Foreword

You try hard everyday, but your work doesn’t go well. Your sales figures are stagnant. Relationships with those around you are strained. You’re wondering whether you should change jobs. You’d like to launch collaborations with other companies or other new projects, but things just don’t go as planned. Perhaps you’re struggling with anxieties such as these.

After working at The Industrial Bank of Japan (IBJ), the leading investment bank at that time, for 13 years, these were the sort of worries that I had to face up to when, 35-years-old and hopelessly out-of-touch with information technology, I arrived at NTT DoCoMo, the leading mobile operator in Japan.

But mastering one certain skill enabled me to realize the massive project of launching the Osaifu-Keitai (“mobile wallet”) credit service, which was hitherto unchartered territory. Moreover, during the four years of the venture investment over 10 companies were able to gain a listing on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, and the company earn profits of over 10 billion yen. Now I’m Professor at BBT University teaching Corporate Strategy, Platform Strategy and also most of my six books were ranked in No1 in Amazon Japan bestselling ranking as bestsellers. The method that enables these formidable achievements and the subject of this case is what I call “Platform way of thinking and business alliance skills.”


As I moved from financial institution, the idea hit me. What will happen if DoCoMo as Carrier entered Credit Card (not card) business?

When we buy something at a convenience store, we take the money out of our wallets and pay for it. If our wallets are empty we use our cash cards to take some out of the ATM. We use a membership card when we rent a DVD, and various store cards when we shop at a department store. The same goes for restaurants, fast food joints, clothes shops, music stores and so on. If you think about it, our wallets are crammed full with cards of every description.
Now these are all merged into a single mobile phone, enabling easy payment in every store and on every train. Don’t you think that sounds rather handy?
It was the Osaifu-Keitai service that actually made this possible.

note: Osaifu-Keitai is trade mark by NTTDoCoMo

Osaifu-Keitai service is widely used as e-money, train ticket, point reward card, credit card, key etc. of many compaies such as drag stores, convenience stores etc which you can download to your mobile terminal by air.
I was in charge of promoting Osaifu-Keitai service at NTTDoCoMo as the head of i-mode Alliance at i-mode Strategy Department then.

Osaifu-Keitai Credit service is one of applications of Osaifu-Keitai services and it is Credit card service by NTTDoCoMo itself which you can use by download to your mobile terminal and what I made its original idea but many people were involved and help me to the nowadays success in four years.


I subsequently went teaching at University, and accepted several positions as an external director or advisor to various companies. I'm currently Professor  at BBT University hosted by Ohmae Kennichi, worldwide famous ex-consultant and also invited lecture at Harvard Business School, Okinawa Graduate School, and am involved in a wide range of activities including giving speeches and consulting. Also I’m President of strategic consulting firm, NetStrategy,Inc. and Senior Advisor at Market Platform Dynamics. The mass media outside of Japan have described me as the mastermind of credit service by NTTDoCoMo using mobile terminal, and introduced me as an internationally renowned figure.

But as I’ve just stated, when I started out at DoCoMo I had virtually no knowledge about information technology, let alone mobile phones. Needless to say, I brushed up my basic knowledge upon joining DoCoMo, but I can assure you that when I entered the company I was a complete and utter novice. Since I managed to create the credit card services by Telecommunication Carrier using mobile, that is, Osaifu-Keitai credit service, perhaps you imagine that I happened to excel at coming up with ideas.

No, neither was that the case. In fact, imagining how nice it would be to be able to pay for everything with just one mobile phone is the sort of idea that anybody could have come up with.

So how come it was me that turned this idea into a reality?

I think that in the final analysis it was because I involved lots of other people in the idea or put them on my Platform and got them to help me.

It is the same thoughts that have helped me throughout my entire career. The core philosophy that flows through the business alliance skills that I want to explain in this book is: if you don’t know, become the sort of person who those that do know will help and for that, you be have your own Platform.

However, I don’t believe that those around you will rally to your rescue if you just sit there creating a fuss about what you’re going to do. Becoming the sort of person that others will help requires a degree of know-how and a shift in your thinking; it’s not just a simple question of networking or improving your character. There’s no need to slavishly network, no need to work flat out on your self-development. All you will have to do is change the way that you think, and carry out the methods I will tell you about in this book.

If you actually listen to the story of those who have achieved success, you will often find that these people, far from being fountains of ideas, are in fact quite ordinary. But without exception, one of the major factors behind their success is always that they gained the help of others.

Until now, perhaps you have feverishly sought to sharpen skills that you don’t possess because you want to be a capable worker, to realize your ambitions, or be successful. But I’d like you to try to discard all these thoughts while you read this book.

All you have to do is become the sort of person who others help. If you can do so, somebody who wants to help you will solve all the problems that you cannot. Then you’ll suddenly realize that all your ambitions have been fulfilled. Wouldn’t that be marvelous? But that’s exactly what happened to me, so it ought to possible for anybody. Now read on, and let me tell you about this method in detail.

Carl Atsushi HIRANO, Professor at Business Breakthrough University

Chapter 1 Make your own Platform and Alliances will dramatically change your work and your life

What exactly is an alliance?

An alliance can also be described as a union or a federation; as it suggests the joining of forces and mutual collaboration of people or groups with differing positions, it is often used in the business world in the sense of corporate tie-ups or merger and acquisitions.

Now I’d like you to think about what forming an alliance between individuals means. Let’s say your company is disinterested in environmental issues. If you can bring together, for example, senior colleagues from other departments or people who have just joined the company and who think that it should take environmental issues more seriously, then you can create an “alliance relationship.” Involving large numbers of people to tell the company’s management that they should take environmental issues seriously and make a company that is respected by society rather than just pursuing profit, will have a far greater effect than just ranting about it on your own.


