Japanese business tycoon and former chairman of Suzuki Motor Corporation Osamu Suzuki died at 94, the company announced on Friday. He had been president, chairman, or chief executive of Suzuki Motor Corporation since 1978. Suzuki died on Christmas day due to malignant lymphoma, according to a statement from the company.
In February 2021, the company announced that Suzuki would retire in June and become an adviser. With more than three decades as the company’s head, Suzuki is reported to be one of the longest-serving leaders in the global automotive industry. He is credited with transforming Suzuki Corporation into one of the largest small car manufacturers in the world.
The always-animated industrialist transformed his family’s company from a purveyor of motorcycles and cheap low-end niche vehicles into a global automotive empire. During his decades at the top, Suzuki piloted the carmaker through rapid expansion in emerging markets, an explosion of new products, its rise and fall in the US, and sometimes testy tie-ups with General Motors and Volkswagen.
Metamorphosis
Suzuki steered his company into a worldwide metamorphosis. When he was appointed president in 1978, the carmaker had two assembly plants. By 2015, it had 15. The workforce ballooned from 3,820 employees to 57,400. The global output went from 248,000 vehicles annually to more than 3 million, with cars sold in 201 countries worldwide.
Suzuki’s masterstroke was entering India in 1982 and teaming up with government-controlled manufacturer Maruti Udyog. In 2014, Maruti Suzuki India claimed 45% of the market. He also made his company a big player in other growing markets, like Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia.
Suzuki also devoted itself to the so-called Kei or minicars in Japan, vehicles with engines no larger than 660 cc and a length under 3.4 m. In the last 15 years, this segment has exploded to 40% of domestic sales, with Suzuki always being a top seller.
Retire or not, that’s the question…
In 2015, at age 85, Osamu Suzuki finally conceded the need for a younger management team. But of course, Suzuki intended to oversee the management shuffle personally. “We thought we needed to rejuvenate ourselves, and in that case, it would be best if I left first,” Suzuki said. “But I am so full of conceit that I cannot do that.”
He often said his envisioned end was to “die in battle,” not in retirement. His son, Toshihiro Suzuki, became president in June 2015 and CEO the following year.
Part of the family
Suzuki Motor has always been a family concern. As of March 2015, Osamu Suzuki held a 0.2 percent stake in the company. But he wasn’t always a Suzuki. Born Osamu Matsuda in the central prefecture of Gifu, he married into the Suzuki family. In a not-uncommon Japanese practice, after he was identified as the most qualified family member to lead the company, the family adopted him, and he got the Suzuki name.
The ambitious adoptee was appointed president two decades later, and Suzuki was the fourth president for 22 years until he became chairman in 2000. Osamo Suzuki is survived by his wife, Shoko, and has two sons, Toshihiro and Masahiro, and a daughter.
Turbulent alliances
Osamu Suzuki was always keenly aware of the company’s frailties as a minor player, which drove him to seek shelter through alliances with bigger rivals. In 1981, for example, he helped arrange for GM to take a 5.3 percent stake in Suzuki Motor. ‘The General’ remained Suzuki Motor’s guardian for over two decades, raising its stake in the company to 20% in 2000.
The alliance gave Suzuki a foothold in North America, but by the late 1990s, cracks were beginning to surface in the coalition. Osamu Suzuki became increasingly frustrated with GM’s bureaucracy. “The Indian government is very delicate,” he once told Automotive News, describing the headaches of doing business in India. “They make no decisions, only have meetings.” He paused, then added, “Just like GM.”
The tie-up finally unraveled with the global financial crisis of 2008-09. GM sold its last holdings in 2008 in a mad scramble for cash on the eve of its fight against bankruptcy in 2009.
It didn’t take Suzuki long to find a new partner. Volkswagen Group formally entered the picture in 2010 and bought a 19.9% stake, making VW the Japanese automaker’s largest shareholder. But again, Suzuki’s obsession with control and independence became a key sticking point.
The burgeoning lack of trust undermined efforts to find mutual projects, even though Suzuki wanted access to VW’s advanced drivetrain technologies and VW eyed Suzuki’s small-car expertise. By the fall of 2011, Osamu Suzuki publicly called for a divorce.
Renowned cost-cutter
Suzuki’s mastery of low-cost manufacturing was one skill VW had hoped would rub off. But that was linked as much to Suzuki’s penchant for penny-pinching as to any magic formula. Osamu Suzuki was a strict micromanager with no tolerance for anything resembling frills.
Osamu Suzuki routinely toured factories on savings campaigns and personally led intensive cost-cutting exercises. Among his many suggestions was cutting holes in the roof of the Hamamatsu plant to let in more sunshine and turning off the light bulbs.
For years, staff employees couldn’t buy standard Shinkansen tickets (bullet train) when traveling from the Hamamatsu headquarters to Tokyo. Instead, they purchased multiple-trip passes going through stopover cities. The three-ticket combo was cheaper than a single-ticket straight through.
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