M&A – Page 3 – Rudlin Consulting

Pork for cars and a fog lamp

As the UK-Japan Free Trade Agreement is in its final stages, it seems a good moment to revisit our Top 30 Japanese companies in the UK. Although the headlines seem to be heading towards “pork for cars”, the most important win-win for the UK and Japan should be protecting Japan’s investments in the UK. Japanese companies employ around 170,000 people in the UK by our estimates, and many thousands more indirectly.

The EU-UK deal is still the biggest source of concern for Japanese companies

There is a limit to what the UK-Japan deal can do to protect those investments, however. For Japanese companies in the UK, the EU-UK trade deal is the bigger source of concern. Many of them have their regional headquarters in the UK or have invested in the UK as their base for exporting to the rest of Europe.

The shape (or non-existence) of a UK-EU trade deal will determine not only whether it is worth continuing with manufacturing in the UK for Japanese companies but also whether Japanese companies will continue to coordinate services regionally out of the UK such as finance, legal, IT, HR, engineering, R&D etc. These services account for why the UK has a trade surplus in services exports to Japan – it’s largely due to Japan HQ sending money to their UK based regional operations to fund professional support services needed both for acquisitions and day to day operations.

If the barriers between the UK and the EU to mutual regulatory recognition and movement of people become too high to run European operations from the UK effectively, and as a consequence UK companies are no longer attractive investment targets, Japanese regional HQs and acquisitions will begin to drift to the continent. In fact, they already have started to shift piecemeal to the EU. No amount of bilateral recognition of services and data regulations between the UK and Japan is going to help stem this.

According to our estimates, the number of people employed by Japanese companies in the UK levelled off comparing 2018/9 to 2017/8 – rising by only 0.2% to 170,187, having risen around 6% a year in the previous two years.

Japanese automotive sector dominates Japanese jobs in UK, but is declining

Our Top 30 Japanese employers in the UK employment total has also levelled out at around 94,000 or 55% of the 170,000 people employed by Japanese companies in the UK.

Nissan (#1), Honda (#5) and Toyota (#8) employ around 18,400 – 11% or so of the total. If other Japanese automotive suppliers are added such as Denso (#20) and Unipres (#30), the total number employed is 37,489 (22% of the total employed by Japanese companies), down 2.8% on 2017/8.

Making sure that there are tariff free automotive components from Japan for manufacturing in the UK will help sustain Japanese manufacturing in the UK at least in the short term, if tariffs are imposed on EU automotive imports as part of the UK-Japan FTA or there’s a no deal. But the shift in automotive production to eastern Europe has been going on for some time.

Japanese trading companies growing steadily in the UK but no acquisitions

The UK, or more especially London, has been the commercial and trading location of choice for Japanese companies in Europe for over 100 years. At the heart of this are Japan’s trading companies – Mitsubishi Corporation, Mitsui & Co, Sumitomo Corporation, Itochu, Marubeni and Sojitz. They are still involved in commodity trading but also financing and more recently acquisitions – although there have not been any UK acquisitions since 2017. The most notable recent European acquisition was Mitsubishi Corporation acquiring Dutch energy company Eneco in 2019 for €4.1bn.

Japanese trading companies currently employ around 14,700 people in the UK, and this has grown just under 2% a year over the past couple of years

Japanese financial services holding steady in the UK

The next biggest Japanese sector in the UK is financial services, including MS&AD (#15), MUFG (#16), Nomura (#17), SMFG (#22), Mizuho (#29). It accounts for around 13,000 employees and growth has been around 1% to 2% a year.

All Japanese financial services companies that are impacted by Brexit have set up or strengthened their subsidiaries in the EU, but the scale of these organisations is still far smaller than their UK operations. There may be an issue eventually not so much about the quantity as the quality of these EU subsidiaries for the EU – they will want to see the decision makers based in the EU as a condition for regulatory approval. But as most decisions are ultimately made by multiple people in Japan headquarters, it is not clear how Japanese companies can respond to such a demand. In the meantime, Japanese financial groups are repositioning their London operations as EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) headquarters.

Electronics, ICT and acquisitions

Fujitsu (#3), the pioneer of big acquisitions in the UK (ICL in 1990) is no longer the biggest Japanese employer in the UK, having shrunk its workforce by 38% since 2014/5. Sony (#9) has also cut its workforce by 11% over the past four years. Canon (#12) and Ricoh (#7) have grown by less than 10%, Brother (#28) grew around 15%, Mitsubishi Electric (#27) by 17%. Konica Minolta (#24) has grown over 40% in the past 4 years through acquisitions but seems to be shifting more towards the Czech Republic recently.

NTT (#11) and Hitachi (#2), both with ex Japan global HQ in the UK, have grown 60% and 175% respectively over the past 4 years, partly through acquisitions but also in Hitachi’s case through organic growth, with the investment in the rail manufacturing and assembly plant in Newton Aycliffe.

Other new entrants over the past four years have been through acquisitions too – Outsourcing (#26) in recruitment, Sumitomo Rubber (#19) through its acquisition of Micheldever in 2017 and SoftBank acquiring (and soon to be disposing of) ARM.

A holding pattern until the fog clears

The years of double digit growth and acquisitions by Japanese companies in the UK seems to be coming to an end, or at least is on hold until the picture is clearer after the fog lifts from the UK-EU negotiations and the coronavirus pandemic. The UK-Japan FTA does not clear this fog, but at least lays out a path for the UK, which Japan very much would like it to follow, of reintegrating itself back into the rules based international order, towards joining the CPTPP and continuing to be one of Japan’s closest allies in terms of digital security and strategic interests.

Japanese companies in the UK

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Are Japanese companies leaving the UK because of Brexit yet?

