What’s on My Mind After Working for Sony and Google
As Sony’s in-house company president, Koichiro Tsujino led pioneering projects such as the Sugoroku DVD recorder and the next-generation TV called CoCoon. He resigned from the company in 2006 and joined Google the following year, displaying his shrewdness as president of Google Japan.
by Nobi Oda
In 2010, he founded his own ALEX Corporation, changing his career for the third time. ALEX promotes Japan’s exceptional ideas, culture, and products to the world through the Internet. We asked Tsujino what is behind his ideas, how Japan can contribute to today’s world, and how his experiences working at some of the best-run companies in Japan and the Unite States have helped him run his new business.
Japanese traits and culture can offer a lot to the world
Tsujino’s reason for starting up ALEX lies in his strong sense of crisis about the current state of Japan.
“Japan’s industrial structure is out-date and still stuck in the 20th century, unable to adapt to the new world that has been dramatically changed by the popularization of the Internet. In addition, fewer and fewer Japanese are interested in navigating uncharted waters. I was aware of these problems when I worked at Sony, but my feelings became even stronger after experiencing Google’s corporate culture. I wanted to do something to change Japan and ALEX is my answer.
The spread of the Internet has dramatically increased the power of the individual. Now that individuals all around the world can easily connect to one another, it has become possible to create new products and services using the world’s collective wisdom. As a result, speed, communication, and open-mindedness are becoming more important. Yet, most Japanese companies are not able to respond to these trends”. Tsujino was keenly aware of these problems from early on and is trying to show us a new type of company.
ALEX facilitates new product proposals / developments and puts out interesting information and contents about Japan, while aiming to provide communities and business structures to the people all over the world.
“Our idea is to be the platform that promotes Japan to the world. Specifically speaking, we run ALEXCIOUS, an e-commerce platform to export Japan’s exceptional products and a crowdfunding platform called COUNTDOWN for ambitious Japanese ready to take on the world.”
Why does Tsujino think of promoting Japan to the world?
“Japanese people are not so good at voicing their own opinions and promoting themselves. Even so, there used to be people who’d overcome these traits, take on the challenges of the unknown and propelled their business into the world stage. But such efforts were mostly made by the members of large corporations, leaving behind individuals as well as mid, small and micro businesses. Thanks to today’s technologies like the Internet, these entities can now aggressively pursue the world market that transcends physical borders. With ALEX, I hope to lay the groundwork for them and promote their efforts.”
Tsujino says Japan’s culture and style are exactly what the world is looking for today.
“The world is at a turning point in terms of value. Today’s world is off its moral axis in that people are out for themselves and countries are only pursuing their own interests in an extreme world where profits matter the most. We are faced with countless problems such as environmental issues that require the whole world to come together to find solutions. But we can’t solve these issues by forcing our way on others as the right way, an attitude the United States has taken at times. Selfish culture doesn’t work well, either. I believe the Japanese culture that values harmony is just what the world needs. Unfortunately though, the Japanese people have an inferiority complex about their own culture due to the trauma of losing the War, significantly impairing Japan’s national strength and competitiveness.”
In Japan, the society has progressed by prioritizing harmony and putting emphasis on others. Tsujino thinks that pushing such culture out into the world is not only good for Japan but also beneficial to the rest of the world. “True globalization is like a jigsaw puzzle. The world’s various cultures and societies act as necessary pieces that complete the puzzle. The Japanese culture that respects the differences can effectively make such world a reality.”
For that to happen, however, Japan’s basic methods and tools must conform to the world’s standards. “At ALEX, our standard language is English, payments are made with PayPal, and the whole world has been our target market from day one. You might think these are all basic concepts but the Japanese companies had not taken these simple steps up until now.”
Set out to revolutionize Sony, then inspired by Google
Tsujino’s ideas are rooted in his experiences at Sony and Google during the time when the relationship between cutting-edge technologies and our society was dramatically changing. In fact, Tsujino writes about his thoughts on starting his own company in his book Everything Google Needed I Learned at Sony. He writes, “I now have a dream. I want to build a new company for the 21st century that combines what’s best of Sony and Google.”
