The Mitsui joint venture: taking maintenance abroad (2019)

An overseas hedge drawn against dependence on state policy

The heart of this decision was seeking the next room to grow abroad precisely while the domestic market was expanding under national policy. A structure that draws most of its demand from Japanese public investment is also, read the other way, one that contracts whenever policy contracts. So while business was good, the company borrowed another firm’s strength — Mitsui’s global trading network — to establish a foothold overseas: a joint venture that closed the distance to local markets it could not have reached alone.

The overseas business is still small, and the Thai venture’s move into profit in the year to June 2025 is only a first step towards earning. Even so, the shift from selling products through a partner’s distribution channel to a direct model in which Shobond provides its own construction and engineering gives one answer to the question of how the integrated maintenance system honed at home can be used abroad. How to prepare for a structure weighted so heavily towards Japan — the significance of this decision is that it put that question at the centre of management while earnings were strong.