 
Vol.18 : David McCaughan (McCann Worldgroup)
June 27, 2007
Gov't blueprint carefully sidesteps details on reform
Nikkei index climbs to 7-year high
Consumers seek adventure
Nissan chief hints at longer-term vision
Expanded coverage: Spongy marshmallow given soft gourmet touch
CRM：(Customer Relationship Management) 顧客関係管理
disciplines：専門分野
central planning：中心となる企画
streamlined：合理化された
（ D: David, T: Terri ）
| T : |
How would you describe McCann Worldgroup specifically here in Japan? What do you guys do for those of us who don't know? |
| D : |
Well, McCann Worldgroup started off as McCann Erickson the advertising agency, which still it is, and that entity has been in Japan since 1961, and it's a complete service advertising agency. Well then, about 7 or 8 years ago, globally we started to restructure a bit as the communication industry changed and instead of just advertising, of course, most of their clients want integrated approaches to all marketing communication. |
| D : |
And we started to build individual companies that service other areas. So we have a company called MRM, which is mostly a direct response and CRM company; Momentum, which is mostly a sort of advent and promotions company. We own Weber Shandwick, the PR Company. So we have a number of other companies, and that all comes under now a total group called Worldgroup, McCann Worldgroup.
And my job as the planning director is really to sort of sit in the center of all of these companies and make sure that we are developing processes and strategies for clients that don't look at particular types of communication or promotion, but sit there and go what's the best solution and what sort of companies or disciplines or activities do we need, and how do we actually plan a complete process.
|
| T : |
So you're the central planning hub? |
| D : |
Yeah, it's like having a central planning hub that works across all these different types of disciplines, which is something that you know our company is doing, you know, other companies in that sort of industry are starting to think about because you can't plan...
In the old days we used to have like media planning departments that would just book the radio for example or TV or print, and then you would have a CRM company which was going up and doing something totally different in terms of developing a database and mailings and then getting into the internet, etcetera, etcetera. Of course that's useless. So you got to actually have a central planning to integrate all those things properly.
|
| T : |
One of the things I've learned in doing these Nikkei Weekly interviews is that some of the accepted wisdom, I guess, is that in Japan there is a lot of the issue of no central planning, like a lot of corporations here. A little more than perhaps in North America or Europe. There is like no central planning at all. |
| T : |
So it was a real need here in that sense, I think. |
| D : |
Yeah, it's sort of interesting because our client base is split pretty much 50/50 between our global clients and local Japanese clients. It is sort of interesting when you come and look at the Japan marketplace comparing it to say the United States, that a lot of even the major Japanese corporations take a very separated point of view.
You know it's very hard for example a marketing executive from a big American packaged goods company, when they come to Japan and find out that their Japanese competitors will have the PR department, the advertising department, the sales department, and the marketing department, a) are all separate entities. And sometimes all have their own advertising, and their own advertising agencies, and their own promotions.
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| T : |
These are major companies here. |
| D : |
And these are major companies, which in the American model of course, all that would be under the marketing department. So sales, advertising, PR is all just sub branches of the marketing department, and it is all streamlined and centralized more or less, whereas here it is still done in a very separated way.
Not in every company, and it is changing, but there are still many companies that do it that way. That just means that you sometimes have to work with companies where you're doing one thing for them and they are doing something totally different at the same time, you know, so...
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| T : |
Yes, it makes for a diverse work experience. |
silo：（組織の中で各部署の）交流がない様子
confines：規定するもの
empowered：力をつける
（ D: David, T: Terri ）
| T : |
Actually we are sort of moving into - the market here for corporate communications in general, I have a number of questions about it, but how would you describe, besides the issue of silos, how would you describe the market here, and it's 2007, so lots of changes, lots of new things going on?
|
| D : |
Well, yeah, in the whole marketing communications area, well, there are a number of things. One is that, as a general rule, it's not growing that fast. |
| D : |
And it's probably not growing as fast as the economy is again. So, one of the interesting things is that you actually look and see that companies are not increasing their budgets, for example, as much as the economy is. Now that is also reflected, you know, many companies will tell you that their sales are not increasing as fast as the economy goes. |
| D : |
And there are a lot of economic reasons why that's happening, but at the same time of course it's a mixed thing. So like everywhere else in the world, you know, the emphasis on the internet is growing. In Japan, perhaps more than most other countries, emphasis on mobile communication is growing because of the Keitai being so powerful here.
