has since improved at BFS, but productivity is at just 60 percent of japanese levels,
compared with 80 percent at La Vargne.
Looking back, many analysts and business writers believe that Bridgestones best
course of action would have been to buy many individual tyre factories at a
reasonably slow but steady pace, using the tecniques that worked so well at La Vargne
without placing an impossible drain on their.
Japanese labour. These writers argue that had they started this plan in the late 1980,
bridgestone would have captured a large shared of the US market by now. However,
Yeiri and his top executives strongly disagree with this analysis, remaining convinced
that their only change at making a large place of the US business lay with the
firestone buyout, no matter how flawed. They argue that the piecemeal approach
would have taken so long to develop that bridgestone would never have able to reach
a strong market position in the USA.
BFS has now reached this position and is challenging the market leader, goodyear.
From a loss of USS142 million in 1992 on sales of USS4,6 Billion, BFS made
USS172 million on sales of USS6,5 billion in 1996. The company is curently
forcensting USS200 million earnings on sales of USS7 billion in 1997. BFS has been
completely reorganised so it goes to market with different products being provided to
different customers. Maximum use has also been made of the 1500 company owned
stores which were previously firestone ang which now sell both bridgestone and
firestone products.