MKTG AS3

Many companies are viewing international expansion as critical to revenue growth. The Case covers Zero’s birth and development in Japan market, from 2001 to 2014. It talks about the automotive industry background and domestic service of delivering vehicle transportation. The Case also introduces basic information on Mr. Kitamura as CEO of Zero. At the end of case , it will lead case readers to think about the challenge and possible global expansion in the future.
Instructions
1. Read the case: Zero Group Japan: Global Expansion Challenges (A), Written by Sean Y.S. Kim, Takayuki Owada, Liyun Li
2. After reading the case, answer the following three questions:
Note: Please do not share this case with others.
Questions:
• Q1: What are strengths and weakness of Zero Group Japan? (minimum 100 words).

• Q2: Based on your analyses on Q1, if you were Takeo Kitamura at the time of the case, how would you address challenges and opportunities described at the end of the case? And what are your options?
a. List challenges and opportunities (i.e., cyclical market, driver shortage, shrinking market, and overseas business)? (minimum 100 words)
b. What are your options? (minimum 100 words).
• Q3: Zero is initiating to expand towards foreign markets as one of solutions for the issues facing Zero. What potential challenges might Zero face in being part of a global marketplace? Please also refer to Chapter 7 and your own perspectives. (minimum 100 words).

Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy

Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo, Japan

Youngsun Kim, Takayuki Owada, Liyun Li (Hitotsubashi ICS MBA Class of 2014) prepared this case under the supervision

of Associate Professor Yoshinori Fujikawa as a basis for class discussion rather than to illustrate either effective or

ineffective handling of an administrative situation.

Copyright © 2015 by the Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy, Hitotsubashi University. No part

of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, used in a spreadsheet, or transmitted in any

form or by any means without the permission of the Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy,

Hitotsubashi University.

1

Zero: Globalization challenge (A)

One day in August 2014, Takeo Kitamura, President and COO of Zero Group Co., Ltd. (hereafter Zero), sat in

his office, taking off glasses and rubbing his eyes. Just a few days before, he became President of Zero after

Yoshi Iwashita, and only 2 months had passed since Zero announced its strategic business and capital alliance

with Tan Chong International Limited (hereafter TCIL or Tan Chong both used interchangeably), a

conglomerate group listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange market, operating motor distribution, property,

transportation, trading, and many other business1. He was very excited when he was assigned Zero’s President

by Iwashita, one of the Japanese manufacturing industry leaders who Kitamura respected. But at the same time,

as a newly appointed president, a lot of challenges were waiting for him. These issues included how to expand

the business and reach the mid-term target sales and profitability level, how to sort the growing concern of truck

driver shortage, and looking into future, how to prepare for the future shrinkage of car demand in Japanese

market and keep the company’s sustainable growth in the future?.

About Takeo Kitamura

It was in 1978, when Mr. Kitamura entered Nissan Motor. He had been in charge of Industrial Trucks Overseas

mainly in Oceania and Europe for ten years from 1978 to 1988, full-time Trade Union Officer at Japan

Automobile Workers Unions and Nissan Federation, a federation of Nissan group, from 1988 to 1992, and then

started engaging in an automobile company establishment project alliancing with Nissan and Samsung from

1993 to 1998. In 1998, Kitamura was transferred to Nissan North America as a director of sales division and

became Vice President of Nissan North America in 2000. Kitamura commented the experience at Nissan North

America

as follows:

“It was quite challenging but exciting experience for me. In 1997, before I went to United States,

Nissan North America recorded huge 700 million dollar losses while other companies were very

profitable. I dedicatedly tackled the challenge, increasing the sales units from 600 thousand units to

1 million units in 4 years. In 1999, Nissan Motor made strategic partnership with Renault, but

Renault had no operation in United States, so it didn’t much affect our operation and we could focus

on and keep challenging in our business. Through the experience, I found something worthwhile of

working in a smaller company with entrepreneurial mind.”

