Date: June 30th, 2014
Place: Main Hall
Participants: 47 students
Lecturer: Uchihashi Yasuo from Nishimatsuya Co. Ltd.
Topic: “The Problems that Arise When Developing a Private Brand”
Today we invited Uchihashi Yasuo of Nishimatsuya, a company headquartered in Himeji, which sells maternity and baby clothing and goods. Nishimatsuya boasts the top market share for sales of toys and so on. Mr. Uchihashi spoke to us about the background of the company and about how the company must deal with globalization. He said that in order to create a private brand 
with a trusted commodity production factory inspections are essential and that management needs to have firm goals. He talked about the challenges of working with manufacturers overseas and the company’s current situation.
After the lecture students asked him questions about the risks of entering the Chinese market and about how to create brand trust in other countries. The students then wrote down some problems they are interested in learning more about:
- Japan is currently economically dependent on China. Should Japan cooperate with any other countries more?
- How do companies do research when they develop new products?
- How do companies deal with foreign exchange rates and the risks of operating in foreign countries?
- How can we expand the Japanese market share?
- How can we let other companies know about Japanese products?
