Transforming Japanese Business: Rising to the Digital Challenge

By Anshuman Khare

This book explores how the business transformation taking place in Japan is influenced by the digital revolution. Its chapters present approaches and examples from sectors commonly understood to be visible arenas of digital transformation—3D printing and mobility, for instance—as well as some from not-so-obvious sectors, such as retail, services, and fintech.

Business today is facing unprecedented change especially due to the adoption of new, digital technologies, with a noticeable transformation of manufacturing and services. The changes have been brought by advanced robotics, the emergence of artificial intelligence, and digital networks that are growing in size and capability as the number of connected devices explodes. In addition, there are advanced manufacturing and collaborative connected platforms, including machine-to-machine communications. Adoption of digital technology has caused process disruptions in both the manufacturing and services sectors and led to new business models and new products. 

While examining the preparedness of the Japanese economy to embrace these changes, the book explores the impact of digitally influenced changes on some selected sectors from a Japanese perspective. It paints a big picture in explaining how a previously manufacturing-centric, successful economy adopts change to retain and rebuild success in the global environment. Japan as a whole is embracing, yet also avoiding—innovating but also restricting—various forms of digitalization of life and work. The book, with its 17 chapters, is a collaborative effort of individuals contributing diverse points of view as technologists, academics, and managers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Springer
• Release date: Dec 6, 2019
• ISBN: 9789811503276

Book preview

Part IThe Societal and Economic Outlook

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020

A. Khare et al. (eds.)Transforming Japanese BusinessFuture of Business and Financehttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-0327-6_1

Why Japan’s Digital Transformation Is Inevitable

Anshuman Khare¹  , Kriti Khare² and William W. Baber³

(1)

Faculty of Business, Athabasca University, Edmonton, AB, Canada

(2)

University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada

(3)

Graduate School of Management, Kyoto University, Kyoto-shi, Kyoto, Japan

Anshuman Khare

Email: [e-mail]

Abstract

This chapter examines the digital transformation of Japanese business in terms of key technologies, the barriers to their expansion in Japan, and the drivers moving them forward. After clarifying definitions and discussing key technologies, the chapter discusses six sources of pressure toward digital business transformation in Japan. These pressures include overseas partners, fintech, the drop in Japanese population, generational change, and the preference for food grown in Japan. The sixth of these is a sense of innovation deeply baked into the upcoming generation that will likely impact all areas of life and business in Japan. The new generation is impatient with conventional services and feels the need for transformation as available labor decreases and aging increases demands of individuals on society. There is an additional, even though temporary, source of pressure as well – the 2020 Olympics. The sectors that are most likely to feel the impact of new digital technologies are finance, retail, manufacturing, services, agriculture, and elder care. The big question that looms in front of Japan, as with other countries, is how Japanese business and society will provide the human resources and investments needed to bring transformation to fruition.

Keywords

Digital transformationConventional technologiesEmerging technologiesBarriersRoboticsSociety 5.0Generational changePopulation dropBaked-in innovation

1 What Is Digital Transformation?

The central question of this chapter is: How and why is Japan’s digital transformation taking place? This chapter seeks to pin down specifically why this kind of transformation will unavoidably come. We are starting with a question that looks much more to the future than to the present. Underlying this outlook is the feeling that digitalization is not as advanced as it should be and that much change is yet to come to Japan. One only has to glance at the public spaces of Japan to see that digital transformation has gripped almost all residents: smartphones are almost universally at hand. From a day-to-day user’s point of view, digital immersion is here, and life has been transformed. Yet much of this transformation has to do with retail convenience, not processes and organizational or business innovations. In manufacturing, for example, robots per 10,000 employees remain in the low 300 s, whereas the leading country, Korea, boasts over 700 (International Federation of Robotics 2018). Additionally, Japan seems to lag neighboring countries such as South Korea in putting Internet technologies in place in businesses (Mathews et al. 2018). Thus, the authors are looking, in the Japanese context, at emerging digital technologies, barriers to digitalization, and the steady driving force of digital disruption . But first we must clarify the meanings of certain key terms.

