Author: g_fasol

Okaerinasai IKEA

Today, Monday April 24, 2006 at 7:30am, IKEA invited about 300 guests to celebrate the opening of the first 100% IKEA-owned IKEA store in Japan. We had the honor of working for IKEA – IKEA is another company that “thinks different” in so many creative ways. We wish them all the best in Japan!

IKEA had attempted earlier to establish business in Japan via a joint-venture established in 1974. This Joint-Venture was terminated in 1986, and IKEA ended business in Japan in 1986. Interestingly – and this is not the only such case – its only that IKEA itself at that time failed in Japan. The business IKEA created in this joint-venture actually continued successfully without IKEA even after IKEA had left Japan.

About 20 years later, this is now IKEA’s second venture into Japan.

The photographs shows Mr Koshichi Fujishiro, the Mayor of the City of Funabashi, and Mr Gordon Gustavsson, Manager of the new IKEA Funabashi store sawing the traditional log. Witnessing the log sawing ceremony are Ms Akiko Domoto, Governor of the Chiba Prefecture, His Excellency, Mikael Lindstrom, the Ambassador of Sweden, Anders Dahlvig, CEO of the global IKEA Group and Tommy Kullberg, CEO of IKEA-Japan:

IKEA opening ceremony for the IKEA store in Funabashi

Opening ceremony for IKEA’s store in Funabashi

Opening ceremony of the IKEA store in Funabashi: the Mayor of Funabashi and the IKEA store manager saw a log

A JR-Keiyo Line train with IKEA logos passing the new IKEA store in Minami-Funabashi:

IKEA advertisements on JR-East trains

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April 24, 2006
Why Japan is several years ahead of Europe in telecoms…
Briefing the EU Attaches at the EU Embassy in Tokyo about the reasons behind Vodafone’s departure from Japan

The deeper reasons and background on why Vodafone failed in Japan

Today (March 23, 2006) I was invited to brief the Technology Attaches of the Embassies of the 25 European Union countries here in Tokyo about Japan’s telecommunications sector (both fixed net and wireless) in a one hour presentation + discussion. I had offered several alternative topics and the conference of EU Technology Attaches selected the most provocative title I had offered:

Why Japan is several years ahead of Europe in telecommunications and what Europe can do to catch up

Vodafone KK’s Chairman and former NTT-DoCoMo Vice-President Tsuda, who had worked 34 years at NTT and DoCoMo (and who resigned from his Vodafone-Japan CEO position a few weeks after being head-hunted), said in a recent interview with Bloomberg that “Japan is way ahead in 3G”. – therefore, although this title is clearly provocative, it’s clearly worthwhile examining this question. With the sale of Vodafone KK to SoftBank last week, the timing of this briefing was particularly interesting. My presentation discussed the following questions:
- Is Japan ahead of Europe in Telecommunications?
- Why?
- What is the impact?
- Is this important?
- What Europe can do to catch up
Read our report on Japan’s telecom sector to understand more

Japan telecommunications industry (66th edition) – Market analysis & tutorial

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March 23, 2006
FeliCa wallet phones and other mobile trends

Interview about Japan’s advanced mobile payment and e-money systems for Germany’s national network ARD

Japan – years ahead of Europe in mobile payments

Got interviewed about mobile FeliCa and other mobile trends in Japan by Germany’s largest broadcasting network ARD:

read text of program here

listen to the broadcast here (in German)

Learn more about Japan’s mobile payments, wallet phones and e-money

Mobile payment Japan, e-money and mobile credit (26th edition)

Copyright 2013 Eurotechnology Japan KK All Rights Reserved

March 2, 2006
Kamakura – three hours in Japan’s ancient capital

published in The Wallstreet Journal’s “three hours in…” series

(this is the unedited original manuscript, Wall Street Journal printed an edited and shorter version)

Guest guide Gerhard Fasol takes you to his favorite town in Japan.

Kamakura – Your Guide:

Gerhard Fasol, Founder and CEO of Eurotechnology Japan KK, a group of hands-on Japan experts, who build and expand the Japan business for US and EU high-tech companies and vice-versa.

Kamakura – Where he’d go:

I take a Yokosuka-Line JR-train to Kamakura, about 50 minutes from Tokyo. On the train I read the book “Kamakura – Fact and Legend” written by Japanese Countess Iso Mutsu (睦磯, née Gertrude Ethel Passingham) around 1918.

