Japanese Business Blog - Rudlin Consulting

Hitachi’s new risk management

Up until now, Hitachi’s risk management team was mainly centered on the legal department – which I suspect is probably the case in most Japanese companies. Now Hitachi’s President Keiji Kojima has added the finance department to it, wanting the company to take a more proactive approach to global risks. The aim is to visualize risks – such as the impact of the economic slowdown in Europe due to the Ukraine crisis and soaring component costs due to inflation – and respond quickly.

When Russia invaded Ukraine, GlobalLogic was empowered to act quickly to evacuate 7,200 local employees in the country – and was told that they could put off contacting Japan HQ until later. By the end of April, remote working and overseas bases had been put in place and the operations were back up to 95% level.

Hitachi’s overseas business has expanded recently thanks to the acquisition of US company GlobalLogic and the power grids business of ABB, now Hitachi Energy.

Strengthening the risk management system is one response to this, along with introducing a global standard job description system to the Japanese organisation, aiming to have 30% women and 30% non-Japanese representation ont he board by 2030, aiming for zero carbon by 2050. Five out of the 9 external directors are non-Japanese.

Hitachi has learnt from past failures in overseas expansion, such as the Horizon Nuclear Power project in the UK, and the failure of a joint venture thermal power project in South Africa.

These changes have impacted the way the board operates. Now, when an executive officer reports that a plan has not been achieved, the non-Japanese directors respond “so?” – by which they mean, don’t just report the result, tell me what you are going to do next. A former external director of Hitachi, Harufumi Mochizuki comments in the Nikkei that “thanks to training by foreign directors, the executive officers have acquired a world class management style, and the ability to action, with a sense of speed.”

The next challenge for Hitachi will be to make the best use of the global human resources that it now has thanks to its acquisitions. Only three of Hitachi’s 34 executive officers are non-Japanese. The Nikkei comments that these changes are very much in line with the vision of Mr Nakanishi, the former President and Chairman who died in 2021, for an organisation with world class leaders who can respond quickly to global risks.

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The inside story on how Mitsubishi Chemical selected a non-Japanese president

“Many Japanese executives are unable to think critically”, says Hashimoto Takayuki, an external director (ex IBM Japan) and chairman of the nomination committee of Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings, in a recent interview with Diamond Online.

“There is no right answer to how to manage a business now” he adds. The traditional Japanese model of low-cost, high quality, on-time delivery, based on conventional mass production methods is no longer sufficient. “There is a need for management that resolves conflicts, balancing social and economic benefits, such as carbon neutrality.” So it is not enough for a President or CEO to just have the traditional ability to sell as well as a top sales person or have a great track record as a factory manager.

Japanese people are not very good at managing subsidiaries acquired overseas

“Broadly speaking, the president has three duties. The first is the corporate branding of the company – the “purpose” that is attracting so much attention recently. The second is portfolio management – business consolidation. An appropriate business structure has to be built, in line with trends such as ESG. The third is global governance. Japanese people are not very good at managing subsidiaries acquired overseas, but it is an essential skill for a global company.”

“I believe that people who are future presidents/CEOS will need to be educated within a special track in the company, as a profession, much as you would with marketing or sales. They need to have assignments which will stretch them, such as developing an overseas business from scratch, or rebuilding a poorly perfoming subsidiary.

This is why the top person from within was not selected to become the President, because they had not been educated in management. There were many excellent performers heading up business divisions, but whether they can become President is another matter.

We asked a headhunter to produce a long list of candidates to be President – there were more than 30, including people from outside Japan. The shortlist had 4 people from outside the company, outside Japan, and 3 people who were in-house candidates.

Why an external, non-Japanese candidate was selected

“Mr Gilson gave a good impression of deep understanding of Mitsubishi Chemical’s vision of KAITEKI management. Other people wanted to change this vision as soon as possible, but that was not the kind of successor we were seeking. Also, external candidates may want to bring in a team they are familiar with, but Mr Gilson clearly said he would prioritise teamwork with the current management members.”

Furthermore, during the interview, Mr Gilson summarized his business improvement ideas in a proposal of 2 sides of an A4 and presented them. The proposal was accurate, but above all, it showed a passionate intent.

There were some concerns, as Jean Marc Gilson‘s previous company (Roquette Freres) had sales of several hundred billion yen, compared to Mitsubishi Chemical sales of nearly 4 trillion yen.

Avoiding backlash

“I expected a certain amount of backlash within the company, but I’ve heard that actually there was a more welcoming atmosphere amongst the younger employees. After all, the younger the person, the stronger the desire for change.

