Black Bamboo Café's management office.
These last few days, Huang Yingwei is busy completing all the administration for this place. She finally finished all the administration yesterday, and the office can be used since today.
Ken doesn't have the key to the building so he is waiting for Huang Yingwei to come. Luckily Huang Yingwei come not long after Ken arrived.
Inside the office, all the equipment is already delivered. There are four work desks with a PC at the top of each desk. As there are only four work desks here, this place looks unnecessarily big.
"Boss Chen, what should we do about the second floor?" Huang Yinwei asked Ken. "Should we just let them empty for the time being?"
"Hmm… I planned to make it empty for now, but do you have any other idea?" Ken asked back.
"Not really… I thought you have a plan for the second floor, like using it as a storage or something?" Then Huang Yingwei elaborates on the idea of storage more.
"Storage, huh? So we store our ingredients like coffee beans, and consumable goods like cups, straw, and others here. Then when some stores need that, they can just pick it from here."
Ken think about this idea for a bit before assigning another task for Huang Yingwei.
"Okay, you make the plan for this. You don't need to make a detailed plan. Just a rough plan is okay. What things will we need? How this will operate in the future? Is there a need to hire other people?"
"Sure..." Huang Yingwei accepted the task without questioning it. But, she feels like she had walked into a trap when she suggest how to use the second floor. She thought it was better to not suggest something.
Of course, if Huang Yingwei didn't offer any opinion, Ken will force her to cough up one. He planned to give Huang Yingwei an assignment to think about what to do with the second floor. But Huang Yingwei give him a good suggestion so Ken changed the assignment.
~~~
A few days later, Wu Siyi and Zhang Zhixin have finished their task to make the monthly report. So today Huang Yingwei, Wu Siyi, and Zhang Zhixin are all in the office.
Ken is reading the reports from Wu Siyi and Zhang Zhixin. Their reports follow the same format as the usual monthly report from Black Bamboo Café.
Inside, it is reported that in total Black Bamboo Café raised 42,764 Fiction Dollars in profit. This profit still does not count the salary for three new staff. With the salary included, the profit is 30,764 Fiction Dollars. They only worked for a half month, so their 8,000 Dollar salary is halved for their first month.
Finished reading the report, Ken said to Wu Siyi and Zhang Zhixin. "Good job doing this, you two use the format that we usually use. And I don't see any error in your report there."
He then takes a long breath, thinks for a bit, and talks about his plan for the next few months.
"So I have 3 main things that we will do for the next few months. First, we will strategize for the expansion of Black Bamboo Café. Second, we will finish the plan for the cooperation project with La Reine Bakery. And third, we will learn about the accounting for all of the Black Bamboo Café.
"As you all know, as of now all the accounting is done by the store. It is no problem now, as we only have 2 shops. But as we will expand bigger, we will need to start the accounting for the whole company. I also have no experience in this matter. So we will learn together, and we will design the system together. I hope you can help me with the knowledge that you all learned in University."
~~~
Weeks passed, the plan for Joint Venture between Black Bamboo Cafe and La Reine Bakery has been formed. In the end, Old Liu decided the share of the Joint Venture is 40:60. 40 for La Reine Bakery and 60 for Black Bamboo Café.
Old Liu decided to do this because he want to give all the management to Black Bamboo Café. He researched that an equal split means that his approval is needed for all the JV decisions. And that means time loss for Old Liu that wants to focus on his own bakery.
"Your café do the management, I will wait for the profit." was what Old Liu said.
"But you will suffer a loss for that. You really sure about that?" Ken doesn't want to make his partner suffer a loss. "If we proceed like this, you will be teaching me how to make bread and giving your employer while you pay 40% of the initial cost."
He decided to offer something to lessen the loss of La Reine. "How about you place someone you trust to observe things? Or some condition for Black Bamboo Café?"
In the end, Old Liu decided to place an observer and give restrictions on Black Bamboo Café. It said that Black Bamboo Café and Chen Qiu cannot open a bakery outside of the JV for the next 10 years. This is set up to forbid Black Bamboo Café and Chen Qiu to ditch La Reine Bakery after gaining the knowledge to make bread.
Other than that, there is also a clause that says Black Bamboo Café can't buy the shares of the JV from La Reine Bakery for the next 10 years. This is to ensure that the JV will not get absorbed by Black Bamboo Café. But there is an exception, which is when La Reine Bakery wants to exit from the Joint Venture.
That clause is huge leverage for La Reine Bakery. La Reine Bakery can still get the profit from the JV when the JV profit and Black Bamboo Café can't do anything about that. But it also said that La Reine can exit the JV when the situation is starting to become dire, essentially giving all the loss to Black Bamboo Café.
The restriction sounds like it is too strict for Black Bamboo Café, but Ken still thinks this is alright. If the restriction is not this strict, La Reine Bakery can lose everything. They give the livelihood of their bakery, that is their baking technique and recipe. Of course, Black Bamboo Café also needs to dish the same share of responsibility and give some leverage to La Reine Bakery.
Of course, Ken does not have any plan on betraying Old Liu by making a new bakery or kicking La Reine from the JV. So those restrictions mean nothing. He also thinks it is better to cooperate on good terms. And to be on good terms means having trust with each other. That is why he offers the restrictions, to make Old Liu trust him and Black Bamboo Café.
And then, there is the observer, the 'observer' is Old Liu's son. Well, it is not really an observer but more of a manager. Old Liu wants to let his son get experiences of running a bakery before inheriting La Reine from Old Liu. Basically, he wants his son to learn under Black Bamboo Café.
Lastly, the purpose of the Joint Venture is to supply the Black Bamboo Café with bread, pastries, and others. As of now, there is no intention to sell the product to a customer outside of Black Bamboo Café.
And then the name of this new entity is constructed from a part of each business' name. Bamboo from Black Bamboo Café, and Queen, from La Reine Bakery as 'La Reine' means 'the Queen'.
So the name of the new business is 'Bamboo Queen Bakery'.