Chronicles of Olympus...Camera

The rise and fall of your favourite Japanese Greek Myth

While summitting Mt Olympus has not meant you get to meet Zeus and his party, it has been synonymous with literally reaching the top. Obviously, this was the naming convention that appealed to the upstart Japanese camera company, way back when. Yet older companies tend to show that age, rather than remain that bright innovative spark of life.

So I want to examine how Olympus became the giant it is, and more importantly, got back on its feet after the risk of fading into obscurity.

Birth of a legend

Perhaps I’m showing my age, but my first encounter with Olympus was before the digital camera era. To me, they were synonymous with the magic of capturing life onto a static photo alongside technological champions of Kodak and Polaroid. Each downfall almost mirrored the great Greek tragedies, suffering at their own hands. I am getting ahead of myself.

Before any such downfall, Olympus was birthed at the conclusion of WWI, in 1919. They didn’t even do cameras then, focusing (excuse the pun) on the then-nascent technology of the microscope. Keep in mind that this is nine years prior to the discovery of penicillin, so microscopes were almost as novel as modern day teleportation tubes.

The great dream of founder Takeshi Yamashita was to develop the first domestically manufactured microscope. In his mind this was the great summit, to discover invisible organisms and meet the gods. Thus the company name came naturally to him, Takachiho Seisakusho. Of course, this is in reference to Mt Takachiho, the Japanese mountain where gods live.

Takachiho Seisakusho grew ever larger, as their technological innovation met with the meticulous craftsmanship that Japanese manufacturing became known for. They expanded into all lenses, pioneering medical cameras and binoculars along the way. They even got so big that corporate decided to go with the global name of “Olympus”, with people seemingly more familiar with Greek mythology than Japanese.

This name switch happened in 1949, as Olympus became one of the Japanese companies that promised something different from the past. It was a corporation that the country looked at as a a symbol of a newer post-war identity. Olympus was a promise that a broken Japan could use their innovation, discipline and commitment to quality to lead to global recognition.

Their name became one that people trusted for highly technical fields like medicine, photography, and I guess looking at stars. True to their word, they were one of those great Japanese exports that made the country proud.

Olympus Has Fallen

Olympus was no Kodak that shunned the need to research even when it knocked from inside the house. Olympus kept up their technological advantage to become and remain leaders in digital cameras for both mass market and specialty consumers. Even with the rise of the smartphone camera, they didn’t replace the need for cameras that navigated up intestinal tubes.

No, the downfall was cultural. It wasn’t only the justifiable closed doors of their labs, but in their boardrooms. A culture of secrecy took hold. As the company diversified into new fields bringing innovation in its wake, internal pressures mounted. In a corporate environment where questioning authority was rarely encouraged (even discouraged?), secrets became endemic.

Maybe some secrets are ok. The ones that Olympus hosted… not so much. In 2011, an Englishman walks into a Japanese company. Specifically, Michael Christopher Woodford. A man who had just been promoted from president to CEO (don’t worry, I don’t understand titles either). Michael was meant to be part of the new face of Olympus, a diverse member of the executive team that had risen through the ranks (for 30 years in the European division) and general done things the right way. This all sounds great, assuming Olympus had also done things the right way.

He had sat in the CEO role for a whopping two weeks before he did the corporate equivalent of dropping a thousand pianos onto the business. He basically cc’ed everyone on a letter. A letter to two external global auditors asking about the recent acquisition spree.

Thus began the great magicians reveal. Underneath this seemingly healthy and innovative company were massive losses.

Surprise!

This is frowned upon. Especially employing a series of steps that can generously be known as creative accounting. Typically, that meant hiding further losses in the form of acquisitions. In practice, that meant there was the official reason to buy companies at a certain price (much higher than value), and then the unofficial reason (stuffing all the losses inside the bigger fees).

At first, Olympus tried to blame this as Michael misunderstanding the company growth strategy. I mean, the guy couldn’t even speak Japanese. The idea was that he’d be a corporate puppet, so that the board members could continue righting the ship and no one would get hurt.

Instead, the board had to immediately throw Michael overboard just two weeks into the job. Of course, there would be no suspicion within the team or wider world regarding his disappearance and his untimely public questioning of the inner workings.

For unclear reasons, the press decided to press into this case. Soon it became clear that Olympus was operating as a house of cards, with active fraud being committed across almost every line of the business. This led to significant investigations both criminal and legal. The uncovering of major corporate fraud also did not help the value of the business, as the graph below shows.

Share price within 2011 from appointment of Michael Woodford (October) Courtesy Yahoo Finance Japan

Olympus reborn

This was a low point. Previous management were off to prison and the company had lost its squeaky clean image of being the leaders of Japan’s future. Yet all was not lost. They still were world class in their core competencies, in precision optics, medical imaging, and widespread corporate fraud. While the latter was no longer an option, the re-focusing and return to basics for a high quality manufacturing leader driven by research and development sounded more appetising.

Now, this wasn’t any Ancient Greek legendary return to glory. Instead the company made hard choices, rebuilding their trust one step at a time. They even updated their corporate philosophy statement! In many ways the scandal forced the company to reassess the former corporate hierarchy that allowed this widespread fraud to continue. The long shadow of this embarrassing chapter means that lower level employees are now encouraged to speak up about inefficiencies and even losses without fear of damaging the bosses’ reputation. This has allowed them to go back to innovation with groundbreaking technologies to be launched such as 4K video microscopes, and AI-assisted endoscopy cameras.

Ultimately, Olympus isn’t trying to hide its past. What they can do is reimagine its future. So while it may never live up to the name of the Ancient Greeks with unblemished aura of its pre-scandal days, its slow, measured recovery tells us something important about modern business. Transformation isn’t about quick fixes, public relations spin or major growth acquisition targets. It’s about rebuilding from the ground up, with a renewed commitment to doing things right. The journey ahead is long and, at times, unglamorous. Nonetheless, Olympus’ return to the corporate mountaintop is proof that even the most humiliating defeats can eventually heal when the focus shifts from short-term gain to long-term integrity.