Video discussion with Lord Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal, Founder of the Centre for Existential Risk at Cambridge University
Lord Martin Rees in discussion with Trinity in Japan on 31 July 2020. Topics discussed include the recent Nobel Prize for Didier Queloz, existential risks to humanity, exoplanets and extraterrestrial life, the possibility and conditions on planet Mars and on other planets and exoplanets, and experimental programs to detect extraterrestrial life, and the current situation at Trinity College Cambridge in the virus crisis.
Martin achieved many discoveries in astrophysics and astronomy including the origin of cosmic background radiation black holes, quasars, and gamma ray bursts. Martin is Astronomer Royal, was Master of Trinity College, and President of the Royal Society. Over his long career and today, Martin had and has many important leadership positions, and has received many prizes and distinctions.
Gerhard Fasol: A European view on the future of engineering education in Kyushu
Future engineering education. 4th Symposium of the Kyushu Society for Engineering Education. 11 July 2017 13:00-16:30 Kyushu Institute of Technology
Future engineering education meeting program.
13:00-15:00
Yuichi Harada, Professor, Kyushu University: “Practical education using global innovation”
Shingo Igarashi, Deputy Director General and Associate Professor, Robert T Huang Entrepreneurship Center, Kyushu University: “Merging education for innovation, and student’s independence
Gerhard Fasol, CEO Eurotechnology Japan KK, Board Director GMO Cloud KK, Guest-Professor Kyushu University: “Future engineering education and industrial cooperation – European and UK views”
Future engineering education and industrial cooperation – European and UK views (outline of the talk)
Gerhard Fasol, CEO Eurotechnology Japan KK, Board Director GMO Cloud KK, Guest-Professor Kyushu University
Outline:
Self introduction – as relevant for engineering education
Kyushu’s economic growth in comparison, and engineering education’s responsibility
Kyushu’s economic growth stopped around the year 2000, while most other comparable economies in advanced countries have continued to grow. e.g. Holland’s and Kyushu’s economic size were about the same in the year 2000, while today Netherlands’ economy is about two times the size of Kyushu.
Many studies have shown the contributions of universities to economic growth, and for example MIT has determined in detail the contributions of MIT to economic growth.
Although we should not read too much into University’s ranking tables, there is a drastic difference in the ranking of Kyushu’s Universities and Netherlands’ or Singapore’s Universities.
I think there are strong arguments, that improvements of Kyushu’s Universities including engineering education are necessary to enable a restart of Kyushu’s economy.
Thus the need for restarting Kyushu’s economic growth provides a strong motivation to improve engineering education in Kyushu.
How to improve engineering education: Escaping Flatland
“Inbreeding” is well recognized as Japan’s Universities’ top problem to overcome. People must circulate to circulate ideas.
Example: in Germany we have “Hausberufungsverbot”, not only in Universities, but also in many other organizations, and we have “Lehr- und Wanderjahre” with 100s of years of history.
Japan also has a long tradition of welcoming and adopting philosophy, religion and technology from many countries including India, Europe, USA, Korea and many other areas.
“Flatland – a romance of many dimensions” by A. Square (Edwin A Abbott) has been written both as a mathematics teaching tool to visualize dimensions, by introducing a society confined to live in two dimensions = FlatLand.
Flatland is both a geometrical teaching tool, as well as a psychological / sociological study.
The three key elements in a successful ecosystem for innovation
Professor Ian Walmsley, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and Innovation of Oxford University, recently explained that there are three key elements in a successful ecosystem for innovation:
Critical mass: sufficient capacity for generating and identifying good and fruitful ideas
Cross-fertilization of concepts: the collision of different ways of thinking, both cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural
Competitive tensioning: ideas must be compared with the best of the world
How to improve engineering education: Traditional lectures vs Active learning
Pioneering education research by Ibrahim Abou Halloun and David Hastens (American Journal of Physics) shows the physics (and engineering) students mostly enter university with “Common Sense” (CS) views of physics. CS is basically pre-Newton and related to Aristoteles works (384-322 BC).
