Without making him wait too long, Quentin was soon notified by J67 to take the elevator up to the second floor and meet someone.

Seeing the head of the Bee Commerce Overseas Africa Group, Quentin couldn't help but grin wide, revealing the black man's trademark white teeth.

He was greeted by the same black smiley face, and a warm hug.

"Hey, Nairo, why are you! This world is so small!"

"Haha, Quentin! How's it going?"

The ancient Chinese regarded "meeting old acquaintances in other places" as one of the four great joys of life, and "friendship with classmates" was even more valued, and the big black man in front of him was his fellow countryman and old classmate. Meeting old classmates in a foreign country is indeed a very lucky and magical thing, and it is worth rejoicing.

Quentin and Nairo were high school classmates, and then they came to Asia to study together, but they were not at the same university, and they studied in different majors.

Letting go of his arms, Quentin looked each other up and down, then swept his gaze over the entire office, and praised: "It's a good mix, I have an independent office, a car, a house and a wife, I must have it, right?"

"Of course!" the corners of Nairo's mouth turned up, and he put on a classic black smug face.

"Click!" casually snapped the other party's expression, Quentin smiled and said, "You are still as proud and confident as ever." This photo is used as a 'proud' emoji, and it will definitely become popular. ”

"Of course," Nairo said with his right hand in a generic gesture of counting money, "remember to give the money, or I will sue you." ”

"I will," Quentin nodded yes, "and a penny is not a big number." ”

"Okay!" the big black man glared at the other party, "as long as it is cash, no transfers will be accepted." ”

With the rise in prices, cents have been de facto withdrawn from circulation, and merchants do not want to accept them, and banks do not accept them. In this case, it is not easy to take out a penny or a penny at will, and Nairo does not have a penny in his hand, so he thinks that Quentin can't take it out either.

As he expected, the other party spread his hands and shook his head, "This is really nothing." ”

"But I have this!" Quentin took out his wallet, took out a coin from it and slapped it into Nairo's hand: "You're cheap!"

The latter looked down and saw that there was a 10 franc coin lying in his palm, and he couldn't help pouting, "You are so generous, it has increased by 10 times all of a sudden, why don't you give me a dime." ”

"Okay!" Quentin reached for the coin, "I just have a few cents in my wallet, and I'll give them all to you!"

Nero's reaction was very direct, clenching his palms and making a gesture to kick: "!"

Stuffing this good-looking hometown coin into his wallet and putting it away, he nodded, and said, "If you have a heart, I'll take it." ”

In 2002, the euro was officially launched, and currencies such as the Deutsche mark, the Italian lira, and the French franc were withdrawn from circulation, and only had the significance of collecting. However, what Quentin took out was a Chinese African franc that was circulating in Cameroon.

In 1945, France introduced the "African French Colonial Franc (FCFA)" in Africa, the value of which was pegged to the franc and managed by the Bank of France. Later, these colonies became peacefully 'independent' and became more than a dozen countries, and with the help of their former suzerains, they set up their own regional central banks to issue West African francs and Central African francs, with the same currency value and abbreviation. The two currencies are pegged to the franc and then to the euro, with 1 euro equal to 656 FCFA.

In recent years, the European economy has been sluggish, and the euro has depreciated significantly, and the CFA franc has naturally fallen, and 10 francs is only equivalent to one cent of the yuan.

Of course, this is only the currency value in circulation. Considering the manufacturing cost and the significance of the collection, the actual value is much higher, worth several dollars. This thing has a low value and a lot of meaning, but it is used to give away people without worrying about provoking bees.

Seeing Nairo accept his coins, Quentin grinned: "I heard that the head of the Africa Department likes to collect these coins, so I asked my dad to collect some and send them over." It's just that I didn't expect that the supervisor to be you, when did you join Bee?"

"The year before last, oh no, it was the year before last, I had been in Nigeria before, and I was transferred back some time ago. ”

Nairo waved his hand and pointed to the hospitality sofa next to him, "Let's not talk about this, let's talk about business." Quentin, didn't you study electronics, how did you switch to selling mobile phones?"

