Letter to a Friend
Letter to my Japanese friend, I am writing you just before my trip to your country for SubOptic 2010, and I feel excited! My target is nothing less than to finally understand these "inscrutable Japanese." I have spent a good part of my professional life dealing with Japan while trying to find the key of the mystery. This is probably my last chance. If Yokohama brings me the light I am looking for, I’ll let you know. Why doesn't Japan play more globally in the submarine cable business? During the past 20 years, ASN and Tyco captured the lion share (80%) of the business, leaving a meager portion to the Japanese industry. This is despite some very good cards in hands: a great submarine cable history, a favorable geographical position, first class technology, good companies, dedicated people, a highly populated and wealthy region, and an Asiacentric market. As soon as a project is a bit far away from their islands, the Japanese suppliers are either absent or unaggressive. Even in Asia-Pacific, they often show-up in consortium or as subcontractor. This remark also applies to the Japanese operators who do not seem to have global ambitions. Everybody is actively involved in Africa at this moment, but not the Japanese. I've often told you, my friend, that Japan should work out a single supplier solution in order to compete on equal footing against ASN and Tyco. The NEC-Fujitsu competition seems to concentrate all their efforts, energy and attention. Like all family conflicts, such situations shift rapidly from "brotherly" to "fratricide!" And the "others" only need to play with this situation, bringing their own fuel to the fire. You did agree that this domestic competition was detrimental to Japan, but you keep telling me that there is no solution.
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by Jean Devos
There are probably deeper factors behind this, and the probably lies somewhere in the Japanese culture. Japan is an island subject to heavy storms, earthquakes and other natural threats. Success is never sure, and tomorrow can be worse. Everything is fragile and ephemeral, so the priority is to survive in "my" little field of rice! "Asu no hyaku yori, kyou ga fuku," similar to the French saying "Un tiens vaut mieux que deux tu l’auras." In other words, "better 50 today than 100 tomorrow." Is that an A more subtle
thought comes to me from a book I read several times in English with great pleasure: Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata. With pleasure, but with the strange feeling that what needs to be understood is not obvious, but is somewhere between the lines. Snow country refers to the western part of Japans’ central mountains–the snowiest region in the world. It suggests life divorced from time through the long snowbound months. The author is in the line of the haiku masters, these tiny seventeen-syllable poems that seek to convey a sudden awareness of beauty by a mating of opposite or incongruous terms. He keeps mixing motion and stillness such as "the roaring silence of a winter night." I got it! The Japanese submarine cable industry is living in the "snow country," addressing the global market in a "slow rush," being satisfied with a "meager abundance." I look forward to the key-note speech by the honorary Dr. Yoshio Utsumi, whose title attracted my attention "The inscrutable Japanese." I am reading in the SubOptic program, "It is often difficult for foreigners to understand Japanese people and society, without first having a basic knowledge of Japan and its culture…The submarine cable telecom business, have players from many diverse cultural, political, and ethnic backgrounds. So it is hoped that Mr. Utsumi’s presentation will not only be interesting and stimulating, but it may help some participants to adapt their approach in international business to achieve greater success.” My dear friend, I sincerely hope that Dr. Utsumi will explain to you how you should "adapt your approach of the international business to achieve greater success."
p.s. Yokohama May 15–Mr. Utsumi confirmed that the Japanese culture is the root of the problem. Japan needs to find a way to be competitive in this time of globalisation, but it is going to be extremely difficult.