The annual turnover reaches 2.5 billion US dollars; the annual output of zippers is 8.4 billion, with a length equivalent to 1.9 million kilometers, enough to circle the earth 47 times; the zippers it produces account for 90% of the Japanese zipper market and 30% of the US market. 45, 35 in the world market.
Small business, big world.
The rise of the “zipper king”
In 1928, Tadao Yoshida was 20 years old. With the 70 yen living expenses given by his brother, he left his hometown of Kurobe Town, Fuji Prefecture, and went to Tokyo alone to explore the world.
At that time, Chinese ceramics were selling well in Japan, and Yoshida started his working career in a small ceramics shop opened by a friend. Later, Yoshida was sent to Shanghai to purchase ceramics. Shanghai in the 1930s gave birth to numerous domestic business tycoons, as well as foreign passers-by. Here, Yoshida's "business experience" gradually took shape from scratch, and this became his magic weapon for success in the future.
The Japanese invasion of China broke out. Yoshida returned to Japan to help a friend save a ceramics store that was on the verge of bankruptcy, but failed to escape the fate of bankruptcy. While cleaning up the goods left in the store, Yoshida accidentally discovered a large number of zippers entrusted by others to sell on consignment. Due to their rough production and poor quality, these zippers have been stored in the store for a long time, and many of them have become rusty and damaged.
However, these zippers, which others regarded as tatters, became "treasures" in Yoshida's eyes. He borrowed money to buy these zippers and started his business.
In January 1934, Yoshida founded SanS Company, which specialized in producing and selling zippers, with only two employees. At this point, Yoshida had a heavy burden on his shoulders - a debt of 2,070 yen, and everything he did thereafter was pinned on a small zipper.
At that time, the development of zippers in Japan was not smooth. The method of producing zippers in Japan is very primitive, relying entirely on manual assembly, with teeth, pull handles, and tapes required one by one. This results in a high failure rate, customer returns, and store inventory piling up.
In order to solve this problem, Yoshida first went to the Osaka zipper factory and took advantage of the opportunity to place an order to understand the zipper manufacturing process. After coming back, I concentrated on studying ways to improve it. He developed some small repair tools and repaired the returned zippers one by one. He wrote down his experience and explained it with diagrams. What greatly increased his confidence was that almost no one returned the zippers he repaired and sold.
In the zipper processing factory on the third floor of 3S Company, the initial pile of returned zippers was repaired by Yoshida and two employees, and all were sold as 3S brand zippers. The three S brand zippers sold to customers are strong and durable, and can even withstand the blow of a hammer. In addition, they are smooth and easy to pull, making a crisp and soft sound like tearing cloth along the grain. Its sales are getting smoother. Many dealers in Tokyo mainly purchase 3S products, and they are known as "Golden Hammer Zippers".
Yoshida’s zipper sales are increasing at a rate of three times every year, and SanS Company has also begun to produce some parts of zippers. The number of employees in the company has increased from 3 to 26, and the sales network is also growing day by day. Yoshida paid off all his debts and took back the IOU with tears in his eyes.
In 1938, Three S Company expanded several times, with more than 100 employees, and the original store was no longer enough. Yoshida purchased 85 square meters of land and built a new factory. SanS Company also changed its name to Yoshida Industrial Company.
At that time, Japan implemented a wartime economic system. In addition to the production of guns, the domestic industrial and commercial circles were prohibited from using "copper", but zippers used copper as the main raw material. After much trial and error, he decided to switch to aluminum as an alternative. As a result, Yoshida became the first in the world to replace copper zippers with aluminum. After that, he also developed a strong yet light aluminum alloy zipper.
Yoshida is not satisfied with the domestic market. He is also actively expanding into the United States, Mexico and South American markets. Until the outbreak of the Pacific War.
Survival from desperate situation
On March 10, 1945, an air raid by the US military destroyed Yoshida's zipper factory in Tokyo.
Facing the ruins, Yoshida’s ambition did not fall. He saw that after Japan’s defeat, the economy was facing depression and there was a serious shortage of goods. He took this as an opportunity to use his experience and technology in setting up factories to recruit Workers, raising funds and equipment, quickly produced large quantities of zippers. At this time, he began to adopt the trademark "YKK", and the foundation of the world-famous zipper kingdom was laid.
As the company embarked on a new track, Yoshida did not expect that a small incident would have a profound impact on the development of "YKK".
One afternoon, an American came to Yoshida's office and asked to see Yoshida's zippers. Yoshida took out the company's best zippers and quoted a price of 9 cents a piece. The American was silent for a moment and took out a zipper he carried with him. After Yoshida tried it, he found that both performance and design were far superior to "YKK", and the price shocked Yoshida: 7 cents for 40 zippers!
This incident had a great impact on Yoshida. When he recalled the situation at the time, he said: "We had no room for negotiation at all, and I was breaking out in cold sweat." Although the company is continuing to develop, Japan The zipper technology is still at a backward stage.
Yoshida knew very well that if American products entered the Japanese market, the entire Japanese zipper industry would collapse.
“The future will no longer be dominated by skilled craftsmen, but an era dominated by sophisticated machines.”
An American chain-element machine can be imported for 30,000 to 40,000 yuan. US dollars alone could not be afforded by a small business. Yoshida suggested that the industry jointly spend money to buy imported machines and establish a jointly operated company, but no one responded. Then, Yoshida gritted his teeth and spent 12 million yen to import four fully automatic chain element machines from the United States. At that time, Yoshida's capital was only 5 million yen.