The word digital has become an everyday part of our vocabulary. While in its truest form it refers to processing information in a way that the computer can understand, 0 s and 1 s, it is used in the broader sense of technology and data. The word is synonymous with automation, and hence, it is not surprising that when we think of digital transformation, we are envisioning a change in processes, whether business- or government-related, such that they make better use of the evolving technology. Contrast this with digitization which means converting physical artifacts such as text, images, and sounds into a form that is stored and viewed on a computer. Thus, in the matter of a couple of decades, many new words have come out of digital, varying in meaning as well as usage.

According to i-scoop (2019), digital transformation is defined as:

Digital transformation is the profound transformation of business and organizational activities, processes, competencies and models to fully leverage the changes and opportunities of a mix of digital technologies and their accelerating impact across society in a strategic and prioritized way, with present and future shifts in mind.

The scope of this definition includes not only technology and processes but also significant impact on the thinking, behaviors, and expectations of those experiencing and leading the transformation. Without changes in behavior, we cannot expect more than uncoordinated stepwise changes in the digital landscape.

More narrowly, according to Gartner (2019), digital transformation in the context of business is defined as:

Digital business transformation is the process of exploiting digital technologies and supporting capabilities to create a robust new digital business model.

This definition points toward changes in business models and their components in ways that can be incremental substitutions of conventional technologies as well as more profound leaps. Incremental changes can be seen in the movement from physical platforms, such as meeting places, to online ones, such as Internet-based markets. Profound changes leading to robust new digital models can also be found among Japanese firms such as Mercari, regulated and compliant cryptocurrency services based in Tokyo.

In recent years, technological advances in computing have included the cloud, analytics, artificial intelligence, blockchain, and robotics. Also, the emergence of the Internet of Things (IoT) and augmented reality (AR), where we can use data gathered from everyday devices, processing them into insights and predictions, has led organizations to think deeply about keeping pace with the growing technology due to the effects on consumers. Other factors contributing to digital transformation are availability of massive storage and computing power (Bresniker 2018) as well as the oncoming wave of 5G data transmission ecosystems for new services and advanced equipment (Akuzawa and Tamaoki 2011). Thus, technology advancements act as enablers of digital transformation while at the same time being the catalyst that drives further innovation.

In the following sections, we will define terminology, review some of the key technologies, look at their impact, and address the inevitability of digital transformation in Japan.

2 A Brief Look at the Emerging Technologies

Words such as data, analytics , reporting, AI, blockchain, chatbots, and automation are widely used in business today from automobiles (Kessler and Buck 2017) to AI-based services from global firms such as Netflix and Amazon.

2.1 Blockchain

In 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto, if that is a real person’s name, proposed the blockchain model of transactions between two devices without the involvement of a centralized financial intermediary, similar to how transactions are possible between two humans by exchanging goods for cash (Nakamoto 2008). Thus, blockchain technology first saw its use in bitcoin currency exchanges. Hence, it is not surprising that a major portion of research in blockchain is around its potential to transform financial services (Nguyen 2016). In Japan, blockchain has been elevated to an important agenda item during its G20 presidency, and Tokyo has sought to become a center of financial blockchain currency trading and regulation (JFSA 2019). Recently, there has been growing interest in how blockchain affects other business models. Morkunas et al. (2019) explored where blockchain technology may be applied at the various stages of the Business Model Canvas, developed by Osterwalder and Pigneur (2013). Marsal-Llacuna (2018) explores the integration of blockchain at an urban planning level, and Christidis and Devetsikiotis (2016) show its value in smart contracts. In the higher education sector, Southern Alberta Institute of Technology, Canada, has started to issue blockchain-secured certificates to its graduates (Clain 2018).