I asked this question just over a year ago and the answer is still yes and no. To which I would add, it’s more a case that Japanese companies aren’t investing in or coming to the UK as much as they used to, replacing the ones that are leaving or downsizing.

Asia continues to dominate as location for Japanese companies overseas

The number of Japanese companies overseas is, according to Toyo Keizai*, continuing to increase – up 65% from 2008, but the rate of increase has been slowing since 2013. The number of Japanese companies overseas grew 2% from 2018 to 2019, with growth in all regions – higher growth in Africa/Oceania (from a small base) but only 1% growth in Europe compared to 3% in North America and Asia.

63% of Japanese companies overseas are in ex-Japan Asia – up from 62% in 2018 and 69% of the employees of Japanese companies abroad are in Asia. Around 15% of Japanese companies abroad are in Europe and 14% in North America, with both regions having around 11% of employees. As pointed out last year, the obvious factor in why there are proportionately more employees to number of companies in Asia compared to Europe and North America is the greater number of manufacturing operations in Asia, with larger workforces.

The number of UK employees of Japanese companies has fallen for the first time, by 9%

Within Europe, the number of people employed by Japanese companies rose 18% from 2015 to 2019. Those countries where the number of Japanese company employees has fallen are countries where there has been a rise in populism, civic unrest and political risk. UK employee numbers fell 9% 2018-9 (the first decline since at least 2015), Spanish employee numbers fell 19% 2018-9, Hungary’s fell 18%, Turkey’s 10%, Poland and Italy also showed small decreases in employee numbers.

Countries where Japanese employee numbers are growing are the Netherlands (up 11% 2018-9), France (10%), Germany (2%) and the Czech Republic (2%). Employee numbers in Romania doubled from 2018-9 but this is largely due to Toyo Keizai recording employee numbers at Alcedo (acquired by Sumitomo Corporation in 2011) as being 20,284, having been 318 in 2018. The 2018 number is more in line with other available data.

Number of Japanese companies in UK has fallen for first time

The number of Japanese companies in the UK has fallen by 1% 2018-9, from 972 to 966, the first drop since at least 2015, having risen 11% 2015-2018. France also saw a 2% drop in the number of Japanese companies, even though employee numbers are up. Germany attracted a 4% increase in Japanese companies from 2018-9, having risen 13% 2015-8. Netherlands had a 1% increase 2018-9 (13.5% 2015-8) and Italy had a 2% rise in Japanese companies 2018-9, and an increase of 11.8% 2015-8.

It’s hard to work out where Toyo Keizai derives the net drop of 6 Japanese companies in the UK from. Their list of the 7 companies which have closed down in the UK 2019 shows that this was mainly due to reorganization of holding companies or merging of companies rather than full withdrawal from the UK. Of the 8 new Japanese companies in the UK in 2019, 5 were indirect investments into energy companies by Nippon Koei, a civil engineering company and 2 were indirect investments by WDI, a Hong Kong originated Dim Sum chain which is registered in Japan.

Germany now hosts more Japanese automotive companies than the UK

The Japanese automotive sector is of course the sector being most carefully watched for Brexit impact. Japanese automotive manufacturers are continuing to set up overseas – the total number globally has increased 10% in 2019 on 2015. And “despite” the EU-Japan EPA, 15 more Japanese transportation equipment manufacturers set up in Europe in 2019, a 20% cumulative increase on 2015. Of the 15 new companies, 4 are in Germany, 3 in Poland, 2 in Spain, 2 in Portugal, 1 in France, 1 in Italy, 1 in Slovakia and 1 mystery one. This means Germany now hosts more automotive/transportation equipment companies than the UK – 31 to the UK’s 30.

Japanese acquisitions of UK companies reduced in scale and number

Toyo Keizai’s data is reliant on companies filling in their surveys, so tends to underreport and often misses acquisitions. From my database, I estimate 20 British companies were acquired by Japanese companies in 2019-2020, although some of them were indirect acquisitions through acquiring a parent company with a subsidiary in the UK. Dentsu and Sony continued to acquire UK based companies, and other acquisitions were of British companies in software, gaming, hotels, seafood, recruitment, a manufacturer of drives for electric motors and paper wholesale. The scale is far less than in previous years, both in terms of numbers of acquisitions and value of the deals.

Even adding these acquisitions in shows a 3% drop in the number of people employed by Japanese companies in the UK from 2018/9 to 2019/20 according to my database – the first drop since I started tracking these numbers in 2015.

* Toyo Keizai Data Bank: Directory of Japanese Companies Abroad 2020

UK’s priority in Japan trade agreement is not increasing exports, it’s protecting Japan’s investments in UK

My view on Brexit was that it was accelerating trends that were already there for Japanese business in Europe, and gave them cover to do things they were already wanting to do.

The COVID-19 pandemic seems set to provide similar cover and if the UK is not careful, this will mean a further withdrawal of Japanese investment from the UK.

Japanese companies are still in search of growth outside the ageing, declining population of the Japanese market, and this includes in Europe. According to Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs data, the number of Japanese companies in Europe grew 16% from 2012-2018 and the number of Japanese nationals in Europe also grew over the same period by 12%.

At the same time Japanese companies are very risk averse. Brexit was seen as a risk from around 2013 onwards, and this is reflected in the number of Japanese companies and nationals in UK falling by 11% and 7% respectively over 2012-2018 – the only country in Europe to show such significant decreases. Germany already hosts more Japanese companies than the UK and is catching up in terms of hosting Japanese nationals too.

Although Japan is still more of a manufacturing, exporting nation than the UK is, both the UK and Europe are just as – if not more – important to Japan as a destination for investment than as a market for exports of finished goods. As the DIT itself estimates, around 59% of Japanese exports to the UK are intermediate goods, used in supply chains. So in other words, a large number of Japan’s investments in the UK and the Europe boost Japanese exports to the UK and Europe.

