It is no secret that when it comes to technology, the United States and Japan have been constantly at war. Now that Japan is entering the age of he Internet, this competition is becoming fiercer than ever. The Internet market is beginning to restructure Japan's economy, and a " restructured Japan is going to be an immensely powerful competitor in all sorts of markets." (Rohwer 115) The pricing and availability of Internet access, is one area in which Japan is beginning to excel, soon they will be able to undercut their American competitor in both ways. The sheer amount of products available on the Japanese Internet is growing by leaps and bounds everyday, and the American market will have to catch up, or drop out.
Today Japan is gearing itself up for total participation in the Internet market. It's Internet companies are becoming bigger they have ever been, and even bigger than many American Internet companies. The newest ones are those making all the profit there is to be made in the world of e-commerce. Internet mogul Heroshi Mikitani has recently created a virtual shopping mall called Rakuten . It is comprised of , " about 2000 stores… and is adding new ones at a rate of 200 a month." (115) The most shocking thing about the growth of this fairly new company is the fact that it hasn't even hit he public market yet. It's opening is scheduled for April.
Even though this Internet market is relatively new, more so in Japan, the stocks for these Internet companies are soaring to heights no one could have predicted. NTT Docomo, a Japanese communications company put out a handset that would allow cellular phone users to connect to the Internet. Today, their stocks have risen 300%. This increase is even unexciting when posted next to those of Softbank whose stock rose four times that much with an astounding 1250% increase. Yahoo Japan is the one that is doing the best, of all these, its increase was 4200%
As strange as it seems, due to the astronomical growth Japan is experiencing, there have to be some changes in the pricing and distribution of the Internet in Japan. As it stands now, it can cost anywhere from eighty to a hundred dollars just to connect to the web, add to this the two dollar per hour charge which accompanies many of the Internet providers initial fee.
7.Gregory Wester, Stephen Franco. The Internet Shakeout 1996. Interactive Commerce Research Bulletin. the Yankee Group, Boston, MA. December 1995
However entering into a market as different as Japan is not without its risks, and must be ensured to be successful, with the help of market research, marketing, and operational theories, lest the new venture become a very costly mistake.
The Asian market has had a large increase in a diverse marketing, and it is the best market for growth entry (). The internet has taken over in sales and product marketing this can get their message out faster about the new products, and new expansion. It also can help to benchmark customers’ needs and wants, and how many people have visited the website; the more traffic the better. They can also offer loyal customers a discount to promote sales in the U.S., as well as, offering web exclusive sales only. This can also help to save cost; they can also use blogs or social media to reach potential customers (Delaney,
Background One. Tel was launched by Jodee Rich and Brad Keeling in 1995 (Cook, 2001). At first, it looked to get the advantages from deregulation of the telecommunication industry by reselling other network’s capacity and making money through stock market speculation. Rich and Keeling tried to increase the company’s shares rather than profit the company (Cook, 2001). Initially, One.
Export trends have been an important factor during Japan's present economic adjustment period, and the structures of Japanese exports, together with the imports, have been changing substantially in recent years. The changes in the country's export and import structures during the 1990s can be characterized by the following three key developments: (1) the weight of IT-related goods has been rising in both real exports and imports; (2) real imports of consumer goods from East Asia has been increasing; and (3) the US remains Japan's largest trading partner as a single country. Due to these factors, maintaining its comparative advantage became the priority in the current global economy.
As compared to the other major companies in Japan, Rakuten is a considerably progressive company overall. However, albeit the great effort Rakuten has put in to achieve its aim of becoming a global company, it is still a distance away from achieving that goal. Its globalizing efforts such as the setting up of overseas offices, acquisitioning of small-medium enterprises, join ventures, Englishnization project and active hiring of foreign nationals have in many ways helped path the way for Rakuten to become a global powerhouse but they are, unfortunately, not a hundred percent successful. These global strategies could be further worked upon and hopefully in the near future, Rakuten could eventually become one of the leading Internet companies in the world. However, whether Rakuten could become the number one Internet company in the world remains a question mark.
As the internet increases its grasp on foreign markets, it was a natural progression for one of the most successful companies to be born from the internet to expand its operations into these fledgling countries. While the internet usage in foreign markets such as Japan, Europe, and China are just beginning to take shape, the number of new internet users in these markets is expanding at a much greater rate than in the United States.