Having the former chairman of Mitsubishi Chemical (and the person who came up with the KAITEKI vision), Yoshimitsu Kobayashi on the nomination committee was also a big factor. It was the first time Mitsubishi Chemical appointed a president through a nomination committee, so there was a risk that a decision made solely by people with no experience of Mitsubishi Chemical would not be seen as valid.

Mr Hashimoto still thinks that it is best if the President has been developed within the company, but it takes time to reform internal systems and culture. If this is not worked on right now, the company will never change.

Top 30 Japanese employers in the Netherlands 2022

While there is no doubt that Japanese companies have expanded at a very high rate these past few years in the Netherlands, measuring this in terms of numbers of employees or companies has become increasingly complex.

Partly this is due to the large proportion of potentially “brass plate” type Japanese companies, with no employees in the Netherlands – often the regional holding company for a group of companies. Partly it is due to the lack of disclosure – information on companies in the Netherlands does not seem to be as readily available as it is in the UK, where data on Companies House can be freely accessed. As a result, even when an employee figure is disclosed for a Japanese company in the Netherlands, it can sometimes turn out to be the employee total for the whole of the European or EMEA region. The Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs data also shows this in the large number of Japanese companies it labels “uncategorised.”

With those caveats in mind, we have attempted a Top 30 largest employers for the Netherlands – downloadable for free below. If you would like a more detailed, company by company analysis, giving all 123 companies within the 30 corporate groups, and their size where available, this is available as a pdf for £9.99/€12. Please contact us for payment via PayPal.

Look out for the regional headquarters

The pdf also indicates whether a company is the regional headquarters. Whether you’re targetting Japanese companies as potential customers or employers, it is important to understand this, as the regional headuarters tend to be where the decision makers, big budgets and the most interesting career paths will be based. The number of Japanese expatriates in the country is also an indication of where the decision making influencers are. Although the Netherlands is only the 5th largest host of Japanese nationals in Europe, after the UK, Germany, France and Italy, this number has grown 41% since 2015.

Services is the growth sector

It’s also useful to know which sectors and companies are growing – for the Netherlands the main focus is services – financial services such as Orix (who acquired Dutch asset management company Robeco), logistics companies such as Yusen Logistics, in the NYK group, and recruitment and staffing companies – Outsourcing Inc and Recruit Holdings have both grown rapidly recently through acquisitions of Otto Workforce and USG People. Mitsubishi Corporation shot to near the top of the Top 30 with its acquisition of Dutch energy company ENECO in 2020.

Overall growth picture

As a result of this growth, we estimate there are now around 566 Japanese companies (excluding minority stake holdings and brass plates with no employees) in the Netherlands. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs data records 673 Japanese businesses (including joint ventures, equity stakes), an 86% increase on 2015.

The companies we have identified employ around 48,000 people, a 29% increase on 2017/8 – the vast majority (39,000) of whom work for the Top 30 employers in the Netherlands. Japanese companies in the UK, by comparison, employ around 170-180,000 people, and there has been a slight decline in numbers over the past 5 years.

Top 30 Japanese Employers in the Netherlands 2022

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Retirement systems in Japan – under revision but but lacking clarity

I am sometimes asked in my training sessions what the retirement age and policy is in Japan, and I usually say something about how it is very similar to the UK, with the government raising the pension age from 60 to 65, and as of April 2021 to 70, and then move swiftly on, because I know the reality is far more complex.

Companies in Japan were meant to offer three options to their employees who have reached 60 – retirement at 65 or “continued employment” meaning flexible working on a yearly contract basis to 65 or dropping the mandated retirement age altogether. Further options have been added in 2021 of offering work to employees as freelancers, and assisting/subsidizing employees to work for not for profit organisations. Continued employment has proved to be the most popular choice amongst Japanese companies.

Trading company retirees “spectacularly well treated”

Diamond Online has taken a look recently at the current retirement policies in trading companies Itochu, Mitsubishi, Toyota Tsusho, Mitsui and Sumitomo Corporation. Japan’s trading companies are well known to have very high salaries compared to other large Japanese companies, earning around Y0.5bn (US$3.7m) in a lifetime, or around Y15m/US$112,000 a year on average. A mandatory retirement system “would be a big blow” to those on high salaries, so some trading companies have abolished a mandatory retirement system, but now there is fierce competition amongst employees for positions under the new system.

