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(20) The age of goyotashi business management
Furthermore, the basis of business management in the Great Collaboration society would come down to the word goyotashi (*3).
To begin with, while the freedom to choose in almost anything, as we experience in this modern age, is said to be desirable ― at least on the surface ― to the consumer, in reality the consumer is also charged with the mission of making a wise choice. It is by no means easy for the consumer, who is essentially a non-professional in the product concerned, to make a wise choice based on limited information and knowledge, and that in a short space of time. Perhaps many consumers might prefer to entrust that wise choice, which comprehensively takes their needs, personal tastes, as well as budgetary and other constraints into consideration, to someone they can rely on.
A typical example may be buying a home. It is certainly not easy for the lay, general consumer to buy a home with the confidence and full understanding of all the underlying aspects. To give another example, it is normally not possible for the layman to make the wisest choice on the specific diet and method for maintaining and promoting his/her health. On further reflection, while the selling and buying of goods or services may, on the surface, simply be an equivalent exchange of goods or services for money, in essence it consists of the seller providing a solution for the buyer’s needs or affairs that need to be fulfilled. The most important thing is not trading products but providing value, or, ultimately, the seller serving the buyer’s needs.
In LOHAS, whose values are founded on health and sustainability, and in the Great Collaboration society that extends therefrom, the buyer’s needs are far more diversified and specialized than those in the 20th century economy; and for the buyer, purchasing activity is virtually a learning activity as well. That is why it becomes imperative for the seller to serve the buyer’s needs, by “tailoring” the optimal product for the buyer; or, in other words, to perform goyotashi.
Note by the translator:
(*3) In the Edo period, the goyotashi was a purveyor, i.e., a merchant granted the privilege to supply the government, etc., with goods and services. However, in this article, goyotashi is used in the sense of “satisfying the buyer’s needs.”
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(Date published / 公開日： 5/20/2021)
(Date last updated / 最終改訂日: 6/3/2021)