2.2 Robotics and Automation

Robotics is an interdisciplinary field of engineering and computing where a machine performs a specified task. Whether the rovers that have been deployed on Mars or arms and legs that are now controlled through implants by amputees, the uses of robotics are widespread. Automation, on the other hand, refers to introducing a program or equipment that is programmed to do a certain task effectively and efficiently. Automation can happen through physical robotics, or it can be purely a software-based solution. Nowadays, in business, robotic process automation (RPA) is a software-based solution that looks at configuring a software to do certain repetitive tasks that had previously been done by humans. According to Willcocks et al. (2015), RPA targets processes and tasks that involve humans taking an input from a customer or an email and processing it based on predetermined rules, such as questions that always have the same answer. The focus is on end-to-end completion of a task. For example, processing a form for errors and checking that all required fields are filled out are common examples of RPA that we interact with in everyday life. These functions used to be carried out by humans, but with the integration of data validation, a manual check is no longer required. Amazon recently started testing drones to deliver packages. According to the Robotics Society of Japan (2019), 77 universities, institutes, and public laboratories investigate robotics in Japan. Japanese tech leader Softbank developed the humanoid robot, Pepper, that has been used in marketing and customer interaction, to greet customers as well as to help them narrow down choices based on answers to specific questions (Softbank 2019).

2.3 Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence encompasses a broad number of techniques that make a machine intelligent, i.e., able to adapt to new experiences by learning from the past. Robotics, natural language processing, data mining, deep learning, etc., are examples of broad methodologies that are used to train the computer with large amounts of data and to find patterns in it. Chatbots, for example, can answer questions frequently asked by customers. They are trained using frequently asked questions and learn to answer customer queries from their database of answers. While in its early stages (1950s), neural networks were used to train the machines, in the 1980s, specific machine learning algorithms started being developed. In our current decade, research is focused on deep learning, which is a more recent form of neural networks. In Japan as the Prime Minister called this year for 250,000 new AI experts annually by 2025, companies like Daikin are training their own resources from square one in major pushes to develop talent (Kajimoto 2019).

2.4 Internet of Things

Internet of Things refers to connecting everyday objects to a network, to monitor in real time. The number of case studies in IoT has been on the rise. For example, the Smart City of Barcelona has sensors in its waste disposal systems to monitor when they are full and need to be emptied. Parking spaces are also monitored using sensors, and this data is made available to drivers who are looking for a parking spot. Japan took an early lead with practical applications such as earthquake and tsunami warning sensor systems. Regarding IoT security, in 2019 Japan became the first county to launch a nationwide penetration test of privately owned IoT equipment in order to determine vulnerabilities (Irwin 2019). Big IoT are autonomous vehicles and smart buildings that tailor occupancy patterns to building maintenance systems. Also, the construction of green buildings, such as The Edge in Amsterdam that not only produces its own electricity but also generates extra that may be given back to the power grid, is another example (TEDxTalks 2016). There are standards and certifications, such as BREEAM sustainability rating, now available around the world that rate buildings on their innovation. When innovation becomes a part of the equation, the business has to adapt to include new technologies to tackle old challenges, like what Coen van Oostrom (TEDxTalks 2016) did to reduce carbon emissions from buildings.

2.5 Additive Layer Manufacturing or 3D Printing

3D printers build three-dimensional objects from a computer-aided design (CAD) model by successively adding or removing material layer by layer. This technology can effectively reorganize the supply chain of products by allowing in-house production instead of using suppliers. It also gives the business the opportunity to create and test prototypes and models with complex geometry at a lower cost. Trombetta et al. (2017) explain how using 3D printing technologies can reduce cost and enhance product functionality as well. Japan is among the leading countries adopting 3D printing technology. Eguchi et al. (2019) recently presented the results of their research with 3D printed multi-material surfaces in autonomous cars and the role they can play regarding interaction with a pedestrian. In the medical sector, surgeons and healthcare experts are using various 3D printing materials for creating hearing aids and artificial limbs. 3D printing technologies have also made their way into the Japanese classroom for teaching students English, as shown by Poudel and Roy (2019). Students created physical objects using a 3D printer while authoring a technical document in English for its reproduction later. This provided students with something tangible to work with, applying their newly learned skills in English toward a specific goal. These are just a few of the many ways in which digital technologies have transformed the business experience.