In 2003, Kitamura returned to Japan, and started working as Deputy General Manager of Global NSSW

(Nissan Sales and Service Way), newly-established division to improve customer satisfaction in both sales and

service. Also, Carlos Ghosn, CEO of Nissan Motor, asked him to study the introduction of “Infinity” brand in

Japan. Kitamura commented as follows:

“In the board meeting, I presented the plan of introducing Infinity, and Mr. Ghosn asked 2 questions

to board members. Whether we should introduce Infiniti or not? If we should introduce Infinity,

when is the Timing? All supported to introduce Infinity, but opinions of launch timing were

separated half and half. Mr. Ghosn asked Mr. Shiga, the top of domestic market at that time, to

decide the timing within 45 days. But Mr. Shiga didn’t know a lot about domestic market, and

didn’t finally reach the conclusion. And Infiniti has not still introduced in Japanese market.”

1 TCIL’s 2014 annual report, https://www.tanchong.com/downloads/financial_statements/LTN201504221277

Zero Group: Global Expansion Challenges (A)

2

In 2006, Kitamura resigned Nissan Motor after working 25 years, and entered Zero. Kitamura worked as

director of corporate planning during 2006-2013 and director of overseas planning during 2013-2014. In 1st

August 2014, Kitamura become President of this company. Kitamura commented the reasons of entering Zero

as follows:

“The first reason was my entrepreneurship mind, nurtured in US. I wanted to challenge in smaller

company. The second reason was the strategic alliance with Renault. Mr. Ghosn was very smart, but

treated Japan as only one of the global markets. Before the alliance with Renault, Nissan product

and R&D department had two big markets, United States and Japan. So a lot of investments in new

model developed in Japan. But Mr. Ghosn didn’t make big investments in Japan. I felt something

pity for that. The final reason was Mr. Iwashita, President of Zero at that time and Chairman

currently, my boss at the project with Samsung, and the person I respect, called and asked me to join

Zero.”

Japanese Automobile industry

Automobiles are the focus of an extremely wide range of industrial and related activity2, and automobile

industry was an integrated industry which had a lot of related industries, which included procurement,

manufacturing, sales, maintenance, oil, and transportation. The number of Total employment in Japan in 201

4

was 63.51 million, and 8.7% of them, 5.5 million, were from the auto manufacturing and related industries34 (see

Exhibit 1). There were 12 new vehicle manufacturers in Japan, and a lot of players supported their automobile

production and customer services around the manufacturers. Through this ecosystem many players involved in,

each manufacturer could deliver vehicles and services to its customers.

In used vehicle business, there were some unique characteristics. Typically, most used vehicles had been

traded through used-car auctions and sold to the customers. The used-car auctions were B to B transaction, in

which sellers such as car dealers, leasing companies, and rent-a-car companies put their used vehicles to the

used-car auctions, and used-car dealers purchased the cars. Large scale specialty companies which bought used-

cars directly from customers emerged based on the existence of used-car auctions. Gulliver International was

founded in 1994, and its main business was to sell the used-cars bought directly from customers to used-car

auctions in short period, within 2 weeks. Gulliver expanded its business through this business model, and listed

its stocks on the second section of Tokyo Stock Exchange in 2000 and on the first section of Tokyo Stock

Exchange in 2003.

Recently, the sales channel has been more diversified. Currently, Gulliver put more focus on B to C business,

which sold used-cars directly to customers through directly owned retail stores with higher price than those in

used-car auctions. Also, Toyota has been running Toyota Auto Auction (TAA) from 1967, first car auction in

Japan, through its subsidiary, Toyota U-sec 5 . But in 2000 Toyota started T-up, in which Toyota directly

purchased used-cars from customers and sold out without using used-car auctions6. But still the channel using

used-car auction was the main sales channel for used vehicle business.

Japanese Automobile transportation industry

Zero was unique and only one major player independent from automobile manufacturers in Japanese

Automobile transportation industry. There were not many major players in automobile transportation industry.

