This article reflects information as of 2020. For the latest details, please contact us.
Written by: Tomohiro Koizumi, Representative Director, tentus inc.
Who Was Hideo Yoshida?
Do you know Hideo Yoshida?
He's a legendary figure known as the "demon of advertising," who became the fourth president of Dentsu at the young age of 43 in June 1947, right after the Constitution of Japan came into effect.
It might be easier to place him if I say he's the one who created the "Ten Oni Rules" (Oni Jussoku).
The Oni Jussoku is talked about in various ways, but when you actually read it carefully, it feels like it's written not only from the perspective of how to approach work, but about how to live. If you read it replacing the word "work" with "life," doesn't it start to look like a discussion of how to live?
The Oni Jussoku (Ten Oni Rules)
- Work should be created by yourself, not given to you.
- Work is about taking the initiative, again and again — not something you do passively.
- Tackle big work; small work makes you small.
- Aim for difficult work — and it's in accomplishing it that there is progress.
- Once you've taken hold, don't let go; even if it kills you, don't let go, until the goal is complete…
- Drag those around you along; over the long run, there's a world of difference between dragging and being dragged.
- Have a plan; if you have a long-term plan, patience, ingenuity, right effort, and hope are born.
- Have confidence; because you lack confidence, your work has no force, no tenacity, not even any depth.
- Keep your mind in constant full rotation, attentive in all directions, with not a moment's gap — that's what service is.
- Don't fear friction; friction is the mother of progress, the fertilizer of initiative — without it, you become servile and irresolute. (Excerpted from the Yoshida Hideo Memorial Foundation website)
This is only my interpretation, but I feel it's saying that autonomy, planning, initiative, and patience are extremely important in work (and life).
Supporting the Yoshida Hideo Memorial Foundation's "Research Grant Management System" Renewal Competition
The Yoshida Hideo Memorial Foundation is a research-grant foundation authorized by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, established on September 24, 1965, through a donation from Dentsu Inc., to honor the achievements of Hideo Yoshida — the fourth president of Dentsu Inc., who laid the foundations for the modernization of Japan's advertising world — and to carry on his will and passion. In 2011 (Heisei 23) it was re-established as a public interest incorporated foundation authorized by the Cabinet Office. (Excerpted from the Yoshida Hideo Memorial Foundation website)
This time, together with that Yoshida Hideo Memorial Foundation, we held a renewal competition for the "Research Grant Management System" used within the foundation.
There are broadly three things to do in order to hold a competition:
- Understanding the existing system and compiling requirements
- Creating the Request for Proposal (RFP)
- Running the competition
Let me explain each in a bit more detail.
1. Understanding the Existing System and Compiling Requirements
First, this time, we checked the documentation of the existing system. Honestly, the existing documentation wasn't very well organized, so we took a little time to create a list of the existing system's functions and captures of every screen in use.
These aren't documents you absolutely must create, but we make them to let each company participating in the competition grasp the whole of the existing system — preventing the sad situation of "I don't really understand the existing system, so let me estimate a bit high."
On top of that, we compiled the 【purpose of the renewal】, 【a list of necessary and unnecessary functions】, 【things currently felt to be inconvenient】, and so on, and organized them as functional requirements with priorities assigned to each. This is also a document to prevent participating companies from making proposals far removed from the originally intended level — like "We have to meet all the client's requests! Alright! ¥100 million for everything!"
2. Creating the Request for Proposal (RFP)
The most important point when running a competition is creating an easy-to-understand RFP. If the RFP's descriptions are vague, or the line between "must" and "better" isn't drawn, each company's proposal level ends up all over the place, making it extremely difficult to judge as a competition.
When you want proposals for tomorrow's lunch, it's a problem if you get a "katsudon" proposal, a "a plate that makes rice look really delicious" proposal, and a "first, let's look back on yesterday's meal" proposal, right?
I'd like to write up how to create an easy-to-understand RFP on note someday.
3. Running the Competition
Finally, the competition. We run the actual competition after a public notice of the competition on the foundation's website, an orientation for each participating company that raised its hand, a Q&A period, and so on — but because we'd properly created the RFP, these phases could proceed relatively smoothly.
The proposals we received from each company this time were all wonderful, making use of each company's strengths, so we had a very hard time during selection.
For us, who supported running the competition, this was a very happy dilemma.
After a lot of deliberation, the selection was safely completed, and we're now entering the development phase. I think we were able to choose with confidence that a good product will, without a doubt, be made.
In Closing
As described here, there are several points to holding a competition, but by having us support you — from strategy planning on the client company's side to the actual holding of the competition — you can carry out reliable system implementation at a reasonable cost.
"I want to develop a system, but I don't know which company to order it from" — in times like these, by all means consult us.