Why Is ASICS Experiencing Rapid Growth? — The Shift from a Value-Driven Model to an Efficiency-Driven Enterprise

Introduction

The purpose of this paper is to clarify how ASICS Corporation (hereafter, ASICS) has achieved rapid growth in recent years and transformed into a globally competitive company.
The framework employed is the McKinsey 7S model, analyzing the company comprehensively from the perspectives of Strategy, Structure, Systems, Shared Values, Style, Staff, and Skills.

In conclusion, ASICS began to shift from a “value-driven company,” established by founder Kihachiro Onitsuka, toward a new phase under the leadership of Motoi Oyama, and under Yasuhito Hirota’s leadership, fully transformed into an “efficiency-driven company.” As a result, while outwardly maintaining its founding philosophy, the company has in practice evolved into one that prioritizes efficiency and data-driven decision-making.

1. Leadership and Evolution of Corporate Philosophy

Kihachiro Onitsuka Era

Onitsuka championed the philosophy of “A sound mind in a sound body”, with a mission to support the entirety of sports culture. The company supported all sports regardless of profitability and launched school programs to nurture young people.
This was the epitome of value-driven management, instilling pride among employees and establishing ASICS as a company that helped shape post-war Japanese sports culture.

Motoi Oyama Era

When Oyama became president in 2008, he leveraged his trading-company background and sharp business acumen to incorporate global and foreign business perspectives, accelerating international expansion.
Although the overseas revenue ratio increased, the limitations of the traditional business model began to emerge.
This period also marked the beginning of proactive recruitment of external talent, signaling the initial shift in organizational direction.

Yasuhito Hirota Era

Appointed president in 2018, Hirota—drawing on his IT and trading-company background—introduced a thoroughly data-driven management style.
He decisively cut ties with the value-driven model established by Onitsuka, focusing on inventory efficiency, digital platforms, and concentration on high-performance running shoes. By 2025, ASICS had achieved a profit margin of 14.7%, among the best in the industry.
Although the company still outwardly retains its founding philosophy, it has effectively transformed into an “efficiency-driven enterprise.”
Rather than sustaining unprofitable businesses to fulfill the founding ideal of supporting youth and sports culture, Hirota prioritized efficiency as the necessary strategy for global competition.

2. Declining Profit Margins and the Inventory Problem

The greatest challenge ASICS faced for decades was inventory. Products often failed to sell out, leading to forced discounting or returns that significantly eroded profits.
This is not unique to ASICS but is a structural problem across the footwear and apparel industries, particularly acute in shoes due to their wide range of sizes.
Under Hirota’s leadership, global ERP systems, AI-based demand forecasting, and a Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) strategy were introduced. These improvements enhanced inventory turnover and significantly reduced costs from returns and disposals.
This was the single biggest driver of profit margin improvement and marked the true turning point from value-driven to efficiency-driven management.

3. ASICS Analysis via the 7S Model (as of 2025)

1. Strategy

• Focus Strategy: Concentrating resources on high-performance running shoes, prioritizing profitability.
  
  

• Inventory Efficiency: Reducing overstock, returns, and disposals through integrated, data-driven supply chain management.
  
  

• DTC Shift: Direct-to-Consumer strategy centered on the “OneASICS” membership platform and owned e-commerce.
  
  

• Customer Data Strategy: Acquisitions such as Runkeeper and Race Roster enabled global-scale customer data collection and utilization.
  
  

2. Structure

• Global Integrated Structure: Unified global ERP backbone.
  
  

• Expansion of External Hiring: Increased recruitment of mid-career and external leaders.
  
  

• Sales Department Downsizing: Drastic cuts due to shift from wholesale to direct sales.
  
  

• Disconnect Between Field and Management: Cultural gap between long-time, craft-oriented employees and newly hired external managers.
  
  

3. Systems

• Inventory and Demand Forecasting
  
  

  • Real-time inventory management via global ERP and BI dashboards.
    
    

  • Set numerical targets for inventory turnover (DIO reduction).
    