2 Japanese Automobile Manufacturers Association, Inc. “The motor industry of Japan 2015”
3 ibid
4 Statistics Japan, “Labor force survey Historical data: Employed person by industry”
5 Toyota U-sec’s website, http://www.toyota-usec.co.jp
6 75 years of Toyota website,

https://www.toyota.co.jp/jpn/company/history/75years/data/automotive_business/sales/activity/japan/used_vehicle.html

Zero Group: Global Expansion Challenges (A)

3

Almost all major players in this industry were subsidiaries of automobile manufacturers. Each 12 automobile

manufacturers in Japan had its own transportation subsidiary. Among the major players, not many companies

own big trailers for car carriage. Only Toyota Transport, Honda Logistics, and Zero owned big trailers (see

Exhibit 2). Other companies mainly dealt with the arrangements of car transportation, and subcontracted their

works to small transportation companies which barely passed the criteria of Japanese Road Transportation Act,

required at least 5 trucks to be licensed. This competitive map in automobile industry has not been changed for a

long time, because there was a high entry barrier in this industry. One big trailer costed around 26 million yen,

around 13 million yen each for the head and the back trailer, so huge investment was required to widely operate

the business7. So, there was less threat of new entrants in this industry.

Other characteristics of automobile transportation industry was the seasonal demand fluctuation. Since the

demand of car transportation was highly dependent on the number of car sales and cars tended to be sold well at

the latter half of the fiscal year, especially in March, the demand of car transportation was not stable throughout

the year. Moreover, the number of car sales was easily influenced by several external factors. A typical example

was the change in governmental regulation. In March 2014, the number of car sales sharply increased before the

consumption tax rate in Japan increase from 5% to 8% from April 2014, and the sales sharply dropped after

April 2014. The mechanism of this fluctuation was simple, but it was difficult to forecast how much it would

possibly fluctuate. So for the companies in this industry, properly preparing trucks and drivers to meet the

demand was one challenge.

In addition, companies heavily consumed oils, mainly light oils, for truck transportation. Since the oil price has

been increasing in long run, it was one of the big issues in this industry (see Exhibit 3). Also, wages for drivers

were one of the main costs in this business. So cost increase in oils or wages would hit the company’s

profitability directly, if the company could not reflect the costs to the transportation fee, or reduce the costs.

The development of Zero

The birth of Zero: Management Buy-Out in 2001

Zero was originally founded in 1961 as Nissan Transportation Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Nissan Motor. Since

then, it had kept its growth along with the development of car market in Japan.

However, after the serious post bubble recession in 1990s, Nissan Motor had fallen into a slump. As a

consequence, Nissan Motor selected Nissan Transportation as one of the candidate subsidiaries to divest from

Nissan group. After FY1991, Car sales and market share of Nissan Motor had been continuously going down. In

FY1992, Nissan Motor fell into net loss, and the amount of debt had accumulated to over 2 trillion yen. In

March 1999, Nissan Motor entered into a partnership with Renault. In October 1999, Nissan Motor announced

“Nissan Revival Plan” under the strong conduct of Mr. Ghosn, newly appointed COO at that time and later

President from June 2000. Nissan Revival Plan contained the restructuring of non-core subsidiaries, and Nissan

Transportation was one of the candidates8,9.

In May 2001, Iwashita and other management members decided to buy out Nissan Transportation’s stock from

Nissan Motor by a Management Buy-Out (MBO) with the investment from 2 big funds10. And after the MBO,

Nissan Transportation changed its name to Zero.

