From 911 to 311
On a hot summer
day of August 2001, a plane took me across the Pacific Ocean and landed to J.F.
Kennedy airport, NYC. I was a high school student and took an exchange student
program for a year. I was supposed to join a language camp as soon as I arrived
and joining the local public high school from coming September.
Three weeks
later, it was my first day at the Washington High School located southern part
of Maryland State. I was the only Japanese student in the school and I could
only speak few words of English I remember that I joined an Advanced English
class for senior students in that morning, and slightly surprised that the
teacher turned the TV on during the class. With my little knowledge of English back
then and far less understanding of American culture, I remember thinking
"wow, they turn the TV on during the class in America". Apparently the screen was showing a series of
Hollywood-movie type images, of which a air plane crushing into a skyscraper
building. I glanced over the classroom to see how other students are reacting.
I saw a girl who was crying quietly at the other side of room. Some seemed to
be confused, very. After 30 minutes or so, the evacuation was announced and I
had safely returned the home of my host family. The host family was there too,
and explained to me what happened. It was September 11th.
Now let's fast
forward the clock for about 10 years.
After the Tohoku
earthquake, I often recalled my 911 memories, and remembered how U.S. had
changed dynamically since then. Yet how Japan has changed from the earthquake
is not as drastic as U.S.., or in other words, the fundamental issues such as
national debts are being left out because of the disaster; nothing but only the
damage remains after the earthquake for Japan.
In many ways,
this kind of event changes life. Personally, 911 led me to major comparative
studies of religion and philosophy at University and understanding the
"core" difference of east and west. For thousands of years, Japan has
played a role as melting pot for eastern cultures and studies. Chinese letters,
religious studies, teachings, and paintings; they were originally from other
parts of Asia, yet Japanese had adopted and digested their essences. In the
modern times, Japanese took in western style of industrial revolution and
became even better at it than the Western pioneers within few decades. Japan
needs to foster a dynamic environment for the change with its agility and
learning capability. Moreover, Japan needs to recognize its unique brand as a
melting pot. Just as other neighboring countries had given great knowledge to a
lone islanders, it is time to give back to the countries. In this sense, I
would like to emphasize the importance of reinforce the "smart system"
category in transportation and medical services.
Premises for Future Directions
I work in a
global Hard Disk Drive Manufacturing company. At the same time, I am enrolled
in 2012 Graduate Master Program of System Design and Management at Keio University.
My research focus on how lithium ion batteries should be used for electric
vehicles in order to reuse and recycle the batteries to other means. Yet,
instead of going into the details of how the battery system works, in this
essay, I would discuss more socio-economical themes of what industrial focuses
and which directions Japan should be following. In my view, Japan should go
through a pretty much same direction that IBM went through as the turnaround in
1990s: to shift their strategic focus on service industry instead of hardware,
and increase the contribution of each person.
This is to say,
for Japan, decomposition of automobile and technology hardware giants like
Toyota, Nissan, Honda, Mitsubishi, Hitachi, Fujitsu, and so forth. Especially
for the former, automobile industry, the shift is important because it will be
the growth imperative which I explain it in later chapter. As per increased
contribution by individual, Japan still ranks in low for its GDP per Capita while
the national GDP ranks in 3rd. This means that there is great
inefficiency in the country to be improved. Easier to be said, however,
providing opportunities for Japan’s minority in industry;
women, elderly, and foreigner, is never so urgent than today. Furthermore,
Japan needs more start-ups to accelerate these changes. More often than not,
Japanese large corporate tends to act slow and avoid risks that withhold
change.
Japan's Economical Growth Imperatives
A series of
terror triggered by the huge earthquake occurred on March 11th has revealed an
interesting attributes of Japan. Physical facilities such as nuclear plant
showed vulnerabilities, which in fact are surprising for a country famous for a
great engineering capability.
In Japan, about 70 % of people consider
themselves as "non-religious". In fact, the religiosity of Japan is
somewhat complex. It is based on three; Shinto, Buddhism, and Confucianism.
