Super Zoo

Knowledge is power.

Even a week later, sitting on the plane to Xiangjiang, Suming was still pondering the words Park Cheol-bin had said to him after that night's medicinal meal.

Strategic suggestions about the future development direction of several companies under the Taoyuan Group.

If those words had come from Zhao Yun or Wang Jian She, Suming wouldn't have been too surprised, but coming from a critically ill child, not even sixteen years old, and who had never attended school, the impact on Suming was utterly different.

The most direct feeling was that he, Suming, had simply been wasting his life.

Throughout Huaxia's history, there were people who, before establishing their reputation and families, were typical hermits, living in isolation, practicing literature and martial arts at home. Once times changed and opportunities arose, they could become famous overnight.

Zhuge Liang, Guan Zhong, Zhang Liang, Liu Bowen were such people, aware of the world's affairs without stepping outside their doors. Some people read books and memorized facts without understanding, eventually becoming the laughing stock as "good-for-nothing scholars," while others understood the world's situations and historical patterns from their reading...

Currently, it seemed that Park Cheol-bin might be one of the latter. His suggestions weren't very mature, but Suming had thought them over carefully in the past few days and found that the general direction was not wrong, having pointed out the future development direction for him.

Park Cheol-bin's suggestions mainly included several points:

First, distinguish between pillar industries, core industries, and peripheral industries.

To establish guidelines and proper order, one must define which companies belonged to which category of industries to plan their development routes, allocate economic and energetic investments, and establish priorities.

Suming owned many companies, all profitable, but he had never thought about differentiating industries, which to some extent led to the dilemma he now faced: busily bustling about, yet feeling utterly lost, without a sense of purpose.

This was because the focus was not clear; he tried to take care of all his companies at once.

The so-called pillar industries, to put it plainly, are those that can make the most money, or will definitely be the most profitable in the future. Core industries are those in Suming's portfolio that are indispensable, the fundamental basis of survival, while peripheral industries are other related entities derived from these two types of industries.

With such a division, the current state of the Taoyuan Group became very clear.

The most profitable pillar industry at present is the film company. It is a cash cow; a single movie and its spin-off products can bring in hundreds of millions in revenue, and the profit-making cycle is short, ranging from just a few months to a year.

The future pillar industry should be real estate, which is currently in the stage of accumulating experience and is far from making money.

There is only one core industry: the zoo and the three Tao Gardens on the back mountain. Similarly, the future core industries will encompass a part of Qinling and the Orgrimmar-centered nature reserve.

The rest can be said to be peripheral industries. The winery, live-streaming platform, fisheries and aquaculture, catering, and the technology division that Shen Yan is responsible for—although these industries do not yield as much as the film industry, they carry less risk and can provide stable and continuous profits.

Focus investment on the pillar industries, allowing them to generate a large amount of economic benefits in a short time and become the economic support for all other industries. Should any industry need substantial investment or Suming himself needs money, he could obtain cash support from them;

Steadily develop the core industries to ensure the "root system" of the entire Taoyuan Group grows robustly. As long as the core industries exist, even if other industries suffer significant setbacks, it is merely surface damage and does not affect the foundation;

The various peripheral industries are currently developing smoothly, and Suming does not need to spread his focus and investments on them too much. He can empower the heads of the related industries as much as possible, and if a particular related industry has an exceptional opportunity and plan, he can increase investment.

Of course, what Suming had done before was not meaningless; on the contrary, it was of great importance.

Suming had put a lot of effort into each company, provided plenty of resources and the necessary talents, and laid a solid foundation for all industries. All companies were on the right track, which facilitated the current possibility of hierarchical differentiation.

If all the companies were mediocre and fraught with problems, hastily differentiating pillar, core, and peripheral industries would have been counterproductive. Quality companies would not receive sufficient resources for growth, and lesser companies would get even less, only worsening their condition.

The second point was concerning the issue of taking the whole Taoyuan Group public as a package.

This involved two aspects, "packaging" and "going public."

After visiting the companies, Park Cheol-bin astutely noticed a commonality: all companies bore the same title, "Taoyuan."

He realized that Suming wanted to integrate all companies into a large-scale "Taoyuan" group.

This was indeed Suming's plan. Initially, he intended to establish a large comprehensive group when the opportunity was right and then take it public as a whole.

There were two advantages to this approach: first, a comprehensive group with many subsidiaries has a large size. Once it goes public, the value of each asset will surge; second, a comprehensive group has a strong ability to "withstand disasters." If any one industry faces a crisis, it will not lead to overall collapse—"don't put all your eggs in one basket," as the saying goes, and having multiple legs makes the walk steadier.

Suming's idea was not wrong, but after listening to Park Cheol-bin's analysis, he suddenly realized that his lack of knowledge had been a disadvantage.