Making Japanese technology a global market leader again

 

 

He sighs as he notes that his home country has been overtaken by South Korea, Taiwan and recently, mainland China - which has also overtaken Japan as the world's second biggest economy.

 

Hori, 67, an iconic name within Japan's corporate world, is a management consultant and chairman of Dream Incubator (DI), a firm he set up to try to give Japanese firms that winning edge again.

 

"There's only one area where the Japanese are good at - digital cameras. All the other technologies such as LCD panels, refrigerators and TV sets, the Koreans, Taiwanese and even the Chinese are getting ahead," he said.

 

"The Japanese companies have the technology but don't know how to commercialise it. They invest in R&D which turns up ideas and patents, but you can't make money from patents until you can translate them into products and services," said Hori who started DI in 2000 to advise Japanese companies on business strategies.

 

Hori was with Boston Consulting Group for 19 years as managing partner before he left in 1981 to start DI. He was in Singapore earlier this month for a holiday but spent a day visiting customers here.

 

Big bucks are being spent on research and development, he said, but the Japanese management does not link it to sales.

 

"The CEO of a big Japanese company once told me he spent 800 million yen on R&D for 20 years but didn't make a single yen out of it.

 

"This is an example of senior managers who don't understand what the researchers are doing. They're not telling them what to do. The tech guys do what they want to do, believing their work is important and both parties don't talk."

 

The reason for the lack of communication between R&D staff and senior managers is that Japanese corporations do not respect business schools.

 

"To get the most out of R&D, you need to have a strategy, a business model and teamwork which you get to learn in business schools.

 

"I learnt this from Harvard where I went for my postgraduate business degree. Japanese business leaders were probably top engineering students recruited from the top Japanese universities at about 21 to 22 years old, even before they graduated.

 

"If you aren't employed by 22 years old, you're considered unemployable. If you go to business school, you'll be about 24 to 25 years old which is too old and recruiters think there's something wrong with you because you're not employed yet. Then there's the lifetime employment in Japanese companies - no chance to refresh yourself and learn new things."

 

To link business leaders with researchers, Hori is using DI to provide Japanese companies with new ideas.

 

For example, a cosmetics company in Japan wanted to expand its business. It was used to selling its products in departmental stores and when DI suggested an online direct marketing programme, it hesitated.

 

To persuade it, DI started a joint venture with the company to undertake the project and agreed to take fees only when the business turned a profit.

 

"The joint venture just started and the first project has taken off," Hori said.

 

DI has started subsidiaries here and in Vietnam to help Japanese companies do the same. It can help develop new business strategies or even identify suitable companies for acquisition.

 

In Tokyo, Hori hopes to create more conversations between R&D staff and senior management in Japanese firms by holding a one-day seminar at the end of this month called Converting Value Of Technologies/Products Into Profit.

 

"Hopefully this will stimulate discussion. Our aim is to get Japanese technology out of the door and maybe lead the world again," he added.