The trends in current Japanese trade and investment in Europe and the UK need to be examined for their impact in the four areas where Japan has influence over the UK economy

1. Existing UK jobs reliant on Japanese companies

The Japanese automotive sector is a key source of existing jobs for the UK as it accounts for around a quarter of the 163,000 people I estimate are employed in the UK by Japanese companies. There was a 3% decline from 2017/8 to 2018/9 in employment in the Japanese automotive sector in the UK, however, whereas employment in Japanese automotive companies grew elsewhere in Europe, particularly in Eastern Europe.

So while zero tariffs on automotive parts from Japan to the UK will help – this might just be trying to hold back the tide. The possibility of tariffs on exports of cars made in the UK to the EU is obviously a concern for Japanese companies too. Maybe sterling will fall far enough or there will be sufficient government subsidies to mitigate this extra cost but ultimately Japanese companies will choose to manufacture where there they can access not just the lowest costs but also a market sufficiently large to ensure full production capacity.

Obviously there is a strong need to focus on electric vehicle development, and the UK has strength in automotive design, but Japanese car manufacturers will be wanting to develop EVs in line with EU regulations and to be able to influence EU regulations – which is easier done from inside the EU than outside.

2. Where the new Japanese jobs are in the UK

Hitachi is the most significant recent contributor to organic job growth in Japanese companies in the UK – largely due to Hitachi Rail. Hitachi has also invested in Horizon Nuclear Power, which is currently “on ice”. Hitachi’s focus is on social infrastructure, and various commitments by UK governments on investing in transportation and energy are key to this. Many other Japanese companies are also interested in social infrastructure business in Europe.

A UK Japan trade agreement can support further job growth by facilitating the export of parts for these industries from Japan. Hitachi has also invested in rail manufacturing in Italy so if there are any tariffs making exports from the UK to the EU uncompetitive, they have an alternative manufacturing location within the EU.

Other Japanese companies that are expanding in the UK include NTT, the ICT/telecommunications giant, who have put their non-Japan global HQ in London and SoftBank, who acquired ARM and committed to expand the workforce. Presumably this is why DIT is emphasizing free data flows between Japan and the UK, which would be welcomed by Japanese ICT companies and Japanese regional headquarter functions based in the UK.

I’m seeing some positive impacts of the EU-Japan EPA on investment elsewhere in Europe. There have been quite a few acquisitions by Japanese companies of food businesses in France for example. Japanese trade statistics show that food and alcohol exports to Japan from Europe have risen after the EPA came into force. If a similar agreement on food, textiles and leather goods to the EU Japan EPA is reached between Japan and the UK as the DIT is asking, there may be similar acquisitions by Japanese companies in the UK – as well as the growth in exports for UK SMEs that the DIT seems to be focusing on. There already have been a few food related acquisitions by Japanese companies in the UK. This might see some increase in new jobs in the UK as a result. But this is marginal compared to the jobs that could be created by Japanese investment in the UK infrastructure sector.

3. UK exports of services to Japan are M&A driven

It seems likely that Japanese companies will continue to use their piled-up cash to acquire – perhaps in Asia initially as it is opening up first after COVID-19. In the past, Japan established companies in the UK as gateway to EU but recent Japanese acquisitions in the UK have been increasingly pure domestic (recruitment, car parking, outsourcing, advertising) or pure global (SoftBank, financial services).

These acquisitions do not necessarily create more jobs, but financial, legal and other services around the acquisitions is, I would guess, a large component of UK services exports to Japan. Allowing UK professionals to operate in Japan is not a key driver – it is more that UK based professionals are supporting Japanese companies in Europe and globally. I even know of one UK based, American owned advertising agency that deals directly with the Japan HQ of a Japanese sports brand on their global campaigns, even though the advertising agency have a Japanese office.

Japanese companies may well buy up more British companies in the near future, as they will be cheap. However, there does seem to be a decline in big ticket acquisitions in the UK – the most recent major European acquisition by a Japanese company that I am aware of is Mitsubishi Corporation acquiring the Dutch Energy company ENECO – my understanding is that Netherlands based services companies mainly supported this.

4. Export of services because of UK as European/EMEA hub

Another element in the UK’s export of services to Japan is that the UK subsidiaries of Japanese companies often perform a regional headquarters function for Japanese firms – and receive management fees for this. Brexit (but also changes in Japanese laws on treatment of offshore profits) has caused some Japanese companies to move their regional HQ from UK (Panasonic, Sony) in a legal and financial sense. But there is still a critical mass of people in the UK working for such companies, because the UK provides marketing, IT, design, engineering, legal, financial, accounting services that are of a high, globally accepted standard.

This is why, as the JETRO survey of 2019 of Japanese companies in Europe pointed out, the biggest regulatory concern of Japanese companies is that the UK or the EU might change regulations regarding the freedom of movement between the UK and EU for their employees. Continuing that regional coordination role requires regional employees to move around the region – or can this all now be done by web conferencing?

The UK is still seen by Japan as an attractive place to send students but also employees for education and development. Japanese students only want short term, under 1 year courses, however and many are looking at cheaper, nearer options. Both students and Japanese professionals would want ease of acquiring visas, including work visas and a safe, stable environment to live in.

UK offensive interests

Looking at the recent DIT paper on the UK-Japan FTA, clearly there are some non-tariff barriers to the UK accessing the Japanese market – as there have been for decades. But my overwhelming impression is that most British companies have not been very proactive in approaching the Japanese market – it’s a big commitment, opening an office in Japan is needed, not just exporting from afar. It’s relatively easy to set up a company in Japan but not so easy to hire the right people. There is a labour shortage, particularly of capable salespeople who are English speakers. This is not something that can be solved in a trade agreement.

