日本科技公司集体陨落

    日本电子行业愈发低迷。当日本公司巨头夏普（Sharp）面对这一片倾颓之时所思考的问题是：还要经过多少次的整顿、付出多大的努力，才能拯救曾经辉煌的科技产业。日本的分析人士则琢磨着下一个会轮到谁。

    日本战后开始崛起，从电子制造业的新手一跃成为晶体管时代的领袖。日本最大的电视机制造商夏普亲身经历了这一切。不过一些观察人士认为，夏普甚至差点就撑不到本月公司百年庆典的召开。尽管夏普削减了工资和岗位，但它的股价仍然大幅下滑（今年内股票跌幅已达到73%），公司遭遇了巨大的损失。与此同时，其他的电子产业巨头如索尼（Sony）、奥林巴斯（Olympus）等也正在痛苦挣扎。它们的品牌形象，从日本国内精心制造的高端产品，沦为了在中国制造组装的快餐式产品。“过去的好时光早已一去不复返，却没人意识到，”前苹果（Apple）日本经销商Hideki Onda在提及电子行业一夜之间竞争力的时候说了这么一番话。

    究竟是怎么回事？他说，日本的电子制造商没有跟上世界的节奏。不像他们的竞争对手苹果，日本的制造商近来不仅和世界脱轨，甚至也没有迎合国内消费者的需求。如今，到了他们付出代价的时候。日本的电子制造商曾是无可争议的行业巨擘，销售总额高达6,000亿美元，相当于荷兰一国的经济收入。但如今他们却笼罩在国外公司的阴影之下：三星（Samsung）的资产是1,630亿美元，苹果公司则是6,340亿美元。与之相比，按如今的市值，索尼、松下（Panasonic）和夏普的资产总和仅有540亿美元。

    由于产品需求疲软，日元却持续坚挺，松下、索尼和夏普去年加起来损失了几十亿资产。而仅仅夏普一家公司就对银行和债券持有人欠款多达310亿美元。从这一系列数据可以看出，以韩国三星电子为首的国外竞争者对日本电子工业造成的打击。

    位于东京的技术顾问格哈德•法索尔认为，造成这种现象的原因并不是因为日本的工艺水平不够，或者说缺乏创新精神。为了让日本主要的公司重整旗鼓，需要调整结构，转变商业模式。他说：“日本在对数字革命的机遇把握上并没有彻底失败，但是成功和失败并不取决于人们的期望……很多方面都陷入了困境。”

    日本曾经被盛赞的“持续改善”系统是通过对生产过程进行微调，从而获得持续渐进的改进。它曾被世界上许多公司模仿，如今却遭到了质疑。“日本的商业模式已经走到了尽头，”读卖研究所（Yomiuri Research Institute）的高级研究员丸山泰之在最近的一篇报告中指出。

    另一位位于东京的技术分析师威廉•H•佐藤认为，日本在知识产权和创新精神方面仍然有许多可取之处。不过和夏普一样，NEC和松下公司都陷入了同样的问题。“他们的企业文化并不适合当前的创新精神。他们没有利用其创新思路来研制新产品、开发新市场，而是为其他亚洲经济体创造了许多唾手可得的便利。”

    那些更机敏的竞争对手，比如三星，甚至中国的厂商，都让日本制造商疲于应付。因此，分析师们预测日本制造业的衰退远未结束。“日本公司应对不了价格的下降，也不知道如何利用自身的优势。他们极力在海外市场同韩国三星这样聪明的对手苦苦竞争，结果导致一败涂地，”丸山在报告中这样写道。

