The “earn, cut, prevent” reforms and the non-resource No. 1 strategy (2010)

Build a hard-to-lose constitution first, then stack up wins

The core of these reforms is that they were not belt-tightening forced by a financial crisis but a reworking of the very content of the company’s earning power. Itochu’s weakness lay not in thin gross profit but in the way expenses devoured the gross profit it earned. Okafuji tightened exactly there, by “cutting and preventing,” and then entered through a reachable goal — “non-resource No. 1.” Rather than raising a grand banner first, he stacked up easy-to-take first places to build the habit of winning. Before lifting its rank, the reform ran on the plan of remaking the organization into one accustomed to winning.

The strength of “non-resource” is the flip side of a weakness — the inability to ride the wave of high resource prices. Even so, Okafuji built, outside the competition where resource prices decide a trading house’s rank, another arena in which to earn without depending on resources. The 2020 triple crown was the arrival point of that, and at the same time proof that he had chosen not to compete on resources on the same ground as the zaibatsu-affiliated firms. In what order to turn one’s own strengths into competitive advantage — Okafuji’s reform shows the art of sequence: build a hard-to-lose constitution first, accumulate the habit of winning, and only then aim for the summit.