A final point regarding the DIT paper’s claim that the UK is a “technology superpower” – not in Japanese eyes I’m afraid – possibly in fintech and there have been some Japanese investments in that sector in the UK. But they’re fairly small scale. Japanese technology companies such as Panasonic are basing their innovation arms in Silicon Valley. The US, China and the EU are more important to Japan than the UK – in many ways.

Japanese shift to Germany continues

Germany has historically been the main rival to the UK in Europe for Japanese investment. The UK absorbs about 40% of total Japanese investment into the EU but according to the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, there are actually 50% more Japan originated companies (703) in Germany compared to the UK (471).*

The reason for this discrepancy in numbers may be to do with the difference in the sectors that are investing in Germany and the UK and also the scale of the companies that are being acquired. According to my own research there are more employees on average at Japan affiliated companies in the UK than there are for Japan affiliated companies in Germany.

More Japanese employers in Germany but fewer employees than UK

This may be because the big employers – Japanese car manufacturers – do not have production in Germany – unlike the UK with Nissan, Honda and Toyota. There are plenty of Japanese automotive component manufacturers in Germany, but they tend to be what is known in German as “Mittelstand” or medium sized companies.

Manufacturing represents around 20% of German GDP, similar to Japan. Germany has of course always had a strong reputation for engineering and German cultural values such as risk aversion and process orientation fit well with Japanese corporate mindsets.

Japanese expats in UK mostly in regional HQ and services roles

By contrast, only 11% of the UK’s GDP is derived from manufacturing and 80% of UK GDP is services, particularly financial services such as banking and insurance. This sector accounts for quite a few of the Japanese companies who have multiple subsidiaries in the UK, as well as trading companies, holding companies and services companies providing financing and other functions across Europe.

This might explain why UK has more Japanese residents than Germany – presumably acting as liaison and coordinators with Japan HQ for the region – around 63,000 compared to 46,000 in Germany. However, this number is falling for the UK, and increasing for Germany.

A drop in Japanese students and intra company transferees in UK since 2015

Does this mean that the UK is losing its role as the services centre for the region to Germany? Looking at the detail, it seems the main factor behind the drop in the number of Japanese in the UK is that there are 3,000 fewer Japanese students and academics in the UK compared to a year ago.**

Intra company transferees to the UK fell by 1% from 2015 to 2017 whereas there are now many hundreds more Japanese transferees living in Germany, the Netherlands and Eastern Europe than three years’ ago.

As Japanese manufacturing shifts eastwards in Europe, sales hubs are moving with them

Looking at the recent investments into the UK and Germany, the trends of the past few years still seem to hold. Investments into the UK are in the form of establishing regional holding companies, or M&A in biotech, information technology and services for the UK market such as car parking. Investments into Germany are mainly for the wholesale of electronic components and machinery. Sometimes these are German sales offices for Japanese companies who already have sales or manufacturing in the UK. As manufacturing shifts eastward in Europe, so the sales hubs are moving with them.

Update for 2019-2020

The above article was written for the Teikoku Databank News in October of 2018. Since then, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has published further data on Japanese nationals resident in Europe and Japanese companies operating in Europe, but unfortunately without the level of detail that was available previously.

The chart below summarises the data available for the UK and Germany – showing the continuing long term trend of an increase in Japanese companies and nationals in Germany, and a decline in Japanese companies and nationals in the UK. Overall across Europe, the number of Japanese companies and nationals has increased in the past five or so years, but more in Eastern Europe recently.

This is reinforced by the data collected by Toyo Keizai of Japanese expatriates working for Japanese companies, which also shows that the increase in Japanese nationals in Germany is primarily in non-manufacturing, with a corresponding decline in Japanese nationals working in non-manufacturing in the UK.

*This is the number of individual incorporated companies in 2018 – if you include all branches, and multiple subsidiaries, the figure is 966 Japanese entities in the UK compared to 1,839 in Germany as of Oct 2018 MOFA report

** Based on later conversations with the British Council, this steep drop in Japanese students coming to the UK may well be to do with changes in visa categories that are being monitored rather than an actual decline – most Japanese students prefer to study abroad for less than a year.

The original version of this article can be found in “Shinrai: Japanese Corporate Integrity in a Disintegrating Europe” available as a paperback and Kindle ebook on Amazon.

Which Japanese companies to work for in Europe

We’ve been publishing our top 30 Japanese companies in Europe intermittently for 5 years now. We regularly receive enquiries for recommendations on which Japanese companies to approach as potential employers. We’re not a recruitment consultancy so we don’t have any inside track on what jobs are available (please talk to our friends at Centre People Appointments for more practical assistance), but I would say that size in Europe and growth are important factors to consider.

Relative size in Europe is a key factor

If the European operations of a Japanese company represent a substantial part of their business, then it’s more likely that Europeans will have some influence within the organisation. There will also be more promotion opportunities and career paths than working for a smaller organisation in Europe. For that reason, it’s worth trying to join the organisation in the European/EMEA headquarters.

Companies with a relatively high proportion of their employees in EMEA (25%+) include NSG (Pilkington), Asahi (brewery company recently acquired Grolsch, Peroni, Pilsner Urquell etc brands), NTT Data, Toyota Tsusho (acquired French company CFAO with a big presence in Africa), Asahi Glass, JT International, Konica Minolta.

Has the company been growing?

Not only are growing companies more likely to have job openings, but they are more fun to work for. Japanese companies are still growing their operations in Europe overall. However some have been undergoing substantial restructuring, which has resulted in significant headcount reductions in some countries, and significant growth in others. For example Fujitsu is reducing headcount in the UK and Germany, but growing rapidly in Poland and Portugal.

