CEO Insights Magazine

The world of business is highly competitive, and the road to success is riddled with challenges, especially for a startup. Shinya Hirayama, CEO L-DX, used every obstacle on his road as stepping stones to win in his entrepreneurial journey and leverages his two decades of corporate experience and harnesses the power of technology and the competitive advantage of his vast industry experience to offer SAAS services, operations, and business & IT consulting for all-in-one core systems for the apparel and lifestyle industries.

He began his career at Bain & Company, the global strategy consulting firm, and later moved on to work for Recruit Corporation selling HR services to some of the best-known companies in Japan. He has also been associated with Kurt Salmon Associates where he successfully conducted strategy & implementation consulting for global retailers and brands in Japan, China, and the US. As the Strategy Director of Metersbonwe Group in China, Shinya was instrumental in setting up the corporate strategy, and also turning around the company’s profitability during challenging times. Establishing Dickies, the American workwear brand in China was his first entrepreneurial stint which gained him the experience of running the entire Asia business as North Asia President.

In 2018, Shinya decided to set up a consulting company, Global Commerce Innovation which is now part of L-DX Group. In 2020, he founded L-DX and became its CEO, which, under his leadership, in the span of two years, became a bigger group currently consisting of five companies.

Below is an excerpt of CEO Insights’ exclusive interview with Shinya.

Tell us about your academic experience at Kyoto University.

Kyoto University, especially at the time I was there, was a free place. Nobody forced us to attend classes we did not want to. So, students really had a choice to either spend their time wisely trying to learn as much as possible or waste that time on whatever they wanted. That is in a way a lot like life & business. The fact that you had to take initiative, lead, and spend precious time as wisely as possible is a great lesson that the university experience taught me.

How would you define L-DX as a centralized business management system for cloud-based apparel and its position in the market?

L-DX is a unique product that covers all aspects of running an apparel business from design, sourcing, inventory management, merchandise planning & analysis, budget & KPI management, CRM, e-commerce, and POS solutions. We believe, given it is being provided as a SAAS model at an extremely low cost, there is no product quite like it. At first, we are focused on Japan, but given the versatility of the service, we believe we will be able to help clients globally on maximizing sell-through with an integrated view of inventory, and cost optimization in both OPEX & IT costs by using our integrated platform.

As the CEO, what are the factors you take into account when developing effective corporate growth strategies? How do you instill best industry practices in your team?

In my opinion, the usual analysis of market needs, customer voices, and competitive landscape are important, but at the same time, really looking at what the pain points are for our customers, and trying to serve that with the real strengths of the company and the team is important as well. Also, having a realization that any great business, especially a startup like ours, is going to take time to grow, but then focusing on what needs to be done step by step every day and ensuring it gets done is the key to long-term success.

I always guide my team to be where the val­ue is created. Sales and implementation teams need to spend as much time with customers & potential customers. Development teams need to understand what the functional teams want and ultimately what the industry needs.

What is your perception of the future outlook of the market and what would be your advice to budding leaders hacking new opportunities in this industry?

Digitization has been slower than people perceive, but I believe it will accelerate in the coming years especially with labor shortages becoming a huge issue. Being patient and having the drive and the tenacity to continue doing the most necessary things like improving the service, and solving issues for clients one by one will be the key to success. You can never shortcut the necessary paths to success, so staying at it is the most important thing.

Where do you see yourself headed in the upcoming years?

We are moving forward with the vision that L-DX will continue to grow and we will be focused on making this vision a reality by becoming the go-to service for total IT solutions in apparel. We also plan to be expanding globally by that time, and 2027 is the target for the IPO.

Shinya Hirayama, CEO, L-DX

Graduated from the Faculty of Law, Kyoto University, Shinya, after gaining extensive experience in globally reputed organizations and spearheading their profit margins, he became an entrepreneur and is now engaged in a wide range of consulting focusing on growth strategy, corporate reconstruction, organizational restructuring, and personnel system reform, in the apparel industry.

Awards & Recognition: MVP August 2002 Recruit Corporation