Living style: enamelled kitchen products for a more comfortable life

In the last 25 years Japanese manufacturers have been put under pressure from regional competitors in China, South Korea, and Taiwan that have replicated the Japanese monozukuri processes, but done at a cheaper labor cost, providing the world with cheaper yet lower quality products. Nevertheless we have seen that the developed countries such as Japan have maintained leadership when it comes to premium products. How do you explain that despite price competitiveness, companies such as yours are able to remain competitive?

I think there are two approaches to compete with different companies in the Asian region. First, one of the strategies is to establish factories in the regions where you can operate domestically, you can do this in China, Taiwan, Vietnam, or Myanmar. I believe many Japanese companies used this strategy to remain competitive in terms of price. Second, differentiating your products is another effective strategy and by doing this your competitors would not be able to copy your products. To increase the value of your products they should have functionality, design, quality and branding. In terms of services, the value that you can add is through a stable supply chain, after service, and professional services at designated shops. Some Japanese companies have been very competitive for a long time, because they utilized the second approach, they differentiated their products and services.

Your company is active in both emerging and developed markets, you are present in Singapore and Myanmar. Each of these markets has different cultural and social levels. How are you able to cater your services and products to these types of markets?

We are not yet distributing a lot of our products in the overseas market because we have just started this kind of activity. At this moment our sales from the overseas market is only less than 1%. We have only started our sales activities in China, Taiwan, and Vietnam recently. We have seen a good sales trend in these markets despite having a number of competitors because our enamel system kitchen is unique particularly in Southeast Asian countries. Because these countries have high humidity, the enamel system kitchen system really fits well. Due to the fact that different countries have very different lifestyles we are thinking of developing more products that suit their culture and lifestyle. 

What are the advantages of using enamel as kitchen equipment over the more traditional ones? What are the applications you are able to develop from this unique technology?

Enameled materials have much higher resistance and it does not deteriorate even after twenty years; it is also easy to clean. Enameled materials have a huge advantage compared to the conventional ones, that is why they are used a lot in the kitchen and bathrooms. Aside from the kitchen, we are now applying these enameled materials to the interior walls and to public spaces such as stations, hotels, restaurants, and other places that easily get dirty. Our next focus in this business are enameled wall panels. 

Your company was founded in 1912 and you were the first one to make enameled materials for kitchen equipment. Kindly run us through the history of your company and its milestones.

It is true that we were the first ones here in Japan to create products made of enamel. This was triggered when our founder went to Germany and saw enameled products there and he was overwhelmed. To contribute to Japan’s modernization he decided to make enameled products and he invited German engineers to begin this company. Then our company, Takara Standard, was established. The initial name of the company was Japan Enamel Corporation. The products that we manufactured at that time were not for the kitchen but small housewares such as cooking pots and pans, kettles, and food containers. We do not have any documents to show what transpired at the beginning of our company but it seems it grew well. Things completely changed after World War 2, many companies started importing enameled products from Asian countries. Furthermore, new materials such as stainless steel, aluminium and plastics started emerging which were available at cheaper prices, enameled products lost their competitive edge.

Around 1955, the company was about to go bankrupt, then at that time my grandfather who owned a company called Takara Belmont made an investment into this company, thus saving this company by acquisition. Takara Belmont manufactures barber chairs, stylish chairs, dental chairs and other products. If you look at their old barber chairs you would find that their armrests are made of enamels. His intention probably for acquiring this company was to become a subcontractor. Furthermore he was the one who started the kitchen business. At that time after World War 2 when Japan was recovering, the population was growing and more houses were being built, and he thought it would be a good business for housing equipment.

The breakthrough came a few years later when my father joined the management system. There were some technological problems but my father had a strong leadership, he successfully developed our enameled steel kitchen. Our enameled kitchen product is more expensive than the regular ones, however, it sells well in the market because of its resistance and it is easy to clean. That was the beginning of the growth of this company and we have reached a sales volume of  ¥200 billion. For our enameled kitchen product to be widely known we opened showrooms across the country, at the moment we have 170 showrooms. The network of showrooms is the B2C business model tailored for the consumers and at the same time the management established the B2B business model tailored for the condominium developers. Fifty years ago most of the houses were built by local carpenters, however, our company foresaw that condominiums would be mainstream, that is why we started with a business model for that. Furthermore, the kitchens used in condominiums are specialized with different designs and we had to respond to the requests from these developers.

We established a special supply chain that includes the design, production, delivery and installation works; we built a very large warehouse with an area of 200,000 square meters. Due to having an efficient supply chain we obtained 80% market share for condo kitchens. Probably the development of condominiums in Japan would not have worked without our company. Our wise management team, excellent strategies and having an eye for the future have made our company successful. By the way, let me add that 99% of the kitchens for the condominiums are not enameled, it requires steel if one wants an enameled kitchen and this is costly. In this regard we have competitors but our supply chain differentiates us from them.

Another contributing factor to the success of this company is the diversification of our products ranging from kitchen to bathroom and restroom. One of our strengths is being able to use the same showrooms and distribution channels for all of our products. Our philosophy is to do something that others are not doing or cannot copy. By differentiating you become indispensable and earn respect in this business. Our basic strategy remains the same, however, this company has evolved a lot. Speaking of enameled products, recently we developed the ink jet technology which we are trying to commercialize. Recently we are facing a turning point since Japan’s population has been declining and the number of households in Japan is shrinking, therefore the market for house equipment will decline moving forward. To continue surviving as a company we need to venture into other fields and go overseas focusing in Asian countries. 

You are competing against massive companies in this field that you are in. How are you able to remain competitive for a long time?

We did not have a lot of experience competing with foreign kitchen makers such as in Europe and South Korea. They did enter into the market but they never became our main competitors because the kitchen business is quite complicated, our main competitors are fellow Japanese companies. You need showrooms, distribution channels, and you need to provide after sales services; these frameworks are necessary to sell your products. For our foreign competitors it is not that easy to be successful in the Japanese market. We are always ahead in this competition because we employ different strategies. Our enameled kitchen products are unprecedented and we are a pioneer in showrooms. If we had done the same thing as others then we would have already lost in this competition. 

As you venture abroad, can you tell us about your international strategy? How will you ensure that the designs that you make can be exported?

I believe that the designs of our products are a key factor for the growth of our company. In the past, the marketability of products was due to high performance or high functionality. However, recently things changed and young people give more value to the design and this pushed us to make the designs attractive enough and this is a big challenge to us. As I have mentioned above our enamel products have a high durability and they are easy to clean, but it is not easy to make attractive designs for them. They are very popular in non-urban cities but not that much in urban cities. In terms of our ink jet technology I think we have overcome this obstacle recently. In our development department there are many in-house designers and we are increasing the number of young female designers. We have some contracts with external or foreign designers as well to enhance our creativity to cater to different tastes and preferences.

Imagine we come back to interview you again in ten years, what would you like to tell us? What are your dreams for the company and what kind of legacy would you like to leave?

We would like to become a global company by that time and increase our sales in the foreign market up to 30% of our total sales volume. I hope more and more people will learn about the quality of the Takara brand, use our products and achieve a much more comfortable life.