Japan Inc.

Browse past and current articles from this publication.

Message from the publisher.
Japan has to be one of the noisiest consumer markets in the world, with product messages coming at you from every imaginable surface, sight, sound, human interaction--and recently smell and taste. T . . .

Message from the editor.(Editorial)
Dear Readers We took great pleasure in compiling and editing the articles in this month's magazine, our first issue as a monthly publication for quite a few years. With marketing as our focus we o . . .

Letters to the editor.(Letter to the editor)
Dear Editor I am writing in regards to last issue's 'Sending the Right Signals' article. Joseph Greenberg makes mention in paragraph two of what seems to be a uniquely Japanese 'shotgun approach' . . .

iPhone touches down.(Business Break)
Big news of late was the announcement in June by SoftBank that it will be bringing Apple's iPhone to Japan later this year. With the wild popularity of the iPod in Japan, there is bound to be a big . . .

Xenesys Inc.(Business Break)
A promising method of clean power generation called 'Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion' (OTEC) received a boost when Hyogo Prefecture-based Xenesys received a [yen]2 billion order for a power plant fr . . .

New indoor lighting source: the sun.(Business Break)
Tech blog Digital World Tokyo reports that two Japanese companies are utilizing 19th-century technology to provide environmentally friendly lighting for 21st-century buildings. Ishikawa Optics & Art . . .

IPO report.(Business Break)
The big news on the IPO front is actually that there is no news. April and May saw just two IPOs with prospects for summer not looking much healthier. Postlisting performance by recent IPOs has been . . .

Facebook.(Business Break)
Social Networking goliath Facebook finally got around to releasing a Japanese version of the site in May. The launch was marked by a one day visit to Japan by CEO Marc Zuckerberg on May 20. It remai . . .

Brightcove.(Business Break)
Internet TV platform Brightcove announced the formation of a Japanese subsidiary, Brightcove KK. The new venture will be formed with US$5million in funding from big local players Dentsu, J-Stream (t . . .

Trends in Japan: digital shopping technology makes models out of consumers.
Thanks to a jumpstart from web 2.0 innovations, online shopping is going from a solitary, static, and ultimately convenient alternative, to an instantly gratifying social experience that aims to bri . . .

Exclusive interview: Philip Greenan Vice President.(Ireland Japan Chamber of Commerce)(Interview)
What is the nature of the Irish business community in Japan? The Irish corporate landscape is very much shaped by the global economy. A lot of multinational companies choose to have their European . . .

Measure for measure.(Statistics & company information)
Mobile Telephony * Approximate number of mobile phone subscribers in Japan: 103 million * Approximate number of new mobile handsets sold each year: 50 million * Number of new SoftBank Mobile s . . .

Retail focus: Super Hotel.
While the words 'business hotel' in Japan are often synonymous with the image of dark and smoky rooms that would make even a seasoned salary man shudder, Super Hotel has been working since 2000 to c . . .

The healthcare revolution.(Healthcare)
The rise of the 'medical mall' Japan's demographic problems are putting pressure on the healthcare system and the government seems to be endlessly chasing its own tail in its efforts to implement . . .

CEO interview.(Armani Exchange)(Interview)
Please can you tell us about the Armani Exchange (AX) brand? The basic concept of the brand is young, urban and sexy--there is a strong association with music and the club scene. Not only do we pr . . .

Standing out from the crowd.(Retail banking in Japan)
How do you shout loudly enough to attract the attention of 120 million customers, with 130 competitors lined up doing the same thing? Especially when some of those 130 are the largest of their type . . .

Tokyo queues for you: why you have to wait two hours for a doughnut in Japan.(Marketing doughnuts)
Queuing is nothing special in Japan. Every day, television programs show long lines of people queuing for up to one hour even in front of regular noodle shops, only to finish their food within less . . .

Hey, big spender.(Luxury brands in Japan)
At first glance, Yukina Abo, 22, is one of many million reasons why Japan consumes 41% of the world's luxury goods, according to JETRO. Her impressive collection of luxury accessories includes Louis . . .

The eyes of the beholder: understanding the Japanese consumer in the digital age.(Marketing & Technology)
Japan, and its population of demanding consumers, has always been a famously tough market to crack. Several of the world's favorite brands, including Colgate Toothpaste and eBay, are simply not pres . . .

Marketing 101.(P&G in Japan)(Company overview)
Global consumer goods giant Proctor & Gamble (P&G) entered the Japanese market in 1973, acquiring the Nippon Sun-home Company--just three years later, its first product in Japan, the laundry powder . . .

Marketing services directory.(Directory)
NAME PHONE URL ACNielsen 03-5573-9300 jp.en.acnielsen.com Corporation Japan Adams 042-483-3636 www.aaa.co.jp/adams/e Communicati . . .

Deconstructing Dentsu.(Advertising industry)
The advertising industry in Japan is a unique creature and many believe that it is driven, like so many other facets of Japan's history, by one major ruling body. In the marketing realm, the Shogun . . .

Going up?(Schindler Japan)
Learning the hard way Global elevator and escalator manufacturing giant, Schindler, came to Japan in the late 1980s, entering the market via the acquisition of Nippon Elevator Industry Co Ltd. Its . . .

Bridging the Gulf.(Japan and Arabia)
New centers of wealth Most descriptions of Arabia these days command superlatives: The world's tallest tower; the world's first 7-star hotel; the world's three largest man-made islands, shaped as . . .

Inside out: business in India.(Business in India)(Company overview)
As the opposition to British rule in India mounted at the turn of the 20th century, the populace (second-largest in the world) began to push for self-rule and total independence. The outcome was a c . . .