Around 20-30% of employees at trading companies stay on after retirement age (around 58) but they are often seconded to subsidiaries. Annual income drops by 30-40%. Mitsubishi Corporation has abolished its retirement age system for senior executives, but after the age of 60, senior executives are being treated like those who are not in managerial posts – offered the option of re-employment on a yearly contract until 65. A more meritocratic system had been introduced in 2019, which has meant that even though people in their 30s can become department managers, (apparently around 10 people have achieved this in 3 years), managers in their late 50s no longer have mandated retirement, so if they are high performers, they can continue to work, in effect causing more competition for top management jobs for those in the ranks below, who are also watching their backs for the younger higher performers.

At Itochu there are fixed retirement ages dependent on position for executive officers – 65 for the president and vice presidents, 62 for managing directors and 60 for executive officers, but no mandatory retirement age otherwise. Sumitomo Corp has a principle of retirement at 60 for managerial positions but no mandatory system. Salaries for post retirement positions are set according to actual duties, rather than the position the person had achieved before retirement.

Mitsui does not disclose any specific ages for retirement (but you bet Mitsui employees all know what they are). Once removed from managerial duties, they will be paid the same salary as employees who are not in managerial positions, and are a similar cohort, through seniority based promotion. Mitsui also has a temporary secondment scheme, where employees in their late 50s are posted back to the Mitsui mothership, and attempts are made to match them to another company for secondment.

Sony’s harsh system

Sony introduced a mandatory retirement age system in 2013, at the time that President Kazuo Hirai restructured the electronics business. Managerial staff at the time accounted for around 40% of all employees, with a high average age and salary. Sony’s retirement system is a harsh system says Diamond Online, that targets all managers below the division manager and downgrades them to regular employees. They cite the case of a general manager who retired from his position at the age of 55 and dropped three ranks as a consequence. His Y13m salary is now Y10m. This reduction was not just because of the drop in rank. Sony has bonuses that are highly influenced by evaluations, and the GM was evaluated very negatively by his new younger bosses. Sony has achieved its original goal of reducing the absolute number of managers and their average age. However the system is now being abolished at several subsidiaries, in favour of a personnel system that is not bound by seniority.

Will a job based system fit Panasonic’s culture?

Panasonic abolished mandatory retirement for managerial positions in 2022 and is intending to introduce a job based personnel system (where salaries are based on job content). The details have not yet been decided, so for the time being, managers who have reached 60 can be re-employed, on annual contract basis, as a part timer, until the age of 65. Diamond Online comments that it is unclear if this job-based system will fit Panasonic’s culture of a membership based organisation, based on seniority and lifetime employment, and whether it will lead to a generational change.

Other electronics companies are more clearcut – for Fujifilm, section chiefs must retire when they reach 55, department managers when they reach 57 and 58 for divisional managers. At Casio, although there is a retirement age system for executives, the actual situation is very flexible, and salaries are not much reduced. At Omron there are exceptions to the retirement age system “because there are no successors.”

The retirement age systems that were introduced 10 or so years ago are now being revised, but where they will end up is still not clear.

The post-Brexit branchification of the UK for Japanese companies in Europe

The latest Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs data reveal that the number of Japanese businesses in the EU rose a further 2% from 2020 to 2021, to 8,464, up 28% on ten years ago. The only EU country to show any decline was Belgium. The picture for the UK is rather different – an 11% decrease on ten years ago, from 1,083 businesses to 960. There has been a slight pick up in the past two years, from a low of 951 in 2019.

The branchification of the UK

Digging further into the detail – and comparing the UK to other major hosts of Japanese companies such as Germany, France and the Netherlands – reveals some possible factors in this divergence. The numbers of businesses started in the UK by Japanese nationals showed the biggest decline. This could be because the businesses were bought out, the founder retired and shut down the company – or perhaps became British.

There is also a confirmation of a trend we noticed previously, that the number of subsidiaries incorporated in the UK has fallen, but at the same time there has been an increase in the number of UK branches of European subsidiaries of Japanese companies. This probably includes those operations which were incorporated subsidiaries but have now become branches of the European HQ in Germany or the Netherlands – such as Sony, Panasonic, Nikon, Bridgestone and Alps Alpine.

Switching to becoming a branch was partly a reaction to Brexit but in the former two cases may also have been a precautionary measure because of the change in Japanese tax haven laws. As we noted previously, the UK’s 2016 “open for global business” announcement that the corporation tax rate would fall to 17% in 2020 (it didn’t) would have meant that revenue from dividends and royalties received in the UK would be considered as tax avoidance by the Japanese tax authorities.

The decline in Japanese businesses in the UK had set in as early as 2012, long before Brexit, but accelerated after Brexit – it precipitated trends that were already there, and prompted Japanese companies to do some long overdue regional consolidation and tidying up.