Business alliance skills are the art of cleverly controlling the relationships of people—some who are business-like, some who are more intimate—while taking into consideration all their ulterior motives, and using this to get people to make the most of you for the sake of your own self-realization and growth. The alliance relationship will fluctuate and change according to the degree of success you achieve in this.

For example, perhaps your success in making your company more environmentally aware will earn some words of praise from your boss, and your subordinates set you up as a leadership figure. The size of the alliance may grow as a result, and it is quite possible that it will go on to attach itself to another alliance.

Let’s say that the online shopping alliance proved to be a huge hit as a business, and you end up launching a company. Naturally the alliance relationship evolves into something else at this point. Business alliance skills cultivate the success of all those involved while developing an inherent win-win relationship. This is why it is possible for somebody with just a modicum of talent to become a huge success.

An alliance triggered the birth of the Osaifu-Keitai credit service

I was able to achieve success with the Osaifu-Keitai credit service because I used the power of the alliance to its optimum.

The Osaifu-Keitai credit service was something that I wanted to do for four years, right since I joined NTT DoCoMo. Our wallets are overflowing with point cards, and the stamp cards they hand out at restaurants et cetera, I thought. Digging them out everyday is a pain, and eventually you lose track of them….

This was the basis for my thoughts, but it would be rather dubious of me to claim that I was the very first person to make such a suggestion. Right from the start of the popularization of the Internet and mobile phone contents, there was talk of the “IT revolution” and the idea of this sort of mobile credit was being mentioned in every quarter. Even that Bill Gates apparently said that he wanted to make computers smaller and turn them into wallets. But I was working at DoCoMo—the very best place to actually make this happen.

I therefore made some suggestions within the company, but unfortunately, since it is a very large organization, I made little progress. Everyone dismissed the idea as being unfeasible, or said that credit wasn’t really the business of a telecoms company. I think the reason for these negative attitudes is that, since nearly all the company’s staff were from NTT, they weren’t really interested in things like credit services and finance. Perhaps another reason was the fact that the competitive environment was not as fierce then as it is now. And the i-mode, launched in 1999, was gaining a degree of success that drew attention from around the world.

What I used at this point was the alliance method. Of course I wasn’t thinking in terms of alliances at the time; the idea was “if this can’t be done within the company, I’ll try to discuss it with people outside.” Ever since i-mode was launched, we always talked over the formulation of strategies with The Boston Consulting Group, so I took my idea to some skillful consultants.

I was also invited to a great many study groups at the time, and sometimes spoke myself, so I decided to consult a certain analyst too. “It’s just my idea, but what do you think about a telecoms company offering a credit service?” I asked. “That sounds interesting! Let me think about it,” came the reply—the alliance was formed.

Amazingly, he immediately compiled a report on the theme of what would happen if a telecoms company entered the credit sector. I must say that this completely took me aback. However, what surprised me even more, was the result that this had. Once I had the advice of The Boston Consulting Group and the report of the external analyst, the mobile phone credit service concept suddenly started to move with a sense of realism. Of course, the process leading up to realization was long and demanding. Surmounting such difficulties required more than just bringing together a handful of people—I needed to involve more people, and build a large alliance.

DoCoMo, Sony and Mitsui Sumitomo—how the power of an individual moved mammoth companies

Before I joined NTT DoCoMo, I used to work for the Industrial Bank of Japan (IBJ), which is now part of the Mizuho Financial Group.

Though IBJ is now defunct, it was once known as a “King among banks,” an elite company that promised an assured future. I’ll explain later the details of why it was that I came to leave such a company and join NTT DoCoMo. Anyway, I heard about the job from an acquaintance, went for an interview in response to the advertisement, and then joined DoCoMo. I was first assigned to the new investment project team that they were setting up. The team was later to merge with the i-mode project.

I suppose that when the start-up of i-mode is mentioned most people would imagine technicians, creators. But I didn’t really fit into any of those categories. I think that the reason why a humdrum individual such as myself was asked to take part was because I was one of the few people at DoCoMo who had experience of finance. The area where that experience is useful is business tie-ups—in other words, alliances. DoCoMo first assigned me to the team which had just been separated from the Business Planing Division, and dealt with managing investee companies and making investments.

The then general manager,  told me, “There’s nothing fixed about the job, think for yourself and do whatever you want.” I started work with the feeling that changing jobs might have been a disastrous mistake, and that while my annual pay had dropped by three million yen, I couldn’t very well go back to IBJ now. I was stuck.

I was just a manager with one subordinate, but luckily my boss was a very kind person, and introduced me to i-mode team persons.

At the time, i-mode had only been available for about three months. It was way off the target subscriber number of one million, and to be perfectly honest it was not considered to have been much of a success. But we were already mulling over next move. As the media continued to develop, what became necessary was know-how that DoCoMo didn’t possess. This meant the need for alliances tying in other businesses with DoCoMo.

This is how, after joining DoCoMo in May 1999, I became a member of the i-mode growth strategy project that sought to examine how to nurture the brand in the future. Every evening, over a round of hamburgers from McDonalds, a team composed of five or so of us  held meetings late into the night.

For example, we decided to run an advertizing campaign once the number of subscribers reached one million, something which would necessitate a fully-fledged collaboration with a company that understood advertisements. Examining the issue with person of Dentsu (a leading advertizing agency), led to the establishment of D2 Communications, a combined company owned by Dentsu and DoCoMo.

I subsequently had the chance to spearhead an array of alliances. These included projects with DoCoMo.Com, who specialize in contents advice and venture investments; a combined company established in conjunction with Lawson, a convenience store chain; with Coca-Cola Japan and Itochu Corporation, a trading house, in the C-mode project that enabled people to buy Coke with their mobile phones; a collaboration between the Fuji Television and NTV television networks; collaborations between all the domestic convenience store chains; a collaboration involving Sony, Rakuten and JR East; the buyout of Tower Records, and the huge investment in Mitsui SumitomoCredit Card.

