My 1999

Shibuya, Tokyo, is a gathering place for Japanese technology companies. It is home to a series of IT companies including BIGLOBE, Nifty, and Excite.

On the fifteenth floor of the Pacific Building, Excite's office area here is nearly 6,000 square meters.

However, after the Nasdaq crisis and continuous layoffs, nearly half of the area has become vacant.

After a simple welcome ceremony, Xu Liang brought the senior executives of both companies to the conference room.

Company personnel from both China and Japan sat on both sides of the desk with clear distinctions.

Xu Liang sat in the center, his calm and profound eyes scanning the crowd.

“Before today’s meeting, I would like to emphasize one thing.

Hongmeng Company’s overseas expansion strategy has always adhered to the localization of management, so the future development of Hongmeng Japan Company will be fully responsible for the management of Hongmeng Japan.

If you don’t understand this strategy yet, you can refer to Yahoo Japan. "

As soon as this statement came out, Excite's original management showed joy on their faces.

If someone could be in charge of the family, no one would want a mother-in-law suddenly appearing above their head.

The reason why Xu Liang explained the management issues at the beginning was to reduce the differences between Chinese and Japanese managers, reduce internal friction, and integrate the businesses of both parties as early as possible.

"However, subsidiaries must obey the strategic planning of the head office, especially business development. In the next period of time, I hope that both of you can actively cooperate and strive to connect Excite's index database to Bing Search and Hongmeng as soon as possible."

When Excite's Asia business was purchased, their business, index database and hardware were also acquired.

The addition of this part directly allows Bing to index more than 400 million web pages, with more than 70 million daily visits.

"In addition, since Excite will take back their brand, the Excite portal will be renamed Naver. The search engine will be renamed 'Bing'."

"President Fukunaga?"

Hideo Fukunaga, who is tall and thin and wears glasses, responded quickly.

"You have to lead your employees to connect with the headquarters and let me see your abilities."

"Hi. President, please rest assured that I will complete every task you give me."

Hideo Fukunaga knew in his heart that whether the two parties could cooperate and successfully complete the business integration would determine whether he could continue to be the president of Hongmeng Japan.

Encouraged by the localization strategy, he has decided to go all out.

"I ended up announcing a few appointments."

Everyone looked nervous.

"Appointment of Cheng as Chief Financial Officer of Hongmeng Japan Company."

It turns out that the chief financial officer of Excite is an American. After the company was acquired, he was recalled to the United States.

A young man wearing a black suit and gold-rimmed glasses stood up and motioned to everyone.

Everyone responded with polite applause.

When Hongmeng decided to enter the Japanese market, the HR Department began to look for financial talents.

Cheng Cheng, who studied abroad in Waseda and joined the Japanese telecommunications company NTT after graduation, was recruited. One month after joining the Hongmeng Finance Department, he joined the Japanese working group.

"Chen Hai was appointed as the vice president of Hongmeng Japan, responsible for the search business."

The young man wearing a dark gray suit with a square face quickly stood up.

His background is similar to Cheng Cheng, and he is also a top student who has studied in Japan for many years. But he has a PhD in computer science from the University of Tokyo and worked at Yahoo! Japan before being poached.

These two people were Xu Liang's eyes on Hongmeng Dongying Company.

The localization strategy is only the localization of management, not completely laissez-faire.

"Bomu Executive Director?"

Bomu Takazawa, who is in charge of the human resources department, responded quickly.

"Recruit all the people laid off by the company before, and cooperate with the head office personnel to continue recruiting computer engineers and UI designers. Next, the company will make great strides forward, and we need a large number of qualified professionals."

"yes."

"Okay, today's meeting will end here. Let's go back and work hard. I will give you one month to complete the integration. After one month, I will test the results. Those who are unqualified or neglect their duties will be fired." Xu Liang Act vigorously and resolutely.

"Meeting dismissed."

After everyone left, Fukunaga Hideo took Xu Liang to the president's office that had been prepared in advance.

The area is about seventy square meters.

There is a statue of Guan Gong enshrined inside, Chinese landscape paintings are hung on the walls, and there is a huge bookcase behind it.

Xu Liang saw this and couldn't help but shake his head secretly.

This office style is favored by bosses in the South, especially Hong Kong and Taiwan.

He prefers simplicity.

