National office Machine

1. Situation Analysis

National Office Machine (NOM), a Dayton, Ohio company, is one of the leaders in the field, which is manufacturers of cash registers, electronic data processing equipment, adding machines, and other small office equipment. Even though NOM has made success in the United States, this company had no any significant sales or sales force in Japan.

Recently NOM signed a Joint Venture agreement with Nippon Cash Machines (NCM), the former major manufacturer of cash register in Japan. The agreement should be benefit for both companies. And based on the agreement, NOM is responsible for hiring and training the new young salespeople.

2. Problem Definition

Currently, for the new joint venture, which is called Nippon/American Business Machines Corporation (NABMC), there are several problems that needed to be solved immediately. First, considering sales compensation that plan to use, That is, it should follow the Japanese tradition of straight incentive program, or the U.S. method of commissions and various incentives, which are based on sales performance. Then, the new company has to decide if they still take lifetime labor-management relations like other Japanese companies or not. Also, it is responsible that the NABMC have to get familiar to Japanese culture and find balance between new and old salespeople.

Above all, it is a choice between tradition and foreign.

3. Solutions

a) Follow the U.S. method of commissions and various incentives.

Since the NOM has already get success in the United States, it is possible that the NABMC also get improvement with the same incentive program. In addition, as the research said, the Japanese young people are more likely to work in foreign firms. It means that the young people could work under the incentive program of foreign firms instead of their traditional program.

b) Follow the Japanese traditional incentive program

Since the old salespeople still tend to work under the traditional incentive program, if the new company just simply takes the