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What happened to all Japanese Electronic Giants? All of them are about to collapse!

I agree that Japanese cars are good quality.

But this thread is about electronics, and I simply disagree that Japanese electronics are any good now. When it comes to smartphones, apple and samsung are much more popular because they are superior, not because they are cheaper.

When it comes to computer, a Japanese laptop that cost 1200 is about as good as a samsung laptop that cost 750. Whatever supposedly superior quality just doesn't justify the price difference for something of the same spec.
Sorry to put an example of car here, but again I'm saying that the made in Japan has a name of quality and trust and for sure it's cost much then Korean or Chinese made.
 
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Ok. Since I got fired from Japanese Company NEC in the past. So I short (financial term Long/Short) on Japan Electronic Industry :woot: (Loser mentality here hahaha). Since I was out from NEC 10 years ago, the company was about to bankrupt, even sold her head quater at Tokyo to repay the debt. (You need to retain good employee like me I told you. :toast_sign: )


Japan's electronic giants once ruled the world. Sony, Panasonic, Sharp were household names. Now those same companies are in deep trouble, losing billions of dollars a year. How have the mighty Japanese companies fallen so low? The BBC's Rupert Wingfield-Hayes in Tokyo looks at what went wrong.
BBC News - What happened to Japan's electronic giants?


Hard-hit electronics giant Sony logs $1.3 billion quarterly loss
Hard-hit electronics giant Sony logs $1.3 billion quarterly loss | Business | DW.DE | 14.05.2014


May be this thread can later join the Japan Economic news.
What happened? Any expert here?

I'm not sure the original thread topic is still relevant based on the other pages in this threat, but I'll take a shot. The article touches on some very important points, but I would like to distill and extend them.

1) Japanese companies, on the whole, no longer provide value
Value can be derived from price or innovation. When Japan was still a developing country, it delivered value much like China does today, and Korea a decade ago: imitate successful products, and sell them for a market-clearing price. This has its limits, though, as once standards of living (and thus labor costs) rise, and the product becomes commoditized, manufacturing will simply shift to where it can be delivered at a lower cost.

Japan then shifted to innovation through R&D. The poster-boy for this is the Walkman. Sony invented an entire industry, portable music players. It was able to dominate this industry for a while due to patents and a relentless focus on quality. Then, complacency set it, and past successes were simply reprocessed into new products without delivering significant new features. Since the 1980s, can you think of any new industries created in Japan?

2) Japanese companies have historically emphasized social cohesion over profit
Japan's historical legacy of zaibatsu and keiretsu means that more often than not, Japanese companies sourced from suppliers in the same corporate family instead of seeking out the lowest cost, highest quality suppliers in an open tender. This quickly diminished the value that Japanese companies were able to deliver, and put a significant burden on the banks that stood at the center of the network, limiting their ability to deploy capital efficiently into small businesses that would provide the next generation of innovation. Japan is built for big business, not small.

I won't bore you with financial ratios, but Japan has some of the worst profitability metrics in its comparable universe, in nearly every industry you choose to compare.

3) Japanese companies are not flexible enough to adapt to changing market conditions
@Lux de Veritas already covered this well. Japanese companies do not hire and fire, divest loss-making divisions, pivot to new industries, or embrace change nearly as well or as rapidly as their Western counterparts. The moves being made by Hitachi, as mentioned in the article, were made by Hitachi's peer, GE, over 30 years ago. When Japan began to dominate the computer memory business in the 1980s, even though it was Intel's life-blood, Andy Grove ruthlessly disposed of the business and focused resources on what until then had been a side-business, microprocessors. The rest is history. Compare and contrast with the behavior of Japanese companies when faced with aggressive competition.

4) Japanese companies are too focused on the Japanese market
Export-oriented businesses (e.g. Toyota) and internationally-minded businesses (e.g. Fast Retailing) participate in many markets, both to learn what it takes to satisfy consumers in those markets, but also to bring home any innovations their overseas operations may generate in order to improve the product in the home market. Japanese companies sometimes get lost by catering to... sometimes peculiar Japanese tastes, to put it diplomatically, and should focus more on developing products that have a more universal appeal. For a very simple example, compare Mixi to Facebook, and see how one was intensely focused on Japan and the concept of exclusivity, and the other moved rapidly to expand overseas and encouraged growing the network.
 
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In IT, if you don't use a Lenovo, you are consider an amateurish. I have a friend who work as a software engineer at Sony in LA, California. His whole department got shut down and the whole programming team got lay off. Sony told them to move to Canada if they want to continue working.
 
