International HR - Mizkan Case

Mizkan is a successful company in Japan and now it wants to expand internationally and depend less on the domestic market which starts to decline. So far only 5% of its revenues come from foreign markets and Mr. Nakano wants within five years to reach 30%. In other words, the strategic plan is to become Mizkan an international competitor and maybe that is why Mizkan have shifted its value delivering or at least the new slogan: "Bringing flavor to life" is a sign of this new mentality.

When Mizkan arrived to China and began to have trouble retaining people (especially their sales people) Mizkan managers understood that they needed to make a change and leave their management based on seniority and adopted a management based on job. This change in their HR policies in China suggested to Mr. Matazaemon that in order to achieve its strategic plan, he needed to change the management style used in Japan. The case says that the CEO thought that this change was necessary, but also that he have already made it.

However, once we have analyzed the context now have to analyze the company "internally". If we do this analysis we realize that Mizkan is a family business with over 200 years of life and that a member of the 8th generation is the president and CEO. Also, during this time Mizkan have used a Human Resource system based on seniority. With this background, it seems illogical that Mizkan has changed its system that has been used for over 200 years and that actually it has worked well!

Based on these two analyzes is difficult to say whether the change in Human Resources policies in Mizkan was the best option, but also even saying that this was the best option would also need to considered if they did it at the right time or in the correct way. Talking about the first point whether it was the best option I would have to say that was very drastic change in the management model. Switching from a seniority-based model to a job-based model is talking about two completely different systems, even contrary systems. Normally, it would not be unusual for Mr. Matazaemon to find difficulties trying to implement this new model in Japan; however, as Mizkan is a family business where everyone obeys the orders of Mr. Matazaemon surely he will not meet resistance in the short term, but likely in the long run. To test the latter I said is enough to mention the incident when in the company had a problem with assessments, was enough the “help” of Mr. Matazaemon to obey and do not complain about the assessment criteria.

It is clear that the staff in Japan is not used to being evaluated, so the same thing happened in the Shinsei Bank case, where evaluations rather than objective became subjective and discretionary. But this behavior is the one can expect because Japanese people tend to appreciate teamwork and cooperation, and for that reason the Japanese look after the interests of the group. However, in this new phase

...