When these workers, who were pondering how to put Lei Jun in his place, suddenly heard that they had been fired, they were all stunned. They hadn't even started threatening him, nor had they said a single harsh word, so how could they be fired directly?
Of course, Lei Jun was unaware of the workers' intentions to put him in his place. In fact, firing everyone had been Lei Jun's decision from the start, regardless of whether these people intended to put him in his place or whether they were good employees.
This was because Lei Jun was very clear about one thing: a company that had been established for over a decade but had consistently operated at a loss. The employees in such a company were basically useless. Even if there were a few gems among them, Lei Jun wasn't interested in sifting through sand.
Moreover, the operational methods of Chinese enterprises and American enterprises were vastly different. These employees, who were already accustomed to the rules of American companies, would not be able to adapt to their own work style. This would inevitably lead to various conflicts, and a significant portion of their efforts would likely be consumed by internal strife.
Therefore, Lei Jun made a decisive decision to fire all the old employees, to eliminate all these individuals, whether good or bad, and to keep only the shell of Bell Mobile. After all, Lei Jun only needed such a shell.
After all, all the mobile phones were directly produced and imported from China. Oh, that's not right, they were to be contract manufactured. Lei Jun would directly have Bell sign a contract manufacturing agreement with Xiaomi in China, letting Xiaomi contract manufacture phones for Bell.
This way, not only could technology and production be entirely handed over to domestic factories, saving significant labor costs as there were no production tasks in the US, but more importantly, a large amount of import tariffs could be avoided, and various preferential policies for local enterprises could be enjoyed, making it truly cost-effective.
Furthermore, Lei Jun planned to increase the contract manufacturing fees. For example, if the normal cost to contract manufacture a mobile phone was $400, Lei Jun would directly sign a contract with Xiaomi for $700.
This might seem foolish, but it was merely a transfer of funds from one hand to the other. More importantly, it meant not having to pay exorbitant taxes in the US, allowing income to be easily transferred back to China.
It was precisely because of this plan that in Lei Jun's blueprint, Bell only needed to retain a sales team. All other teams were to be cut. Therefore, the staff, whose monthly salaries amounted to about $2 million, were a massive burden. How could they not be fired and continue to be kept on?
So, while these employees were excitedly calculating how their boss would be put in his place, they were unaware that he was no longer willing to be their boss.
The only troublesome aspect was likely the high severance pay required to dismiss these employees. According to the n+1 compensation principle, it might cost over $10 million in compensation, which was undoubtedly not a cost-effective measure.
However, Lei Boss, or rather Boss Huang, was already prepared for this. In the agreement signed between Jiangnan Group and Bell's parent company during the acquisition of Bell Mobility, there were detailed plans for these employees, setting a quite flexible standard.
That is, after purchasing Bell Mobility Group, they had the right to select all employees. Qualified employees would be retained, and unqualified employees would be the responsibility of the Bell Group.
How the Bell Group handled these employees, whether by transferring them to other companies or directly firing or laying them off, was the Bell Group's business and had nothing to do with the buyer.
Initially, the Bell Group was reluctant, but Jiangnan Group unequivocally stated that Bell Mobility's liabilities exceeded $30 million, making it insolvent.
If Bell Mobility continued to operate normally, its only path was bankruptcy. In that case, the Bell Group would still be responsible for laying off these employees, paying the corresponding compensation, and receiving no compensation in return.
Conversely, if Jiangnan Group purchased it, the Bell Group would receive at least $10 million in tangible cash and shed the burden and liabilities of Bell Mobility.
Therefore, Bell Communications ultimately agreed to this condition. Of course, handling these employees was also quite simple. Firstly, useful employees could be transferred to other subsidiaries. Bell Group was a large entity, with sufficient positions to accommodate these employees; in the future, they would simply hire fewer people.
As for those employees they no longer wanted, it was also simple. They just needed to be assigned to very undesirable positions. Bell Group's main business was its communication network, so they had many base stations that needed maintenance. These base stations were often located in very poor environments and required outdoor work, which was definitely not something these office-accustomed people could endure.
If these employees were sent to do these tasks, within two to three months, these good-for-nothings would either be unable to bear the working environment and resign voluntarily.
