On June 2, in a luxury building on Fifth Avenue in New York, the Vanderbilt family was hosting a lavish reception. www.biquge.info The participants in this reception were all business partners of the Vanderbilt family for many years, the Astor family, the oil tycoon Rockefeller family, the financial predator Morgan family, the chemical giant DuPont family, and the political and business legend Mellon family. In addition to these traditional industrial and commercial giants on the East Coast, many representatives of emerging enterprises from the Great Lakes business district in central China and the business district in California in the west also attended the gathering. In addition, there are some well-known economists and high-level news media officials specially invited by Cornelius Jr., such as Dunant, the dean of Harvard University's business school, whom John has always wanted to visit.

The party continued the Vanderbilt family's lavish style, with the ballroom decorated with crystals and gold ornaments, famous bands playing jazz in the corners, and waiters in sophisticated gowns carrying a variety of fine drinks and snacks through the crowd. John even found vodka and Caspian caviar from the Red USSR in it. You must know that in the United States in 1937, there was no commodity trade between the United States and the Soviet Union. Unless it was a diplomatic banquet at the Soviet embassy, it was almost impossible to see these things on other occasions. I don't know how Harold got these treasures through smuggling channels.

Accompanied by Frederick, the patriarch of the family, John walked to the front of the stage for the first time, tapped the crystal goblet with a silver spoon in his hand, and signaled for the band to stop. In front of the crowd, John began his speech: "Distinguished guests, the most faithful and trusted companions of the Vanderbilt family, welcome to this gathering...... John's speech, although it was only 15 minutes, took him and the team of expert think tanks led by Cornelius Jr. five days to revise it.

In his speech, John elaborated on FedEx's "epoch-making" supply chain logistics concept, which successfully attracted the attention of many business tycoons present. Of course, what John can get his hands on now is only the most basic batch logistics model in supply chain logistics. Although this model has considerable advantages in terms of investment cost and batch cost, due to the use of large-scale mass production and inventory sales, it is inevitable that there will be too much inventory backlog in the channel due to the inaccurate prediction of market demand, resulting in high excess costs. However, under the current conditions of information technology, it is impossible to talk about order logistics and just-in-time logistics. Therefore, this new way of logistics, which can greatly reduce production costs and improve supply capacity, quickly won the recognition of those big bosses who "know the goods".

After the speech, many big entrepreneurs took the initiative to talk to John, and no longer just saw him as a junior in the Vanderbilt family. John's new concept was also recognized by the experts and scholars present, especially Dean Dunant. He readily agreed to John's request to join the think tank team as a senior advisor to FedEx.

In the days after the reception, John was the talk of the New York business community. A large number of media outlets rushed to cover the gathering, with specialized media outlets citing classics to analyze and interpret this new logistics model, and urban media began to gossip about the lavish reception, the Vanderbilt family and John himself. Several media controlled by Cornelius Jr. touted it at length, not only saying that the establishment of FedEx was a sign of the Vanderbilt family's third rise after the shipping and railroad industries, but also "boldly predicting" that this supply chain logistics model would have a far-reaching impact on future industrial production and sales no less than the "Ford assembly line".

However, the Vanderbilt family's campaign for John had an immediate effect. The next day, John was contacted by one of the guests at the reception, a CBS executive. The person who met John through this senior executive was Antonio, vice president of Westinghouse Electric Company, the parent company of CBS. Westinghouse, commonly known to Chinese as Westinghouse, was also a Fortune 500 company in later generations and a manufacturing giant that could compete with General Electric. His business ranges from nuclear power, space telescopes, and military radars to liquid crystal displays, rice cookers, and air purifiers.

Speaking of Westinghouse, its founder, George Westinghouse, has a close relationship with the Vanderbilt family. This famous inventor was the inventor of the first railway "rut fork" and air brake. The company holds more than 400 patents related to rail transportation and has worked extensively with the Vanderbilt family since the time of Cornelius Sr. Later, Westinghouse entered the power industry and eventually won the battle with Edison for AC and DC transmission. In 1893, the Westinghouse Electric Company caused a sensation all over the world because it provided electricity for lighting at the Chicago World's Fair, and the world began to enter the era of electric lighting. In 1920, Westinghouse founded the world's first licensed radio station, and at one point owned 17 radio stations and 5 television stations.

By 1937, however, Westinghouse had little to do with George Westinghouse. This brilliant engineer and inventor lost control of the Westinghouse Electric Company as early as 1912 due to a business failure, and finally died of poverty in 1914. Today, it is the famous Rockefeller family that controls Westinghouse Electric Company behind the scenes.

In the economic crisis of 1929-1933, although the Westinghouse Electric Company was also greatly impacted, with the financial support of the Rockefeller family, they also took the opportunity to acquire and merge a large number of small and medium-sized enterprises, realizing a great leap in the production capacity of the enterprise. Today, Westinghouse has more than 100 large and small factories across the United States. How to integrate the more than 100 factories across the United States into a single production system has been a major problem for Westinghouse Electric for several years. John's speech on supply chain logistics made the eyes of the top management of Westinghouse Electric Company shine, so they couldn't wait to come to the door to discuss cooperation. Vice President Antonio expressed his hope to start in-depth cooperation with John's company as soon as possible, and they are even willing to provide financing guarantees for FedEx and direct capital injection if necessary.

Faced with such an attractive piece of cake, John didn't dare to open his mouth to eat it immediately. He knew that working with the Rockefeller family had to be done with care. It was with the help of the old Cornelius rail transportation system that Rockefeller completed the integration of his own oil industry, thus becoming a generation of oil tycoons. They understand the importance of the transportation system very well. Despite the close cooperation between the two families, Rockefeller has reached out to the traditional sphere of influence of the Vanderbilt family over the years. A considerable part of the family's current difficult situation within the company is caused by Rockefeller's troublemakers.

In addition, John has a concern that Westinghouse Electric's factories are too scattered, spread across dozens of cities in the three major urban circles of the United States. In a country with strong state power like the United States, states are relatively independent from state to state, and it is no joke to say that even American gangsters do not have interstate lines. Today, road transportation in the United States is generally limited to a few neighboring cities within a state. This is not like later China, where a truck could cross more than a dozen provinces in one trip, as long as the toll was paid. In those days, it was nearly impossible for a Michigan road carrier to get to neighboring Ohio. The local government, parliament and even trade unions will rush in and eat this guy who is stealing food from other people's jobs. John now wants to integrate these factories in more than a dozen states into a single transportation system. At the beginning, it took the Vanderbilt family decades to acquire dozens of small state railroads to form the current rail transportation network.

John was really embarrassed by the big cake handed over by the Westinghouse Electric Company. It's a pity not to eat it, if it works well, FedEx will be able to make a qualitative leap soon. Eat, but my heart is a little unsteady, if I am not careful, my company will be infiltrated by Rockefeller, a big crocodile that eats people and does not spit out bones, and finally made a wedding dress for others. Toeatornottoeat, thatisthequestion! ）