.
.
Marketing Research – The Japanese Way
...
Japanese also want accurate information about their markets like US and European competitors do. However, they do not blindly rely on market research. They put much more faith in information that they directly get from wholesalers and retailers in the distribution channel.
.
.
Japanese style MR (Marketing Research) relies heavily upon: -
..
1. Soft data:- Obtained from visits to dealers and other channel members
.
2. Hard data:- About inventory levels, shipments, retails sales etc.
.
.
Some examples illustrating the Japanese MR Style:
.1. Sony
.A Market research showed that consumers wouldn’t buy a tape recorder that wouldn’t record. But Sony’s chairman Akio Morita disregarded MR and went with his instincts to launch Walkman.
.
Soft data gathering:
Senior and mid level managers get involved in collecting soft data.
.
.
2. Canon:
.Canon sent 3 members to US to look into loss of sales to competitor Minolta. The head of the team, Tsuruta spent 6 weeks visiting camera stores, posing as a customer and browsing around. Later he would ask the retailer which camera he stocked.
.
Soft data gathering:
Based on this soft data, Tsuruta decided to sell canon exclusively through specialty dealers serving an upscale high quality niche market.
.
Hard data gathering:
Japanese managers look at inventory, sales and other info to see item’s actual movement through various channels. They look at monthly product movement records (weekly for key stores) and syndicated turnover and shipment statistics for competitors.
.
.
Monitoring Channels:
.The Japanese employ “one step at a time” management style for decision making. After analyzing hard and soft data they make incremental changes in product features, packaging and promotional efforts.
.
.
Some exapmles illustrating the Japanese’s “One Step at a Time” Marketing Strategy:
.
Kao Corp. analyzes point of sales data weekly and wholesale inventory and sales statistics monthly. When P&G introduced diapers in Japan in 70s, Kao Corp. captured 90% market share. Kao and others, through tight channel monitoring, changed product features quickly to suit customer tastes and cause P&G market share to plummet to 8%.
.
.
Strong Vertical Integration:
.Japanese have more tight control on their distribution channels than do most US and European corporations. They also change jobs less frequently than the Americans. As a result they are in a better position to develop expertise in the concerned field.
.
.
Generalist Managers:
.Japanese don’t have many business schools and do not believe in formal management education. Marketing isn’t a specialized function in Japan. For e.g: Honda’s senior managers spent 50% of their time visiting and talking to dealers and distributors.
.
.
Consensus based decision making and reliance on Intuitive Judgment:
.Most Japanese corps have a few product lines and so managers and employees at all levels can learn more easily what it takes to survive in the business. They believe in bottoms up approach rather than top down approach in US.
.
.
Conclusion:
.With increasing internationalization and global businesses, there is blending of japans and western practices. Westerners are adopting Japanese style of MR and trying to get close to the customer and fine tune product lines, while Japanese are adopting more formal western MR practices.
.
.
.
.
.
.