The Gurus Of The Art Of War

This really interesting that when you examine the seven basic concepts underlying the art of war -detailed planning, intelligence, choice of battleground, swiftness and execution of plans, adaptability, creation of strategic advantage through deception and attack when in open confrontation - you can't help but think of the very similar ways in which Japanese companies go about their strategic planning process.

Knowingly or otherwise, Japanese companies have been practicing many of the military liked strategies of the art of war in business. I'm not alone in this thinking. Many scholars have often described the Japanese economic conquest of the world as a military campaign. I might add to this the Japanese campaign is not only militaristic, but based very much on art of war type of strategies.

In fact in the late 1970s and 1980s, when Japanese management received tremendous attention from the West, the book of five rings became a bestseller in the United States. It's a military text is supposed to be read by most Japanese CEOs. Interestingly, the samurai book was written around 1645 and contained many ideas that are parallel to the art of war. Surely, the author must have obtained much of his inspiration from the art of war, which already been translated into Japanese as early as 716.

It's very important to realize that the art of war was known to top military and political echelons of Japan for more than 1000 years before the rest of the world became aware of the period throughout this time it was possible that the Japanese could have perfected the strategies of the art of war - just as they have perfected the works of many other people - so much so that what we witnessed today has been taken for granted is uniquely Japanese. 1000 years is not a short time and during the period, the Japanese could have institutionalized the thinking of the art of war into their military and subsequently, corporate strategies and practices. In fact, for such an extended period of time, such influences could have become intrinsic to Japanese corporate values and behavior.

For years, the Western world is thought that the Japanese economic success would not last many of Tolkien argued that the probably experience the same fate as the European colonial powers at the turn of the 20th century and economic power could not be sustained. Indeed, even the once prosperous and powerful United States of post World War II was faced with the same difficulty in sustaining its success in recent years.

Besides addressing the problems within Japan, many companies also began to shift their operations overseas. They used a twofold strategy of moving overseas. For markets like the United States and Canada were they faced barriers to entry, the strategy was to shift the plants to those markets in order to gain access to the consumers.

The second approach taken by Japanese countries was to shift operations to low-cost producing countries in order to lower the cost of production. In some instances, the plants are also cited in countries that give them preferential status. Plus, exports from such countries can still gain access to the developed countries.

Recent statistics have shown how effective those strategies were.