Seizing Both Quantity and Quality
The gazes of every president in the room followed Lee Tak-hyeon’s finger toward the far wall, stacked high with home appliances.
Lee Tak-hyeon crooked a finger and spoke.
“Do any of you know what those are? They are products made by Ilhyeon Electronics—the very appliances currently being sold in Los Angeles.”
The presidents stared at the appliances with puzzled looks, unable to grasp his intent. None of them could understand why those units filled an entire wall of the hotel suite.
“I had them brought here and lined up. Does anyone know why?”
At Lee Tak-hyeon’s question, the presidents remained silent, still reading the room.
Lee Mun-jong, who had been watching carefully, wavered over whether he should say something or stay quiet. He could not decide which would score him more points.
Where’s Director Kim?
Before answering, Lee Mun-jong decided he needed to check Kim Seong-ho’s reaction first. Matching whatever Seong-ho did seemed the safer play. When he saw that Seong-ho had simply lowered his eyes and offered no response, Mun-jong did the same—eyes down, head bowed.
When no one spoke, Lee Tak-hyeon’s face tightened.
“Nobody knows? Not a single one of you?”
His voice rose. Still no one opened their mouth. Finally his palm slammed down on the table.
Bang!
The roar that followed grew louder with every word.
“So not one of you knows. Fine. Then I’ll tell you myself. Lift your heads and look. Do you see that complete lack of unity? Exterior, size, capacity—nothing matches. Last year’s models, this year’s, next year’s new releases—every single one different. How is anyone supposed to recognize them as our products?”
“Chairman, if they look at the logo on the door—”
“Are you saying customers have to check the logo to know whether it’s an Ilhyeon product? Listen here, President Seong. Are you in your right mind?”
Lee Tak-hyeon barked at Seong Il-do, President of the Home Appliance Division of Ilhyeon Electronics, his voice thick with anger.
“With that kind of thinking, of course you end up with designs this insane!”
He fixed Seong Il-do with a hard stare and continued shouting.
“Even if I’m getting old and don’t know design, I can still tell that looks like garbage! You hear me? If even I can see it, what do you think young people and foreigners think? Did you believe we unfairly won Worst Appliance awards? We take those awards because we keep putting out rootless designs like that!”
Under the barrage, Ju Cheol-o, President of the Ilhyeon Electronics Technical Research Institute, tried to defend Seong Il-do.
“Chairman, the technology inside is still world-class. The refrigerator’s temperature-stability performance—”
“Listen, President Ju.”
Lee Tak-hyeon rose abruptly and strode over to the stacked appliances.
“This refrigerator.”
He stood in front of one unit and rapped it with his knuckles.
“Who do you think is going to buy it? When your household buys a refrigerator, who has the biggest say? Who uses the refrigerator the most, and whose taste decides which one you get?”
“That would be my wife…”
“Right. The woman who runs the house chooses it. So does your wife care about temperature-stability performance? Does she even know what that means?”
Ju Cheol-o had no answer. Even he understood that, from the standpoint of the housewives who actually used refrigerators, words like “temperature stability” meant nothing.
Seeing him fall silent, Lee Tak-hyeon moved along the line of appliances, knocking each one as he passed.
“Who do you expect to buy this trash? And the finishing is a mess on top of it!”
The corners of a television set were rough and unfinished. Lee Tak-hyeon frowned at the coarse texture and wiped his hand clean.
“With quality like this, who would buy it? The design is worthless, the finishing is pitiful. And is the price even cheap? Chief Hwang—how much is this television selling for?”
Hwang Do-beom answered promptly.
“One thousand two hundred dollars on the local market.”
“And the Japanese models?”
“Also one thousand two hundred dollars.”
“The Japanese product is twelve hundred, and you’re selling this for the same price… Who would buy it? Hey, President Seong. Would you buy it? Hand on your heart and tell me. Would you pay the same money for our product instead of the Japanese one?”
He singled out Seong Il-do, but every man in the room was thinking the same thing.
Thud!
Lee Tak-hyeon drove his fist into the table.
“Listen carefully. The reason we were mocked at the appliance show a few days ago is that we deserved it. When quality isn’t good and the price isn’t good either, wouldn’t it be strange if we weren’t mocked?”
“Chairman.”
Until that moment Kim Seong-ho had listened in silence. Now he spoke. The presidents who had been watching Lee Tak-hyeon’s temper only for cues turned toward Seong-ho with hopeful eyes. Given everything he had done so far, they expected him to cool the Chairman’s rage and pull them out of the corner they were in.
Receiving those expectant looks, Seong-ho spoke slowly toward Lee Tak-hyeon.
“The reason Japan can offer the same price as us is that they moved their manufacturing plants to Vietnam and Southeast Asia. When you consider that our workers’ wages are higher than those in Southeast Asia, matching their price actually means we have set a very aggressive price point.”
Seong Il-do felt his chest open up. Seong-ho had just said exactly what he himself had wanted to say. Every other president felt the same relief.
“Chairman, quantity and quality cannot coexist at the same time. Raise quality and quantity falls. Increase quantity and quality inevitably drops.”
When Seong-ho finished, every head in the room nodded. That was precisely the argument they had all wanted to make.
Still facing Lee Tak-hyeon, who stood with his fist planted on the table in front of the appliances, Seong-ho continued.
