Creator: Hiroshi Ono, Hitotsubashi College

A metropolis clerk within the western prefecture of Yamaguchi carries a floppy disk containing account info for 463 residents to a neighborhood financial institution. He has each intention of transferring funds to the residents. However someplace between the clerk’s directions and the financial institution’s processing of the transaction, there’s a miscommunication.

As a substitute of 463 residents receiving their funds, one resident alone receives a lump sum cost for 463 residents. Such a mishap could also be comprehensible had it occurred within the Nineteen Eighties, when private computer systems and reminiscence units had been simply popping up. However this passed off in Japan in 2022.

Incidents like which can be reminders of the state of digital disfunction in Japan. As soon as often called a technological powerhouse, Japan has lagged within the world wave of digital transformation.

Japan nonetheless maintains technological competitiveness in sure areas equivalent to robotics, batteries and a few excessive value-added intermediate inputs and equipment. Japan additionally has a wealthy human capital base with excessive literacy charges. However amongst rich nations it ranks beneath common in digital competitiveness, e-government and e-learning. The delay in digital transformation has been felt acutely throughout COVID-19 as a result of a lot of Japan’s public well being administration nonetheless depends on outdated report maintaining strategies that might not sustain with instances.

There are provide and demand-side explanators of why digital transformation has not taken off in Japan.

A survey of Japanese firms carried out for a 2021 white paper by the Ministry of Inner Affairs and Communication (MIC) highlighted personnel shortages within the info and communication expertise (ICT) sector as a key issue behind the lag in digital transformation development. It is a supply-side drawback. In 2018, the scarcity of ICT personnel in Japan totalled roughly 220,000. The Ministry of Economic system, Commerce and Trade (METI) estimates that the scarcity will worsen and improve to 450,000 employees by 2030.

One motive why Japan doesn’t have sufficient ICT professionals is as a result of provide has been outpaced by the demand for digital transformation. However ICT jobs might also be unattractive.

In 2016, METI carried out a comparative research of ICT personnel in Japan and the USA. The research discovered that the common wage of ICT personnel in Japan was roughly half that of their US counterparts. For Japanese employees of their twenties, common annual salaries had been 4.1 million yen (US$31,300), whereas US employees earned 10.2 million yen yearly (US$77,900). The best paid ICT personnel in Japan had been of their fifties, whereas US salaries peaked when workers had been of their thirties. The variance in wage was significantly smaller in Japan.

These figures underscore the variations within the human sources techniques between every nation. In Japan, compensation relies on age and seniority as a result of it assumes long-term dedication. Younger individuals should work till they attain their fifties to attain a excessive wage. Pay can be distributed evenly throughout age teams as it’s thought-about extra egalitarian. However this may occasionally weaken incentives to work exhausting, as a result of high-performers are rewarded at charges much like low-performers.

The businesses that reach recruiting ICT professionals are international companies, equivalent to Google Japan, which supply extra aggressive merit-based salaries. It’s unsurprising that there’s an exodus of ICT professionals from Japanese tech companies to international companies.

On the demand (or consumer) facet, a resistance to vary amongst workers reported within the MIC white paper is one other driver for digital disfunction.

The explanations behind resistance to digital transformation are embedded in Japanese organisations and work tradition. As reported in Nikkei Asia in 2021, many Japanese public administration workplaces nonetheless use floppy disks. Even throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, well being centres had been utilizing fax machines to ship handwritten stories. That is an excessive case of organisational inertia. For Japan, the advantages of the present expertise, whether or not perceived or actual, have been overridden by the inconvenience of switching to new expertise.

Digital transformation within the office will be problematic as a result of the prevailing norm is that formal transactions should happen in individual, on paper and with a stamp of approval (hanko). These conventions prioritise formality over operate. In a high-context tradition like Japan, the place telework use stays low, on-line conferences can’t exchange the authenticity of in-person conferences.

Resistance to vary in Japan can be rooted in threat aversion. After the asset worth bubble burst within the Nineteen Nineties, companies took a extra cautious strategy that hampered innovation. Investments in digital expertise have been sluggish for the reason that Nineteen Nineties as many firms worry potential downsides, equivalent to information and safety breaches. Floppy disks and fax machines could also be outdated, however they don’t use on-line networks and so they can’t be hacked.

There are some indicators of progress, albeit gradual. The Japanese authorities launched the Digital Company in 2021 within the hope of accelerating digitalisation. Distant work is gaining momentum. Hitachi, Panasonic and different technological giants have introduced that they are going to get rid of the hanko and cut back their use of paper paperwork.

However these strikes are nonetheless uncommon and principally restricted to large firms. For almost all of companies, particularly small- to medium-sized enterprises, digital transformation continues to be not of their purview. Conducting enterprise as normal in Japan is inefficient and incurs vital transaction prices — it’s depending on the bodily availability of individuals and the duplication, transportation and storage of data. Handwritten paperwork is extra liable to human error and hanko approval for paperwork will be stalled when the required signatory is unavailable.

Resistance to vary and an attachment to outdated conventions are untenable as a result of they decrease productiveness. Japan should perceive that the chance prices of not going digital are already too costly.

Hiroshi Ono is Professor of Human Useful resource Administration at Hitotsubashi College Enterprise College in Tokyo.