This branchification of the UK and regional consolidation is reflected in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs data for Germany – the number of branches of Japan HQ in Germany has fallen by 45% and the number of incorporated subsidiaries has risen by 21% over the past 10 years. There has also been a significant decline, as in the UK, of the number of businesses started by Japanese nationals resident in Germany.

As for the Netherlands, there has been a quintupling of the number of business classified as “uncategorised” from 61 in 2015 to 393 in 2021. These may be brass plate type holding companies. All other categories (incorporated subsidiaries, branches of regional subsidiaries and joint ventures/investments) have increased as well, apart from branches of Japan HQ (which may have now become subsidiaries) and those started by Japanese nationals in the Netherlands. There was an overall rise of 86% of Japanese businesses in the Netherlands since 2015.

Cars for cheese?

The number of Japanese companies in France only increased by 3% since 2015, but this conceals significant changes in the composition of those businesses – the number of branches of Japan HQ has dropped 45%, the number of incorporated subsidiaries has also fallen, by 31%, whereas there has been a significant increase in joint ventures and part investments, as well as businesses started by Japanese nationals in France. This is particularly marked since 2019, when the EU-Japan Economic Partnership agreement entered into force. Perhaps the “cars for cheese” deal encouraged Japanese nationals to set up food exporting businesses in France.

* Some notes on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs data: “Companies” include branches of the Japanese parent company, subsidiaries incorporated in Europe, branches of those subsidiaries, companies started overseas by Japanese nationals and joint ventures/investments of 10% or more equity stake. There is no detailed break down by type of organisation for 2018, when MoFA changed their methodology.

Japanese employees don’t want to study or go abroad

Japanese employees don’t want to study or go abroad and don’t like their current employer very much either. But at the same time, very few are considering changing jobs. These were some of the conclusions from a recent Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry report (Vision for Human Resources of the Future).

Further depressing conclusions were:

Japan is not attracting highly skilled labour from abroad
The level of employee engagement is one of the lowest in the world
Japanese general managers are earning less than their Thai peers
Japan is bottom of the league with regard to investing in human resources
Japan’s workforce is losing its competitiveness
The number of Japanese people studying abroad is decreasing
The proportion of graduate recruits who do not want to work overseas is increasing
Most senior managers worked their way up the company and tend to be very similar to each other
The number of women in executive and management positions is still very low

Consultant Dr Kawai Kaoru criticises this report in the Nikkei Online, asking what the point of it is, and who it is addressed to. The conclusions are well known, and have appeared in previous reports over the years. If the message is how important it is to invest in your people, surely if this is news to any company, that company is on the road to bankruptcy anyway, she argues.

Kawai thinks the money spent on the 109 page report would have been better used elsewhere. For a start, she thinks the civil service ought to get its own house in order. 50% of the staff at the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare are on temporary contracts, and 50% of unemployment counsellors are also on temporary contracts. The civil service is also suffering from low employee engagement. This, and many of the other issues raised above may sound wearily familiar to readers in the UK.

Top Japanese companies for improvement in women in management

Toyo Keizai has taken a look at which Japanese companies have most improved the percentage of women in management over the past ten years. Unsurprisingly, those companies who had the best existing pipeline of women – in life insurance and retail – have been able to make the biggest strides.

Life insurance companies in Japan traditionally employed women as salespeople, who were allowed into offices and left fliers, business cards and sweets on your desk if you were absent. Meiji Yasuda, Asahi, Daiichi, and Nippon have all increased the proportion of women in management from only a few percent in 2011 to between a fifth and a third of managers in 2021.

Other financial services companies such as Resona, the smaller regional banks, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust, Mitsubishi HC Capital, Daiwa Securities, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group and MUFG are also in the 50 most improved. Non-financial companies in the top 50 include Astellas Pharmaceuticals, Sony and Bandai Namco.

Appearing in the bottom of the top 50 only requires a 10% improvement over the past 10 years, and 20 out of the top 50 most improved companies still have only 10-20% of managers who are female. The pipeline contains only a trickle for many.

Top earning executives in Japan 2022

As in previous years, the top earning executives in Japan over the past year include many non-Japanese people. At number 1 is Shin Jingho, Korean founder of Line (Japanese messaging app), far outstripping all the other big earners, pulling in US$315m to March 2022. He moved to Japan in 2008 to turn around parent company Naver’s websearch business, and somewhat alarmingly, claims to have learnt Japanese by watching gangster movies.

At number 2 is Kurotsuchi Hajime, the 100 year old chairman of Daiichi Koutsu Sangyo, a taxi and real estate firm in Kyushu. He has just announced he is retiring and intending to start a foundation for small to medium sized businesses. Perhaps that is where some of his US$138 million earnings will be going.