Challenges after MBO

Soon after the MBO, Zero faced big challenges. First, Mr. Ghosn requested Zero around 20% price reduction

of car transportation fee. Since Zero was highly dependent its sales on Nissan Motor, this price reduction had

7 From interview to Mr. Kitamura on 25th May 2015.
8 Nissan Motor’s website, http://www.nissan-global.com/GCC/NRP/SUPPORT/revival-j
9 Logi-Biz August 2004, special article “Companies divested by Ghosn”
10 ibid

Zero Group: Global Expansion Challenges (A)

4

huge impact. By the 20% price reduction, revenue from Nissan Motor will be reduced by 20%, and the impact

to the profits is much larger. Second, along with the Nissan Revival Plan which initiated the birth of Zero,

Nissan Motor decided to close down several major car assembly plants. Murayama plant, one of the largest

plants of Nissan Motor located in Tokyo, Aichi assembly plant, and Kyoto assembly plant were closed in March

2001. Before the closure of these assembly plants, it was possible to transport the vehicle efficiently, because

Nissan plants were both in Kanto area, eastern side of Japan including Tokyo, and Kansai area, western side of

Japan including Aichi and Kyoto, so there were the transportation needs both from Kanto to Kansai, and from

Kansai to Kanto. But after the closure of Aichi and Kyoto plants, Nissan had no plant in Kansai area. As a result,

Zero’s trucks had no back transportation when returning to Kanto from Kansai area, which severely reduced the

efficiency of car transportation.

Zero had tackled with the challenges by expanding its business areas. Iwashita needed to take a step of

restructuring and employees’ salary reduction, but the efforts to regain its profits was not only these. Zero

started to accept the contracts from other car manufacturers including Toyota and Mitsubishi Motors. Before the

independence from Nissan Motor, it was difficult take the contracts from other manufacturers, but it became

possible to have relationship with the company other than Nissan group. For example, from Mitsubishi Motors,

Zero took the contract of transporting about 20% of its new cars. Mitsubishi Motors didn’t have its own

transportation subsidiary which has its own big trailers and truck drivers, and this contract contributed to reduce

Mitsubishi Motors transportation costs11. Also, Zero expanded the business in used car transportation market.

Through the expansion of its business areas, its transportation efficiency recovered and even improved, when

compared with the efficiency before the independence12.

Initial Public Offering in 200

5

There always existed the exit pressure by funds which invested to Zero for the MBO. In August 2005, Zero

listed its stocks on the second section of Tokyo Stock Exchange through Initial Public Offering (IPO) 13 .

According to Iwashita, this IPO was not only to reward the funds, but also to increase the awareness of Zero and

to further motivate Zero’s employees14.

Zero started aggressively acquiring companies by using the cash obtained by IPO, and expanded and

strengthened its business areas15. Kitamura joined Zero in April 2006, just before Zero did the first acquisition

after IPO, and had been engaging in many acquisitions. In 10th April 2006, Zero acquired Kyuso Company Ltd,

a logistic company which operates general cargo transportation business and warehousing in its base of

Kitakyushu city, in order to expand general cargo transportation business as one of the new pillars in its business

portfolio16. On the same day, 10th April 2006, Zero established a joint-venture company with Fullcast Co., Ltd.,

a human resource service company. The new company, Fullcast Drive Co., aimed to provide personnel-service

for transportation to offer all-round personnel service related to vehicles including driver dispatch business for

cargo trucks or general cars and sub-contracting business by utilizing Zero’s technical know-how of

transportation control system, and Fullcast’s recruiting skills and personal training system17. Zero acquired all

the shares of Fullcast Drive in October 2010 and changed its company name to Zero Drive Staff Co., Ltd18. In

October 2008, Zero acquired Driver Staff Co., Ltd. (Japan Relief Co., Ltd 19), which undertakes operations

management of vehicles owned by customers20. Since IPO, Zero continued acquiring subsidiaries, and the

number of consolidated subsidiaries increased from 2 in FY2003 to 8 in FY2013 (see Exhibit 4&5&6).

Kitamura had been engaging in many of the acquisitions with President Iwashita.

