South Korea is outperforming Japan in exporting agricultural products. During my trip to Seoul, I had a chance to visit a printing company with a digital printing and manufacturing plant. I will share what I learned there and why the company is successful in its digital printing businesses. I visited a company which owned 10…
Globalization of the agricultural sector of the economy is being promoted and importing fruits and vegetables is significantly increasing. Ironically, Japanese agricultural products are not seen much in other countries. However, Korean agricultural products are getting attention in the global market. I flew to Korea to see what was really going on there. South Korea…
This year the rainy season in Tokyo and surrounding areas was extremely short and it seemed as if it went straight from spring to summer. Global warming has caused summer to last longer than before and it has become more and more serious. I wonder how the corrugated industry can contribute to tackling the problem…
According to a survey, Ibaraki prefecture is ranked as the least attractive prefecture in Japan. There are many stories that explain why. For example, the Shinkansen, a Japanese bullet train, runs through the city but doesn’t make any stops there. For me, however, Ibaraki is indeed attractive because there are a lot of corrugated companies.…
Every day in industries, due to technical innovations on the Internet, there are revolutionary changes that completely knock the bottom out of an old concept. I learned that a textile company developed a new product for digital printing and decided quickly to fly to the Netherlands. The printing industry is a typical example of an…
Nowadays small and medium sized companies in Japan and Europe are affiliated with big group companies in the matured folding carton and corrugated industry. This movement has been active for more than 20 years in central Europe. Now, I would like to share the current status of medium and small sized companies there. After the…
In recent years, not only just in Europe and North America but also in Asia, the use of digital printing machines has spread steadily in the commercial printing market and corrugated paper industry. To search its real state of affairs, I visited Tianjin in China to visit our business partner who has a lot of…
In a clean workplace, operators can comfortably engage in production activities. Being that it is autumn labor safety week, I will introduce a long awaited “shock-absorbing barrier” that will protect both of those hitting and being hit. A lot of factories install metal poles or guardrails in order to prevent forklifts from unintentionally hitting and…
This is the third and final story of the heated battle in the supermarkets of Beijing. This time, I will discuss the alcohol floor. It is said that the first alcohol in China was brewed more than 5,000 to 6,000 years ago. The supermarket certainly had a variety of good alcohol and I wondered how…
Last time I made a report from a big supermarket in. There are a tremendous amount of local brands in China, far exceeding the number in Japan. In the previous report I introduced a heated sales battle among these brands with a labor-intensive method. Today I will focus on another marketing strategy, “brand appeal in…