Chapter 208: One Competition After Another

As Quantum Holdings’ first factory in Iowa used top grade equipment from other planets, it was also the first on Earth to have a production standard that was on par with the other factories in the Alliance.

There were three of such factories in Europe and Asia, and if all of them started producing, they could create 1200 energy-shield boosters every twenty-four hours.

In order to maximize the efficiency of the factory, they were equipped with smart tools from the Alliance. Not only were they beneficial for the production of the energy-shield boosters, once the company launched a new line of machines or electronics, the factory could promptly switch production with great flexibility.

The four factories cost Quantum Holdings over eighty percent of its capital reserves. It could be said that Xia Fei had spent sufficient money in building these factories.

All the workers had experience being in the forefront of production. The highly paid engineers from other planets provided them with a month of training, too. Now that everything was in order, they were only an order away from a constant output of energy-shield boosters.

Vampire slowly landed on the empty space outside the factory, and Xia Fei, Porter, and Charlie descended from it. Because Andre was quite old, he seldom moved around; that was why Charlie was there to tour the factory with Xia Fei in his place.

The factory, which occupied thousands of hectares of land, was not small by any means. The newly built buildings could be seen everywhere.

As work had not yet officially started, the workers were in the garage, undergoing training, taking advantage of whatever time they had left to practice using the tools in preparation for production.

After casually going around the factory, Old Porter had nothing but praises for the equipment imported by Xia Fei. Although it was not cheap by any means, all the equipment had incredible potential and great overall performance. Over time, the benefits of the incredible investment would slowly show itself.

Porter finally saw a finished energy-shield booster in the lab. Charlie passed him some testing results, to which he said after inspecting, “Shield recovery bonus at 31.27 percent. It is not bad judging from the numbers and truly has potential.”

Xia Fei smiled. “If it’s produced according to the blueprints, it should be able to reach above thirty-five percent recovery rate. It’s just that the factory hasn’t entered production yet, nor do the workers have production experience, so some parameters have been modified to reduce production complexity. Once the factory runs smoother, there’ll be a day when it reaches above thirty-five percent recovery rate.”

Porter nodded. “That makes sense; if the production is too difficult, there will be more faulty products and be an increase in costs. Moreover, a thirty-five percent recovery rate is enough to start selling them.”

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“I think so, too; after the break in period, I’ll single out the products that have over thirty-five percent recovery rate and sell them as an enhanced version, and obviously, the price will go up, too,” said Xia Fei.

Porter let out a hearty laugh. “Xia Fei, I realized that you have a lot of potential as a shred businessman. The product should at least have a thirty-five percent boosting rate, yet you’re passing off the defective ones as normal versions and the ones working correctly as enhanced versions. I think that the profits you can get from these may not just be double.

“In order to get the highest performance, some rich customers will surely choose the more expensive version. After all, their ships are anything but cheap, so they won’t care about spending that kind of money. The common customers, meanwhile, can settle for the standard version because that’s cheaper.

“For example, if you start off with the standard version at thirty-five percent, the products lower than that will be considered defective. Once a product is labeled defective, it’s price will drop dramatically, but you’re actually intending to label the defective ones as standard.

Xia Fei scratched his head in embarrassment. In truth, he also planned some deluxe and budget-friendly outside of enhanced and standard. Their boosting rate would be at twenty-five, thirty, thirty-five, or thirty-eight.

Even with the most advanced tools and equipment, the quality still could not be completely identical as every batch of raw materials would have tiny differences, even the temperature of the factory and how experienced the workers were would affect the performance of the finished products.

By splitting the products into four categories, not only did he solve the difference in quality, it even allowed for market separation. Even the defective ones could be passed off as standard versions. As for the ones with thirty-eight percent boosting rate, the price would be anything but cheap.

“Have you received any orders?” asked Porter.

Orders represented the life and blood of a company. If there was nobody willing to buy their product, they would not be able to survive on the market no matter how good their quality was.

Charlie said, slightly worried, “Currently, we have spoken to a few large chain suppliers. They are interested in energy-shield boosters like this, but because of the size and reputation of our company, the suppliers are a bit hesitant to purchase from us. They want us to send over a batch of samples first and will only put down orders once we pass their testing.”

Porter furrowed his eyebrows. “Although working with the suppliers can help us break into the market, they will surely try to reduce the price as much as they can, then the profits of the company will be lower by a bit, and they’ll have control over distribution and the retail price. If possible, we should avoid that bunch of parasites and work with wholesalers directly.”

