Thanks to his brother’s compliment, Lee Jung-woo managed to calm his excitement and regain his composure.
“That part is quite a shame. It would be better if the graphics in the banner moved.”
He immediately looked at the screen on another monitor and reviewed the banner advertisement.
It seemed he didn’t like the static graphics.
After hearing that he was weak in design, Lee Jung-woo has been paying extra attention to it these days.
Woo Sang-won responded.
“We can make it, but the problem is on the viewer’s side. If things go wrong, the webpage might not load.”
“That’s right. The speed wouldn’t keep up.”
Listening to their conversation, Lee Hyun-woo also felt a bit disappointed.
In fact, he hoped that internet speed would improve soon.
‘But still, this is something, right?’
He should be content with the fact that they have significantly advanced the IT ecosystem in Korea.
Moreover, they were already generating advertising revenue as soon as the portal site launched, so the future looked promising.
Having thought this far, it was time to actually send the people home.
“Alright, everyone, it’s mandatory to leave now. Except for those in charge after dinner, everyone else, please leave.”
Since he had confirmed the results to some extent, this time, they listened well to Lee Hyun-woo.
So, excluding some server managers who were with Lee Jung-woo for the evening, he tried to send them off, but Han Se-jin, who had left first, hurriedly came back.
“Why? Did you forget something?”
“No, it’s not that. We received a call from 【Taepyeong Cosmetics】. They asked if they could also do banner advertising.”
As soon as he finished speaking, the phone of Kang Dong-ho, who was about to leave, rang.
Listening to the conversation next to him, it was about a similar topic as what Kang Dong-ho had mentioned.
As soon as he hung up, he conveyed the message.
“CEO! We just got a call. You know 【Samjin Computers】, right? They inquired about banner advertising!”
Ring ring ring!
Before he could even respond, phones started ringing from all directions.
“Hello? Ah, yes, accessing the portal site? One moment. I’ll guide you.”
By the time Yoo Jin-young’s calm voice could be heard, it felt like the voices of Han Se-jin and Kang Dong-ho were mixed together.
“Hello, Manager Jo? Yes? Banner advertising?”
“Oh dear, Manager Jung. Ah, you called about banner advertising.”
All he could do was laugh at the absurdity.
This was proof that things were going better than expected, right?
Suddenly, Lee Jung-woo’s voice echoed in Lee Hyun-woo’s mind.
“Oppa, the portal site is going to be a huge success, isn’t it?”
Lee Hyun-woo laughed.
“Of course. Have you ever seen me attempt a business that would fail?”
The new morning of 【Jungle】, where almost everyone had worked overtime the previous day after a long time, had dawned.
Lately, Lee Hyun-woo had been conducting team leader meetings, but for once, he addressed everyone.
“Please don’t take any calls for a moment.”
This statement had an effect.
All the employees, despite the phones still ringing, kept their eyes fixed on Lee Hyun-woo.
“To everyone who couldn’t leave because of calls yesterday, I’m really sorry for the sudden busyness. There’s something I promised myself when I started this company. That is, not to make you workaholics! This is it.”
Could anyone not know this?
Everyone nodded, looking at Lee Hyun-woo.
Their eyes seemed to say,
‘It’s okay. It was just one day. There’s no company like ours, CEO.’
Knowing this, Lee Hyun-woo strengthened his voice again.
“How about just one day? This is dangerous thinking. Because that one day can turn into the next, and the next. So, what I thought about was hiring more people to work in the evening. Yoo Jin-young?”
“Yes, CEO.”
“We will double the number of people answering calls.”
“What? Then….”
“One of the three current members will have to move to the evening shift. Because, after hiring new people, an experienced person needs to be on standby in the evening to guide them. Please discuss and decide.”
“Yes, CEO.”
“You can now take calls.”
Since the phones were still ringing, Yoo Jin-young and the other three quickly picked up the receivers.
After seeing this, Lee Hyun-woo turned his attention to Han Se-jin and Kang Dong-ho.
“Next, the sales team.”
“…….”
“Due to the nature of sales, there will be many times when you meet people in the evening. Even if we don’t want to, the other party wants to be entertained. We can’t refuse.”
If you haven’t worked in the sales department of a trading company, you wouldn’t understand this.
“So my policy is to avoid it as much as possible. But recognizing the unavoidable reality, we will try to support it as much as possible. We’ve issued corporate cards recently, so if you have to entertain clients, make sure to get it from me.”
Most of the sales team nodded.
Just because it’s an online-based company doesn’t mean the offline aspect can be ignored.
Non-face-to-face business was something Lee Hyun-woo had seen partially implemented before he died; in reality, face-to-face interactions were necessary to handle all matters.
Unfortunately, Korea has a culture of entertainment.
Even without that, it was easier to do business when you were close through drinking.
Maybe when 【Jungle】 becomes more powerful in the future, they can change this culture, but not now.
“Lastly, we will constantly reinforce the sales team. I’ll use my network, so recommend good people around you.”
“Yes, CEO.”
“Understood.”
“That’s all, dismissed!”
Then the sales team began their preparations for fieldwork.
After restructuring the customer management team and the sales team, Lee Hyun-woo turned his attention to the development team and sighed.
“Sigh….”
Being a manager is not an easy task.
Especially when managing a rapidly growing IT company, constant interim adjustments are needed.
The fortunate thing is that Lee Hyun-woo had risen to the position of deputy director of the planning and coordination office, so he handled these tasks well.
‘I need to be careful. When work starts to pile up, you get overwhelmed by it.’
