Rudlin Consulting Rudlin Consulting
  • About
  • Services
  • Blog
  • Clients
  • Publications
  • Contact us
  • Privacy
  • English
  • About
  • Services
  • Blog
  • Clients
  • Publications
  • Contact us
  • Privacy
  • English
  •  

sanyo

Home / Posts Tagged "sanyo"

Tag: sanyo

“Without competition, people will not develop”

Japanese construction materials and sanitary fittings manufacturer LIXIL is an example of a Japanese company that has deliberately tried to introduce a spirit of competitiveness into the company, following its acquisition of American Standard and Grohe. A German now runs a division, and many Japanese now have foreign bosses. LIXIL’s CEO Yoshiaki Fujimori says in a recent Nikkei Business article “There is no real competition inside Japanese companies. The benchmarks for evaluating employees are vague, and people are assessed on whether they are good relationship builders or come from the same background. At the very least, with a foreigner as a leader, baseless evaluation criteria will no longer be accepted.”

Fujimori is himself unusual in that he started out at Nissho Iwai (now Sojitz) and then became the first Japanese to be an EVP at General Electric, before joining LIXIL in 2011. He underwent a typical egalitarian Japanese education, graduating from Tokyo University in 1975, but even at Nissho Iwai he thought he could beat most people in terms of performance. However when he studied for an MBA he found out what real competition was like. He found it painful that other students could express their opinions so easily when he could not say anything. So he devised a study routine of making himself review the day in 1 minute every day, and then listen to himself, 30 times a day. It was even worse at GE, he claims, where you always have to win every battle. “If you lose once, you lose your job.”  At LIXIL he has tried to quantify job roles in order to set performance evaluation standards and introduced Executive Leadership Training.

Another executive in the same mould as Fujimori is Yoshiaki Itoh. Born in Thailand, and a graduate of Thunderbird Business School, he has worked at Dell, Lenovo, Adidas Japan and Sony Pictures Entertainment, before becoming CEO of Haier Asia.  At Haier he was shocked to find that the Sanyo (their white goods business in Asia was acquired by Haier) ‘super egalitarian’ legacy lived on – there were 14 grade levels, and everyone took an exam every two years in order to be promoted. It was not possible to jump a grade, so to get to a management position would take nearly 20 years, no matter how good you were.

Itoh cut the 14 levels to 5 and made it possible to become a team leader without any reference to age.  He also went round South East Asia, and sent 20 of the 40 Japanese expatriates back to Japan.  He also intends to make the R&D centre stand on its own two feet.  “Japanese companies have not grasped the fact that competitiveness is necessary to win on the global stage” Itoh says.  He is intending to further clear out remaining notions of “competition avoidance” and “everyone the same”.

For more content like this, subscribe to the free Rudlin Consulting Newsletter. 最新の在欧日系企業の状況については無料の月刊Rudlin Consulting ニューズレターにご登録ください。

Share Button
Read More

Last updated by Pernille Rudlin at 2021-10-12.

Search

Recent Posts

  • What is a Japanese company anyway?
  • Largest Japan owned companies in the UK – 2024
  • Japanese companies in the UK 20 years on
  • Australia overtakes China as second largest host of Japanese nationals living overseas
  • Japanese financial services companies in the UK and EMEA after Brexit

Categories

  • Africa
  • Brexit
  • China and Japan
  • Corporate brands, values and mission
  • Corporate culture
  • Corporate Governance
  • cross cultural awareness
  • CSR
  • customer service
  • Digital Transformation
  • Diversity & Inclusion
  • European companies in Japan
  • European identity
  • Foreign Direct Investment
  • Globalization
  • History of Japanese companies in UK
  • Human resources
  • Innovation
  • Internal communications
  • Japanese business etiquette
  • Japanese business in Europe
  • Japanese customers
  • M&A
  • Management and Leadership
  • Marketing
  • Middle East
  • negotiation
  • Presentation skills
  • Reputation
  • Seminars
  • speaker events
  • Sustainability
  • Trade
  • Uncategorized
  • Virtual communication
  • webinars
  • Women in Japanese companies
  • Working for a Japanese company

RSS Rudlin Consulting

  • What is a Japanese company anyway?
  • Largest Japan owned companies in the UK – 2024
  • Japanese companies in the UK 20 years on
  • Australia overtakes China as second largest host of Japanese nationals living overseas
  • Japanese financial services companies in the UK and EMEA after Brexit
  • The history of Japanese financial services companies in the UK and EMEA
  • Reflections on the past forty years of Japanese business in the UK – what’s next? – 7
  • Reflections on the past forty years of Japanese business in the UK – what’s next? – 6
  • Reflections on the past forty years of Japanese business in the UK – what’s next? – 5
  • Kubota to build excavator factory in Germany

Search

Affiliates

Japan Intercultural Consulting

Cross cultural awareness training, coaching and consulting. 異文化研修、エグゼクティブ・コーチング と人事コンサルティング。

Subscribe to our newsletter

Recent Blogposts

  • What is a Japanese company anyway?
  • Largest Japan owned companies in the UK – 2024
  • Japanese companies in the UK 20 years on
  • Australia overtakes China as second largest host of Japanese nationals living overseas
  • Japanese financial services companies in the UK and EMEA after Brexit

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org
Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy

Web Development: counsell.com

We use cookies to personalize content and ads, to provide social media features, and to analyze our traffic. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising, and analytics partners.