Chapter 96 The best companies make mistakes

Here, I would like to talk about the mistakes made by an excellent company when looking at the problems of young people. This error comes from a survey conducted by the Nihon Keizai Shimbun in 2007 on “young people in their 20s and 30s living in the Tokyo area” (Figure 6-1). The results of the survey demonstrate "how insatiable young people are today".According to the survey, they are generally in such a state, "don't want to buy a car", "don't drink much", and "like to spend holidays at home", "fear of wasteful expenditure", "want to spend Save your money"—their care with which they live is astonishing.

The survey results also show that compared with 2000, the proportion of young people in their 20s who own a car (23.6% down to 13.0%) and those who want to buy a car (48.2% down to 25.3%) has both dropped to half. ; In addition, the proportion of people who drink alcohol only once a month or do not drink alcohol at all has become 34.4%. Seeing this result, my comment was "20somethings are incredible", but what really caught my attention was their lack of desire to live. It is surprising that only 1 in 4 said they "wanted to have their own car" and only 1 in 10 wanted to own their own car.

During the period of rapid economic development in Japan, basically every Japanese dreamed of owning three things (cars, refrigerators, and color TVs). People at that time were working hard for these things. It is not an exaggeration to say that it is the driving force of economic development. However, this material desire is declining now, perhaps because people's material needs have now been met, but what we must know is that only Japan has this phenomenon.Why do you say that, because this phenomenon is related to problems such as "decline of collective IQ", "decline of learning ability", "decline of interest in learning", "development of metropolises" and "worldwide competition". related.

In my opinion, the main reason for this phenomenon is the aftermath of the collapse of the bubble economy and the negative media coverage in that "lost decade".However, more in-depth research is needed on the question of "why young people have become like this in 10 years".Even our businesses can get lost in times like this if we don't do in-depth research. Here are a few examples to express my thoughts. In 2007, Japan's Toyota Motor Corporation and Fuji Heavy Industries announced that they would jointly develop a low-cost sports car for young people. This move came from Toyota's strategy of "must retain the young people's market".The sports car will be developed and sold by Toyota, equipped with a horizontally opposed engine developed by Fuji Heavy Industries, and is expected to be launched in 2010.

Although it is said that auto companies should adjust their strategies after the financial crisis, I still think that Toyota has made a huge mistake.The reason for saying this is because according to previous surveys, such things as sports cars are simply not needed for young people today.If you think that as long as the price is cheap, you can arouse young people's desire to buy cars, you have to say that Toyota is "really stupid and naive". Similarly, the downturn of "Young Jump" also illustrates this problem. It is impossible for them to win the favor of young people today with the previous editing policy, even if the factor of declining birth rate is aside.

In the current situation where young people's material desires are declining, men are more obvious.Therefore, no matter how we criticize these young people, the negative impact of these criticisms will eventually be fed back to our enterprises and society.Therefore, for this problem, we must find a new solution.