With the Time Shop, I Too Am the Greatest Conglomerate of All Time

Episode 57. Business trip to USA.(2)

Daewon hyung is now in charge of managing the shopping mall and PC room chains.

In fact, it was a job that didn’t require the skills of his brother, a specialist in computer parts.

When a suitable person appears, I entrust the operation of the shopping mall to him.

I was thinking of entrusting Daewon hyung with the tablet PC project on the 6th floor, also known as the T-Project.

‘Looking at my brother, I’ll have to ask Si-woong to do some work. If he shows good results, he could be given the position of the head of the shopping mall business team.’

While I was immersed in my thoughts, I heard Park Si-woong’s voice.

“Director. It’s boarding time.”

“okay? let’s go.”

This time, the seat was cut as business class.

I boarded comfortably with a gate dedicated to business class.

Park Si-woong sat down with a calm face as if he had used business class a lot.

Oh, I must have been a kid from a decent family.

but. New York University is a school famous for its expensive tuition, so it’s probably not an ordinary family.

after 14 hours.

It was already dark when we arrived at Kennedy Airport and came out.

“I woke up like that, but it’s night again.”

“Iknow, right. haha. I will catch a taxi to your accommodation.”

The purpose of this trip to the United States was twofold.

One was negotiating with US record labels regarding music downloads.

The other was to introduce the new C series of MP3 players to the bestseller side.

Because of the schedule, we made a plan to end negotiations with American record labels and move on to the bestseller.

We also booked our first accommodation in a hotel in Manhattan, New York, where all three major US record labels are located.

It was an impressive hotel with thick columns reminiscent of a Greek temple on both sides of the entrance.

The interior was luxurious as it was a 5 star.

The bed was clean and well-maintained, so I was satisfied with the accommodation.

The problem was that I couldn’t sleep.

I ended up tossing and turning all night and just woke up at 2 am.

Park Si-woong, who woke up around 6 in the morning, was surprised to see me and asked.

“Director. Have you been doing this all night?”

“It’s not that, no matter how much I tried to sleep, I couldn’t sleep, so I was just listening to some music. By the way, Siwoong slept like that on the plane, and he sleeps well here as well. How could that be?”

“I lost my day while writing a shopping mall strategy proposal two days ago. I must have slept a little. haha.”

“It’s a good way. I’ll have to do that the next time I come to New York. But as a strategic proposal, what kind of content was it made of?”

I told the staff to make a proposal whenever they had an idea.

It was quite labor intensive, so not many people actually paid it.

“Oh, I put a lot of stuff in it, but to sum up, I made it with the intention of putting popular products in the shopping mall auction section to get consumers’ attention.”

Ohh.

“It’s a good idea, but if the auction is overheated and the price is higher than the original price, do you think the winning bidder might be offended?”

“There are ways to stop that. All you have to do is set the upper limit of the winning bid to be lower than the original price.”

With a little more development from here, it becomes a 10 won auction event that a future online shopping mall company wrote and enjoyed greatly.

It was a technique I was saving in case the fight with a competitor intensified later.

I’m sure there are people who already have this idea.

“okay. That’s a good idea. When the report is complete, give me a copy as well. I will read it.”

Park Si-woong’s face brightened as he thought he had been recognized.

“All right. When it’s finished, I’ll show it to you first.”

Make breakfast simple.

left the hotel

There are three major companies dominating the music market in the United States.

The first is the Universal Music Group.

Famous singers such as Mariah Carey and Elton John are affiliated with it.

It is the largest record company in the United States.

The second is Shawnee Music Group.

In terms of the artist’s reputation alone, this side is also on par with the Universal Music Group.

There are many singers that even Koreans may have heard of, such as Michael Jackson and Celine Dion.

The third is Hana Music Group.

Although famous artists such as Madonna also belong here.

The market share was on the lower side compared to the previous two companies.

It would be nice if all three could sign a contract.

At this time, it was clear that record labels were thinking negatively about MP3 files.

So the realistic goal was to sign at least one of the three.

If at least one of the three contracts is successful.

The other two record labels will soon realize the ripple effect of MP3 files.

Eventually, the rest of the record label will have no choice but to sign a contract with me.

“First, let’s go to the Universal Music Group.”

It took less than 10 minutes by taxi to get to the headquarters of Universal Music Group.

As we got out of the taxi, a forest of tall buildings that seemed to pierce the sky greeted us.

“It’s like Manhattan, where the most people live in the world. There are many tall buildings that cannot be compared to Seoul.”

“yes. It’s the highest-income neighborhood in the United States, so in a way it’s natural.”

It’s a rich town, isn’t it?

But two years later, the 9/11 terrorist attacks that took the lives of thousands of people didn’t seem like a good thing to me, knowing that there was going to be a terrorist attack here in Manhattan.

I went inside the headquarters of the Universal Music Group and announced the visit.

I was escorted to the meeting room right away because I had made an appointment in advance.

After waiting for about five minutes, a white man in his 40s entered the meeting room.

“hello. This is Aiden Carter.”

