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What to do more of

Hire or promote knowledge workers (such as Indian IT engineers & white hackers) who can help business owners understand how to integrate digital systems in their company because we are in the "digital economy".
Invest in data security and other remote work infrastructure (by using above knowledge workers)

Arrange practical IT policies and regulations so that people can work remotely without too much limitations.

Repurpose the space usage if you keep the space.

Do a proper PDCA cycle. Japanese people send so much time on Planning without Doing.

Clarify the accountability/responsibility of people (who makes the decision/who’s job is what etc)

Clean up the attendance list of every meeting (Many people are attending due to historical reason or inertia without contributing) Let them do something more productive instead.

Book the evening with something else to do other than work!


What to do less of

Stop looking only at domestic companies, famous universities or staff for knowledge workers. There are many internationally trained people (freeters and international students) who can help transition companies to adapt better to the digital economy, but the corporate hierarchy of aged based salary vs position and inflexible working hours is not attractive to these "knowledge workers".

Significantly reduce travel cost, commutation allowance cost, accommodation cost and entertainment cost.

Significantly cut down the number of meetings

Stop spending too much time for perfection in every single task as it is slowing things down


Other comments:
High context Japanese communications are more suitable for face to face meetings and difficult to be handled by remote work which tends to be content-based.

But the above sentiment should not become an excuse of slowing down the necessary digital transformation.

Manufacturing for quality products can not be handled remotely and their importance should not be ignored.

Japan productivity is the lowest among developed nations. Habitual thinking such as worries about making mistakes are deeply embedded in many Japanese people since their upbringing and they seem to be slowing down necessary transformation for better productibity. For the Japanese to be more effective in today’s business world, a lot of those deeply rooted traits should be overcome. More new type of Japanese leaders should emerge to be role models for the rest.

Responsibility of the leaders in Japanese companies is like a smoke. The higher it goes, the more it disappears.