Through the work of negotiating with other businesses, I came to the conclusion that alliances between companies are nothing more than alliances between people.

Which company should you build an alliance with? I realized that in actual fact, it’s rather a question of which people at that company should you work with that is the most vital factor in a successful project.

“I’m really glad we trusted you, Mr. Hirano.” I still clearly remember the words of  then general manager at Mitsui Sumitomo Bank, the partner bank when we made the huge investment of around 100 billion yen in Mitsui Sumitomo Card, and launched the new iD credit brand.

There were frequent stormy scenes during the seven-month negotiations. Being told several times by the despondent leader of negotiations at Mitsui Sumitomo Card that the collaboration would probably collapse, suddenly swept away all the exhaustion that had been building up inside me.

Now let’s return to the dawn of the mobile phone credit service. As I have mentioned, we had advice from outside, and forward-looking considerations were beginning to be held within DoCoMo. At the time, my title was Head of i-mode business alliance, and I had 10 or so people working under me.
Osaifu-Keitai (without Credit service by DoCoMo at that time) sales were increasing nicely, but the number of places where they could be used was extremely limited. Our team was given the task of developing places where they could be used. We eagerly entered into alliances with companies running convenience stores—places where most people go at least once a week and payment amount is around 3~5 US$.

I also gave over 50 talks a year in Japan and overseas in an effort to raise awareness of the Osaifu-Keitai. Since Edy was the only form of e-money that could be used with the Osaifu-Keitai at the time, we cooperated with  Bit Wallet (the company that operates Edy) in steadily developing new partners, company by company. However, most retailers were extremely reluctant to invest in reader and writer devices that would enable use of the Osaifu-Keitai, or set aside space in their stores for its installation.

This is where I started to look at the credit card terminals located in most stores. “That’s it!” I thought—if we can configure the credit card terminals so they accept the Osaifu-Keitai, the phone will take off immediately. Full of high spirits, our team embarked on a campaign to create an alliance with a credit card company.

The totally new and promising business of mobile credit. I thought that if we went round all the credit card companies telling them about the plans of DoCoMo, whose share of the mobile phone market is over 50%, we would be sure to attract many sponsors.

But what actually happened was completely the opposite. I had totally miscalculated. What I had thought would be a mouth-watering idea for the credit card companies was met with point-blank refusals. Most of the companies responded along the lines of, “Well, that’s certainly an interesting idea, Mr. Hirano. Perhaps that day will come some time. But it’s still a little early…What do the other companies say?”

It was at this point that I turned to an alliance from my days at IBJ. Probably the most famous former employee of IBJ is Hiroshi Mikitani, the CEO and chairman of Rakuten Inc. By a stroke of luck, he also happened to be a former junior colleague of mine at IBJ, and we are a still close enough to occasionally have a chat on the phone. Mikitani did the accounts for the gymnastics club at his university, and always responded graciously to any request that I, his senior, made to him. He kindly participated twice as a panelist at a couple of large symposiums on mobile phone-related themes. Though he is often presented in certain quarters as being a charismatic type, having known him for many years since we worked at IBJ, I see him as a serious business leader who is always thinking of the growth of his company and his employees.
Following on from this, the next person to whom I gained an introduction was Yoshifumi Nishikawa, then head of Mitsui Sumitomo Bank. The then Mitsui Sumitomo Bank had been somewhat late in formulating a card strategy, and the Mitsui Sumitomo Card had been left playing catch-up with JCB, the sector leader.

With the bank having finally finished disposing of the bad debts incurred during the bubble years, it was moving towards a more aggressive set-up. This timing paid off with the result of direct negotiations between DoCoMo’s executive and Mitsui Sumitomo’s  being the green light for the project.

As a former banker myself, I know that the lock-step mentality of financial institutions is extraordinarily strong; once a highly profitable top-ranking company like Mitsui Sumitomo makes a move it has an immediate snowballing effect.

The end result was that the collaborative tie-ups expanded, as one alliance led to another, and the Osaifu-Keitai credit service developed with a burst of acceleration.

Business alliance skills turn the “impossible” into the possible

“The power to imagine and to do”—this is what I call the capacity for imagination plus the ability to get things done. As a matter of fact, I don’t really think that capacity for imagination, with the exception of a few special people, varies greatly from person to person. As I explain in the next chapter, most people have thought about more or less the same thing at least once, and the vast majority of the ideas in the world are rehashed or modified versions of concepts already in existence. I think the reason that hardly anyone makes a reality of the things that they think or hope about is due, rather, to an insufficient ability to get things done. But there’s not really such a difference in people’s ability to get things done either, and there are limits to the size of the achievements that a person can make on their own—however hard they may try.

So what constitutes this difference in people’s ability to get things done? I think that it lies in the difference between those who try to go it alone and eventually giving up because something proves to be impossible, and those who realize that while they may not have the individual strength to obtain their goal, they can borrow the strength of many other people to reach their goal.

However, don’t start of by imagining the dream team of reliable, cooperative and talented supporters you hope for, because you can’t create a network like that overnight. That’s why you have to show your goal, and get other people with a common direction involved in one capacity or another. Bringing together, as a matter of course, people who will help to make something a reality is the idea of the alliance.

It would in fact have been utterly impossible to achieve the Osaifu-Keitai without involving other people. This is not merely a question of routine business matters such as DoCoMo’s lack of know-how or an inability to do business without corporate tie-ups. In the first place, our idea was no more than a vague notion that we wanted to popularize the Osaifu-Keitai, and that it would be handy if you could pay for things with your mobile phone.