So there is a different balance that outdoor is much more powerful in a marketplace like Japan than say it is in the United States, or you are going to get to look at the subways, right.
|
| T : |
Right, yes, that's true. |
| D : |
Nobody wants to advertise in the subways because they are afraid you just get graffiti all over it tomorrow anyways, so they are wasted, so there are different sorts of things like that. But the other thing too I think is that, you know, some companies like ours fortunately are having a pretty good time at the moment, but the industry as a whole is having to get used to change, just as the whole society is getting used to change and getting used to the fact that things aren't going to work exactly the way they did in the past.
And so while some companies are saying let's keep on doing the same thing that has always worked, other companies are sort of starting to experiment a bit more and question the mix of things, you know, the traditional reliance on television, etcetera is changing with some companies. |
| T : |
One of the reasons that I'm a McCann fan is because this type of media, you go beyond 'are you buying 'x' toothpaste', I think that's really, really important because people aren't just wallets. |
| D : |
No, people aren't wallets, that's the point. There's not - I've never met, you know I always make a big point that whenever I am teaching inside a company or giving sort of presentations to people in our industry if you're in a room listening to me give a talk about advertising or communication, by definition you're not a normal person because normal people don't want to know about it. Normal people don't sit there watching reels of commercial after commercial after commercial... |
| T : |
They don't go to the award shows... |
| D : |
They don't go to Cannes, the award show that's on this week and for many, many, many people it would be punishment to do that. So unless it was one of those goofy shows about the 50 funniest commercials or something, right... |
| T : |
Right, right, exactly. |
| D : |
So, way I look at it is that we have to break down that barrier of understanding that real people don't think like we do, real people never want to be considered as consumers. In fact if you go out to people on the street and say I'd like to talk to you because you are a typical consumer they'd say I am not a consumer, you know, I am Ralph or, you know... |
| D : |
You are not going to do that. So we have to think of it in that way.
So we end up doing an awful lot of research to understand not the consumption/usage of products and brands, of course we do that, but what we feel what's much more important is to do a lot of background work on understanding people.
And so in the last 3 years or so here in Japan we've launched a lot of ongoing studies where we have one major thing we do which is called McCann Pulse which is an ongoing look at people's lives, and we then within that put together programs like 'Real Mothers' or 'Real Fathers'.
It started off with real mothers with us, in the general course of discussions with young mothers, women in their 30s with young children discovering that they thought of themselves as being very different from women who are only 10 years older in their approach to motherhood, but also in their approach to themselves.
And so we started to dig into what do they really think about themselves, themselves as mothers, themselves as wives, themselves as women, and that was one of the confines, was that today a young mother doesn't see herself as a young mother, she sees herself as a woman who has chosen to be a mother as part of her life, as opposed to not that long ago when you had a child you gave up your life. You were only then seen as a mother, okay. So motherhood is just, it goes back to my earlier point, it's a luxury that you choose to enter into as opposed to any other luxury you choose to enter into.
After doing that, we published these magazines about 1 or 2 a year where we summarize what we've been finding out about these things. And after a couple of those on mothers, one of my guys that works for me here came up and said, what about the poor fathers? Because of course what we were learning in all these discussions was that while women were feeling more empowered, more confident certainly because of the experience of the OL lady during the bubble years as they have got older, got married etc., that worldliness they learn from becoming the world's largest luxury goods buyers, etc., etc., has spun off into a different way that they treat their husbands or different expectation for their husbands.
And so we all know that Japan went through their phase where you as a young woman would say, you know, I want a husband that not only makes money and stuff but is actually intelligent, you know, is actually going to pay some attention to me.
We've also had 10 years experience of being educated by Korean soap operas. What is - I always talk about the fact that the really popular culture like soap operas is the real education world. What the women learn from Korean soap operas. There is a hope of romance...
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| T : |
That's right, gentleness and... |
| D : |
Right, now I know because I have gone to Korea many times and I have a lot of Korean friends, that isn't true, but the perception in the media is, media is a very powerful perception model (don't believe anything you hear on this show).