    

• DTC Foundation (OneASICS)
  
  

  • 19.3 million members by 2025; CDP introduced for unified customer data management.
    
    

  • Extended customer engagement from pre- to post-race events.
    
    

• AI Utilization
  
  

  • Personalized product recommendations in e-commerce (using Amazon Bedrock).
    
    

  • Enhanced customer LTV prediction and running form analysis through AI.
    
    

• Results
  
  

  • Industry-leading profit margin of 14.7%, consecutive recognition as a top DX brand.
    
    

4. Shared Values

• Official Philosophy (ASICS Spirit)
  
  

  • Founding philosophy of “A sound mind in a sound body” remains stated.
    
    

  • Vision 2030: “Creating a world where everyone remains healthy by engaging in sports throughout their lives.”
    
    

• Reality
  
  

  • Withdrawal from school programs and reduced support for non-core sports → Founding ideals have become hollowed out.
    
    

  • Shared values have shifted toward “profitability first,” creating a gap between official messaging and employee motivation.
    
    

5. Style

• Current Leadership: Data-driven, numbers-first management (IT background).
  
  

• Oyama Era: Expansion of external hires but unstable leadership influenced by personal preferences.
  
  

• Onitsuka Era: Value-driven, emphasizing sports culture.
  → Management style has shifted dramatically over time, now firmly focused on global competitiveness and profitability.
  
  

6. Staff

• Youth Development: Actively sending younger employees overseas.
  
  

• Increase in Mid-Career Hires: Growing share of headhunted and externally recruited staff.
  
  

• Decline of Veterans: Few employees remain who experienced Onitsuka’s era.
  → While talent development systems remain robust, cultural continuity has been disrupted.
  
  

7. Skills

• Core Strength: High-performance running shoe R&D still provides a strong competitive edge.
  
  

• Apparel: Knowledge from the Sports Engineering Research Institute in motion analysis informs design but is easily imitated.
  
  

• Equipment: Mostly outsourced, with little differentiation.
  
  

• Digital: Acquisition of running-related apps and platforms has enabled superior customer data utilization.
  → Digital capabilities now represent ASICS’s new differentiating strength.
  
  

4. Industry Structural Shifts and Rise of Emerging Brands

Previously, barriers to entry in the footwear industry were extremely high. However, recent advances in Taiwanese and Chinese factories now allow high-quality shoe production without requiring advanced in-house engineers.
As a result, emerging brands like On and Salomon have grown rapidly.
This indicates that the industry has shifted from “technical capability” as the guarantor of competitive advantage to a model where “brand power” and “marketing capability” are increasingly decisive.

5. Divergence Between Philosophy and Evaluation Metrics

There is now a major gap between ASICS’s stated philosophy and its operational reality.

• Philosophy: Support for all sports and youth development, as emphasized by Onitsuka.
  
  

• Reality: Prioritization of profitability through focus and efficiency.
  
  

This shift reflects a broader change in corporate evaluation metrics—from “realizing ideals” to “maximizing profit margins.”
For employees and consumers who value ideals, this divergence may cause dissonance, while for investors and shareholders, it appears highly rational, with success evident in share price and financial results.

6. Overall Assessment and Outlook

ASICS has transformed from the value-driven management of Kihachiro Onitsuka, through Oyama’s transitional era, into Hirota’s fully realized efficiency-driven company.

• Strengths: Inventory efficiency, data utilization, and DTC strategy underpin industry-leading profitability in the short to medium term.
  
  

• Challenges: Loss of founding ideals, cultural discontinuity, intensifying competition from emerging brands.
  
  

• Outlook: Continued growth over the next 5–10 years, but potential risks include brand fatigue and commoditization of technology.
  
  

Conclusion: While ASICS outwardly retains its founding ideals, internally it has transformed into a fundamentally different, efficiency-driven enterprise. Today’s ASICS should no longer be viewed as a value-driven company but rather as a new model of an “efficient and highly profitable enterprise” worthy of recognition.