Companies that have grown the most rapidly in Europe (more than doubling) over the past five years are Nidec, NTT Data and Panasonic.

Working for an acquired company

The rapidly growing companies have mostly expanded through acquisition – for example Dentsu, Nidec, Panasonic (Ficosa, Zetes) and NEC (Northgate Public Services), Toyota Industries (Vanderlande), Hitachi (Ansaldo). Working in those acquired companies might also be an attractive option, as there will be more autonomy, and less domination by Japanese management layers than Japanese subsidiaries which have grown organically.

Companies who score highly in terms of growth and significant European presence are NTT Data (third largest company in Europe) and Dentsu (8th).

In terms of sectoral growth – as well as IT companies that are moving into services and solutions like NTT Data, Konica Minolta and Panasonic – Daikin (# 27) and Mitsubishi Electric (#30) have both grown substantially recently, probably due to expansion of their eco friendly air conditioning businesses.

For new graduates, many of the top 30 have graduate trainee schemes, which would be worth considering if you are looking for a chance to be seconded to Japan.

Top 3 largest Japanese employers in Europe, Middle East and Africa:

1. Sumitomo Electric Wiring

Large numbers of employees in manufacturing, as making automotive wire harnesses is still a fairly manual job. Manufacturing jobs will tend to be in North Africa and Eastern Europe. There are plenty of jobs in design engineering and sales as well, and will be future proof as apparently electric vehicles also require complex wire harnesses to operate.

EMEA headquarters: UK (SEWS-E), Italy (CABIND), Germany (Bordnetze)

No graduate trainee scheme, but this page gives a flavour of the jobs available in the region for SEWS-E https://www.sews-e.com/current-vacancies/

2. Yazaki

Very similar to Sumitomo Electric Wiring in terms of business and jobs but privately owned, so more of a family style corporate culture. Has a YEA!cademy (Yazaki Europe training academy) https://www.yazaki-europe.com/career.html

EMEA headquarters: Germany

3. NTT Data

Owned by Japan’s NTT (formerly Ministry of Post and Telecommunications, now partly privatised). NTT Data has acquired various companies in Europe and elsewhere such as itelligence, Cirquent, Value Team, Intelligroup, and Keane. NTT is in the middle of restructuring and have put a new global headquarters, NTT Limited, in London. NTT Data will be kept as a separate organisation, however.

Lots of training and chances to go to Japan, however recruitment seems more by country/company than centralised and as you can see here https://www.nttdata.com/global/en/careers

EMEA headquarters: UK

If you would like a consultation on working for a Japanese company, then you can book an hour with Pernille Rudlin here.

We also recommend doing the e-learning modules from the leading global intercultural training firm focused on Japanese business – Japan Intercultural Consulting – on working in a Japanese company – each module comes with a certificate – proof that you know what you’re letting yourself in for!

It’s not over yet for Honda in the UK

“Don’t be ordinary, Honda” urges a 20 page special feature in Nikkei Business magazine. It points out that Honda occupies a similar space to Sony in Japanese people’s hearts. They both had maverick founders, produced quirky, innovative products for decades, lost their edge and then had to undergo deep restructuring to survive.

The loss of face for Swindon

Part 1 of the special feature starts in Swindon, lamenting that it has come to a point where Honda, “the face of Swindon”, is having to shut down. “Falling European sales and the chaos of Brexit are not the only reasons”. Honda says it is because of the need to respond to the rise of electric vehicles, a recognition that it had not set up the necessary structure in Europe to deal with the EU’s strict environmental regulations and supply electric and hybrid vehicles.

Going it alone made it difficult to innovate

This lack of preparedness may have been because Honda was going it alone, in contrast to Toyota working with Mazda, Suzuki, Subaru and Daihatsu and Nissan’s alliance with Mitsubishi and Renault. Even adding in Honda suppliers like TS Tech, Keihin, Showa, Musashi and Nisshin, its total supply chain sales amount to a tenth of Toyota’s. Toyota’s supply chain includes other large multinationals like Denso, Aisin, Toyota Industries, JTEKT and Toyota Boshoku. R&D expenditure is similarly tiny compared to Toyota’s spend.

Honda is not in Boston Consulting Group’s Top 50 most innovative companies of the world – whereas Toyota is at #37. It’s not even in the top 50 of Japan’s own ranking of most innovative domestic companies. Toyota is at #2, Honda at #105.

Only 70% of Honda’s sales are 4 wheel vehicles however – 13% are motorbikes, 2.2% power products like lawnmower engines and 14.9% is financial services. Honda has been innovating in these areas as well as becoming active in Mobility as a Service, investing in electric vehicle charging, including in the UK and Sweden.

Honda still has roots in the UK

In fact it’s not over for Honda in the UK by any means. Nikkei Business’s special feature takes a nostalgic look at whether Honda can grab back the “speed” and “challenge” spirit that Honda showed in the Isle of Man TT races, illustrated by a headline from the Daily Mirror in 1961 “The Japs are Laps in Front”. It described the 3 times Honda has left Formula One, only to come back again. Honda R&D and Honda Motor Europe are still based in the UK, and Honda has mainly supplied engines to UK based Formula One teams over the years – most recently to Red Bull in Milton Keynes.

The special feature finishes with an interview with Honda’s President Hachigo Takahiro – who was himself posted to the UK during his career. He shows no interest in merging with Toyota or Nissan in order to achieve scale. “We are not thinking about making a bid for Nissan…We are innovative when we face challenges, like we did with Formula One. As for Toyota, we won’t get very friendly, we will have a fight occasionally. Otherwise the Japanese car industry would be very dull. We have different personalities. We should be good rivals, and help Japan rise up. We have no intention of taking Toyota’s money.”

