Shiseido was in the midst of a six year corporate turnaround, trying to reverse the effects of decades of under-investment in R&D and marketing that had led to a vicious cycle of declining customer support and brand value. Would the CEO’s VISION 2020 plan, centered on...

This case describes the history of Oriental Land Co. Ltd.’s (OLC's) Tokyo Disney Resort (TDR), its operations, the extent of vertical integration, and the challenges it faced in 2018, as OLC's chairman and CEO, Toshio Kagami, contemplated how best to deal with...

Can a “set your own salary” system boost employee happiness and motivation? Spiber made synthetic silk built from proteins mimicking the proteins found in spider silk, the world’s toughest known material by weight. Kazuhide Sekiyama and Junichi Sugahara established...

After decades of deprioritizing shareholders' economic interests and low corporate profitability, Japan introduced the JPX-Nikkei400 in 2014. The index highlighted the country's "best-run" companies by annually selecting the 400 most...

Launched as a private brand in 1980 to counter the increasingly brand-conscious consumer in Japan, MUJI offered beautifully designed, fairly priced, no-frills quality goods. The once modest private label brand with 40 products had...

, for a compound annual growth of 86%. Almost 90% of sales came from the lithium-ion battery market, and Lead supplied most of the major manufacturers in China, Korea, and Japan, and Tesla in the United States. The company was floated on...

On October 7, 2019, the Shiseido Group announced that it would acquire clean skincare brand Drunk Elephant for $845 million, a valuation of 8.5 times sales. Did Shiseido pay too much or too little for this brand asset? Every acquisition had to be measured against the...

This chapter contextualises the drivers of corruption in Turkish business through comparisons with Japan and India in the late 19th century. It identifies the developmental state as a common driver of corruption. Catching up by using...

In the summer of 2019, Yu Sasaki, Head of the Game Division of DeNA, a Japanese mobile gaming company, is evaluating various growth strategies for its recent game Othellonia. Sasaki needs to decide if he should focus on customer acquisition, retention, or monetization.

Launched as a private brand in 1980 to counter the increasingly brand-conscious consumer in Japan, MUJI offered beautifully designed, fairly priced, no-frills quality goods. The once modest private label brand with 40 products had...

the turbulent era of the 1930s, World War II, and postwar Japan. Following the development of Cup Noodle, Ando and his company Nissin began globalizing the product, beginning with the United States, Brazil and Southeast Asia. The case...

Raksul, 2018 Forbes Japan "Startup of the Year," ran an e-commerce platform drawing upon thousands of individual suppliers. Launched as a business-to-business printing services marketplace, Raksul had recently expanded to operate both a...

Nick Sugimoto, CEO of Honda Innovations—the open innovation organization of Honda, has to decide how to extend his organization’s approach to innovation across the world. Honda Innovations dates back to 2000 when Honda created Honda Research Institute in Silicon...

In the fall of 2018, Hiro Mizuno, the Chief Investment Officer (CIO) of GPIF, the Japanese Government Pension Fund, was reflecting on his efforts to integrate Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) issues into every aspect of GPIF’s portfolio. His efforts ranged...

Shiseido was in the midst of a six year corporate turnaround, trying to reverse the effects of decades of under-investment in R&D and marketing which had led to a cycle of declining customer support and brand value. Would the CEO’s VISION 2020 plan, centered on four...

Komatsu's Komtrax system started as a way of remotely monitoring and tracking equipment for the purpose of improving operational efficiency. This case follows its evolution towards other uses including demand forecasting for its sales, marketing, and production...

From the outside, DISCO—a Japan-based manufacturer of precision tools for semiconductor production devices—appeared to be a rather ordinary company that had achieved rather extraordinary success: it had simultaneously achieved 70% global...

On March 11, 2011 at 2:46pm, a 9.1-on-the-Richter-scale, six-minute long earthquake unleashed a tsunami that ravaged the Tohoku region of Japan, damaging the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power facility and releasing sufficient radioactive...

This note on supply chain management provides background for the seven class supply chain module in the Technology & Operations Management required curriculum course taught at the Harvard Business School. This module includes four broad topics: sourcing and supply...

Rica, New Zealand, and Japan. The book serves as a warning against facile beliefs in the potential of win/win solutions as business tries to reduce its environmental impact or even save the planet. The lesson of history is that making...