The Milbon Business Model
[A Distinctive Business Model That Creates Value Together]
- Business activities shared between 21 offices in 13 regions worldwide.
- Contribute to the global beauty industry through field activities focused on salon education.
- Business Locations: Germany, Turkey, China, South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and USA
- Plants: Japan and Thailand
Shift away from an industry perspective to adopt the perspectives of customers and society at large.
—Continuously Creating a New Future—
Shift the focus and pursue the creation of a new beauty industry based on beauty culture emanating from Japan.
To become the world’s No. 1 professional hair care manufacturer through our dedication and educational support toward local beauty industries across the globe.
- Contribute to enhancing the value of salons as important community spaces
- Contribute to increasing salon revenues and profits
- Understand the needs of customers and society.
- Develop professional-standard products.
- Cultivate employees to become good partners to stylists.
When developing products, rather than focusing solely on what we want to achieve as a manufacturer, we listen to the ideas and concerns of stylists to create the products they truly need. Milbon is a developer of beauty products and solutions, and the TAC* Product Development System is the basis for the unique process Milbon uses to create these new beauty care techniques and products.
To implement this system, we first locate hairstylists who have outstanding techniques or other ideas in a specific field, such as coloring or hair care. We call these people TAC hair stylists. They share their knowledge with us for scientific analysis to develop innovative products. By pursuing the fusion of science and sensibility, specialists transform the knowledge and expertise of TAC hairstylists into products, enabling the sophisticated techniques possessed by only the most talented stylists to be realized at every salon.
* TAC: Target Authority Customer (development system based on customer representation) A TAC hair stylist is a stylist who is widely admired by our target customers.
Milbon considers the provision of accurate information supported by science as one of our most important duties as an industry leader. The basic research we conduct not only covers the study of the physical properties and the structure of hair itself, but it also solves the issues and concerns of our end-users.
Central Research Institute
At the 30th Congress of the International Federation of Societies of Cosmetic Chemists held in September 2018, a Milbon researcher won the top award in the Poster category. Her research looked at the hair and scalps of 2,461 Japanese women, exploring the relationship between scalp color, hair shininess, and the amount of gray hair.
The Field Person System is our proprietary sales strategy reflecting our core motto of “Don’t sell products, sell concepts.” We believe that solv- ing a salon’s problems always benefits its customers. Rather than just selling products, we work to provide added value in the form of ap- plications, ideas, and expertise that work in harmony with our products. Field Persons engage with the issues facing a specific salon, as well as the owner’s thoughts, to provide support.
Field Marketing Salesperson (FMS) who visits salons together with distributors to discover their specific issues; a Field Salon Educator (FSE) who provides training on cutting edge hair styling techniques.
Through our Field Persons, Milbon has developed a good rapport with salons by helping them solve not only problems regarding products but al- so concerns related to management and staff development.
The Milbon Way is a handbook containing the core values that every employee is expected to share. It was compiled by the president himself in 2012 and has been revised in line with the times based on the theme of “continuity and change.” This handbook ensures that the values are passed on to Milbon employees over the years.