As the largest door-to-door delivery service provider in Japan, Yamato Holdings claimed over 40% of the Japanese parcel delivery market. The company began its international expansion in the 1950s, offering forwarding services for Japanese companies and their international subsidiaries. Since 2000, TA-Q-BIN has launched its flagship door-to-door delivery service in Taiwan, Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Malaysia, but international revenues represented a meager 4% of its total revenues in 2015. The company’s strategic goal was to increase revenues from overseas operations to more than 20% of the total by 2019, when Yamato would celebrate its centenary. Key questions that the case addresses include: Given intensifying competition and downward unit price pressure, how should Yamato sustain TA-Q-BIN’s success domestically? Since exporting TA-Q-BIN’s core service model overseas had proved challenging, Yamato began to shift its sector focus from the traditional C2C and B2C segments to B2B. Is this the fastest route to success? Was TA-Q-BIN’s core delivery service subsidizing non-delivery businesses? What are the key risks to the Group’s strategy, and what is required for it to succeed?