And so we got into doing this thing on real fathers with sort of that stuff and then we've done other things - we also did a thing on Heisei kids. Late last year we did a - we started to go into more depth on the kids that are in that sort of 16-, 17-year old period that's the first kids born in the Heisei period, which is an interesting route because globally that is the first generation, if you think about the average 17-year old kid today in Japan, he got his first mobile phone at 9 and-a-half.
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| D : |
So he's had a mobile phone for 8 years, and he's only ever known 3G phones, he's only ever known internet-ready phones. So what is now considered in the United States as the most advanced, you know, |
| D : |
These kids have only ever known that. Now they may not have used all the capabilities, but their minimal idea to expect from a phone is what the rest of the world sees as the most advanced phones. And what perception then does that give them in terms of expectations, etc. So we've put together all these studies in sort of booklets magazine formats and send them to clients or give them to radio journalists. |
| T : |
Really? Thank you. What I am looking at now, listening audience, is very neat- A4 - no B5 magazines that are, thank God, in English as well, that tell stories. |
| D : |
And I have just been reminded that I have to say for the 'Real Father' study we actually have a website that is opening on Monday. |
| T : |
Last question is what's your experience if any, with the Nikkei Weekly? |
| D : |
The print form or the podcast? |
| T : |
Oh no - well the podcast - this is the first time but the print - the newspaper. |
| D : |
Well, every Monday morning that's the first thing I do. |
| D : |
It gets - I get into the office at about quarter past seven in the morning and its usually lying around somewhere and the first thing I do is go through it and look for what's going on and what's in trend things and what I can talk to my colleagues in New York and London and show off about... |
| D : |
You know, because I always gets the e-mails every week, you know, about what's happening in Japan and it's usually in the variety of what weird stuff are they drinking this week, but... |
| T : |
There is jealousy there. |
| D : |
There is a jealousy thing. Today you know, like years ago, it was like there was literally tell me something strange to tell at dinner parties. |
| D : |
More and more it is literally like give me an idea because if you think ... |
| T : |
Because that's where it is happening. |
| D : |
Right. Because if you think about [innovative flavors of]water, if you think about any type of beverage, because I am looking at the water you holding but, beverage if you look at the convenient stores... |
| D : |
And what goes on here, they are literally the products that one in five of those will be a hit in France in 3 years from now. |
 Frank Foley / Senior Vice President
HIT Entertainment 
Vol.17 : Daniel Edwards (Heidrick & Struggles Japan)
June 20, 2007
Vocal shareholders gear up for showdowns at meetings
Beleaguered Abe ponders postponing poll
Wanted: 90,000 software engineers
Temp agencies scramble for staffers
Expanded coverage: Tokyo's Akihabara slated to become IT testing ground
highly qualified personnel：高い能力のある人材
with bell and whistle：非常に複雑な
redundant：不必要な
leveraged：支えられている
at one's fingertips：すぐに使えるようにしてある
（ D: Daniel, P: Peter ）
| P : |
Okay, this is Peter Barakan. Today I am talking to Daniel Edwards, who is the Office Managing Partner in the Tokyo office of Heidrick & Struggles. Excuse me sir, Heidrick & Struggles is a new name to me. Can you explain a little bit about what it is the company does, first? |
| D : |
Certainly. Heidrick & Struggles is an executive search firm and we focus on placing senior executives, generally at the Chief Executive Officer, Chief Financial Officer, Chief Operating Officer or Board level, ideally into Fortune 500 or equivalent-size companies. |
| P : |
Okay, and the company is worldwide? |
| D : |
Yes, there are 55 offices spread across the globe and probably about 12 offices in Asia-Pacific, and we have been here in Japan for the past 15 years.