The previous day was an example of this.
With the launch of the portal, banner inquiries and customer responses exploded in an instant.
It was a good thing, but it took away their life after work.
‘Let’s not take this for granted.’
Recalling his own burnout from overwork, Lee Hyun-woo steeled himself.
As a result of thinking from last night until today, he concluded that personnel reinforcement and organizational restructuring needed to be done frequently.
The customer management team seemed to be the place to immediately reinforce.
Around lunchtime, Yoo Jin-young came by.
“We carefully selected and picked one person.”
“One person? Why only one?”
“It seemed like the right thing to do.”
“The right thing?”
“Yes, the new hire is also someone we know. So, there would be four people working in the same office….”
Yoo Jin-young paused.
Instinctively, she knew that Lee Hyun-woo understood everything.
In fact, Lee Hyun-woo understood her words at once.
It meant that having too many familiar faces in one office could lead to potential problems later.
She was right.
A workplace is not a club; if there are too many close people, it might not function properly.
Later on, if they started to overlook things each other did, it could lead to serious complacency.
Was it fortunate that Yoo Jin-young was young and inexperienced in society?
If she had structured the customer management team around her close acquaintances, the organization’s weaknesses could have been exposed unintentionally.
Lee Hyun-woo is someone who acknowledges when he is wrong.
“You’re right. I was short-sighted.”
“No, CEO, I didn’t mean to….”
“Yoo Jin-young, I look forward to working with you.”
Cutting off her flustered words, Lee Hyun-woo smiled.
On the other hand, seeing Yoo Jin-young today made him think of another adjustment.
‘I need to appoint this little lady as the team leader.’
Because she was young, no team leader had been appointed for the customer management team.
This was a bias.
Seeing her today, Yoo Jin-young had enough responsibility to lead the team.
‘After Chuseok, I need to re-organize again.’
At that time, Manager Song Gil-ho of 【Hi】 was slowly examining the beta service of 【Jungle】 and instinctively sensed a crisis.
“Hmm….”
After meeting with other PC communication officials and having drinking sessions, he felt he had become complacent without realizing it.
Like a tiger catching a rabbit with all its might, he decided to tighten up again and called the team leaders for a meeting.
But the words that came out of their mouths were not pleasing.
“I felt it last time too, but the search engine is quite efficient. Seeing today’s beta version, it has improved even more.”
“Yes, the ‘bot’ is crawling quite a lot.”
Here, ‘bot’ refers to an AI robot that explores web pages.
At this stage, it couldn’t be said to have true AI capabilities, but seeing their admiration, it seemed quite good.
‘Those bastards quit and started something there.’
Several faces popped into Song Gil-ho’s head.
Among them, he wanted to curse at Woo Sang-won, the main instigator.
Barely holding back his anger, he spoke to them.
“Do you realize you’re admitting your incompetence?”
“……”
“Honestly, isn’t it so? The subsidiary of Korea’s top public corporation, 【Korea Telecom】, is losing to a small hole-in-the-wall store. Does this make sense?”
“……”
“From today, the development team will create a better search engine than the beta version from 【Jungle】. Got it?”
“Yes….”
“Understood….”
Although he didn’t like the small responses, he didn’t have the mental energy to quibble.
“The strategy team is the same. While they’re challenging auctions and shopping, we haven’t set any plans. Is that right?”
“Yes….”
“No excuses….”
Would they really have done nothing?
It couldn’t be.
At this stage, they had proposed and pushed for forms suitable for PC communication.
But as a result-oriented person, Song Gil-ho had already erased that process.
“Then what should you do?”
“We will come up with countermeasures.”
“You need to bring them as soon as possible.”
“Yes, understood.”
Still, they were an elite group.
By the end of the workday, they had designed a report predicting what services 【Jungle】’s portal site would offer.
When this document was submitted, Song Gil-ho’s face became serious.
“Club, corporate network, chat rooms, data rooms, discussion boards, news magazines, home banking….”
“Yes, all of these could be impacted.”
The word “impact” set his nerves on edge.
They were already taking a hit from emails, and if 【Jungle】 realized these services one by one?
He immediately asked the strategy team leader who had submitted the report.
“What do you think? Do you think they can do this in a short time?”
“Considering the perspective of the customers receiving the services rather than the service providers, it won’t be easy to implement quickly. There are parts that are difficult to realize with the current communication speed.”
“Don’t talk about realistic words, think about what you would do if you were the CEO of 【Jungle】. Haven’t I been saying all along, ‘Would they really do this?’”
“……”
“But in the end, they’ve been succeeding as if they were dancing on the edge of a knife! In other words, they’re outside the range of our predictions!”
When his voice finally rose, the strategy team leader was flustered.
However, to satisfy his superior, he forced himself to think like the CEO of 【Jungle】 and answered.
“If… if it were me… I would start with the news magazine service.”
“Why?”
“If they have targeted relatively young people up till now, they can now capture the older demographic as well. Relative to other services, news is consumed by slightly older people….”
It was a plausible answer.
But Song Gil-ho, with a gaze that seemed to pierce through the soul, asked him again.
“Countermeasure?”
“Ask for cooperation from the media companies.”
Though he said cooperation, it meant persuading or entertaining them so they wouldn’t provide services to 【Jungle】.
This time, he seemed genuinely satisfied.
“Good, call the sales team leader.”
“Yes, understood.”
With a look of relief, the strategy team leader turned around.
He sighed, imagining the suffering the sales team leader would endure next.
He would probably be told to produce results by any means necessary, right?
