How can Japan become a “hidden technology champion”?

When it comes to the most popular technology brands, consumers always think of star companies such as Apple, Samsung, TSMC, and Qualcomm. They promote themselves extensively, produce exquisite advertisements, and their leaders often come out to "change the world". These companies never lack front-page headlines; Apple and Qualcomm's patent settlement, Apple and Samsung will never settle, TSMC's power outage... can all cause a lot of discussion in the media. In contrast, Japanese technology companies are much "quieter". For a long time, we can only see news about the decline of Japanese technology companies, either continuing to lose money or being acquired. Even century-old companies such as Sharp, Toshiba, and Nintendo are in trouble. Not only are they not as glorious as Apple and Samsung, they are probably not even as good as some "up-and-coming companies", such as Huawei and Xiaomi, whose brand recognition is not inferior to them.

Surprisingly, a trade war between South Korea and Japan has completely exposed the strength of the Yamato people. Facing the powerful Samsung Group, Japanese technology companies are not afraid of the stage, and have repeatedly used killer moves, and they are quite clever in "hitting the snake at its weakest point". The entire industrial chain that Koreans are proud of has fallen into a crisis of "stopping production" because they cannot buy the corresponding raw materials.

Deep confrontation, why can Japan contain South Korea?

What Apple and Samsung compete for is smartphone profits, sales and market share, and what they compete for is visible innovation and improvement. We call this competition a "superficial war", which is splendid and topical, but the technical content is not the highest. In fact, from the surface to the deep level of the electronics industry chain, the gold content of technology will become higher and higher, and the rarity will become more obvious. Take the smartphone industry chain as an example. The most superficial layer should be dealers. They only need to gather together the money to purchase the goods and have sales channels. As a result, dealers are spread all over the world and the competition is very fierce. New people join every day, and losers leave. The next layer is the finished product assembly OEMs like Foxconn, BYD, and Changshuo Technology. Their job is to assemble a large number of parts into a smartphone that "can make calls, send text messages, and play King of Glory." At this level, it is not just capital and management, but also engineering standards, quality parameters and other requirements must be considered. Moreover, because it involves terminal shipments, these manufacturers are also easy to be exposed. For example, during the peak period of iPhone mass production, Foxconn often reported tons of products to customs for inspection and shipment. These scenes were often captured and widely reported.

Generally speaking, distributors and OEMs are more likely to be replaced. After all, the technical content is not high. As long as there is capital and policy, it often only takes one month for a factory to rise from the ground, but they earn their money through hard work. If the mobile phone industry chain penetrates further, it is the "technology-intensive" area, such as TSMC's chip production line, Samsung's chip, camera, display and battery production lines, etc. Suppliers at this level have relatively high profits, which can be said to be the highest, and they have a very strong voice in the industry chain.

In fact, the peak shipment volume of iPhone often depends on the output of SoC of Samsung and TSMC. Since iPhone X, OLED display has become the bottleneck of the industry chain. Perhaps only Samsung dares to refuse the demand of Apple customers to "visit the workshop", and only Samsung dares to ask Apple to compensate for its losses, on the grounds that the orders are not as expected and the OLED production capacity is idle. Therefore, the outside world naturally believes that component manufacturers such as Samsung and TSMC dominate the industry chain, but the real fact is that component production is a very complicated project, involving a deeper industry chain. For example, chip manufacturing requires thousands of steps. Among them, one of the most core processes is the photolithography process, which involves photolithography equipment and photoresist materials. The annual production capacity of photolithography machines is only a dozen units, which are produced by Nordic companies controlled by Samsung. The author can't even figure out their names. Unfortunately, photoresist is supplied by Japanese companies. Related companies have also become important bargaining chips for managers in this trade war. It is said that the photoresist inventory of the Korean chip industry chain is only two weeks left.

The embarrassing thing is that materials like photoresist have no reporting value for the media. After all, ordinary people are not interested in understanding these obscure things. It is even more difficult for unfamiliar words such as hydrogen fluoride, vapor deposition machine, and etching process to make front-page headlines. Moreover, in peacetime, the industrial chain is like a precise machine, running smoothly, and it is difficult for people to pay attention to these "screws and engine oil" type companies. It was not until the outbreak of the trade war that the hidden champions surfaced.

Craftsmanship, Japanese companies are small but exquisite?

In addition to photoresist, Japanese companies have many hidden technology champions. The companies in charge of these technologies usually have no more than 100 employees. On the one hand, these hidden champion technologies have very high skill requirements and require "craftsman" level, which can hardly gather a million-strong army similar to Made in China. On the other hand, Japan pays great attention to the confidentiality of technology, so it hopes that the fewer people involved, the better. For example, a certain cutting-edge steelmaking plant has long supplied parts to American aircraft, artificial satellites, and Japanese rockets. The requirements in these fields are personalized rather than mass-produced. Therefore, the most core part has to be completed by craftsmen. They must be absolutely sensitive to the errors of steel and are required to know the state of steel forming by sound. They can find out the error of 0.05 mm by feeling, which usually requires more than ten years of accumulation. In addition, Japan's workshop-style companies have also exported deep technology products to the world, such as nuts that never loosen and the mirror-like back panel of iPod.

The author believes that the reason why Japan can retain these champion technologies is that it is infused with the national character of its bones. Many of the companies mentioned above are small workshops, small and exquisite. They can not only focus on technology research and development, but also save a lot of big enterprise diseases, such as the internal factions of Apple and Samsung, Microsoft's long and stinky meetings around Window, and the embarrassment of many manufacturing executives who mistakenly think they are the emperor. The disadvantage is that small workshops are more likely to encounter "financial difficulties". The king of foundry Guo Taiming once joked: Don't be afraid if you don't have technology. As long as you have money, I can go to Japan to buy it back. There are a lot of companies with top technology but poor management. Of course, fairy-level companies like photoresist, vapor deposition machines, and special steel basically don't have to worry about management. To be fair, the Japanese seem to have a natural craftsmanship spirit in their bones. They are self-disciplined enough and self-abuse enough. Only when the products meet the "super high standards" will they feel at ease to deliver.

In general, there are many things in Japan's national character that are worth learning from all over the world. I have no way to express my "admiration" for this nation. After all, they have done a lot of dirty things, but I have to say that they are far superior to China in terms of invisible champion technology and craftsmanship. They are short of resources, and their greatest resource is the brains and execution of talents. Those thin and long-lived Japanese citizens may be the most solid foundation of the "invisible technology champion".