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| P : |
So you're finding highly qualified personnel - you're headhunters basically. |
| D : |
Yes, we like to disguise it, but we are in fact head hunters. |
| P : |
Are you finding Japanese people to work in foreign companies, foreign-owned companies or vice-versa or a combination of lots of different things: how does it work? |
| D : |
It's a good question, and I think our world is the full range of placements in dealing with domestic candidates and non-domestic candidates, domestic companies and non-domestic companies. The majority of our work has been finding Japanese candidates for multinational corporations operating here in Japan, but we would certainly like that to change. |
| P : |
In what way would you like it to change? |
| D : |
We would like to spend more and more time working with Japanese corporations, either finding them executives within Japan or helping them find executives for either their operations overseas or acquisitions they may have made overseas. |
| P : |
Okay. So let's take - let's try and take, I don't suppose you can give names, can you? |
| D : |
To a degree we can or situations where we might be helpful, it might be interesting to be helpful I think. I have noticed since I have been here that there is an increase in activity around Japanese firms buying assets overseas.
So Nippon Steel's acquisition of Pilkington Glass, a British company and or Japan Tobacco's acquisition of Gallagher... Our hope is that as the economy has strengthened here and acquisitions overseas increase, we may be able to talk to headquarters here in Japan about potentially finding them executives for some of those companies overseas. |
| P : |
I see, and typically how do you go about finding people?
|
| D : |
That's a good question. The - I would have to say the expectation I think sometimes is that we have a joint database with bells and whistles on that spits out three or four names in every project we work on... |
| D : |
But, the reality of the situation is that today's workforce is so mobile that the database can become redundant very quickly. So honestly on every project we work on we take quite a fresh approach and spend a good deal of time working to identify the top, let's say, three or four individuals who may be appropriate for that situation and that's through a combination of telephone work and desk research.
It's not to say that those three of four individuals will be available or interested in the position that we are recruiting for, but it's our job to identify the top people and then trying to see if one of them is available. |
| P : |
Okay, and that sounds like a fairly intensive line of work? |
| D : |
It is labor intensive and obviously as in many jobs we work long hours here, but we are leveraged by a group of 100 to 150 people who are based in a knowledge management center with Heidrick & Struggles in New Delhi. |
| P : |
New Delhi, and they are what, coordinating information globally? |
| D : |
Some of that. It's proactive talent mapping as well so rather than waiting for a project to come along and going out to try to identify the top five CFOs in the healthcare sector, we might do that in advance and so the group there is proactively mapping out talent to identify. |
| P : |
So a client comes to you and you say, 'Ah yes we have just the person for you.' |
| P : |
Sort of at your fingertips. |
| D : |
Five of those in our shopping basket exactly, yeah. |
cultural affinity：文化の親和性
subset：小集団
MNCs：Multinational corporations
ad-hoc：その場その場の
succession planning：後継者育成
tenure：在職期間
（ D: Daniel, P: Peter ）
| P : |
Have you found any major differences between the way your business works here and the way it was when you were in New York?
|
| D : |
Absolutely. Even in a short period of time of 5 or 6 months there are some obvious differences to me. I think that executive search in Japan is harder in that finding candidates who are qualified to work in multinational corporations is a challenge, in that candidates will need to have some kind of cultural affinity with a multinational corporation in order to be effective and be comfortable communicating with numerous different parties overseas or across the rest of Asia.
And also be comfortable with perhaps a slightly different business environment from a traditional Japanese company. So almost by definition before you start a search, you are immediately dealing with a subset of the overall candidate pool, whereas you maybe dealing with the entire candidate pool in the search in the US or Europe.
That's one difference, but that being said, once you have come up with a shortlist of perhaps the three to five candidates for a position, we find that clients are able to make decisions much more quickly around who they might want to hire than in the US or Europe, and I put that down to the fact that clients understand that there is not a finite pool of talent to search from. A client in the US... |
| P : |
You mean there isn't an infinite? |
| D : |
Sorry, apologies, yes, non-infinite pool of talent to search from. |
| D : |
Clients in the US will be happy to carry on shopping for one of a better description, always convinced that the grass maybe greener somewhere else, and whereas here clients realize the difficulty of finding qualified people for multinational corporation situations.
From a candidate's standpoint, one of the things I have noticed is that loyalty to one's previous employer plays a more significant role in the close of a candidate. So it's harder here to extract a candidate from their previous company than it might be elsewhere. |
| P : |
Also, you were saying to identify whether the candidate is going to be suitable for working in a multinational or not? How do you go around making that decision or that judgment? |
| D : |
It's a combination...
|
| P : |
You have to meet the person? |
| D : |
Absolutely, it's a combination of I think qualitative assessment and quantitative assessment. You know, on the quantitative side, you can rely on prior career and educational experience, if someone has worked in MNCs before and shown some success, if someone has been perhaps educated overseas, done an MBA before.