Tsujino joined Sony in 1984, after graduating from Keio University’s Graduate School. From Sony’s information system research lab, he went to the United States to study at the California Institute of Technology through Sony’s study abroad program. Upon returning to Japan, he worked on the company’s technological strategies until he was put in charge of rebuilding Sony’s VAIO business at age 40. There, he successfully turned profits in just two years. He also led projects such as the next-generation TV called CoCoon and the DVD recorder Sugoroku. CoCoon, in particular, was an extremely progressive attempt at using an internet connection to provide a user-preferred program recording experience as well as a service similar to social networking. But people at Sony didn’t quite understand Tsujino’s intentions and his ideas never got fully developed. Later on, Tsujino continued to pursue products fit for the next generation with the internet in mind, but was not able to accomplish them at Sony. Various reasons factored into this failure, but to put it bluntly, it was a side effect of a corporate disease, including the bureaucracy, increased conflicts within the company, and the growing conservatism of employees. Even a company like Sony, known as the most free and creative Japanese company founded after the War, could not escape this disease that affected many large companies.
Tsujino and Sony parted ways in 2006. And while mulling over the idea of starting up his own company, he got a call from Google. “I wanted to be an insider to find out the secrets of Google, a company that instantaneously dominated the internet world.” It was this curiosity that got him to change his career, becoming the president of Google Japan. At Google, he experienced the Silicon Valley culture, which left him with an intense impression.
“Personnel and organizations are constantly changing in Silicon Valley and sometimes through that process a hugely successful business venture is born. Google is one such company. People who are drawn to this type of company have their own agendas and clear purposes for work. No one is merely relying on the company, waiting to be told what to do.” Google also influenced Tsujino with its future-mindedness and positive company climate.
Sony and Google had something in common. They both created a new life style by putting out pioneering products and services that brought out the hidden needs of the market. Sony’s “Walkman” changed the way we listen to music and Google’s search engine changed the way we do our research and gain knowledge, also changing the advertising industry.
I want to grow Japan’s lifestyle industry into an export industry
ALEXCIOUS’s website is available in both Japanese and English. Some of the static pages are in 11 different languages, while its dynamic pages are in five languages so far.
“We’ve already been approached by 200 countries. We have made traditional Japanese crafts popular abroad. But, ALEX isn’t in the business of protecting the traditional craft industry. It’s natural that some things become obsolete. What’s important is to help make the Japanese lifestyle industry into a legitimate export business that can contribute to the progress of the Japanese economy. In fact, Italy and France are doing just that and their respective cultures have earned respect from around the world. There is no way Japan can’t do the same.”
What’s impressive about ALEXCIOUS’s website is the way it goes beyond introducing products by promoting their designers and producers with their photographs. This is also part of Tsujino’s plans to promote Japanese individuals to the world.
“There are many exceptionally talented Japanese people. But, these people weren’t known around the world and they certainly hadn’t promoted themselves. I’m trying to change that by actively focusing on these individuals.”
Japanese companies need to change even more rapidly
Japan was hit hard by the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011, but after three years the economy has recovered. That upward trend continues because of the fact that Tokyo won the bid for the 2020 Olympics. Still, Tsujino is apprehensive about the way Japanese corporations are letting their guards down.
“I remember Mr. Morita (Akio Morita co-founded Sony with Masaru Ibuka) using the phrase ‘prepare for stormy weather.’ Apparently, this is a term used in the Navy (Morita was a naval officer during the World War II) that means you should never relax during sunny weather and instead always look ahead and be prepared for bad weather with heightened alertness. Today’s Google is run with the same ideology in mind; always be alert in doing business because you never know when your rival will kick you off the top. I feel like the Japanese companies are letting their guards down in light of the current economic recovery. We can’t go back to the way we did business in the 20th century. There will be no future for us then.”
Tsujino says now is truly the time when Japan needs to be focused and must speed up the process of changes in society and business. The Japanese companies can learn much from ALEX and from Tsujino.
(translation: Japan Visualmedia Translation Academy)
Originally published at ignition.co.