Aristoteles work was the basis for physics understanding and teaching for about 2000 years, until Newton revolutionized our understanding of physics, based on mathematical analysis and modeling of experimental observations.
Education research shows that a large fraction of students enter University with Common Sense (CS) views on physics, and too few students are “converted” to Newton’s views of physics, and traditional lectures are not very effective at achieving this “conversion”.
R W Revans (1907-2003) introduced the concept of “active learning”.
Comparative studies (Scott Freeman, Sarah Eddy, Miles McDonough, Michelle Smith, Nnadozie Okoroafor, Hannah Jordt, May Pat Wenderoth, PNAS) show that active learning achieved 21.8% examination failure rate, while traditional lecture based teaching resulted in 33.8% failure rates (55% higher than active learning).
Thus we need to develop active learning to supplement or replace traditional lecture based teaching, and bring active techniques to students, and let students do curiosity based research as early as possible.
In Cambridge University and Oxford University “supervisions” are another alternative to classical lectures.
Future engineering education – a European view. Gerhard Fasol for the Kyushu Society for Engineering EducationFuture engineering education – a European view. Gerhard Fasol for the Kyushu Society for Engineering EducationFuture engineering education – a European view. Gerhard Fasol for the Kyushu Society for Engineering EducationFuture engineering education – a European view. Gerhard Fasol for the Kyushu Society for Engineering EducationFuture engineering education – a European view. Gerhard Fasol for the Kyushu Society for Engineering EducationFuture engineering education – a European view. Gerhard Fasol for the Kyushu Society for Engineering EducationyFuture engineering education – a European view. Gerhard Fasol for the Kyushu Society for Engineering EducationFuture engineering education – a European view. Gerhard Fasol for the Kyushu Society for Engineering EducationFuture engineering education – a European view. Gerhard Fasol for the Kyushu Society for Engineering EducationFuture engineering education – a European view. Gerhard Fasol for the Kyushu Society for Engineering EducationFuture engineering education – a European view. Gerhard Fasol for the Kyushu Society for Engineering EducationFuture engineering education – a European view. Gerhard Fasol for the Kyushu Society for Engineering EducationFuture engineering education – a European view. Gerhard Fasol for the Kyushu Society for Engineering EducationFuture engineering education – a European view. Gerhard Fasol for the Kyushu Society for Engineering EducationFuture engineering education – a European view. Gerhard Fasol for the Kyushu Society for Engineering EducationKyushu Institute of Technology
Copyright (c) 2017 by Gerhard Fasol. All Rights Reserved.
Professor Frank Kelly speaks about the future of Cambridge University and of Christ’s College
Frank Kelly, Professor Francis Patrick Kelly FRS, Master of Christ’s College, Cambridge, and Professor of the Mathematics of Systems, gave us his view of Cambridge today at the Cambridge Oxford Society of Japan in Tokyo.
Professor Frank Kelly spoke in Tokyo about Christ’s College, Cambridge. In the past Cambridge competed only with Oxford, today competition is global
Professor Frank Kelly: In Cambridge the Colleges provide the personal connection, while the University provides the scale
In the past Cambridge competed with Oxford, and Oxford’s saw Cambridge as the only competitor. Today this picture has changed dramatically, both Cambridge and Oxford compete globally, and especially more and more now with Asia, such as China, Korea and Japan. In order to keep ahead in this global competition, Cambridge needs more headroom for research.
Professor Frank Kelly: The North West Cambridge Development
Professor Frank Kelly: Cambridge University’s first bond
To the financing contributed a 350 million pound bond, which was awarded AAA rating (which according to Professor Frank Kelly is a better bond rating than the Government of the United Kingdom currently achieves).
