Home Town

Today is the last day of 2008 and I spend that time at my home town.

In 2002, I left my home town to go to university. And I had to manage my life by myself. Cooking, Washing, Time Mnage... everything was my first experience. Such things is my base. 2002 was my new start-line of my life.

In 2006, I started my business life at Tokyo. I was born in Aichi prefecture and my university was located at Shiga prefecture. Nagoya in Aichi is 3rd big city in Japan but my home town is far from there. And Shiga is more rural area. So that was my first urban life. Huge building, lots of people, luxurious restaurant... everything fascinated me. 2 years after, I was transferred to Osaka, which is also big city.

People stimulated my mind. Shiga, Tokyo and Osaka are one of the factor of my mind but the best is person with whom I related at each region. Several kinds of person such as University Friend, Music Friend, Professor, Company Colleague and Business Partner told me about different world. Each opinion was different from mine and I enjoyed fresh discussion with them. Such diversity provided me new vision, which would be my basic mind. At first time, accepting new consideration is pain for me. But it is very important and precious experience. After overcoming the pain, I could grab new vision.

Home town is reliable place for me. Something has changed but the basic point has NOT. There are familiar place and people. I've got many information and experience and friends, which spread my world. And I really appreciate such situation but I also forget important things.

Heart.

Humanity makes our life comfortable. But everything, especially business task, must be implemented by logic on strategy. We must control their balance. I often forgot such simple importance. Then home town phenomenon takes me back from logistic darkness.

Flexible circumstance spread my base.

No-Change existence sustains my heart.

Japanese Shosha

What is Shosha? 

I belong to Japanese Shosha, which has several function of business. Existence of such kinds of company is Japanese feature. That treats various goods made by another firm. So it always thought as broker. On the other hand, they also do investments to create new market or to foster young competitive company such like venture capital. In addition, real estate is also one of their business resource. This flexibility is the most characteristic weapon on their commerce. 

But lots of Shosha was bankrupted these days. At first, their major task was trading between foreign countries. It is decreasing together with developing IT. Second, their business model has changed to be like finance company. Almost profitable department treats financial items like M&A, PE, REIT and so on. That contains huge earning possibility and fearful future. Investment failure carries debt much bigger than trading business. They can get great amount of profit and can also be eliminated in a split second. 

I think Shosha was necessary for Japanese industrial history. Needless to say, Japan is technological country. Only original idea came from foreign firms but Japanese brushed up them to be the top. Their spirits of manufacturing and concentration is the strongest character. And Shosha is one of the most important tool for their mission. Such companies have many kinds of items for production. Shosha helped Japanese technical advance. 

Now Shosha must think about real value of existence. What is Shosha's work? Investment? Finance? I don't think like that. It is very interesting and important to use it for new business. But it is not core of Shosha business. Only one of the strongest option. 

Core is existence as flexible tool, I think. 

They can't create objects but they can help a lot of manufacturing. It may be impossible to get advantage from IT machine in an information field. Internet is useful for getting information of machine, market and so on. But it can't help human. Only human can do it. 

Shosha's value doesn't only depend on information, finance and international community but is ability based on human knowledge and experience to create brilliant solution.