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< Example 7 >
Anshin, Inc. |
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#Location: Matsuyama-shi, Ehime Prefecture
#Capital: 3 million yen
#Representative: Hideko Majima, Representative Director
#Business area: Nursing care at specified residences (nursing care by visiting and at residences)
#Date founded: October 1, 2001 |
1. Why and how the company was founded
Personal history of the founder: From the age of 30, I worked as a home helper for five years. Then, I worked for three years as a medical clerk at a comprehensive hospital and then for seven years as a chief helper in the home department. Couldn't I provide nursing care with more attention and in my own way? Partly because of such wishes, I resigned in March 2001. After the prolonged life at work, I relaxed myself for two months. Then, having spotted a newspaper ad on the Entrepreneurship Workshop, I decided to attend it. At that time, my brother-in-law, Mr. Miyamoto (currently the secretary general) gave a boost to me, and I decided to start my own business.
Mr. Miyamoto said, "I identified with her personality and thinking. If we support her properly, there will be no problems. Her previous performance reassured me in terms of her future attitude toward work. I was positive we could go with the name of Majima, who had been living with confidence."
Mr. Miyamoto and I then attended the Entrepreneurship Workshop together.
While attending it, we found a perfect building with a floor area of about 100 square meters and a parking lot for five vehicles. We then made up our minds to open the company by the end of the year. The landlord became our sympathizer. How should we name the company? I thought that I would decide on the naming together with my staff. Some members said that it should be "Anshin" in hiragana characters. But we decided to combine the Chinese character "shin" meaning confidence with "anshin" meaning reassurance.
This naming "Anshin" may have been effective. Why? Because the name is memorable by young and elderly people as well. In the present age, reassurance is required.
Attendance to the Entrepreneurship Workshop and other courses: Attending the workshop after spotting a newspaper ad
We started our company registration procedure around August. We did not have much money. So we applied to the prefectural government on our own.
Entrepreneurship point VII: Become someone to be supported by people around you.
For an entrepreneur to be supported by his or her customers may be one major key to success. The most important element is support from his or her associates. A mutual support relationship with your associates will solidify your mutual support with your customers. |
2. Business overview
Contents: Dispatching nursing care visitors and home helpers and preparing care plans
Characteristics: Our company is characterized by its system of 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and the high level of its helpers. Good personnel came even though we did not placed an ad. We collect such personnel through previous acquaintance and by introduction. Of those, the ones who have attended lectures are employed. We now have a staff of 16 members (eight full-timers and eight part-timers).
From now on, I would like to make my company one specializing in nursing care, instead of day service or group home service. When the company was founded, seven members sharing the same wishes joined it. Home care is the basis. Why? When we visit their homes, we find the senior citizens at home very lively because many of them living in their own homes. That is why. While interacting with such senior citizens, helpers often become enlivened during those visits.
This business does not prove successful if home visits, which are the origin of nursing care, are not effective. All my associates and myself love to work. None has retired.
Why? It is probably because everyone has the same goal.
Concept: An agency specializing in nursing care by visiting. We wish to stick to outstanding quality and contents.
Entrepreneurship point IV: Take a lot of time and effort to produce differentiation factors.
Enterprises where people provide service directly are hard to differentiate in terms of aspects other than humans. Why? Because the wishes and ideas of the people there get through to the customers regardless of system quality. Not only in nursing care but in other areas as well, nothing but people can enliven a person. However, if you can do it, you will be able to produce a differentiation factor that has no losing factor. |
3. How to raise funds
Small savings and some loans from relatives
They loaned me the money willingly. It may be because they were reassured by my previous relationships with them and my personality. |
4. Challenges faced and actions and solutions taken
The bottleneck involved in founding my company was funding.
Nursing care has always been an occupation where low percentages of workers stay at the same workplace. Many people hop jobs. Commonly, many people leave the workplace as soon as they become class-2 helpers or otherwise become skilled enough. That is precisely why it is indispensable to increase the quality and awareness of nursing care providers.
Nursing care by visiting is a good occupation that can be practiced independently by women. It is also good for society that hiring people increases tax-payers. Many agencies use helpers as if they were disposable. That is why such agencies must grow.
