Miyazaki –
Asahi Kasei has grown from its roots in Nobeoka, Miyazaki Prefecture, into a worldwide conglomerate with annual gross sales exceeding 3 trillion yen by repeatedly creating merchandise and applied sciences that dominate their markets or occupy niches with few direct rivals.
The firm operates throughout three principal enterprise areas: supplies, housing and well being care. Its companies vary from family merchandise corresponding to Saran Wrap and Ziploc to lithium-ion battery supplies, Hebel Haus houses, condominiums, prescribed drugs and medical units.
Asahi Kasei additionally provides Bemberg fiber utilized in some ladies’s merchandise in Uniqlo’s standard Airism vary and has developed Velvet Sound, an audio system based mostly on proprietary semiconductor know-how.
President Koshiro Kudo, 67, who was born and raised in Nobeoka and took the highest put up in 2022, has emphasised a technique of figuring out companies the place the corporate can set up a transparent aggressive benefit.
“We should aim to be overwhelmingly No. 1, including in recognition, while being one of a kind is also something that strongly demonstrates what makes Asahi Kasei distinctive,” Kudo mentioned.
The method helped the corporate get better after a interval of weak efficiency, with administration focusing assets on companies the place Asahi Kasei believes it has a reputable path to management.
One of its best-known merchandise is Saran Wrap, which has remained a family staple in Japan for many years.
Kudo mentioned the product’s power has come from continuous enhancements based mostly on client suggestions, together with efforts to make the wrap simpler to chop and stop it from sticking to itself.
He mentioned such seemingly small refinements, amassed over a few years, have contributed considerably to the product’s fame.
Asahi Kasei’s supplies enterprise additionally contains separators for lithium-ion batteries, a essential part utilized in batteries circulating around the globe.
Kudo mentioned improvement in such fields can require years of persistence earlier than know-how reaches the purpose the place it turns into commercially profitable.
“It is important to keep working patiently through periods when development does not go well, until eventually it suddenly begins to blossom,” he mentioned.
Housing varieties the corporate’s second main pillar.
Asahi Kasei’s housing enterprise started with Hebel Haus and has since expanded into condominiums, an space Kudo mentioned has developed a robust fame and affords important progress potential.
Health care is the third pillar, protecting prescribed drugs, automated exterior defibrillators and different medical companies.
Kudo mentioned the problem throughout all three sectors is that Asahi Kasei typically competes in opposition to corporations specializing completely in a single subject.
That means the conglomerate should discover methods to compete via distinctive merchandise, applied sciences and enterprise fashions slightly than relying merely on scale.
According to Kudo, lots of Asahi Kasei’s strongest companies are constructed round merchandise not often discovered elsewhere on the planet or round unusually structured enterprise fashions.
The firm additionally seeks markets that fall between the areas sometimes pursued by main companies and startups.
Some alternatives, Kudo mentioned, could also be too small to draw the biggest corporations however too massive for enterprise companies to deal with simply.
He mentioned Asahi Kasei continually considers find out how to flip that center floor into companies that mirror the corporate’s specific strengths.
Managing such a large portfolio additionally creates limitations on how a lot cash and personnel will be assigned to particular person companies.
Kudo describes these limits as “constraints” inherent in conglomerate administration.
Because assets are finite, the corporate should resolve fastidiously the place to pay attention funding and personnel.
Kudo mentioned these constraints can themselves encourage innovation by forcing managers and engineers to suppose tougher, develop concepts and discover extra environment friendly methods to compete.
“The fact that there are constraints is precisely what creates ingenuity,” he mentioned.
That philosophy additionally underpins Asahi Kasei’s emphasis on remaining both No. 1 or one in every of a sort.
Kudo mentioned management in any market is momentary as a result of opponents and new enterprise fashions inevitably emerge.
An organization should due to this fact proceed trying to find new companies and applied sciences whereas reshaping its portfolio slightly than assuming an present benefit will final indefinitely.
He mentioned the trouble to repeatedly determine new alternatives is what finally produces distinctive applied sciences and market-leading merchandise.
One instance is Bemberg, Asahi Kasei’s proprietary model of cupro fiber utilized in clothes around the globe.
The materials has lengthy been utilized in some ladies’s gadgets in Uniqlo’s Airism sequence, one of many retailer’s flagship product strains alongside fleece and Heattech.
Bemberg is made not from abnormal cotton fiber however from the extraordinarily tremendous fuzz surrounding cotton seeds, generally known as cotton linter.
Asahi Kasei says it’s now the one firm on the planet producing Bemberg fiber from cotton linter.
The fiber was initially developed in Germany within the late nineteenth century in an effort to create a cloth with silk-like qualities.
Asahi Kasei founder Shitagau Noguchi later launched the manufacturing know-how to Japan, and the corporate succeeded in commercializing the fabric in 1931.
Production required superior know-how and provided poor profitability, nonetheless, prompting many different producers to withdraw from the enterprise.
Asahi Kasei continued refining the know-how and ultimately turned the world’s sole producer of Bemberg.
The fiber is understood for its easy texture, which comes from the softness of the tremendous cotton linter used as its uncooked materials.
Its low-friction floor has made it particularly appropriate for clothes that should really feel easy in opposition to the pores and skin.
Bemberg is now used around the globe, together with in conventional Indian saris and as lining materials for high-end fits.
For Asahi Kasei, the practically century-long improvement of Bemberg exemplifies the technique Kudo is looking for to use throughout the group: stick with troublesome applied sciences, focus assets the place the corporate can differentiate itself, and proceed trying to find companies able to turning into both No. 1 or one in every of a sort.