But the more I got people involved the more the originally opaque idea turned into a feasible shape.

One example of this is the FeliCa noncontact technology developed by Sony. The origins of FeliCa lie in a conversation about mobile phone collaborations between DoCoMo and  JR East. The fact is, services using 2D barcodes and infrared ray technologies aimed at enabling tie-ups between mobile phones and stores had been underway for several years, long before the Osaifu-Keitai using FeliCa.

Experiments for the service were carried out at Lawson stores,the second largest convenience store. The C-mode project conducted in conjunction with Coca-Cola was finally realized as a result of their vice-president’s persistent persuasion of the US head office.

But things didn’t always go according to plan, with the technology’s operability sometimes being poor, and awareness of it low. I didn’t have any formula to solve these issues, but with the help of this record of failures, the fact is that people became accustomed to doing things with their mobile phones and the transfer to the current FeliCa system was carried out smoothly.

People’s behavior and lifestyles do not change easily. But the larger an alliance becomes, with the participation of people with a thorough knowledge of each sector all sorts of problems are solved thanks to the knowledge of those involved.

People often say that “this won’t get through the company,” or “it may have got this far, but the boss of such-and-such department will never approve.” This is precisely what happened with the Osaifu-Keitai credit service project.

There is, without fail, somebody in the world who can enable the things that you can’t do on your own. Conversely, there are also people who are yearning for your skills. If people like these link up with each other, in a quite miraculous manner things that have previously been impossible become feasible. As these people have a mutual need, surely it’s easy for them to enter into an alliance providing that they find out about each other.

What you have to do at this point is, first of all, to take the initiative and eagerly make people aware of what you want to do and what you can do.

Why are there so many people around who say they created i-mode?

I have described the realization of things through alliances as a “miracle.” In fact, by gaining the involvement of a large number of people you can achieve results beyond your imagination.

It’s possible that what began as a little idea can turn into a massive project with a turnover of billions of yen.

The greatest example of this is DoCoMo’s innovative i-mode project, which laid the groundwork for the Osaifu-Keitai.

Even more than the current diffusion level, what is really astonishing about i-mode is the fact that there is a large number of people around who say “Actually it was me that created it.” I think that this is because there are so many people who became involved with the plan, regarding the original suggestion as their own.

It is probable that i-mode too, started as a little idea. The origins were a simple instruction to my boss and the leader of the i-mode team, by the then president of DoCoMo, to look at ways of making money other than telephone charges.

The leader then consulted the director of a friend’s company. He was introduced to lady of the editor of the magazine, who in turn suggested the participation of DoCoMo, who was still a student and working for the magazine as a part-timer. With experts in each field offering to “do something” about the new idea, the idea grew larger and larger, and this sense of wanting to help became more pronounced. The end result was a smash hit product that virtually anybody now enjoys the benefits of.

The person that makes the platform benefits the most eventually

There has been a dramatic increase in recent years of companies and individuals who have achieved great success through alliances.

Toyota Motors, one of Japan’s leading companies, is a good example. They are the company at the forefront of the motor business, and the impetus with which they have outstripped their rivals is famous. But along with Aishin, an affiliate, they are in fact involved in tie-ups with many of their competitors in the sector—companies including BMW, Volkswagen and Peugeot. Rather than resulting in eating into each other, these alliances are in fact helping to provide their fans with high quality products.

Another factor that has captured my attention in making the most of alliances is the platform-style business model. I think that the winners in the 21st century will probably be the businesses that are able to achieve this model.

What the Osaifu-Keitai is aiming at too, is indeed such a platform-style business. A brief look at the market suggests companies that have proved to be winners in the Internet sector, like Google and Microsoft, or Facebook. Elsewhere, companies outside of the virtual world, such as Roppongi-hills, and Aeon and Seven and I can be said to have grown after adopting this platform philosophy.

The platform philosophy is really the provision of a place where alliances can be formed.

In the case of Rakuten, for example, the company made a large online shop framework in which other smaller shops are free to conduct business. Aeon, on the other hand, provides large shopping centers in the suburbs, and then invites tenant companies to locate their shops in them. Lawson, a convenience store, has become as convenient as the name suggests by locating post boxes within its stores.

If the rest is left to the companies that participate in the platform provided, their ideas may change the platform into something that the providing party never dreamed of. Google, for example, was provided originally by companies—but it was surely the public users who made the site evolve into what it is now.

It’s fine just to provide a “place” and basically leave ideas for the users and clients to develop themselves. Even then, the person that is going to benefit most at the end of the day is the original creator of the platform. And these people will, quite naturally, be the big winners of the 21st century.

How much of a “place” can you offer to people?

Now it’s not just the corporate business model—we have already entered a day and age in which even individuals and single projects have created a platform and reaped success. And in actual fact, a great many of these people who have achieved success have done so on an individual basis.

a successful author and friend of mine runs a website supporting women and has become a charismatic figure among many working women.

The company that is making the most of this format of success through alliances in terms of the way that each of its employees works is probably Google. The company has a rule that is known as the “20% to 80% rule,” which allows its staff to spend 20% of their time at work on themes that they find personally interesting. All the staff think about new projects, and when an idea that looks interesting appears, they are free to ask all their colleagues what they think about it. If their colleagues also think that the idea looks interesting, or offer to do what they can to help with it, it leads to the establishment of a project. If the company itself thinks it’s a good idea too, then it’s formally adopted as a part of Google’s worldwide business.

As the example of Google shows too, a simple idea turns into something that can be achieved by getting other people involved. This is exactly why the people who achieve success at Google are not just those who come up with ideas, but those who have “the power to imagine and to do.” I think it’s this result that underpins the huge progress made by the company.