Since its comet-like boom in the nineties the internet has attracted myriads of companies to do business on this boundaryless media. And the boom does not seem to stop. eCommerceis a catchword, which stands for a whole branch of new types of businesses that mushroomed up in the last couple of years. Retailers, all sorts of companies, even law offices are using the web for their daily business. There seems to be no comparable other way to develop and exploit global markets. The internet is more and more used as a fast, innovative and cost-saving tool to gain and serve customers where they feel most comfortable and relaxed, namely right in their office or at home (Jonscher, 1999, p.204). In the following there are just three examples of companies, which base a significant fraction of their business on the web.
Many of us, if not everyone, has heard of the country of Japan through various means. Possibly through popular films such as Godzilla or the renowned horror films which the country produces. Perhaps through the various anime TV shows that have been dubbed in English creating a massive fan base here in the United States, or the massive franchise Nintendo that has filled our child memories with countless hours spent in front of a screen playing Mario or Pokémon. One way or another the Japanese have shared their culture with a huge audience but thats only scratching the surface of the Japanese culture. The country of Japan wasn’t always the islands that we see there today, the formation of the islands occurred during 50,000 BC and ended in 10,000 BC following the end of the last ice age. This is when we find the first signs of civilization in Japan but they are nowhere near the modern day Japanese culture today. The early beginnings of today’s Japanese culture dates back to the year 538 AC with multiple time periods slowly building up to today. The Japanese culture of today shares a few aspects with our American culture we are familiar with, both cultures love baseball, we both have representative democracies as a form of government, and both cultures do not label outsiders differently and accept them just as equally. Even though we may share aspects of our culture with the Japanese our cultures couldn’t be anymore different from each other.
National Telecommunications and Information Administration. “A NATION ONLINE: How Americans Are Expanding Their Use Of The Internet.” September 2001. 21 February 2003 http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/dn/html/Chapter8.htm
Based on these concerns, retailers in the international marketplace have their work cut out for them. But through proper education of consumers, and the ever-expanding growth of the infrastructure in many countries, the future seems to be leaning heavily towards using the Internet for many needs.
The economic problem was that WorldCom had a vast supply in telecommunications capacity that emerged in the 1990s, as the industry rushed to build fibre optic networks and other infrastructure based on overly optimistic projections of Internet growth (Lyke and Jickling, 2002)
The key changes taking place in the online industry in 1995 are the introduction of the Microsoft network and the coming of use of the Internet World Wide Web which offered alternative channels to content providers that provided more control over their offerings and potentially higher revenues. Microsoft Network took only a 30% commission fee (versus 80% taken by AOL from its content providers’ revenues) from its content providers and offered providers the option of choosing any format and font to display their content (versus the standard screen displays offered by AOL and its rivals). Also, the per-hour pricing policy offered by Microsoft was superior to AOL’s. With the development underway of a way to provide on-line currency collection, the World Wide Web offered huge incentives for providers to start publishing material on the internet by their own means without having to go through a middle-man such as an online provider. Both of these offerings do not bode well for AOL’s future prospects due to the huge incentives for customers and content providers to switch to these alternative distribution channels.
Japan is a large island off to the east of China it is a great country that has a rich culture. The Japanese religion is based off of two main beliefs, the belief in Shinto and Buddhism many Japanese people believe consider themselves both. The Japanese people were known to be around as early as 4,500 B.C. They have constructed their government style to a constitutional monarchy where they do in fact have an emperor, but he has limited power within the country. The main power of the country is held by the Prime Minister of Japan. Japan is made up of many islands that extend along the Pacific coast of Asia. The land area is made up of a lot of forest and mountainous area that cannot be used for agricultural, industrial or residential use. Japan also has one of the largest and growing economies in the world. They are growing every day and it is all because the people of Japan work very hard in order for their economy to flourish as it has.
The Internet has become a key ingredient of strenuous and busy lifestyle. ‘Internet’ has become the central-hub for communication, explorations, connecting with people or for official purposes. Resultantly, Internet growth has led to a plethora of new developments, such as decreased margins for companies as consumers turn more and more to the internet to buy goods and demand the best prices.