Japan: Sewing Up the Game

A pretty young accountant named Ikoku Yoda last week won the 80-meter hurdles in Japan's eastern regional industrial championship in a sensational 10.8 seconds, only .3 of a second off the world record. Ikoku Yoda was only the top star of an extraordinary team that has become one of Japan's greatest advertising attractions. Before the two-day meet was over, almost all the track and field championships had been won by 70-odd athletes from a single company: Tokyo's Riccar Sewing Machine Co., Japan^s biggest sewing machine maker!

Going for Gold. No one took greater pleasure in the victory than Shinji Hi-raki, the company's founder and president—and no one has more confidence in Riccar's athletes. "I am sure that Yodasan will do better the next time," he said. Hiraki has a special reason for believing that playing games is good msiness. A third of his 18,000 employees take part in a company-sponsored after-hours sports program, and the top 100 or so athletes are housed in special dormitories and given practicing hours off with pay. Barring upsets and injuries, Riccar will contribute 14 athletes to Japan's team for the Olympic Games in Tokyo this fall, and Hurdler Yoda stands the best chance of any Japanese athlete to win Japan's first postwar gold medal in track.

Hiraki's almost mystical belief in sports dates back to the mid-1950s, when he was pioneering in selling sewing machines to the Japanese on U.S. style installment plans. The innovation lifted sales, but it also lifted eyebrows and stripped the company of cash when the income from credit sales did not at first cover production costs. Riccar foundered. Searching for a way to restore investors' faith and to buck up sagging employee morale until the income from installment sales began to build up, Hiraki rounded up 20 baseball players from high schools and colleges and put together Riccar's first baseball team. It won the Tokyo area championship in its first season, and kept Riccar in the ball game. "Investors thought we must be in good shape," says Hiraki, "since we could field a pretty good team." The price of Riccar's stock climbed back to a respectable level, and his employees' spirits rose. Says Hiraki: "The day we became champions we banzaied ourselves hoarse."

No Glowing Mantle. Riccar is also champion in Japan's crowded (150 manufacturers) sewing machine industry, outselling its nearest competitor by a 3-to-2 margin; last year its sales reached $48 million. Main source of the company's strength: its carefully crafted machines—which cost up to 10% more than other Japanese makes—and its network of 700 stores in Japan, each manned by a skilled mechanic. The man who created this aggressive, sports-minded company is no glowing Mantle Sensitive and fragile, Hiraki is an accomplished painter of intricate Chinese-ink tableaux, likes to design Japanese gardens, and owns a world-famous collection of Japanese wood prints. He works a leisurely day, avoids all strenuous activity. His favorite sport, he admits, is lounging around, gazing at his collection of prints.