INTRODUCTION

JAPANESE TELEVISION COMPANIES first gained a foothold in the British market, importing sets, in 1973, when the ‘Barber Boom’ created more demand than could be met by indigenous manufacturers. The quality of the sets soon gave them a competitive advantage and British companies lost market share.

After a period of conflict, the two industries began to negotiate a process of ‘orderly marketing’ of imports. This encouraged some Japanese to start manufacture in Britain, with the support of the Government. While some started Greenfield factories (Panasonic and Sony), others formed joint ventures with UK companies (Hitachi with GEC and Toshiba with Rank) while some bought existing factories. Mitsubishi Electric took over the bankrupt Tandberg plant in Scotland and Sanyo bought the Pye Lowestoft factory. All had some understanding with the UK Government that they would buy from UK suppliers a proportion (never publicly revealed) of the components they used. By 1980 most of these companies were making sets.

MULLARD LTD

The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) urged UK suppliers to rise to the challenge but many British companies found Japanese requirements too demanding in quality and price and preferred to concentrate on the military and telecommunications industries. An exception to this was the major electronic component supplier to the TV industry, Mullard Ltd, for whom the consumer sector was too important to neglect. I was appointed Managing Director in January 1979 and, after organising a market study to establish whether Japanese competitors were unfairly undercutting Mullard, came to the conclusion that they were more efficient and that, therefore, Mullard had to learn to compete on Japanese terms if it wished to survive. The main issues were quality, price and being able to meet the technical specifications for the components designed in Japan.

Mullard needed to understand what made the customers tick, so a course describing Japanese business culture was designed. It lasted three days and included talks by the Japanese managers of the TV factories, economic and political history, business practices and etiquette and even an exposure to Japanese food and drink. Sales staff, product managers and the managers of Mullard's UK factories, indeed anyone who faced the Japanese companies as suppliers or competitors, attended the course.

The course emphasised the high quality requirements of the Japanese companies. This meant a reversal of the pre-war Japanese reputation for poor quality.