Can Japan please stand up? Japan's bid for a UNSC permanent seat: pipe dream or viability?(Japan and the UN)
There seems to be one point agreed on by almost everyone when it comes to the United Nations Security Council: It's a time capsule of the post-World War II global power structure, hardly representat . . .

The perfect suit.(Bespoke tailoring)
The difference between the perfect business suit and one that is merely adequate can mean the difference between a strong first impression and one that is instantly forgettable. Too many men settle . . .

Tokyo's secret scuba: the best dive this side of Izu.(Scuba diving in Hachijo-jima)
I was thankful to finally step off the ferry and on to my destination. Not because I was eager to leave the Sarubia Maru, whose spacious quarters had been my home for the overnight voyage, but becau . . .

Arrivals & Departures; In collaboration with Santa Fe Relocation Services Japan KK, the Japan Inc Arrivals & Departures column t
Arrivals Lounge 01 Name: Jeremy Gibb Nationality: British Family: Married with two children Personality: Driven, committed, sociable Job Title: Partner Company: Norton Rose Arrived in . . .

Back & forward.
Higher costs, falling profit ... In the January-March quarter, pretax profit at Japanese firms fell 17.5% year-on-year, as sales slid 1.5% during the same time. It was the third straight quarter t . . .

Sending the right signals: in the Japanese consumer market, without the right marketing, even the most brilliant products and or
Marketing in Japan Last summer, a very strange product stood in the fridges of convenience stores across Japan for a period of about one month--cucumber Pepsi. Bloggers and media picked up on this . . .

Message from the publisher.
An interesting trend in IP Several weeks ago, two representatives of a major Japanese financial group came to see me with an unusual request. As many readers will know, our sister company Japan In . . .

Message from the editor.(Editorial)
Dear Readers, As the fiscal year draws to a close and the market is plagued by credit worries, and more general commercial anxiety, we are pleased to keep our eyes firmly focused on new business a . . .

Letters to the editor.(Letter to the editor)
Dear Editor, I enjoyed reading the wide-ranging subject matter of the last J@pan Inc, particularly the article on Vietnam: a country which has fascinated me for the past two decades. For me, it is . . .

Mobile moves.(Business Break)
While SoftBank seems to be winning the battle for new subscribers in the saturated mobile phone market, niche player Emobile--which launched in spring 2007--looks to be making steady progress. The " . . .

Second Life.(Business Break)
If you thought mobile phone users weren't engrossed enough in their hand sets as it was, thanks to a platform developed by SUN--a Tokyo based firm specializing in mobile content delivery--there may . . .

Breakthrough for Skype.(Business Break)
VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) service Skype should receive a significant boost in the Japanese market with Sony providing PSP (their handheld games console) users with a software update to all . . .

Web 2.0.(Business Break)
Omnipresent (at least on the interwebs) entrepreneur and early stage investor Joi Ito announced that his company Digital Garage would be bringing Web 2.0 phenomenon Twitter to Japan. The social netw . . .

The sun setting on DRM?(Business Break)
While not specifically mentioning Japan, Amazon.com announced in January that they would be launching their Digital Rights Management (DRM)-free download service 'Amazon mp3' worldwide by the end of . . .

Power from footsteps.(Business Break)
The Asahi Shimbun reports that JR East began an experiment this year to generate electricity from the pressure of commuters' footsteps as they pass through ticket wickets. Covering an area of 90 squ . . .

New business & IPO.(Business Break)
IPOs scheduled for January and February were for the most part fairly unremarkable with the notable exception of Seven Bank. Originally known as IY Bank, the major shareholders prior to IPO were '7 . . .

Trends in Japan: eco fashion.
Tokyo teen fashion Mecca, Shibuya, is having an unusual bohemian moment. Take a stroll through the trendy Shibuya 109 fashion building and you'll see many a boutique offering '60s-inspired flower-pr . . .

Measure for measure: hard information about selected industries, a corporate profile of a major Japanese listed company, and a c
Finance * Value of false share purchase disclosures made at the Financial Services Agency's EDINET website attributed to Teramento in January: [yen]20 trillion * Capitalization of Teramento: [ye . . .

Retail focus: Don Quijote.
In the shopping paradise that is Japan, the retail business can often be dog-eat-dog, with companies racking their best brains for ideas on how to please the country's notoriously fussy customers. F . . .

CEO interview: Junichi Fujimoto, FON Japan.(WiFi Internet)(Interview)
Smaller devices incorporating wireless networking are proliferating--not just computers, but phones, PDAs and hand-held gaming machines are using the Internet to send and receive data at high speed. . . .

Exclusive interview: Michel Lachaussee; J@pan Inc talks to the President of the French Chamber of Commerce in Japan.(French Cham
Who does the chamber represent? The French chamber in Japan is the oldest European chamber of commerce, started in 1918. In Japan we have now reached a membership of 556. We are also the largest c . . .

The father of invention.(Inventions & patents)
The business of invention When Shuji Nakamura invented the blue ray laser diode, he never imagined that the technology would be used worldwide. Neither did he anticipate that it would be the cente . . .

Perspectives on Tokyo living & real estate.(Relocation services)
Kenneth Arbour, President of Century 21 SKY Realty and Tokyo Orientations, has spent over 20 years in the real estate and relocation business in Tokyo. This is the third of four articles, in which K . . .

Is the customer a false god? Part III: my struggle at the frontline of Japanese Enterprise IT.(IT industry)
The ancient religion of Shinto regards all natural objects and exceptional creatures as kami or "Gods." Visitors to Japan can easily sample a taste of kami-sama treatment by indulging themselves in . . .

Changing the status quo: the future of stock exchange technology in Japan.(Electronic trading in Japan)
Almost since its inception in 1878, the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) has been synonymous with trading in the Japanese financial markets. Other regional bourses do exist to serve investors, but after c . . .