Tonny, the CEO of Ibokin, JADAQ 5699, got the Good President Award in 2006 at Seiwajuku workshop, Mr. Inamori’s workshop for small to middle size companies’ presidents. His background and career path as an entrepreneur looks interesting and reflects somehow Korean Japanese’s life in Japan. When it comes to Korean Japanese, Masayoshi Song, the CEO and Chairman of Softbank has been the famous figure.
Q: What is Tony’s background?
A: His grandfather first immigrated to Japan say late 19th and started “scavenger-garbage collecting-service”. Tony heard there was no job opening for Koreans in Japan around that time. He got married with a lady who is also Korean descendant. Her family had operated Pachinko business.
Q: What is Pachinko?
A: Japanese slot machine gambling service. Generally, Pachinko image has not so been good as it sometimes involves illegal money ex-change or anti-social groups.
Q: So did Tony help that Pachinko business?
A: Yes he did, as the son in law of the owner. He made a good business recovery by identifying clear and sublime corporate mission.
Q: What was that?
A: To foster the healthy gambling culture and activities within the legal framework. Then Tony cut all the troublesome relation with anti-social groups.
Q: Did Tony keep managing that Pachinko?
A: No, he didn’t. He eventually joined his own father’s company, the garbage collecting service, and realized the tremendous growth of its performance.
Q: What did Tony do for that company?
A: He first gave his staffs the supreme mission: We are the pioneer and small giant of “ Industrial Waste Recycling field”. Initially, Tony was shocked to find that his staff got embarrassed as his daughter never passed in front of the company to avoid getting teased by her friends over the father’s occupation. Tony realized that company should have a supreme corporate mission and wonderful vision to motivate staffs.
Q: Did it work?
A: Yes it did. Tony implemented not only the business philosophy but also ameba administrative methods. Ibokin’s revenue grew from 800 mil JPY to 5 billion over 10 years and net profit records over 10 percent. In 2018, Ibokin eventually reazlied its IPO.
Q: What did Mr. Inamori mention to Tony?
A: Inamori encouraged his business growth.
“ I know the factory was very dirty. The employees could never get proud of themselves as they were garbage collectors. They believed themselves as scavengers and had no pride. That remined me of my own story. Ceramics, which I started R&D during Kyocera starting up, … It includes a dirty workplace, so it’s difficult to have high motivation for my staffs to work there. I told them ” Now we are working hard to mix powders to create new fine ceramics. It may be crap and miserable to do the work of mixing powders every day, and you wonder if this is all of your life. Believe me, it’s a fine science of powder engineering. University professors only mention the mechanism, but we do something that come from the reality. It’s a great job that no other research could achieve even with the top professors at many universities. So what you are doing is really top of the world.”
“In this way, I tried to give the employees who are mixing the powder every day more hope and reward while giving a little over explanation. It was a company with low wage, no bonuses. All I could do was to give them some hints by which they could be proud of what they were doing, since I was only two years graduates after university college. I remember well how I motivated people by demonstrating at our mission. “
“Mr. T has trained the employees of scavengers to the best sales guys of the recycling industry, and has grown up to be a good corporate sales force who is now leading a recycling industry and at the same time contributes sufficiently to create the environmental solutions. I think that the brilliant future would be able to open to you, Tony.”
Q: What do you think of this story?
A: This is another case of success by keeping staffs well motivated and by fully implementing Kyocera philosophy and the managerial accounting system to the company. However, personally, this reminded me of my father. He operated a gas station. He got dirty with gasolines and oils all day and most of his lifetime. I hated him. He passed away three years ago and I have still been found myself to be the blamed one.
Should you have more queries, opinions, doubts, please email to ytomizuka@abrilsjp.com
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