It's not an absolute measure, but that's an indicator that maybe a higher chance of success. And on the qualitative side is sitting with an individual and running him through an interview and gauging face-to-face how suited they might be. |
| P : |
Right.
So you find a candidate for a client. How long do you stay involved in that process once you've placed the person with the client? And if the deal goes through, is that the end of your participation? |
| D : |
This has evolved over the 5 or 6 years that I have been with Heidrick & Struggles. When I initially joined, we didn't have the capability to provide any kind of professional on-board surface or after-care as it were. And we would do it on an ad-hoc basis. If an individual consultant had formed a close relationship with a candidate, they would check with him regularly over the first couple of months that they might be at a new firm.
However, we have since branched into what we call leadership consulting, which ranges from working on organizational structure with boards and CEOs, succession planning, but also quite importantly as you pointed out, on-boarding as well, and we will have a leadership consulting consultant assigned to a placed candidate for the first maybe 3-6 months of their tenure. |
| P : |
You said that people warned you, you might have to have increased patience when you are in [Japan], and you find that wasn't the case. Have there been any other issues in Japan, which you weren't expecting, but have produced problems for example, or that you found challenging, let's say? |
| D : |
I think the most common question I receive from the people who I previously worked with in the US is, how can you do business in Japan if you don't speak Japanese?
And I would say that, you know, 90 odd percent of the individuals whom we interact with through our executive search work here, in all industry sectors quite frankly, whether it is the industrial sector, healthcare, consumer technology, speak very good English, and from that standpoint, while I'm spending a good deal of time trying to learn Japanese, it's not been as great an obstacle as one might have imagined. |
| P : |
If you don't speak or read Japanese, obviously to get your business information you rely on the English language media. Are you aware of the Nikkei Weekly? |
| D : |
I was more familiar with the Nikkei itself. However, in advance of this conversation, I've done some of my own research and started to read the Nikkei Weekly and, you know, I would now consider myself a reader.
|
David McCaughan / Executive Vice President
McCann Worldgroup
Vol.16 : David Blume, O.B.E. (Jaguar and Land Rover Japan)
June 13, 2007
Confidence in economy boosts long-term rates
A world of stuff at your thumb tips
Party manifestos unveiled ahead of poll
Pricier food, services squeezing consumers
Expanded coverage: Tokyoites take to urban farming
synergies：相乗効果
leverage：活用する
tripolar：三極化
convergence：収斂
（ D: David, P: Peter ）
| P : |
When did Land Rover become part of the Jaguar Group? |
| D : |
Well, both Jaguar and Land Rover were actually a part of what's called Premier Automotive Group, which is a cluster of brands owned by Ford Motor Company.
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| D : |
And it includes Volvo as well and until recently it included Aston Martin, but in fact that particular company was sold literally within about a week ago.
|
| D : |
So, these three brands are the sort of premium brands owned by Ford Motor Company. |
| P : |
I didn't realize Volvo was part of the same group. |
| D : |
Since around about 2000 or '99, somewhere around about that time.
|
| P : |
But operating completely independent here in Japan.
|
| D : |
Each of the companies operates as an independent entity within The Ford Group of Companies in the Ford World, but independent in the sense of brand.
So, maintaining brand identity, maintaining a business as that brand, but from the point of view of enterprise efficiency, we look for all of the possible synergies that we can look for in terms of sharing technology or investment or know-how and it's a very investment-intensive business, and is a very knowledge-intensive business.
So, these days to be competitive, you have to be able to dip into a really big resource pond and that's why you see so many of what used to be smaller manufacturers now being a part of bigger groups and owned by bigger companies because to survive in today's world there is so much that you have invest in terms of knowledge that small companies really can't keep up with that anymore.
|
| P : |
And is that true for every company in the car industry, including the ones that are not premium brands?
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| D : |
Pretty much so, I mean just to meet the legislative requirements these days for safety, fuel consumption, emissions, all of these things that you're obliged to do just as to get into the start line, price of entry if you like...