Trust your feelings as you go forward

When you’re working within one organization or company, your set of values becomes stiff and fixed, and the chances you have for making new discoveries dwindle rapidly. But if people with various different ways of thinking join your alliance, your own fixed opinions will crumble and fall, and you will quickly start to have all sorts of new ideas.

Recently, there are a great many people who say things like “What I do is this,” or “This is my specialty,” people who seek to map out their futures armed just with some plan they have dreamed up in their head. But those who enter into alliances will surely soon realize just how petty and restricted such thoughts are.

Therefore levels of individual success expand to heights previously undreamed of through the use of business alliance skills. I hope that you, the reader, have this unknown potential.

My current work was created by and is still supported by alliances. I became an advisor to a company through the introduction of a former junior colleague.  My career progressed haphazardly, but when I thought about it I realized that my income had increased by more than ten times the salary I earned when I first joined the company—profit was part of the package too.

Of course, I hadn’t envisaged such a future when I joined DoCoMo. One of the reasons I left IBJ and joined DoCoMo in the first place was a growing feeling that you only live once and that I wanted to keep on testing myself. IBJ’s ranking at the time was plummeting, and I was acutely aware that the number of projects brought to me in the office were declining.

Even then, nobody actually entertained the thought that this bank might actually disappear (although I take pride in the fact that my intuitions often hit the target). Above all, I began to want to try a job outside finance, a job where you can actually see what you’re doing.

It was at that moment that I encountered the tool of the mobile phone. The catalyst for that encounter was the death of my mother.

My mother died of cancer in 1994, and a tense period of three months had preceded her passing away. Despite this I was working hard at IBJ each day, my father was lecturing at medical college and had little time, and my sister was occupied with her small children. We were all working and had no way to get in touch with each other in an emergency. I, my father and my sister were all beside ourselves with worry when we thought about my mother.

It was mobile phones that helped to solve this anxiety. Of course, DoCoMo didn’t exist in those days, and we had to go to NTT and hire a bulky phone at a cost of 70,000 yen. Even so, having the phone in my hand gave me a sense of security, a feeling that the family was linked together. I thought to myself that though the mobile phone had yet to be popularized, it was certain to change the world.

So when I heard that NTT DoCoMo was recruiting staff, I had an exciting feeling that maybe I would get the chance to become involved with mobile phones. However, those around me were dead against the idea. And naturally so, because while the company may now be one of the companies that people most want to work for, at the time it was regarded as no more than a somewhat nebulous venture spinoff of NTT.

Nonetheless, I was definitely suited to that direction. It wasn’t a case of the future potential, or planning for the years ahead. When I look back on those days now I think it was vital that I believed my instinct and listened to my feelings. You shouldn’t have to entice others with overblown phrases such as “follow me and you’ll get lucky” or “I’m going to be big one day.” What you have to show is a clear vision: this is what I want to do.

What you first need to do when you make your move is to change your own perceptions

I subsequently left DoCoMo, and after working as executive at a venture business I launched my own company in October 2007. The reason was, again, because a strong feeling of “I want to do this!” pulled me in that direction.

When I left DoCoMo, i-mode had become popularized as a perfectly everyday platform, and the Osaifu-Keitai credit service had already been launched. So I didn’t really think that there was anything left for me to do at DoCoMo even if I stayed. But I love DoCoMo and still working for them now.

I believe that the first step in business alliance skills is to establish your own thoughts, a single business unit that transcends the company. You take something that you want to do and launch it as a business project. In response to that project, and alliance will be formed that consists of both your bosses and your colleagues. As the alliance progresses, you always play the leading role. So if something else that you want to do turns up, the alliance will also shift in that direction.

Over the course of your life there will naturally be times when a whole new alliance relationship suddenly takes off—but this doesn’t mean that your “old” alliance relationships are something that you can afford to cast off. Even if its role changes, all you have to do is skillfully use the relationships in the alliance according to your own wishes. It doesn’t even really matter whether the alliance proves to be useful or not. All you should do is pursue your alliance with a bubbling sense of anticipation that something may be just around the corner.

Putting into practice business alliance skills is a question of trying to portray you yourself as a “company,” and perhaps the people who join the alliance will be your “staff” and your “clients.” Now the important question is how to nurture “you, the company.” I see this as an exciting game, not a daunting task based on competition principles.

During my IBJ days,  my boss and a director of the bank at the time, was always saying to me: “I think that work is a sort of game—don’t lose the forest for the trees.”

Think about it. The personal growth that you can obtain through alliances is unlimited. But you will be stimulated with every alliance, and become able to create ever more interesting ideas. The results will be the sort of progress that you never expected, a progress that will lead to your future success story.

You will find the sort of success that you cannot imagine now. What do you reckon? Sounds exciting, doesn’t it. In the following chapters I will explain the five points about business alliance skills that will enable you to make your own Platform and  this shift: alliance thinking; information collection and sorting; networking; learning methods; and career enhancement.
Information collection using alliances will bring you huge volumes of precious information that you could never have gained access to before. The networking skills covered in this book concentrate on how you should go about creating alliance relationships; through alliances you will become able to exchange opinions with experts in all sorts of fields—people who you’ve never had the chance to speak to.

With my learning methods, the alliance will expand vastly what you are able to find out and what you can learn. This will enable you to make your own platform and enhance your career and reach a position that is unimaginable to you now.

But the starting point for this future has to be “what should I do now?” What you have to do is change the way you think. And this means, first of all, acting with courage.

