his company.

At that time, Freston was Redstone's right-hand man in accomplishing this.

Now he understands that it is not for "better governance of the company", that is, Redstone prevents his son from having the opportunity to challenge himself in order to consolidate his control of the company.

Freston is also very sure now that this old guy, who was already eighty years old at that time, was afraid that he hadn't thought about any retirement plans at all, and even cared about his power more than when he was young.

But it seems that some people have not thought of these things, or that they have not realized this problem.

Sally's look like that in the eyes naturally made Sally very upset. She had committed such a big mistake. What qualifications do you have to pose in front of me?

Do you think that, as everyone said, you are the best candidate to take over our company?

"I suggest that a detailed investigation should be conducted on this matter to clarify the responsibilities of the relevant people,"

"We all know how popular social networks are now, and how rare products such as Myspace are. I think such a major mistake is unforgivable."

Freston didn't bother to respond. Anyway, I knew that I was going to be swept out by your old bastard. Why should I bother to explain?

Redstone was non-committal about what his daughter said, and seemed to be quite indifferent to Freston’s reaction, because he next talked about another thing, “I think it’s time to focus on the issue of not being positive at work. , I looked at the report in April, we have thousands of brick-and-mortar stores, but in the DVD rental field, the gap with Netflix is ​​getting bigger and bigger." He turned his attention to the person in charge of Blockbuster. "The business situation is so pessimistic, can the Blockbuster team sit still?"

The person in charge of Blockbuster, who had felt a little relaxed, was taken aback for a moment. Wasn't this just to kick Freston out and build momentum? Why did it suddenly turn to me?

"Netflix's share has increased significantly, mainly because of the help provided by NEXTDOOR. A large number of NEXTDOOR users have been successfully converted into Netflix users."

He actually said this reason more than once.

"Is this the main thing?" Redstone asked. "Our stores are spread all over the United States, which is convenient for users to pick up and return. We rent out more and more new film sources. Why is the passenger flow smaller and smaller?

So our cost is also high. The person in charge of Blockbuster is about to say another commonplace reason, but Redstone did not give it a chance to speak, "I know, you must have a lot of reasons, they are light assets, we Assets are important; they communicate in words over the Internet. We communicate with users through the staff in the physical store, and the attitude of the front-line staff is not always enthusiastic..."

"So, what about the online platform we have invested a lot of money in? Why hasn't it improved?"

After Wal-Mart sold all of its online DVD rental business to Netflix last year, No matter how slow, Blockbuster realized that it was getting worse and worse for walking on one leg alone. So in January this year, Their carefully prepared online rental platform is also grandly launched, almost completely copying Netflix's model.

And the monthly membership fee is lower than Netflix.

In addition, there are physical stores all over the country, you can pick it up at any time. Unlike Netflix, it takes at least one day to get the movie you want to watch. In addition, Blockbuster has been the most popular DVD among users for many years. Rental companies... They feel that as soon as they go online, they will inevitably have a major impact on Netflix~www.wuxiaspot.com~ However, more than three months have passed, and the impact everyone expected is still missing.

Now it is not a problem that has been delayed, it is a problem that may never be seen.

Redstone felt that this was as incredible as the failure of the acquisition of MySpace.

"The biggest problem is the conflict between online business and offline business." The person in charge of Blockbuster became nervous. Is this going to fire me at the same time?

"Because the main benefit brought by users who order DVDs online is owned by the network department, physical stores are not actively engaged in such business,"

You don’t have to pay to get DVDs in the store. The store employees also help prepare the DVDs that users order online, and at the same time help them take back the DVDs they return, and at the same time review the quantity they watched...

So much work is done offline, but the sales and profits generated by these businesses go back online, and the company also evaluates the monthly sales of each store. Which store is willing to let its old users Become an online member of your company?

"Our own stores still support relevant policies, but those franchised stores, they are very resistant to these businesses, thinking that online is just robbing them of business,"

"We always encounter problems like this, but the biggest question is, why don't we take the initiative to find a solution when we see the problem?" Lei Shidong asked.

"Where is our proactive initiative? Or, you can't solve these problems, so I need to do it myself?"

"We can solve it," at this time, how can we say we can't.

"Within one month, come up with a feasible solution for me," Lei Shidong coldly set a deadline.