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| D : |
...the know-how that's required to be able to deliver those things gets more and more and more difficult, requires more and more and more investment and know-how.
So, smaller companies inevitably, they get squeezed economically by this and then as this happened in the last decade, they become acquired by larger companies that see some value in the brand, and so the merit for the smaller companies that it becomes able to access this kind of pool of information or to leverage the purchasing power, for example, of the big company.
These kind of things change the equation then for that small company and make it a smaller brand, make it possible to continue in business and be healthy as part of a bigger entity.
|
| D : |
But at the same time, of course, when you're talking about brands the whole point is that it represents something differentiated, so a Jaguar is not the same as a Volvo is not the same as a Land Rover.
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| D : |
And so you have to work hard to maintain those distinctions and I mean people often say, "Well, cars look all the same these days, don't they?" And actually yes they do...
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| P : |
A lot of them do, yeah.
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| D : |
...they do and it's not that manufacturers want them to all look the same, but in a sense we get legislated into a fairly tight framework and in terms of what we are required to do technically for vehicles, safety particularly.
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| P : |
Surely those regulations must differ a lot from country to country, don't they?
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| D : |
Well, they do differ, not so much country to country these days, more block to block, what do I mean? Take Europe as one legislative block...
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| D : |
That's one of the benefits of being European community. USA is another sort of legislative block. Japan is different and then you have some other countries, which are kind of trying to figure out where they are in the firmament, as it were.
Are they going to attach themselves to this pattern or that pattern? It's a sort of tripolar situation really at the moment. There is a lot of interest, I think, in increasing the convergence, moving closer and closer together.
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| D : |
Certainly, manufacturers would wish this because then you don't have to find three variations of the same answer to solve, you know, legislated versions of the same problem.
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| D : |
So, we would like to go that way. And generally the governments and, you know, the people thinking about and formulating the legislation in these major markets are all kind of going in the same direction. They want to protect their citizens in terms of safety, they want to, you know, pollute the planet less, they want to use less carbon fuels and they all are going in the same direction.
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| D : |
But trying to get everything going at the same speed, trying to get everybody to actually say, "Well, we can all agree on this," is not that easy.
And some of that's political because of the local pressures and some of it may be concerned with the specific conditions in one market so that when you take a country like Japan, geographically small, big population, high metropolitan population densities and density of cars, okay, Japan will say, "Well, we have special problems. We want to do all of the things everyone else wants to do, but we've got kind of special problems. So, we want to do it with a twist."
And it's the with a twist bit that causes, you know, every manufacturer to go, "Okay, you are right, with a twist," and then America has a different set of, you know, local political things that it needs to negotiate and there's a twist there. So, it's those sort of with a twist things that give the manufacturers fits, but the general tendencies are all going the same way, everybody is trying to make cars that are safer, cleaner, and less fuel consuming.
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alternative fuels：代替燃料
ethanol：エタノール
hype：誇大広告
endgame：最終段階
ample：豊富な
arable land：耕作に適した土地
sunk cost：埋没費用 (支出済みで回収できないコスト)
down the road：今後
interim：暫定的な
screw around：時間を無駄遣いする
（ D: David, P: Peter ）
| P : |
Are we going to be seeing Jaguars and Land Rovers that run on alternative fuels?
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| D : |
Well, we already have Jaguars and Land Rovers that run on alternative fuels, but it depends on...
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| D : |
...what alternatives we are talking about really.
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| P : |
Well, I was talking about ethanol or whatever... |
| D : |
Well, I mean at the moment we produce cars that basically run on gasoline and diesel.
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| D : |
And, yes, there will be products in the future that will run on something else, but, you know, then we get into the debate about what they should run on.
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| D : |
And to be honest, I mean, there's a lot of hype at the moment about, you know, bio this and ethanol that and hybrids and so on and frankly there is no single horse to back here, that's going to be the almighty solution.
Probably, we are looking at a period in the next 5 or 10 years where manufacturers will start to offer everything, consumers may try everything and some solution may fit to a certain consumer or a certain market condition better than others. That solution may not be quite right for somewhere else.
