Leader 2030 – The Success Secrets of Japan Richest Man from UNIQLO

The Executive Study Group (ESG) webinar named “Leader 2030 - The Success Secrets of Japan Richest Man from UNIQLO” was held by Asia Pacific Institute for Strategy Limited (APIFS) on 25^th Nov 2025. Firstly, Dr. Mark Lee briefed the topics including “Company Profile”, “Sales & Marketing Strategy”, “Operation & People Strategy”, “Strategic Value Chain Analysis”, “Global Strategy” and “Group Discussion”.

Then Dr. Mark Lee reviewed ranking of worldwide apparel specialty stores and UNIQLO (Fast Retailing) was ranked number 4 in 2010. Its market share less than ZARA, H&M and Cap but the growth rate was the number one.

The goal of UNIQLO in 2009 was 5 trillion yen by 2020. It got the highest profitability in gross margin (upto 50%).

It had high inventory turnover that double than the industry norm.

UNIQLO boss visited Giordano in Hong Kong in 1986 and got insights from Giordano on virtual value chain strategy. In 2010, UNIQLO had much higher sale than Giordano.

One interested story about UNIQLO trade name in Hong Kong come from mis-spelling by its Hong Kong partner. (Remark Uni-Cloth (UNICLO) typed to UNIQLO.)

Then Dr. Mark Lee quoted Prof. Michael Porter that a strategic position is not sustainable unless there are trade-offs with other positions. UNIQLO employed value-for-money strategy.

The second one was “Hot-Item Driven-Sales Strategy” that which means that a best-selling product (e.g. Fleece) drives the sales of other non-best-selling products.

Finally, Dr. Lee shared their failure cases of SPOQLO and FAMIQLO due to unclear positioning.

Reference:

Asia Pacific Institute for Strategy Limited (亞太策略研究所有限公司) – www.apifs.org

ESG facebook - https://www.facebook.com/groups/esg08

Leader 2030 - Empowering the Next Generation of Leaders - https://www.apifs.org/Leader2030-en

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Previous talks summary:

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