Chapter 2 Platform Way of Thinking

Don’t become “prominent”—become somebody who others help

Turn your thoughts into everybody’s thoughts

Usually, when there is something that you want to do you decide upon a rough outline, draw up a plan or proposal, and submit it to your superior. But when we were trying to launch the Osaifu-Keitai credit service , I tried to get other people involved from the concept stage, before there were any concrete ideas.
In the first place, the idea of the Osaifu-Keitai credit service is the simple concept of using a mobile phone instead of a credit card. However, when it comes to the concrete plan there are technical questions, systematic problems of the finance sector and so on—in other words, a stream of negative factors. The idea of a telecoms company entering the credit sector was unheard of, and was in a way a world-first.
In general, the larger that a company becomes, the more reluctant it is to get involved in matters that it doesn’t understand. I thought that my idea would stand a better chance of being realized if I spread awareness about it to such an extent that everybody would understand and want to do it.
In concrete terms, what I did was to exhaustively seek the opinions of Managing Director of Morgan Stanley, who I had known since my IBJ days, external consultants and other acquaintances, all of whom I asked: “I’ve got an idea that nobody in the company take seriously, something that I’m wondering could be done—what do you think of this? Is it really out of the question?” Of course, I didn’t take any written plans or proposals.
These inquiries earned me all sorts of information about overseas strategies and case studies concerning card companies and telecoms companies. In those days I had acquaintances at Mitsui Sumitomo Card, so I tried bouncing my idea off to one of their directors. A professional among professionals, he courteously explained all the mechanisms and actual methods used in the credit card sector. I never imagined at the time that this conversation would prove to be the prototype of DoCoMo’s iD credit brand.
In the office, I thought that it would be rather difficult for our little i-mode team to move the vast organization that DoCoMo is. It’s the same at any company, but naturally enough, responses from other departments bubble to the surface—people pointed out the risks and listed reasons why such-and-such couldn’t be done, or just said they hadn’t heard anything about it. At this point, one of the directors of DoCoMo suggested that we wiped the slate clean and convene a study group on the Osaifu-Keitai credit service composed of the representatives of each department. I must confess that when I heard the phrase “wipe the slate clean” I thought that that was the end of the project, that it would never become a reality. The shock made me quite ill.
However, after examining the issue for seven months the conclusions of the study group were that the Osaifu-Keitai credit service should be supported. This meant that, with an ongoing exchange of opinions between all the departments, the project would go ahead as a cross-company project upon which the fate of DoCoMo was riding. Once the impetus for promoting the project was in place, we quickly gained the know-how of talented people from every part of DoCoMo, and the problems that our team had struggled with were solved in rapid succession.
If the project had been conducted by the i-mode team alone I don’t think it would have been possible for us to pull off such a massive task. The launch of the study group led in the end to the greatest effect.
As you can see, the methodology of the “Platform and alliance thinking” idea is to turn your own ideas into something that belongs to everybody.

The chain reaction of ideas is the fine line between success and failure

If it’s your idea, why on earth do you have to change it into something that belongs to everybody? Perhaps some readers will think that this could do nothing but harm. You often hear things like “This is patented,” or “I can’t tell you because we don’t want any know-how leaks,” particularly in sectors such as venture businesses.
But if you stick to this “my idea” attitude, will your proposal actually lead to significant results? If you keep all the profits of a project that will yield one million yen to yourself, all you will get is one million yen. But what if that project can be turned into one that creates 10 billion yen in profits? Even if you gained just 1% of that sum, it would represent 100 million yen—100 times your one million yen profit. I think that this way of thinking is the difference between the success or the failure of a large enterprise.
Whether it’s a new product, a sales plan, or a proposal for improving business, in the final analysis no progress will be made unless the participation of a large number of people is obtained. Moreover, the participants are not working for the sake of the person who has made the proposal—they are working for the good of the company, and above all, for their own sakes.
Which is why it is clearly more of a motivation for people to work towards something they feel they have played a part in thinking up, rather than something that is somebody else’s idea. Still more in my case, this was true at the stage before the idea was realized. If I had kept it as “my idea” then very few people would have helped me try to turn it into a reality. But when an idea becomes “everybody’s idea” then all those involved become linked together by a fervor to make a reality of this common idea, which in turn creates a huge power. This fervor is an utterly essential part of successful business alliance skills.

What’s mine is yours, what’s yours is mine

If the wonderful idea that you thought up all by yourself becomes “everybody’s idea,” perhaps you won’t gain the recognition you deserve within the company; or perhaps your achievements will be usurped by somebody else—I suppose some people may harbor such thoughts. In the previous chapter I mentioned the large number of people around who claim to have “created” i-mode. Apparently there is a similar situation surrounding Nintendo’s Pokemon (Pocket Monsters) characters, and I believe that such problems are now called the “Pokemon Phenomenon.” In the case of the Osaifu-Keitai too, there are indeed a great many people who claim to have created it. But surely this just proves how successful the product was.
Apparently at some companies the success of the Osaifu-Keitai led to some people receiving special two-stage promotion or bonuses, but nothing of the sort happened at DoCoMo. Of course, we didn’t even expect such treatment. What really pleased me were the words of DoCoMo’s president then: “I’m very grateful,” and : “Your name will go down in history, Mr. Hirano.”
Somebody is always watching properly.
Some readers are perhaps worried that discussing things with their colleagues may lead to their ideas being stolen. However, regardless of how good an idea is, 99% of people are unable to put it into practice. An idea that can be stolen so easily is not much of an idea.
Aside from the question of praise, the fact that I was able to realize such a large project was, in the first place, because I was working for the huge “platform” of DoCoMo. And what was much more important to me than praise, was that I learnt through the project how to move an organization and acquired business alliance skills to move other people—an invaluable experience that I would not exchange for anything else. Manipulating people from both inside and outside the organization enabled me to realize a project that it would have been quite impossible complete on my own.
The project was realized by forcing a chemical reaction between the ideas of various individuals, and achieving a shift in perspectives—from the perspective of my own job to the perspective of soliciting like-minded people, and finally to the perspective of the “organization,” in other words, the company. This sort of “managerial aesthetic” of looking at things from the company’s perspective is a vital part of “Platform and alliance thinking.”

