Kim Christian Botho Pedersen is an enigma in all good sense of the word. He is Danish by blood, born in Denmark and moved to Japan at an early age. Instead of attending an International school – where most of the instruction is in English – Kim`s parents decided to send him to Japanese school. He is one of only a few foreigners who have attained “Native-level” Japanese in reading, writing, and speaking. Kim runs his own consulting firm mx2 where he focuses on bringing technical and consumer products from Denmark and Europe to Japan. The company also offers a number of value added services to the Japanese market, including; market-research, Japan Country Manager, and inter-cultural communication consulting to bridge some of the gaps and misunderstandings that may arise from doing business between the East and West. |
FirstPoint Japan's Advisory Board member, Kim Pedersen, was just interviewed by Asia Biz's Howard Lim. This is a very fascinating interview as Kim is one of the few foreigners to have been educated in the Japanese public school system rather than shipping of to the English-language curriculum's found in the international schools.
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Japan aims to return to Walkman glory days
STUART BRAUN In an effort to climb back to its Walkman glory days, Japan is investing heavily in R&D, especially in its technology strongholds. But the culture may not have the same appetite for risk as its competitors and may be outpaced by more aggressive countries, experts say. When Japan exclusively developed and manufactured Walkmans, Honda hatchbacks and Nintendos, it was set to overtake the United States as the world’s largest economy. Today, Japan continues to be a world-leading high-tech innovator. Yet in commercial terms, the competition has caught up, and is often running ahead. As the Apples and Samsungs of the world outcompete Sony and Panasonic, Japanese companies are trying to revive the country’s economic miracle. Others argue that Japan’s declining competitiveness is less a lack of innovation than of leadership. “Innovation by itself, though mesmerizing, is worthless without productization. And productization is worthless without monetization,” says James Santagata, managing director of SiliconEdge, a Tokyo-based leadership development consultancy working with startups in Japan and the United States. Mr. Santagata describes a number of pioneering innovations emerging from Japanese corporate R&D, such as Sony’s Location Free TV. “Yet due to corporate constraints on monetization of these innovations for fear of rocking the boat, or cannibalizing some products, they allow scrappy firms like Sling Media [U.S. producer of the Slingbox Internet TV interface] to come from behind that gobble up the market,” he says. Japan's Problem: Severe Lack Of Leadership Not A Lack Of Innovation Or Creativity (SiliconEdge)7/16/2013 The Global & Mail (Stuart Braun):
Japan ranked first worldwide in ‘Capacity for innovation’ on the World Economic Forum’s 2012 Global Competitiveness Report, and second in terms of Company Spending on R&D. Is this reflected in real ongoing innovation in Japan? According to the "Global Innovation Barometer" survey by General Electric Co. released in March, Japan's self-assessments were the lowest among the surveyed countries. Does this surprise you in light of the WEF competitiveness report? What is causing the dissonance in these views of Japanese competitiveness and innovation? SiliconEdge (James Santagata): For decades Japan has been churning out innovation after innovation, some of which are both very visible and "sexy", such as today's automobiles or when Japan dominated the video entertainment and portable audio player market. Many other innovations, such as those by Toray composites, are critical albeit invisible as they are industrially rather than consumer focused. Nevertheless, this innovation continues today. Paradoxically, while rest of the world recognizes Japanese prowess in regards to innovation, the Japanese themselves are much less impressed by their innovations. Partly this can be explained by Japanese tendencies towards humility and introspection. Beyond this, however, much more can be attributed to the perceived (from the Japanese perspective) if not actual lack of visible let alone "sexy" innovations, primarily in the consumer space. The Hub is the world’s largest network of co-working spaces, with venues at more than 40 locations worldwide, and 100 more coming soon. At its most recently-launched branch in Tokyo, a ‘Spark Plug’ meet-up event was held yesterday. Five startups pitched their ideas to an enthusiastic audience.
