Hiroyuki Tsuneishi, President and CEO of Sprix Co., Ltd.

What is the secret to the strength and trust of the number one private tutoring school?

President and CEO of Sprix Co., Ltd.
Hiroyuki Tsuneishi

Born in Hiroshima Prefecture. Graduated from the Faculty of Economics at Keio University. Joined Mitsubishi Bank, Ltd. (now MUFG Bank, Ltd.) in April 1994. Became a director of Sprix Co., Ltd. in March 2004. Became a vice president of Sprix Co., Ltd. in December 2007. Became representative director and president of Sprix Co., Ltd. in December 2018 (current position). His mottos are "Jingi" (righteousness) and "Bushido" (the way of the samurai).

We spoke with Tsuneishi, the president of Sprix, the company that runs Mori Juku, the leading private tutoring school in the industry. Surprisingly, Tsuneishi didn't have a specific job he wanted to do, but through meeting people he found the direction he wanted to take in his work, and he told us how he became the head of the number one company in the industry.

First, let me talk about my personality. To be honest, I was originally not good at communication and had a strong inferiority complex. However, perhaps as a reaction to this, I had a strong desire not to be disliked by others and to live up to their expectations, so I forced myself to act like I had leadership skills during my school days. When I went to Keio University in junior high school, my economic inferiority complex also compounded this, so I tried very hard to look cool, and as a result, I aimed to excel in both academics and sports.

I thought that I wouldn't be well-liked if I only emphasized my studies, which I was originally good at, so I joined the rugby club, which was popular at the time, and then switched to American football in high school and university, and although I achieved reasonable grades, I was pushing myself quite hard.When it came time to look for a job, I'm embarrassed to say this, but I joined Mitsubishi Bank, which was at the top of the job hunting rankings at the time, for reasons such as it seemed cool and I thought my parents would be happy.

A fateful encounter at business school

During my time as a banker, I met Mr. Hiraishi, the founder of Mori Juku, at a business school. At the time, he was the president of a small-to-medium-sized company that ran a cram school in Niigata Prefecture. He was a genuine person who would say things like, "If the students' grades don't improve, we should refund their tuition fees, right?" Mr. Hiraishi showed me the goal I should aim for.

At the time, I didn't have the leadership skills to achieve anything through business, and all I could think about was winning the competition at the bank. I had no desire to work towards anything, but when I heard Hiraishi talk about pure "shoulds," I felt that it was good to have a goal and work towards it, and so I joined forces with him.

Unfortunately, cram schools are not the first choice of industry for talented students. However, education is a wonderful job, and although steel, automobiles, and IT are also important, I believe education is the foundation of a nation, so it is an industry that talented people should aim for. In the future, we will further refine our business model, ensure that employees are paid adequately, and expand overseas. We want to become a company that people overseas say, "I know SPRIX."

Differentiation is simply about pursuing needs

In terms of differentiating ourselves from other cram schools, we first and foremost simply pursue the needs of our customers. The two main needs of parents who send their children to cram schools are "I want my child's grades to improve" and "I want my child to have fun at school." The data clearly shows that these are the top priorities.

While other cram schools may focus on elements that do not directly address customer needs, such as developing thinking, judgment, and expression skills, we simply pursue the "heart" of our customers' apparent needs. As a result, Mori Juku has an average of over 300 students per classroom, which is several times the size of classrooms at other cram schools. Furthermore, to meet customer needs, Mori Juku has thoroughly standardized teaching methods, allowing any teacher in any classroom to reproduce the same instruction. Specifically, this is a technique called operation control. This allows us to control people's actions without having to create a manual.

In management, it is important that the people involved truly love the business. No matter how solid the targeting and planning, if there is no passion for it, it will be difficult to get the details right. For this reason, Sprix has a condition for all new businesses that they will withdraw if they are not number one in that field. No matter how profitable a business may be, they will never enter a business outside the field of "education."

Message to university students

I want to say "Sorry about that!" to all students. Nowadays, it's said that you have to have something you want to do while you're a student. In the world of education, there's a way of thinking that says you should first set a goal and then set milestones to reach it, but I don't think that everything needs to be premised on that way of thinking. If, like me, you've found something you want to do, I think you should consider yourself lucky.

Student newspaper October 31, 2019 (Tomohiro Miki, third year student at the University of Tokyo)