Customers Love Roasting Coffee Beans On the Spot in Kyoto, Japan

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% Arabica, a Kyoto, Japan based coffee shop, is the brainchild of Kenneth Shoji, a trading company boss who’s been investing heavily in specialty coffee.

In addition to owning a coffee farm, his company, Asiamix, is a distributor of high-end Slayer espresso machines and the sole exporter of the Japan-made Tornado King roaster. (The first branch of % Arabica opened in 2013 in Hong Kong, where Asiamix is headquartered.)

How does % Arabica have a steady stream of multinational customers?

While overseas visitors tend to discover % Arabica via the TripAdvisor website (where it’s currently ranked as the fourth-best “Restaurant in Kyoto”), Yamaguchi says that Japanese customers often come after word-of-mouth recommendations. Social-networking app Instagram is another major lure: Yamaguchi and his latte art have attracted more than 33,000 followers.

Read more:  Roasted-on-the-spot coffee from Kyoto is going global

4 Executives Share Their Experiences Managing Global Organizations

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Harvard Business Review asked four executives to share their experiences managing global organizations.

1. Luc Minguet, head of group purchasing at Michelin, a global tire company based in France, describes how the tire maker trains managers to embrace cultural understanding and flexibility.
2. Eduardo Caride, regional director for Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America at Telefónica, the Madrid-based fixed and mobile telephony company, explores the benefits of moving managers across borders.
3. Takeo Yamaguchi, corporate officer for human capital at Hitachi, a Tokyo-based conglomerate with operations worldwide, details the conglomerate's efforts to create standardized HR practices across 948 companies.
4. Shane Tedjarati, president and CEO, global high-growth regions at Honeywell (Shanghai-based), discusses how the industrial powerhouse is shifting its strategy toward new regions, such as China, India, Vietnam, and Indonesia.

Read:  Voices from the Front Lines - Harvard Business Review