Hub Tokyo was officially launched on February 11th of this year. I’ve met with some of the people behind the co-working space, but I visited the venue for the first time just yesterday. Most Hub locations around the world are located in the very heart of a given city, typically in a nicely designed or renovated building. But this Tokyo branch is surprisingly a 10-minute walk from Meguro station on Tokyo’s central Yamanote line, a cozy space set up in a former print factory. The venue’s co-founder, Shingo Potier de la Morandière, explains: Unlike our other locations in Europe or the rest of the world, we need to pay much more to rent a venue here in Tokyo. Even with some sponsorships from big companies, it’s very hard to make our business sustainable and keep operations running. However, we are really keen to help Japanese entrepreneurs connect to the global community. We’ll intensify interactive community-based activities with our global network, including person-to-person exchanges with foreign startups. Hopefully we can see more great work coming out of this space in the future. But for now, let’s hear about the five startups that pitched at this Spark Plug event. Website: getgamba.com Pitched by: Masahiro Morita Some of our readers may recall that we featured this startup in our recent coverage of Samurai Venture Summit. Gamba is a corporate communication platform that facilitates the submission of daily reports. It has deployed short status message input on its business communication platform, which helps office workers share what they are doing with colleagues and management. Interestingly, the app is not only used among SMEs or startups but also bigger companies. Competitors in this space include Chatwork, Co-work, and Talknote. Japanese social networking site operator mixi Inc. is hoping to shore up its faltering earnings in the face of stiff competition from the U.S.-based Facebook by seeking new businesses and doing away with complacency with its past success, incoming President Yusuke Asakura said Friday.
Asakura, who will be heading the company from June, said the company will offer 50 smartphone apps to access its services, up from two now, as part of its diversification drive, and increase paid gaming content. The company is anticipating roughly 60 percent fall in group operating profit, a gauge of income from its mainline operations, in the year ending March 2014. Asakura, 30, who joined mixi in 2011 after running his own company, said mixi experienced a sharp expansion of its business in 2006 and was obsessed with maintaining the status quo, making it difficult to undertake radical reforms. "I would like to create a corporate culture for 'perpetual changes' to challenge something new," Asakura told Kyodo News. Yahoo! Japan Injects $20M Into Softbank Capital's Early-Stage Technology Fund '10 (TechCrunch)4/27/2013 Today SoftBank Capital, the NY-based venture arm of Japan’s largest wireless provider Softbank Corp., has strengthened its ties to Japan even further, announcing that Yahoo! Japan will be injecting $20 million into SoftBank’s early-stage Technology Fund ’10. early-stage companies who need funding to more mature companies looking to expand into new markets. Yahoo! Japan’s investment will be an addition to the $100 million early-stage fund, which is a complement to the freshly announced PrinceVille fund.
SoftBank announced the $250 million PrinceVille fund back in January, which was aimed to help U.S. markets expand into Asia using SoftBank’s extensive (and growing) network of mentors and partners. Yahoo! Japan is the largest web portal in Japan and one of the country’s largest e-commerce platforms, and it’s interested in learning more about innovation happening in the United States, with particular focus on social. According to Joe Medved, partner at SoftBank Capital, Yahoo! Japan’s presence in Japan is overwhelming, especially in the quickly evolving mobile landscape. “Social networking services in Asia tend to be very home grown, but Facebook and Twitter have taken over as global social platforms,” said Medved. “Yahoo! Japan wanted to understand the U.S. market.” Alongside the new investment from Yahoo! Japan (which, remember, is a separate entity from Marissa Mayer’s ship here in the U.S.), Yahoo! Japan is sending Toshiaki Chiku, the new head of U.S. operations, over to NY where he will work directly with SoftBank Capital to oversee investments and partnership deals. According to the official press release (via Nielsen), Yahoo! Japan reaches 80 percent of Japan’s internet users through its various web portals and services. Not only will Yahoo! Japan get a clearer window into the U.S. market, but companies looking to tap into the fast-paced Asian market will have a solid Goliath-style partner in Japan to back them up. Specifically, SoftBank and Yahoo! Japan will be looking to invest in mobile, social, ecommerce, online advertising, gaming, and cloud computing spaces. Obviously, each one of these markets is chock-full of prime options, but SoftBank seems to have a mind for taking on big winners. The firm’s previous exits include BlueFin Labs, which was recently acquired by Twitter, BuddyMedia’s acquisition to SalesForce.com, Huffington Post’s acquisition by Aol, and Zynga’s acquisition of OMGPOP. Hiroshi Mikitani, the CEO of Rakuten, says mandating that his employees speak English at work was tougher than expected; it slowed meetings and embarrassed senior managers. But Mikitani says he's sticking with it.
