A company with 13 employees, including the boss, basically made orders through fax and telephone, and did not have a quality inspection department... But in the 37 years since the establishment of the company (Note: from the establishment of the company in 1970 to the retirement of the founder Umehara Katsuhiko in 2007), he experienced petroleum Crisis, exchange rate volatility, bubble burst and other adversity blows, it can still maintain a gross profit margin of more than 35% every year, and it is listed. His founder also won the National Entrepreneur Award. Have you seen such a company?

This is a Japanese company named "A-one Precision". It was founded in 1970. It mainly produces super-hard collet chucks. It has a market share of 60% and has 13,000 foreign users. It was listed on the Osaka Stock Exchange in 2003. . Its founder, Katsuhiko Umehara, won the Japanese Entrepreneur Award in 2007. Previously, the winners were such big figures as Son Masayoshi of SoftBank and Masaru Yanai of Uniqlo.

As we all know, if a small business can be a leader in the industry, it must have an outstanding performance in a subdivision and become the so-called "hidden champion". This is no longer necessary. But because it is so small, A-one is also full of anti-traditional concepts in management.

The meeting does not exceed 30 minutes a year

First look at the amazing efficiency of A-one. Because of the small number of people, A-one's annual meeting time does not exceed 30 minutes. A lot of exchanges are talked while standing on the spot. A-one's products are of good quality, but its strongest advantage is the fast delivery.

The production time of a week or two weeks for a large company only needs 1 to 3 days in A-one. Umehara said: “In fact, 70% of orders received before 3 pm on the same day can be completed and delivered within the same day. In fact, 100% delivery is not a problem, but in this way, the second I'll have nothing to do this morning."

A-one takes less than 5 minutes from accepting the order to starting the operation in the factory, and the intermediate process does not rely on IT systems and networks, but only relies on handwritten faxes. Because of the small number of personnel and fewer categories, the production process does not have to go through many processes such as production scheduling, material management, and delivery management that are necessary for large companies (these are all called "manufacturing redundant management" by Meiyuan. A few people make a phone call , Or run a lap with a fax, and start production within a few minutes. In order to shorten the delivery cycle, A-one even omitted the steps of quality inspection. According to Umehara's theory-as long as each process is carefully passed, the output will be It will only be a high-quality product.

What's even more incredible is that, as a micro-manufacturer, A-one has its own sales network under limited resources. This strategy not only makes the series of processes from order to manufacturing to delivery be done by themselves, without intermediate links, which improves the delivery speed; more importantly, it gets rid of the dilemma of being controlled by the sales side. When Umehara explained the company's high-revenue structure, he always explained that 20% of the profit comes from manufacturing and 15% comes from the sales department, so there is a gross profit margin of more than 35%.

Happiness is another thing that must be mentioned

In the traditional Japanese concept, the company is a place to seek happiness.

But with the increasing popularity of the American business culture that pursues scale and short-term profitability, this concept has slowly faded. In A-one, employees are not only hired for life, do not need to check in, but can share the company's profits. Umehara even put forward some deviant claims. For example, at A-one, he tends to recruit laypersons because it is "easy to train." At present, A-one speaks English every day to overseas sales managers, who were originally housewives nearby.

He distinguished the work and personal life of employees very clearly, and even told employees in a solemn tone, "If you see me outside the company, you don't need to say hello." At the same time, employees are strictly forbidden to call his home.