Japan Inc. articles from December 2006

Japan Inc. archives from December 2006

Message from the publisher.
December 22, 2006... This Year has been a banner year for Japan. After something like 14 years of near recession, the country has discovered that there is such a thing as rebirth. Exporters are experiencing massive profit growth, and are busy reinvesting in plant,...

The 2007 problem: Tokyo's hotel market near saturation.
December 22, 2006... The Tokyo hotel industry is facing a crisis dubbed by the blogosphere the "2007 Problem," in short, the entry into the market of a slew of luxury hotels by the end of 2007. In 2003 Tokyo saw the Grand Hyatt Tokyo (Roppongi), Strings Hotel...

Tips for finding an international school: experience is the best teacher.
December 22, 2006... Sitting down in the park one day, I got chatting to a Japanese mother of two about her son's schooling. "When my son does drawing at school, the teacher tells him, 'you have to hurry up!' They tell him, 'the tree has to go here, and the sun has...

Brian Tannura, pioneer of the vending machine nation.
December 22, 2006... Japan has the world's highest vending machine density, with one machine for every 23 people, according to the Vending Machine Manufacturers Association. If ever there was an example of a saturated market, surely this is it. Yet Brian...

Going native? Think again: review of The Blue-Eyed Salaryman by Niall Murtagh.
December 22, 2006... Niall Murtagh spent the first decade of his adult life back-packing across the world. He traveled from his home country, Ireland, to Istanbul, through Patagonia to the Caribbean islands and, in 1986, to Japan. One day he found himself being...

The hay fever man: photocatalysts do more than clean windows and toilets.
December 22, 2006... Like this writer's own 9-year old daughter, many kids in Japan suffer from hay fever or related allergies such as asthma. Every spring and sometimes in the fall as well, their eyes go red and itchy, their mucous membranes swell up. Each day...

Investment--putting a portfolio together.
December 22, 2006... If you had put all your money into Nasdaq stocks in March 2000, you would have had 21.6% of it by October 2002. You would have 46.3% of it now. The moral is simple and obvious: don't put all your eggs in one basket. Everyone knows that....

How to incorporate in Japan, Part 2: specifics of setting up a company.
December 22, 2006... In Part 1 of this article, published in the Autumn 2006 issue, we took an overall glance at the new rules of incorporating in Japan. In part 2, we take a specific look at what it takes under these new rules to get down to business. Nobody...

Performance creates value--ValueCommerce's Brian Nelson tells how it is done.
December 22, 2006... Foreigners starting up and running Japanese companies in Japan are still somewhat of an anomaly and therefore don't receive much press in this country. Thus, it was with some surprise that we were greeted with articles in the morning newspapers...

Japan's consumer renaissance: how Japan's Otaku are changing the way we do business.
December 22, 2006... You've seen them shuffling around Akihabara, shopping bags held closely to chest containing prized comics or lined up outside computer stores waiting for the latest release of limited edition action figures. These Otaku, or geeks who have...

Japan Third Party--the value of being bilingual and bicultural: how a niche player has worked its way into the Japanese back offices, with the help of some of the world's best-known technology brands.(Company overview)
December 22, 2006... When most people think of outsourcing, their thoughts quickly turn to Ross Perot and the massive outsourcing business he formed as the EDS Corporation out of Plano, Texas. Indeed, in terms of size and singular focus, EDS was the first and still...

The ghost is in the details: the problem of ghostwritten MBA applications in Japan.
December 22, 2006... In March, 2002, University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business expelled a student due to graduate in the spring. The unidentified student was purportedly removed because of "material misrepresentation" in his application. In plain...

The Tyler Foundation: cricket stars gather for leukemia fundraiser.
December 22, 2006... Once there was the sweetest, smiley-est of toddlers-Tyler Ferris. There was just one problem. Tyler had a very aggressive and difficult-to-cure form of leukemia. In spite of nearly two years of treatment, including a bone marrow transplant,...

Business directory.(Directory)
December 22, 2006... Business Concierge Service Japan Concierge Service www.japanconcierge.com/index.html Consulting LINC Media, Inc. Odakyu Minami-Aoyama Building, 10F 7-8-1 Minami-Aoyama, Minato-ku, Tokyo 107-0062 Tel: 03-3499-2399...