Matsui Chusan: Analyzing The Serious Contradictions Between Muji And The Parent Company

According to the world clothing shoes and hats net,

In 2001, it lost 1 billion yen (about 5 million 680 thousand yuan), and Japan once said that "Muji is no longer a good thing".

After Matsui Chusan took office, he made a profit in two years and set a record of 141 billion yen (about 8 billion 10 million yuan) in 2005.

MUJI's business philosophy

MUJI is a product created by Xi you group in 1980.

From the very beginning, it has its own idea. This basic concept is called "cheap reason", which provides the same quality as department stores, but only sells 70% of the price. This is the clear positioning of Muji from its birth.

MUJI is a brand with its own values. Japanese plation means that "I only produce products that I can see and need."

Chinese means "product development based on product standard".

So Muji packaging and brand are very simple. Muji wants to realize that when consumers get this product and touch the material, they can identify it. It is Muji.

We hope to speak in the product itself and compete with others in the product itself. This is the philosophy of Muji.

Product selfish departmentalism is to do only the real product itself, not to do anything fancy.

During the economic slowdown in Japan in the '70' s, many department stores owned their own brands. So far, only the MUJI products have been left.

The biggest reason why Muji can make today is that we have our own brand positioning and philosophy.

Another reason for Muji's success at that time was the introduction of the concept of SPA (the full name SpecialityretailerofPrivatelabelApparel, the private brand retailer business model). The retail industry before it was called a store, selling other brands, and selling it after purchase, and the profit was very low.

MUJI has realized that it is necessary to sell its own brand in the store, and design and process it itself.

A retail companies participates in the upstream.

And manufacturing, plation is called SPA, this format profit is much higher.

At present, the global retail industry is not very prosperous. Careful observation of some good companies, such as UNIQLO, H&M, ZARA and IKEA, are all SPA's retail formats.

Three reasons for the crisis

The first ten years after the establishment of Muji was a smooth development period. In the tenth year, the first profit fell. The crisis began in 2000, increased further in 2001, and halved regular profits. The current profits almost came to the first deficit in the first half of 02001.

In this case, I was appointed by the company to be the president of the company, starting from the profit of 0, leading the Muji back.

There was a chief stock market analyst at Japan who said to me, "Mr. Matsui, there are no examples of Japan's professionalization of stores, once the decline has been able to rally, so I hope you will cheer up."

This is the first sentence he told me.

The second sentence is: in the department store, it takes three years to recover after the decline.

At that time, there was a Japanese department store called "San Yue" department store, and it was also reformed after being in trouble. It took three years to see the effect.

After thinking for a long time, I found that the most fundamental problem of Muji is the serious contradiction between corporate culture and parent company.

1, the contradiction between perceptual and rational culture.

First of all, Muji is a brand of Xi you group. The subsidiary company is a very large enterprise group, besides Muji, as well as Xi you, Xi Wu and the whole family.

The boss of Xi you group is very sentimental. Its seamount department store was originally the only three department store in Japan. The boss suddenly wondered how WAL-MART did the best in the world. So she went to Europe and moved all the top brands in Europe to sewu department store. The company of West Wu rose from three to first-class.

This is a very emotional boss, so the corporate culture is also very emotional.

MUJI is a company that needs to operate in a scientific way. The concept of design and operation of all products needs to be scientific, which conflicts with the parent company group.

Moreover, Muji highlighted the chain brand, which is also in conflict with the parent group's emphasis on single store culture.

The culture of Xi you group emphasizes empiricism. Japanese employees talk about their predecessors and their younger generation. They are seen by senior employees as senior employees. This is also a conflict with the way the good plan is to be done.

2, differences in executive ability

Xi you group is a company based on planning and planning. There are a lot of detailed plans and very thick paper.

How thick is this paper and how low our execution is.

So Xi you is a company planning and planning for 95%, execution is 5%, and Muji is to implement 95%, planning, planning 5% of an enterprise culture, Muji's entire culture and parent company upside down.

3, urgently need to change the institutional structure.

Before the company has to get a profit, it is to regulate all the problems, such as the fact that the clothing department is not doing well, that is, the problem of the clothing and accessories department.

After careful consideration, we find that 80% of Muji issue is caused by institutional structure.

As we all know, TOYOTA is very powerful in Japan, and the culture of Toyota Corporation is a learning culture.

