Ichidai Hiyaku

     Procter & Gamble (P&G) couldn’t label itself a truly global company until it penetrated Japan. The “leap” as it would come to be known was mapped out in the late 60s and was executed in the early 70s. Maybe the company suffered from a little bit of overconfidence. See, by the late 60s, P&G was well embedded in Europe, Latin America, North Africa and the Middle East and doing well. Japan would be another stepping stone on the path to growth, or so executives and management thought.

                Using the tried-and-true formula P&G studied the market to learn customers and sales channels, formed partnerships with local manufacturers to gain and access to local distributors, retailers, and customers, and then they deployed all of their key human and technological capital to get the work done. None of it worked.

                While P&G had the customers and channels figured out, there was one “c” they overlooked – culture. While the cultural aspects of the countries that P&G weren’t far from that in North America, Japan was totally different. Customers had a sense for brand/image and expected great quality from their consumer products. P&G would eventually find success in Japan but it would come after many consecutive years of losses. One of the keys to success was a five step/three-year  plan developed by a team of P&G executives and managers called “The Great Flying Leap” or, in Japanese, Ichidai Hiyaku. The plan focused on aggressive growth while mitigating costs. Prior to the plan, P&G had the former down, but the latter was out of control. The five components of The Great Flying Leap were…

1.       Understand Japanese Consumers

2.       Tailor Products to Japan

3.       Market with Sensitivity to Culture

4.       Sell the Company’s Image

5.       Penetrate the Japanese Distribution System

While all of this might seem logical, to P&G executives and management this was a dramatic change from how things were done in the western cultures that the company had grown accustomed to operating in. The lesson here is that research into a new global market is nothing without developing a pure understanding of culture. Without that understanding, developing a loyal customer base will be difficult, if not impossible.

Adapted from

Dyer, Davis et. al., Rising Tide: Lessons from 165 Years of Brand Building at Procter & Gamble (Harvard Business School Press: Boston) 2004. 211-227.