Experiences of failure and success in the overseas subsidiaries of Furukawa Electric Co., Ltd

Abstract

First, the bitter experience of the author himself from 1988 to 1991 is mentioned. Before he began to teach at the university, he had worked in the Furukawa Electric Co., Ltd (FEC) for 33 years.¹ His first overseas assignment from 1979 to 1981 was a construction job, not operational management, for overhead electric transmission lines in Iran. “Production through people” and “We are in the leading edge of technology” were the main mission statements in the newly established company, which was located in Peachtree City, Georgia, USA. The company was named the Electronic Cable Factory in Furukawa Electric America (hereinafter called EC-FEA), and started manufacturing electric cables for large- scale computers with 500 million yen as its initial capital investment.