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I'm not sure the original thread topic is still relevant based on the other pages in this threat, but I'll take a shot. The article touches on some very important points, but I would like to distill and extend them.

1) Japanese companies, on the whole, no longer provide value
Value can be derived from price or innovation. When Japan was still a developing country, it delivered value much like China does today, and Korea a decade ago: imitate successful products, and sell them for a market-clearing price. This has its limits, though, as once standards of living (and thus labor costs) rise, and the product becomes commoditized, manufacturing will simply shift to where it can be delivered at a lower cost.

Japan then shifted to innovation through R&D. The poster-boy for this is the Walkman. Sony invented an entire industry, portable music players. It was able to dominate this industry for a while due to patents and a relentless focus on quality. Then, complacency set it, and past successes were simply reprocessed into new products without delivering significant new features. Since the 1980s, can you think of any new industries created in Japan?

Vow. Very good analysis.
1. Was Sony able to invent Walkman because Sony mastered solid state transistor technology? Why was not any American companies invented Walkman?
Why do you think Japan failed to innovate after 1980? What had change Japan from highly innovative Japan to unable to innovate?

2,3 I agreed. Back in 1990s there were books describing that this is Japanese cultural advantage. Chosha at the head and Saibutsu pyramid looks so much like feudal system. It is strange that the so called advantage become disadvantage over time.

4. This is simply true. In another thread called China innovation down there, Xun si also said about pride. He should see this thread and avoid what Japan did wrongfully.
I can see many example. Europe develop GSM, US CDMA, Japan PHS. While GSM was fully global, CDMA quite global, PHS is not. Thailand also has PHS system and GSM system. However, PHS is de facto Japanese made for Japanese use only.
This development may leads to Japan missed the internet over GSM. When the user pool are small and restricted to Japan only, the development is slower.
Currently, Japan research result in Artificial Intelligence is being printed in Japanese language only again. I am predicting that Japan research result will be worse and worse as time go by. This is because smaller number of people can read Japanese. Thus slower technical report, usages. Leading to slower new idea, development.
Only publishing in English will you be able to test your technique fast enough.
 
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In IT, if you don't use a Lenovo, you are consider an amateurish. I have a friend who work as a software engineer at Sony in LA, California. His whole department got shut down and the whole programming team got lay off. Sony told them to move to Canada if they want to continue working.

Lenovo T series and W series Thinkpad are the most reliable laptop for engineers. I simply love it.
 
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Vow. Very good analysis.
1. Was Sony able to invent Walkman because Sony mastered solid state transistor technology? Why was not any American companies invented Walkman?
Why do you think Japan failed to innovate after 1980? What had change Japan from highly innovative Japan to unable to innovate?

I'm not sure, but here is what I speculate:
Walkman: Japan has long specialized in miniaturization. I'm not sure what drives this, whether it's cultural or simply the Japanese sense that they live on a densely populated island, but this mindset enabled the thinking that went into the Walkman (no room for big stereo sets in the home, want to listen to music on a crowded train without disturbing those nearby, a chance to personalize one's life when the group is socially dominant, etc.) Simply put, it was solving a Japanese problem that happened to translate well into other markets. It was not designed from the outset to appeal to export markets, as far as I am aware.

Another important example of miniaturization or the desire to make products smaller to save space is the Japanese focus (and now dominance) of the small car market. Compare to the US focus on trucks and SUVs.

I can't speak to the technical aspects (e.g. solid state transistor) since I'm not an engineer, sorry.

The 1980s: This will be controversial, but I hope @Nihonjin1051 forgives me for the sake of open discourse, and I am happy to be corrected if I am wrong. Here is why I think Japan essentially "hit the wall" in the 1980s and its momentum stopped.
1) Japan has been good at adapting outside ideas to its home market, but less good at producing ideas that will change the world (partly because as previously discussed, Japan is focused on its home market, not the world). The example of W. Edward Deming and his influence on Japanese manufacturing is well known. To this, Japan added quality circles and just-in-time manufacturing, again, primarily due to the specific needs of the Japanese market and the restrictions of Japanese society. The next stage of outside ideas that came into the mainstream in the 1980s and helped America recover competitiveness (mergers and acquisitions, leveraged buyouts, business process re-engineering, globalized supply chain, etc.) were so radical that they were not accepted in Japan, and indeed, would have destroyed the social compact in Japan had they been implemented. Of course, we see now that these changes needed to be made anyway, but now it's too late.

