The “field army” reform of product development (2002)

The author's view

What Kioka Koji's reform showed was an idea of lodging hits in the mechanisms of an organisation rather than in the flair of individuals. The new-product ratio as a metric, and a proposal scheme open to every employee, can be read as an attempt to shift the axis of evaluation from a development that rejoices and despairs over each single hit to a development that keeps stepping up to the plate with misses priced in. It was in the still-young field of vegetable drinks that the mechanism meshed.

On the other hand, what Kagome carried at the same time was a struggle in its traditional food categories — ketchup and sauces — and the weight of loss-making greenhouse farms and overseas subsidiaries. Whether a constitution for consecutive hits extends beyond beverages, and how to avoid functional claims running so hot that they edge toward medicine, remain open. Whether the field-army reform reached as far as structural reform of the whole company is still at the stage of being watched.