"Made in Japan" - Lessons for India

Finally, I have finished reading Sony's founder and former chairman, Akio Morita's autobiography "Made in Japan". Having read it across five months, it is difficult to sum up the book, yet I can't do without a vote of recommendation for this elegant book which holds a lot of words of wisdom. The book traces the growth of Sony Corporation from its origins as Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo from the ruins of World War II to the leading, pioneering electronics giant it is today. It required men of vision like Morita and Masaru Ibuka to start a company dedicated to producing quality electronic systems, while Japan was still devastated by the Word War. While Americans were still to realize the importance of the discovery of the transistor, Sony successfully revolutionized consumer electronics using the Americans own technology.

Morita spends quite a lot of pages talking about his business philosophy and the Japanese way of business. Especially, he is quite sceptical about the short-term goals with which American companies are run, the culture of litigation and the hire and fire policies in the U.S. His contrast of the U.S. way with Japanese business outlook made me think that we in India too need to develop practices that harness our strengths, address our cultural sensibilities rather than aping Western management practices. Today there is a lot of outcry over outsourcing to India in the U.S. However, it is not the first time the Americans are doing that. Morita minces no words for the U.S administrations attempts to curb exports from Japan to the U.S, pointing out the inefficiencies of the U.S. industry, which had started relying too much on other nations' productive capacity. Can we say the same thing about the Americans relying a lot on the brainpower borrowed from across the globe?

It is nice to read about different cultures and this book offers gllimpses of Japanese lives in the pre-World War II era. I don't know if this book is a translation, but I just loved the very simple usage of English and the plainspeak Morita indulges in.