Toyota Corporation sales is Japan's biggest profit company. It is made up of many subsidiaries. The senior managers of each subsidiary spend a lot of time each year studying and attending classes to upgrade themselves outside.

About three years ago, I asked TOYOTA, like this, let every company's top executives go outside to learn a lot of things. How long did it take? TOYOTA said it was 38 years ago.

By this year, TOYOTA's learning culture has been doing for over 40 years.

Such a huge and profitable company is still demanding his senior to learn.

So Muji was badly in need of rebuilding the corporate culture of the company.

Seven reform measures to turn the tide

The first priority of Muji improvement is to reshape the brand. Muji's brand concept "cheap reason" is the foundation of MUJI products and cannot be changed.

Since Muji has been established to this stage, it has been in the past 20 years. Many environments have changed, and consumer demand has also changed. Therefore, products should also be changed, otherwise they will not be able to adapt to market changes.

But there is a big problem. The function of development and planning of MUJI products has basically collapsed.

1, deal with a lot of bad stock.

The first step of the reform is to deal with a large number of bad stocks. I think it is impossible for the company to regenerate the stocks of such a large defective product. So we must deal with these stocks, not only ourselves, but also manufacturers and manufacturers of these products. When they see all the goods they have made by heart are burned, the heartache feeling is unheard of.

The purpose is to let them know that if we can not make really good products, these things are useless for consumers.

Use the feeling of the scene to stimulate manufacturers, and Muji together to carry out a reform from start to finish.

2, turn off 10% of the shops.

Closing stores is not to dismiss employees, but to dismiss employees is not to bring real reform to the company, but to change the structure of the company.

How to rebuild a company structure that can be won is a question that I have to think about as a president.

The above two measures have achieved very good results, but I was thinking at the time that these may not be the real reasons for the company crisis. They only solved the problem, but the fundamental problem lies in the corporate culture.

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3. Build a functional system of R & D, design and planning.

At that time, "Muji" of the world was put forward to cooperate with outstanding and creative talents and designers from all over the world to enlarge the planning of products from Japan to the whole world.

Let consumers from all over the world take part in product research and development, look for something that is always used in life, take it as a source of inspiration for Muji research and development, and re design to win consumers.

MUJI was working with many designers around the world using a way called "designer not designed".

At that time, groceries accounted for 55% of the whole sale of Muji, a very large category.

I heard that a chair made by a designer in Italy has a great sense of design and is very scientific. So we want to cooperate with him, make an intermediary through his own designer, and have his own designer in the product development department and the designer in Italy. The designer's position is "the designer not designed", playing a bridge role in the middle, getting the designer's design and integrating it into the design of his own product.

In this way, many good design inspirations from the world were obtained, while Muji's own design features were maintained, so that MUJI products were successful, and the products sold very well.

Including cooperation in clothing with Yamamoto Teruji (designer and new head of world fashion Japan), who is famous for its simplicity and charm, fluent lines, and anti fashion design style, is collaborated with a very famous fashion designer.

Because clothing has a very strong trend, like Yamamoto Teruji, a top designer, he knows what the trend is, what clothes to sell this year, what clothes to sell next year, he will take part in every New York fashion week, Paris fashion week and so on.

But as Muji companies may not have the ability to follow this trend, so with Yamamoto Teruji, but cooperation will not do any publicity, do not say that this series is designed by Yamamoto Teruji, but with the product itself can speak.

Second years after Yamamoto Teruji joined in the design, the response of clothing at the end of the product market was very obvious. Consumers liked our products very much.

4. Quantify the sales standards of sales outlets.

At that time, the sales side also had very serious problems. Only ten new shops could be opened, and only two shops could achieve their target profits. It was found that the benchmark for opening shop was very vague, and there was no quantitative judgement.

Therefore, we have done a lot of quantitative judgement standards. What is the average consumption income index of the cities that open up shops? The index of urban average consumption income is directly proportional to the business status of Muji shops.

Dosage to determine when to open shop, under what circumstances can not open shop.

After setting up such a quantitative standard, the result is very obvious. The success rate of the new store introduced into the standard has reached over 90%, 10 shops and 9 shops will be profitable.

5, force drop operation cost to 30%

The sales mode has been changed, the product development way has been changed, and the enterprise's business has to be changed, so a system of "30% committees" has been set up to do this.

