＜prologue＞
I started a blog called “The Baby Boomer Generation’s Miscellaneous Blog”（Dankai-sedai no garakutatyou:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳） in July 2018, about a year before I fully retired. More than six years have passed since then, and the number of articles has increased considerably.
So, in order to make them accessible to people who don’t understand Japanese, I decided to translate my past articles into English and publish them.
It may sound a bit exaggerated, but I would like to make this my life’s work.
It should be noted that haiku and waka （Japanese short fixed form poems） are quite difficult to translate into English, so some parts are written in Japanese.
If you are interested in haiku or waka and would like to know more, please read introductory or specialized books on haiku or waka written in English.
I also write many articles about the Japanese language. I would be happy if these inspire more people to want to learn Japanese.
my blog’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳 | 団塊世代が雑学や面白い話を発信しています
my X’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多帳（@historia49）さん / X
I have previously written about the problems of “excessive quotas” and “overproduction” in Japan, and I think it is welcome that there have been recent moves to rectify these problems.
1. correction of excessive quotas
(1) Japan Post is “abolishing the quota of JPI
Recently, we often see consultation counters for “insurance arrangement/review”.
This is probably due to the fact that many people have been solicited by insurance agents to purchase various types of insurance without thinking carefully, or that many insurance policies have been purchased out of necessity due to social relationships, and many people feel the need to reorganize or review their insurance policies.
On July 28, 2019, the Asahi Shimbun newspaper reported that “Japan Post Group has decided to abolish the sales quota of Japan Post, which sells insurance on consignment for Japan Post Insurance.
Japan Post, which handles Japan Post’s insurance, has a sales target of 45 billion yen in terms of monthly premiums. This is allocated to each post office and bureau employee. In the case of a liaison bureau employee at the Tokyo branch, the annual salary is 3 million yen. Bureau members are confronted daily with the rate of achievement of their targets, and if they do not perform well, they are required to participate in training sessions. It is believed that these excessive quotas created pressure that led to inappropriate sales.
For this reason, quotas will be abolished and bureau employees will be left to conduct sales on their own initiative. Although a decline in sales is inevitable, priority will be given to customer service this fiscal year. The entire Postal Service Group, including Japan Post Bank, aims to maintain profitability. From the next fiscal year onward, we will review our sales structure to determine how we can maintain the amount of sales, apart from the quota.
In addition to this, there are reports that major securities companies such as Daiwa Securities and Nomura Securities, and megabanks such as Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation and Bank of Mitsubishi UFJ are (have) abolishing quotas. Traditionally, I believe that all companies, to a greater or lesser extent, have distributed quotas in the manner described in the above report.
This move to “abolish excessive quotas” is, in my opinion, a welcome one.
However, even if it has not become apparent, I believe there are still “adverse effects of excessive quota-ism” in reality.
<Addressed 9/14/2019> “Japan Post Bank’s Inappropriate Sales of Mutual Funds” News
There was a news report that about 19,600 cases of inappropriate contracts of investment trusts for elderly people at Japan Post Bank. The bank is required to check the health condition and understanding of the product twice, once at the time of solicitation and once at the time of purchase, but they failed to do so in as many as 90% of the cases. It seems that “excessive quotas” were also behind this.
However, it is not so easy to say that “abolishing quotas” will solve all problems. Salespeople are still concerned about their “sales performance,” which directly affects their salary. Just because salespeople become “independent salespeople” does not mean that all inappropriate sales practices will be eliminated.
Company managers are in the midst of intense “excessive competition” with other companies, so they must be concerned about declining sales even if quotas have been abolished. In addition, there are many issues to be addressed, including what to do about the future sales structure, personnel evaluation system, and internal audit system.
However, as a manager, I would like you to take a “long-term perspective” and lead the company in the right direction, even if performance deteriorates temporarily during your tenure. Do not seek “quick wins and short gains.
We, as a society, will need to continue to monitor sales activities from the standpoint of society as a whole to ensure that they do not violate the “customer first” principle.
In terms of “putting the customer first,” I believe that the financial industry as a whole needs to take measures such as requiring training in “financial gerontology” (financial gerontology) for all personnel who sell risky financial products to the elderly.
