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Purpose and benefits

For a man who never left his native country before the age of 56, Konosuke Matsushita (1894–1989) made a big impact on the rest of the world. After spells as a coal worker and at an electrical engineering company, the sickly but ambitious Matsushita started his own company, Matsushita Electric Appliance (later Matsushita Electric Industrial, or MEI) in 1918. Through a combination of product innovation, clever marketing, and forward-thinking management practices, Matsushita developed the company into one of the largest of its kind in pre-war Japan.