#13: Kaizen in the Digital Era: How Kaminashi is Empowering Japan’s 39 Million Frontline Workers

Welcome to another episode of The Coral Capital Podcast, a show about startups, technology, and venture capital with a focus on Japan and Asia broadly.

In this episode, we chat with Jumpei Yoshida, CFO at Kaminashi - one of Japan’s most closely watched startups. Kaminashi provides a one-stop, cloud-based solution to manage workflows for “deskless workers” in industries like manufacturing, food services, and retail. Despite 60% of Japan’s workforce being frontline employees, many still rely on outdated processes and lag behind in tech adoption.

Japan is known for its operational excellence, particularly the Kaizen philosophy, with Toyota’s production lines often cited as an example. However, many frontline workers still operate with pen and paper—imagine clipboards with messy handwriting and employees spending valuable time finding a manager just for sign-offs. These industries have missed out on advancements in tech and AI, but that also means the market is still ripe for change.

In this episode, we explore:

• The current state of Kaizen in Japan
• How Kaminashi is empowering frontline operations through innovative software and hardware solutions
• A comparison between Kaminashi and Samara
• How founder Hiroto Morooka’s firsthand experience on the frontlines inspired the creation of Kaminashi
• Forces pushing traditional frontline industries towards digitization
• How AI is transforming Kaminashi’s product offerings
• Kaminashi’s customer-centric approach to product development

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