While Kakuyasu Co. Ltd. was able to achieve rapid growth in the liquor industry by implementing the popular strategy of retail discounts, their current growth depends on customer service. This paper describes the company’s process of strategy formation and competitive advantage while touching on the current state of the retail liquor industry and history of Kakuyasu Co. Ltd.

This report is a sequel to “Strategic Utilization of ASEAN Locations,” published in Akamon Management Review (Vol. 3, No. 11). It focuses on the expansion of ASEAN small- and medium-sized enterprises that supply parts and materials to Japanese companies in ASEAN locations. The cases of two companies that have actively expanded overseas are introduced, both of which have two factors in common. First, both companies have undergone rapid overseas expansion to keep pace with the companies they supply, and second, both companies continue to maintain production at the domestic parent factory, although they skillfully collaborate to strategically utilize their ASEAN locations. An explanation is included how, in case I, formulating product reproducibility in the ASEAN location and, in case II, rapid expansion to an ASEAN location were the cornerstones on which divisions of labor were created between the domestic parent and the ASEAN locations.