Professor Frank Kelly: the role of “benefactors”
We have the annual Benefactors’ Dinners at Cambridge and Oxford Colleges. “Benefactors” used to be the people, who founded the Cambridge and Oxford Colleges 100s of years ago, and who we have as oil paintings on the walls. However, this picture has changed in the last 20-30 years. Today, our benefactors are also living people, our alumni, who are living benefactors, role models and inspirations in their professions for our undergraduates.
Professor Frank Kelly: about alumni
Colleges today have several stake holders: undergraduates, graduates, Fellows and alumni, and alumni are by far the largest group by numbers.
We have a good business model, where the cost of each student to the College and the University is partly paid by fees, and part from elsewhere. However, this business model is difficult to scale to larger numbers. So our size in terms of student numbers is likely to remain as today.
Lecture summary written by Gerhard Fasol, with revisions by Mr Masamoto Yashiro. All Rights Reserved.
Masamoto Yashiro: Japan leader and Chairman emeritus of Esso, Exxon, Citibank, Shinsei Bank, Board Director China Construction Bank
Masamoto Yashiro at brainstorming by President of Tokyo University
Masamoto Yashiro is a legend in Japan’s banking and energy industry. He built Shinsei Bank from the ashes of the bankrupt Long Term Credit Bank of Japan, and served in leadership positions (Chairman, CEO, Board Member) in Esso, Exxon, Citibank, Shinsei Bank, and the China Construction Bank.
Tonight a small group of about 60 people were invited to join Masamoto Yashiro and the President of The University of Tokyo, Professor Junichi Hamada, for an evening workshop and brainstorming event about globalization of Japanese corporations at The University of Tokyo. Participating were a selected group of The University of Tokyo graduates, faculty, and selected alumni from several elite Universities associated with The University of Tokyo, and currently working at major Japanese trading companies, Ministry of Finance, financial firms, global consulting firms and other global firms.
After The University of Tokyo President Junichi Hamada’s introductory words, we heard Masamoto Yashiro’s fantastic overview of how he thinks Japanese companies need to change and why, followed by Q&A, then by a brainstorming session in the format of changing groups of four on about 15 separate tables between the participants, and then followed by buffet and drinks reception.
Topic of the evening was the globalization issues of Japanese corporations, also discussed in our work about Japan’s Galapagos issues:
Masamoto Yashiro graduated from Kyoto University (Law Faculty) in 1954 and The University of Tokyo Graduate School in 1958, and entered Standard Vacuum Oil Company. In 1964 he became Director of Esso, and later Special Assistant to the Chairman of Standard Oil New Jersey, and in 1986 President of Esso Sekyu KK.
In 1989, Masamoto Yashiro moved to become Japan representative of Citibank NA, and Chairman of Citicorp Japan in 1997.
IN 1999, Masamoto Yashiro became CEO of New LTCB Partners CV, the company emerging from the bankruptcy proceedings of the Long Term Credit Bank of Japan, and was in charge of the revival of LTCB as Chairman and CEO, with investment from Ripplewood Investment Fund, creating today’s Shinsei Bank.
He resigned as CEO of Shinsei Bank in 2005, but returned as Chairman and CEO in 2008, from which he retired in 2010.
In 2004, he was appointed Director of the China Construction Bank.
Masamoto Yashiro (former Chairman of Shinsei Bank, Chairman of Citicorp Japan and President of Esso Japan, Director of China Construction Bank)
Japanese management – why is it not global? What should we do? asks Masamoto Yashiro
Note: this record was reviewed personally by Masamoto Yashiro, who made some corrections.
Japanese management – why is it not global? Outline:
Some people may argue that Japanese companies need not be global. Why?
We must accept that English is an essential tool for international communication.
Some impediments that Japanese companies face:
The traditional approach is not effective in developing future leaders.
The Japanese-style board structure is not appropriate to ensure sound corporate governance.
Management structure needs to be changed to suit a global business.
The current limited role of foreign nationals in the management and board structure
What should be the most important corporate objective?
