Vol.31

Working for a company with few contradictions (Part I)

The final entry in the "People of Ikeuchi" series features Mr. Abe, who was appointed President and Representative Director in June of this year. 7 years ago, he joined Ikeuchi as a part-time employee, and since then has been responsible for sales to retailers, corporate sales, and direct sales through the store and website. He is also a towel sommelier, and is so particular about laundry that he calls himself "Uncle Laundry," and customers often come to the Tokyo store where he works for advice. In the first part of this interview, we talked with him in March, before he became president, about how he joined the company, laundry, and his passion for the products.

Representative Director Abe

New president from a part-time job

–When did you join IKEUCHI ORGANIC (Ikeuchi Towel, at that time), Mr. Abe?

I started as a part-time employee in 2008, and became a full-time employee in May 2009.

–What?　You joined the company as a part-time employee?

Yes, I did. At first, I was helping with exhibitions. （The managing director of the company I was working for at the time (before I joined the company) and his senior was Representative Ikeuchi, and the managing director said to me, “There’s an interesting company. I was about to start looking for a job at that time. I was about to start job hunting at the time, and I asked, “What kind of company is it? I helped out at the Eco-Products ( *1) in December, and then at the Gift Show in February.

Sales strategy with no discontinuation and no discounting

–What attracted you to Ikeuchi Towel through your assistance?

When I was working in the apparel industry, it was not necessarily the case that what I thought was nice would sell, but rather I had to make things for sale. Even if I thought, “It won’t sell this well,” I would have to build up volume in order for it to sell. In the world of apparel, the older the item is, the more it loses value. So I wondered, “What is the point of having a product that is still valid, but the value is going down?　I wondered. However, IKEUCHI ORGANIC’s concept is basically that once a product is released, it is a permanent standard, and we don’t discount it, and since we honestly pursue our ideal of manufacturing, there is the least contradiction in my mind.

–This leads to the “I can only work here,” as you said in the Japan Job Hyakka interview ( click here for the relevant article *external website).

There were (other) options, but I thought that if I was going to hit a wall in the same place anyway, it would be better to go in a different direction in a completely different place.

Not turning your back on the contradictions that occur in society, but confronting them.

–When you actually did the work, did you find any contradictions at all?

I think there are very few ethical or moral contradictions. I think there will be some contradictions in what we have to do in the future to grow the business, but I think the social structure has to change in order for that to happen. I wonder if the current economic structure will change at some point. There will definitely be a contradiction somewhere and a wall will come up. We do not turn our eyes away from that, and we are only trying to hit that point, so although there are conflicts (clashes and conflicts), I think sales will increase by making improvements. I think there is infinitely little we can do to restrain ourselves from thinking, “We really need to do this.

–That is certainly true. There is a sense that society as a whole is at a turning point, with the stagnation of economic neoliberalism.

In other companies, you have to make a lot of products in order to make a profit because the cost structure is like this. In the end, someone has to bear the burden. At our company, we can see this in real life. In a large company, sales is divided into sales and planning into planning, and you cannot see the entire supply chain ( *2), but at IKEUCHI ORGANIC, you can see everything, so I think that is a definite difference.

Uncle Laundry” Talks about Laundry

–I’m sorry to change the subject, but you like to do laundry, don’t you? What got you hooked on laundry, and how do you apply it to your work?

What surprised me the most was that the texture (of towels) changes depending on the water. It varies from region to region, and it will also vary depending on the deterioration of the water pipes in the house. So there is no best option that says this is the best. Everyone is under the illusion that this is the best option, so I thought that washing clothes is also an illusion. I can tell people that I have experimented with a variety of methods and have found such examples, but it is dangerous to tell people that this is the best option. The more examples I have, the more useful I can be to you.

–I feel that there is still a lot of research to be done.

Not yet. It’s endless. There are countless kinds of detergents, and it would be impossible to list them all. When we hear about a problem like this, all we can do is to tell you about our own case study, which is not a solution. As a creator, I think we should do that, because it’s interesting. I like to experiment. After all, there is a lot of information out there now, and I can’t talk about it unless I put it into my own mind.

It’s no good if the product (thing) can’t be helped.

–I think it’s not only about laundry, but also about our company’s guideline. We don’t force our ideas on people.

Yes, because you should talk about how our company is organic, or how we are particular about the environment in our manufacturing, or something like that, and you should talk about it in terms of the product (thing). By the performance of the product. As Mr. Ikeuchi always says, there are products. If the product is not good enough, it is no good. Now that Representative Ikeuchi is in the forefront, social contributions and initiatives are highlighted, and we receive requests to give lectures on these topics, but what we always say is that it is about the product.

Without a product, there is no story to tell. The foundation of the product must be solid. The result of our pursuit of this was “maximum safety and minimum environmental impact,” and by pursuing “minimum environmental impact,” we also pursued “maximum safety,” and that is the result.

Continue to Part 2 (scheduled to be released on August 12)

Interview March 2016
Interview and text by Mutaguchi and Kamio
Photographer/ Yuji Kimura (Kimura Photo Office)

Notes
*1: Exhibition on environmentally friendly products and services organized by the Japan Environmental Management Association for Industry and Nikkei Inc. since 1999 Reference site: Eco-pro official website: http: //eco-pro.com/
*2: The entire flow of a product from procurement of raw materials to manufacturing, distribution, sales, and passing on to consumers.