1. From early life to founding Kashiyama Co., Ltd.
Junzo Kashiyama was born in Kitasaku-gun, Nagano Prefecture, on September 21, 1901, as the second son of Dentaro and Ichi, his father and mother. After graduating from elementary school, he immediately joined Mitsukoshi Dry Goods Store (current Mitsukoshi, Ltd.).

Junzo Kashiyama, founder of Onward Kashiyama Co., Ltd.

Junzo served as a sporting goods purchasing agent at the main Mitsukoshi store, but was transferred to the Mitsukoshi Osaka store in 1918, where he was placed in charge of imported books and sporting goods. In 1924, after working for Mitsukoshi for ten years, Junzo resigned and founded his own Kashiyama Shoten in 1927.

The main business of Kashiyama Shoten was import wholesaler of sporting goods. Junzo felt, however, that “sporting goods are semidurable items and there are limitations to increasing their sales volume, and if so, how about changing the business to sports clothes which are closely related to sporting goods?" He concluded that he'd deal with sports clothes not limited to only sportswear but also clothes worn by young people in the broad sense of the term “sportswear" and market them mainly through department stores. This was the first step toward becoming a wholesale manufacturer of ready-to-wear clothes, and the foundation of today's Kashiyama was laid.

Junzo opened Kashiyama Shoten's Tokyo sales office in 1933. His strategies of broadly defining “sportswear," centering his business on being a wholesale manufacturer for department stores, and advancing his business into Tokyo were a great success. Kashiyama Shoten's sales performance of sportswear catapulted the company to become the industry leader in 1937. Then, after the war, he constructed his first clothing factory and office facilities in 1946, renamed the clearing corporation, which had been managed jointly, as Kashiyama Industry in the following year, and newly founded Kashiyama Co., Ltd., the sales company. In 1948, he rebuilt the Tokyo branch which had been destroyed by fire, and had Kashiyama Industry merged with Kashiyama Co., Ltd. in 1949.

2. Introduction of the consignment buying system and the dispatched personnel system
Junzo resolutely carried out capital investments worth 10 million yen in 1950 and purchased Hoffman Press from the U.S. This decision was made after learning that ready-made clothes in the U.S. do not lose their shape because of the “Hoffman Press." He felt that “using the Hoffman Press would allow steam to be impregnated while simultaneously dried to make three-dimensional pressing possible, maintaining clothing curves exactly as those of body shapes." He also believed that this would dramatically change the then-image of Japanese ready-made clothes as being prone to losing their shape. In 1951, Junzo registered the “ONWARD" brand as his trademark and Kashiyama Co., Ltd. streamlined the production system for men's ready-to-wear clothes, and his company was in the final stage of rolling out in the market “Onward, ready-made clothes that won't lose their shape."

The greatest challenge remaining for Kashiyama at the time was securing and expanding their business with department stores. Kashiyama, therefore, proposed a revolutionary transaction system in 1953. The unique proposal was a “consignment buying system," in which the ownership of products on department store shelves would remain with wholesale manufacturers (suppliers) until the products are purchased by consumers, at which time the ownership would be transferred to department stores. Regarding ready-made clothes, store buyers make every effort to avoid the risk of goods left unsold, so forward stock tends to be less than demand. Department stores around 1953 gave priority to the avoidance of goods being left unsold and they were generally rather reluctant to stock merchandise. The introduction of the consignment buying system, however, made it possible for department stores to stock items without having to be concerned about unsold goods resulting in the volume of trade between them to expand rapidly.

Concurrently with the introduction of the consignment buying system in 1953, Junzo also implemented what came to be known as the “dispatched personnel system." Under the consignment buying system, suppliers were required to bear the risk of unsold goods, and it was necessary for them to determine consumer preferences as a means of preventing the accumulation of unsold items. Dispatched personnel were engaged in selling their own company products over the counter and performed the tasks of (1) aggressively selling their own products and (2) understanding consumer preferences for eventual use to increase sales.

3. Improving the efficiency of the consignment buying system
Through the introduction of the consignment buying system, Kashiyama became one of the major department store wholesale dealers, and the company directed their efforts toward developing a system to make the consignment buying system more efficient. The essential point of streamlining the purchasing system was to reduce the loss caused by unsold goods as much as possible.

Kashiyama therefore developed an “inter-stores goods movement system" under which unsold goods at one department store were moved to another store and sold there. This innovative approach resulted in the consignment buying system becoming extremely efficient. Soon, other apparel businesses began to adopt the consignment buying system and it became a normal transaction style between department stores and suppliers in Japan.

4. Later growth and the present Onward Kashiyama Co., Ltd.
Kashiyama fully entered the wholesale manufacturing of ready-to-wear clothes for women in 1959. In the following year, Kashiyama stocks were listed in the

Inspection tour to Paris

Second Section of the Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya stock exchanges, and were traded in the First Section at each stock exchange four years later in 1964. The head office of Kashiyama was relocated to Tokyo in 1966, and overseas subsidiaries were founded one after another in the 1970s.

In 1974, Junzo stepped down as the chief executive officer and president of Kashiyama, and established the Kashiyama Scholarship Foundation in 1977, devoting his energies to developing human resources both at home and abroad.

Kashiyama still continued to achieve growth and development, and its corporate name was changed to Onward Kashiyama Co., Ltd. in 1988. With their numerous popular original brands such as KUMIKYOKU, ICB and other licensed brands, the company has attained an unwavering position as the top apparel company in Japan.

* This article was edited by the International Business Organization of Osaka (IBO) based on a draft prepared by associate professor of Mika Takaoka of the College of Business, Rikkyo University, and with the cooperation of Onward Kashiyama Co., Ltd.