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If a
country wanted to boost innovation and competitiveness,
it could do worse than pick the brain of Nobuyuki Idei.
The
former Sony Corp. chief executive officer has no such
formal role in Japan, nor does he want it. And at 70,
Idei might not seem the most natural bridge between
Japan’s rigid business culture and its technological
future. Would the dot-com set in the US listen to a
septuagenarian—a man more of Jack Welch’s generation
than that of Google Inc.’s founders?
Yet, in
seniority-based Tokyo, it takes someone with Idei’s
gravitas to create a consulting company called Quantum
Leaps Corp. and be taken seriously in shaking up Japan.
Sure,
Sony has lost its groove and eaten Apple Inc.’s dust.
Idei presided over the “Sony Shock” in April 2003, when
shares fell 27 percent in two days. His 10-year stint at
the world’s second-largest maker of consumer electronics
ended in 2005.
Ups and
downs aside, it’s hard to exaggerate Sony’s role in the
Japanese psyche. What many Americans feel about Henry
Ford or Bill Gates, Japanese think of Sony founders
Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita. The company they created
in 1946 was emblematic of Japan’s post-World War II
rise.
Idei is
still a bit of a rock star in Japan. He can hobnob with
prime ministers, mingle with the Davos set, dine with
celebrities, deliver advice around the globe and sit on
the boards of companies such as Accenture Ltd. and
Baidu.com Inc. And then he returns to his Tokyo office
to think the big thoughts about what Japan needs to do
to compete globally.
Quantum
leap
“Japan
needs a quantum leap,” Idei says, shedding light on how
he arrived at the name of his two-year-old company.
“Japan is a symbol of success in the last century, but
it’s still in a 1990s-like stage—before the Internet
became a big force.”
Strong
words, and ones Japan bulls may not want to hear. Yet,
Idei’s views are more about tough love than gratuitous
criticism.
Now that
Sony is Howard Stringer’s problem, Idei is setting his
sights on Japan. He aims to light an innovative fire
under the nation’s 127 million people to produce new
industries that create jobs and raise Japan’s
competitiveness.
It’s
quite a paradox. Japan is often named the most
innovative nation based on its high number of patents.
Most are concentrated in huge companies, and many are
incremental improvements to existing inventions.
Steve
Jobs wannabes
What
Japan lacks is a bunch of sleep-deprived,
caffeine-driven Steve Jobs wannabes perched over laptops
around the nation. While things are changing, Japan is
still too much about centralizing innovation in
corporate behemoths and not enough about scrappy
startups. It explains why neither Google nor Yahoo! Inc.
happened in Japan.
Idei’s
work is worth keeping an eye on. His focus is on
breaking down the social barriers in a region whose
venture-capital industry is a fraction of the US’s. That
vision will get the attention it deserves next week in
the western Japanese city of Fukuoka, where Idei is
organizing the second annual Asia Innovation Initiative.
It’s a
pan-Asian effort to brainstorm about ways to cultivate
new entrepreneurial ventures. Asia is still a region
where risk-taking is often championed less than in the
West and financing for new ideas can be hard to come by.
The
event will also highlight overlooked investment
opportunities in Asia, and a sizeable contingent from
the cash-rich Middle East is expected to attend. Idei is
an adviser to Dubai International Capital Llc.
Urgent
situation
Asia’s situation is becoming more urgent amid rising commodity
costs. If economists such as Jeffrey Rubin of CIBC World
Markets Inc. in Toronto are right, Asia’s future as an
exporting powerhouse is in jeopardy as crude oil heads
toward $200 a barrel. As rising transport costs are
making imports more expensive, Rubin expects US
production to move away from Asia and closer to home.
Asia’s best hope for prosperity is technology and innovation. We
are looking at a global environment in which cost
changes in the old economy are providing greater urgency
for Asia to embrace new-economy opportunities, Idei
says.
“This is
a very important time for Asia to collaborate,” he says.
In
Japan, Idei is pushing his private-sector peers to
replace the seniority-based system with a true
meritocracy and to accelerate consolidation in bloated
industries. He is striving to boost funding for startups
that can create high-paying jobs and increase
competition. The simplest explanation for what Idei is
driving at is a Japanese Silicon Valley.
The
Liberal Democratic Party has run Japan for all but one
year since 1955. Its economic model is low interest
rates, massive government borrowings and a weak yen.
Pressure to alter the tax system in favor of
entrepreneurs and new business creation will have to
come from the private sector.
It’s not
the kind of role you would expect from an elder
statesman of the business world like Idei. Any effort
that accelerates Asia’s path into the future is well
worth the energy. |
