The success of Yanai Yanai and Uniqlo

UNIQLO founder Yanjing Yang

“You write about Yanai and his Uniqlo,” a reporter friend Dongfang Yu told me very seriously, “Wanwang in Taiwan, Wahaha in the mainland, and Uniqlo in Japan are not energy or high-tech companies, but they all make Amazing results, and Yanai has been elected the richest man in Japan for two consecutive years. How can he sell clothes in an economically developed Japan? You are not curious? It may contain some secrets of Asian business trends."

The richest man of Japan

At that moment, I felt the sincerity and dedication of the Eastern Fool, but it was also at that moment that I was incompetent. After all, he said realistically that although the iconic red billboard of UNIQL0 has been seen all over the world for many years, he had not had direct contact with Yanai and his empire-created Uniqlo empire, nor had he written anything about it. Uniqlo text. To be precise, in the face of the six giants of Japan’s financial groups such as Mitsubishi, Mitsui, Sumitomo, Hibiscus, Daiichi Bank, and Sanwa, I have never felt that Uniqlo is a “commercial empire”.

At the time, I only knew that the name “UNIQLO” was actually a bit of a beating. The initial "UNICLO" for the "Unique Clothing Warehouse" was accidentally misidentified as "UNIQL0" by a Hong Kong-based Chinese partner. However, Yanai not only did not blame the crime, but thankfully, because he thinks that "Q" looks much cooler than "C", immediately decided to make great efforts to change all registered names and advertisements at that time to "UNIQLO".

Of course, for Uniqlo, I cannot be a complete outsider. As early as the time of studying at Hiroshima University in Japan, I heard from Hiroshima that after Yanai was renamed the company from “Small County Commercial” to “UNIQL0” (or “UNICLO, precisely,”), the first place that he officially entered was that I had lived. After more than two years in Hiroshima, there is not only the remains of the atomic bomb explosion, but also the place where Miyajima, the head of the "Japan's Three Views," is located. Even the Hiroshima people still ridiculed from time to time: "Uniquku at that time was a township enterprise entering the city." Yanai later said in his memoirs: "Hiroshima is a big city, and Uniqlo was only a small business at that time." But now, Hiroshima’s history as Uniqlo will be carried by the history of UNIQLO. This has become the pride of Hiroshima people, but even Hiroshima cannot understand why UNIQLO’s "local rustic" can be so hot nowadays.

Although he grew up in a family with a strong commercial atmosphere, Yanai has no great ambitions since childhood. When he was a teenager, Liu Jing was often absent from class. In his own words, he was a student who was “less vibrant.” When I arrived in Tokyo, I learned that Yanai was just graduated from the Waseda University’s School of Political Economy. Yanai’s college years have been “bittered” because he almost lingered in the cinema, video game room, coffee shop, and occasionally went to the mahjong hall to try his luck, and the academic ruin made him still 3 months after graduation. It is unemployed people.

Although, at that time, the students’ movement of Japan’s universities under the Anti-Japanese-American Security Agreement was surging, there was no room for a desk in the classroom, but in those days, college students were veritable “social elites”. Japan’s School of Economics and Economics was first known as Waseda University, and the Waseda University’s School of Political Economics can be regarded as an elite gathering place until today. Yanai is not able to successfully take office. It is somewhat heresy.

After three months of unemployed wandering, Yoojeong entered the JUSCO (now AEON RETAIL) supermarket with the help of his father's friends and was placed in kitchen knives, chopping boards, and other kitchen and bathroom equipment stores. However, nine months later, he resigned on the grounds that he “had not learned any useful experience in supermarkets” and returned to the remote hometown of Ube in Yamaguchi Prefecture. In desperation, he followed suit with his father, but when he was 23, he complained to his father that "I'm not a retailer." Indeed, he proved his "unfitness" with his actions. His first "reform" dominated by his father's small clothes shop forced him to take 5 of the only 6 entrepreneurial employees in the store because of his "pointing," "unobtrusive," and "poor." , and the only person who could swallow up and choose to stay was Puli Zhi. Today, Pu Lizhi has become the standing supervisory director of Uniqlo and is ranked fifth in the management of Uniqlo.

However, it was this type of Yanai who, on the 60th birthday of 2009, ushered in the best birthday gift God had given—topping Forbes’ Japan’s richest man at a price of US$6.1 billion, and 256 votes won the recognition of the industry. Japan’s industry can rank first in the “best manager” list of universities, and is far higher than Toyota’s 42nd president, Toyota’s 42nd. As Yanai Zheng said: “Those who don’t have money will buy Uniqlo, and those who have money will also buy Uniqlo. We advocate 'Wild' and 'Wild' needs quality. People with good taste will buy Uniqlo. We will also buy Uniqlo. We have good quality and cheap prices. This is the key to our success in the economic crisis."

