The Asahi Breweries, Ltd Case Analysis
Lionell C. Henderson
Northwood University
MBA 676: Integration & Implementation
Richard DeVos Graduate School of Management
Fall 2015 Evening – Cedar Hill, Texas
Professor Tara Peters, Ph.D
Main Problem and Key Issues Hirotaro Higuchi (the protagonist), and CEO of Asahi Breweries, Ltd. must decide if he should increase its production and packaging capacity to meet the supply demands of their distributors, due to the company’s recent developments in the beer industry. Asahi Breweries has launched and seized a huge section of the dry beer market, ensuing from sales growth of 71.9% in comparison to the industry’s growth of 7.6%. A proposal has been made for, increasing their production capacity to 2,100,000 kiloliters to accommodate the recent shortages to their distributors. He has suggested an investment proposal plan of 230 billion yen within two years (1989 to 1990), to increase their brewing and packaging capacity by 30%. Hirotaro Higuchi must decide if he will welcome or dismiss this proposal. “Guiding change may be the ultimate test of a leader- no business survives over the long term if it can’t reinvent itself” (Kotter, 2007).
Case data / facts Hirotaro Higuchi, became CEO of Asahi Breweries in 1986. His primary focus was to increase profit by incorporating a top down, decision- making management approach. Through efforts of enhancing the company’s functionally, Higuchi was prepared to disburse the necessary
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When performing risk assessment procedures and related activities to obtain an understanding of the client and its environment, the auditor shall obtain an understanding of the following:
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The Japanese Enterprise System however, differs from Chandler’s large-scale managerial enterprise several ways. To begin with, many of the Japanese businesses were much smaller than Western businesses, due mainly to the fact that the domestic market was not very large (Fruin, 1992) and so could not support mass production through mass consumption.