Reports from recent AJS-NSW Events

Don’t feel offended when the executives’ eyes are completely shut during your business presentation, which you are delivering with great enthusiasm, when your audience is Japanese business people. They are not asleep!

This is just one of the many observations and lessons learnt on the job by Mark Rusbatch, the CEO of Minit Oceania and Southeast Asia (MOSEA), the company behind the ubiquitous Mister Minit.

On 14 September, Rusbatch gave AJS members in Sydney a little insight into working with Japanese investors, as well as the differences between Japanese and Australian markets and customer needs.

Mister Minit opened its first door back in 1957 in Brussels as a “While U Wait” Heel Bar. Since then, it has expanded both geographically and in service offering. With every new market, new trends and new challenges, Mister Minit advanced by never losing sight of its ethos - Real people fixing problems.

For the Japan market, where the average Japanese female owns 40 pairs of shoes (!), the problem to solve is fixing shoes. It’s a problem that’s worth fixing for Mister Minit as they now have over 309 stores just in Japan. Closer to home in Australia and New Zealand where the population is just one quarter of the Japanese population, Mister Minit has expanded their services beyond fixing shoes to services such as key duplication, mobile phone repairs, and watch servicing in a bid to drive growth.