Even if Honda is shutting down its manufacturing in the UK, the hope seems to be that the UK can play a part in recharging its innovative spirit.

How a failed merger led Tokyo Electron to a world class HR system

Tokyo Electron originally sold car radios when it was founded in the 1960s, but reinvented itself as a manufacturer of semi conductor making equipment in the 1980s. A failed merger (following objections from anti trust regulators in the US) has led it to reinvent itself again. This time, the reinvention is just as much around management as it is product lines.

In 2013 Tokyo Electron spent a year planning a merger with the US’s Applied Materials. They even had a new name and were planning to put their global headquarters in the Netherlands.

To prepare for the merger, Tokyo Electron reduced its stake in an affiliated trading company, Tokyo Electron Device, and withdrew from the solar cell business. This renewed focus on the core business has led to increased profits and turnover.

Role not potential

One area on which it proved difficult to reach agreement with Applied Materials was how the HR system should be configured. Tokyo Electron was still focused on having lifetime employment and salary boundaries based on potential (the untranslatable Japanese word nouryoku) with actual performance influencing take home pay upwards or downwards each year. This was very different from Applied Materials system of having a transparent relationship between actual job roles and compensation and ensuring the appropriate person was assigned to that role, without much thought for maintaining long term employment.

Howevever when younger Tokyo Electron employees heard about the Applied Materials HR system they had high expectations as they felt frustrated by the traditional Japanese system. Tokyo Electron realised it would have to change its HR system to motivate its younger staff. They recognised, however, that there was a big difference between Japan and the USA, where people job hop frequently in their career.

The new system was introduced worldwide in 2017-8. 6 role categories which were applicable globally were introduced – operations, engineering, sales and marketing, business support, management and executive management – up from three previously: the untranslatable sougoushoku (generalist management), ippanshoku (generalist administration – usually for women) and technical. The number of levels increased from 7 to 20 and they applied to all categories (apart from executive). So someone in a senior business support role at level 8 could be considered to be “doing a highly complex job, with a strong influence over the results of their department” just as much as someone in engineering or sales and marketing.

This might seem vague, but Tsuchii Nobuhito, HR General Manager, justifies it by saying that as the semi conductor business is fast changing, roles need to be kept flexible.

Further changes included making it possible to be promoted in consecutive years. Previously Tokyo Electron employees had to stay in one grade for three years before being considered for the next promotion. Before, the criteria for a job role were evaluated relatively but now there are evaluated by an absolute standard. This is intended to make it more transparent to people where their job role and grade sit within the whole organisation and what their future career path might be.

Inevitable changes as the semiconductor industry globalizes

These changes were inevitable, says Nikkei Business. Japan’s semi conductor industry has hollowed out and most of the customers are overseas. 80% of Tokyo Electron’s sales are outside of Japan and 40% of its employees are overseas. Only around 500 employees in Europe and the Middle East out of 12,500 total. Unsurprisingly, Asia has the largest number – around 2,800. Japan headquarters also has more Asian employees. Nikkei Business interviews one Korean employee in Japan who says she was surprised to have stayed so long. She started as a Chinese/Japanese translator but enjoyed the challenges in her job and stayed on.

Higher than average salaries probably also helped. Tokyo Electron pays an average Y12.7m a year (around US$115K) compared to the industry average of around US$60K. As a result of the new HR system 90% of staff had a pay rise – mainly the younger and middle ranking employees.

Global employee communication

President Kawai has been careful to communicate company strategy and objectives as clearly as possible around the world. He has held 35 employee meetings around the world and also holds smaller discussion meetings with staff to talk about the direction of the semi conductor industry, or whether to continue with M&A activities. He asks them whether the strategic direction is getting through to people, and if it is appropriate for their workplaces.

There are still some issues – how far it is possible to be objective in evaluations, for example. “It will take another 3-5 years before the system really beds in” says Tsuchii. Kawai has set some ambitious targets and is confident there is room for further growth. Whether Tokyo Electron can continue to motivate its staff will be key, says Nikkei Business.

Their website certainly reflects the brand values they aspire to – clear and transparent, with an emphasis on “people, technology, commitment” – although just like every other Japanese technology company, their mission pretty much boils down to “contributing to society through innovative technology”, with added “reliable service and support”.

One of the puzzles of Japanese HR is how employee engagement is so low and yet the employees seem so dedicated and diligent. Kawai at least seems to have found a solution – transparent career paths.

Rudlin Consulting has assisted many European companies acquired by a Japanese parent. Please contact Pernille Rudlin for further details.

3 keys to success in overseas post merger integration according to Suntory

Suntory acquired US company Beam in 2014, since which it jointly developed and launched new gins and whiskeys. Overseas sales are now 42.7% of Suntory’s turnover, compared to 25.2% in 2013 and the merger is generally thought to have been a success, according to the Nikkei Business magazine.

Suntory took on a mountain of debt to buy Beam. Suntory President Niinami Takeshi felt in 2014 that Beam’s attitude was complacent, considering the pressures Suntory was under. They were making personnel decisions without any regard to Suntory’s wishes. Beam may have felt that as Suntory’s spirits business was folded into the new Beam Suntory, this meant Beam had the right to do as it pleased.

The three elements Suntory’s President Niinami felt were crucial to post merger integration were:

1. Parent company should make personnel decisions

Niinami transferred the authority to nominate directors of Beam Suntory to Japan HQ, set up a new compensation committee which he chaired, and sent an internal auditor from Suntory to Beam. The CEO of Beam Suntory at the time, Matt Shattock, was not pleased, but Niinami was firm, saying “we are the owners”. Niinami says this was the biggest reason for the successful merger. He made sure that he also listened to Beam executives and ultimately replaced Shattock with Albert Baladi, seeing him as someone who could drive Beam Suntory’s growth in Asia (and indeed they have just announced they will be making whiskey in India soon).

