executive impact

The Midas touch

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By Chris Betros

An office is no longer just a place where people work. Nowadays, a company’s office design plays an important part in attracting talented personnel, motivating staff and aligning employee awareness with business goals.

Those are the core concepts at Midas Company, which has been at the forefront of office design for 35 years. Motohiro Okumura, who has been with Midas for 23 years and president for the past five years, believes an office environment is a vital asset in today's business world.

So far, the Midas touch has been particularly effective with many multinational clients. More than 90% of Midas’ clients become repeat customers.

Japan Today editor Chris Betros visits the Midas office in Tsukiji to hear more.

How was 2010 for Midas?

It was a good year for us. Sales were better than 2009. We had a specific plan for 2010 that involved a change in our business mindset. This was based on three key concepts -- challenge, gathering everybody’s power in the company, and "kando" -- moving the client with our design and services. We expect an upward trend to continue this year, which is the second step in our plan.

What effect did the Lehman Shock in late 2008 have on your business?

I don’t want to blame everything on the Lehman Shock. However, the reality of the situation is that the foreign capitalized market shrank and Japanese investments shrank at the same time as well. Most of our clients used to be multinational companies but now it is about 50%. One important factor we convey to companies is that office design is an investment in staff because after the Lehman Shock, it has become very important to hold onto the talent you have and one way you can reward your employees is creating an atmosphere that they want to stay in.

What is your fastest growing sector?

Our office consulting service. Office consulting is extremely important as the foundation of a design project. Midas will first look at a client’s work space and analyze the best way to use the space, whether the company should move and if they should, what size office would be best, specifications, and so on. The demands for thorough design consultation led us to establish DOUMA, a subsidiary of Midas specializing in office design consulting.

What is Midas’ approach to office design?

The Midas touch is “turn your office into gold.” By that, I mean to help clients have an office that will successfully motivate their employees and achieve their business goals. This involves basically taking into account a client’s brand look, its way of thinking of how they do business. It is not just thinking about office space, but how the people inside the space will use it. So the most important thing is that Midas will talk to everybody in the company. In a lot of other cases, it is just the president who decides what design the office should have. We really want to talk to everyone to find out what designs are best to help them do their job better. In this way, everybody feels they have a part in the creation of a new office and that their job is being valued.

Generally, what do you think of office design in Japan?

Among Japanese companies, there is a big divide between modern and traditional. I’d say the traditional side seems to be more populated. However, with our approach of taking into account everybody’s opinion, Midas has had success in opening up a traditional company to new design ideas and bringing them over to the other side of the divide. If there are lot of young people in a company, they tend to be a lot more open to ideas than the older generation, particularly tech-savvy companies.

We also see an increasing demand for eco-friendly designs, LED lighting, “green” furniture, and so on, which is evolving based on clients’ needs.

What about Midas’ own office?

This office was designed about 11 years ago but we are also employing DOUMA’s concepts to see how we can best improve our own office. It is important for us to apply our own principles here so that we can advise our clients how to best incorporate sustainable principles in their workplace design.

How do you market Midas?

Since Midas has been operating for 35 years, in the multinational sector, the company has established itself as an industry leader and has a track record, averaging over 100 projects a year. There is a lot of repeat business as well as a lot of referral business.

Now we are focusing more on Japanese companies. Our brand awareness is still a bit low there. We are planning where we want to be 3, 5, 10 years down the road. Up until now, we have gone the traditional marketing route, getting in front of people, attending trade shows, events, getting our image out there, but now we will focus on new marketing methods, such as Internet and social media.

How many in your team?

Midas has 41 staff, including 16 designers and 15 project managers. Midas’ in-house language abilities include Japanese, English, French and Danish.

Where do you focus your efforts?

I am always thinking 5-10 years ahead on a macro scale and then on daily decisions to keep the business running. Up until noon, I am usually in the office exchanging info with designers and salespeople. From then into evening, I do some networking, analyzing the business plans and staff education.

Do you work on weekends?

In this kind of business, it is very difficult to differentiate between weekday and weekend because even when I relax, I am still thinking about the business. To break away and relax, I ski, play golf and recently started tennis. As for the team, I used to encourage them to go home early but many designers don’t want to. Designers are passionate about their work, and always want to provide the best possible designs for their clients -- even if that means staying late.

© Japan Today

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3 Comments
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this article provides informative source and typical business life in Japanese executive world.

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Would be nice to see other Exec Impact interviews outside of Tokyo. You may pick up more readers and comments.... Cheers.

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I wonder if they can design offices to be more earthquake-proof.

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