Why is it called the 30% committee? The goal is to reduce the operating cost of the company to 30%, which is the operating cost, the denominator is sales, and the total operating cost will account for 30% of the sales volume.

Operating expenses in 2004 accounted for 34.1% of the total cost, to 30%.

There are many ways to reduce this cost, for example, to cut down useless business trips and to cut down on useless overtime work. What is the concrete way to do that?

The company has a lot of business to do, open shop, sell, including the business of headquarters. Each business sector allows the directors of the company to participate directly in finding problems, similar to China's "leadership under the grass-roots level", and entering the grass-roots level to do business management, the goal is to reduce the operating costs of the company.

In order to achieve this 30%, many directors of the company were sent to various departments to supervise the battle, but the result was very unexpected.

By the end of the financial year, the amount of money we wanted to cut had not been reduced, but increased.

Although many direct stores are growing and sales are increasing, the cost is also growing.

Where is this problem? I think about it, because many of the top executives are pferred from the parent group and Xi you group, and do not have the experience or wisdom of running a company like Muji.

At that time, there were 10 directors in the board of directors. Maybe 2 of them were very good. They could make a very good contribution to the company, but 8 of them could not achieve this profit.

The company must change, but it is impossible to replace so many directors. How can we do it? It's very simple to learn from other excellent companies.

For example, Muji shops have many shelves. At that time, many tools were produced in Japan, and the cost was very high.

At that time, many colleagues, such as WAL-MART, were found to have many tools to do their own work, so they could assemble and match in the store. So we think WAL-MART can do it without Muji.

So learning from them, at that time, the production of a lot of props and equipment was taken to China to make accessories, and then assembled in Muji shop, and the cost was reduced by more than 40% at the same time. By learning from other companies, MUJI products cut down unnecessary expenses and reduced the cost.

At that time, the most valuable reference enterprises were the boss type enterprises (the founder was the boss, he was in charge of the enterprise, and did not hire professional managers), the second were small and medium-sized enterprises, and the third one was the consumption level enterprises (the enterprises with very low cost of sales).

The operation efficiency of these three kinds of enterprises is very high. There are a lot of material in the management method, which is worth studying, and there are many guarantees. So at that time, a large number of enterprises were learned from the three enterprises.

6. Set up a staff manual to update all staff members.

Before Muji, many stores often had the same problems and wasted time and manpower. Later, in the company's intranet, a platform for staff's internal proposal was made. Any employee, shop manager or salesperson in the front line could finish a workbook through the platform, and the contents of the handbook were related to the execution content of the storefront.

A front-line employee can submit his opinion to the company through the internal website, then confirm by the regional manager, then confirm it by the company headquarters, then compile it into the latest manual immediately, and request the company's work process to make corresponding changes.

For example, for example, the store manager needs a lot of qualifications, qualification, such as health management, and so on.

But the shop keeper was very busy. It was very difficult to test these qualifications after becoming a store manager, so later he decided to write these things in the manual before the staff became the store manager, so that the staff could execute them.

MUJI is an international enterprise. Although this handbook was raised in Japan, it must be globally unified.

So every country has its own employee handbook.

The operation of the enterprise itself has many local characteristics, so the employee handbook is only about half the content of the world, and the remaining half should be revised according to the situation of each country.

Countries around the world have their own manuals, and they are different.

Every year, China's Muji is about to recruit 1000 new employees.

If colleagues are asked to teach them more difficulties, everyone is very busy and their teaching level is different.

Therefore, a unified training method is adopted to concentrate new employees on education and training so that they can achieve the same level of work.

7. A complete and systematic staff education system.

MUJI is a lifelong employment system. There is a system of talent Committee. A college graduate, who is about 22 years old, will enter the company after graduation. He will probably be in the company for 40 years. He will train him through various ways such as post education and rotation.

The cultivation of this piece can account for 80% of the whole human culture.

The training of Muji employees in the company consists of three components, namely, 10%, 80% and 10%:

The 10% is the proportion of workbook learning. It is the benchmark and the simplest foundation. 80% is through the training on the company post, that is, OJT (the abbreviation of OntheJobTraining, that is, in the workplace, the superior and skilled skilled employees learn the way of training the new employees through daily work, the necessary knowledge, skills, working methods and so on); the last 10% is the specialized training for employees, the company's internal training courses, these three parts constitute the education of Muji for employees.

