Examining Firms With the "Will" to Succeed in Enterprise Turnaround Strategy

Designed for learners interested in management of companies facing turnaround situations, the Enterprise Turnaround Strategy course examines the adaptive transformations of various Japanese firms over the past decade. The course is led by Prof. Osamu Ueda, a corporate lawyer with extensive experience as a management consultant, including contributions to two of the biggest turnaround cases in the Japanese corporate history, JAL and Livedoor.

In Day 3 of the course, the participants discussed the case of Disco Corp., a Japanese maker of semiconductor equipment that, since 2011, has used an internal currency called Will to create a micro-economy where sales teams pay factory workers to produce goods, who in turn pay engineers to design products. Will has been credited with reduced overtime and unnecessary meetings, as well as record revenue, profit, and share price.

What are the variables that may influence the success or failure of such initiatives? Over 50 students from 24 different countries collaborated to figure out. The question posed to the class was whether this alternative approach to incentivizing efficiency could easily be adapted and adopted at other companies, and participants shared their analyses in presentations in the late morning session on Day 4.