Playback: The Dismissal of Otsuka Kagu’s Second Eldest Daughter, Called the “Bone and Flesh Parent-Child Battle of the Century

What did “FRIDAY” report 10, 20, and 30 years ago? In “Playback Friday,” we take a look back at the topics that were hot at the time. This time, we bring you “Otsuka Kagu’s 46-year-old beauty president dismissed by her father in a boneheaded family feud” from the August 15, 2002 issue, which was published 10 years ago.

On July 23, 2002, a family feud erupted at Otsuka Kagu, a major furniture retailer, when Kumiko Otsuka, then 46, the second president, was dismissed by the board of directors and Katsuhisa Otsuka, the founder and father of the company’s chairman, was returned as president. The article explains the background of the situation (the statements in parentheses are quotes from past articles).

Did the daughter reject her father’s management policy?

It seems that the reason behind the sudden dismissal was the feud between father and daughter.

Although the company announced that the change was made for the purpose of “making flexible management decisions in light of changes in the business environment,” in reality, “it is believed that the father and daughter were at odds over management policy,” according to a reporter from the economics department.

It is true that Otsuka Kagu has not performed well in recent years. Sales, which were approximately 66.8 billion yen the year before Kumiko took over, dropped to 56.2 billion yen in 2001. This year, in particular, store sales plummeted after the consumption tax hike. The company is being pushed out by low-priced furniture from Nitori, IKEA, and other retailers.

Kumiko has continued to make efforts to link the Web with real stores and to remove the “high threshold” by making the showroom reception inconspicuous, but these efforts have had little effect,” said a reporter.

Otsuka Kagu has introduced a “membership system” in which member customers are served on a one-on-one basis. The company maintained its mid- to high-end line even during the deflationary period with the belief that “high-end products sell first,” a policy that continued until Kumiko became president in 2009. Did her daughter’s change of course cause her father’s “super one-man” blood to boil?

Katsuhisa, whose parents were in the business of manufacturing and selling paulownia wood furniture in Kasukabe City, Saitama Prefecture, established his own company, Otsuka Kagu Center Co. With his aggressive sales style, which was rare among furniture stores at the time, he achieved “the highest sales in Kasukabe” in one year and expanded the store. He was a good old-fashioned one-man manager whose creed was “to work happily together with employees. At one time, he entrusted the management of his restaurants to others, but after his failure during the bubble economy, he has tended to make his own decisions, no matter how small. Nevertheless, the company performed well and increased its sales to 70 billion yen in the ’00s.