2) It's easy to catch up to the leader. It's hard to take over as leader. Leadership, or our focus here, innovation, requires constant questioning of the status quo, and an embrace of risk to push the boundaries of what is possible. Neither of these factors suit Japanese society well, until Japan is forced to embrace them. I remember there used to be talk in the 1980s of "gaiatsu" (did I get that right, @Nihonjin1051?) or outside pressure. Japanese society is complex, and sometimes Japanese leadership (political or business) needs outside pressure to serve as cover under which reforms can be enacted. We can see this in Japanese history, with great leaps forward in the Meiji revolution after the threat of colonization. After massive societal changes were made, Japan strengthened considerably and the economy became dynamic, but after a time, stagnation set in. Then, in the wake of the destruction wrought by WWII, again massive changes were made to Japanese society, and once again dynamism returned, and lasted until the 1980s. Then stagnation set in. You and @Lux de Veritas pointed out the signs of this: working long hours for the sake of appearance, rather than productivity; prioritizing seniority over merit; prioritizing social harmony over profit, etc. If you want to compete in today's global economy, you cannot hold on to these customs.

3) Finally, in regards to your point about English. It's easy for me to say this, coming from an English speaking country, but it's the unfortunate truth. Without English proficiency, a company will not be able to compete globally. Those that have demonstrated such proficiency (Toyota, Rakuten, Fast Retailing, Softbank, etc.) are lean machines, able to compete with anyone. Those that have not wither and die. Perhaps someday this will be said in regards to Chinese, but for the moment, English is the lingua franca of the business (and scientific) world.

What to do? First, Japan (both on the political and corporate level) needs visionary leadership. It's not enough to just tinker around the edges. Then, it's sad to say, but I think Japan needs some kind of catalyst, probably of an external nature, to provide leadership the support it needs to enact radical societal and corporate reform and enable the next stage of Japanese growth. This goes for both the political class and the business class. We can see that Japanese corporations are finally undertaking the reforms they need now that they are close to death--but is Japanese society ready for the changes that such restructuring will entail? It's unfortunate it's taken this long, but sometimes that is what is necessary in Japan.
 
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similar to America and EU,south korea and japan are also facing a slow and steady decline,all thanks to capitalism.
 
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I drove my Toyota Camry for 10 years straight = superior Japanese quality
My Xbox 360 lasted for about 2 years = not too good Yankee products
My fake IPhone 5S made in China froze in 3 days.....???

All the product you mentioned above, Russia can't make any.
 
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I drove my Toyota Camry for 10 years straight = superior Japanese quality
My Xbox 360 lasted for about 2 years = not too good Yankee products
My fake IPhone 5S made in China froze in 3 days.....???

I prefer ASUS over Lenovo because Lenovo laptop tend to overheat when I run graphically demanding game such as Battlefield

I had IPhone 4S before as well, and i think you have to push the two reset buttons simultaneously.

And not only IPhone is made in China, but Xbox as well.

All the product you mentioned above, Russia can't make any.

Don't be naive, the household technologies are not what Russia wants to focus.

The guy may be Russian, but he doesn't represent Russia overall.
 
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I had IPhone 4S before as well, and i think you have to push the two reset buttons simultaneously.

And not only IPhone is made in China, but Xbox as well.



Don't be naive, the household technologies are not what Russia wants to focus.

The guy may be Russian, but he doesn't represent Russia overall.

Not want to focus, this sounds like an excuse, bro. China can focus on them, both the civilian and military technology, if not good, but on the right track with fast improvement.
 
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Lenovo has the best laptop, period. Most reliable, professional, and classic.

The better explanation ; almost big brand of laptop has their good quality laptop, business class
HP : probook, elite ; asuspro , U-series ... Lenovo thinkpad ...
But ASUS tend to apply Icecool to all of their laptop. ASUS is the first manufacturer applied 2 years global warranty to ALL of their laptop sold in Vietnam market, and they pays for courrier to and from their service center or they come to your home.

Andrei : never use fake phone ...better you use a basic Nokia phone if you have limit budget.
 
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still till today i trust more in more n japan then korea china or any other Asian country . today i bought 400$ power voltage regulator while china made was less then 100$. admit it we all love made in japan
 
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still till today i trust more in more n japan then korea china or any other Asian country . today i bought 400$ power voltage regulator while china made was less then 100$. admit it we all love made in japan

And we love you, my man. Thanks for being a loyal customer. :pakistan:
 
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And we love you, my man. Thanks for being a loyal customer. :pakistan:
you welcome bro so we have Japaneses here too :smitten: trust me your country made best electronics and now a days people have less purchasing power then in past . so they buy cheap quality but for me quality is more impotent then price i am sure i will never have complain long time now what i buy made in Japan - Germany :tup:. i am sony fan ans always try to buy sony and sure sony made in japan not made in Malaysia china
 
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