Chapter 361

"3000, I think this is the best number of blockbuster chain stores in the United States. It's very unwise to blindly pursue market share, which will only let us waste our capital and energy in commercial areas with low return rate. Through continuous optimization of the planned 3000 video chain stores, I hope blockbuster can achieve 50% of the local market share in the next three years. "

The videotape industry in the United States has developed rapidly in recent years. It is estimated that the sales volume will exceed 10 billion US dollars this year, which is twice the domestic box office.

If blockbuster can achieve 50% market share, it will be an industrial giant with annual revenue of US $5 billion and profit scale of US $500 million, and its market value can easily exceed US $10 billion.

It's in loft, office three, danelis studios.

Simon listened to Nancy and said, "if your goal can be achieved, maybe I should buy out the remaining shares of blockbuster now."

"I've calculated," Nancy said with her slender fingers on the table. "Blockbuster's recent market value is about $3.2 billion. With the Gulf war going on, it may fall to less than $3 billion in the next period of time. For a wholly-owned acquisition, the quoted price can be controlled between 4.5 billion and 5 billion US dollars, and we actually need to pay about 3 billion US dollars in cash. "

Simon looked at Nancy's beautiful and delicate hand, smiling and said, "you know, I'm planning a big acquisition recently."

Nancy felt Simon's eyes and gave him a white look. Seeing that the man didn't mean to feel guilty at all, she didn't move her eyes. She had to pick up the coffee cup next to him and sip it. She said, "the two things don't conflict. Even if you don't have enough funds, it's not easy to borrow billions of dollars from the bank."

The debt crisis that broke out at the end of last year caused the major banks in North America to tighten credit one after another, making it more difficult for many enterprises to obtain loans. However, Simon, such a high-quality borrower, has become the most enthusiastic lending target of major banks.

Even Simon's attempt to raise $10 billion will not be too difficult.

"That's right," Simon said. "It's just that I'm still thinking about other things outside of globegroup. It's also a big plan that costs a lot of money, and the rate of return is higher than blockbuster. Therefore, this matter can only be considered later."

When it comes to the acquisition of billions of dollars, Nancy didn't expect Simon to agree. After listening to Simon's other plans, she said curiously, "what?"

Simon shook his head. "I can't tell you."

"Don't you think I'm trustworthy, boss?" said Nancy

"Of course, it's worth it," Simon affirmed. "But trust is something that needs to be maintained. The most important thing is, if it's not necessary, don't give others reasons that may undermine this trust."

If Nancy understands, "well, I won't ask."

"Well, let's talk about overseas," Simon went on. "I find that blockbuster's overseas expansion seems to be a bit slow. Video chain stores are different from cinema lines. They are subject to little government regulation and trade barriers in overseas markets. Since they intend to expand, overseas expansion should also be a very important one."

Compared with blockbuster, the scale of its chain stores in the U.S. can exceed 2000 this year. Overseas, it has only completed the small-scale layout of its neighboring countries in the U.S. and five European countries, namely, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain. Moreover, in addition to the synchronous development of Canada and North America, the total number of chain stores in other markets is less than 200, mainly concentrated in the core cities of London, Paris and Berlin.

"For the time being, those overseas chain stores are just exploring the market, and the preliminary market research and data analysis are very important. As long as the funds are sufficient, the overseas expansion speed will not be worse than that of North America. In addition, I recently plan to connect all blockbuster's chain stores in the Boston Washington Metropolitan Area on the east coast to the Internet, and I also plan a new membership system for blockbuster. In short, there are a lot of things to do, and the overseas market can't spare too much energy for the time being. "

"You just know it," Simon nodded, and said, "and don't take everything on your own. Just let go of what should be given to Wayne hueyzanga and James Frey."

Although it is a very important holding company of danielis entertainment, because of the existence of Nancy Brill, Wayne hueyzanga and others, Simon is very confident about the company. Except for some important financial and personnel changes, he basically does not care about the specific operation of blockbuster.