(2) Sony “dropped its business target
On April 26, 2019, “Sony announced that it will drop the target figures for operating income by business segment set out in its medium-term management plan through the fiscal year ending March 31, 2021. With the emphasis on management from a long-term perspective, the company has decided that it ‘cannot properly indicate the long-term trend and direction of each business’ (Hiroki Totoki, Chief Financial Officer),” the Nikkei reported.
Sony’s decision was based on the fact that “a year has passed since the announcement of the target figures and the environment surrounding each business has changed significantly, resulting in a divergence between the target figures and the actual situation” (Hiroki Totoki, Chief Financial Officer), including a major acquisition in the music business and strategic transformation of the smartphone business.
If the original targets had remained unchanged and the company had stuck to them, there is a possibility that “unreasonable sales activities” would have been conducted, even if in a different form from “inappropriate sales activities of Japan Post Insurance,” so I believe that this was an appropriate management decision.
２．Correcting Overproduction
(1) Nissan will “reduce workforce” and “cut production” and “reduce sales incentives (incentives)”
On July 26, 2019, the following was reported by Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun.
Nissan Motor Co. will reduce its workforce by 12,500 employees, equivalent to 10% of its total workforce, over the five years from FY2018 to FY2010. A total of 14 production lines, mainly at overseas plants, will be downsized. The company is also considering closure of some of these plants. Operating profit in the April-June 2007 consolidated financial results announced on the same day fell 98.5% year-on-year to 1.6 billion yen, due in part to sluggish sales in its mainstay U.S. market.
The company will simultaneously improve business efficiency through personnel reductions and other measures and improve the profitability of its U.S. business. The company plans to bottom out this fiscal year and return to a growth trajectory in FY2010.
Nissan’s efforts to streamline its production lines will involve a total of 6,400 job cuts at eight production lines, including plants in Fukuoka and Tochigi prefectures, in FY2006 and FY2007. In addition, six more production lines will be added by FY2010 for a total reduction of 6,100 workers.
As a result, the global annual production capacity for FY2010 is planned to be 6.6 million units, down approximately 10% from FY2006. President and CEO Hiroto Nishikawa says, “This will be a very healthy level. In terms of product development, the company will reduce the number of models by 10% by FY2010, focusing on compact cars and the “Datsun” brand for emerging countries.
Sales in the U.S. during the April-June period were down 3.7% y-o-y. The sales decline was factored in as the company worked to normalize sales by curbing incentives. President Nishikawa stresses that “the decline was a little more than expected” during the April-June period, but that “we will be able to recover within FY2007. The company views the current performance deterioration as a necessary “pain” for a recovery in FY2010, and intends to steadily promote business efficiency improvement and growth strategies, particularly in the U.S.
I have quoted at length, but you can read President Hiroto Nishikawa’s unflinching determination to normalize the management of Nissan, which had been preyed upon by defendant Carlos Ghosn’s unreasonable expansionist policies, ultra-high executive compensation, and embezzlement.
To recover from poor sales in North America, defendant Carlos Ghosn tried to increase sales by increasing sales incentives (incentives). As a result, however, the reputation of “Nissan as a cheap car” took hold, and the used car market also became undervalued.
The management decision to cancel excessive sales targets, reduce sales incentives, cut personnel, and reduce production is a sound one, and I look forward to Nissan’s resurgence in the future.
I also predict that Nissan will move to dissolve its partnership with Renault, which has become a futile and unequal partner that only siphons off Nissan’s profits.
However, there is a worrisome move to “build new factories in Algeria and Ghana in Africa. It seems that the company’s policy is to increase local production in anticipation of increased demand in Africa, but I would like to see the company move forward with a “return of factories to Japan” rather than increase local production. It would be presumptuous and inappropriate for a third party to criticize management decisions…
(2) “Job cuts” and “production reductions” at other automobile companies
The world’s largest market for automobiles is China, where new vehicle sales in 2019 are expected to be flat or slightly negative year over year at 28.1 million units (U.S. new vehicle sales in 2018 were 17.27 million units), with a slowdown in June 2019, down 9.6% from the same month last year. If this trend continues, it is certain to be negative for the full year.
Japanese automobile companies other than Nissan (Toyota, Honda, Mazda, Suzuki, Mitsubishi, Isuzu, and Hino) are also “reducing workforce” and “cutting production.
This is a natural trend among automobile companies, and although it will be painful in terms of headcount reductions, I believe that the policy of reducing production to an appropriate level is justified.