Your real job is to turn the impossible into the possible

Now let’s turn our thoughts towards the significance of making an alliance for making your platform. The reason that ideas, proposals, wishes and dreams go unfulfilled is the existence of certain obstacles. There is always a bottleneck somewhere.
The factors behind such bottlenecks are varied—they may include questions of ability or time, personal relationships or money. Since all of these are beyond your control, ideas and wishes end up as “impossibilities.” But how about making a prerequisite of getting other people involved from the outset?
Taking an extreme example, even somebody who wanted to move to Mars would have a better than zero chance if they could get NASA or other space development agencies involved. My point is that a “bottleneck” is little more than a case of “I can’t do it,” and if you can just move the “I” from the equation then almost anything will change from impossible to possible.
The i-mode service was made a reality by successively turning the “impossible” parts into the “possible” through the use of alliances. For example, the ringtone service was a massive hit. It arose from conversations between DoCoMo and persons of  Fuetrek and Faith. DoCoMo, however, lacked the technology to realize the idea, and since they didn’t have the musical software in the first place, the absence of the technology meant of course that the ringtone idea was “impossible.” But if we got a company that had the technology and a company that had the sound source to join the alliance, the impossible would become the possible. What actually happened was that we solved the technical issue by getting the phone makers to fit a sound source chip called “MIDI” on the mobiles, while a karaoke company provided the music for the ringtones.
The idea was the same with the Osaifu-Keitai. If, for example, you want people to be able to buy things from a vending machine using their mobile phones, rather than racking your brains with for possible solutions the quickest route would be to talk to somebody who could make this happen.
The reason that we actually managed to make this idea a reality arose from a query about the possibility of tying up mobiles and vending machines, made by Coca-Cola and Itochu Corporation. This eventually turned into the C-mode service, a one million-member service that was the first in the world to connect mobile phones with vending machines; its roots were no more than a series of muddled trial and error experiments conducted by junior staff at the three companies. They started from scratch, and progressed after gradual experimentation and repeated success and failure. And over this process, the originally diverse ideas of what DoCoMo wanted to do and what Coca-Cola wanted to do somehow expanded into one big idea that both parties wanted to do.
This circle of people rapidly grew into a fearsome entity, but what always lay at the heart of it was Coca-Cola’s and my teams’ strong sense of wanting to do something, and to mutually move each other’s company. This sense gradually turned into a deep relationship of trust, which permeated through to every member of the teams. A burning wish to break the mold of the company and make a certain project succeed led, one by one, to the solving of all the bottlenecks caused by technical obstacles.

How to involve in the alliance the people you don’t get on with

I have covered how to overcome the technical obstructions, but possibly the biggest bottleneck when you try to do something at a company is not the physical question of technology but the obstacle of human relationships. But all you have to do is use “Platform and alliance thinking” to reverse your thoughts on this matter.
This is not a matter of “persuading” those who are against you, more a case of getting them into your platform by alliance, in other words, of making them your partners. And how do you that? Instead of telling your clients or subordinates that “This is the situation, so just get on with it!” and merely seeking to force through your own opinions, you have to appeal to them—”Do you think I could possibly ask you to think with me about such-and-such,” or “I’d really like to have your input, and want to think about this with you.” It is important that this should not be done in a way that suggests you are negotiating; these people should be made to feel that they are, in a small way, participating: “I’d be most grateful to discuss this with you,” “I’d like you to come and join us,” et cetera. This may well be the same principle as the concept that negotiations go better when the two parties are sitting next to or diagonally opposite each other rather than head-on.
Instead of saying something like: “I’m thinking of doing things this way from now on, I’m sure it will lead to better sales so please let me have a go,” an exchange with your manager such as this would be preferable: “I’m thinking of trying this way of doing things next time. I’m sure it will lead to better sales, but I was wondering what you thought…”
“Yes, I suppose that would be alright. But why don’t you just change this part?”
“Thank you very much. I’ll be sure to keep you posted about how things progress.”
“OK!”
Strange as it might seem, just this little effort makes the other person feel as though he or she is participating, and pulls them round to your side. I myself gained a great many precious opinions by building up alliances in exactly this way.

Winning over those you want to persuade through consultative alliances

I think that people want to help if they are consulted. Perhaps you have found that people can oppose you merely on the grounds that they were not consulted about something. When you keep hearing this excuse despite repeatedly trying to explain yourself, there is a temptation to say something like: “But I’m telling you about it now!”—but let’s not lose our heads. A reply like that will lead to the very worst outcome. Regardless of specious logic, any sort of opinion is likely encounter opposition somewhere.
But if you can bring such people into your alliance from the outset, then they will end up eagerly supporting you, and if all goes well they will doubtless provide your project with plenty of publicity by boasting about their input. And when a senior staff member involves his juniors in an alliance, you can be sure that the juniors will look as if they have been given a whole new lease of life.
This is not “wheel-greasing,” which in Japan consists of preparing for meetings by going round all the participants and asking them not to oppose this or that; it’s a question of getting people involved right from the stage of creating the framework.
What you must take care to do here is to set up a clear basic policy and way of thinking for yourself. You must make sure that the axle of the wheel is firmly in place. Otherwise all you will end up with is a copious stream of opinions that descend into chaos.