To me anyway, none of these things is the endgame, I think it's all, you know, a little bit of shuffling that's going on and on, and I don't think hybrid's the at the moment, but it's developing a role. I don't think in reality the planet is going to grow what would otherwise be foodstuffs and then turn them into fuels, I don't see that happening, I don't think that's a politically survivable...
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| P : |
I must say I hope not, yeah. |
| D : |
...yeah, I just don't see that being really - you can do it on a - all of these things can be done on a small scale, but you start thinking about rarely replacing petroleum products, rarely replacing that volume, I don't see it coming off in that way, so you know a country like Brazil where they have ample supply of material that they can use, waste the material mostly that they can use to produce a kind of bio-fuel...
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| D : |
...fine, but the idea that somewhere like Japan starts growing bio-fuel, I don't think so. What are the economics of that, and then you should pay someone else in another country to turn their arable land from food production into fuel production, I don't buy that either. So, I think that there are some limits there, even though you can burn the stuff, it doesn't necessarily follow that everyone is going to end up doing that.
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| D : |
And if you think about the investment that's already out there in the car industry and the investment and it's out there in the oil industry, how do you distribute this magic fuel, because without distribution you don't have consumption, so it's one thing, you know, to discover this new sort of Holy Grail fuel, but it's another thing to distribute, those kind of challenges are not met yet.
Hydrogen, for example, wonderful idea, you can burn it in engines very much like today which is a great idea by the way because that means that all the sunk cost of the industry can still be used, but how do you store it, and how do you distribute it.
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| D : |
We don't have answers to that yet. That may be 10, 20, 30 years down the road, fuel sales 10, 20 years down the road, that's why I said, I think, this is a sort of interim period where we are going to see lots of different things kicked around and there will be a lot of...
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| D : |
...political footballs involved in this before technology is moved as to something that really could be a rather more almighty solution.
...I came for a - I was very fortunate to be chosen for a program run by the European Commission called the Executive Training Program in Japan. We kind of short-handed to ETP, and I took part in ETP4. The program is still running. It's up now to the ETP20 something, I can't remember the number now, and that was in 1983. I came out for that program and it was an 18-month program. First year was language school...
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| D : |
...with daily language school from probably 9 till 3 everyday and then you go home and prepare vocabulary and you practice some Kanji and you...
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| P : |
That's pretty intensive.
You must be invaluable to head office in England because... |
| P : |
No, I mean really to be able to understand the thought processes behind the decisions made by your Japanese colleagues here is something that not all - I mean, not very many businessman, non-Japanese businessman here can do probably. |
| D : |
I am not sure whether I do either, but I think I recognize the signs when I don't, which is perhaps just as important. I can't put myself in their place and I realize that.
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| D : |
That's one of the - I think that's after you have been here a while, I mean one of the clear things is that you are a non-Japanese and you never will be.
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| D : |
No matter how many hours you prepare to put into learning the language.
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| D : |
That's - you learn that and a bit more but that's it, but one of the important things that you acquire is the understanding of when you don't understand, and then you kind of have to let people have their run to the point where you understand again, kind of thing.
So, it's a little bit like skimming stones, you know when it touches the water and when it flies through the air. You don't - you are not necessarily in continuous touch with every single thing that's going on, part of it you understand intimately but another part of it you don't understand until it gets a bit further on and you see what the result is and you have, okay I understand how we got there now.
I think it can be uncomfortable at first because it's like, I don't know, it's like taking the hands off the wheels or something...
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| D : |
And riding a bike with no hands or something, you know, and you want to grab the handlebar, but you shouldn't - you kind of, I suppose, learn that you shouldn't interfere at that point, you have to let things run because the fact that you don't understand isn't a good enough reason or you don't completely understand isn't a good enough reason to screw around somebody who does understand.
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| D : |
So, try to let it run and I suppose I feel a lot more confident after several years in Japan to do that because...
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| D : |
...you trust the people.
