DoCoMo--Japan's Wireless Tsunami: How One Mobile Telecom Created a New Market and Became a Global Force - Hardcover

Beck, John C.; Wade, Mitchell

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0814407536 ISBN 13: 9780814407530

Publisher: Amacom Books, 2002

Synopsis

DoCoMo is the first dramatic success of the wireless age. Ahead of the West in technology, financials and market strength, DoCoMo is now bringing i-mode to Europe and North America. Will DoCoMo's mobile Internet (and the commerce it carries) dominate our business lives the way that Sony dominates our media rooms and Toyota our highways? DoCoMo's worldwide impact is compelling. But even greater drama is hidden inside. The real story is how DoCoMo created world-beating innovation inside a famously conservative parent, Nippon Telephone and Telegraph.
Both DoCoMo's success and its innovation come from a surprising source. Talented employees, extraordinary leaders, eager customers . . . all mattered. But behind all these was an almost magical conglomeration of six factors not found in traditional case studies: Love and Strength, Impatience and Inequality, Fun and even Luck. These factors - feelings, really - drive DoCoMo's success.

About this title

Review

America is just waking up to the vast potential of the wireless Web. In Japan, nearly a third of the population already works, plays, and shops with wireless, continuously connected to a universe of data, services, and communities. The force responsible is a young company with a name that means "anywhere" in Japanese: DoCoMo. Another case study that examines a specific corporation for management lessons it can share with others, DoCoMo--Japan's Wireless Tsunami takes a riveting look at the world’s second-largest mobile phone service that has, after only two years, a customer base as big as AOL’s. Don’t think of this book as an apology for the languishing telecom industry. Instead, it’s an inside look at how creativity and innovation were nurtured at one of the world’s stodgiest companies--Nippon Telephone and Telegraph--and how a small team of committed visionaries never said "Never" and created DoCoMo’s extraordinarily popular I-mode technology.

For those who've read of the importance of "intrapreneurship" in corporations, here is a real-life exploration of that principle in action. Noted business strategists John Beck (The Attention Economy) and Mitchell Wade give us story upon story of the dynamic personalities behind I-mode, from NTT Chairman Kouji Ohboshi--who saw DoCoMo through a series of crises that would have meant early death for most U.S. startups--to CEO Keiji Tachikawa, whose post-WWII childhood gave him a keen grasp of the economics of disparity.

With chapter headings like "People-People Who Need People" and "Passion Is Destiny," this book sends the strong message that every successful business model depends so heavily on the human factor--a point that seems lost in the venture-capital-dominated model of the West. With lessons for all business leaders, in any industry, this book stands as a testament to the pivotal role of conviction, integrity, and personal passion in business success. --Charles Decker

Book Description

"Almost a quarter century after their core management principles put them in nearly unassailable positions of market dominance, Japanese firms like Toyota, Sony, and Honda are still the standards to which other corporations aspire. Today, Japan’s NTT DoCoMo is on the verge of attaining equal stature. DoCoMo is the world’s second-largest mobile phone operator and, with its I-mode system, the first to roll out real, viable third-generation applications like Internet-ready mobile phones. This quantum leap in technology will very soon change the way we all send and receive information, from e-mail, paging, and voice to graphic business applications and entertainment.

But DoCoMo’s success came not as a result of following the hard-and-fast models of its illustrious predecessors. In fact, it is much more a reflection of the ability of DoCoMo’s management to carve out a creative niche within the confines of legendarily traditional Nippon Telephone and Telegraph.

Beck (co-author, The Attention Economy) and Accenture senior consultant Wade examine the enormous risks that DoCoMo took in pursuing a ""bleeding edge"" technology which analysts thought was superfluous, and how their daring almost single-handedly brought an entire global market into existence. It is this extraordinary story and the simple, powerful management themes ingrained in it that will drive companies the world over to emulate DoCoMo as they did the previous giants of Japanese industry."

About this edition

• Publisher: Amacom Books
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0814407536
• ISBN 13: 9780814407530
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 224