Kamakura – What he’d do:

From Kamakura station it’s a 10 minute taxi ride to Houkokuji (報国寺) Zen temple founded in 1334 by Ashikaga Ietoki. I’ll walk up the narrow path to the temple, admiring the lush gardens and the moss. Near the back of the bamboo forest, I’ll order macha (Japanese green tea, made by whipping hot water and green tea powder with a special bamboo whisk). I’ll sit on a bench under the red umbrellas, listen to the waterfall, watch the beams of light through the dense bamboo trees and recover my peace, away from Tokyo’s intense life. It seems worlds away from the 30 million metropolis. I’ll drive 15 minutes to Yuigahama beach (由比ヶ浜海岸), and if it’s summer I’ll take my kids for a swim on the shore of the Sagami Bay and drink a cocktail in one of the beach houses, while my kids eat kakikouri (かき氷, shaved ice with syrup). To return we’ll take the Enoden railway along the Shonan beach back to Fujisawa.

Kamakura – Why you should go:

Kamakura is a jewel and a lifetime is not enough to discover all of it’s treasures. Today Kamakura is a city of art, history, tranquility and peace. It was not always so peaceful. You need to take a closer look to discover that it was also a place of ferocious fighting and many battles for power. Many artifacts in Kamakura, and warrior’s graves, remind of Japan’s “war of roses” 900 years ago – between the Minamoto (also called Genji) clan represented by white, and the Taira (or Heike) clan represented by the red color. In 1180 the victorious Yoritomo of the Minamoto clan set up his headquarters in Kamakura, which remained the focus of government – and the power struggles which come with it – for about 300 years. Gone are the horses and swords – since the Yokosuka railway opened for business in 1889, instead of warriors, about 17 million tourists invade Kamakura every year.

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February 18, 2006
SANYO – NOKIA CDMA2000 JV (Interview for CNBC)

Was interviewed today about the announced JV between SANYO and Nokia for CDMA2000 phone handsets (I added some corrections here):

[Q1] How will SANYO benefit from this, since they are the ones who have the technology, what do they hope to gain from working with Nokia? Or is this merely a way to reduce costs for the company, since it’s struggling to remain profitable?

It is clear to me that NOKIA will benefit, since NOKIA needs 3G know-how from Japan because all markets where NOKIA is dominating are behind compared to Japan in 3G development, and also NOKIA needs a lot of other advanced technology from SANYO.

Of course who benefits depends both on the contract conditions and the relative strengths of the parties.

It’s clear that financially NOKIA is the much stronger of the two. NOKIA is financially very strong, while SANYO is in a very weak position, so it’s a very clever move for NOKIA.

[Q2] Is it already too late for Nokia to make such a move in the CDMA 2000 market, with strong players like Samsung, LG and Motorola already entrenched in the market?

I don’t think it’s too late – both Motorola and NOKIA demonstrated rebounds recently with new design initiatives such as Motorola’s RAZR and NOKIA did a successsful turn-round by introducing clam-shell phones a trend which NOKIA had missed by not being linked sufficiently into Japan before.

To succeed you need to make spectactular phones which match consumer needs, and you need the financial and manufacturing power as well as the brand. The combination of SANYO‘s technology with NOKIA’s financial strength and brand, as well as NOKIA’s efficient supply chain are a good basis.

[Q3] When would you expect to see the benefits of such a move to emerge?

I think one should not underestimate the cultural risks. NOKIA and SANYO have extremely different corporate cultures, and we have seen many cases where corporate cultures lead to great difficulties.

I think the key will be to manage the difference in corporate cultures of two very proud companies. Locating the JV in the USA might help.

SONY-Ericsson has demonstrated that such a JV can be successful. In the case of SONY-Ericsson it has taken several years for the JV to succeed. If one takes SONY-Ericsson as a measure, then it might take a couple of years (3-4 years) for this JV to succeed. If it’s faster than that it will be a positive surprise.

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February 14, 2006
Why are keitai so hot in Japan?

Seminar announcement

The European Institute of Japanese Studies (EIJS Academy in Tokyo) of the Stockholm School of Economics will hold a seminar in Tokyo-Marunochi on Thursday, February 16, 2006:

Topic: “Why are Mobile Phones (Keitai) so hot in Japan? – and How European companies in all sectors can profit from Keitai”

Speaker: Gerhard Fasol

Gerhard Fasol

Agenda:

Japan created the most passionate and most advanced mobile communications (keitai) market in the world. Recently, almost all innovations in mobile communications have been developed or brought to market first in Japan. Fasol’s talk will explain why this is, and how European companies in all fields, from retail to publishing can profit by building keitais into their business models.

Date: Thursday, February 16, 2006
Time:

6.15 – 7.00 p.m. Drink and Snack (served before the lecture)

7.00 – 9.00 p.m. Lecture and Discussion

Place:
Marubiru Conference Square, Room 2 (Tel: 03-3217-7111)
8th floor of Marubiru, 2-4-1 Marunouchi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo
One-minute walk from JR Tokyo Station, Marunouchi South Exit

Fee: JPY2,000 per person, payable at the door
Free for students, please bring your student ID
Free for those who are from sponsoring companies

Advance registration required: Please sign up (via email) or fax to (FAX 03-3212-1530) for the attention of Ms. Futagawa (EIJS Tokyo Office.)