11 Logi-Biz August 2004, special article “Companies divested by Ghosn”
12 ibid
13 Zero’s prospectus for IPO issued in June 2005
14 Logi-Biz August 2004, special article “Companies divested by Ghosn”
15 ibid
16 Zero’s IR release on April 2006, “Zero to acquire Kyuso company ltd”
17 Zero’s IR release on March 2006, “Zero and Fullcast agreed to establish a joint-venture for personnel service”
18 Zero’s IR release on October 2010, “Zero announces the Change of Company Name of Fullcast Drive in Accordance with

the Acquisition of Their Whole Shares”
19 Japan Relief was the subsidiary of Driver Staff group which is practically operate the business of this group.
20 Zero’s IR release on September 2008, “Zero announces Acquisition (Subsidization) of Driver Staff Co., Ltd.”

Zero Group: Global Expansion Challenges (A)

5

Business Profile in Japan

Originally heavily dependent on new vehicle transportation for Nissan Motor, Zero has been expanded its

business areas, and reduced the dependence on Nissan Motor. Zero’s sales and profitability has been improving,

although there was temporal decline in profits during the Financial Crisis triggered by the collapse of Lehman

Brothers in 2008 (see Exhibit 7). In vehicle transportation business and transportation-related business, Zero has

been created a service model for customers, which covers broad range of services with country-wide network

(see Exhibit 8). Moreover, Zero expanded service areas in human resource business and general cargo

transportation business. The detailed descriptions of service areas were as follows.

Zero’s strength was not only its country-wide network and wide coverage of services. Zero has been further

sophisticated and improved the quality and technology of services under its corporate philosophy, “High

Standard of Quality” (see Exhibit 9). Zero’s employees had highest levels of vehicle handling skills from luxury

cars to unmoved vehicles, and maintenance skills. And these skills were maintained by its own training system.

Also, Zero had advanced in-house IT system, which enabled detailed transportation service and customer’s

convenience.

Vehicle transportation and its related business (see Exhibit 10)

New vehicle transportation and its related business: Zero provided safe and prompted transport service for

new vehicles produced by Japanese car manufacturers from its plants to the dealers and the pre-delivery

inspection service centers all over Japan with using advanced transportation system. Zero also provided the

transportation service of imported new vehicles and storage operations. Not only Zero was entrusted by Nissan

Motor, Zero received 100% contracts of BMW Japan, and part of the contracts of Mitsubishi Motors.

Moreover, Zero provided integrated maintenance services for newly produced vehicles such as quality

inspection, optional parts installation and pre-delivery inspection before delivery. For imported new vehicles,

Zero also offered customs clearance and application of type approval. These comprehensive services greatly

contributed to shortening delivery due and reducing costs. Zero met the customer’s needs with its servicing

networks consisting of 50 workshops, which were owned by Zero and cooperative firms. Zero also provided

heavy vehicle maintenance service by utilizing the know-how to maintain its own big trailers.

Used vehicle transportation and its related business: Zero was the leader in used car transportation market

with biggest nationwide operations. Drivers needed higher and naive skills for used car transportation, because

the shape of used vehicle tire was changed over time and became lower, flatter and wider, so it was very hard to

load and un-load to the trailers. Zero’s experienced drivers were able to take these works easily.

Zero operated car auctions, called “ZERO Car Selection” at 13 venues nationwide. Zero Car Selection was

specially designed for trade-in vehicles and expired-lease vehicles, and auction bidders were able to rely on

quality products sold there. Zero also undertook the transport of these vehicles. For the car auctions, Zero was

fully utilizing IT, and runs information service which provided a complete list of vehicles in auctions and

auction results over the Internet. Regarding the customer segments, car sellers in Zero Car Selection were

corporations such as leasing companies and rent-a-car companies, and which was different from other car

auction sites mainly selling cars of large specialty used-car buying companies such as Gulliver.

Zero also provided transportation service for trade-in vehicles and expired-lease vehicles. With its nationwide

transportation networks, flexible delivery to the specified due date and high quality transportation services

totally supported customers’ business in used car market.

