Steelwedge Software

Steelwedge Software


S&OP, IBP & the Rebirth of a Nation: Reflections on a journey to Japan

Posted: 09 Aug 2012 06:31 AM PDT

Passing over the arctic circle aboard my favorite Boeing Triple Seven aircraft after a long journey to visit customers, prospects and the growing Steelwedge team across Asia and Europe, our Japan initiative is top of mind. Spain is in crisis and the social tensions have only just begun.  Greece is suffering with no solution in sight.  German is powering forward.  China expands.  The Unites States is adjusting and muddles forward.  And Japan?  It is the nation that has suffered more knock-out blows in its long history than any other place on earth.  Sometimes self-inflicted, sometimes not.  And yet Japan has a long and profound history of reinvention. A History of Reinvention At the turn of the 20th Century, after centuries of total isolation, the Meiji restoration opened Japan up to the world.  And within a few short decades Japan had not only adopted and internalized the greatest ideas of the West, but adapted and transformed these concepts in a meticulous and ingenious manner. After rising from the ashes of the Second World War, in the course of three decades Japan one again reinvented itself – transforming its economy and people from colonial warriors into a finely tuned economic machine.  By the mid-1980's, however, the collective Japanese survival imperative was replaced by comfort, luxury and individual materialism.… Read the rest

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