The recession of the 1990's pressed many Japanese corporations to restructure. In former recessions, corporations dealt with recessions by rationalization in works in the field like plants and stores. In this recession, however, they needed to rationalize their divisions related to office functions. Many firms in various industries cut back their white-collar workers by transferring them to associated companies, reduction of new hiring, and so on.
This study aims to clarify how one Japanese corporation rationalized and changed the spatial organization of its office functions during this recession. The object of this study is Uny Corporation, which is one of the major retail corporations in Japan. Its main market is the Chukyo-area, central Japan. There are two main reasons why I choose this company. The first one is that Uny is an advanced and remarkable case. It reduced 1/2 of its headquarter's staff and transferred all of its office facilities. And the other reason is that Uny took spatial factors for its rationalization into consideration, like the transferring of its headquarter from the CBD of a large city to its suburbs, and reallocation of the former headquaters staff to the stores near their home.
The method, effect and influence of rationalization are summarised as follows:
1. Uny transferred its offices in order to reduce fixed costs (=rental costs). It had a headquarters in Nagoya and three regional headoffices in Tokyo, Shizuoka and Kanazawa. By autumn 1993, Uny reduced each of their office's staff and moved them from rental buildings to its own facilities like retail stores and distribution centers. This was for the purpose of cutting such rental costs. As a result, Uny didn't have to pay 121 million yen for rental space. This transfer cost a total of 170 million yen, but this is less than one and half years of the previous rent.
2. The transfer of their headquarters to suburbs reduced the ability for easy face-to-face contacts with other businesses. Uny transfered its headquaters from downtown Nagoya to the city of Inazawa. Inazawa is a suburb northwest of Nagoya. By moving to Inazawa, the access time for clients making contact with Uny's headquater was raised from 58.1 minutes in average to 85.8 (+47.8%). For clients, it now means an increase of time and travelling expenses. For Uny itself, however, the demerit of transfer was relatively small.
3. Uny went a step further, out-sourcing its headquaters' affairs. The information system department could reduce its staff sharply by not developing software for themselves. And the sales promotion departmet also reduced its staff by placing coordinate affairs with outside suppliers.
4. As the headquarter staff was reduced drastically, those workers were re-allocated to the retail outlets. The principal concept was to ensure that store be“near their homes”. For the staff, it meant that commuting time had been shortened, and for the corporation, it cut down the commuting costs. Re-allocation to stores made productivity fall for a time, but Uny developed new stores. This is, therefore, not a backward restructuring plan but a forward one. In the case of re-allocation of store managers, they were also transferred to a store which was near their home.
The above-mentioned rationalization very much influenced business affairs, staff and trading partners. The factors which rationalize Uny's restructuring are as follows:
1. Profits of Uny declined in 1992, then rationalization was unavoidable, and the whole Japanese economy was also going from bad to worse.
2. Uny is one of the major retail companies, and has about 120 shopping centers, so its buying power is very big. And Uny functions on the demand side. Although the cost to contact Uny's headquaters increased for partners, most of them wanted to continue doing businesses with Uny anyway.

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