Concluding remarks
Masamoto Yashiro (standing at the podium on the right hand side) presenting and President of Tokyo University Junichi Hamada (sitting on the left) listening
Summary of Masamoto Yashiro’s talk:
Some people may argue that Japanese companies need not be global. Why?
Some superficial discussions about “Japanese companies” contrast “permanent employment” and excellent pensions in Japanese companies with job-hopping and bad pensions in other countries, however, Masamoto Yashiro points out that during his time at Esso and later Exxon, most employees stayed 20-30 years at Exxon, and received excellent pensions, so “permanent longterm employment” or pension system has nothing to do with globalization, and Japanese leading companies are no different than leading companies in other countries in these respects. We have to search elsewhere for the causes of current problems most Japanese companies are facing.
Around 1990, about 20 years ago, Japan was extremely self-satisfied by the successful reconstruction after the war and economic growth and success, and Japan felt that Japan does not have anything to learn from others. This time is now over, Japan is in stagnation, and many Japanese companies are not globally competitive, and Japan and Japanese companies must change to become competitive again.
We must accept that English is an essential tool for international communication.
Masamoto Yashiro is convinced that Japanese companies must globalize, and must make English a business tool. He feels it is a great disadvantage that Japanese political and corporate leaders, when participating in international conference, such as Davos, mostly need to use interpreters, and this reduces their global impact and exchange of ideas dramatically.
Some impediments that Japanese companies face:
1. The traditional approach is not effective in developing future leaders.
The traditional approach in Japan is to rotate career employees every two years between totally different functions, in order to “develop well-rounded managers”. The result of this process are non-experts, which are not expert in anything.
As an example, during his leadership at Shinsei Bank, Masamoto Yashiro once requested a meeting with the IT Department leadership. To his great surprise 60 people turned up for the meeting (he had expected 2 or 3). He asked the Department Chief for particular information, and he could not understand the question and could not answer, same result one management layer lower. Only at the third layer from the top, Masamoto Yashiro could get his question answered – the top two management layers could not answer his questions about the work of the IT Department.
Quite generally there often far too many people at meetings at Japanese companies.
When at Exxon in the US as a relatively junior manager, Masamoto Yashiro, was asked about his opinion regarding the termination of a particular joint-venture relationship with a mid-size petroleum refining company in Japan known then as ゼネラル石油精製 who had financial trouble. Exxon had a 50% interest in this company and its relations goes back to very late 1950’s. In late 1985 at the Exxon Management Committee meeting in New York, all other managers favored to terminate the relationship with this joint venture partner in trouble in order to limit financial exposure, while Masamoto Yashiro argued that it was better to support the troubled partner and assist him with Exxon staff and expertise to return to profitability. To his great surprise the Chairman and his superiors at Exxon sided with his recommendation and changed their previous position following his advice. Generally he felt that in the USA his opinion as a Japanese manager was highly valued, because it provided a different view point.
In his experience in Japan the situation is totally opposite: Japanese senior management generally does not listen to junior employees, and particularly not to foreign nationals in the rare cases that there are any in Japanese companies. In fact, the most frequent question senior management at Japanese banks ask, is not for original ideas or creativity from junior staff, but instead: “What do other banks do?”
This deplorable Japanese situation even contrasts strongly with the situation in China, where Masamoto Yashiro was a Director of the China Construction Bank: in China leaders moved from Government agencies and Ministries to Banks, and to private industries and back.
Generally Masamoto Yashiro expressed the view, that the development of leaders is totally inadequate in Japan, and is better in China than in Japan.
In addition to the inadequate development of leaders in Japanese companies, the number of foreign nationals in management, Board and other leadership positions in Japanese companies is minute, there are no programs to attract and develop foreign nationals in leadership positions. On the contrary, when Shinsei Bank showed losses in the aftermath of the Lehman shock, Japan’s Financial Services Agencies ordered that Shinsei Bank must pay all foreign nationals on exactly the same pay levels as Japanese employees. Since foreign nationals typically have much higher schooling and other costs in Japan than Japanese staff, essentially all non-Japanese staff at Shinsei Bank left soon after.
