“Of course,” I say. It’s hard to stay pleasant, but I need to. I won’t stoop to his level of rudeness. “Please, take a seat.”
I didn’t expect Alan, in a completely jerk move, to move around the desk and slump down in my own chair, leaving me to sit with Amanda in front of the desk. I’m abruptly reminded that Alan has been a business owner a lot longer than I have. He’s played this game for years and he knows exactly how to get under his competitor’s skin.
Deep breath, I tell myself. Don’t give him the satisfaction.
I force my shoulders to relax and I take a seat in one of the remaining chairs, facing Alan across my own desk. His jaw twitches slightly as I stare evenly at him, refusing to be upset.
“Amanda?” Alan says, glancing at his daughter.
Amanda hovers awkwardly for a moment before taking a seat next to me. She, like me, can feel the power struggle that has already started in this room, a struggle that she is only a witness to right now. But then she straightens in her chair and faces her father with me, presenting a united front against him.
Was it just my imagination, or was there a faint glimmer of respect in Alan’s eyes for our calm reaction?
“So,” Alan says. He folds his hands on top of the desk, staring at us. “The strategic alliance. First, in order to get the facts, I would like to exchange reports on our current progress.”
“Of course,” I agree. “Why don’t you go first? Since my company has been hosting the production, my reports will likely be a little longer.”
The air turns frosty. I smile at Alan. All my nerves are gone. I will not let this man push me down. This is my office and my company. I am on the home ground, not him. He might have stolen my chair, but he is still on my turf.
“Fine,” Alan says. “We have sent over three of our employees with Amanda. Margie Bowler from advertising, Paula Reed from hardware maintenance, and Warren Dunn, who has shown himself to have a talent for design and thinks outside the box.’
“I’ve met all three,” I say with a nod. “You made a good choice sending them.”
It’s an olive branch, in a way. The praise seems to calm Alan slightly. Good. I need him calm before I bring out the big guns.
“According to the reports, your employees have been showing them their current hardware designs and asking them to improve on it,” Alan continues. “Margie has worked with your representative to start discussing advertising of the product, and they managed to sketch out a possible release date as early next year if all goes well.”
“That’s correct,” I say. “Thanks to your versatile team, my team have managed to make several leaps. While the original ideas that we were working on are still there, most of the original product has been obscured by th
e changes our collaboration has already wrought.”
Saying that is a gamble. I want Alan to believe that our collaboration is going so well that it would be impossible to pull out. It wouldn’t be true, of course; production is still in the early stages, after all. But pressing the importance of the contribution both companies have so far made might be enough to make him pause.
“I see,” Alan says. “I’ll be honest with you, Thompson; I was wary about going into an alliance with you in the first place. The company hasn’t been the same since you took over, and I wasn’t sure if that would affect my business dealings.”
“Has it?” I ask.
“That remains to be seen,” Alan mutters. He sits back, staring at me. “Give me one good reason why this alliance should continue.”
There are many good reasons. The first, and most important, is how much it means to Amanda. Then there’s the amount of work everyone involved has put into it so far. And how much I had hoped for this to happen, to prove once and for all that my inheritance of this company wasn’t just a fluke.
But those are all emotional reasons. If any of them left my mouth, I’m certain that Alan would laugh on his way out the door. He doesn’t want emotions. He deals in business, where those sorts of reasons have no place.
So I lean forward, my hands on my knees, and look Alan dead in the eye.
“We’re currently estimating a profit of almost four hundred million,” I say, and Alan jerks, surprised both by words and my argument. “At a fifty-fifty split, which is the current agreement that Brandon and Amanda have hashed out, that would be approximately two hundred million per company. That money can then be used to make more hardware products, either together or individually. Either way, this cell phone is set to be one of the biggest products on the market.” I lean back and smile. I know I shouldn’t, because it would just be poking at trouble, but I can’t help the quip that leaves my mouth. “I think that sounds like a pretty good reason.”
No one says anything. Alan is staring at me, and I can almost see him running figures through his head. Amanda is still; she already knew the figures since she helped work them out. I suspect she would have been the frontrunner of getting early prospective figures, if only because she knew her father would listen to talk of money.
“That’s a fairly large profit margin,” Alan says slowly. “I assume that it’s because the two companies are providing the resources, which are therefore cheaper?”
“Partly,” I agree. “But this phone that all of them have been building…it’s a step up already. There will be nothing else like it on the market. Because of that, people will flock to see and buy the newest sensation. Even if other companies follow our lead, our companies will be the frontrunner of a new generation of technology.” I pause, allowing that to sink in. “If, of course, our collaboration continues.”
“Regardless of whether we continue the alliance or not, my company will still have a share in the product,” Alan points out, eyes narrowing.
“Of course,” I agree. “However, your name won’t be attached to the final product, and your profits won’t be as large since your contribution would be far smaller.”
Alan is angry at that. But there’s no way that he can argue, because I’m right. If he pulls out of production now, the contribution that Tech Square Inc. put into this phone would be minimal.