『 Asiaweek ( アジアウィーク ) 』 May 25, 2001 VOL.27 NO.21
今からちょうど 10年前の 2001年5月25日。
TIME誌で有名なTIME社の「ASIA WEEK」という雑誌に
載ったことがありました。
なんと10年経ちました。
当時は自分の会社のことが、
世界中の人々に読まれてすごい感激したものです。
昔から「十年一昔」と言いますが、
この10年間の社会全体の変化はもの凄かったですね。
今から10年後の
2021年5月25日、
自分が何をしていて、
私たちの会社がどうなっていて、
世界や日本がどう変化しているのか楽しみです！
▼English（英文）
On May 25, 2001, exactly ten years ago today, my interview was published in Asia Week magazine from TIME Inc., which is famous for TIME magazine.
How swiftly the time goes! 10 years have gone by.
It was read by many different people around the world. I was deeply moved by our company being known by people at the time.
Just like it has been said “ten years make an epoch”, there were drastic changes in society the last decade.
On May 25, 2021, a decade from now, I’m looking forward to seeing what I will be doing personally and with our company, and how the world will be changed.
それにしても！
「Technophobe」って
「ハイテク恐怖症」ですよ、「ハイテク恐怖症」（笑い）
Revenge of the Technophobe Most old-economy flirtations with the Internet have ended in tears. This quirky Japanese CEO went online — and revived his family's electronics chain. By mastering the art of customer service, he now has a shot at the big time By YOKO SHIMATSUKA in Tokyo
Nobuhiro Murauchi openly admits to knowing little — and caring even less — about electronics. "I'm not tech savvy and never liked gadgets as a child," he says. A surprising confession, you might think, given that Murauchi, 33, is CEO of a thriving chain of suburban Tokyo electronics stores.
Then again, Murauchi is not a conventional Japanese corporate boss. He dropped out of university because it was "boring." He eschews the traditional seniority system for performance-based pay. Perhaps most amazing for Japan Inc., he publishes his personal diary on the company website so that customers and potential investors can get to know him better — one posting featured a photo of him bathing at a hot spring.
But his most ambitious attempt to break the mold has focused on his company. In just over two years, Murauchi has boosted sales at his family's staid electronics and electrical-appliance chain, Murauchi Denki (Electric), 31% to $142 million. How? By renaming the company murauchi.co.jp and building an e-commerce website that sells everything from TVs to computers. This was a bold move for a relatively small company, but one in tune with a fledgling entrepreneurial culture in which a few risk-taking upstarts are starting to outmaneuver entrenched players. The Murauchi site racked up $13.3 million in sales in the year ended March 2001 — helping the company punch above its weight in an electronics-retailing scene dominated by nationwide chains like Laox and Sofmap. Despite a deflationary economy, Murauchi expects website revenues to double this year.
His motivation is simple. "I love sales," says Murauchi, who peddled video cameras for Sony before joining the family firm. His first hint that online sales might take off came in 1998, when an advertisement on the company's plain-vanilla corporate website for the Japanese version of Windows 98 attracted 3,000 customers in an evening. A visit to the U.S. later that year did the rest. "I was shocked to see an entire town filled with dotcom domains and 'www' signs. I thought the same thing would happen in Japan," says Murauchi.
Knowing little about online retailing, but seeking any chance to boost business at a time when rival chains were threatening the company's turf, Murauchi took his idea to the board. In family-run businesses, implementing change can be next to impossible, but partly because others shared his concerns, the plan was unopposed.
For a year, he struggled to keep a homemade site running. But the experience was valuable. It taught him about Net shoppers' behavior and the importance of service online. "I learned that Web customers become repeaters when they have a good experience shopping," says Murauchi. Convenience, efficiency and price are also key, he says. The company offers next-day home delivery via nationwide courier, a choice of payment options and discounts to shoppers who sign up for free website membership.
With the website drawing between 100,000 and 120,000 page views a day, Murauchi has set his sights on bigger things — much bigger. Now he wants to go back to bricks and mortar, expanding the firm's present five stores just west of Tokyo into Japan's largest electronics chain. He is considering taking his company public in 2003. It's a grand plan whose full details elude even Murauchi. Reiko Mitsuishi, an analyst at the M&M Research Institute in Tokyo, agrees the company can expand but doubts it has the brand name to succeed nationally.
Murauchi is sure to press ahead anyway. In his online diary, he once described dining at Tokyo's exclusive Imperial Hotel, writing: "I loved the experience but felt like a misfit." Yet in a country still mired in rigid business practices, Nobuhiro Murauchi proves being a maverick is no bad thing.
With reporting by Mutsuko Murakami
Write to Asiaweek at mail@web.asiaweek.com
村内伸弘＠ムラウチ ドットコム.｡.:*･ﾟ☆.｡.
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