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Along the original theme of this discussion, “the competitive industries outside of Japan” is very often the topic of the conversation with my clients (usually SME executives) and the consultants.
And I, with those people, very often come up to four business sectors as follows.
The first one is the industrial fine material and equipment as I mentioned before. This group has been long at the top category in the economical statistics. Finished products like cars or TVs declined from its significance in the statistics long time ago.
The second one is what my clients and I call LOHAS sector. You can redefine it as businesses for the sustainable world. Advanced system and equipment in B2B field as well as high-end B2C products in medical business, energy generation, consumer health care, etc. will be in this category.
The third one is the B2C service sector featuring high level hospitality or service level. Even the package delivery service can be differentiate itself in many foreign countries from the local competitors by strictly keeping the delivery time & clear cut fee system. This sector sometimes has to enlighten the foreign consumers to the new high service standard before expansion.
The last one is well-known Otaku business. Japanimation and the related business probably need no explanation here.