Japan Readies 'Third Arrow': Government Wants Silicon Valley-Style Disruption (Wall Street Journal)4/18/2013 Japan Readies 'Third Arrow'
New Government Wants Silicon Valley-Style Disruption to Help Revitalize Economy BY DAISUKE WAKABAYASHI AND MAYUMI NEGISHI TOKYO—Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the scion of a political dynasty and embodiment of the Japanese establishment, and Hiroshi Mikitani, an Internet billionaire and iconoclast, make for unlikely allies. But they are joining forces to bring a little Silicon Valley disruptiveness to the country's Old Guard. Since Mr. Abe took office in December, Mr. Mikitani, founder and chief executive of Japan's biggest online retailer Rakuten Inc., has been one of the main corporate backers of his government's push to deregulate and overhaul the regimented Japanese economy. The structural measures are meant to be the "third arrow" of Mr. Abe's economic strategy, ... By Mayumi Negishi and Yuko Takeo
Why does Japan waste so much IT talent? The shortage of Japanese software engineers for tech startups has long been a puzzle in a land of 4G telecom networks and pioneering mobile social networking. Excessive regulation, excessive modesty and excessively cautious moms were among the slew of explanations offered Tuesday by some of Silicon Valley’s hottest names at a Tokyo forum organized by Internet billionaire Hiroshi Mikitani’s new lobby group. Mr. Mikitani is chief executive of Japan’s biggest Web-based retailer Rakuten anda leading figure on Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s advisory panel on improving Japan’s competitiveness. Mr. Abe’s pledges to deregulate Japan’s regimented economy helped inspire a mood of optimism at the forum. Among the keynote speakers looking to bring some entrepreneurial disruptiveness to Japan’s Old Guard at the New Economy Summit were Google Senior Vice PresidentAndy Rubin and Twitter and Square co-founder Jack Dorsey. The reasons cited for Japan’s surprisingly low number of software engineers willing to embrace the challenges of working for new IT ventures included the following: 1) Regulatory hurdles for new entrants 2) Limited focus of education 3) Fear of failure 4) Modesty 5) Discouraging mothers Japan is mad about innovation. From tech gadgets to inventively designed products, it is a place hungry for cutting-edge. Why then are there so few entrepreneurs? Culture, many say, is to blame. With an aversion to standout much less fail, the Japanese spurn start-ups. But what culture doesn’t hate losing?
The better answer is Japan’s complicated bureaucracy and regulation that makes it difficult to launch and raise capital for an enterprise. According to the World Bank’s Doing Business index, Japan ranks 107 out of 183 countries for ease of starting a business. Venture capital is scarce. Both are inadequate responses for true entrepreneurs. That’s at least what I witnessed tonight when all of Tokyo’s start-up stars came out for an awards fete hosted by U.S. Ambassador to Japan John Roos. Ambassador Roos has promoted, more than any other American chief of mission, entrepreneurship, encouraging Japanese innovators to “aim global.” Here are a few I came across: Chikahiro Terada, Founder of San San. It’s an IT platform that says it has a new approach to organizing business cards on-line. The site’s only in Japanese, so I’ll take Terada’s word for it. Curious though what would Evernote say… |
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