“Akinai-no-Kokorokubari” (Thoughtfullness in business - Masatoshi Ito)
This book was written by Masatoshi Ito, the president of Ito-Yokado at the time. It looks like he was asked by a publisher over and over and finally decided to do it. It consists of a bunch of short articles which he wrote internally at his company and these articles were edited and added.
Probably because of how it was written originally, he is repeating the same corporate motto and philosophy over and over in plain words using different episodes. What he says in the book is pretty basic, but it looks like it is very important to act based on it.
The book was published in 1987 and that means it was written 20 years ago. Ito-Yokado and Seven-Eleven Japan are still doing great.
One thing I found interesting was that he learned a lot from U.S. retail businesses. From what I see here in the States is that U.S. retail businesses are getting tougher because of online shopping. Many large U.S. retail chains went out of business recently. It is true in Japan to certain degree especially in department stores, but other retail businesses such as convenience stores has actually evolved to something different and more advanced from rest of the world. A great company mentioned in this book was Kmart. To me, Kmart is one of the typical company which is not doing great, and it filed chapter-11 in 2002.
The book seems to be a good one, but I was not impressed as a consumer because what he said are basic things for consumers. It may be a good book for someone who work in retail business.
(Read: Dec 28, 2008)