Fast Retailing forecasts record net profit for fiscal 2021

I hope to remember this forecast one year on. I respect and i am impressed with Yanai San and his business genius but i think Uniqlo will not make the record profit forecast for 2021. That because Korea will see higher losses and maybe a full pullback and the dependence on China is a 2-way cutting sword.

Europe and the US will not recover in 2021. Japan sales will also further decline and the GU brand will have to. be shut down. BUT i applaud the new style shops, like the Harajuku station one, the efforts on the environment.

Tadashi Yanai has most of his businesses in China and Southeast Asia. This explains why he is holding out so well. I admired the guy for writing the most brutal rebuttal against Japanese delusional nationalism or Nihonjinron.

https://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Strategy/Globalization/Dare_to_err_2827

Japan’s biggest problems are conservatism and cowardice. We want stability, peace of mind and safety. But the world keeps changing. Other countries are growing, while we in Japan stick to our old ways.

One problem is that we look down on developing countries. We should be willing to learn from companies in these countries if they are better than us. But we lack the willingness to learn because we have been so successful before. That holds true for managers and employees alike.

Another problem is that Japanese business people and companies are lacking in individuality. Too many people think that everyone must be the same. That’s a basic fault.

Finally, Japanese companies seem to have their eyes in the rearview mirror. They have become introspective. I think we should get back to something more like we were at the end of the war when Japan rose to prominence from a situation in which it had nothing. (It was during this period that Fast Retailing got started, in 1949.)

We’ve lost that spirit, maybe because we are under the illusion that we are rich and superior. But many countries are just as rich, and in Japan, income has stagnated for many people for a decade or more. Japan is still very comfortable to live in, if you are Japanese. But there’s a difference between being comfortable and being viable. We are gradually losing our viability.

In short, Japan has been utterly defeated as an economy. We’re losing the economic game. So why are we being so foolish? Or, more precisely, why aren’t we learning from our mistakes?

Many of his executives and his family are looking for a way out of Japan. I have heard in many articles talked about how his company's leadership finds places to stay in China and Southeast Asia.