North America and “the third paper”: the fall of a growth company (1963)

What it means to go out first

Sekisui’s move into North America was a conception ahead of its time: beat freight costs by producing locally, and take a world market with a material of your own. The logic of local production, as Ueno Jiro actually described it, runs straight through to the overseas expansion of Japanese companies that followed. The problem was that, with the technology behind “the third paper” not yet settled, he chose for himself a battlefield where he would meet Dow Chemical and Monsanto — opponents with research capacity of an entirely different order — head on. Moving first and failing to win are lodged inside one and the same decision, and that is where the difficulty of the attempt shows.

What should not be forgotten is that the failure did not stay contained within the Sekisui group. While President Ueno was betting on the United States, the Sekisui House that Tanabe Takeshi was raising at home went on to lead the group’s growth. The parent that burned out spectacularly abroad, and the spun-off company that secured its footing domestically — two choices made in the same years ran to opposite ends. Was the decision to take the lead right, or should the company have waited for market and technology to mature? The fall of Sekisui the growth company still puts the question of what it means to go out ahead of everyone else.