Gerhard,
On 2/14/07, Gerhard Fasol <fasol@eurotechnology.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> If it was so easy as you think - then Vodafone for example would have
> easily
> succeeded in Japan etc.
You have been tossing stones at Vodafone for quite a while, and some of the
stones have hit close to a mark, but one thing to keep in mind: Vodafone
Japan was 99% Japanese. I counted. Sure, there were lots of foreign managers
at the top, and our former COO there in particular was that most venal of
parachuted foreign manager, who is too arrogant to listen to anyone with
local knowledge, takes decisions based on flawed and unworkable assumptions,
and so on. No doubt. But at base the problems were not because the company
was foreign but because the transition from 9 different regional companies
in Japan to one central one was handled poorly, and led to a real issue with
organisational initiative and innovation. There was way too much bureaucracy
in the way of offering new services and doing the things that would have
made Vodafone Japan more competitive, a bureaucracy that came about during
consolidation. And that bureaucracy was nearly completely Japanese. J-Phone
transitioned very poorly from a nimble and spunky loose conglomeration of
companies in regions, able to respond very quickly to market conditions, and
to release innovative products first, to a big clunky central company with
too much bureaucracy. There were certainly other issues, and idiot
foreigners played as great or greater a role in that as anyone else at
Vodafone Japan, but my feeling is that it is simplistic, and simply misses
the mark to blame Vodafone Japan's problems solely on foreigners not
understanding the Japanese market.
Best,
Nik
Received on Wed Feb 14 12:18:43 2007