by Ken Worsley, Sarah Noorbakhsh, Peter Harris -- Measure For Measure -- Hard information about selected industries, a corporate profile of a major Japanese listed company, and a column on a selected player from the retail industry. -- Retail Focus -- Don Quijote, a chain of one-stop discount shops that offers more than just no-frills low prices, established in Tokyo in 1980. The company listed on the second section of the Tokyo stock exchange in 1998 followed by a listing in the first section in 2000.

Michel LachausséeBy Peter Harris -- J@pan Inc talks to the President of the French Chamber of Commerce in Japan -- The French chamber in Japan is the oldest European chamber of commerce, started in 1918. In Japan we have now reached a membership of 556. We are also the largest contributor to the European Business Council in Japan (EBCJ) and for France, the chamber here in Japan is one its most important in the world; Japan is a major market for many French companies. There are Louis Vuitton, Hermes, Chanel and so on in the luxury brand sector with Renault and Michelin in the automotive industry. AXA have more than 10,000 employees here and Sanofi-Aventis are big in pharmaceuticals.

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By James Mok -- Part III: My struggle at the frontline of Japanese Enterprise IT -- The ancient religion of Shinto regards all natural objects and exceptional creatures as kami or “Gods.” Visitors to Japan can easily sample a taste of kami-sama treatment by indulging themselves in the high level of customer service in tasteful restaurants, cozy ryokans or in engaging with the eye-dazzling selection of consumer goods. However, the same ‘Customer-is-kamisama’ attitude in the IT services industry has worked adversely by accounting for more inefficiency than hospitality. Vendors and IT departments, by solely focusing on indisputably meeting users’ requests, have not only engaged themselves in the costly pursuit of excessive perfection and overly riskadverse decision-making, but have also inhibited their ability to innovate beyond what is being told.

Shigeru IshibaBy Adam P Liff -- Shigeru Ishiba is something of an anomaly in the Japanese political world. His soft-spoken and reserved manner belies his high level of competence. Experts credit his ability to boil down complicated defense and foreign policy issues into an easily digestible form as one of the main enablers of Japan’s rapidly transforming security policy. His relative youth, coupled with a formidable support base in his hometown all but guarantee that he will remain a prominent figure in Japanese politics for years to come.