“Japan moved production to Vietnam to cut costs. Unless we also relocate our plants, we will never hold a price advantage over Japanese products. As for quality… Chairman, you already know Japanese quality has been recognized for a long time.”
The instant the words left Seong-ho’s mouth, Lee Tak-hyeon snatched up the teacup in front of him and hurled it to the floor.
Crash!
Every face in the room went pale.
“Director Kim—do you call that an answer? So we’re supposed to spend our whole lives hanging onto the Japanese coattails and eating whatever crumbs they leave behind?”
“Chairman, that isn’t what I meant—”
“Shut up.”
Lee Tak-hyeon glared at Seong-ho and roared.
“With that kind of attitude you’ve been sitting as Director of the Restructuring Headquarters? Pack your things. Pack them right now and get out!”
Still shouting, he turned to Hwang Do-beom.
“Chief Hwang. Is this being recorded properly?”
“Yes, sir.”
“As of this moment, Director Kim Seong-ho is stripped of his position.”
The presidents’ faces drained of color. None of them had imagined Seong-ho would be dismissed on the spot.
Lee Tak-hyeon swung toward Seong Il-do, President of the Home Appliance Division.
“Quantity and quality. We will seize both. If Japan lowered production costs by moving plants to Vietnam, then we go to Vietnam as well. Strengthen the design department from the ground up and produce premium designs. Create a look that shows our own identity instead of this hodgepodge. Customers shouldn’t need the logo to know it’s Ilhyeon Electronics—they should recognize it by the design alone.”
He turned fully to Seong Il-do.
“President Seong. Do you understand?”
Seong Il-do could not dare say he could not do it.
“Yes. I can do it. No—I will do it!”
Lee Tak-hyeon lifted his fist from the table and walked slowly back toward his original seat. As he passed each president he rested a hand on their shoulders one by one and spoke.
“I’ll say it once more. Our Ilhyeon will seize both quantity and quality without exception. Do not even think of offering excuses about why this can’t work or that can’t work. If something is impossible, find the reason and solve it. And this policy applies not only to Ilhyeon Electronics but to every affiliate. Remember that.”
He returned to his place and remained standing, looking down at them all.
“I expect none of you to forget the humiliation we suffered in Los Angeles. And I expect every one of you to move as one so that we never suffer such humiliation again. That is why I summoned you all the way to this foreign country. Do you understand?”
Every man present nodded vigorously. With Kim Seong-ho—who had been whispered to be the second-in-command of the entire Ilhyeon Group—dismissed in a single stroke, no other opinion was possible.
Lee Mun-jong looked back and forth between Seong-ho and Lee Tak-hyeon and thought,
Perfect. Got what I wanted without lifting a finger.
The man he himself had intended to eliminate had been blown away by Lee Tak-hyeon’s hand before Mun-jong even started. A satisfied expression settled on his face.
Yet the dismissal was exactly what Seong-ho had wanted, and Mun-jong’s decision to shelve his own schemes after seeing it was precisely the outcome Seong-ho had engineered.
Seong-ho watched Mun-jong’s satisfied face, allowed a faint smile to touch his lips, then turned his gaze to the shattered teacup on the floor.
Visuals really do the trick, after all.
No one noticed why a teacup had been sitting in a spot where no one was seated. The emergency meeting in Los Angeles ended there.
The contents of the emergency meeting Lee Tak-hyeon had convened in Los Angeles were urgently transmitted back to South Korea.
Chairman Lee Tak-hyeon’s remarks became a major topic of conversation. The demand to seize both quantity and quality was a jolt that woke stagnant minds. Conventionally, seizing quantity meant abandoning quality; few people believed both could be held at once. Yet Lee Tak-hyeon, using the shock of the appliance show as his foundation, had pointed the way to the next level. That direction also lit a fire in the hearts of citizens crushed by the severe economic downturn.
The words of a chairman who had dismissed even the Director of the Restructuring Headquarters while declaring that it could be done were already turning into a catchphrase in Korea—even though he had not yet returned from the United States.
Flash-flash-flash-flash.
“Chairman, just one comment! You said you would seize both quantity and quality—what is the concrete plan?”
“Is the rumor true that production plants will move to Vietnam and a design center will be established?”
“Was Director Kim Seong-ho really stripped of his position? Will he never return to the Restructuring Headquarters?”
The moment Lee Tak-hyeon and the Ilhyeon Group executives arrived at the airport, a throng of reporters surged forward to meet them. Hwang Do-beom blocked their advance and spoke.
“We will arrange a proper occasion soon to provide full details. The Chairman and everyone with him are exhausted after the long flight, so we must leave early. We ask for your understanding. Once again, full details will be—”
While Hwang Do-beom held the reporters at bay, Ilhyeon Group staff cleared a path so Lee Tak-hyeon could reach the car. The door opened. Before climbing in, Lee Tak-hyeon gestured toward Kim Seong-ho.
“You ride in this one too.”
Since the meeting ended he had not once called Seong-ho’s name. The presidents, seeing him summon Seong-ho for the first time, felt they understood the reason.
He must feel guilty.
Lee Tak-hyeon had dismissed the Director of the Restructuring Headquarters in front of everyone simply for offering a contrary opinion—and the news had crossed the Pacific all the way to Korea. There was no way to retract it or reverse it now. The presidents, sharing that understanding, climbed one by one into the waiting cars. After Seong-ho boarded Lee Tak-hyeon’s vehicle and the car pulled away, they followed in order and left the airport.