In my column in DARE in the last 24 months, I have written about personal experiences as an entrepreneur and only once from a country’s standpoint from my impressions of entrepreneurial energy in Israel. It is fascinating how countries and entrepreneurs in various countries are dealing with and benefiting from
entrepreneurship. I now look at how an advanced country like Japan can grow on the engine of entrepreneurship.
Japan is an iconic nation in terms of innovation, quality and culture. Japan today is a nation that is grappling with crippled growth and lack of entrepreneurship. With the change of guard, entrepreneurship is being looked as savior to Japan’s growth woes. With an internal focused leadership the fears that growth is a four letter word in Japan have gained currency and the death bell for entrepreneurship has been sounded.
Recently, on the sidelines of a conference in Tokyo, I quizzed the vice chairman on the board of a large Japanese company on how Japan can grow faster? He with his 60 wise years behind him shared that Japan today has a GDP that it had 13 years back in 1993 and the panacea for growth was entrepreneurial energy and having entrepreneurial icons. Japan needed to grow. He felt that growth had literally become non-existent in the vocabulary of policy makers and industrialists in Japan. He said Japanese needed to take risks as corporations and entrepreneurs. Japanese companies had become too large and successful to do that.
Japan needs entrepreneurial icons like Akio Morita of Sony, who can inspire the current generation. Rekindled interest in entrepreneurship is the panacea to Japan’s stagnant but satisfied economy. I was particularly impressed by a incubation initiative taken up and it had startups that could be the Google of tomorrow.
EGG Japan (Entrepreneurs Group for Growing Japan) is a top class facility at the best location in Japan run by Mitsubishi Estate. This includes incubation offices and a business club called Tokyo 21 Century Club. Among its 600 members, the club counts some of Japan’s leading industrialists, along with young entrepreneurs and students. In this sense the club creates a very unique interactive environment in Japan where the top elite class mingles with the entrepreneurs and students very closely.
Japanese entrepreneurs know that risk creates reward and hence they are creating incubation centers now and de-risking their existing businesses from failure. In my view, they know that dependence on just Japanese market or consumers would not be the best bet and focusing on China is important but India with whom Japan has had business ties for many years is probably the key to unlock growth. Japanese entrepreneurs also know that they have to plough for the future through entrepreneurial initiatives.
As the domestic market in Japan stays stagnant in most categories, Japanese companies have to start looking outside their country and that too beyond trading. They have started becoming local transnationals.
Anurag Batra
Anurag Batra is real life, first-generation entrepreneur who is Much Below Average (MBA) from the prestigious Management Development Institute, MDI. When he is not busy writing such columns, he can be reached at anuragbatrayo@gmail.com.
Anurag is the founder and editor-in-chief of exchange4media group which includes exchange4media.com.
Subscribe to this comment's feed
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
