《My Lady, Tools of Deterrence, and I》Beanbags have arrived
Advertisement
In the middle of my crash course on defence industry and the Biaz Group’s defence product portfolio for Hina, I got a message notification on my watch.
“Excuse me, Ma’am, let me have a look”
: The furniture has arrived :
“It looks like your beanbags have arrived Ma’am”
“Yippee! Let’s go back to my room”
“How about the briefing? We are not even halfway through”
“We can continue in my room. I think you’ve had enough caffeine today with that big mug full of espresso”
“Do not mind me, but all you’ve ordered are two beanbags. Should I get a projector in your room so we can discuss with pictures?”
“Good idea, Poos. Let’s go”
So we got up and on our way back to Hina’s new ‘office’ I quick dialed Gika to get a projector set up in the room. As soon as we went in I saw two massive beanbags, one in emperor blue and another one in neon pink. Hina made a short dash to plunge herself into the blue beanbag in delight. What a child she still is.
I walked over to the projector that Gika set up earlier on a tripod and plugged in my company PPT containing USB into it. After a short wait with a whirling sound, the projector was on and I noticed Gika has already sensibly directed it to a good wall and adjusted the focus in advance.
“Right, Ma’am. I will stand here and go through each slide with you now”
“Right. Don’t you wanna try your beanbag though?”
“What do you mean my beanbag?”
“The pink one is yours”
“I don’t need a beanbag, Ma’am. I don’t work lying on a beanbag”
“Aw come on, I ordered two so we can both sit unless you are insinuating you want to share the bag with me instead”
“No, it’s not that..”
“Let’s get to it then. Hop yourself onto the beanbag”
“Er… don’t you want the pink one though?”
“Because I’m a girl? Ok boomer, drop your gender stereotypes”
“Ms. Biaz, I’m not actually a ‘boomer’. That’s a very misused term these days”
“Pfft. Just get on to it”
:sigh:
I reluctantly plunged myself into the pink beanbag. It was indeed comfortable, but a bit hard to move around or even turn to face Hina to talk. I held the projector remote controller in my hand, but the angle we were perched in the beanbags made it difficult to see the projection on the wall.
“Poos, I can’t see anything”
“Maybe that’s why we need to get a proper desk and chair? We can move to a meeting room for now”
“Nah, please go fix the projector”
“It’s not broken”
“Duh, I mean adjust it. Make it point to the ceiling”
Advertisement
I duly obliged and soon we were both laying on our back in our respective beanbags staring at the ceiling.
“Now let’s continue from where we were before. Our company makes all kinds of defence products for the Army, Navy and the Airforce. We have all bases covered. But of course, there are some products we sell more or have more specialised characters that distinguish us from the others”
“I’m not too familiar with other weapon manufacturers in our country”
“Ma’am, defence products, please. Also, you should be familiar with some of the names for sure”
“Such as?”
“Wanda”
“Huh, they run hotel chains and department stores?”
“Their revenues from those businesses are minuscule compared to what they generate from their defence business wing”
“Er.. Don’t they also do insurances?”
“Yes, as well as owning an ice cream brand”
“Gees I never knew”
“Most civilians would not look into it as they are too familiar with the Wanda name from other products such as the ones you mentioned. And unfortunately, it is this diversification into other markets that pulled them ahead of us in recent years”
“You mean they are richer than us Biaz?”
“Let’s say the Biaz are ‘old rich’, blue blood so to say. The Wan family that owns majority shares in Wanda are more ‘new money’, nouveau riche”
“Your French pronunciation is terrible”
“I’m sorry I did not have a handful of private tutors teaching me different languages since I was five years old, unlike some very privileged person I know”
“Heh, you flatter me. When you have talent like I do all you need is some early education and the best quality tutors” - that doesn’t even make sense.
“So… Let me continue. Since we are talking about Wanda, let me use this as an example of how our domestic defence industry is divided. For the Army, we lead the ballistics technology over Wanda although they almost monopolise the mass production of the energetic materials”
“Whoa, hold on there. What are you talking about” - sigh.
“I will show you with the slide. Look, this is artillery. It shoots munitions. The munition flies over and lands on the target. Sure you’ve seen this in a movie right?”
“I guess, that’s where the expression ‘shell shocked’ comes from right?”
“Correct. Now, ‘ballistics’ is the science of how that munition will be fired and flies in trajectory”
“And the energetic materials?”
“They are chemicals that contain a high amount of energy that can be released when tickled in the right way”
“Gotcha. So explosives basically”
“Yes. So we are the technology leader in terms of designing munitions that will have optimal performances, and also making the artillery munitions as final products, while Wanda mass produces the necessary chemicals that go into them, and I would like to add, they are not particularly of good quality”
Advertisement
“Why are we using them then?”
“For practical and political reasons. Practically, we would need to have very expensive and massive facilities and workforce to produce the amount needed for our defence forces each year. Investing in them is not only expensive but will take a very long time for the return of investment while having to compete with Wanda to win the production contracts from the government. Politically, this division of work scope creates an acceptable status quo where both Biaz Group and Wanda can be satisfied with their share of the government’s annual defence budget”
“So we are putting sub-par materials into our munitions?”
“Wanda would not agree to that, neither would the majority faction of NDDC, the National Defence Development Centre. So this is a headache for us and when and if there are any problems with the finished goods, there will always be great friction and arguments regarding whose fault it is that things went wrong”
“What kind of things can happen?”