“hello. I’m Kang Jae-woon from Damoye, Korea.”

After exchanging business cards, I looked at Aiden’s business card.

His position was SM (Senior Manager, Deputy General Manager).

‘If it’s SM, it’s probably someone who doesn’t have the right to make a decision, but maybe it’s just someone who sent it as a courtesy.’

When I brought up the main point of wanting to sell MP3 music, I immediately put on a face of trouble.

“I am sorry to Mr. Kang, who came from afar, but if we sell digital music like that, the sales of CD albums will decrease. I think it would be difficult to give permission for CD albums because the sales revenue is much larger.”

“Digital sound sources do not cost distribution, so we can supply them to the market at a low price. Even the same song could sell a lot more than a CD record.”

“..that you don’t know. Anyway, since you came from afar, we had a cup of tea. She rests. I have work, so I think I should go first.”

Seeing how things were going, it was as if he had been instructed to refuse unconditionally from above.

If so, there’s no point in grabbing it.

The second Shawnee Music Group I heard was the same.

“I was going to contact you saying you don’t have to come, but you have already come. I am sorry.”

Not even the senior manager this time, just the manager came out and informed me.

Well. Shawnee Music Group. Remember it.

The atmosphere of the third Hana music group was similar.

The face of the person in charge who entered the meeting room looked uncomfortable, as if he had already come to a conclusion.

“hello. This is Ethan Colin, who is in charge of external music distribution.”

However, looking at the business card, Ethan’s position was GM (General Manager, executive level).

It was more polite than the other two.

“It was difficult to come from afar. Sit down.”

I sat down and talked about the P store.

“I gave a brief introduction over the phone, but this time we have launched a platform called P Store where you can sell MP3 files. I came here because I wanted to upload the songs I had from Haner Music.”

“If MP3 files are released as sound sources, the album revenue will drop significantly. It seems difficult for us to allow that.”

As if on a recorder, the answer was the same as for Universal Music.

It seems that the story has been talked about to some extent in advance.

But I can’t go back like this.

In fact, I expected that the contract between Universal and Shawnee Music would be difficult.

Soon, Napster, a P2P (Person to Person, file sharing system) site for MP3 music files, will appear.

After the Napster appeared, the way to listen to music as an MP3 file became popular.

When that time comes, record labels will no longer be able to show that attitude.

For now, there was no reason for them to unpack MP3 files as sound sources.

However, the third Hana Music had a slightly different stance from those two.

Although they were called together as the three major record labels.

The share was quite different between the two.

You probably want to increase your share in your heart.

I decided to tackle that point.

“Last year’s album share was 25.9% for Universal, 25.3% for Shawnee, but 11.3% for Hana. Even though they are the same three major record labels, there is quite a difference in market share.”

As if offended by my words, a rib formed in Ethan’s forehead.

“Not wrong, but why bring that story up here?”

“I will raise Hana’s share. At least, even if they are called the top three record labels, we will raise their market share by more than 6%.”

Ethan asked with a surprised face.

“..How can Mr. Kang be able to do that?”

“It’s simple. All you need to do is sign a music sales contract with us.”

“Does that mean we can increase the market share by unpacking the sound source as an MP3 file?”

“That’s right. MP3 files are cheap, portable, and maintenance-free. Even the CD record and sound quality aren’t that big. People will soon fall in love with the allure of MP3 files. And you will be buying the only one released song by Haner Music Group.”

“..it sounds like it. But what if we signed a contract with Mr. Kang, but the market share remained the same and only our album revenue decreased?”

“We will make up for the reduced profits on our side.”

“..you mean you’re going to pay damages?”

Ethan looked at me with an incomprehensible look.

“Are you saying that confidently, knowing how much the damage will be? It could be millions of dollars.”

“I’m telling you that because I’m sure there won’t be any damage.”

I know the Napster craze is coming soon.

This was an unwinnable fight.

Ethan thought for a moment.

“If you sell music as MP3 files, what do you think the selling price is?”

“I think 99 cents would be good.”

It was 1 cent less than 1 dollar.

It’s not much of a difference from a real dollar.

It was also a price that I felt was much cheaper than a dollar from a psychological point of view.

“Isn’t 99 cents too cheap?”

A record containing about ten songs is usually sold for $20, but if you calculate the price per song, it was about $2.

At 99 cents, it was only half the price, so I asked for it.

“It’s cheap. However, since there are no material and distribution costs, the remaining profit per song will be similar. Besides, the price is cheap, so it will sell a lot. In the end, it would be much more helpful to sell digital music in terms of revenue.”

“Even so. Wouldn’t it be possible for the people who downloaded our soundtrack to hand it over to others? If that happens, not many people pay money to download digital music, and I think CD album sales will only drop.”

I expected this question to come naturally.

“So we prepared a sound source protection system called DRM. You won’t have to worry about that because we put a password on the sound source and made it unplayable except for those who downloaded it.”

Ethan finally nodded.

“All right. First of all, it seems that Mr. lecture has some truth. We’ll talk to our boss once and we’ll get back to you when we’ve decided.”