HIDA Journal 2014 AUTUMN No.5

20/26

HIDA JOURNAL18The FBs that you have focused on coming to grips with are starting to be noticed within Japan as well. Could you please tell us about the characteristics and potential of Japanese FBs?By nature Japan has a lot of FBs that have underpinned the Japanese economy. Osaka is the region with the second highest number of FBs nationwide, but the fact of the matter is that many of these companies are troubled by a lack of successors. Many of the companies that I have covered simply engage in worthwhile work with a sense of responsibility amidst such harsh realities. I would like to see them elicit this value by changing the way such fixed notions and negative impressions of FBs are presented. If the technologies and know-how possessed by such companies were to ever disappear we would never get them back again.Managers of Japanese FBs have an intense determination to keep the company alive no matter what. They have a tendency to repeatedly make managerial decisions designed to continue on with the business in a stable manner, such as being cautious when it comes to capital participation from third parties and giving priority to relationships of trust with clients that have been built up over long periods of time, more so than to cost or efficiency. Moreover, companies that have persisted for a long time are constantly taking up challenges. When successors take over for a company, they take stock of their own strengths and challenge to do new things based upon said strengths. This is done every time there is a generational changeover.FBs are characterized by the fact that they value their employees as if they were family and develop human resources by taking a long-term perspective. Human resource development at Japanese companies is an area that the participants of the HIDA Seminar on Family Business Management for Thailand were immensely interested in. It is precisely because they engage in management that is firmly focused on their continuation over a long-term perspective like this that they are able to pass down their mentalities and skills from the time of their founding.Currently in Japan moves promoting the participation of women in the workforce are actively being carried out. How is female participation at FBs?I hold seminars at universities that are aimed at students whose families are running their own family businesses. The number of female successors taking part in the seminars has been on the rise with each passing year, and recently they have accounted for more than half of the participants. Furthermore, all of these women take part with the clear intention to take over for their own FBs.I just mentioned how FBs take up new challenges when there is a change of leadership, and I believe that they can harness strengths such as new, feminine perspectives for this. Multiplying the managerial resources and strengths of FBs by the sensibilities of the president will prove the start of something new. I feel that if we can incorporate new elements picked up on by women into formerly male-dominated industries then we can look forward to some interesting developments. Moreover, in the case of FBs relations with long-serving employees oftentimes pose barriers following a succession, but perhaps women can be fostered as managers by having employees who have been there since long ago deftly take them under their wing. Such flexible and resolute female managers will undoubtedly be produced as we move forward.HIDA has mechanisms for supporting companies in advancing into overseas markets through programs for accepting trainees from other countries for training in Japan or for dispatching experts overseas. What do you think about SMEs advancing into overseas markets, and such mechanisms by HIDA?Even small enterprises on the order of around 20 - 30 people are considering advancing into overseas markets, especially in the manufacturing industry, and so advancing overseas is a theme in which there is enormously high interest. But the fact of the matter is that if they are going to maintain production bases then they will require investment, and this is difficult to actually realize. There have been numerous cases in which companies advance into overseas markets with colleagues in the same business, which I feel has been a recent trend. One company that makes auto parts expanded into Vietnam together with a neighboring company. SMEs are uneasy about sending employees off into unfamiliar territory on their own, but by expanding into such areas together they can reduce their uneasiness by living together in the local region, which offers peace of mind to the companies sending employees over.Since most SMEs do not have overseas bases there are limitations to the information that they can obtain. But one company that expanded into Vietnam was apparently able to have Vietnamese trainees create channels with the local region in order to obtain a great deal of information. In this case, it hired these trainees locally later on and used this opportunity to expand overseas.The creation of these sorts of precedents of people actually going back and forth feels like the start of globalization, with HIDA serving as an organization that offers opportunities for this.From this discussion we got a feel for the significance of FBs to the Japanese economy, as well as how the technologies and human resource development that Japan specializes in are passed down in unbroken succession at FBs. For the future, there will be growing interest in the sorts of approaches from which female managers who will take over businesses can play an active role. Moreover, given that most SMEs are giving thought to advancing into overseas markets, we feel that there are areas in which HIDA can offer them support in this. Thank you very much for sitting for this interview.Ms.Yamano, delivering a lecture at the HIDA Seminar on Family Business Management for Thailand

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