What Should We Learn From Japanese Enterprises?

Like the Japanese economy, Japanese companies have gone through the "lost 10 years".

But they did not get nothing. 10 years later, a large number of Japanese enterprises have gradually regained their global competitiveness.

They have made breakthroughs in the fields of innovation, sustainable development, green environmental protection and achieved new development momentum through their own practice.

Learning and learning from the outstanding experience of Japanese enterprises will be beneficial to Chinese enterprises in finding sustainable development frameworks, establishing global companies and developing high-level global competition.

"Japanese enterprises in China - sustainable development and mutual benefit and win-win" have been published recently.

This book has been completed over half a year's investigation and study, and the representatives of the assembly, production, learning and media have been jointly completed. Our correspondent has also participated in some of the research activities.

The book traces the development and major changes of Japanese enterprises in China in the past 10 years, and analyzes and summarizes outstanding cases and existing problems of Japanese enterprises.

Professor Wang Zhile, director of Beijing new century multinational research institute and director of the research center of MNCs of the Ministry of Commerce, told reporters that the development of Chinese enterprises has entered the third period of upgrading. We should continue to study various multinational corporations, including Japanese enterprises, and launch a new round of learning, cooperation and competition.

"We sincerely hope that we can learn from Japanese enterprises to learn from Japanese enterprises, and enhance the competitiveness of Chinese domestic enterprises on the basis of their original hardware and system, so that more and more Chinese enterprises will be among the most competitive global companies."

The "lost 10 years" has also been harvested. Since the 90s of last century, when Chinese enterprises gradually shifted their benchmarking targets from Japanese enterprises to European and American global companies, Japanese enterprises entered the "lost 10 years" as did the Japanese economy.

However, the research center of mnresearch Research Center visited Japan's 7 famous multinational headquarters and its enterprises. After investigating 42 Japanese enterprises and related institutions in China, it was found that in recent years, some Japanese enterprises have carried out quite profound strategic adjustment, improved management and governance structure, and strengthened corporate responsibilities, including environmental and social responsibilities.

A number of Japanese enterprises have gradually regained their global competitiveness and affected Chinese enterprises.

Wang Zhile pointed out that shortly after the Asian financial crisis, Japanese enterprises accelerated the process of Globalization: they were adjusting their business objectives.

For example, Sony Corp has broken away from the sole purpose of paying attention to shareholders' profits and placed the interests of shareholders, employees and customers in the same important position as three parties.

They adjust their business development strategies and highlight their business priorities.

In the past, Japanese companies carried out large-scale diversification. Now many enterprises choose and concentrate on their existing businesses, highlight competitive main businesses, pay special attention to the development of service industry, and attach importance to software products and "solutions".

They change from the internationalization centered on Japan to globalizing the world market.

In 1995, the Toyota Auto Body Co formulated a new international business plan represented by "promoting localization" and "expanding imports".

In 1997, the guiding principles were revised, stressing that the company should become a good citizen of the international community.

They are reforming their financial system.

Increase enterprise financial pparency, implement American style joint settlement (consolidated statements), and pay attention to the market value of the company.

The Japanese government stipulates that all the listed companies must adopt the United States consolidated statements system starting from the financial year beginning in April 2001.

They also carry out the reform of the personnel system, and think that the system of "lifetime employment" and "annual work sequence", which used to be the characteristics of Japanese enterprises, have not adapted to the new international competition situation and must be changed.

These reforms have made a comprehensive impact on the traditional business purpose, management system and corporate culture of Japanese enterprises.

A large number of enterprises have been able to restore or even enhance their competitiveness by adapting to the reform of economic globalization and information technology.

Wang Zhile, for example, said that in 1994, the pnational index of TOYOTA motor was only 28.1%, reached 49.4% in 2004, and Honda's pnational index increased from 41% to 68.5%; Nissan's pnational index increased from 32.2% to 61.3%.

Japan's automobile absorbs the ability to integrate global resources and strengthens its original advantages.

In 2006, Fortune magazine 500 ball companies ranked 33 in auto and spare parts companies, and 10 in Japanese companies.

TOYOTA, Honda and Nissan 3 companies made a profit of US $23 billion, accounting for 64% of the total profits of all 33 auto companies.

Since Japan's strategy in China has been readjusted to China's reform and opening up policy, the Japanese enterprises' investment in China has formed two climaxes: from 1992 to 1998, Japanese enterprises formed the first wave of investment in China.

After China's accession to the WTO in 2001, Japanese enterprises' investment in China formed second climaxes.

Practice proves that Sino Japanese economic and trade cooperation is mutually beneficial and win-win.

According to Japanese statistics, in 2004, 3557 Japanese enterprises in China accounted for 20% of the total number of overseas enterprises in Japan, and sales reached 1..5 trillion yen in China, accounting for 11% of Japan's total overseas sales; more than 80% of them made profits in China, making profits 577 billion 400 million yen, accounting for 10% of the total profits of Japanese enterprises overseas.

