Ignore Silicon Valley, Japan is still innovating
换一种角度看日本式创新
广州日语翻译公司：从硅谷视角看，日本很多产业都行将就木；但日本模式的推崇者却含蓄反驳，硅谷没有充分理解创新的内涵。
Viewed from Silicon Valley, much of
从硅谷的视角看，日本很多产业似乎都要行将就木。索尼(Sony)、佳能(Canon)、松下(Panasonic)等曾经强大的日本消费品企业正艰难地适应着这个数字时代。广州日语翻译公司。
With the brutal reductionism favoured by his caste, one West Coast venture capitalist says corporate
带着典型的残忍简化论，一位加州风险投资家称，日本企业面临巨大挑战。“这就像是穿行在一块墓地。糟糕的人口结构、毫无创新，被美国、中国和韩国围殴。”
Viewed from Tokyo, which has long been more opulent than scruffy San Francisco, the outlook seems a lot less bleak. And in far more delicate terms, the champions of the Japanese model counter that Silicon Valley does not fully understand the significance of innovation. Which is more innovative: a ride-hailing app, which cleverly mashes up existing technologies, or an artificial spider silk that could revolutionise clothing?
从东京（长期以来一直比破败的旧金山更显繁华）的角度看，日本的产业前景似乎远非如此暗淡。日本模式的推崇者以更为含蓄的口吻反驳，硅谷没有充分理解创新的内涵。哪一项更具创新性：一款将现有技术巧妙结合起来的打车应用，还是一种可以给服装业带来革命性变化的人造蜘蛛蚕丝？广州日语翻译公司。
Where the Silicon Valley view is probably correct is that Japanese companies will find it tough to compete in some of the areas they once dominated. The giant consumer platforms that are emerging — such as Alibaba, Amazon, Facebook and Google — already understand far more about people’s needs and desires than consumer products companies do and are merrily extracting profit along the value chain.
硅谷视角在某些方面或许是正确的，即日本企业将发现很难在一些它们曾经主导的领域竞争。与消费品企业相比，阿里巴巴(Alibaba)、亚马逊(Amazon)、Facebook、谷歌(Google)等新兴的巨型消费者平台更了解人们的需求与渴望，而且正沿产业价值链大肆赚取利润。广州日语翻译公司。
They know what consumers want to buy and when they want to buy it. Like many other consumer companies, slower-moving Japanese producers might increasingly be forced to shift from a business-to-consumer to a business-to-business model.
它们知道消费者想买什么、何时购买。像许多消费品企业一样，动作迟缓的日本生产商越来越可能被迫从B2C模式转向B2B模式。
But there are at least two reasons to believe that corporate
但至少有两个原因可以让我们相信，日本企业能够继续保持活力。首先，日本经济在很多方面仍保持着高度的创新能力；这个国家肯定不存在智力资本短缺的情况。自1949年以来，日本已获得23项诺贝尔奖——大都集中在自然科学领域。世界知识产权组织(WIPO)的数据显示，过去10年，全球排名前10的企业专利持有者中，日本企业占据7席。广州日语翻译公司。
Kentaro Hyakuno, executive vice-president of Rakuten, who previously worked at Toyota, says that
曾在丰田(Toyota)工作、现任日本乐天(Rakuten)执行副总裁的百野健太郎(Kentaro Hyakuno)表示，日本的弱点一直在于将这些聪明的创意商业化方面。但他相信，随着老牌企业领悟开放的需求，而新一代初创企业以更具想象力的方式利用智力资本，这种状况正在快速改变。广州日语翻译公司。
“We have a problem letting the devil out of the box because the box is always locked,” he says. “But I think the environment is changing. This bottled-up innovation is opening up. There is huge potential in
“我们在将魔鬼放出盒子方面出了问题，因为盒子总是锁着，”他说，“但我认为，环境正在改变。这种闭门的创新正在释放出来。日本拥有巨大潜力。”
Rakuten, an online retailer which has been the first company to commercialise delivery drones, is itself a model of a new-style Japanese company. It is a fast-moving, outward-looking, English-speaking company that now makes most of its hires from abroad.
在线零售商乐天是首家将送货无人机实现商业化的公司，其自身就是新型日本企业的典范。如今，这家行动迅速、外向发展、讲英语的企业招募的大部分员工都来自海外。广州日语翻译公司。
Second, as David Edgerton, a historian of technology, has written in his counterintuitive book The Shock Of The Old, it is often misguided to obsess about “techno-nationalism”. The most innovative economies are not always the most successful. Historically, he writes, “It has not been the case that countries that innovate a lot, grow a lot.”
其次，正如技术史学家大卫•艾杰顿(David Edgerton)在其反直觉的《历史的震撼》(The Shock Of The Old)一书中写道的，痴迷于“技术民族主义”往往会让人误入歧途。最具创新能力的经济体未必是最成功的经济体。从历史上看，他写道，“有人认为创新越多的国家增长越快，但事实并非如此。”广州日语翻译公司。
All too often we exaggerate the importance of new technologies while underestimating the value of the old. Many companies have prospered simply by transferring existing technologies to the developing world.
我们总是夸大新技术的重要性，却低估旧技术的价值。但许多企业只是通过将现有技术转移到发展中国家就大获成功。
Take just one example. In 1965 the world produced roughly the same number of bicycles and cars each year — about 20m — and you might have thought that the more modern technology would prevail. But by 2003 the annual output of bicycles had surged to 100m, far outstripping car production at 42m. As it happens, Japanese companies still dominate the manufacture of high-end bicycle parts.
仅举一例。1965年，全世界每年生产的自行车与汽车的数量大致相当（约2000万辆)，你或许会认为，汽车这种更现代的技术将逐渐占上风。但到了2003年，自行车的年产量已激增至1亿辆，远超汽车的4200万辆。事实上，日本企业仍在高端自行车部件制造领域占据主导地位。
Moreover, innovation can apply as much to business models as to the products that companies sell. Ikea, which has developed a formidably effective system for manufacturing and selling cheap wooden furniture around the globe, is a great model.
此外，企业在所售产品方面的创新也可应用于商业模式。宜家(IKEA)就是一种很好的模式，为在世界各地制造与销售廉价木制家具建立了一套极为有效的体系。广州日语翻译公司。
Naturally, Silicon Valley is obsessed with cutting-edge technology. But very few of the planet’s 7bn people live in their world. According to William Gibson, the science fiction writer: “The future is already here — it’s just not very evenly distributed.”
硅谷痴迷于尖端技术是自然的。但在全球70亿人口中，只有极少数人生活在他们的世界。科幻作家威廉•吉布森(William Gibson)认为：“未来早已到来——只是分布不是十分均匀”。
For most of the planet’s population, corrugated iron, condoms, elasticated plasters and air conditioning systems still count as the most valuable inventions. And for the things people rely upon daily: Japanese quality is still prized.
对全球大多数人而言，波形铁皮、避孕套、创可贴、空调系统仍被视为最有价值的发明。而对于那些人们日常依赖的产品，日本制造的品质仍受到珍视。