Overall, they blended and shaped something fundamental beliefs of Japan. Now it
becomes confusing because the people were praised for remaining high morale and
self-organized at the time of emergency: foreign newspapers reported, with
certain notion of surprise that no robbery of kind occurred during or after the
earthquake. The entire nation has been through enduring energy conservations
despite severe conditions. At times, it felt like the nation is like a factory
assembly line, and everything is under control. It was TQM (Total Quality
Management). For whatever the belief is, the intangible assets of Japan are
such quality control systems implemented not only for industrial practices but
also for daily lives. Such a unique quality of life style is a potential
element of innovation.
I believe this attribute of quality
management can be a pivot for Japan's industrial innovation. For many years,
the automobile and high-tech hardware are dominant source of the economy. Now ,
a hardware, unless requires a highly specialized operation and knowledge, can
be manufactured in developing countries. The change of scenes suggests that
Japan needs to focus something different and exportable to the emerging
markets. As mentioned, Japanese life style products (which I loosely define it
with connection to life sciences, smart city, and cultural stuff e.g.
"Cool Japan") have competitive advantages in quality. What is needed
is a business model to monetize the product and strategic plan to make it
successful and sustainable. Furthermore, the future "product" does
not necessarily have to be a tangible (i.e. hardware), but something
intangible; culture, system, regulations, or life styles.
Japanese automobile companies should, instead
of developing thousands of features that will only be used for few occasions,
invest on the environment that users drive their cars. The industry, along with
public services, should together work on transportation management of country
and export their best practices to other nations. Train system has already been
preceded to such exploration. For automobiles, one of Japan's main industries,
the companies and government can together work on more efficient system to
utilize the vehicles by economical and ecological standard. Systems such as car
sharing or EV sharing have been demonstrated and experimented mainly by the
public research group throughout almost a decade. As a first runner in the
industry, and the pioneer of ecological vehicles, more collaboration across the
industry are highly expected for the next economical growth imperative. As for
another imperative, Japan should be a leader in medical service system. With the
fastest aging society, Japan also can be the first runner in the category.
Reviving Entrepreneurial Spirits
Now is not the best time to discuss future
economical growth of Japan, or of any developed nations. After the earthquake,
or even before, the Japan's national economy has dropped below China and shows
no signs of catching up. With rapidly aging society and emergence of new
economies in other parts of Asia, it seems that Japan lacks of its economical
growth factor. Economists, scholars, and media would argue that Japan needs
entrepreneurs to create innovations.
Today,
innovation is not so much of Japan's friend.
Instead, the “established” Japanese corporations hold more than 200 trillion of yen under
their sleeves. The corporations will not invest their money for future of
Japan, but instead they will invest in business development of emerging market.
Investing for new economical potential itself is great for short to midterm.
Yet in the long run, the emerging markets will become emerged, which will leave
less market potentials for the existing business models. Let’s imagine those kids who will be born and grow in Japan, 20
years from now. They will be competing with, not just the kids from
neighborhood, but with kids from other countries. In such a circumstance, the
mind of entrepreneur to create innovation, to take action, and not to afraid
taking risks, will be the core of competence as well as the fundamental studies
prolonged from previous generations.
With compelling
automobiles, technology, and other manufacturing quality, Japan has become one
of the most powerful economies in the world. This is truly an amazing
achievement of great entrepreneurs such are Kounousuke Mathusita of Panasonic,
Soichiro Honda of Honda and Akio Morita of Sony. It is important to note that,
despite the economic boom boosted, Japan achieved its position purely from
business. While some countries engaged in war for partially economical reasons,
Japanese “samurai” business persons worked around the clock, and demonstrated that
a country can become such an economical power without having resource. Japan
after the Great War was literally “shaped” by ventures. We need to re-confirm this fact and encourage the
young people who will create the future of Japan.
The role of
media, as well as education, is important for reviving entrepreneurship in
Japan. Japanese young workers, especially in their 20s and 30s, oversaw a
dot-com bubble and how a successful Japanese internet start-up, Livedoor, got
bashed and singled-out by the media. For the corporate injustice of manipulating
their securities in wrong means, Livedoor was accused and the founder, Takafumi
Horie, was charged. There is no way of justifying such a corporate crime activity;
however, the reaction of media has been unjustly negative that people might
have got the wrong impression of start-up companies. After all, every corporate
was once a start-up, and the macro economy, the roles of large corporate and
start-up are totally different and are each absolutely necessary. With that
lesson-learned, I believe the renaissance for Japanese entrepreneurs is on its
way forward.