At the same time, Japanese enterprises in China absorb about 9200000 jobs, and Japanese enterprises pay more than 49 billion yuan in 2005.

Compared with these figures, it is even more noteworthy that under the background of promoting globalization, Japanese enterprises' strategy in China has undergone important changes.

According to the Japan Trade Promotion Council, Japanese enterprises have always regarded China as an export base, while China's accession to the WTO has paid more attention to its sales strategy in China.

Wang Zhile noted that in recent years, Japan has entered China as one of the most competitive industries in the world.

In the past, Japan's electronic and electrical enterprises were developing strongly in China. Now, the main enterprises of Japanese automobiles have all entered China. In the past, Japanese manufacturing enterprises entered China, and now the service business departments of financial, logistics, retail and other service enterprises and manufacturing enterprises have also entered China. In the past, most Japanese enterprises used China as a product processing and assembling base, and now they operate China as an emerging market, thus investing more resources, including R & D and design.

At the same time, Japanese enterprises also adjusted their management structure in China.

This adjustment is manifested in the collectivization and localization of business in China.

Panasonic, Toshiba, Honda, SONY, Hitachi, SANYO and other companies have established their headquarters in China on the basis of original investment companies, and have given the power of regional headquarters to coordinate their business in China.

Wang Zhile pointed out that compared with 10 years ago, Japanese funded enterprises in China pay more attention to energy conservation and environmental protection.

They put energy conservation and environmental protection products into consideration, and pay attention to the environmental responsibility of products. They strictly control the production process, achieve energy saving and reduce pollution emissions; they drive local enterprises in the industrial chain to promote energy saving and emission reduction in the whole industrial chain; they not only pay attention to the energy conservation and environmental protection of enterprises themselves, but also promote the environmental protection of their communities.

The idea and practice of green products, green factories, green industrial chains and green communities in Japanese enterprises should be fully affirmed.

With the development of reform and opening up in the past 30 years, the main obstacle to hinder the development of Chinese companies is not only external but also the soul of the company -- how to establish advanced corporate responsibility concept.

Wang Zhile believes that at present is the third lifting stage of the development of Chinese enterprises, that is, the upgrading stage of enterprise concept.

He believed that with the beginning of reform and opening up, learning Japanese enterprises is an important way for Chinese enterprises to grow rapidly third times.

The company is dynamically benchmarking with Japanese companies.

Wang Zhile suggested that first of all, energy saving and consumption reduction should be benchmarked.

According to the data of MIZUHO Bank of Japan, the energy consumption per unit of GDP in China was 2.2 times higher than the world average in 2002, 2.4 times higher than that of the United States, 4.5 times higher than that of the European Union, and 8.3 times higher than that of Japan.

This shows that Japanese companies have much to learn.

Secondly, we should strengthen the corporate social responsibility and environmental responsibility.

Wang Zhile said: "we have collected a lot of successful experiences of Japanese enterprises in energy conservation, consumption reduction and pollution reduction, and collected a large number of cases of Japanese enterprises in technological innovation and social responsibility.

These cases show that Japanese enterprises are in a leading position in sustainable development.

We should see the gap between Chinese enterprises in sustainable development and continue to learn from Japanese enterprises.

If we learn from the past that Japanese companies focus on learning advanced technology and introducing advanced products and equipment, the focus of our learning today should be pferred to the concept of sustainable development and its advanced energy saving and environmental protection technology and management system.

We should improve the index system and assessment system of the company's sustainable development.

Wang Zhile said that many of our companies have clear targets for shareholder responsibilities, but they are unfamiliar with corporate social responsibility and environmental responsibility indicators.

In fact, more and more global companies recognize that the responsibility of an enterprise is the responsibility system including shareholder responsibility, social responsibility and environmental responsibility.

"We should learn from Japanese Multinationals, draw on their index system, and strengthen their concerns about employee participation, employee benefits, production safety, product safety, resource utilization, emissions and other indicators."

We should formulate specific measures to strengthen corporate responsibility and promote sustainable development.

Wang Zhile believes that the goal of corporate responsibility can not be achieved step by step.

"We should formulate a positive and practical implementation plan according to the capabilities of enterprises and the changes of external competitive environment.

This plan should form an organic whole with the company's future business development strategy and planning. "

However, Wang Zhile also does not deny that there are still some problems in a number of Chinese Japanese funded enterprises, which need improvement and improvement in the future.

He also suggested that with the increasingly clear goals of China's sustainable development, Japanese companies should pay more attention to China's energy conservation and environmental protection business, pay more attention to China's social responsibilities, and assume greater corporate responsibilities in China's energy conservation, environmental protection and social development, and make greater contributions to China's sustainable economic and social development.