Leaders can make a real difference.
How leaders are selected is of utmost importance.
At Exxon, senior management devote specially reserved time to identify suitable candidates for future leadership positions, “who can potentially be our CEO in the future”. The selected candidates are given special attention and special opportunities to train and develop their leadership abilities. Masamoto Yashiro has never heard about such special leadership development programs at Japanese companies.
2. The Japanese-style board structure is not appropriate to ensure sound corporate governance.
In Japan, Board Members are almost always managing employees of the company, so the question arises who’s interests they represent on the Board. Do they represent the interests of the institution (the company), the employees or the interests of the shareholders.
In Japan often the CEO of the company after his retirement remains as a Chairman for several years, keeps his office, secretary and company car, and creates large other expenses. Why? Probably because Japanese CEO pay is too low, so that the CEO does not wish to retire gracefully.
This is totally different in Western companies where retired CEOs leave the company and have no further role in the company in most cases. Masamoto Yashiro mentioned the retired Chairman of Exxon, who after his retirement naturally travelled by taxi. In Japanese it would be unthinkable according to Masamoto Yashiro that the retired Chairman of a major corporation would travel by ordinary taxi cab like ordinary people (Masamoto Yashiro did not mention subway or bus, or driving his own personal car….)
3. Management structure needs to be changed to suit a global business.
In non-Japanese companies in almost all cases have a thorough performance evaluation system. When performance is evaluated, the resulting distribution must be similar to a normal distribution, i.e. with considerable part of employees at the high end and substantial numbers at the low end of the performance curve. If this is not done, top performers cannot be sufficiently rewarded and will leave the company, while low performers would hold the whole company back.
In most Japanese companies on the other hand, if a thorough performance evaluation is done at all, in most cases a huge proportion of employees are just evaluated as average, satisfying performance, without clear distinctions between top and bottom performance.
Promotion and salary on the other hand in traditional Japanese companies is purely according to age, which leads to many problems, and causes under-performance of the whole company.
These problems are increased by the fact, that Japanese companies typically do not give the same evaluation or opportunities to non-Japanese nationals.
4. The current limited role of foreign nationals in management and board structure.
Even in the rare cases where foreign nationals are employed by Japanese companies in management or leadership positions e.g. in foreign subsidiaries, often junior Japanese employees which much lower rank and local knowledge do not respect and bypass non-Japanese management, and there is typically no fair evaluation system, evaluating Japanese and non-Japanese management according to the same standards of performance.
The change of this mindset (to keep non-Japanese out of management or leadership positions at Japanese corporations) is extremely important.
The change of mindset (to keep non-Japanese out of management or leadership positions at Japanese corporations) is not difficult at all and can be done quickly.
What should be the most important corporate objective?
When considering corporate governance it is important to develop a view on the objectives. When discussing the interest of shareholders, it is important to ask “which shareholders”? The interests of large shareholders who may own 10% or 20% of the corporation, or the interests of individual smaller shareholders? Other stake holders’ interests also need to be taken into account.
In general, Masamoto Yashiro expressed the view that both the institution’s (the company’s) and the shareholders interest are best served by stable long-term growth of the company. He mentioned as an example Exxon which showed triple-A rating and annual rate of growth of 15%-17% for over 100 years.
Concluding remarks.
Around 1990 Japan was self-satisfied with the economic success, and Japanese people thought that they have nothing to learn from anybody. This time is over now, and Japan and Japanese corporations much change to regain growth and to become competitive again.
