Word: machida
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...pays to slander. The Bush Administration has set a tone that works for it. You can count on the Republicans to do whatever it takes to win. Laurent de Wilde Paris Sharp Businessman Your article on the sharp corp., Japan's hottest electronics firm, and its president, Katsuhiko Machida, showed that slow and steady wins the race [May 9]. That's exactly how Machida overtook Sharp's rivals Sony, Matsushita and Samsung. When Machida was running Sharp's television business in the 1980s, the company was struggling, and most people knew nothing about him. But when Sharp brought its liquid...
...when Machida became president in 1998, it all began to change. Sharp, he knew, had long excelled at developing products featuring liquid crystal displays (LCDs). It released the first mass-market LCD calculator in 1973, developed its first flat-panel LCD television in 1987, and dabbled in LCD televisions throughout the 1990s. Building on this head start, Machida moved LCD TVs to the forefront of Sharp's strategy. He spent heavily over three years on the design, manufacture and marketing of a new flagship TV brand dubbed Aquos?and his bet paid off. Launched in January 2001?a moment referred...
...Machida's strategy of focusing on businesses in which the company has a significant edge is surprisingly rare in corporate Japan, where a bias toward bulking up still reigns. Says Gerhard Fasol, president of Eurotechnology Japan, a tech consultancy in Tokyo: "The Toshibas and Hitachis of this world are in about 20 or 30 different industry areas. There is no focus." Even in secondary business lines, Sharp tries to develop what it calls "one-of-a-kind" products. A recent example: the new Healsio oven that reduces fat and salt content by cooking with superheated steam. The oven...
...Likewise, in his core business of manufacturing LCDs, Machida is playing to Sharp's technological strengths instead of diversifying into areas where it's doomed to defeat. Taking on Goliaths like LG Electronics and Samsung Electronics across every LCD product line would be suicide, he says. They're dominant, for example, in mass-market LCD panels used in smaller, cheaper TVs and in laptops. Rather than engage them in a murderous price war, Sharp concentrates almost exclusively on ever-larger TVs or on small, high-quality panels found in cell phones, car navigation systems, and hand-held game players like...
...However this contest between PDP and LCD plays out, Machida and his team are?for now?relishing their moment in the sun. Hisakazu Torii, a director of research at DisplaySearch, a consultancy in Tokyo, says Sharp's foresight in LCDs has completely transformed the TV business and Sharp's position in the corporate landscape: "Sharp can sell its TVs for $200-$300 more than Sony, which is a total reversal of the old situation." Sharp's Hamano agrees: "In the long history of the electronics market, all companies have their moment of prime time. And for Sharp, I think this...