Hello, my name is Yasushi Sasaki.
I'm the BCG System Leader of Northeast Asia, responsible for Japan and Korea.
Today I'm in Davos, participating in WEF,
together with our distinguished guest, Higuchi-San,
the Chief Executive Officer of Panasonic Connect. Higuchi-San,
thank you very much for joining us.
Thank you for having me.
Higuchi-San is a very famous, well-known business leader in Japan.
He started his career in Panasonic, then went to Harvard Business School,
joined BCG, this is important,
and then led many various important business leader positions like the
President of Microsoft in Japan, and rejoined Panasonic in 2017.
So he's a really distinguished business leader in Japan. So Higuchi-San,
this is your first time in Davos? That's what I heard.
Yes. This is my first time,
and this is also the first participation as Panasonic, so I'm so excited.
How's your experience so far?
There are so many influential people here, not only from business,
but also governments and academia.
So, very exciting. Yes.
Great. So this week, many business leaders, politicians, academic leaders,
I think they discuss various topics, and then they are... my impression is...
cautiously optimistic towards the future, but still uncertainty remains,
I think in all of us. How do you see... how do you set your business agenda,
priority agenda in 2023?
Actually, the purpose that I decided to participate in Davos
is to learn about what business leaders are thinking
about, what the priorities are,
so in a sense I'm learning a
lot here and many people are talking about environment,
right? So this is Davos, this is Europe.
So the environment is number one priority. I think so.
That made me think,
maybe feel that I have to embed the environmental priority
as the core of business strategies moving forward,
not just 2023, but beyond that too.
Great. So BCG also set two important agendas. One is climate and sustainability,
and one is digital and AI. So I highly agree with you.
I think that sustainability and climate is the most important agenda,
and we all discussed it in Davos this week. Talking about digital,
I think that's very much an important element in your business.
How do you see the impact of digital broadly on business,
and also particularly on the supply chain side, that's your core business.
Could you share your insights about the impact of digital in general
and also the supply chain impact?
Okay. Before that,
I think the weakness of Japanese companies in general
is lack of strategy. Where do you compete,
how do you compete? So,
strategic literacy,
in addition to IT literacy, is quite low, I would say,
compared to the business leaders in Europe and, and in America.
So when you say digital, I mean,
it's almost impossible to directly compete with GAFA,
Microsoft or big tech giants as well
as Chinese players.
So how you compete in digital areas is very important.
So, in the space of digital,
it's relatively easier to copy,
and also agility is very important. So, in that sense,
Japanese companies are not agile enough to lead a digital-only
space.
So the combination of analog and digital kind of hybrid
strategy is very, very key for the Japanese players too,
in terms of how to compete globally.
Very insightful...
What are the hurdles for the Japanese corporations to implement and execute
these digital initiatives? You said, you mentioned the word agility,
that's a key word, but I tend to see that... it's very, in general,
very slow in action,
but how can the Japanese corporations overcome that aspect?
Yes, still the way Japanese companies
develop products, solutions,
new technology is to work very hard,
in a very closed environment in the laboratory or in the factories.
But you have to look at the the big picture, right?
I mean, players in the world, how they are doing?
Otherwise you'll be disrupted easily.
And business model is equally very important
to compete.
Some players could come up with the kind of advertising-based model,
and providing the technology or solutions, for free. So,
looking at the whole picture of the competitive landscape is very key for
Japanese players. So that's one of the reasons I decided to come here.
Wow. Very good... Okay. So finally,
as I said, you used to work for BCG,
you were with us back in the early nineties. So,
this year is 60 years' anniversary for BCG... any reflections, memories,
good or bad, any suggestions or advice to the BCG colleagues in the world?
First of all, congratulations on the sixtieth anniversary of BCG.
I only spent two and a half years, I think,
with BCG's Tokyo office. But,
as I said, strategic thinking...
strategy is the weakness...
I mean area, for Japanese, any business person,
particularly the business leaders. So, being trained,
it was very hard for me in BCG for even the two and a
half years... was very, very valuable experience for my
career. And I would very much encourage the current
BCG employees to learn strategy - hard. So that will,
that will be very, very beneficial for a future business career.
Got it. Today, strategy is still the core,
but we are going beyond the strategy...
hope that we can brush up our value proposition. So thank you very much,
Higuchi-San, for joining us. Thank you very much.
Thank you for having me.