    佐藤认为，结构体系方面的弱势使问题更加严重。由于管理手段过时，领导能力缺乏，日本企业无法打造一支活力四射的全球团队。而他们倾向于在行业内部整合弱小的公司，成立像夏普这样的巨型公司。可是现在就连夏普自己也已经开始走向破产的道路。他有种不祥的预感：“这说明，像NEC这样的公司也已经危在旦夕了。”很多人同意他的观点。这个在日本排名第三的电子公司经年衰退，仅去年一月份就裁员1万人。该公司于2009年撤出了欧洲个人电脑市场，并向蒸蒸日上的中国联想集团（Lenovo Group）出售了2.35亿美元的股票，以支撑下滑的销售额。

    A much diminished electronics sector in Japan is buckling further still. How much more retrenchment and pain is needed to succor its once triumphant tech industry is the question now as Sharp Corp, one of Japan Inc.'s bigger beasts, faces ruin. Japan analysts are also pondering who could be next.

    Mirroring Japan's post-war rise from tinkering electronics amateurs to masters of the transistor age, Japan's biggest TV maker Sharp might not even make it past the 100-year-mark it celebrates this month suggest some observers. Wages and jobs have all been slashed, but Sharp is still suffering massive losses while its share price has fallen dramatically. (This year it is down 73%.) Meanwhile, the woes of other giants -- Sony (SNE), Olympus, and others -- are making the industry's fall from grace as palatable at home as a plate of Made-in-China McSushi. "The good old days walked out the door and no one noticed," says Hideki Onda former distributor for Apple (AAPL) Japan, referring to the sector's sudden loss of competitiveness.

    What happened? Japan's electronic makers just failed to keep up he says. Unlike competitors such as Apple, Japanese manufactures of late have not engaged the world, nor even their domestic customers, and are now paying the price. Once undisputed Titans of the consumer electronics with combined sales of $600 billion -- equal to the economy of the Netherlands -- now Japan's top electronics makers are shadowed by the likes of Samsung's $163 billion capitalization and Apple's $634 billion. In contrast Sony, Panasonic and Sharp combined are now worth only $54 billion at current market values.

    Amid weak demand and a painfully strong yen, Panasonic (PC), Sony and Sharp together lost billions last year, while Sharp alone owes $31 billion to the banks and other bond holders. Such figures underline the beating given Japan's electronics industry by foreign rivals led by South Korea's Samsung Electronics.

    It is not that Japan is short of engineering ability, brains or innovation says Gerhard Fasol a technology consultant based in Tokyo. But in order to thrive the country's major firms need to restructure and move to new business models. "Japan has not failed to capitalize on the digital revolution, but the successes/failures are not according to expectations...so many of them are in trouble," he says.

    The once lauded "kaizen" system, implementing constant refinements to improve quality by tweaking the production process, mimicked world-wide, is now discredited in one view. "The Japanese business model has reached a dead-end," writes Yasuyuki Maruyama senior researcher at the Yomiuri Research Institute in a recent report.

    And yet Japan still has much to offer in terms of intellectual property and innovation. But like Sharp, NEC and Panasonic are all in the same trap says Tokyo-based technology analyst William H. Saito. "They have a culture that is not required at this level [of innovation]. They are not converting to new products or markets. Instead they create low hanging fruit for other Asian economies."

    More agile rivals such as Samsung and even Chinese competitors make it difficult for Japanese manufactures to compete. As such, analysts forecast that the bloodletting is far from over yet. "Japanese corporations are unable to cope with falling prices and have no clue how to take advantage of their own strengths. Struggling to compete in overseas markets with nimbler rivals like South Korea's Samsung, their business results have collapsed," writes Maruyama.

    Structural and systemic weaknesses aggravate the problems. Outmoded management practices and lack of leadership have led to an inability to form dynamic global teams, while they tend, in the sector, to put weak companies together to create mega-firms like Sharp that lead to bankruptcy explains Saito. "This means that companies like NEC are next on the hatchet," he adds ominously. Many agree. Years of decline at Japan's number three electronics business has led to 10,000 firings last January, withdrawal from Europe's PC market in 2009 and the selling of $235 million in shares of the surging Chinese computer-maker Lenovo Group to bolster plunging sales.