"I understand."

Nancy said, thinking of something, beckoned her assistant who was waiting nearby, explained a few words, turned to Simon and explained, "speaking of blockbuster's membership system, you can help to see what needs to be improved. And the sand dune video game, which has been tested in-house, happens to give you a copy

Seeing that the little woman was going to press the boss blatantly, Simon said, "I'm hundreds of thousands a minute. Don't bother me with this kind of thing, right?"

The layout of real-time strategy games is a very important classification from the era of stand-alone games in the 1990s to the era of online games in the new century. Many years later, world of Warcraft, League of heroes and other phenomenal popular online games are inextricably linked with real-time strategy games.Therefore, Simon has been following up the production of sand dune. After all, it has a lot to do with the layout in the future.

He has no interest in discussing blockbuster's membership system.

There are so many people in blockbuster company, they can't keep it for nothing.

Nancy didn't understand the hundreds of thousands of stalks in a minute. She said, "I just want you to see if you have any good ideas. Of course, we should make our own details. I find that you can always come up with new ideas that break through the limits of ordinary people's thinking. This talent is just enviable. "

"Is that a compliment? But why didn't I feel it myself? "

Nancy said: "DC movie universe, just such a plan, do you know how amazing it is? As long as next year's two films can succeed, this plan may be added to the case textbook by Harvard Business School. "

Simon said with a smile, "well, I'm really good."

Nancy gave Simon another white look.

The assistant soon sent a folder and a copy of dune.

Simon put the game floppy disk aside, opened the file, and Nancy said, "for the time being, we plan to divide the members into junior members and senior members. We mainly offer member discounts, extend the return period of video tapes, reduce the liquidated damages and other terms, as well as some ideas of monthly or annual package."

Ask Nancy's assistant to bring him another bottle of water. Simon lowers his head and starts to look at the membership plan in front of him.

Nancy didn't waste her time either. She flipped through another document and noticed that her assistant had sent a bottle of mineral water. She also found a topic and said, "I've seen you only drink water several times. Why don't you drink coffee?"

Simon didn't look up and said, "Jennie and I are going to have a baby. Coffee is not good."

Nancy wondered, "does coffee affect children?"

"It's a serious impact, so you need to pay attention to it later."

"I'm not going to get married."

"Not getting married doesn't mean not having children."

"It's hard to have a baby. I'm going to adopt one if I need to."

"It's better to have children by yourself."

Nancy thought of something, dissatisfied with the way: "male chauvinism."

Simon did not understand: "is there a causal relationship between these two things?"

"Yes!"

"Well, I'm male chauvinism."

After a while, Simon said: "I think these programs are very good. What's the specific effect? I think blockbuster can try one or two state chain stores first, as you just said in the overseas pilot. If it is feasible, it will promote the whole country. If it is not feasible, it will be cancelled, and it will not affect the overall situation. In fact, the advantage of a large enough enterprise is that it has a strong fault tolerance rate. It's not just the membership system. As long as you have any good ideas, you can choose some regions to try. "

Nancy thought about it, picked up her memo and remembered it.

Simon said with a smile, "don't be so serious. Don't you remember?"

"I thought of the first half of what you said, but I didn't think of the second half," Nancy said, quickly writing down a few words and looking up. "Anything else?"

"About the value-added services for members," Simon said, "have you ever rented a video in person from the blockbuster chain?"

"Every week, of course," Nancy said

"Do you feel any trouble?"

"Trouble?"

"Didn't you ever think you could deliver it to your door?"

Nancy thought for a moment and said, "the cost is too high. The selection of film sources, remote booking and logistics are all big problems."

"In the short term, we can use telephone reservation. As for logistics, we should try to cooperate with the postal system. The federal postal system is very developed, and they should not mind more and faster. Sign a package contract with the local postal system to contract annual orders, and then blockbuster can get rid of the chains. A city only needs a few large warehousing and logistics centers. "

"It's just a kind of subversion," said Nancy, with an expression of surprise on her small face. "If we really do it, our existing chain store system will collapse."