Yoshida’s money was not in vain. The machinery runs at high speed and has excellent performance, which attracts all the employees in the factory. Yoshida didn't stop there, however.
He did another thing.
——Invited Hitachi Seiki Chairman Kiyosaburo to discuss and decided to develop 100 better machines within three years and deliver them in batches.
Later, among the 100 new high-speed chain machines, the Sansan zipper machine has a speed of 4,000 revolutions per minute. The production volume in 12 minutes is equivalent to the workload of the old model in 8 hours a day.
At the same time, Yoshida once again turned his attention abroad, and he looked forward to opening up a new frontier for his "zipper kingdom" again.
As the trade war between Japan and Western Europe and North America continues to escalate, Yoshida foresees that Western European and North American countries will inevitably restrict the import of Japanese goods by raising tariffs. In order to survive in the cracks, he decided to develop overseas business strategies as follows: using local cheap labor, building factories overseas, and selling goods locally
In this way, he not only reduced costs, but also cleverly Bypassing the hurdle of increasing tariffs, it does not affect its local trade.
“Return the benefits to the local people and let the local people participate in the management.” Yoshida said with a smile.
The plate is bigger, so of course you have to work harder on the craftsmanship. In many factories of "YKK", there is not a single machine with a service life of more than 3 years. The company produces tens of thousands of machines every year for replacement use in subordinate factories.
“Although the machine that produces zippers has a long service life, it can only exert its best effect in the first few years, so it must be constantly updated.”
In fact, since 1953 From the beginning, "YKK" began to implement a self-made equipment strategy. Except for special circumstances, the company's zipper and aluminum profile manufacturing equipment 100 are manufactured by YKK's Kurobe factory. At the factory, half of the people work in the technical research department and the equipment department that manufactures the company's equipment.
In 1958, 50-year-old Tadao Yoshida finally got his wish. This year's zipper production has completed the ambition of annual zipper production to circle the earth.
The secret of success
Someone asked Yoshida, who started with 350 yen, what is the secret of his success?
His answer was: “When I was 17 years old and in high school, I read a book that impressed me deeply. "You will never succeed in your life," this is the cycle of kindness, which gave me success."
In Yoshida's view, the "cycle of kindness" is the core concept of "YKK". This kind of kindness is not taken but given.
In order to realize the "circle of kindness", Yoshida allowed employees of "YKK" company to purchase the company's stocks, and stockholders can receive 18% of dividends every year. At the beginning of the 21st century, employees of “YKK” company owned more than 50% of the company’s shares. At the same time, he restricted company employees to deposit 10% of their wages and allowances and 50% of their bonuses in the company to improve and expand the company's scale. The company paid interest to employees who deposited money every month at an interest rate higher than the bank's time deposit interest rate. .
Yoshida’s philosophy has a great appeal to employees. By the end of 1983, employees' deposits in the company had accumulated to more than 42 million US dollars. Since then, of the annual dividends paid by "YKK", Yoshida has accounted for 16%, his family has accounted for 24%, and the rest has been shared by employees.
Similarly, Yoshida also gives trust to consumers.
On October 6, 1973, a large-scale oil crisis broke out around the world. Oil prices soared from US$3/barrel to US$11/barrel. Other directors are calling for price increases to cope with the soaring gas costs. Yoshida remained calm.
“Even if we suffer a loss of 10 billion yuan, we must maintain the trust of our customers in us, and the enterprise will bear this loss.”
Of course, he did not forget to encourage everyone . "This situation will not last long."
Sure enough, a few months later, oil prices began to fall, and "YKK" overcame another difficulty.
If "the cycle of kindness" is Yoshida's medicine to "win people's hearts", then the ultimate pursuit of products is the foundation for his great business.
At the beginning, in order to find the answer on how to develop aluminum alloy, he took a Pan Am passenger plane and went abroad for inspection. In the United States, he watched the conveyor belt-style assembly line of the Ford Motor Factory that produces a car in 6 seconds; he inspected numerous precision machinery factories and alloy factories in Europe and the United States. He wrote down his daily inspection experiences in a small notebook or took pictures with a camera. No matter how tired he was that night, he would write an article and send it back to Japan. He worked tirelessly to learn professional knowledge about aluminum alloys, automated production lines, precision machinery and international trade, and finally returned home with a full load.
After returning home, Yoshida immediately started taking action using the newly learned "lightning tactics".
He handed over all the aluminum alloy inspection results and personal suggestions to Hitachi Manufacturing. Under his day and night supervision, metallurgical experts worked together and finally successfully developed an aluminum alloy suitable for zippers.
An invisible aluminum alloy zipper has been developed!
Although invisible zippers have long been a best-seller in the United States, Tadao Yoshida’s aluminum alloy invisible zippers have a tendency to catch up. A 1998 Los Angeles Times report stated: “YKK smelts its own copper, blends its own polyester, spins and twists its own yarn, dyes its own zipper patches, makes its own molds for its unique zipper teeth... and even makes its own hair. Cargo box."
While the outside world is still lamenting this legend, "YKK" has already established a solid image of a time-honored brand:
A zipper can never complete a piece of clothing.
p>But it can easily ruin a piece of clothing.