According to a report by Mordor Intelligence, the Asia Pacific strategic consulting services market is expected to grow at 6.3 percent CAGR until 2027 due to increasing regional business diversities. Japan, China and India are having numerous consultants who are catering to the APAC as well as the global market demand. However, only catering to the demand is not sufficient, especially in the consultancy domain in a developed market like that of Japan. This is why the industry requires quality assured business consultancies that are born out of experience.
BBL is an HR strategy and organizational consulting firm that has been able to make a mark in this sector owing to solid experience and excellent work. Miwa Sato, Founder & CEO of BBL, has been involved in many OD projects as a Management Consultant at top-tier consulting firm, and she was the OD Leader at GE. 15 years ago, when she established her own consulting firm, most of the clients that hired BBL for OD projects were foreign affiliated companies, since OD consulting was not a major market in Japan.
According to the CEO, clients in Japan face three challenges. The first is to strengthen the management skills and leadership of managers; the second is to provide a variety of work styles, and the third is to transform HR staff from labor management specialists into strategic partners of management. Japanese companies had a very high employee engagement and diligent culture in the lifetime employment, so managers did not need to make much effort for team building.
Since employees used to be promoted gradually until the retirement age, they did not need to seek outside job opportunities that might be better fit for their career goals and personal value proactively. In such circumstances, most important job for HR staff was labor management. Therefore, OD is a new concept to them. In response to market need, Miwa has set up an own “OD practice guide” website, delivers lectures on OD at the conference, and holds the training programs for HR professionals.
Standing Out
BBL is proud that Miwa is one of the leading authorities on OD in Japan market. She has a solid insight about OD through working at U.S. leading consulting firm and HR at GE, world-renowned for producing excellent business leaders. She is also good at analyzing the HR and organizational issues from a management perspective and providing appropriate solutions.
Many OD consulting firms have emerged in the past few years in Japan, but there are probably few consulting firms with the same insight and practical experience in OD as BBL.
Miwa conducts all the interviews, project planning, consulting, creating and customizing the training materials and facilitate the trainings/workshops by herself. This is BBL’s approach to assure the same quality of service to all clients at all projects. BBL starts by conducting face-to-face interviews, and specifies the issues and agrees on the project scope and solutions with clients. “For trainings, we custom-designed the contents and delivery style to fit for the participants, and give the feedback on the issues noticed at the session. In addition to the above, even if it might be challenging for the client, we speak honestly as a professional. We are focusing on listening to the clients carefully, discussing with them thoroughly, analyzing deeply, and providing a best solution for them. At the time of inquiry, clients often have a vague idea or even if they give us a very specific order that may not always be the good solution. At the same time, we need to fully understand to find the effective solutions for them,” mentions the CEO.
Integrity, think straight and talk straight are BBL’s differentiating points. This is possible because of its outstanding skill and solid OD project experience. Many other players mainly sell the organization survey and/or packaged training course by contract trainers. This business model can provide massive clients with the services simultaneously. There are many people who focus on the “efficiency”, and "cost performance" and "time performance" which have become the buzz words. “Perhaps our way of consulting is old-fashioned, but we strongly believe that OD is the area that must be worked upon carefully and thoughtfully for a long time because there is no panacea. Moreover, as it is about “people”, we dare to do in our style,” she adds.
We are focusing on listening to the clients carefully, discussing with them thoroughly, analyzing deeply, and providing the best solution for them
Future Endeavors
BBL has grown based on the trust it has built through the projects: the clients that it used to work with and excolleagues also hired BBL for projects and they introduced it to group companies. Thanks to them that BBL is working with leading and prominent companies, although it is a small private firm. It believes that it will be working on a number of global projects once COVID-19 abates. OD will become important increasingly.
The reason is that companies have to review their strategies and business portfolios due to the world economic environment changes. According to that, working styles, motivations, and personal value of life are becoming more and more diverse. “As this happens, OD consulting business will enter a period of tough competition. That is good for clients. BBL is making further efforts so that we can continue to run at the top of OD consulting market”, concludes the CEO.
Miwa Sato, Founder & CEO
Miwa Sato is the Founder & CEO of BBL Co., LTD. She is a management consultant who has extensive practical experience in the field of Human Capital Management. Her experience ranges from HR strategy, organization development, change management, HR system design to leadership training. She also has indepth knowledge about the organization structure and both of Japanese and foreign affiliate companies’ culture.
Prior to founding BBL, she worked as OD & Staffing Leader at GE. Before that, she was a management consultant at Arthur Andersen and IBM, where she advised IT, manufacturers, luxury goods, entertainment, as well as financial services companies. She started her professional career at American Express, and worked as a member of internal consulting team for APAC operation center integration. She holds MA of Business Law from Hitotsubashi University Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy.
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