Simon shrugged and said, "I can remember that other people should have similar thoughts. Blockbuster subverts itself or is subverted by others. Which one do you choose

Nancy frowned, continued to ponder for a moment, and said: "such a service involves too many complex links. It needs to develop to a large scale to form a scale effect. It is impossible for a small video chain company to carry out such a business. We don't seem to have to do that ourselves. The distribution of blockbuster's chain stores has been carefully selected, and it is still continuously optimized, which can maximize the convenience of users. They can often drop in to the store on their way to work to select videos, and there is no need to send them by remote mail. By the way, you just said, "in the short term, do you still have long-term ideas?"

Simon was not surprised to feel the negation in Nancy's tone.

The business model similar to Netflix is not easy to implement in this era when it can only use telephone reservation for the time being. Moreover, even in the Internet era, for the sake of maintaining its own chain store system, blockbuster will instinctively resist this business model."In the long run, if Internet users develop to a sufficient scale, blockbuster can set up its own online website, through which users can retrieve the scheduled videos by themselves, just like the library e-book retrieval system, which can solve the problems of film source selection and remote reservation, with higher security and more convenience. Through the postal system to get the video, users after watching, just need to put the video into a special blockbuster package and then mail it back, the whole process does not need to leave home. "

"If I remember correctly, the number of AOL users should reach 150000 this month. How many years do you think it will take to reach a sufficient user scale?"

"It took only ten years for the proportion of American families to own video recorders to grow from 2% to 70%. I believe it will only take ten years at most for the Internet to reach such a popular level."

"It's a good idea to develop your business through the Internet, but even if your prediction can come true, it will take at least another five years. 2% of the home video penetration rate can not be achieved by a 100 TV. " Nancy said, suddenly changed the subject, staring at Simon without blinking, and asked, "boss, I'm very curious, how do you come up with these advanced ideas?"

Simon is not the first time to encounter this kind of problem. Janet used to stare at herself with a small look that was called lethality, so she said calmly, "this idea was just told me by a guy named reed."

"Reed?"

"Yes," Simon nodded and raised his chin to the empty seat next to Nancy opposite him, in a faint, eerie tone. "He's sitting right next to you."

Nancy turned to look into the air beside her and said, "Hey, reed, would you like to sit opposite?"? I hate men. "

The little woman seriously cooperated with Simon to make a cold joke. They didn't laugh, but they made Jennifer Leibold and Shirley Lansing who happened to come together confused and even had a feeling of fluffy.

What's the situation?

Seeing Jennifer and Lansing, Nancy spat out her tongue. After greeting the girls, she explained, "it's just a joke." Then he got up, pointed to Simon's "sand dune" game floppy disk, and said: "I'll be busy first. Remember to send an email to me after the trial."

When Nancy left, Jennifer said to Simon who got up: "Ms. Lansing has been waiting for you for a while, so I brought her here."

Simon looked at his watch.

I'm scheduled to meet Shirley Lansing at 2:30 p.m. to discuss Denise's cooperation with MGM. Just after the meeting of marvel, it was still early. I didn't rush back to the administrative district. I didn't expect to talk with Nancy. It was already three o'clock unconsciously.

He apologized and just sat down here. Simon asked Lansing, "have you seen the script of few good people?"

These days, Johnston holding company in Australia has begun to take over the seventh television network under the name of qintex group, and the cooperation between Denise entertainment and MGM has been advancing.

In Simon's view, the key problem MGM faces is not to be sold back and forth like it was in the 1980s. As long as a stable development environment is provided, it is not difficult to recover under the background of Hollywood's global expansion in the 1990s.

No matter how hard it is, after a few years of patient operation, the Australian side will be able to re sell the company at a very good price.

As for the two films in the plan, Simon was not satisfied with several projects proposed by MGM. In the end, he simply took out a newly purchased copyright from danielis, "few good people.".