Shiseido steps up marketing push with Academy and brand manager system

Starting next month, Shiseido says it will assign brand managers to the Domestic Cosmetics Business Division for consistent value creation, thereby increasing its branding and marketing capabilities.

Through these measures and the recruitment of experienced marketers from outside the company, Shiseido will accelerate its transformation into a ‘global marketing company’ whose employees communicate with each other through "marketing as a common language."

Academy​

It builds on the Marketing Academy that the company established last month, which is headed by President Masahiko Uotani. The aim of the Academy is to develop world-class marketers.

Shiseido says it is now introducing the brand manager system in order to maximize its brand value for integrated brand management including product development, marketing, sales and P/L management.

The Marketing Academy will provide three courses in total: two for personnel engaged in marketing and the remaining one for those engaged in sales, beauty consultation, technology and staff services.

The Advanced and Basic Courses will be launched this December, targeting a total of about 400 employees engaged in marketing for the domestic and overseas businesses at the head office.

The target participants of these courses will gradually be expanded to include employees of subsidiaries and those working outside Japan, specifically in China, Asia, the Americas and Europe.

Aims​

Shiseido says the Marketing Academy will develop outstanding marketers who can work effectively in any country or region throughout the world. “By enhancing the capacity of individual employees, it will promote the growth of the entire company,”​ it says.

The company has highlighted imagination, being strategic, presentation, execution, and accounting as basic skills needed by "marketers who can compete and win on a global scale", ​and will work to develop human resources that can manage brands in line with global standards.

In recruiting new graduates for the next fiscal year, Shiseido will increase the number of new hires for marketing roles. These new recruits will study at the Academy to acquire the skills needed to become industry-ready marketers.