Management:
Articles on stagnant economy prevail in
media, and people cannot erase the indescribable feeling of insecurity in view
of the ongoing world economy. The current Japanese government that promised to
realize too many dreams is in the middle of snake dancing in face of harshness
of reality. In a school athletic meet, teachers correct the snake dancing and
let students parade straight. In the political world, however, there is no
teacher who corrects the snake dancing. Most Diet members try to protect their
own interests and internal rivalry precedes the consensus and agreement. The
budget screening featured by the historic statement “Why can’t you be satisfied
with second place?” has ended in the whack-a-mole game. One
government-subsidized organization has gone, and one government-subsidized
organization is born. The current situation is well predictable in advance.
It goes without saying that the
infrastructure business in newly industrialized countries grows dramatically.
As a country grows affluent, it naturally gives the highest priority to
infrastructure improvement. Support from the political leader is vital to such
a large project as infrastructure construction. The president of Korea took the
leadership and got an order for the construction of a nuclear power plant in
United Arab Emirates. In the past, we Japanese had a prime minister who took no
action seeing the Toyota’s case in the U.S. saying that it was not a political
issue, and a prime minister who declared “Goodbye to Nuclear Power Generation” proudly
for sentimental reasons. The difference of the Korean leader and two Japanese leaders
is enormously great. It is not too much to say that this hopelessly great
difference creates the difference in the presence in the global market of the
two countries.
Now, we have to change the thought that a
home electric appliance is a product to make living more comfortable. We are in
the middle of the days that businessmen in advanced countries and those in
newly industrialized countries alike are involved in the global business holding
a smartphone with in one hand. Naturally, price competition grows harder. That
is, it is extremely hard to compete with countries that introduce hardware at an
incredibly low price in the global market if you market your products as
commodities. An American solar panel maker that went bankrupt due to the
inability to compete with incredibly low-priced import products epitomizes the current
situation. It is the time that companies should market a product not as a
commodity but as something beyond a product. Something can be defined as a
product coming with such added value as the mindset and cultural heritage of
the producer.
Komatsu, a Japanese world-class
construction equipment maker, has eight plants worlwide, but it has only one engineering
drawing for each model that should be shared by the eight plants. Instead of
building a model specific to a local market, the company holds a world content annually
in Japan for engineers worldwide. It asks engineers and machinists coming from
all over the world to think and take action to build a product in the Komatsu
way. Yamato Transport, Japan’s leader of the home delivery business, is
expanding business in foreign countries asking local employees to understand
the Japanese culture and traditional concept. On the other hand, Fanuc makes
strenuous efforts to develop its competitive edge through technological
innovation in Japan and ship their state-of-the-art products from Japan,
instead of building a plant in a foreign country. This is also a correct
strategy.
The correct strategy, of course, depends on
the company. What is important is to ship not commodities but products based on the
tradition and cultural heritage of the producer to the global market.