Private vehicle transportation business: Zero has been extended its business area in B to C market as well.

Zero provided Door-to-Door transportation service of private vehicles and motorbikes for moving. This

operation was very complicated and difficult for moving companies to provide this service to customers, so Zero

receives orders of this service from moving companies. Zero also provided “Rabbit Service” for travelers, the

service picking up customer’s vehicle from specified place and delivering it to the specified airport of traveler’s

destination.

Zero Group: Global Expansion Challenges (A)

6

Human resource business

Zero provided and expanded human resourcing service such as transportation service for school bus, hospital,

hotel and golf course, and operation management for drivers, maintenance, insurance, and driving route control.

Zero also arranged vehicles for company or organization in addition to driver staffing service for transportation

companies, and worker staffing for light works at the warehouse or security staff.

Moreover, this business was run by Zero’s subsidiary, Japan Relief Co, Ltd., and Japan Relief also educated

and dispatched drivers to Zero, and contributed to secure the number and quality of drivers for Zero’s main

business.

General cargo business

Zero started general cargo business through the subsidiaries acquired after MBO, which were Kyuso Company

Ltd, and Kanda Kairiku Unso Co., Ltd. Zero’s services were consisted of Warehousing service including the

management of transfer centers and distribution centers, Harbor transportation, and cost reduction proposals

with utilizing the know-how gained from the vehicle transportation business.

Challenge for the future

By expanding and diversifying the business, Zero has been successfully increasing its sales and profitability,

and steadily coming closer to its mid-term target, which was 100 billion sales and 5% operating income over net

sales21. However, when Kitamura was pondering for the future, there were a lot of things to be resolved in front

of him.

First, it was not promising that Zero could keep expanding sales and profitability. Zero successfully reduced

the dependence on the car sales of Nissan Motor in Japan, but its business was highly affected with the

cyclicality of car manufacturing industry in domestic market. For example, the consumption tax rate would be

increased again in 2017 from 8% to 10% Car sales would become more fluctuated at that time. How Zero

should prepare for these future fluctuation of car sales? And should Zero further diversify its business portfolio

and reduce the dependence on the car sales?

Second, lack flexibility in expanding business remained a big issue. One reason was coming from the shortage

of truck drivers which was recently becoming a growing problem. After the Great East Japan Earthquake in

2011, dumped truck driver demand in Fukushima prefecture had been increasing. And Toyota Transportation

already increased the salary of truck drivers. If Zero responded and increased the wage, it would lead much

decrease in profitability. For Toyota Transportation, it may be easier to reflect the wage increase to the contract

price of vehicle transportation with its parent company. But, in case of Zero, it was quite difficult to increase the

contract price, since Zero was an independent company. Also, another reason was the limitation of procuring big

trailers. In Japan, only one company, HAMANA WORKS, can produce back carriers of big trailers, and its

production capacity was limited to only 200-250 units per year. HANAMA WORKS was in close relationship

with Toyota, so Toyota received large allocation of trailer productions from HANAMA WORKS, and yearly

allocation to Zero was constrained to only 20-25 units22. How to secure the truck drivers and the number of

trucks as the Zero expand its transportation demand?

Third, in the longer run, it was very probable that the future decrease of car sales in Japan. One reason was that

young people was getting less interested in purchasing cars. The other reason was that the Japanese population

was shrinking because of the low birth rate in Japan. How Zero could sustainably keep growth under this

unfavorable conditions?

21 Zero’s IR release on August 2014, “Financial Results for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 2014”
22 From interview to Mr. Kitamura on 25th May 2015.

