The 1993 rebuild after the first missed dividend since listing (1993)

The burden of having won too well

At the centre of this decision lies the paradox that conquering the world with a single format, VHS, had if anything drained the company’s ability to grow its next business. Patent income papered over the losses, and the development corps’ pride in itself pushed investment in production technology and product planning down the queue. President Bonjo’s restructuring and the “new wind” ventures can be read as an attempt to loosen the habits that success had set. That the company reached into its own constitution only after suffering its first missed dividend since listing — rather than while it was still doing well — shows how late, and how difficult, the decision was.

Victory in the 1976 format war pushed the company to its peak, and the constitution that the manner of that victory produced prepared the slump a dozen years later. The rebuild begun in 1993 never reached as far as replacing the main business, and JVC, unable to ride the wave of digitalisation, closed its history as an independent company in the 2008 merger with Kenwood. How a firm that has won too completely with one technology can let go of that memory — JVC’s course puts the weight of a successful experience as a question to the present day, and not only to the electrical industry.