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February 12, 2006
About Tokyo Stock Exchange Turbulence on CNBC and RedHerring

Wednesday January 18, 2006 I was interviewed live on CNBC’s “Worldwide Exchange” news program about the turbulence on the Tokyo Stock Exchange following lower than expected quarterly earning reports by Intel, Yahoo and IBM, and a sell-off of Livedoor shares. Here is a summary of what I said in the interview:

Overall I am very optimistic for Japan’s economy, and I expect that the stock markets will recover soon.
There are short-term issues, mid-term issues and long-term issues.
Short-term, there is impact by Intel’s lower than expected results in the semiconductor sector, especially on Tokyo Electron, which shares also dropped substantially. However I think that the strong drop in share values on the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) was much more an effect of the Livedoor issues than disappointment with the US high-tech results.

The Livedoor issues are temporary and not significant for the bigger picture in Japan, and will be resolved very soon by the Police, Stock Exchange and the other relevant authorities. I don’t expect long-term impact. There may be some changes in rules concerning M&A.

Concerning the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE): the capacity of the TSE seems to be around 4 million transactions/day, and the Chairman of the TSE stopped trading when the transaction volume started coming close to this limit. This shows the IT limitations of the TSE. This would be less serious if it was an isolated incident, however during the last year there have been several IT related incidents, such as the incident where erroneously 600,000 shares were sold at a price of 1 YEN, instead of one single share for YEN 600,000, which caused huge losses, and was not caught by the trading software, and there have been a number of similar glitches recently. So clearly the IT infrastructure needs improvement. However, from what I have seen in Japan, I expect now a lot of serious committee work, and I expect that the IT systems will be fixed in due course – I am very confident about that.

So overall I think Japan will come stronger out of these temporary issues.

Regarding the question of human issues vs technology on the Stock Exchange, I think both human issues and IT are important and both must be working well.

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January 21, 2006
About SANYO (CNBC and Wallstreet Journal)

Wednesday Nov 16, 2005, I was interviewed live on CBNC’s Asia Market Wrap with Christine Tan about SANYO’s plans to sell it’s financial division. Some of my friends asked me what I sad in this program – so here is my transcript from memory.

Here is roughly what I said:

Fundamentally I am very hopeful for SANYO. SANYO has some fantastic technologies and makes many fantastic electronics products. For example, SANYO makes some of the most fantastic mobile phones here in Japan for KDDI, and I heard just today that SANYO phones came top in customer satisfaction in the USA. Mr Kawahara at Kenwood and Mr Ghosn at Nissan and Ripplewood at Shinsei Bank have shown that it is possible to turn round Japanese companies in a very short time. What NISSAN, Ripplewood and Shinsei did, was to concentrate on their essential core business, on their strengths and sell or spin out all non-essential businesses. Nissan used to be in Aerospace and real estate business and lots of other areas which have nothing to do with cars. In the same way, I see much hope for SANYO, if SANYO focusses totally on core strengths and technologies.

On the other hand, we have a corporation here with about US$ 20 billion in sales making US$ 1 billion loss last year and US$ 2 billion loss this year. So we clearly have an unstable situation. SANYO must take drastic action to sell non-essential assets and it’s in this light that SANYO has plans to sell the financial business, which is essentially a general banking operation which is not at all SANYO’s core business and strength.

Christine Tan: “So which business areas do you think SANYO should sell”

GF: I am of course in no position to tell SANYO management what to do, however their steps to sell non-core assets is certainly a good start. Looking at Kenwood, Nissan and Shinsei Bank and many others I can see many examples where excellent management has turned around Japanese companies in a very short time. I am confident that with the right management this can also be done at SANYO.

See also: article in Wallstreet Journal about SANYO

For general review see presentation at Stanford University

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November 18, 2005
XBox 360 Lounge in Tokyo/Aoyama

XBox has not yet achieved the breakthrough in Japan’s competitive game markets – and Microsoft is relentlessly working to make XBox a success in Japan.

Here some pictures of the new “XBox 360 Lounge” in Tokyo/Aoyama:

XBox 360 Lounge in Tokyo Omotesando

XBox 360 Lounge in Tokyo Omotesando

xbox cafe Tokyo

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November 9, 2005
BBC world TV interview about wallet phones

Read our CEO’s interview on BBC World TV about FeliCa wallet phones.

Watch the movie of the interview:
Windows Media Player – Bandwith = Low|Medium|High
Real Player – Bandwith = Low|Medium|High

Read our report Mobile payments in Japan.

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October 30, 2005