Zero Group: Global Expansion Challenges (A)

7

Zero already initiated to expand towards foreign markets, and it turned out to one of solutions for the issues

facing Zero. However, some business in foreign market was not still profitable. For example, Zero started used

car business and vehicle cosmetic grooming business in Guanzo China by establishing joint venture Eight Zero

Auto Service Co. with TCIL, but the sales remained still low, less than 10 million RMB (≒ 200 million yen).
ASEAN market, where TCIL had a strong presence, looks more promising, but how much investments Zero

should put in which ASEAN market?

Zero Group: Global Expansion Challenges (A)

8

Exhibit 1 Employment in the automobile manufacturing and related industries

Source: Japanese Automobile Manufacturers Association, Inc. “The motor industry of Japan 2015”

Zero Group: Global Expansion Challenges (A)

9

Exhibit 2 Feature of Vehicle Transportation Industry

Source: Zero’s internal document

Exhibit 3 Retail price of Light oil in Japan

Source: statistics of Oil Information Center, https://oil-info.ieej.or.jp/price/price.html

Zero Group: Global Expansion Challenges (A)

10

Exhibit 4 Number of consolidated subsidiaries from FY2003 to FY20

13

Source: Zero’s IR release of Financial Results from FY2003 to FY2013

Exhibit 5 Zero and its group companies’ business areas

Source: Zero’s IR release of Financial Results in FY2013

Zero Group: Global Expansion Challenges (A)

11

Exhibit 6 List of Zero’s group companies

Group companies Business operations Paid- in capital Number of employees
ZERO・TRANS CO., LTD. ・Vehicle transportation

・Handling at Car Selection
15,000,000 yen 979

(incl. 702 contract workers)
ZERO KYUSYU CO.,
LTD.

・Vehicle transportation
・Handling at Car Selection

10,000,000 yen 275
(incl. 152 contract workers)

KANDAKO KAIRIKU
UNSO CO., LTD.

・Port transportation 39,000,000 yen 80
(incl. 3 contract workers)

TBM CO., LTD. ・Vehicle transportation 10,000,000 yen 41
(incl. 23 contract workers)

KYUSO COMPANY,
LTD.

・General cargo transportation
・Warehousing

60,000,000 yen 106
(incl. 24 contract workers)

Japan Relief Co., Ltd. ・Vehicle control and management,
temporary and placement services

83,000,000 yen 3,733
(incl. 3,443 contract workers)

Nissan Shizuoka
Worknet Co., Ltd.

・Vehicle transportation and its related
businesses

10,000,000 yen 85
(incl. 26 contract workers)

NPF Service Co., Ltd. ・Vehicle transportation and its related
businesses in Kyushu area

10,000,000 yen 27
(incl. 1 contract worker)

Auto Carry Co., Ltd. ・Vehicle transportation and its related
businesses

50,000,000 yen 97
(incl. 31 contract worker)

World Windows Co., Ltd. ・Exports and sales of used cars and
automobile parts

10,000,000 yen 6
(incl. 1 contract worker)

Shinwa Rikusou Inc. ・Vehicle transportation and other
transportation

18,000,000 yen 48

ZERO SCM LOGISTICS
（BEIJING）CO., LTD.

・Vehicle transportation

– –

GUANGZHOU EIGHT ZERO
AUTO SERVICE CO., LTD.

・Used car trading, valuation,
maintenance

– –

Source: Zero’s website, Group companies, http://www.zero-group.co.jp/en/corporate/index.html

Exhibit 7 Zero’s dependence on Nissan Motors, sales and profitability

Zero Group: Global Expansion Challenges (A)

12

Exhibit 7 (cont’d) Zero’s dependence on Nissan Motors, sales and profitability

Source: Zero’s IR release of Financial Results from FY2003 to FY2013 and FY2014 3Q

Exhibit 8 Vehicle transportation Service model in domestic market

Source: Created by case writer based on Zero’s internal document.

Zero Group: Global Expansion Challenges (A)

13

Exhibit 9 Corporate philosophy

Source: Zero’s internal document.

Exhibit 10 Zero’s Vehicle transportation and related business

Source: Zero Group Company Profile Report.