2. Be based near the customer

Baladi clearly won over Niinami by understanding the importance of the Gemba – the shopfloor, the coalface. Beam Suntory’s headquarters was moved to central Chicago, in a district full of bars and restaurants, from a suburb an hour outside the city. Again, this did not thrill the then CEO Matt Shattock, whose 15 minute drive into work by car turned into a 1.5 hour commute. “It took 2 years to persuade him”, says Niinami.

Being focused on the gemba was not just about the headquarters. Beam previously had frowned upon inefficiencies such as visiting retail outlets frequently to understand what products most matched them. Its emphasis was on short term profits. Niinami changed this by sending several experienced Suntory sales and marketing people to Beam Suntory. One was Takeuchi Jun, who insisted on visiting high class bars and restaurants in Chicago, introducing Beam Suntory products, to increase the fanbase. He was adamant to local employees that sales for home consumption would increase as a result.

Usually, hearing that sales and marketing people from Japan headquarters are coming to an overseas subsidiaries to change the way Western marketing works would make me nervous. Sales and marketing (if it exists at all) are very different in Japan to Western countries, but it seems to have worked. For example, Suntory was able to successfully introduce the Highball Tower machine to bars in the USA – which makes a cocktail of whiskey (in this case Suntory’s Toki) and sparkling water.

3. Return to craftsmanship

Along with gemba, Suntory introduced the Japanese concept of monozukuri. Niinami was shocked that when he visited Jim Beam’s main distillery in Kentucky in 2016, to see that the workers were on strike, angry with management based in the headquarters an hour’s flight away. Bourbon sales were doing well globally, and the management asked the distillery to increase production without anything being changed at the distillery. Temporary staff were taken on with employment terms which the existing workers were unhappy with.

Niinami thought this “monitoring from above” approach was misguided, and removed the factory chief, bringing in the production director from Japan. Distilling space and warehousing were increased with a $500m investment in one year.

Suntory also encouraged joint development of new drinks such as Legent. I noticed in Europe the sake-like gin Roku from Suntory was launched in 2017 (and I’m a big fan). Will they also be moving Beam Suntory in the UK from suburban Uxbridge to somewhere with a night life like Soho?

Rudlin Consulting has assisted many European companies acquired by a Japanese parent. Please contact Pernille Rudlin for further details.

Brexit and Japanese jobs in the UK – growing by acquisition or “new” jobs?

Those looking for “despite Brexit” good news may be reassured that employment in the UK by the biggest Japanese companies has grown by 22% since 2014/5, right in line with the growth in Japanese jobs across Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA). About a quarter of the 750,000 people we estimate work for Japanese companies in the region are working in the UK, and so far there is no obvious divergence between the UK and the rest of EMEA in terms of overall job growth.

Big ticket acquisitions are the main driver of Japanese growth in the UK

But as we pointed out in previous posts looking at the trends across Europe, a distinction needs to be made between “new jobs” created in EMEA by Japanese greenfield investment, and investments which are acquisitions of existing jobs. Eastern Europe is the beneficiary of the former, particularly for the automotive sector, whereas the UK has been the target of the latter with big ticket acquisitions like SoftBank acquiring ARM, Mitsui Sumitomo acquiring Amlin, Sumitomo Rubber acquiring Micheldever, and NEC acquiring Northgate Public Services as well as Outsourcing acquiring various staffing and outsourcing companies.

Where are the “new jobs”?

These acquisitions account for the new entrants to the Top 30 ranking we have compiled below. They push out Fujifilm, Sumitomo Corporation, Japan Tobacco (who shut their factory in Northern Ireland last year) and Toshiba. The original Top 30 in 2014/5 have grown a more modest 10% if the acquisitive newcomers are not included. One of the highest climbers from the original 2014/5 ranking is the main Japanese creator of new jobs in the UK- Hitachi – in particular via their rail manufacturing and assembly plant at Newton Aycliffe.

There has not been a decline in automotive sector jobs in the UK – yet – however. In fact quite the reverse – there has been some growth in jobs in all three of the big Japanese car companies. But the trend is clear, as pointed out in previous posts, that even without Brexit, the drift of investment and jobs in the automotive sector is eastwards and to Africa. It’s easy to see how British people in those areas where Japanese automotive supply chains are active could blame the EU for job losses. Even though there actually weren’t that many EU grants enabling Japanese companies to transfer production from the UK to Eastern Europe – despite the rumours – merely by being members of the Single Market, and having lower labour costs, Eastern European countries are an obvious destination for new manufacturing investment.

Will Japan’s investment in the UK services sector be Brexit proof?

The investment in the UK by Japanese companies over the past three years has largely been through acquisitions in the services sector. This is not surprising, as services are 80% of the UK’s GDP and the UK’s comparative advantage in the region. It is also relatively Brexit proof in the sense that services sector investment will not be directly affected by any supply chain disruptions. Clearly if the UK economy takes a hit from Brexit, however, this will dampen demand for services. There has also been a shift of regional headquarters away from the UK by Panasonic and Sony and others, and of financial services companies, but as yet this has not hit UK jobs.

Eastern Europe has also been attractive to Japanese companies for business process outsourcing. Although Fujitsu is still – just – the top employer in the UK, employee numbers have dropped 29% – and there are now 13,000 people working for its service centres in Poland. NTT and its subsidiary NTT Data has also shot up the Top 30 both for the UK and the EMEA region – again through acquisitions – and has decided to base its new global ex-Japan headquarters in the UK.