So how can the Muji leadership grow? If 100 new employees are coming, only 20% of them will eventually become leaders. How to cultivate or dig out these 20 people?

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The very important position in the company is to cultivate the successors, which is the reserve of talent.

For example, the minister who sells the Ministry, who can take up the position of 10% of the company, is very bad, this is a reserve of tomorrow's talent, is a rare employee.

This is the first kind of talent with high potential and good performance.

The second type of talent is slightly less qualified, but the performance and evaluation results are very good.

These people can become a very important middle level of the company, which is a ministerial reserve, which accounts for about 10% of the company's employees.

The third type of talents are highly qualified and qualified. This kind of talent is called the selection of class level talents.

But the vast majority, about 60% of the employees are fourth kinds of talents. They are very ordinary employees, but they are very important.

The fifth type of talent needs special attention to him. Employees who need to improve their working ability generally account for 5% of the company and not more than 10%.

In my management system, I think talent allocation is what kind of people to go to what kind of department, this matter is very important, not only for the performance of the company has great help, but also for the growth of this person himself also has great help.

The very important point of the talent committee is that a new employee, 20 years old, has just graduated from university to Muji company. In the next career path, he must give him the most suitable and best career path, which is good for both the individual and the company.

The company's top executives, directors, directors and officials will change, but some employees will be able to complete their career according to the plan and help them complete their business.

No matter how the decision-making level is changing, the company or the company should do something and do what you want to do. We want to achieve this state.

At that time, Muji was developing rapidly abroad, and the number of shops abroad and home was basically flat. But there are many specific problems for overseas operations.

The talent training committee also had a job at that time. At that time, there were 100 middle-level cadres in Japan. About 20 people would have the chance to go abroad to learn how to rotate jobs. At that time, they decided to send them all overseas for 3 months, and went overseas to take turns to grasp overseas experience, which was a very important decision at that time.

Now that globalization has been decided, this step must be done.

In the end, of course, it is very good. Finally, the linkage between companies and headquarters in the world has become more and more closely related. The managers of the middle class can solve the problems of overseas companies overseas, without having to report to the senior level.

This further strengthens the management ability of the middle and primary level.

Standards for opening stores overseas

MUJI first co operated with an overseas department store in London and a local department store. In October of 1991, a department store in Hongkong and a Chinese mainland co operated the first shop in Hongkong. Now both shops have been closed.

The joint venture department store in England was badly managed and later bought by the fund, when the president retired.

The new president is a manager sent from a fund company. He has no way to manage such an enterprise, and decides to terminate cooperation.

On the other side of Hongkong, the 100 largest department store was not well managed, unable to pay the payment to Japan, and no further cooperation.

From these two failures, we learned a lot of experience and lessons. In Japan, there is a word called "bedfellows" in China. Overseas partners and our corporate culture and vision are different. It is hard to get to the same road.

Later, it was found that cooperation with local partners would bring other business risks.

Therefore, from 1991, we began to enter the overseas market, and until 1997, the penetration and expansion of MUJI products abroad were very slow. In the past 1998-2000 years, the three countries had completely withdrawn from Asian countries and the number of shops was zero.

The real growth of overseas markets was probably in 2004. At this time, overseas expansion methods were adjusted to achieve relatively rapid growth.

The second is how to make profits overseas. For example, London's very busy commercial street has opened a shop, accounting for 19% of the sales share, and a very high sales cost.

I analyzed the rent in England and found very troublesome problems.

London is a very special place. There is a serious imbalance between supply and demand. Most of the houses are not royalty, or aristocratic.

But there are many shops for rent.

Moreover, the conditions for signing the contract are very harsh, and it will not be allowed to terminate the contract within a 25 year period.

These are all very big risks, so in London, there is no way to make profits by opening the chain stores without solving the rent problem.

Before looking for shops in Europe will find intermediary companies, but the intermediary will not give you a reasonable price.

So when we opened a shop in Milan, we sent our employees to sweep the streets, find our own shops, find 10, and find 3 in 10 houses, so we could cut prices for each other.

Finally found this very good, two storey shop, the first floor area is very small, but the two floor is relatively large, most of the goods are sold on the two floor, so that we can save rent.

