Last autumn, Mr. Nishiura, who is my senior at the university, approached me about a new book.
He is also the CEO of Attax Group, which is
a consulting firm targeting the small or medium-sized enterprises.
On that day, he said to me,
“I’m planning to publish a book, and I
would like to introduce ISOWA in it.”
“This book introduces some companies whose
customers are willing to pay, and tries to find out the key
I replied instantly,
“No way! We are trying to be that kind of
company, but we still have a long way to go.”
However, I accepted that offer in the end,
because he still was eager to write about us not as a company whose customers
are willing to pay, but as the one which is trying to be.
Mr. Nishiura and I have been developing the
relationships since I joined ISOWA. And in recent years I was invited to their
seminar as a lecturer. In other words, they know everything about me and ISOWA.
Moreover, Mr. Sugiyama, who is a member of
Attax Group is in charge of this project. He is a big fan of ISOWA Diary and familiar
with what’s happening in ISOWA and my family every day.
That’s why all we had to do this time was
review and make sure they didn’t leave out anything important so far.
Other than that, a lot of ISOWA members
were interviewed at their request.
This is what had happened until last December.
And then they said,
“We would like to visit your customer for
an interview.”
When I heard this, Mr. Takaoka popped into
my head, because it was right after ISOWA Open House where Mr. Takaoka gave a
presentation about our new maintenance contract to the guests.
He readily agreed to my request and the
interview was carried out in January.
A few months later, Mr. Nishiura and Mr.
Sugiyama completed the rough draft and we checked the copy, correct proofs and
confirm the contents.
Although I thought it would take a lot of
time to actually publish it, Mr. Sugiyama visited soon after that.
“The title is ‘A company valuable for both employees
and customers’. The cover design is almost finished.”
I got overwhelmed by this surprising speed,
and he explained me why;
“We’ve given it all of our energies. We were
all so particular about the details that sometimes we didn’t have much time for
sleeping.
When I saw Mr. Nishiura, he said,
“I’ve read the copy so many times that I’m
starting to learn it by heart.”
15 years of corporate culture reform.
I think it will take more time to be able
to provide value for customers.
But I believe that if employees who provide
value for customers don’t like the company, we never realize customer
satisfaction.
Can we become a company that brings true
consumer satisfaction?
Our challenge has just begun.
This book contains four examples of
mid-sized firms including ISOWA and will be put on sale at the end of this
month.
I can’t wait to read it.
