Interview with Masaharu Nakashima, our President
“Toward a company which appreciates and is appreciated by the world” |
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NAKASHIMA PRECISION MANUFACTURING was established in 1980 with 6 employees.
The company with small number of employees deals with everything from design to fitting consistently with its excellent response and the speed. I interviewed about his thoughts put into the company philosophy, the core of the business. |
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| My mission is to nurture people who are needed by someone else. |
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I had been raised seeing my father running a machine-part factory. When I was asked about my future dream at the elementary school’s essay class, I wrote “I want to succeed my father”.
One year after graduating the high school, I joined my father’s company. I really wanted to go out into the world as soon as possible. At that time, I didn’t see anything around me and thought only about myself. Some years later, my father put me in the position of the executive managing director out of his thoughts that I should be a full-fledged person. But, of course, the employees didn’t listen to me. |
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In the course of time, I became the president. I’d considered this and that in my way to make my company bigger anyway but nobody supported me and everything turned out fruitless.
The situation continued for 2 years and I asked advice to one of my seniors who also ran a business.
He said, “What do you ran a business for?” At that time, I wanted to lead a good life by becoming a president, so I said honestly, “I want to make company grow bigger to lead a better life.”
Then he said, “Think about it! Do you think employees work for your desire?”
I was shocked. But that was true.
These words gave me an opportunity to think again what Nakashima was for. |
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Then, I was caught in a traffic accident and carried to a hospital. My families and relatives gathered in the hospital by receiving a call. The words my cousin gave me at that time still support me now. He said, “You should appreciate your life which was given by God”. I wasn’t able to stop crying after I heard the words. I was glad I was alive. What is my life for?” I started to consider about it seriously. |
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It was about 7 years ago when I found the answer for that. When I made a business trip to Thailand, I happened to see a person who was looking for a jig manufacturer. We had never met with each other, but he knew Nakashima. He said, “While I looked around jigs, every company said Nakashima was the best. So I am much honored to see you here.”
In that moment, something popped out in my mind. Nakashima that had been grown by my father and the employees was appreciated in such a remote place from Japan!
I was overwhelmed with gratitude.
I wanted to support more and more customers. I thought so from the bottom of my heart.
From then on, I’ve worked like mad.
I am very glad that the business has grown and now we are in a good cycle to have a vision to tap into overseas markets. My mission is to nurture people who feel pleasure in appreciating people and being appreciated by people. |
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| We never turn down requests! |
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“Help us!” “It’s the urgent matter”. When we are asked by our customers, we visit them quickly anyway and never say no even though we think it’s impossible. We try out best first and consult with customers after that.
It’s only our convenience to turn down customers’ requests.
Thinking about how we can help customers with a trouble is our style. I always tell that to all the employees to deal with whatever the trouble is together.
As for recruiting, we renewed the standard and put the finest focus on quality（personality）. I am going to organize the company’s system to polish human resources so that they inherit the gratitude, the core spirit of Nakashima with honesty. |
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| Toward a company needed by all the people in the world |
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The term “Thank you” is different in each language, but the feeling is the same all over the world. From now on, I hope Nakashima will be needed by someone not only in Japan but also in the world stage. And our goal is that everybody all over the world says “Nakashima is the best when we talk about jigs.”
However, we are not dealing with only gigs, but we want to challenge any opportunity which we gained through jigs. We are also going to discuss propositions of new business from our employees proactively and seriously.
“A company which can spread the circle of appreciation centering around “thank you” and “jigs”- that is what Nakashima wants to be. |
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