It was 8:20 p.m., Lei Jianjun's office, and the people in the room continued to be silent. Lei Jianjun and the others drank boiling water over and over again, while Li Huayong looked through the thin pages in his hand over and over again.

"30 yuan per meter", this is a unit price full of contradictions. If Li Huayong was really an 18-year-old migrant worker, he would have happily accepted the price if he hadn't been involved in the design changes in the early stage.

But Li Huayong is not. He has a soul from the afterlife, he knows the inside story of the matter, and the profit earned by the project department is in great contrast with the unit price in his hands, which is easy to make people feel unbalanced.

More importantly, the project department can earn such a big profit, which is due to a large part of Li Huayong's credit. So he was not reconciled, so he kept silent. Silence is now both an expression of one's own attitude and a negotiation skill.

There is a very interesting thing in the construction industry, to give a very simple example: if in real life, there is a contractor who does engineering and a small restaurant owner standing in front of you at the same time, who do you think is richer? Not 100%, I guess most people probably think that the contractor is richer.

But in fact, the construction industry is a recognized low-profit industry, no matter in any era, no matter in any country, the normal profit of the construction industry is difficult to exceed 30%, especially in later generations, due to fierce competition, let alone 30%, in the contract can see 10% of the profit can burn high incense. And what about the restaurant industry? Has anyone ever seen a small restaurant with a gross profit of less than 50 percent? If the gross profit drops to this level, will such a small restaurant still be able to open?

After such a comparison, does that mean that everyone's feelings are wrong? A small contractor is not as good as a small restaurant owner? It should be said that everyone's feelings are not wrong, and in real life, a contractor may indeed be richer than a restaurateur.

All of the above is common sense, and this kind of common sense can easily make everyone misunderstand the contractor: the overall profit of your industry is so low, and you guys are so rich, there must be something greasy in this, right?

Indeed, in the construction industry, the phenomenon of cutting corners and shoddy is indeed widespread, and to some extent, it can even be said to be quite serious. But with Li Huayong's decades of experience, he has never seen a contractor who wants to make a fortune just by cutting corners, and occasionally a handful of them succeed in a while, but these people basically can't last long, and will soon be eliminated by the industry.

So what do these people mainly rely on to make money? What is an old Chinese saying:

People have no windfall and no wealth, and horses have no night grass and no fat.

In the construction industry, there are plenty of opportunities for this "night grass", and this is where many contractors make money.

This project, for example, is a good example of this.

Why can the project department have such a high profit in this part of the pile foundation? This involves a very important keyword, in the construction industry, this key word is called "price adjustment".

It may be difficult for ordinary people to figure out why the same pile digging results are not the same for mechanical and manual drilling, and why the price gap between them is so big? Hehe, if you think so, then you are really to the point.

In the construction industry, although the same job is done, and although the final product is the same, if the job is done in different ways, then the price difference can be very large. This is a common money-making technique in the construction industry, and this is where many contractors make a fortune.

For example, in this project, the original design was mechanical hole-making, but now it is changed to manual drilling, which brings huge profits to the project department due to the huge gap between mechanical costs and labor costs.

Speaking of this, some people will ask: since we know that the profit of manual digging piles is greater, why didn't the project department do it at the beginning? There are mainly the following reasons, one is because this project is designed by the Japanese, as mentioned earlier, if this project is placed in Japan, the use of manual digging piles will only increase costs, but will not save costs. The second is because there are many potential safety hazards in the process of manual digging holes, in the construction industry, it is not that you want to modify the process to modify the process, Lei Jianjun Even if they want to do it at the beginning, people will not agree to do it.

The third and most important point is that which involves the key word mentioned earlier: price adjustment.

Whether it's the Japanese who designed it, or the people of Xiangjiang who are the owners, are these people stupid? If you want to adopt a cheaper construction process, do you think people will agree? Won't people lower the price? If you make a price adjustment and you have to insist on using manual digging piles in the first place, it is possible to generate more profits and make less.

Just a few days ago, when Li Huayong was discussing with everyone how to make the design change pass smoothly, why did Lei Jianjun mention "contract risk"? Why did Li Huayong want to look at the contract at that time? The main reason for this was that he wanted to see if there was a "price difference" in this project.

The "price adjustment" is such a thing as a literal one. If we look at the problem from a business perspective without considering anything else, it can be said that there are usually two types of construction contracts in the construction industry. These two models are commonly known as "open contract" and "closed contract" in industry insiders.

The so-called "closed contract" is a contract that does not make any price adjustment. This is what we often say "fixed price", I ask you to help me build a house, then everything is decided in advance, I am this price wallet for you to do, you don't care about talking about money for me in the future, you will pay me on time when the time comes...

Since there is a "closed contract", then of course there is a corresponding "open contract". In the construction industry, there are many "closed contracts", but more often are actually "open contracts". Many ordinary people may find it strange that from the perspective of the "spirit of contract," isn't it more reasonable to have a "closed-mouth contract"? What kind of "open-mouth contract" do you make, and while you do it, you can adjust the price at any time, and if you don't talk about it, isn't it still easy to cause a rift?

Indeed, this is true, the "open contract" is indeed troublesome, and it is easy to cause disputes in the performance of the contract. But this is also something that cannot be helped, which is caused by a peculiarity of the construction industry.

The construction industry has a long performance contract, for example, in the case of the current project, the contract for the project is signed this year, so when will the project be completed? It will be 85 or 86 years at the earliest. In the next two years, you can make sure that you think it all through in '84?

Don't think this is a trivial issue. I remember in my previous life, Li Huayong also forgot whether it was 05 or 06, in short, after "SARS" and a certain year before the Beijing Olympics, Li Huayong also served as the chief economist of a subordinate branch of the group. According to the practice of large domestic central enterprises, generally at the end of the year, various reviews and summaries must be conducted. As the company's general manager, Li Huayong remembers that he was worried when he reviewed all the company's contracts in hand.

At that time, the company had more than 30 construction contracts in hand, of which more than two-thirds were "open contracts" and less than one-third were "closed contracts". Everyone knows that during that period, the domestic economy grew rapidly, and raw materials were sold at a price a day. Mr. Li reviewed the contracts in December of that year, and those contracts were signed before that.

Just the steel bar, if the price in December at that time is followed, then the "closed contracts" in Li Huayong's hands are likely to bring a loss of about 700 million yuan.

Seeing this example, you should know why the construction industry prefers to sign "open contracts", right?

In many cases, "closed contracts" often mean a lot of risk. Although the "open contract" is very troublesome and easy to rip off, once it is not done well, the "closed contract" often means more trouble and bigger skin.

For example, Li Huayong in real history, in the second year of that year, his whole year's work was to talk around.

But then again, there are two sides to everything. There may be huge risks, and there may be huge opportunities and huge losses, which may correspond to huge profits.

For example, this project, this is a "closed contract"!

The "Lin Group" and the "Huaxia Construction Group" signed a "closed contract".

As for why the "Lin Group" signed such a contract? Their psychology is also very easy to guess: What is the greatest advantage of the "closed-mouth contract" on the surface? There is little trouble and it is not easy to get involved. As a Heung Kong company that has just entered the mainland market, it is simply normal for them to choose such a contract method.

Of course, what kind of mentality the "Lin Group" is, this is not something that Li Huayong considers. Li Huayong is now only thinking about his own mentality, how can he strive for greater interests for himself? This is the most important issue facing Li Huayong at present.

"What should I do?" Li Huayong thought silently.

In Mr. Lei's office, the silent standoff continued.