Or they would slack off and be negligent. Then, according to employee regulations, once they made a mistake, they could be directly dismissed without having to pay hefty compensation.
Of course, those with connections could probably still slack off at headquarters using their relationships. But this would be Bell Group's own problem and not fall on Lei Jun.
Thus, under the forceful eviction by Lei Jun and Bell's headquarters staff, these employees, who had happily come to work that morning and were planning how to deal with their new boss, spent the entire morning packing up all their belongings in the company and then blankly waited to be sent to headquarters to face an unknown fate.
After cleaning out the premises, Lei Jun's team began their work swiftly.
Lei Jun brought a team of 39 people to the United States. These were all elites from Xiaomi Group, personally trained by Boss Lei, with extensive work experience.
It is worth mentioning that Boss Lei initially planned to bring a super team of 120 people, but two-thirds were rejected during the visa process, and only 39 obtained work visas and were able to come to work.
However, this was also within Boss Lei's plan. He couldn't possibly bring all the elites of Xiaomi Group. He was merely using the visa process to select those who could follow him.
This was also the reason why Boss Lei was cleaning out the entire company and clearing out all the old employees. After all, if the old employees didn't leave, how could his elite team occupy various positions?
In just one afternoon, these elite members basically completed the assessment of the entire Bell Mobility. They even started working directly.
This might sound incredible. How could they take over the entire company in half a day after firing all the old employees?
There were two key reasons. First, the mobile phone production business, which accounted for 70% of Bell Mobility's daily operations, as well as the technological research and development business, and R&D personnel, were all cut. The corresponding production lines and factories were not included in the company acquisition, and were all left to the Bell Group in exchange for a cheaper acquisition price.
After all, Xiaomi already had these things, and their capabilities were far superior to Bell Mobility's. All mobile phone production and R&D operations could simply be kept in China.
Administrative and HR work also became unnecessary because all the old employees were fired.
As for market marketing, apart from assigning a few people to sort out information, all other specific work was also cut. Before coming, Lei Jun had briefly looked into Bell Mobility's market and found that their market work was worse than nothing. The marketing staff loved to ruin their company's reputation, and their marketing network was also reliant on the Bell Group.
Therefore, when the Bell Group made the offer to allow Boss Lei to continue using their marketing network, Lei Jun had no interest. Thus, the original marketing network was completely overthrown.
Of course, this does not mean that Boss Lei would abandon the marketing network or intend to build one himself. In the long run, building his own marketing network is essential. However, in the short term, Boss Lei has a better option: to rely on the marketing networks of Jiangnan Group's BLm company and Atari Mobile Communications company in the US for sales.
From the current market perspective, the marketing network personally built by Boss Huang basically crushes the marketing networks of all American mobile phone companies in terms of quality. In terms of quantity, it still lags behind Motorola and Nokia, but for Xiaomi, which currently has a smaller scale, this is already sufficient.
The only thing that fully engaged Boss Lei's attention was all the technology patents and product authorizations held by Bell Mobility, as well as relevant government filings.
These were the key indicators related to Boss Lei's shell company sales and had to be understood clearly. Therefore, Boss Lei and his team worked until the early hours of that night, meticulously reviewing all the company's technical reserves and government, industry, and legal authorizations, creating a list of over 200 pages.
Looking at this list, Boss Lei expressed his satisfaction.
Despite the various businesses Bell Mobility operated being extremely poor and constantly on the verge of bankruptcy, the company actually possessed a comprehensive range of technology patent authorizations, especially government and industry licenses. Basically, all relevant authorizations had been obtained.
After all, Bell Mobility was one of the earliest telecommunications companies in the United States, and it had obtained all the necessary authorizations early on. However, due to Bell Mobility's mediocrity, these authorizations were rarely used in the past, making them seem insignificant.
But in Boss Lei's eyes, this was the most valuable asset of the entire company. In his opinion, the value of these authorizations even exceeded $50 million.
This was because if he had to establish a new company and then find a way to obtain these authorizations, it would cost $50 million, not to mention that it would take two to three years to accomplish.
For the current Lei Jun, time was money!