It was mid-June.
Gun-Ho was checking his email in GH Development’s president’s office in the GH Building, Sinsa Town. He saw a new email sent by Lymondell Dyeon’s Vice President Brandon Burke. It was a two-day-old email.
“It came in two days ago, and now I see this email because I was too lazy to check my email every day.”
Gun-Ho clicked the email to open it. The email was written in English.
[There is a well-known moulding company in Seattle. They are manufacturing quality twin screws. Their office number is xxxx, and the name of the company is West Moulding Corp. Good luck to you.]
Gun-Ho replied to his email thanking him for the information. He then called for Secretary Yeon-Soo Oh.
“This is the phone number of a company in Seattle. It manufactures machine parts like screws. I want you to make a call to this number, introduce yourself as you are calling from GH Mobile in Korea, and ask them the price for their twin screws.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Also, please find out their company address as well.”
“Yes, sir.”
Ms. Yeon-Soo Oh dialed the number and spoke to them in English. She then covered the smartphone with her hand and said to Gun-Ho, “They are asking about the specification of the twin screws that we want. He is asking for some numbers that come after M, so he can recognize the specific twin-screw that we are looking for.”
“I’m not sure about the specification. Tell him that the screws will be used in a large extruding machine for compounding.”
After talking to the person over the phone, Secretary Yeon-Soo Oh came back to Gun-Ho again and said, “He said that there are many types of twin screws that go into a large compounding extruding machine. He said the price varies in the range between 10,000 and 100,000 dollars.”
“That is enough. Ask him for the name of the owner or the person who is in charge of sales. And also, tell him that we will visit the company in the near future.”
Secretary Yeon-Soo Oh spoke on the phone for a moment and wrote down something on the paper. It seemed that she was writing down the name of the salesperson and the company’s address. After getting off the phone, Ms. Yeon-Soo Oh showed a piece of paper to Gun-Ho with the information on it.
“This is their address and the name of the person who we can contact for purchasing their products. It could be hard to read because of my bad handwriting. I will type them in Word and bring it back to you, sir.”
“Sounds good.”
The following day, Gun-Ho went to work in GH Mobile in Jiksan Town. He was carrying the typed memo with the screw manufacturing company’s contact information. When he arrived at his office, Gun-Ho called for President Song.
“Dyeon Korea found a factory building in India and China. They made the purchase contract for those two locations.”
“I was informed about it, sir.”
“Once we make the final payment for the factories, we will have to install machines there.”
“How many machines do you think would be necessary?”
“I want those two factories overseas to be about the same size as our Dyeon Korea’s factory in Asan City. That’s why I wanted to find a factory that was sitting on land that is about 5,000 pyung large.”
“We will need at least eight machines in place in each factory then.”
“We will start with eight machines, and then we will later add another eight machines to have 16 machines in total just like Dyeon Korea.”
“It will cost a lot. Dyeon Korea’s extruding machines are not manufactured in Korea. I don’t think we can find those machines in that large size anywhere in Asia. Including Korea”
“You’re right. They are currently being manufactured only in the U.S. and Germany.”
“Moreover, a lot of equipment comes with the machine. We need all of that equipment in order to properly use the machine, so we will have to buy a machine as a package with all those attached equipment, and it will cost at least 500 million won per machine. If we buy 8 of them, it will cost us 4 billion won.”
“What if we build that machine ourselves? With our name—GH Mobile.”
“I beg your pardon, sir? Did you say that we might want to try to build the machine here at our factory?”
“Yes. We build those machines and sell them to Dyeon India and Dyeon Korea.”
“But, we are not equipped with the necessary engineers and technology to do it, sir.”
“I was told that if we can get the key parts—twin screws—it is possible that we can build the machines ourselves.”
“We just need to get those screws only? Hmm… I’m not sure if that’s possible, sir.”
“Let’s try it. We can outsource the manufacturing of each part, and we just assemble them here in our factory.”
Gun-Ho took out the memo from the inner pocket of his jacket and showed it to President Song.
“This is the contact information of the machine parts manufacturing company in the U.S. They are producing the twin screws that we need. You can see the name of the person in charge of sales as well as on the memo.”
“Hmm.”
“Why don’t you go on a trip to the U.S. This is a good opportunity to upgrade our technology. Take Director Jong-Suk Park and Dyeon Korea’s Assistant Manager Myeong-Joon Chae as an interpreter, with you.”
“We don’t need to take Assistant Manager Myeong-Joon Chae.”
“Who’s going to interpret for you then?”
“We have an employee in GH Mobile who speaks English fluently. We previously hired him in case we need an interpreter in dealing with Chrysler.”
“Oh, is that right?”
“He had previously lived in the U.S. for seven years. He speaks English very well.”
“Did he go to college in the states?”
“Yes, sir. Let me introduce him to you.”
President Song made a call to someone.
“Manager Seo? Is Assistant Manager Ji-Woong Kim in the office?”
“Yes, he is here, sir.”
“Please send him to President Goo’s office right now.”
“Yes, sir.”
After a moment, a man who looked like he was in his early 30s came into Gun-Ho’s office. President Song said to the man, “Please meet President Goo.”
The Ji-Woong Kim person gave a 90-degree bow to Gun-Ho. He saw Gun-Ho several times in the hall when passing by, but he hadn’t really met Gun-Ho in a close distance before. Assistant Ji-Woong Kim looked nervous in front of Gun-Ho, who was the owner president of the company that he was working for, and also, Gun-Ho was someone who was running several companies.
Gun-Ho smiled and said, “Mr. Assistant Ji-Woong Kim? I was told that you speak English very well.”
“Not fluently, sir, but I can communicate in English, sir.”
“Where did you go to college?”
“I went to college in Illinois, sir.”
“How many years have you stayed in the U.S.?”
“I’ve been there for seven years, sir.”
“Are your parents living in Cheonan City?”
“No, sir. They live in Yeongdeungpo District, Seoul. They are staying in a studio.”
“Hmm, I see. You look like a very competent worker. I hope you enjoy working with us.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Assistant Manager Ji-Woong Kim gave a deep bow to Gun-Ho again before leaving the office. Gun-Ho said to President Song, “He looks like a humble person.”
“Yes, sir. He is polite and has a very good manner.”
“Okay, then, ask Assistant Manager Kim, who was just here, to contact this manufacturing company. Once you arrange the meeting with them, make a trip to the U.S. with Director Jong-Suk Park and Assistant Manager Kim. If we could build the machines and sell them to Dyeon companies for a price that is twice more than our actual production cost, GH Mobile will make money too.”
“That’s true…”
“I believe that we have several workers in the maintenance team. I think machines can be built by the maintenance team. If they need more labor, we will provide them.”
“Understood, sir. We will give it a try.”
“And, I’ve noticed last week that we are still in the process of hiring more workers. Is it done?”
“Yes, sir. We hired 50 new workers and placed them in a pertinent department.”
“Even though we have 50 more workers here, I don’t see much difference though.”
“Since we already had a lot of workers, having 50 more people won’t make any noticeable change, especially once we send them to each department. We now have 650 workers.”
“That’s a lot. So, those new 50 workers are working in our second factory, huh?”
“Right. Most of them are placed in the departments in that location.”
