vishnu-era-13

6
A QUARTERLY NEWS PUBLICATION FROM SRI VISHNU EDUCATIONAL SOCIETY
LEADER SPEAK
Intarakushon - インタラクション (The Interaction)
Masayoshi Tamura, the General Manager of the Hitachi India Pvt. Ltd. is in charge of the operations of Hitachi software group in India.
His goal is to work in partnership with India. He is the Co- Chair, Japan Council, NASSCOM, and he aims at collaboration between Japan
and India. He works in collaboration with Indian companies. He also bridges the industry academia gap by being a part of educational
institutions, engineering colleges in particular.
Given below are excerpts of his interaction with the staff and students of Vishnu Institute of Technology and Shri Vishnu Engineering
College for Women.
Masayoshi Tamura built an instant rapport with the students. “I love India” he says with an infectious enthusiasm. He presents the
Japanese perspective of Indian culture in terms of cricket and movies. For him, like for other Japanese, India brings to his mind cricket
and movies. He likes the movie “Three Idiots” and he identifies himself with the character of Raju in the movie. He likes the “You keep
your job, I keep my attitude” kind of thing in the movie and feels it represents the energy and will power of Indians.
This rapport now intensifies into affinity as he draws a comparison between India and Japan. The Indian and Japanese ecosystems are
well laid out.
T H E C U LT U R A L A F F I N I T I E S
Mr. Tamura finds similarities between India and Japan. Both the
countries share the concept of the three wise monkeys or the three
mystic apes. It is a pictorial maxim which embodies the principle "see
no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil".
The second resemblance is in terms of mythology and folklore. The
Hindu Goddess Saraswati is also present in Japanese mythology as
Benzaiten. She is one among the seven Japanese Gods of Fortune. She is
most often seen carrying a musical instrument called a Biwa. She came
from India originally. She was associated with all virtues in movement
and in progress. She is the goddess of knowledge, art and beauty,
especially music.
Amitabha, of Buddhism is the third resemblance. Buddhism is a
common religion between India and Japan.
I N D I A A N D H I TA C H I
For him India is not a business field, it is a field to work. One example is
pollution. The garbage segregation system is not effective in Bangalore.
Japan experienced such a pollution which caused the Minamata disease
resulting in the death of many people. He fears the same for India.
Adequate precaution needs to be taken.
It is here that Hitachi can support India. Hitachi is a social infrastructure
company working for social innovation. It is into power, water, transport
and financial services.
Moreover, in India there are million people who are not connected to the
grid. Hitachi can support them. For Mr. Masayoshi Tamura, India is an
exciting country. Technological development is taking place rapidly.
Anything can happen in India. He loves to work in India, for India, with
India. For him India is a gate way to work for the world.
I N D I A N ' J U G A A D ' V S
J A PA N E S E I N N O VAT I O N
When it comes to engineering, India and Japan have some things in
common. The Japanese learn from KAIZEN which is just in time
philosophy and the Indians also learn from their past. Indians have
Jugaad which is based on frugality and flexibility. Indians can do
Jugaad, but the Japanese cannot do it. They have their own restrictions
like quality assurance.
O P P O R T U N I T I E S
Mr. Tamura sees India as a heterogeneous country. The geographical,
social, political, religious and cultural diversity is huge and the range
and volume of this diversity is absolutely bewildering. On the other
hand, he finds Japan to be homogenous. They have a uniform culture
and they manage any minor differences, if any.
He has an interesting observation to make. On the world map, India is
smaller when compared to Greenland. Japan is much smaller. India
must project itself on the world. India is a mystery to many Japanese
and so is Japan to the Indians. Mr. Tamura makes an effort to bridge the
cultural differences and increase the mutual awareness of both the
cultures. “I request you Indians to show yourself more to Japan. They
don't know you very well”, he quips. The need is sharing of ideas,
resources, in short a partnership between the two countries.
T H E I N D I A N PA R A D O X
Engineers in India develop technologies, work on their products and
also do Jugaad. Innovation is in their blood. Some criticize that global
innovation companies are yet to emerge in India. But, on the other hand,
there are many Indian leaders in the global scenario.
D I F F E R E N T I AT O R S
The Japanese are slow. But they have their own strengths. They are
committed and aim at perfection. For them high quality is the
differentiator and they build reliable systems. On the other hand the
Japanese find that there is agility and quick action in India. When it
comes to time, Japanese are sticklers to punctuality. For them two
minutes is 120 seconds where as for Indians time goes on.
Mr. Tamurai feels that India with its 1.2 billion populations is a land of
huge human talent and resources. Its strength is the huge pool of young,
talented, passionate work force. The youngsters are dynamic and have a
can do attitude and culture.
Mr. Tamura aims at combining the strengths of both the countries. For
example, he says, Indians can build the prototypes and the Japanese
can then perfect them. “We need people who experiment, who do R & D.
kind of things. Indians are good at that. After having tried the output,
then the Japanese can perfect them and build a reliable product.” This is
being done in software already he points out. For him, Jugaad is
strength of the Indians.
Another interesting observation made by Mr. Tamura is about the Indian
traffic. Indian traffic is chaotic. Actually, it is one of the major problems
of India. But on second thoughts, he finds that this chaos caused by
traffic turned out to be source of strength. People in India are trained to
deal with confusion and chaos. That could probably be one of the
reasons why they make good leaders in global organizations. Satya
Nadella, an Indian, current CEO of Microsoft, one for example, and
Indian CEOs of other MNCs can deal with complicated issues. The
labyrinth of Indian traffic must have trained him, he opines.
Let's work for the world using your
strength. The world is waiting for you.”
he calls on a closing note.