Old Porter, who now regarded himself as a member of Quantum Holdings, started thinking for the company. Naturally, this made Xia Fei quite happy.

“Uncle Porter, the biggest problem we’re facing now is how to promote the energy-shield booster to the rest of the universe. If you have any good suggestions, go ahead,” said Xia Fei.

In the ever-changing and unpredictable Pan-Human Alliance, the people had taken business-making to the extreme. A good wine needed no bush, they said, but contemporary retail experience told differently—the better the wine the more bush needed; no matter how good the product was, it would be difficult to demonstrate its proper value without over-the-top marketing hypes.

Porter nodded. “Every so often, there are competitions and procurement bids held in the Alliance, some of which being quite influential. For example, the Admiralty has a warship equipment procurement every year, the Association of Machinists’ Golden Finger Cup, and the Supreme Command’s ultimate solo ship competition event.

“Not only will people watch competitions like that all over the universe, such events involve the strongest departments and groups in the Alliance. I believe that with the incredible ability of the energy-shield booster, it will definitely stand out in any of those competitions, and if the Admiralty uses this equipment as well, do you even need to advertise the product?” asked Old Porter with a smile.

Xia Fei knew that Old Porter himself was a three-time consecutive champion of the Golden Finger Cup of the Association of Machinists, so obviously he had the know-how around such competitions.

“Uncle Porter, I’ve thought about your suggestion. Because such prestigious competitions have incredibly high criteria in selecting participants, our company doesn’t qualify to compete in any yet. We can join smaller competitions, but the advertising capabilities will obviously pale in comparison. This has brought us some headache,” Charlie chimed in.

Porter laughed. “Heh, Charlie did you forget? One doesn’t have to join as a company representative per se; a person can participate as an individual, too. Don’t you have someone quite suitable for that right in front of your eyes?”

“Uncle Porter, are you willing to represent the company and enter a competition? That’s great!” Charlie said excitedly.

Porter shook his head and pointed at Xia Fei. “I can’t really show my face around, but Xia Fei does meet the requirements. Be it piloting warships, maintaining spacecraft, or designing products, he has a background in each. He’s a member of the Adjudicator Union as well, so there’s no better candidate than him.

Old Porter’s ideas actually coincided with Xia Fei’s. There were not many things that they could do to achieve Alliance-level promotion, and entering various competition events and bidding conferences were probably the best shot they got at increasing their company’s visibility.

After all, the cost of entering competitions or bidding conferences was relatively cheap, and it was barely anything compared to extensive advertising. Moreover, they were showing off their products properly, which was many times better than exaggerated advertising.

However, Xia Fei had not decided on which ones to sign up for. The Pan-Human Alliance was so big it was difficult to describe with words. There were many different organizations and parties that it was not realistic to join all of them.

Xia Fei asked after a few moments of thought. “Uncle, you have more experience in this regard; which competition should we join to get the best promotional effect?”

Porter let out a hearty laugh. “You’ve asked the right person. When I was younger, I was really into these interstellar competitions, but sadly, I wasn’t able to participate in all of them.”

They then settled in a quiet office. Xia Fei turned on a microcomputer, and Old Porter started poking around on the projected screen and found a few grand-scale competitions that had started recently.

“I think these are the most suitable ones,” said Porter. “The Supreme Command’s ultimate solo ship contest is about to start. This competition requires the participants to go through an elimination bracket using select types of ship and has no real requirements on retrofitting, allowing for any type of equipment.

“This is great for us. Usually, the organizers will have requirements for retrofitting, and as the energy-shield booster is a completely new product, it’s entirely impossible to join the list of suppliers in such a short time, so we can only enter competitions that have no rules regarding that.

“Obviously, there are drawbacks to competitions like this one. Many competitors will have no care for money, buying the best type of equipment their ships need with what their money can afford to achieve the best performance possible. We don’t have a lot of funds to purchase top-tier equipment anymore, do we?”

Xia Fei nodded. No doubt that it would be an unfair battle between a normal warship and one fitted with plenty of high-end equipment. High-class equipment was way better than average equipment, after all.

Xia Fei still had some funds in his account, but he could not just use them all to himself. Either way, it might not be beneficial to invest it all, for investing funds was like a bottomless pit, and there was always room for more money.

Porter smiled. “We can try for this contest. Your warship is quite high-performing. Though it’s not as well-equipped as your opponents’ ships, it certainly still has a fighting chance.

“You don’t have to worry about not winning either, for there’s an even more reasonable cpmtest after that. You have a good chance if you treat the first competition as a warm-up and go all out on the second one,” Porter said excitedly.