- Degree of board independence from management?

# Japanese Companies Comparative Analysis Framework Please answer for all companies (listed below) the following questions. After answering the questions, please rank each relative to the other companies on the relative strength for each question. The rankings should be 1 for the very best and the highest number for the worst on each category. Then please rank how attractive each company is versus the other companies based on the answers to the questions in totality. After this, separate all companies into one of 3 groups: 1. Above average companies 2. Average companies 3. Below average companies ## Companies - SMC - Fanuc - Mitsubishi Electric - Omron - Keyence - Daifuku - THK - Yaskawa - Kokusai - JEOL - Disco - Advantest - Lasertec - Ulvac - Screen - Tokyo Seimitsu - Tokyo Electron - Nitto Denko - Renesas - TDK - Taiyo Yuden - Kioxia - Minebea - Nitto Boseki - Hoya - Shin-Etsu - Rohm - Ibiden - Kyocera - Nidec - Socionext - Sumco - Murata - NEC - Sony - Nintendo - Hitachi - Nomura Research Institute - Fujitsu - Nikon - Resonac ## Questions ### Nature of business - Required capital intensity over time? - ROIC compared to cost of capital? - Margins versus competitors? - Direction of ROIC and margins over time? ### Competitive positioning - Nature of competitive advantage? - Number of significant competitors? - Change in number of significant competitors over time? - Potential for displacement by new technology? ### Leverage over customers - Importance of products to end customer? - Product's cost as a percentage of customer product cost or bill of materials? - Alternative products from competitors to customer? - Customer switching costs? ### Growth Potential - Addressable market size and growth rate? - Future technology and economic changes that could affect addressable market? - Potential for significant changes in share? ### Quality of management - Consistency of stated mission and goals? - Track record of financial and strategic execution versus stated goals? - Financial performance during tenure? - Degree of board independence from management?