Yoshida Kenichiro, CEO of Sony, is the third highest earner, on US$137m. Christophe Weber, French CEO of Takeda Pharma is at #4 with US$135m. Kawai Toshiki, CEO of Tokyo Electron is in 5th place with US$121m.

Nikkei points out that the number of executives earning over Y100m a year (US$728,000) has increased to 652, 105 up on the previous year, the highest number in 3 years. It sees this as proof that Japanese executive compensation is shifting towards Western standards. With the top 5 including two Japanese executives who are not also founders (Yoshida and Kawai), this does seem to show a move away from the usual rule in long standing blue chip companies that the president should only earn around 10 to 20 times the average salary (around US$40,000).

Hitachi has the highest number of executives (18) earning over Y100m a year, then MUFG with 13, Toshiba also with 13 (presumably danger money for being associated with it), Mitsui & Co (9), Daiwa Securities (9), Tokyo Electron (8), Mitsui Real Estate (8) and Bandai Namco (8). Companies with 7 Y100m earners are Daikin, Sompo, Fujifilm, Nissan and Nomura.

Non-Japanese executives resident in Japan in the Y100m club include Simon Segars at SoftBank (British former CEO of ARM), Andrew Plump at Takeda, James Kuffner Chief Digital Officer at Toyota, James Shea at Sompo International, He Xian Han at Ferrotec, Costa Saroukos CFO Takeda Pharma, Stefan Kaufmann, CAO Olympus, Rony Kahan, Recruit (founder of Indeed), Eric Johnson, CEO of semi conductor company JSR, John Marotta former CEO of PHC (was Panasonic Healthcare) holdings and Alistair Dormer, former board director of Hitachi.

Top 30 Japanese Employers in Italy 2022

The 30 largest Japanese company groups in Italy employ around 30,000 people across 85 companies in 2022, a 4% increase on 2021. This represents around two-thirds of the total number employed by Japanese companies in Italy.

Some of this growth was driven by acquisition – for example the Hitachi group of companies (the second largest Japanese employer in Italy) now includes Hitachi Energy, as a result of Hitachi’s acquisition of ABB’s power grids business. Yamaha Motor has also acquired Motori Minarelli.

The workforce of the largest Japanese employer in Italy, the NTT group of companies, has grown organically by 5.75% and Toyota Industries/Toyota Material Handling also has grown substantially.

Automotive related companies such as Denso, AGC and NSG (the latter two making automotive glass) have shrunk slightly but tyre manufacturer Bridgestone has grown. Other manufacturers such as Princes (foods company owned by Mitsubishi Corporation) and Ebara Pumps have cut back their workforce.

The top 30 company groups can be downloaded for free below. We can provide more detail on the 85 companies within the Top 30 – each company name in full and employee total per company (a truer indicator of size of the company than turnover in our opinion) for £9.99 – please email us for a PayPal invoice.

Top 30 Japanese Employers in Italy 2022

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Top 30 Japanese Employers in Germany – 2022

The latest top 30 Japanese employers for Germany (download available below) show that even in manufacturing centric Germany, services are beginning to dominate. Outsourcing, a recruitment and staffing company are now the largest Japanese company in Germany, replacing Sumitomo Electric Industries, thanks to their acquisition of Orizon in 2017.

We have shifted Sumitomo Electric Industries from the top spot to #23 – not because they have laid a large number of people off, but because we suspect that previous data regarding employee numbers contained a large proportion who were working in SEI factories outside of Germany. We have had similar issues with the data for Panasonic and LIXIL.

NTT has risen from #3 to #2 although it seems to have shed a few employees – conversely, Fujitsu has dropped from #2 to #4 as the consequences of closing the factory in Augsburg and other restructuring have fed through. DMG Mori may have expanded by over a third (but this could be double counting problems again, as there are around 20 DMG Mori subsidiaries in Germany), and is now the third largest Japanese employer in Germany, with 5,800 employees.

There is an increasing issue with disclosure and therefore verifying employee numbers – particularly with companies like Sony who have restructured their European organisation so that many of their subsidiaries are branches. We’ve put Sony at #30, with 1000 employees, but it probably has more than that.

Hitachi has grown by over 1,000 employees due to the acquisition of the power grids business from ABB, now renamed Hitachi Energy and is the 8th biggest Japanese employer in Germany as a result.

If you would like more detail on the 206 companies included in the top 30 company groups of employers, each with full company name and employee number, for £19.99, please contact us.

Top 30 Japanese Employers in Germany 2022

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