The rental of shops in Milan accounts for only 10% of the total sales volume, which is very reasonable.

After the opening of the Milan store, all the investments were withdrawn within one year. The second year began to be pure and profitable.

Thus, overseas exhibitions are held in this way, and more shops are opened in Europe.

I have adopted a strategy of steady opening up, and I can open one every year, but I promise to make a profit.

We must be steady.

MUJI has basically opened a shop in 1-2 years, and a new shop will not be more than a year and a half.

In addition, Muji's investment in global stores requires its own holdings.

Special Chinese market

The first step for MUJI products to enter the Chinese market is to fill up all the cities in North China. There are 30 tier cities in the north. There are two tier cities in the world. It is very important for consumers to know MUJI products first and recognize the brand.

MUJI has now basically covered the whole country, and the first and second main cities have completed their stores.

Now we are going to enter the three tier cities. China has 300 three line cities. Muji has a very fast opening shop in China and 50-60 new stores a year.

In February 2015, Muji had 128 stores in China, reaching 160 in February 2016, and 200 in a year.

The Chinese market is completely different from Europe. Europe is a more robust approach. The Chinese market emphasizes speed.

So fast in China is not our deliberate pursuit. Our demand is not to be reluctant to pursue speed.

At present, the growth rate of 30% new stores in China is very suitable for the Chinese market.

In China, it is also required to open a store to make a shop. All the shops in China are profitable, and the investment will not be more than a year and a half.

We believe that there is no global market and that independent markets constitute a global market. Therefore, MUJI products must be integrated with local conditions when they want to be promoted globally.

Now Muji is doing well in overseas markets. There are three reasons for success overseas.

The name of Muji has taken the influence of tea ceremony and Zen in Japan and finalized as Muji. This name can easily be accepted by all countries in the world and become a very convenient precondition for globalization.

We did many surveys in the global consumer market and asked young people why they chose Muji brand.

European consumers and Chinese young people respond quite differently. Chinese young people have the two biggest answers.

The first is "because Muji is a Japanese brand, and I feel at ease."

Another is that Muji is very environmentally friendly, advocating nature, and cherishing nature.

From the results of market research, these two answers account for the overwhelming majority.

The second answer is Muji's business model. Muji is a grocery brand. People often compare UNIQLO with Muji, but UNIQLO is not a competitor at all.

We think that our only competitor in the world is IKEA, but IKEA's way of opening shop is completely different from Muji. IKEA is a large outskirts shop. Muji is a small and medium-sized shop in the city commercial center.

We are very clever in avoiding many competitions. This format is very special.

MUJI's base shop in China has a higher accuracy than the basic table set up in Japan, and has a set of shop opening basis which is more suitable for China's national conditions.

At that time, we made a consultation project with Peking University. The first one was called the business circle population. Each item was scored, including whether there were any foreigners, rich people, and Cara OK. Each item was added to the total score to get a figure, which was a quantitative figure, in order to decide whether or not to open a shop in this place.

One of the standards is to see if there are any famous shops in the business circle. The well-known shops refer to Muji, UNIQLO, HM, ZARA and Taiwan's Watsons. If this business circle has these five stores, this place will definitely make money. This is the Chinese characteristic.

There are several risks in overseas career expansion. The first is called "Japanese risk". Muji overseas executives are usually sent by Japanese headquarters. Who will be the chief executive will directly lead to success or failure. Muji will generally choose to be a salesperson as president, which is also common in many companies.

{page_break} what kind of person is suitable for overseas presidents? There is a very important criterion for whether this person can solve the local problems by himself, rather than asking for a report from the headquarters of Japan.

MUJI products are not Japanese by overseas presidents, but now China's Muji is Japanese, formerly Taiwanese.

Overseas presidents basically have independent judgment and decision-making ability, so we need to train such people.

MUJI products achieved 96 billion 600 million overseas sales in 2015. In fact, the earnings report has just exceeded 100 billion yen.

Overseas sales accounted for 33% of the total sales target, but actually exceeded.

The opening plan for 2015 is to open 47 stores overseas, of which 44 are in Asia.

MUJI will become more and more like an international company, not just a Japanese company.

I have brought Muji to such a degree, and I do not know how such a number will follow.

I often come to China for 3~5 times a year. I hope to have a chance to meet with you in China, and I hope you can visit the Muji shop.

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