Infrastructure, energy, transport should be the future for Japanese jobs in the UK

The UK’s strength as a global services provider will not disappear overnight, however hard the Brexit. But it’s hard to imagine how the kinds of secure, high quality automotive manufacturing jobs that those who voted for Brexit might have wanted to see return to the UK will come back, however soft the Brexit. The potential sunlit upland is in infrastructure – energy and transport. These sectors were needing investment regardless of whether the UK is in or out of the EU and are not so reliant on just in time supply chains across the region. Transport, environment and energy are areas where cooperation and financing on an EU-wide basis makes business and environmental sense though. But unfortunately Brexit has provided a distraction that has resulted in Hitachi freezing its Horizon nuclear power projects in Wales and Gloucestershire from lack of government financial support, and the recently called review of HS2 must also be giving Hitachi’s rail business and other Japanese executives cause for concern. Risk averse Japanese companies are not going to want to make multi million investments in infrastructure projects in a country which is politically unstable and unreliable.

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Is Sharp still a Japanese treasure?

Sharp Corporation Chairman and President Tai Jeng-wu was the second in command at Taiwan’s Hon Hai when it acquired Sharp in 2016. His cost cutting organisational reforms have turned the company’s results around in a “V” shaped recovery. He is now hurrying ahead with restructuring the business portfolio. In an interview with Nikkei Business he says Sharp is “Japan’s treasure” and is at pains to point out how influenced he has been by Japanese teachers in the past. Japan and Taiwan continue to have good relations (reinforced by a common threat of China, hinted at in this interview with the dig at unfair competition from state owned companies), and many Taiwanese speak excellent Japanese.

He says that unlike Carlos Ghosn, he did not arrive at Sharp with a posse of executives. He feels that the reforms are still only half way but he wants to work alongside Sharp employees – rather than a top down imposed change.

Asked what was the problem at Sharp, he said “it is not for me to say, but I suppose the crisis occurred when there were problems with management in the 2010s – when people who have only had experience in one particular technical area or business become president. You need to have a general overview to be a top executive, so when there was a crisis they were unable to respond. How I fixed the $2.5bn loss was to cut costs by around $1.7bn and then cut back investments and with some transient profits, we were back in the black.”

Don’t be a big fish

“You have to develop people step by step. When I started at Sharp, I said when announcing my strategy that “Sharp should not be a big fish, but should aim to be a fast swimming fish”. So I kept asking every day for things to speed up. I set some rules for developing successors. I lowered the limit requiring presidential approval to Y3m ($27,000). That was to ensure I would be aware of all the company’s problems. I then increased the limit to Y20m ($184,000) in 2018 when I put the CEO structure in place and this year I increased the limit to Y100m.”

“I will stay on as chairman of Sharp until March 2022. My wife and family want me back in Taiwan though. All the time from 2016 I have been looking for a successor. I even asked a Japanese consultant to help, but I cannot find one. I want the successor to be Japanese – it doesn’t matter if it’s an internal or external appointment. Maybe it could be someone from Hon Hai even. They should be able to manage in the current harsh environment, covering a wide range of businesses and find synergy with Hon Hai. It is the second criterion that makes finding the right person difficult.”

Japanese managers became bureaucrats

“It used to be that Japanese management of factories and businesses were strong, and my teachers were all Japanese. But then Japan went into a recession and the founder managers all disappeared, and managers became bureaucrats. That is why management strength declined. Japan is now only strong in parts and materials. ”

Sharp’s employee levels are back to the same as before the management crisis. “There were two early retirement drives during the crisis, and a lot of good people left. Those who remained when I joined the company in 2016 were one of three types – highly capable and loyal, those who couldn’t find another place to go and those where were waiting to be pushed. I actually never cut employees. In fact we need to increase our employees – we had some influxes from when we took over Toshiba’s PC business and other M&A.”

“I am not a god, I just improved everything step by step”

“I renegotiated the contracts for solar battery procurement and saved around $100m. I have also brought the Sharp brand back in house for the US TV production business. A brand is like a person’s name. Selling it is wrong. During the crisis Sharp sold off its precious buildings for $188m and then spent $30m on out of date computing. I am not a god, I just improved everything step by step. I was taught to do Horenso (keeping bosses in the loop) and check everything thoroughly, not just sign off easily by Japanese teachers.”

I am now promoting management based on data, and a shift to B2B (business to business). B2C (consumer) business is currently 65% of our turnover, I want to make it 50/50. The structure of trade in B2C is unfair – companies like ours in a free trade country have to compete with state owned companies who don’t have to invest or write off so much. That is why Japan’s IT/electronic companies’ share is falling – it’s a structural problem. In B2B it is a fairer fight. W have built a good ecosysytem over many years, so we have a good chance.

A Rising Sun Alliance of Japanese electronics companies

“I think there should be a Rising Sun Alliance of Japanese companies. There are a lot of Japanese electronics manufacturers but I don’t see that they will merge -t here is too much pride. I do have to be careful as Hon Hai is not a Japanese company. I am reflecting every day on how to manage employees. If I am criticised, it is not just my, but Taiwan’s pride at stake.”

“Sharp will last over 100 years. It is a treasure of Japan. I would like the brand to last another 100 years. I come to the office every day before 7:00am and give a bow to the statues of the founders in the front entrance. Sharp is a treasure to me too.”

Nikkei Business comments that there is no doubting his sincerity and dedication – apparently he lives in a single man’s dormitory and walks round the factory at 5am in the morning thinking about Sharp. He is at pains to seem almost more Japanese than the Japanese in this. But, the Nikkei wonders, will this be enough to succeed in the new territory for him and Sharp of B2B platform business.