Steve Bidinger rides in the fast lane

Japan, Inc., Sept, 2004 by Terrie Lloyd

Steve Bidinger was well qualified to start a cosmetics business in Japan. Certainly the son of famed Shu Uemura, Hiroshi Uemura, thought so when he sunk a cool [yen]100 million into Bidinger's company even before it had any full-time employees.

43-year old Bidinger arrived in Japan 12 years ago with the task of turning around Revlon Japan. The company was suffering from a severe downturn in sales and massive losses, resulting from a destruction of the brand as a premium product.

At Revlon Japan, Bidinger first turned his attention to restructuring the business in retail outlets. He was able to take Revlon Japan from a loss of [yen]2 billion a year to an operating profit of [yen]1 billion over six years.

He then joined Chanel's Bourjois operation in Japan--again, to engineer a turnaround for a brand. Bidinger decided that the brand needed to rejuvenate its image and drop the wholesale relationship. In just three years, he was able to triple sales. When he left to set up NSbrands in 2002, Bourjois was profitable.

Why did Bidinger leave the safety of a large fashion company? "I want to have full control over creating a brand of unparalleled excellence. My intention is to be a niche player, but also the trend-setter that everyone else gets measured against. When I came across the REN brand, I realized that this was a truly unique product and I moved quickly to gain the rights to sell it in Japan."