A friendly partner
with both theory and experience
About Rosette Co., Ltd.
In this article, we interviewed Mr. Keiji Fujii, President and CEO of Rosette Co., Ltd., about the company’s relationship with Strategic Partners and his assessment of our firm.
Founded in 1929, Rosette Co., Ltd. is the cosmetics company that brought the first cream-type facial cleanser to market, and is one of the leading manufacturers in the facial cleanser category.
Since many of its products are reasonably priced, quite a few people have probably used them at least once, especially “Rosette Facial Cleansing Paste” and “Rosette Gommage.”
In addition to manufacturing skincare and makeup products and selling them in stores and by mail order in Japan and overseas, the company also manufactures products sold at dermatology and other clinics, and provides OEM services.
Rosette Co., Ltd. has a strong foundation in basic research, pursuing the “genuine article” through industry-academia joint research on ingredients, engaging dermatologists as advisors, and actively presenting at academic conferences.
Interview
About the relationship with Strategic Partners
[How we met] I felt change was needed to grow the company further.
I became President of Rosette in 2011, and for a while I implemented a variety of measures—product lineup, promotion, production system, sales methods and more—drawing on my experience at my previous company, a makeup manufacturer.
However, once sales had doubled, I began to feel that “if we keep doing things the way we are now, this is our limit.”
I believed we would not achieve our next leap unless we changed our business model, and I was thinking of bringing in outside consultants to drive change. That was when one of our executives introduced me to Strategic Partners, and our relationship began.
[The first project] They proposed what was needed “before that…”
At first I consulted them about our business model, but they advised me: “If you are going to change your business model, before that you should do corporate branding to raise your employees’ motivation.” I myself wanted to help our employees grow even more, so our very first project was corporate branding involving all employees (developing the corporate brand and inner branding).
To develop the corporate brand, we gathered project members from every department—manufacturing, sales, marketing, general affairs and others—and they shared ideas across departmental boundaries.
Projects led by typical consulting firms tend to turn into “study sessions,” but with Strategic Partners, they started from something anyone could easily imagine—“What soft drink comes to mind when your throat is parched?”—drawing out employees so they could think about what a brand is, and it became a project that each employee thought through and drove forward.
In the end, the project members formed teams, gave presentations to all employees and held a vote to decide on the corporate slogan. We then created a brand book, which we use in employee training, and each month one employee gives a speech about what they felt, prompted by something written in the brand book.
I believe people do not act unless they are convinced, so I feel Strategic Partners created an environment where employees felt “we are the core that moves this company forward.”
The corporate slogan created by our employees
Many ideas were gathered across departmental boundaries.
[Today] By building a new business model, customers’ expectations of us have grown.
After that, they attended several of our internal meetings and proposed—and helped us build—a “counterclockwise” business model in which retailers and customers become interested in Rosette and take action on their own, replacing our conventional sales-proposal-driven business model (which we call “clockwise”).
With the counterclockwise business model, the moment it was proposed I could picture for myself “this is how it will work,” such as “sales should be done this way” and “advertising should be done this way.”
Just as I expected, solid results followed, and I feel that expectations from our business partners who sell our products in particular have grown.
Our relationship with Rosette continues in many forms: in addition to reviewing our mail-order business and consulting on strategy, they also take individual orders such as EC site design, recruitment site production and tool production.
Strategic Partners has both theory and experience
I think Strategic Partners has two strengths: “having theory” and “having experience as a production company and advertising agency.”
They have “6e,” a corporate management scheme whose effectiveness has been proven through empirical testing, and they know things in depth—for example, that commonly cited purchasing behavior models actually have no basis—so I can talk with them with confidence, and I find them persuasive.
Also, precisely because they have experience in promotions for many companies, they know how promotions should be structured and, as the client, what to watch out for with advertising agencies and production companies and how to handle them. In fact, they have even joined our selection panel for advertising agencies and given us realistic advice.
In every case, they carefully and repeatedly explained the rationale and points of caution, so I think it also served as training for our employees.
Highly recommended for companies that want to take on new challenges
I recommend Strategic Partners to companies with the will to “take on something new.”
As was the case with us, I think they are especially good when you want to change something major and fundamental rather than make small improvements, because you get proposals considered from many angles. Because they have seen many industries, they have probably seen both successes and failures, and I think they can make proposals that take the causes of failure into account.
Toward a “10-billion-yen company” with a strong presence
Rosette’s goal is to become a 10-billion-yen company. Supported by many people, I feel that the possibility of becoming a 10-billion-yen company is now coming into view.
I think Rosette already has a presence in the facial cleanser category, but if we become a 10-billion-yen company, we should gain a presence in the cosmetics industry as a whole. Then I think our employees will be able to take even more pride in the company and their work. I would also like us to become a company that customers and business partners notice, saying “they do interesting promotions.”
Also, as a manager, I believe management becomes stable only when there are multiple business pillars, so I want to pursue that.
Especially amid the COVID-19 pandemic, I feel that changes in the market and in customers’ purchasing behavior have become even more drastic. I think continuous growth of the company comes from each employee staying sensitive to such changes.
And I want customers to see us as a reassuring company that makes “essential products.”
At Rosette, we do both minus care (solving skin concerns) and plus care (making skin even better), but I think that what we want to do may be too narrow if limited to “skin” or “skin concerns.”
There really are people whose lives have been changed by encountering something—someone who lost a leg, got a prosthetic, and went on to compete in the Paralympics, or a woman with a birthmark who became able to go out actively after using a foundation that covers it. I would love to be able to do things like that through cosmetics.
It is an extreme example, but I want customers to gain confidence and say, “Encountering Rosette’s products changed my life / helped me become more positive.”
I believe both Rosette and Strategic Partners will continue to grow bigger and bigger.
I feel as close to them as a group company, so I hope they will stay just as friendly as ever!
Company Profile
Rosette Co., Ltd.
[Head Office & Factory] 140-0002 3-26-10 Higashi-Shinagawa, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo
[Tokyo Office] 140-0004 Minami-Shinagawa N Building 6F & 8F (Reception), 2-2-10 Minami-Shinagawa, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo