In July of the year 2008, I have a chance to take a business trip to Japan with my colleagues. As for relevant summary, my went-along colleague has written much better. Japan indeed does very well in details. You can download it below.
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In Japan, Chinese characters are seen everywhere in the street, and Chinese architectures are filling your eyes. The oriental designs exist everywhere, which really make you feel much more Chinese than that of in current China. To persist independency and retain culture during development, about which Japan is extremely worthy of our study.
I have made some additions that not in the PPT attachment:
1、About Toyota
We have visited quite a few large corporations this time, one of which is the headquarters of Toyota Motor Corporation located in Toyota City that gives me only one feeling: Low-key. During the whole visiting, they only give the visitors a brief introduction of Hybird-Electric Vehicel, Toyota Partner Robot and i-Unit. Of all the introductions, they have never mentioned those words like 'Toyota is the second largest motor manufacturer in the world, and the top largest motor manufacter with the highest profit in Japan'. And the building of Toyota headquarter has just been completed for not a long time, and not magnificent as well. However, looking over the markets, you will find the street is filled with brands of Toyota(Only when arriving at Japan that I have discovered Toyota has so many brands and most brands adopt the same way of brand endorsement as 'Crown'). There are too many Toyota franchised stores like convenience stores, which considerably shock me: What a great ambition of Toyota!
2、About Uniqlo
As for introduction of Uniqlo, I have read it in Lao Gu's relevant articles (Please refer to See How Uniqlo Porpularizes Its Brand?), so I am somewhat farmilar with Uniqlo, and expectate too much of it. The first stop in Japan is Osaka. I only find two Uniqlo shops in Shinsaibashi, and later in some lager cities I can always see Uniqlo shops. At last we enter and stroll one Uniqlo shop in the downtown of Shinjuku in Tokyo, and we feel that the quality of Uniqlo is pretty good, most of which are made in China, but the style is really just so so, which is not better than that of domestic Giordano. I have bought a T-shirt cost 60RMB and a pair of sunglasses cost 60RMB as well. The colleagues, who have ever heard of my introduction of the glorious history of Uniqlo, have become suspicious of 'Brand Authority' which is not easily setup by me.
3、About MUJI
MUJI, as well as Uniqlo, is the advocate of 'non-brand' (Please refer to Lao Gu's introduction 'Extraordinary MUJI, and Excellent Mujist'). During my visit in Japan I haven't seen any MUJI shops until the last day on the way to Narita Airport, and I find a MUJI shop in AEON Store in Narita City. One thing than others to be mentioned is at last all my colleagues have bought at least 2 products in MUJI shop. MUJI products are not expensive but indeed delicately made (at lease much better than Uniqlo's). The clothing of MUJI is dressed very comfortably.
4、About SEIBU
The SEIBU store in Shinjuku of Tokyo sits right above Shinjuku subway which has a super large flow of people. My female colleagues strongly urge to go to SEIBU, since the high-end image that SEIBU in Shenzhen established has given us so much expectation of SEIBU in Tokyo that we should go and have a look, even though we cannot affort it. But we cannot stay in the store for no more than 2 minutes, because we are totally overwhelmed. Actually such high-end SEIBU is almost like Carrefour Supermarket, and the symbols of 'Discount' and 'Special Offer' are seen everywhere, almost like the domestic ITAT. It is miles away from our expectation. (TOBU store is beside SEIBU store. But it's regretful that when we get there, it is being closed.)
5、About “Haier”
When at Ginza in Tokyo, as Chinese we must mention about that billboard of Haier. But frankly speaking, I think that this board is mainly a symbol to comfort those Chinease travelling in Japan. The influence of Haier is still very small in Japanese market. Certainly, many famous international brands also have little influence in Japan. It is extremely difficult for foreign brands to enter into Japan main market. Their self-confidence in Japanese local products and effort on Japanese enterprises has greatly reduced the gap with foreign brands. Those days in Japan, we find that what foreign products Japanese pursue are only Apple products everywhere besides those luxuries like LV.
6、About “Traffic Jam”
The Japanese peasants also drive to work in their fields. But it is well known that Japan has a large population with small territory. When seeing our heavy traffic jam at home, I really want to know why this rarely happens in Japan.
During our seven days in Japan, except for a short time travelling on Shinkansen, we are almost travelling by car. On the way from Osaka to Kyoto and Tokyo, we only meet a light traffic jam for one hour. Other time we haven't meet any traffic jam. And it is amazing that the roads in Japan are very narrow, and maybe the intercity roads of a Chinese secondary city are wider than Japanese national highways. Personally speaking, the Desakota of Japan has reduced the pressure of traffic jam; but the essential reason is that Japanese drivers can obey the rules. If China wants to solve the traffic jam problems through constructing more roads and wider roads, I think it is putting the car before the house.