Such judgment is necessary that allows you to keep your workload at an appropriate level so as not to start working roughly. |
5. Earlier plans and goals and the present status
Our earlier plan was to make a receipt claim (a claim made with the national government) of 3 million yen. Nursing care insurance was introduced in 1998. The new system was such that some 90 percent would come from money collected from the national government, and 10 percent would be borne by the customers.
Having founded my company, we started from scratch. All customers we needed were newly found. We never approached any one of our previous 150 customers. However, growing numbers of orders come to us from my previous employer.
My target is 5 million yen in receipts.
We receive jobs evenly (without concentration) from seven agencies. Mr. Miyamoto says that this is due to the personality of the president. I leave accounting to Chief Secretary Miyamoto.
Mr. Miyamoto's credo seems to be to make much of my personality brand. I wish to do so well that no one will tell me that I have changed or that I have stopped attending the shop floor since I became president. I have to put the shop floor first consistently without concentrating in desk work.
Entrepreneurship point VIII: Think that everything is up to you.
As business develops, you are often required to have an effective brand. You tend to have a good brand in terms of product concept and related elements. In reality, however, this relates in most cases to the people engaged in the work there. What is that brand for?
Customers may be paying attention to that now. |
6. Future development of his business
The major challenge is to level the quality of the helpers. It is important to make sure that the same level of service is provided by any of our helpers. I wish to devote my energy to training. I am starting from scratch, but my target is to increase the present level of 60 to 150.
First, it is important to train specialists as an agency specializing in visiting care-providers. And there is one absolute requirement: the position of nursing care providers should be established.
At night, we hold meetings, provide practical training, and invite outside lecturers and attempt learning things through different disciplines. If you work well, I am sure that you will obtain a next job. When there are many women, sects spring up. But that hardly ever happens at Anshin.
Why? I think it is because the attitude of being considerate has penetrated the minds of everybody. We have helpers in a wide range of ages from 21 to 54. Each worker has her own strengths. I would like to help them improve their strengths.
It is also important to secure jobs for retirees. We often think of possible ways for business operators to explore needs while producing different forms of needs.
And I would like to establish an obvious differentiation. Current people to be taken care of by visiting care providers range in age from 67 to 90. Many of them are from the late 70s to 80. They vary greatly including people who live alone and married couples. Women account for 70 percent, while men account for 30 percent. |
7. Impressions I had on attending the Entrepreneurship Workshop, and subsequent guidance given by the local Chamber of Commerce and Industry
The more often I went to the Entrepreneurship Workshop, the less confident I became. But I learned a lot from a lecture given by a judicial scrivener, information about subsidies, and other details. Above all, it was a good thing that I made friends with trainees of the Entrepreneurship Workshop.
I used it as my opportunity to give a lecture for about 30 minutes at the Nankai Broadcast Hall. I have since then been attending regular meetings and round-table talks at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
I learn a lot from listening to other people's talk and getting advice. Mr. Yamada, who is in charge of me, often calls me. I find him a very good person, who does not stay aloof.
He removes my anxiety and reassures me. He can really be called a good supporter. |
8. What he obtained by starting his business
Piling one thing upon another has really built a confidence relationship with others, thus leading me to the present status.
I feel how great it is to encounter people. When I receive a word of thanks from the family of a deceased, I feel glad that I have devoted myself to them with good faith. I also receive orders for further service and words of thanks from surviving families. This makes me feel that this job is profound and rewarding.
Seven people have died since I opened my agency. I very often learn philosophies of life from users. A relationship of confidence is born out of the fact that we share the same goals and directions we are headed. I then start to feel grateful. This job is impossible without the understanding of your family. I obtain a lot of help from my family. |
9. His message to potential entrepreneurs
Do you like your job or not?
It does not matter whether it is money-making, whether it is profitable. Profits come later.
You should make your dreams come true.
I feel happy to see people in the worst condition cheer up. I think this is the beauty of welfare jobs. Having passed the age of forty, I began to regard this job as my vocation.
Young people should experience more nursing care. I think that, doing so, they will come to see a different world which they cannot see at usual welfare facilities.
Entrepreneurship point VI: Confirm your dreams and motivate yourself more.
As long as you have your dream, you will have an infinite series of measures to take, even if your business goes a little bit unsuccessful. When profit is given priority, you are obliged to give up when it goes wrong. A profitable enterprise will only come out of dream-pursuing know-how. |
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