I wanted them to remove it, but after thinking about it I decided not to.

The company's funds are not tight now, so we will save whatever we can.

"President Fukunaga, how much money does the company have in its account now?"

"63.2 million yen."

According to the current exchange rate between Chinese currency and Japanese yen, it is equivalent to about 3.16 million Chinese currency.

Xu Liang frowned slightly. It was obviously not enough to rely on this money to develop Hongmeng Japan.

Fortunately, Excite’s search business originally ranked second in the Japanese market, occupying 35.37% of the market share.

Second only to AltaVista, which provides search services for Yahoo Japan, that is, Vision.

The portal business ranks third in Japan, behind Yahoo Japan and Goo, which is owned by Japan's largest telecom operator NTT.

Occupying 15.4% market share.

Therefore, Excite’s foundation is still good.

However, the Internet is a winner-take-all industry, and second place means failure.

Xu Liang pondered for a moment, "Do you know Hiroma Inoue, the president of Yahoo! Japan?"

"We know each other. We met once at a charity reception organized by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry."

"You make an appointment for me, I want to visit him."

Hideo Fukunaga nodded, "President, what time will we agree on?"

"The sooner the better."

"Okay, I'll contact you right away."

"The contact has been made. Remember to inform me as soon as possible."

"yes."

After Hideo Fukunaga left, Xu Liang pinched his eyebrows.

There are so many things going on in Japan, and there are still headaches to come.

Lu Hui came over.

As Xu Liang's political secretary, she also came to Japan with him.

"Mr. Xu, your hotel is ready."

"It's still early. Come with me to the company."

Xu Liang stood up and walked out, and Lu Hui quickly followed.

——

There are twenty-three districts in Tokyo, and Minato District is the most prosperous wealthy district. It is the gathering place for Japan's upper class and is filled with gold.

Of Japan's 154 embassies, 80 are in Minato City. In addition, TV stations such as TV Asahi, TV Japan, TBS, and Fuji are all concentrated here.

People from Hong Kong look at other districts, just like people from Beijing and Shanghai look at people from other provinces and cities, with their eyes on the top of their heads.

The prosperity of the port area has also attracted many large domestic and foreign companies to set up their headquarters here.

Among them, Yahoo Japan's headquarters is located in Minato Midtown Tower.

This once brightly lit building was inevitably affected by the Nasdaq crisis and began to lay off employees.

Inoue Masahiro frowned, looked at the layoff list in front of him, and couldn't help but sigh.

In fact, Yahoo Japan's business is not bad, but the global Internet environment is too bad. Many companies are worried about their business conditions and have canceled their original advertising.

As a result, the company's revenue continues to decline, but Nasdaq is still falling. No one knows when it will fall.

Dong Dong…….

There was a knock on the door.

"Come in."

Secretary Yuko Oda walked in wearing a white suit with small lapels.

"President."

"What's up?"

"The president of Hongmeng Company hopes to visit you at the company tomorrow."

"Hongmeng Company?"

He had never heard of this name.

"This is a Chinese company. They acquired Excite's business in Japan."

Inoue Masahiro suddenly realized.

The Japanese Internet is so big, so naturally he has heard about Excite's change of control.

"Do you have any information about this Hongmeng company?"

Oda Yuko quickly handed over the information he had collected in advance.

Time was short and she could not collect much information. However, Hongmeng Company has been established for almost a year, and coupled with the popularity of "Legend 1", many people have noticed it.

"Games and Search?"

"Yes. At present, their main business is these two. And according to the survey, their game business is developing very well, and it already accounts for 60% of the Chinese game market."

Masahiro Inoue was horrified and moved.

Although China's current economy is not as good as Japan's and there are not many game users, if it can account for 60%, it is an astonishing number no matter how you look at it.

He didn’t pay attention to Hongmeng’s search engine business.

Before the rise of Google, the whole world believed that search was just a vassal of portals and had no development potential at all.

"Did they tell you the reason for visiting us?"

Masahiro Inoue put away the contempt in his heart and asked seriously.

"They only talked about business and didn't say the specific reasons."

Nodding slightly, Inoue Masahiro pondered for a moment.

"You reply to them immediately. I will wait for them at the company at nine o'clock tomorrow morning."

"OK."

"Also, let the administration clean up the company and don't let the guests see the joke."

"yes."