Horiba ( Apr 26 2011)

We met a Senior Corporate Officer at Horiba who worked in France for several years.  

The HORIBA Group of worldwide companies provides an extensive array of instruments and systems for applications ranging from automotive R&D, process and environmental monitoring, in-vitro medical diagnostics, semiconductor manufacturing and metrology, to a broad range of scientific R&D and QC measurements. Proven quality and trustworthy performance have established widespread confidence in the HORIBA Brand ( copied from the official website) 

Topics : Current status of the Groupe activities and Learn Concerns for M&A practices 

Especially we were inspired by his experiences of M&A practices in France. 

Corporate  Operation 

-Share future vision, objectives, and strategies

-The "raison d'être" of acquired company 

-Powers and Responsibility of Executives of acquired company

-Gouvernance by HQ

-Respect way of working of the French side

-Strong protection of labor and laborer 

He said " The important thing is to make a good agreement of the management style before the acquisition." 

At the entrance Hall with Mr.Nakamine ( right) and Mr.Okada ( left)

Laboratory Tour

                                                                      Conference by Mr.Nakamine

We were invited for the lunch. 

Wacoal

We met a Business Promotion Manager from WACOAL Company. WACOAL is a worldwide company, l, with 17 000 employees, and sells underwears in about 50 countries and areas- through 50 overseas companies. The firm  had been created in 1949. We came to the headquarter first.  

We learend the copany history, business model and international strategy, especially their experience in France.

He gave us also a conference that he prepared to answer all the questions we raised about the Japanese way of management :
-Characteristic of the Japanese way of doing Japanese business    

- Seniority system and lifetime employment

- Management approach to young generation-     

 - Developpment of Human Ressources, Payroll-      

- Female Managers situation    He gave us his point of view on all these topics.

Other French colleauges at University will see the answers through our presentation in June.

Then, we visited an exhibit that deals with the evolution of the body measurement system. The company ‘s been using a very sophisticated laser system to measure the average body size amoung thousands of people.   We learned that the human morphology evolved during the last century. Morphology is not the only environmental factor that the company has to face : the underwear market depends on people’s taste : the fashion. The company must study the way people want to be dressed in each country.  We saw another exhibit that shows the underwears from the beginning of the company to the latest technological product. It was the most surprising moment of the visit : from the basic products of the past, then we saw very fashionable and attractive underwears. The latest underwears are aimed at decreasing the body fat.

We also visited KCI ( The Kyoto Coustume Institute) systematically collects and preserves outstanding examples of western clothing through the centuries, as well as the documents and other items related to this area of study. We met a French speaking person who translate the explanation of their activity. It was very intersting to see thier western clothing collection there.

http://www.kci.or.jp/mission/index_e.html

As a conclusion, WACOAL proved us that a company in a worldwide market  has to take the local needs into consideration, has to be consistent with environmental factors and open-minded when it comes to the functions of a product. ( written by J.Abeille) 

Our itinerary

The ininerary of our trip was as following :

Day 1 ( Kyoto) : Executive seminar at Doshisha University and Kodokan ( the ceremony)
Day 2 ( Kyoto) : Company visits : Horiba, Yoshichu mannequin and Hattori Orimono
Day 3 ( Kyoto) : Company visit : Wacoal
Day 4 ( Osaka) : Panasonic museum and Pasasonic center
Day 5 ( Tokyo) : Free day in Tokyo

Corporate Sociale Responsibility

Through the seminar of Pr Yamaguchi, I came up to feel the fear about the system of the creation of a top management in Japan.  

If you work for a company, you might have struggled with what is right (the justice) and what is wrong.

In reality, the winner is not always the person who is saying the right thing. Sometimes, the person who insists on their justice is faded away by force of authority. Were there this type of people in these companies? We never know.  

Pr.Yamaguchi says that the origin of the problem of the accident of Japan Railway in 2005 and the problem of Tepco about the nuclear plant is the same. Japanese companies are committing the same error for a long time. How many time we heard the word that   “It was not anticipated”. It could have been proved scientifically. The lack of the competence of the scientific consideration. The Japanese organisation needs to reinforce the management of the technology. Our humain assets are reputable in the world, but I think that Japan has passed too much time to creat " high average people", not the specialist.

The top management didn’t really know that the problem could be happened?

Pr.Yamaguchi will publish un article about the nuclear crisis in a magazine very soon ( maybe next week?).

I would like to share his opinion after the publishing of the article. Our French colleagues had a chanche to hear about it before!

What is real corporate social responsibility?

It is not only to do a tree-planting campaign in China and Africa.

The policy should be prioritize the sincere compensation to the causalities as he mentioned.   

My thoughts ( by Mika)

Before publishing the articles about the companies we have visited, I would like to share my thoughts thorough our stay.

This study trip should have been run by our French university. But it got to be a “private trip” because of what happened in Japan. The university couldn’t give us the "official" authorization to go there. That’s why I don’t mention the name of the university. I respect this decision totally.  

However, we got a chance to go " unofficial way" and the half of the expected particpants ( 9 from 17) has decided to go to Japan. It was very difficult to make a decision to go there during the uncertain situation in Fukushima. But nine students decided to go there to see Japan with their eyes. Some people might have said that we were crazy, but we thought about the Japanese people who are living there and we knew that the entire Japan was not contaminated.

And also, we went there because we have a reason to precede our study trip.

We started our trip from Kyoto, and we went to Osaka and Tokyo.

Even if Tokyo is 250km far away from Fukushima and the Japanese government affirmed the security of the capital, I canceled some company visits in Tokyo and stayed only one day for the official program for the security season of our participants.   

I could organize this trip and take my French colleges by grace of many helps of Japanese people. I have too many people to mention their names. But I really appreciate to have received us. Many thanks to them.  

Our trip was finished with the safety. But Japan is still struggling for the nuclear problem and many people are involved in solving the problem.

I am sure that my country will overcome this situation.

I would like to send a message to French people that they shouldn’t keep having a dangeours image to Japan.

I didn’t see many foreigners in Kyoto and Tokyo as usual although these are the places where we have a lot of tourists. According to the Kyoto city, there are only 10% of foreign visitors compared to the last year.

I hope that the foreigners will come back to Japan again and I will continue to involve myself in making French people go to Japan.  

Now I have already gotten a testimony from my French colleges.

Visits the companies

We visited also various Japanese companies in Kyoto and Osaka.
The articles and photos will be cominf soon. ( Mika)

diaporama Japanese monuments and landscape

a selection of the most beautiful pictures. We had opportunities during the week to visit famous buildings, temples and discover spectacular landscapes.