3 Executives of Japanese Enterprises Talked about the "Way to Success"

As an important activity of "Nanjing-Japan Culture Week", Nanjing CPPCC and Nanjing Foreign Affairs Office invited Umeda Inao, Director-general of Shanghai Japanese Commerce and Industry Club, Chairman and General Manager of Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance Company (China) Limited, Iwasa Kaoru, Director and Deputy China General Representative of Marubeni Corporation, Chairman and General Manager of Marubeni (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., Kimura Aki, Deputy General Manger of Mitsubishi Electric (China) Ltd., Co. to give a special lecture to business community members of Nanjing CPPCC and Jinling International Friendship Association.

3 executives from Fortune 500 companies talked about the "way to success".

During the international financial turmoil, export-oriented economy was heavily stricken. Umeda-san thinks, in post financial crisis era, although China's economy outshines others by keeping a high-speed growth, foreign trade increase slumps, and the time of low-speed increase is coming.

"Citizens of Nanjing may know little about Marubeni, but most of them must have heard of "Christine" bakery", Iwasa-san says. Actually, Marubeni, one of the Top 5 trade companies in Japan, is a shareholder of Christine chain shops.

Talking about the way to success of Marubeni in international trade, Iwasa-san frankly points out it is CSR, which means "corporate social responsibility" that has formed "affinity" in company culture. For example, Marubeni does big bulk of rubber and lumber business with ASEAN countries. Since 1974, Marubeni has taken 100 million Yen every year to set up funds for public welfare.

It gives a grant of 3 million USD every year to set up "Outer Sea Scholarship" for 6 ASEAN countries such as Vietnam, Philippines and Thailand, supporting schooling of poor children and winning the trust of local people and government. Thus, their business grow larger and larger.

What is the key to Mitsubishi's success? Kimura-san says, take the air conditioner as an example, in terms of scale, Mitsubishi cannot compete with Chinese giants such as Haier and Gree. But Mitsubishi orients itself toward high quality. They strive to make the business better not bigger. So they succeed in winning a place in the China market where competition is intense. He thinks many excellent enterprises of Nanjing also need to orient themselves correctly and go all-out to build their brand images. By becoming the best first, scale will be enlarged accordingly. (Nanjing Daily)