Professor Junichi Hamada, President of The University of Tokyo, listening to Masamoto Yashiro’s talk
Japanese management – Q&A with Masamoto Yashiro (selected questions)
Q. You want Japanese companies to change. What are the good things you want Japanese companies to keep?
A. Loyalty. Consideration to stakeholders.
Q. Your work at Shinsei.
A. Communication was most important. When Masamoto Yashiro took over at Shinsei, the Bank has just gone through bankruptcy proceedings, so the moral was extremely low. Masamoto Yashiro had to reestablish optimism and moral. To do so, communication is most important. Masamoto Yashiro held weekly telephone conferences and every employee who wanted to could participate: from top management to cleaning staff/janitors. Everyone could come forward with his concerns.
Another fact was that there were so many traditions which made no sense. For example, female employees with University degrees would wear their own clothes, while female employees without University degrees would need to wear company uniform. There was an issue that lower paid staff had difficulty to afford appropriate clothing for bank work – so Masamoto Yashiro decided to award a clothing allowance to employees so that they could afford appropriate clothing.
Q. Many Japanese companies cannot hire young employees, because they cannot fire/discharge non-performing older employees.
A. Firing/discharge of non-performing employees can be done by paying adequate severance compensation. Considering that a non-performing employee who remains on the payroll for several years in addition to salary also creates a lot of secondary costs, it is typically cheaper to pay an appropriate severance package, and most people are happy to leave with an appropriate severance package, and often move to a more suitable position at a different company – this helps everyone. Of course some companies want to save money at all cost, and fire employees without adequate package and that can lead to problems.
Q. Having worked much of your career at global oil or energy companies, what to you think about Japanese oil companies?
A. Japanese oil companies are not really oil companies, because they do not invest enough upstream.
Q. Leadership?
A. Japanese companies must change. The mindset must change.
Q. University of Tokyo?
A. University of Tokyo at the moment I think is ranked on 30th or 40th position globally in most rankings, maybe top in Japan or in Asia, but that does not count, we need to look at the whole world, not just Japan or Asia. I think University of Tokyo should make the changes necessary be at least in the top ten globally. To get into the top ten globally, University of Tokyo needs to hire outstanding Professors where the best students from the whole world want to come and study. To get the best Researchers and Professors University of Tokyo has to pay what is necessary. Does not matter which language, English or Japanese or any other language. No outstanding student from other parts of the world wants to study Japanese first before studying at University of Tokyo. University of Tokyo should make the necessary changes so that the best students from top Universities globally also want to come to University of Tokyo.
Mr Masamoto Yashiro’s talk and Q&A were followed by a brainstorming session in groups among all participants of four about globalization, and global leadership development.
Professor Junichi Hamada: expert on law of journalism, freedom of press and media regulation
Attended Professor Junichi Hamada’s presentation at Tokyo University. Professor Hamada is expert on the legal aspects of journalism, freedom of press and media regulation. Professor Hamada will be the new President of Tokyo University from April 2009.
In his presentation Professor Hamada discussed the changes in the media sector, and of course also his views and strategies for Tokyo University.
Questioned on the relatively low global ranking of Tokyo University, Professor Hamada answered that serving society is much more important than ranking lists
Asked during question time about his views of University ranking lists, his answer was that serving society is much more important than ranking lists.
Creating a Mission Statement for a Top Ranking Japanese Engineering University and Suggestions for its Realization
Tokyo Institute of Technology: “International Symposium on Building Global Excellence in Engineering Education”
I was invited to give a keynote at a 2 day Symposium held by Tokyo Institute of Technology about the future of excellence in engineering education, certainly stimulated by the increasing international competition in engineering education, to which also Japanese Universities are of course inescapably exposed.
The keynote speakers at the Symposium included the Chairmen of Electrical or Mechanical Engineering Faculties of several world leading Universities including ETH Zurich, Georgia Tech, The National University of Singapore, the Chairman of the Standing Committee of the Chairmen of German Engineering Faculties and similar leaders from around the world, and also included several Japanese industry leaders, such as Mr Mochida of Fujitsu Research Laboratories.
Fasol mentions that there is excellent science in Japan, for example Shuji Nakamura’s invention and development of blue and white GaN based LEDs and Lasers (see: Nakamura and Fasol: the Blue Laser Diode).
