According to Seven & i Holdings, Toshifumi Suzuki, the Japanese retailer who turned 7-Eleven into one of the world’s largest retail chains, died as a result of heart failure on May 18.
A modern 24-hour convenience store, which is one of the "combini" in modern days, Suzuki is often credited with inventing that concept. Today in Japan, convenience stores are integrated into daily life, so much so for business. To buy food, pay for the utilities necessary, withdraw coins, mail parcels, and shop without a break, many people use them.
His retail revolution began in 1974 when Japan’s first 24-hour chain 7-Eleven stores opened in Tokyo’s Toyosu neighbourhood. Then Japan was a land of only very small family-run shops, and many experts wondered aloud whether 24/7 convenience stores could endure in this empire’s territory.
Suzuki said he encountered resistance when he proposed the idea. He said in a 2013 interview: “First, when I had chosen to bring 7-Eleven into Japan, everyone told me it would not work and said no to the plan in general – corporate executives, university professors, consultants, everyone opposed it.
I knew they were wrong.” He proved to be quite right in his confidence. Within a few years, 7-Eleven was hugely successful in Japan, and with time, the company became deeply enmeshed in the local culture. One of the things Suzuki did under the management of the CEO was to focus the company on small-format locations, good inventory management, fresh food and day-to-day services to suit the consumer taste, knowledge of the locals, and local consumer habits.
Suzuki’s reach stretched beyond Japan. When the American parent company, Southland Corporation, declared bankruptcy in 1990, he played a role in consolidating the company and helped spread the 7-Eleven brand internationally. When he resigned in 2016, it expanded to more than 55,000 outlets in more than 16 countries.
Now the global store count number tops 85,000, with close to a quarter in Japan. Suzuki was born on December 1, 1932, in Nagano Prefecture. He entered Ito-Yokado in 1963, at an early stage of his career in publishing. He was then appointed Chairman and CEO of Seven & i Holdings, founded in 2005. He departed the company in 2016 following a boardroom disagreement over succession planning and management strategy.
But no one is as legible and as memorable as he is in today’s global retail world. Suzuki believed in strict and efficient customer relations and constant innovation.
As Suzuki writes in his autobiography: “I’ve been very lucky in my life as a businessman, but I have always known, in my life until these days, that luck is very much in the favour of someone who does everything they can to achieve what they want.” Its word conveys, epitomising the determination that created one of the world’s largest profitable retail empires from scratch.