Quentin sat down on the couch and said, "Well, it's hard to say, you know why." ”

Nairo brewed two cups of coffee and brought them to the coffee table with the sugar jar, "I don't know if your taste has changed, how much sugar you want to add yourself." ”

"It's really slamming," Quentin complained, but he put two candies in his hand and put them in the cup in front of him, feeling that it was not enough to add two more.

Pinching the spoon and stirring it back and forth, he looked up and said, "As for my intention, it is naturally for the order of Bee 7A." ”

7A is an upgraded version of the bee7,The processor has been upgraded from the bee heart536 to the 537 integrated Brain1M module,The screen has also been replaced with the rounded corner full screen of the same model as the bee one,The appearance has increased a little because of the increase in the screen-to-body ratio,There are also convenient and powerful front dual cameras。

Obviously, this phone is a combination of the Bee 7 and B1, combining the strengths of the two and discarding their respective shortcomings, and was praised by the media and trial audiences as soon as it was unveiled, and the number of pre-orders has exceeded one million in a few days.

Seeing that Nairo didn't move, Quentin launched an emotional offensive: "Cameroon has more and more mobile phone users, but the allocated quota has not increased, which is not reasonable at all!"

Seeing Nairo nodding slightly, Quentin raised his voice and asked in a loud voice, "Or do you think that African people only deserve to use bargains?"

"I didn't say that," Nairo shook his head calmly, "7A is hot, and the company has to give priority to meeting the domestic and American and European markets, and African countries can only be in the back." ”

"Isn't that discrimination?" Quentin shouted as if angry, taking a sip of sweet coffee from his cup.

"It has nothing to do with discrimination, it's just a normal market choice," Nairo continued to shake his head, "In order not to be held hostage by channels, the group has set up a special bee business, insisting on building its own online mall and building its own offline stores." Many of our countries do this, online and offline linkage, through a simplified and controlled direct sales method to reduce costs and increase profits. ”

"But in the African market, where there are many countries and tribes, we are going through the traditional distribution system, and with you as a distributor to make thin profits and bear additional localization costs, it is completely clear what the company will choose. ”

"Hehe!" Quentin shook his head with a sneer, "You can't fool me." ”

"The distribution and direct sales of bees are a network, a set of people, in fact, the same thing. We, the 'people's distributors', take the goods directly from the company, and the channel cost is pitiful, but how much can it cost to translate the system interface and customize the packaging box?"

The traditional distribution is a layer of agents, manufacturers ship products to the general agent, the latter resells to the regional agent, the district agent and then find a subordinate agent, until the terminal retail store, this channel in turn is the after-sales guarantee channel. The advantage of this is that it is convenient and trouble-free, and professional things are left to professionals, but layer by layer distribution will waste a lot of time and money, and bring excessive channel costs.

In the past, transportation was inconvenient, and companies had to do this. However, now with a convenient network and logistics system, it gives Bee the opportunity to create "new retail". Their approach is to introduce the crowdsourcing model and e-commerce, and vigorously attract 'people's distributors' to supplement the bee direct stores, so as to make up for the lack of coverage of the latter.

The new system has eliminated the general agent and regional agent, leaving only the terminal retail stores directly connected to the company, thus greatly reducing the channel cost. The functions of foreign trade import, model declaration, translation and redressing, after-sales maintenance, and upgrade services originally undertaken by the general agent are solved by Bee itself through entrusted outsourcing.

Nairo shook his head slightly, Quentin actually changed his concept, the operating cost of the 'people's distributor' is not higher than that of the bee direct store, most of the time it is lower, but if you include the cost of import customs declaration, application for network access, etc., the situation is different.

In order to prevent arbitrage and tax evasion, Cameroon, Nigeria and other African countries have joined the Comprehensive Import Control Scheme (CISS), that is, the inspection of imported products is fully entrusted to large multinational notary firms, which conduct pre-shipment inspection (PSI) in the exporting country of imported products. Although this set of procedures does not bring too much cost, it is always a little troublesome to inspect at a time, and it is not as convenient as exporting to Europe and the United States for a certification and long-term effectiveness.

