Yoshiko Shinohara and Tempstaff Case Solution And Analysis, HBR Case Study Solution & Analysis of Harvard Case Studies

Question no. 1-1

Tempstaff was founded in May 1973, by Yoshiko Shinohara. The idea behind Tempstaff was giving part time employment opportunities to women, so that they can partially support their families. Moreover, through this approach women can give time to their families and to the work as well. Tempstaff went through many ups and downs while carrying out its operations. For instance, when Shinohara launched the company she was soon opposed by the Ministry of Labor. She soon came to know that providing temporary employees to the company was not allowed in Japan. Furthermore, the company also had the impact of the bubble economy, but the company was soon able to get back on the track of sustainability. The temporary workers were having low wages and benefits than the regular employees, but still the people were enrolling themselves for the part time jobs. Thus, Tempstaff was doing an excellent job to give part time employment to the needy people. Moreover, the company also faced crisis in which the private information of its workers was being stolen and sold it to the internet site. This gave a huge blow to the company, but due to effective leadership of Shinohara, Tempstaff once again was successful in overcoming the crisis.

The most important factor that drove the market growth of the company was the Temporary Work Services Association. This association worked on negotiating with the Ministry of Labor for improvements in the law. Moreover, one of the growth factors for the company was when Shinohara realized that she needed male staff in her company for organized structure and formal operations. Likewise, corporate reform was also a key driver of growth. Similarly, the efforts of Shinohara in negotiating with her female staff and assigning them the positions they suited, after the recruitment of male employees was also a major factor.

Shinohara also started franchise licenses and promotion of the company via the advertisements which was unique in the industry; this gave rapid growth to the company. One of the factors which aided in the rapid growth was that Shinohara believed in cost saving and always preferred the expenses which were necessary for increasing the sales. Moreover, Shinohara had a great leadership style and that helped in continuing the growth even in crisis and uncertain economy of Japan.

Question no. 1-2

Tempstaff was a service based company, which was created having the aim of providing quality services to its clients. Initially, Shinohara hired temporary staff from Manpower, US based company and used its insights for managing the temporary staff. The temp staff workers were supposed to be paid before sending invoices to the clients. Shinohara managed that cost by turning the office into an English conversation school at night.

Moreover, she defined her business as “administrative works by contract” in order to avoid the restrictions of the law enforcing agencies, whereas, the company was following the flat organization structure. Initially, the culture of the organization was female-dominated, but later on Shinohara realized that the recruitment of males was necessary to increase the sales of the company. Therefore, the males were recruited and then they worked in a standard way that the sales targets were well defined and how to achieve the goals. In addition to this, the temps were properly interviewed and hired after being satisfied. They were trained and properly hired to give high quality to the clients of the company.

The requirement for a successful business model for the company like Tempstaff is that the company should give high priority to its clients and provide high quality to its clients. The purpose of the business should be clearly defined and the strategies should be made accordingly. Moreover, the proper organization structure should be maintained in which the sales targets should be clearly defined by the management of the company and was through which the targets can be achieved by the sales force. There should be necessary training given to the employees of the organization so that they can effectively fulfill the demands of the customers and hence, strengthen the relationship between the client and the company. In addition to this, business processes should be clearly monitored for identifying issues and take measures to eliminate those issues.................................

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The case is a biographical portrait of Yoshiko Shinohara, who founded Tempstaff in 1973, one of the biggest agencies for temporary staff in Japan. In addition to chronicling Shinohara of a business case provides contextual background on the role of women in business in Japan in the last decade of the 20th century. "Hide
by Anthony J. Mayo, Masako Egawa, Mayuka Yamazaki Source: Harvard Business School 27 pages. Publication Date: January 13, 2009. Prod. #: 409049-PDF-ENG