Fasol also mentions the necessary transition from “old Japan” to “new Japan”. “Old Japan” is run by a tightly knit group of older men, without space for women or foreigners. Shuji Nakamura escaped this “Old Japan” for Santa Barbara in California.
Fasol also mentions that Japan has excellent human resources, and foreign companies can today take advantage of opportunities in Japan, which did not exist, or were unaccessible for foreign companies 50 years ago.
Success stories vs failure. Why some foreign companies succeed in Japan’s high tech sector, and why others fail.
Stanford University Japan Technology Center lecture by Gerhard Fasol, given in 1999 – most still applies today!
New opportunities vs old mistakes – foreign companies in Japan’s high-tech markets
Stanford University lecture, given on October 28th, 1999 – most still applies to day as in 1999
This lecture was given on October 28th, 1999 to an audience of Stanford University faculty, students, post-docs and alumni working in Silicon Valley firms. Although this lecture is now some time ago, much of what was said still is true today. As an example, our recognition of the interplay of “old Japan” vs “new Japan” is still extremely relevant today, with old traditional corporations coexisting with new venture start-ups, some of which, like SoftBank and Rakuten have grown to very large size even on a global scale.
Stanford University Japan Technology Center lecture: outline
(note that some statistical data have changed since this lecture was given, the main change is the growth of China, for example today Japan is not the second, but the third largest economy after China).
Why is Japan important?
Japan is the world’s second largest market
60%-70% of Asia’s economy is in Japan
10%-20% of the world’s internet/telecom/e-commerce markets are in Japan
Some important recent high-tech breakthroughs come from Japan, e.g. blue LED and lasers, mobile internet, high-speed train system, mobile payments and e-money
For US corporations Japan is in general the most important/largest foreign market & competitor & partner, eg Apple, Amazon.com, Starbucks…
“Old Japan” versus “New Japan”
The “old official Japan” may fade into irrelevance, large sections (60%) of Japanese society were excluded from equal access to the “old Japan”, e.g. women, Korean residents, foreign nationals, “half”-people….
A “new Japan” is emerging: e.g. Nichia, SoftBank, Don Quichote, etc
Education is a major problem
Foreign corporations should tune into the “new Japan” new
Opportunities which never existed before
Foreign corporations for the first time ever can hire top Japanese performers
For the first time ever foreign corporations can acquire Japanese corporations on a meaningful scale
Some typical mistakes of foreign companies in Japan
Manage Asia from Singapore or Hong-Kong (thats like managing All-Europe operations from Tel-Aviv or Reykjavik)
Hire the wrong people (wrong Japan-CEO, wrong peronnel, e.g. too much emphasis on English vs true performance or technical excellence)
Partnerships or joint ventures with wrong partners or wrong expectations
Enter Japan, build R&D labs etc without first planning strategy and aims
Forget to do the homework (there is Gigabytes of information you better learn about Japan before you start, training on the job increases risks)
Be too fascinated by cherry blossoms & be too optimistic or too pessimistic about Japan
Taking things for granted in Japan, which are not:
brand recognition
Japanese consumer & customer habits and needs
Assume global corporations have the same depth as you are used to elsewhere in the world
Gerhard Fasol gave an invited plenary talk at the 11th General Conference of the European Physical Society EPS-11 on Thursday, September 9th, 1999, 11:50am – 12:30pm (40 minutes).
Gerhard Fasol gave an evening Colloquium talk at the beautiful Magnus-Haus in the center of Berlin, Germany, on Tuesday, December 1st, 1998 at 19:30. The talk was followed by a buffet reception, where we continued discussions until late at night.
Title: “Crisis and opportunities in Japan’s Research and Development World – an entrepreneurs perspective”
(Audience: Presidents, high-level managers of German national and industrial R&D laboratories, Berlin area researchers, managers, and Professors)
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