Japan Inc. articles from February 2005

Japan Inc. archives from February 2005

The importance of tourist dollars not lost in translation: Hollywood flicks lure visitors Japan-ward.
February 1, 2005... Postwar Japan presents several images to the outside world. There is the beautiful scenery, such as the awe-inspiring Mt.Fuji, the coy geishas, and the ephemeral cherry blossoms. During the 1980s mayhem, Japan Inc. seemed truly formidable as...

Exploring Japan.
February 1, 2005... Shizuoka: Bamboo Babies and Tea [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] I went at night, a passenger in the back of an old camper. Outside was the void that countryside offers late travelers, the road forever ending 50 meters ahead, and on this...

So Fast: challenging the majors on the basics; Logistics does not have to be complicated.
February 1, 2005... THINK OF LOGISTICS in Japan, and most people conjure up visions of huge automated warehouses and to-the-minute tracking systems. ********** But the fact is that more than 80 percent of foreign firms selling products in Japan are small...

Even blue dogs have their day: George Rodrigue's canine creation continues to wow Japanese.
February 1, 2005... LOCATED ON the edge of Kotto Dori in Tokyo's bustling Omotesando district lies a gallery with a difference. ********** Just meters away from some of the most exclusive boutiques in town, the Blue Dog Gallery is home to a quirky...

Corporate e-learning in Japan: a new multibillion-yen business.
February 1, 2005... IT-enabled corporate training made a splashy entrance into the Japanese market in the late 1990s, heralding a new era of vast reductions in corporate training costs and increased accessibility for geographically diverse employee groups. But...

KCS: the "alternative" investor; From pachinko parlors to a high school for dropouts, 59-year-old Akira Fujii is redefining the term "investment opportunity".(Cover Story)
February 1, 2005... Akira Fujii had been with Mitsui Bank for more than 28 years when one morning in 1995 he was told he and some other senior managers would be transferred to a subsidiary. The new position, he felt, would offer much of the same sort of work he...

Office landlords back on top as vacancy falls in central Tokyo.
February 1, 2005... Much has changed in the office market since early 2003, when the market was flooded with new Grade A office supply, and tenants were offered favorable rents and enticing concessions. Today many companies are well positioned, having taken...

Ibaraki's high-tech treasures: prefecture's hidden gems get easier to discover.
February 1, 2005... Some of Japan's most exciting innovations in advanced technology happen quietly in a prefecture just beyond the hustle and bustle of the capital. Tokyo tends to overshadow this prefecture of almost 3 million people, but in the laboratories and...

Casting our nets too wide: should tuna farming practices be more strictly regulated?
February 1, 2005... An early morning trip to the famous Tsukiji fish market is a standard part of any tourist's visit to Tokyo. This market has been an integral part of Japan's identity for decades and was until recently a critical player in the distribution of...

Online vendors beware! Website content subject to lawsuits in foreign countries.
February 1, 2005... Sato slippers, a small family-owned shop located in Niigata, started offering its products over the Internet last year. The Satos hoped to use the website to expand their market within Japan, but soon found that they would occasionally receive...

Salesforce.com--a primer on cracking the Japanese CRM market: while the CRM majors see their market share declining, a once ignored ASP service is winning customers at an unprecedented pace.
February 1, 2005... Salesforce.com started its Japan operation in April 2000, amidst predictions from the experts that Japanese Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) would never use a third-party ASP to automate their sales forces. While the experts were right about...

Japan tech stocks line up to downgrade earnings.
February 1, 2005... The performance of Japanese tech stocks has been even worse, despite a digital consumer electronics boom that helped to support stock prices in 2004. Basically, the pendulum in equipment purchased in late 2003 and 2004 swung too far; as...

Shutting up "Sekuhara Sam": framing a simple rule.
February 1, 2005... If ever there was a sad use of human resource development budgets, this must be it. Everyone who really needs sensitivity training will either find an excuse to miss or undermine it; and those who do attend diligently and participate actively...

Charting a course for peace: Peace Boat as beau ideal of a successful NGO.
February 1, 2005... It is not every day that you hear the political opinions of a so-called rogue leader such as Colonel Qaddafi, let alone face to face. But this is what I experienced while sailing with the "Peace Boat" in October 2001, a month after the...