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Daniel Edwards / Managing Partner
Heidrick & Struggles Japan
Vol.15 : Paul Sands (Virgin Atlantic Japan)
June 6, 2007
Abe faces stormy weather in run-up to July elections
Gov't plans net taxation on financial income
Unemployment hits 9-year low
Matsushita Electric in biggest-ever recall
Expanded coverage: Businessmen switch ties for leis
hub：拠点
island hop：島を巡航する
latch on to：興味を惹かれる
in-flight entertainment：機内エンターテインメント
across the board：全体的に
go off the beaten track：一般的な方法を外れて
itinerary：旅程
（ PS: Paul, PB: Peter ）
| PB : |
How many destinations does Virgin fly to out of Japan now? |
| PS : |
Out of Japan, we just have a daily service to London.
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| PS : |
But that connects on with our own services or with our partners to, well, you know, dozens and dozens of destinations. |
| PB : |
Right and are you flying - do all of your flights originate out of London or do you have flights from one foreign country to another foreign country, from the point of your - being an English company? |
| PS : |
Yeah. Well, very much the hub is the UK.
|
| PS : |
We do actually have a few flights that go on, so for example our flight that goes to Hong Kong then goes on from Hong Kong to Sydney.
|
| PS : |
We also have some flights in the Caribbean that start in London, but then island hop.
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| PS : |
So, we are pretty much a UK hub based airline, but there are a few flights that go on.
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| PB : |
What sort of services have you found that the Japanese travelers particularly enjoy or latch on to?
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| PS : |
Well, very interestingly we get very, very good feedback about our in-flight entertainment from Japanese travelers and, you know, watching movies seems to be very important to Japanese. One thing we do have that works very well is video-on-demand on board...
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| PS : |
...so you can stop the movie, you know, go to toilet, go and have a walk around the cabin, come back and start again...
|
| PS : |
...not many airlines have that at the moment and that seems to score a lot of points with Japanese. I think Japanese travelers care a lot about food as well, so we have bento boxes on board. The presence of Japanese cabin crew does well for us.
|
| PB : |
...the job you're doing now, does understanding the Japanese psyche play any kind of role in it?
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| PS : |
I think it does actually, yeah. Obviously understanding the needs of travelers is very important to us and if we want to succeed in this marketplace we need to understand what services are important for Japanese, which destinations they want to go to, so understanding the Japanese psyche is important.
I think especially now because I detect coming back to Japan this time there are changes going on in our market. Japanese used to be, I think, quite nervous travelers and, you know, they used to want to go to the same destinations that everyone else had been to.
They very much used to want to travel in large groups and stick together and have everything organized for them. Still a large part of the market is like that, but this time I detect a lot more independence and...
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| PB : |
Among younger travelers or across the board?
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| PS : |
Not necessarily. No. Across the board. In Japan, now people seem more confident to go off the beaten track and to organize things for themselves. You know, package tours is still a big, big part of the market, but every year there are more and more people who book their own air ticket, book their own hotel and arrange their own itinerary.
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| PB : |
Right, the internet has really opened everything up in that way.
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| PS : |
That's helped a lot too, yeah.
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sweeping changes：抜本的改革
modernize：現代化する
（ PS: Paul, PB: Peter ）
| PB : |
Within the air travel industry as a whole in Japan, how do you see the role of Virgin and how do you see that developing?
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| PS : |
Okay. Well, I think we've got an interesting role to play here because we are a relatively small fish in this particular pond. You know, we have our daily flights from Tokyo to London. We don't have the kind of market power to come in and make sweeping changes in this market...
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| PS : |
...but I think our mentality is that we do want to be a leader, so where we can we would like to encourage the market to modernize. In terms of our own operations, I think, we would love to expand here too.
You know, there were some very interesting other Japanese cities that I would love to see a flight from, for example, from Osaka to London or from Nagoya to London at some point in the future.
Right now, this year the market probably isn't ready for it and we need, you know, the Japanese economy to continue to recover for another year or two. We are very much committed to Japan and we would like to expand our operations here at some point in the future.
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| PB : |
Okay, the Nikkei Weekly, are you a reader? |
| PS : |
I am not yet. No. I mean to be completely honest with you, when I was approached about this interview, I had heard the name, but I didn't know much all about Nikkei Weekly, since then I have asked a couple of people if they know a bit and most people do actually so - and you have been - I don't how I have avoided Nikkei Weekly so far, but I know you have a very good reputation.
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David Blume OBE / Managing Director
Jaguar & Land Rover Japan
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