2.6 Society 5.0

A term originating in Japan, Society 5.0, was born at the highest level of government and is an initiative of the Cabinet Office. This concept is to create town- and city-sized communities with highly integrated data support of city systems. Those systems would include communication, management of utilities, traffic flow, healthcare, and more. The goals would include not only user convenience and therefore increased productivity but also service provision that is highly efficient, the right amount at the right time, and therefore environmentally sustainable. Japanese government and public administration have had mixed success with digital transformation. Warf (2016) concludes that Japan has had successes in this domain but retains problems including low penetration of digital technologies and workflow into smaller municipalities. Where Japan has had success, in broadband access (Kushida 2013), for example, it is well positioned for 5G and other technologies in terms of implementation by government and uptake by the public. Nonetheless, even larger cities and major public institutions seem rife with printed forms that are laboriously loaded into disparate databases as observed by the authors.

3 Challenges to Digital Transformation

As reflected in the definitions above, digital transformation is not just the introduction of technologies like cloud-based services and robotics. It is also related to the processes that implement and maintain the services themselves as well as the attitudes of business leaders and customers. Thus, it is not possible to bring out successful digitalization in business without clear goals and the buy-in of the people involved. The mindset of the people in the organization has to reflect the organization’s definition of transformation and the goals for doing it. Skills, capabilities, and maturity levels of systems and workers have to be assessed as a company prepares to adapt to new technologies.

Beyond mindset, a number of factors pose challenges to digital transformation. Kushida (2013) identifies a lack of Silicon Valley-type institutions and regulatory roadblocks as barriers to transformation. Others observed by the authors include:

Evolving customer demand and behavior as users become more comfortable with technology which requires redevelopment of user interfaces and user experiences.

Customer and end user resistance to change.

Aging technology infrastructure.

Legacy business systems that have growing technological debt.

Legacy business systems that are increasingly complex because of layered patches.

Regulatory and legal compliance as these systems develop in parallel to digitalization.

Unwillingness to disturb business partner networks who are not ready for digital transformation.

Lack of suitably skilled human resources in top management and operational levels.

Inability to coordinate with foreign hired human resources or outsource firms.

Cyber security concerns.

Lack of anthropology and ethnography skills needed to understand users well enough to create new services for them.

Lack of effective data governance, management, and standardization.

Cost and risk of adoption.

Unclear payback and return on investment.

Each of these factors has to be handled carefully, and as a result, business process digitalization may take place in incremental steps. For example, for some companies, the first step in digital transformation might involve moving business applications that are hosted in-house to cloud-based models using software as a service (SAAS), as compared to a complete revamp of the service delivery model. With the invention of the 3D printer, companies also have the opportunity to manufacture parts using CAD/CAM files and materials in-house rather than dealing with suppliers for the same parts. High-return/low-risk automation projects are also likely candidates using AI and RPA.

4 Why Business Digital Transformation Is Inevitable in Japan

Despite the challenges presented in the previous section, the march toward digital transformation of many sectors is inevitable in the eyes of the authors. Some Japanese companies, DMM, Macromill, and Mercari, have leapfrogged conventional players creating digital business models to fill market gaps. Certain pressures and trends already present make digital transformation Japan’s fate. These pressures include the following:

4.1 Overseas Partners

As overseas suppliers and customers become increasingly digitalized, Japanese companies will be under pressure to conform to their standards. Increasingly operations worldwide will integrate and depend on data that is likely to be high in volume and detail. Collecting such data by manual or partially manual methods will be not only excessively expensive but also too slow for the digital world’s computer processor speed-driven timelines. In other words, the global rising tide of digitalization will lift all boats or swamp those that do not float.

4.2 Fintech

A wide range of fintech approaches will transform the conventional banking system as well as retail interactions. On top of these, cryptocurrencies will require organizations to adapt or be at the mercy of middleman services. Companies that cannot conform will suffer.

4.3 Generational Change

A generational shift is underway in Japan as baby boomers retire from the workforce. This means a flood of exiting workers and movement upward by younger staff who may be more digitally savvy and willing to apply digital solutions.

4.4 Population Drop

Japan is defined as a super-aging society in which more than 27% of the population is over 65 years of age. Additionally, the population decrease is expected to result in a population of about 88 million in 2065, down from approximately 125 million in 2020 (National Institute of Population and Social Security Research 2019). Unlike other super-aging societies, such as Italy and Finland, there is no convenient source of immigrant workers. The Japanese consumer still insists on a high level of spoken Japanese for service interactions, and this serves as a barrier to successfully accessing inexpensive labor.

