The Mech Touch novel Chapter 1245

As his birthday got nearer and nearer, the mood in the company had grown more jubilant. Even though Ves refused to turn his birthday into a company event, every employee saw it as a milestone.

Their boss was one of the youngest Journeyman in the Bright Republic! Not only that, but he became a saint of the Ylvaine Protectorate!

The repercussions of the latter slowly dawned upon the leadership of the company as they saw a lot of new opportunities in the neighboring state.

"It’s kind of crazy how far demand has outstripped our supply." Calsie reported in his office. "The hype for our products has become so high that some savvy owners of our existing mechs are beginning to offer them up to the Ylvainans in the second-hand market."

That did not sound good to Ves. "Second-hand mechs aren’t as good as first-hand mechs."

"There’s no choice. Even with our fancy new production lines, our production capacity is wholly insufficient to service the massive amount of demand that has flooded our sales channels. If there’s one bright spot, it’s that the Ylvainans have learned to appreciate the differences between our labels. The gold label mechs are being resold at insane markups! Even our silver label mechs are being resold as if they are new."

The hype around his mechs was crazy, but Ves didn’t expect it to last.

"A spike in demand never lasts very long." Calsie said. "According to our marketing analysts, once the Ylvainans get back to their lives, demand will subside, but it will always be several times higher than the old levels. The more we exploit our partnership with Madame Cecily, the more we can build up demand that is grounded in reality and that we can sustain."

There was a difference between the two. Hype was always something that only lasted for a short time. Ves couldn’t bank on his status as the Bright Martyr to sell mediocre mechs. The LMC needed to convert the short-term advantages of hype into a long-term advantage that ensured its continued success in the Protectorate.

Ves was glad that the LMC were already developing plans of that nature. "The Marketing Department has done a good job, but I don’t think they fully understand the Ylvainans. Tell them to hire some experts that can advise us how to market our products to the Ylvainans. They’re really different compared to Brighters or Reinaldans."

"Will do, Ves. We’ve already started hiring some managers and experts to represent our interests in the joint venture in the Protectorate. Once we got some of our people on the ground, we’ll be able to obtain a better read of the local mech market."

"Keep me in the loop." Ves commanded. "We need to be careful to pursue gradual growth. As long as we don’t threaten to take over the mech market, our Ylvainan competitors are more inclined to accept our place in their midst."

"Sounds like you got a good handle on the politics."

The higher Ves and the LMC climbed, the greater the role of politics and cross-border relations. It frustrated him a bit that he needed to pay attention to these kinds of issues in the first place. It was a lot simpler to deal with fair competition than political compromises and backroom deals.

"How do the developments in the Ylvaine Protectorate affect our operations in the Bright Republic and other markets?"

"We mainly produce the Blackbeak and Crystal Lord at the Mech Nursery." She reported. "We’ve pretty much saturated the domestic market with those two mech models. While the celebrity effect that Gavin told me about has caused a surge in demand, it’s not enough to flood us like the Ylvainans are doing at the moment. This is why the surge in demand from the Protectorate is like a timely rain after a drought. It keeps our production lines running at full capacity for the next year or two at the very least."

Ves nodded. The LMC already sold thousands of Blackbeaks and Crystal Lords in the Bright Republic alone. The mech buyers who wanted to obtain one of these mechs already bought them by now.

It was different in the Ylvaine Protectorate. The mech buyers there only bought a couple of hundred of his mechs so far, but now that he and his company suddenly became prominent there, thousands of mech buyers wanted to try out the Blackbeak and the Crystal Lord models!

"What about the Aurora Titan?’

"As you know, apart from the gold label editions, NORA Consolidated is responsible for producing most of them. They’ve reported to us that they’ve received a surge in demand for the Aurora Titan as well, but not as extreme as we are seeing. It’s a niche mech model, and an expensive one at that. Even so, Professor Ventag’s mech company has allocated several more production lines to the production of the Aurora Titan in order to meet this additional demand."

"NORA Consolidated is much bigger than the LMC. They have the production lines to spare, unlike us."

The LMC still benefited from the surge in demand. Even if the LMC was only entitled to twenty-five percent of the profits from the sale of the Aurora Titan, the model was so expensive that it still amounted to a generous sum of money!

Talking about their bottleneck in production prompted Calsie to make a suggestion. "Considering the considerable surge in demand, perhaps it would be a good idea to expand our production lines again. Our cash flow is abundant and the money we’re accumulating isn’t doing any good in our accounts."

If it was before, Ves wouldn’t consider this option. He originally planned to accumulate a warchest in order to obtain the new licenses that would be released at the start of the mech generation.

That wasn’t necessary now. The deal he made with Senator Tovar and Professor Ventag gave him easy access to future component licenses. The LMC could invest its proceeds into other investments.

He made a decision. "I’m not opposed to expanding our production lines. Draw up a plan and perform an analysis on how much we can afford to spend and how much future demand the LMC expects to meet. I want to make a decision based on our circumstances instead of my gut feeling. We also have to get the board of directors to agree with the expansion."

Even though he could simply order Calsie to expand the production capacity of the Mech Nursery by twenty production lines, would the LMC really need that much extra capacity? Perhaps in ten years maybe, but not necessarily sooner.

After Calsie noted all of the decisions he made, she left his office and made sure to get the ball rolling.

"It’s amazing to see how far I’ve come since I founded the LMC." He whispered to himself while he leaned back against his padded office chair.

The LMC was on the right track. Aside from its tiny mech catalog, his company was doing better than ever before, which was very remarkable considering the economic malaise that was just starting to subside.

To Ves, the company operated like a 3D printer. Although it looked like a single entity from the outside, it contained a lot of moving parts inside, each of which performed a different role.

The spaceborn missileer mech was based on a simple concept, but the Skull Architect executed it very well. He did his utmost into maximizing every component he included into its design without leaving much room for waste and inefficiency. _{ƒгeewёbnovel.com}