Launching outsourced employee benefits as a second pillar (1993)

What it means to put another product on the same list

Sasada Masanori’s motive for going into this business was not of the kind that finds a growth market; it lay in a sense of crisis about the core business tapering off. Caretaking is a contract that ends when the transferee returns, and if companies pull back from overseas no new ones come in. What remained in hand was only the point of contact — the HR departments of some four thousand large companies. The idea of putting another product in front of that contact point is less an advance into a new field than a reuse of a relationship already held. That the company endured several years of losses was also because there was no other candidate for the next pillar.

What put the business on track was not its own selling but the financial crisis and corporate asset restructuring. Companies that had sold their resort houses went looking for a replacement scheme, and large firms entered a system designed for smaller ones. But that there was a product to offer at that moment was owed entirely to the five or six years Sasada had spent calling on small companies. The thin catalogue that began with nine hotels and one sports facility grew into a business with 7.27 million members at the end of the year to March 2025.