“Soldiers die during firing training, stuff explodes in a factory, the munition becomes a dud and cannot achieve its objective. This is one of the reasons why you, as the CEO of the Biaz Group, should take this industry very, very seriously. When our products go wrong, it’s not a matter of getting complaints and doing refunds. People die”
“That sucks”
“It surely does. Hence the necessity for you to be really on top of this game, and also this is the reason why some of your siblings and old faithful in our company were against your leadership. You have not yet proven that you can thrive in this business”
“Isn’t this up to the technology though? It’s not like a CEO will be mixing the chemicals himself or designing the munitions”
“Yes and no. Yes, it is a technical matter, but as the CEO you have the ultimate responsibility for anything that ever goes wrong in our organisation. Also, as the CEO of Biaz Group, you are in a position to get the government to accept crap products. Irresponsible companies and business practices have done this before and will continue to do so. You have the power to lead the government to open up their eyes and buy something better, or convince them to buy something cheap en masse”
“Not quite sure what you mean by that. Wouldn’t we always want to sell good stuff, especially when it comes to life and death as you mentioned before”
“Yes, we do. But the procurement process of defence products is very long and complicated. The best product and the best price does not always win”
“That sucks”
“Yes, it does” - I let Hina sulk a bit before continuing. There’s still so much for us to go through and not much time left now.
“So to continue, this is why you need the size in this industry. If you are a smaller company, no matter how advanced your technology and product are, the best you can hope for is to supply to megacorps like us or Wanda, who will be guaranteed at least some scope of any major military projects. The government doesn’t want megacorps like us to invest tons of money in production lines or new technology, only to lose in a bidding war and render that investment useless. This would have a far too negative impact on the losing company and will affect far too many workers and their families, which in turn will be a big hit on the overall economy too. We’ve just talked about how Wanda runs many other businesses too. If they, for example, completely lose their explosives business to us, their whole group will suffer, and to take it to the extreme, their ice cream business could be abandoned”
“That would be a disaster”
“Yes it is”
“But sometimes it is not always split like that", I continued after a bit of a pause.
"Every now and then there can be a major project that could decide the fate of a company, where losing the tender would lead to significant loss of ground while the winning company can kick onto take a massive lead on the field”
“Such as?”
“KAK, another major player in the industry benefited from this about a decade ago. They won the contract to develop an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, UAV, for reconnaissance and small payload delivery, and the whole project went almost exclusively to them. They are now so far ahead in this game that neither we nor Wanda see any need to invest further in this technology to challenge them. We have another such make or break project coming up now, which could decide the destiny of our company for the next two decades. But that, I will brief you about some other time”
“Hey you can’t just stop at that like some cliff hangar ending”
“We are just out of time and I rather you learn about it comprehensively rather than in fragments. You have a lunch meeting to go to now”
“With who?”
“Luckily you are not seeing any external guests today - you are simply not ready. But your brother Roto wanted to see you”
Advertisement
The Sea of Destiny
[Let me be straight with you. This is trash, like old dime store novel trash. Don't expect grandiose writing, anything profound, or much beyond being free of spelling errors. Like my profile says, it’s hopefully like a salty snack, decent and satisfying for people looking for this kind of thing (at least that's my hope). It is simple, weird, and most likely growing in ridiculousness as it rapidly escalates.] Michael just wants to get away after a rough breakup. He figures some time alone cruising on a sick jet ski will help clear his head. After a small series of mishaps he winds up as humanities last hope adrift at sea after nuclear devastation destroys the mainland. Will he be able to solve the mystery of the bowl of the ancients before nuclear winter freezes over his dwindling food supply? Who are these mysterious women he keeps meeting, and will he even care about the talents they bring to the table, or will he be too focused on how they keep ruining his carefully laid plans for survival at sea? Read this cheesy short story to see for yourself, and discover the true mystery behind the hand of fate.
8 106Destroying The Plot
I died in my universe.I was brought back into the universe of The Vampire Diaries.All I know is that I'm going to kill, torture and save people. I'm going to fuck this plot up.After Crystal Waters dies, she is resurrected into The Vampire Diaries universe as a half angel immortal, that has unique abilities to change the fate of those who deserve it. With an angel on her shoulder and the help of her mates, will she be able to change everything? Or destroy everything?Best rankings :- #4 in damonxoc #1 in stefanxoc #1 in klausmikaelson #4 in self insert#1 in elijahxoc #2 in theoriginals #3 in soulmarks #2 in elenabashing #3 in tvdfanfic #2 in lucifer #3 in kai #3 in enzo *i do not own the vampire diaries and it's characters, I only own Crystal Waters*
8 101Fated
An 'average' high schooler is transported to the world of Pokemon, a world he knows absolutely nothing about, to stop an impending war.
8 155Legends Of Zellberg
In a World Where Mythical Creatures lived a side With Humans, some animals are Transformed so called "The chosens" whos Job is to Serve Their Kings, that are Gaya The king of the sky Kingdom known as Zellberg, Arthur The king of the Lands known as Arthumin, and Fierce king of the Underworld known as The Netherland. Even With such power Fierce The king of Underworld grows Jealuosy, and Plotting to Overcome Both Kingdoms, But before it Happen, Zeke A young Chosen Gryphon, must Search for Five Element crystal Scattered around the lands, Follow his Journey, trying to save Both Arthumin, and Zellberg from The army of the Underworld. Disclaimer: this is a Work of fiction, i didnt know that Zellberg is a Real life location in Austria before making this novel
8 151Your Book Sucks and Here's Why
Your book sucks. There, I said what nobody else has the guts to tell you. But it doesn't have to. Let's you and I take a look at why your book sucks and what you can do about it.
8 99Tricia Robredo x Y/N (Oneshots)
Collection of oneshots featuring our favorite Doctor: Tricia Robredo, and our favourite main character: Y/NRequests are open, just leave comments about what you'd like me to write. This work is Labelled as a "Complete Story" but rest assured magdadagdag ako ng magdadagdag ng Chapters basta naglalapag kayo ng requests!
8 100