Reference no: EM133099640

Honda Plus Co., Ltd.

Honda Plus was established in 1946. The father of Honda Katsuhiro, the present chairperson, started Honda Cellophane Industry in Sinjo City, Aichi. Their original line was pencil cases made of cellophane. Katsuhiro took over the presidency soon after the founder passed away in 1966 when Katsuhiro was 26.

Katsuhiro promoted the mechanization of the production facilities. In particular, he succeeded in the blowing molding, which molds plastic by blowing air. The company used this technology for producing other products than the pencil cases. One of those products is the bottle of white-out made of nylon resin. The blowing molding of nylon resin was not an easy technology, and the proportion detective at first exceeded 50%. They overcame the difficulty by making improvement on improvement. The nylon bottles were much better than glass bottles in utility. It was only a short time before the nylon bottle became widespread. Honda Plus has overwhelming market shares with nylon cases and bottles. Honda Plus received offers for being a company of TOYOTA several times but has kept declined affirmatively. Katsuhiro said that they want to think by themselves, make by themselves and sell by themselves. Honda Plus developed their lines to cases for machinery tools on the basis of the technologies they hoard through producing cases for stationery. It is still now enthusiastic about going for something new.

It was a turning point that Takamitsu, the first son of Katsuhiro, entered the company in 1997. Takamitsu studied management at college while doing some music activities after graduating high school. He went to the States for getting an MBA after graduating college. Coming back to Japan, he started working for Honda Electrics, his uncle's company, as a salesperson of ultra- sonic equipment. His position at Honda Plus was a managing executive officer in charge of business planning and marketing. He developed a critical feeling about too much reliance on stationery and decided to develop cases for pharmacy like eye drops and cases for cosmetics. Takamitsu said, looking back at those days, "I thought it would be hard to survive in an industry where they compete by cutting cost. Honda Plus would ruin unless it set forth for producing value-added products." He thought design properties were crucial with such a thing as cosmetic cases and bottles. However, cosmetic companies did not expect designability from Honda Plus. All of them tried to talk about costs at a negotiation table, which disappointed Takamitsu very much. However, he didn't give up increasing value-added and could develop a uniform, thin, light and durable cases and bottles. Seeing those products, people from the cosmetic companies were fascinated by their high quality and sophisticated design. Now their cases and bottles for cosmetics have grown to be one of their star products.

The company established a strategic laboratory to develop materials and mold making in 2001 and a design creative office in 2006. The company can be defined as a creative company with high technology about plastic molding. More than 60% of their sales is from proposal-based business.

Before the company decided to go for the cosmetic industry, it was the last thing to employ designers. However, the company has constantly recruited industrial designers who were fresh from college. As to those situations, Takamitsu recalled, "most of the executive members thought becoming a package maker was not what we aimed at." He initiated his plan while a lot of people were strongly against the idea. Newly recruited designers have grown to be main players of the company and it has received a lot of orders for times of high designability.

Takamitsu said finally as for the difficulty of the second foundation as follows: the second foundation tends to be difficult because we have already had established systems and practices. It's rather challenging and difficult to change what people think overnight. The leader needs to have a very strong leadership to change corporate culture.

Question 1: Honda Plus changed their line of business successfully. Why do you think they could succeed?

You can use other references