Of course, Nairo is not unhelpful, he quickly gave his own advice: "It is not realistic to directly increase the share, you can try overseas shopping and purchasing." Buy spot here or in France, and then send it by international mail, anyway, there is not much demand for high-end mobile phones, and overseas shopping should be enough. By the way, you can also try other mobile phones, report everything you need, and give my colleagues a headache!"

Quentin sighed, "That's all there is to it." ”

"Well, look away, things are getting better, aren't they?" said with a smile, "Ten years ago, most Cameroonians didn't know what a mobile phone was!"

In the past decade, the network access conditions in many African countries have been turned upside down on an annualized basis, and the penetration rate of mobile phones and Internet penetration has increased significantly. Cameroon has a population of 20 million, and the number of mobile phones is 18 million, an increase of dozens of times. The reason for this is that these African countries have eaten the dividends of technological progress, directly skipping the high-investment network cable access and fiber to the home, and spending limited resources on the construction of mobile Internet, so as to achieve overtaking in the corner.

Of course, these countries do not include war-torn countries such as Somalia and Sudan, or Libya, once a rich country in North Africa.

After a sigh, Nairo picked up his phone and turned on the TV on the wall of his office.

"Let's not talk about that, let's watch an ad together. ”

Curious, Quentin turned his head to look at the TV screen.

It opens with a short intro like "I bee flies through a hundred flowers", and then Atletico Madrid, the founder of bees, appears on the screen.

Behind him is a demonstration whiteboard,On which are pressed with magnetic nails some colored paper strips and a piece of colored cardboard,The strips of paper are pieced together into the words "Bee mobile phone new product launch conference",The cardboard is a folded and flattened mobile phone packaging box,You can see the face of the bee7A's iconic dual camera and rounded screen。

Although several AquosCrystal mobile phones of Sharp have not become popular, they have still aroused the attention of the industry, and mobile phone manufacturers are desperately trying to improve the screen-to-body ratio and appearance, and naturally they will not let go of this technology. The Bee 1 achieved sales of 6 million units, thanks to the improved rounded full-screen screen. Get the market, Bee is also making persistent efforts, and the newly launched Bee 7A still uses this screen.

Quentin was stunned for a moment, then reacted, and quickly threw out three questions: "What is this?

"Don't worry, keep looking," Nairo had already read the whole article, and when he heard this, he just waved his hand calmly, signaling the other party to be calm.

On the screen, Atletico Madrid has completed the opening remarks, and then walked to another whiteboard next to it, introducing the big picture on the front and back of the phone, as before, these two pictures are large posters nailed to the whiteboard, very frugal or picking. Next, Atletico walked to the next whiteboard and praised the parameters and selling points of the 7A without blushing, which were his PPT (presentation slides).

As he walks, the camera rotates, bringing in the frame from the new whiteboards that have been placed on the peripherals, always maintaining the coherence of the camera without any storyboard cuts.

"I see!" Quentin suddenly shouted.

Obviously, Atletico Madrid is using the "one-shot MV" method to release his new product, which should be said to be quite creative.

"One Shot to the End Music Video" is a music video shot with long-shot technology, in which the singer walks and dances on the screen, and the surrounding scene is constantly changing, but the people remain the same and the song is non-stop, which has an impressive and unique charm.

There are two ways to shoot this kind of MV, one is to pose and edit, shoot separately, and then connect the front and back by associating the movements. This is easy to do, but the whole is rough, and the details are easy to match.

The other is a slow-motion shooting, where the music slows down and the characters perform in slow motion, and then speed up to normal speed after the shooting. This was done to reduce the workload of the photographer and prop master, giving them enough time to move the camera and the set. As for the problem of uncoordinated mouth movements, it can be solved by repeated contact.

Atletico Madrid's "one-shot press conference" was filmed in the latter way, for him to slow down the pace and speed of speech are small things that can be caught at hand, as long as you find a large enough venue, put the prepared whiteboard PPT and presentation props, you can quickly complete the shooting task.

"It's funny, but it's a little weird not to sing and dance. ”

"How do you know that there is no singing and dancing? Can you call a press conference without singing?"

(End of chapter)