Hirotoshi Hatazaki
Profile
Performance in office
Tenure
Tenure
Background
Hatazaki was born in 1936 in Tsuna District, Hyogo Prefecture, and on graduating from the prefectural Sumoto Jitsugyo High School in 1954 joined Hikari Shokai in Kobe. Hikari Shokai was a retailer handling hats, clothing and other daily goods, later renamed Empire. At this 25-employee company he handled everything from cleaning to packing, sales and planning, and within three years was its top salesman. In January 1959 he and Mamoru Kiguchi, his superior at Hikari Shokai, founded World, and he became Senior Managing Director. The ¥2 million in capital was more than he had saved at his previous job, and he scraped it together by borrowing.
Selection
In 1972 Hatazaki replaced Mamoru Kiguchi as President, and Kiguchi moved to Chairman. Kiguchi had been his superior at Hikari Shokai, 13 years his senior; right after the founding, manufacturers loyal to their former wholesaler would not supply goods, and Hatazaki lived in a storeroom in a building's attic while developing suppliers. By the time he took office, World had opened a Tokyo store in February 1965 and built its Kobe head office building in October 1968. In autumn 1973, his second year, a consumer slump left the company with 500,000 pieces, ¥2.0 billion, of inventory, and in the FY ended July 1974 profits fell for the first time since the founding.
Initiatives
Learning from the inventory glut, Hatazaki moved away from being a wholesaler that simply passed goods along, restructuring the business into a manufacturer without factories that kept planning and design in-house and ordered production from manufacturers. He expanded into children's clothing in 1974 and men's and sportswear in 1978, and from that year began bringing sewing in-house. In March 1984 he moved the head office to Port Island in Kobe. In January 1992 he announced the SPARCS concept, aimed at shifting to specialty retailing of private-label apparel, and in November 1993, in its 34th year, the company listed on the Second Section of the Osaka Securities Exchange.
Career
Career
Hikari Shokai
| Date | Position |
|---|---|
| 1954 | Joined |
World
| Date | Position |
|---|---|
| Jan 1959 | 木口衞氏と共同で設立・専務取締役 (translation pending) |
| 1972 | 木口衞氏に代わり代表取締役社長 (translation pending) |
| Jun 1997 | Representative Director, Chairman |
| Jun 1997 | Stepped down as President |
References 3
References (Japanese primary sources)
- 日経ビジネス 1977年2月14日号「編集長インタビュー 畑崎廣敏氏（ワールド社長）」
- Decide 1985年11月号「世界企業への道 ワールド社長畑崎廣敏」
- 創業者精神 : 独力で優良企業を築いた経営者列伝（日経ベンチャー別冊、1993年）「現社長との出会いがすべてを決めた」木口衞