4.5 Grown in Japan

Japan produces only about 40% of the calories consumed in Japan (Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries 2016) with the rest imported. However, residents prefer Japanese-grown food. Without rural workers due to population decrease, labor-intensive sectors such as eldercare and agriculture in particular will face the choice of sophisticated automation based on IoT, autonomous vehicles, and AI, in short, digital transformation, or an immense drop in productivity.

4.6 Baked-In Innovation

It is not merely a change in generations that will make users more open to digitalization, but it is the current young generation. Japan underwent approximately 20 years of stagnation, the Lost Decades from about 1991 to 2013 (Fukao et al. 2014), with low opportunity for younger people. It may be that the upcoming generation has less patience to wait until opportunity knocks. If they pursue innovation and entrepreneurship, they may bring digital transformation and even disruption to all sectors. Salsberg (2010) noted that the money-saving behavior of Japanese as well as the new generations’ willingness to spend more on products and technology has led the retail sector to reconsider who they market to and how. Digital native generations across the globe are prepared to take advantage of the Internet when it provides them with cheaper rates and faster delivery and tracking. To remain relevant, it is not just the product but the complete service experience that needs to stay relevant (Joe and Montgomery, 2003). Figure 1 graphically links the pressures to the sectors they are mostly likely to influence.

../images/486138_1_En_1_Chapter/486138_1_En_1_Fig1_HTML.png

Fig. 1

Pressure on selected sectors

The transformation is already evident in some companies described in later chapters in this book. Preparation for the 2020 Olympics is providing a focus of popular attention as well as government support and investment by business as well as pressure for some digitalization, for example, in the retail sector (Lewis and Inagaki 2019). The results are likely to include large-scale implementation of service robots and automated systems for security, emergency, and crowd management.

5 Conclusions: Digital Transformation and Impact on Japan

After considering the challenges and pressures Japan faces regarding digital transformation, we draw the overall conclusion that vast transformation of the country’s social and business landscapes through digitalization of retail life and B2B practices is inevitable. The most serious challenge Japan faces might be the lack of willpower and technical skills among the current generation of decision-makers. Yet even this is inexorably changing as the old guard leaves the workplace.

Overall, Japan has many and significant opportunities to develop digitalized organizations and processes that will likely develop despite the barriers discussed above. These may come with unique Japanese approaches, for example, acceptance of AI rather than resistance to it, at least when packaged in robotic form (Sugiyama et al. 2017), as well as some efforts by government to manage new technologies such as blockchain, IoT, and Society 5.0. In addition to the weight of generational change and a new wave of entrepreneurs, labor pressure may force upon Japan the automation-based labor efficiencies that other advanced countries have already experienced. Yet Japan does not have the reputation of a fast-changing environment. One area that may experience slower or lower digital transformation is education as this field is dominated by centralized government authorities that have shown little appetite for modernization or risk taking.

With underdeveloped human resources, the question of who will do the necessary work arises. Outsourcing to foreign companies and teams was a standard approach in Tokyo through the 1990s and 2000s. In recent years, anecdotal evidence gathered through conversations with IT employees and managers suggests that more of the work is being executed by Japanese staff. Nonetheless, IT outsourcing to locally positioned teams as well as overseas seems very likely to remain a mainstay of the digitalization process in Japan. While the work will be done only partly by Japanese employees, the decisions about customizing and creating distinctly Japanese systems and user experiences will likely remain mainly with Japanese managers and entrepreneurs. The seeming preference for customizing systems to human and analog realities means much work, and many decisions must be made by Japanese people who can appropriately act on behalf of Japanese users.

In addition to the above conclusions, the authors see a need for further research on the digital transformation of Japanese business and society at large. We therefore encourage scholars to develop more case studies of organizations in Japan and the transformation of their processes, value chains, and relationships through digital systems. We further encourage longitudinal studies that follow the ups and downs of remarkable firms. Additionally, efforts should be spent to analyze foreign firms in Japan and Japanese firms overseas with a particular eye on how their human resources adapt and succeed when faced with differing levels of digitalization in home and host countries.

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