'Joy and Fun': Horiba Chairman and Group CEO Talks Outside-the-box Business

Recently, GK met with Atsushi Horiba, Chairman and Group CEO of Kyoto-based Horiba Ltd., one of Japan's leaders in high-tech development.

With a plethora of group companies and divisions covering a wide area of engineering, from ultra-high-definition scanners for use in art conservation to precision emission monitors to measure pollution, Horiba has always been pushing boundaries of 'what is possible' regarding measurement equipment.

During our fantastic interview, Atsushi Horiba spoke about his experiences in the USA, good foresight on Japan's recent semiconductor boom, and business philosophies of the Kyoto area.

-Given that you have extensive experience overseas, how have you been able to incorporate out-of-the-box thinking into your operations here in Japan??

"Thanks to my studies in the United States, I was able to notice the emphasis placed on presentation. There were 200 students in a special engineering school class I attended monthly and there was always some general topic to discuss. I was singled out many times to tell everyone my thoughts about the industry of Japan and at the time I wanted to hide. I know now that he valued my opinion as a foreign student and I really appreciate him now, too, but English was definitely an issue for me - had I been able to reply in Japanese I thought I would feel differently."

"Every six months, I invite key managers from overseas, maybe 30-40 of them, and we have many meetings at our seminar ‘fun’ house - the days we spend here allow us to discuss very serious matters and also blow off steam and develop interpersonal connections that we otherwise couldn’t."

-As a company deeply integrated within the semiconductor industry, what trends have you observed in recent times, especially as countries look to bolster their own domestic production?

"We established a factory in Kumamoto maybe 20 years ago, and, at that time there were maybe only 15 people - now there are 900. The character of people in Kumamoto is quite inspiring as even during the large earthquake 7 years ago, they soldiered on and worked so hard. We doubled down after the earthquake, too, and announced we would support the prefecture by opening a new factory which is now working with TSMC - it’s easy for us now to increase production since we are already firmly established there and other players in the industry are flooding to Kumamoto now.?"

-With a company motto of ‘joy and fun’, Horiba has been able to carve out its own approach to work in a number of unique ways. Some of these include trials with 3-day work weeks, a rarity in Japan, going as far back as 1986. You have also embodied the ‘honmamon’?approach to management throughout your history. What has allowed your company to grow to the level that it is at today?

"Honmamon?refers to value-added, ‘real’ products and it’s a part of this area’s DNA. Even cheap foodstuffs such as pickles in Kyoto are?honmamon,?and they are vastly superior to that of other regions in Japan. Even though perhaps 70% of our employees come from beyond Kyoto, once they have studied or worked here for a little while, they become one of us while bringing their unique ideas and personality."