It can be said that it was the financial crisis in 2008 that resulted in Uniqlo. Under the influence of the financial crisis, the world's richest man, Bill Gates, lost 180 billion U.S. dollars in assets in 2009. Warren Buffett’s wealth has shrunk by 25 billion U.S. dollars. Japan’s Nintendo’s former president, Yasuhiro Yamauchi’s net worth, has shrunk. To 45 billion U.S. dollars. However, Yanai Yan was an exception. Fast Retailer's share price in 2008 rose by 63%, and Uniqlo's sales also soared. New stores are blooming all over the world.

In 2010, Yanai's worth soared by 50% to 9.2 billion U.S. dollars, once again regaining Japan’s richest man. In January 2010, the American Sales Association presented the "International Award" to President Masayuki Yanai. He became Japan's post-war 1972 Matsukaze Ito, president of Matsuzakaya, and Okada Okada, president of JSCO in 1985, and Ito Masaru, president of Ito Yokado, 1998. After the 4th was awarded this honored entrepreneur. Yanai is also known as Japan's new generation of “business gods” after the war, following the founders of PANASONIC, Matsushita Yukisuke, SONY founder Akio Morita, and KDDI founder Inamori Kazuo.

However, when interviewed by the media, Yanai is always deliberately avoiding the title of "Japan's richest man." Regarding money, he once said a famous saying: “Money is only a result, so most successful people are not working for earning money. To a certain extent, they want to do business, and then money comes along.” You just chase money, money will escape you."

To be fair, the fashion industry is increasingly becoming the cradle of the richest man. Besides Yanai being the richest man in Japan on the Forbes list, Amancio Ortega, chairman of Inditex Group, the owner of ZARA, became the richest man in Spain for a few years. The H&M Person family is also the IKEA IKEA. The founder, Ingvar Kamprad, took the swath of Sweden's richest man, and the young Persson family, Karl-Johan Persson, was appointed CEO of the company and replaced the retired professional manager Rolf Eriksen on July 1, 2010.

Uniqlo developed from a little-known clothing store into a world-class clothing empire. Yanai spent exactly 38 years, stepping from the remote Ubeden City of Yamaguchi to Japan’s highest and most modern integrated commercial landmark. Tokyo Midtown Tower.

Those who have the opportunity to visit fast-selling companies will be impressed with their special work environment. There is no partition in the office, there is no fixed desk, all department staff work in a large room without partitions, people can walk around with the notebook, all meetings are controlled in 10 minutes to end, 7 pm Afterwards, the company turned off the lights on time. In principle, it is forbidden to work overtime because the slogan of Uniqlo's work is that “work must be completed sooner”. In the office on the 33rd floor of Midtown Building, Yanai is overlooking Tokyo and looking at Mount Fuji. His ambition is far more than that.

In order to make the best possible use of the secret of how Uniqlo could rise and where to go, I visited people who are familiar with Yanai. Every company has its own secrets, and generally does not show it to an irrelevant person, but I still get a lot of first-hand Japanese information. At the same time, I bought all the Japanese books on the market that involve Uniqlo, carefully read them, and read a lot of media reports, all of which have become my references to Yanai and his company. Before this, I'm afraid that few people can study these dusty stories behind history as systematically and meticulously.

So far, people's understanding of UNIQLO has broken into two extremes. Uniqlo’s praising people described it as a “creation myth” that rapidly rises, destroys the city, and is almost invincible. And Yanai himself is a natural rich entrepreneur and business genius who cannot be imitated. However, I deeply feel that the so-called "genius" is more of a halo given to people after success. It is even more worthwhile to write about Yanai's "efforts" surpassing ordinary people. Perhaps compared with Tang Jun, Yanai Zheng is more qualified to say "My Success can be copied."

UNIQLO’s critics believe that it is only the result of continued deflation under the background of the “lost 20 years” after the burst of the Japanese bubble economy. Once the Japanese economy emerges out of the mud, as the representative of “cheap goods”, Uniqlo. Will not be able to gain a foothold in the Japanese market and will surely die. Yanai’s regulars are under the guise of “time heroes,” and well-known economists such as Bin Minzi and Xiao Jian Jianfu criticize that “UNIQLO will cause bankruptcy in the country” and “ Uniqlo is a degradation of consumer civilization." However, with such comments, it is difficult for us to explain why Uniqlo can expand its land in overseas areas. In fact, UNIQLO is committed to "low-quality, high-quality," rather than simply "low-cost," we can hardly conclude that it is very difficult for us to conclude that companies committed to the perfect combination of "low-quality, high-quality" will die.