The big strategy—Devote yourself first and never give up

You may sometimes find that the other people in the alliance are not on the same wavelength as you, or that you don’t get on with them. You might also find that your boss is irritated at first, and expects you to get on with the thinking.
However hard you try to involve other people in the alliance, they all have their own considerations and are not usually going to devote a huge amount of thought to the project. In order to get these people into the alliance it is vital that you yourself first of all study and store the information, knowledge and know-how that they are likely to require. In my case, this was knowledge and know-who about finance. Above all, you need an enthusiasm to stay the course and turn the project into a reality at all costs.
There is a tendency to give up if things don’t go well the first or even the second time. I never once gave up over the four years of the Osaifu-Keitai credit service project, despite the fact that on several occasions it looked as if it may go off the rails.
On the subject of enthusiasm, now I am in a senior position, when a junior colleague wants to talk to me about something I always ask myself: “How seriously is this person thinking about doing this?” To phrase it rather extremely, what the boss takes most seriously is whether or not a person is so enthusiastic that they are willing to do pursue a project even if it means forgetting to eat and sleep.
Although business models are an important part of success, particularly in venture business investments, it is generally thought that everything hinges on the enthusiasm of the management. If you pursue your goals with determination and enthusiasm, your are likely to achieve them.
Even in situations in which you expect to encounter the utmost difficulties, you can be certain of winning people over to your side if you are enthusiastic and pay them gratitude and respect for the time that they give you.

Alliances with other companies stand or fall in the first three months

What I have covered so far in this chapter concerns alliances within the company; the story is a little different when you are dealing with another company. There is a tendency for things to go badly when you are on a different wavelength or feel uncomfortable with the person in charge at the other company.
My intuitive feeling is that if a project doesn’t proceed after three months of exploratory work on it, it is likely to run aground even if it is eventually launched. An alliance means going forward with a win-win attitude. You must proceed after having considered the merits to the other party. The alliance will not hold water if all you do is expound your own benefits. Moreover, as any project proceeds it is bound to come up against problems at some stage—leading to the further problem of what should be done about the situation in each company. You will need to go beyond the framework of the company and, for the sake of the project’s success, work on solutions with the person in charge at the other company. You work on solutions within your company, he within his, and between you measures to respond are drawn up. If you are not on the same wavelength or don’t feel comfortable with each other at this stage, there is a great danger that you will be unable to surmount any difficulties that you may encounter.
So when no progress is made even after three months, either you have to change the person you are negotiating with or, possibly, there is simply no hope of you doing business with that company in the first place, so it’s probably best to move on to an alliance with another company. Before you do so, however, there is one thing that you must remember to do. You must explain to the company that, since there doesn’t appear to be any mutual benefit in the project, you wish to withdraw, and convince them of your reasons before going on to find a new partner. This is because we live in a small world, and one day in the future you may need to call upon that company again.

Success stories are the biggest enemy

As your team of eager members assembles and the project proceeds, there is another bottleneck that may appear: preconceived notions. There are preconceived notions such as “this is not possible” and others, but I think the one that is the greatest threat to the project is probably the person who has a success story. They think that since they achieved success with such-and-such a method in the past, everything will be alright if they continue to pursue that method. They are reluctant to step outside their little world even when the times are changing.
This is the often cited “boiling frog syndrome.” If the water in the pond suddenly gets hot, the frog jumps out. But it is the water heats up gradually the frog doesn’t notice, and is boiled alive, or so the story goes.
Companies are like boats trying to sail up a fast-flowing river; they drift back downstream the moment they stop. Doing things in the same way is the biggest risk, but humans have a homeostasis that makes them want to stay as they are; we are creatures who want to be left in peace.
However, history is full of companies that have vanished because they wouldn’t change. The companies making styluses for record players had been doing so for year after year apparently without ever imagining that vinyl would disappear. They didn’t realize what was going on because they were too wrapped-up in their old successes, and never set foot outside their own world. If they had been in alliance with any other business sectors I am sure that they would have been told time after time that not so many people listen to records these days.
The alliance thinking philosophy lives on in the sense of creating a wide open world around you.

The self-imposed walls of a closed world, springing up before you realize it

An open world is of huge significance, not only for companies, but for people who come up with ideas as well. While you may think you want to do this or that, or such-and-such an idea looks good, you are in fact often restricted by your own rigid set of preconceived notions.
One often seen example is the company that bulldozes its technologies and products into the creation of new services. “We’ve got some wonderful technology, so why don’t we use it to do this?” a company asks itself, and the idea grows out of hand like a bull in a china shop.
When you’re thinking about an idea it is vital that you keep asking yourself “Who is going to use it, when, where, for how much and in what way?” and consult with the people who are going to be the target users. For example, I have heard of a person working in the development department of a food company who makes a point of trying out new products on his family and friends—people outside of his workplace. People at his company are used to eating new foods; they are “specialists” in the wrong sense, and apparently products that earn a consensus in his workplace are often quite unpalatable to members of the public.
Managing Directori of DoCoMo told me that he always asks his wife and children for their opinions about new services released by the company. There’s also a story that he told a board meeting where he received a barrage of negative opinions: “The service is aimed at people who, unlike you, are still young.”
The merit of alliances is that, by involving people with different sets of values, your own preconceived notions start to collapse, and you become freed from your own thoughts. Such people include those from other sectors, people who work with a different perspective, sometimes foreigners, people from the other sex and other walks of life et cetera. The more that “different cultures” become mixed up in the alliance, the more that you will realize that you have hitherto been hemmed in by the values of a narrow little world. Having worked for three companies so far, I have strongly felt that “the company’s common sense is nonsense to society.” When there are preconceived notions, it is vital that fresh blood is introduced to the project at its earliest stages.

Blue ocean strategy created by alliances

“Blue ocean strategy” has recently become a buzzword in corporate strategy circles. The strategy was put forward in the book of the same name by INSEAD professors W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne. The “blue ocean” is a market where there are no rivals, enabling you to freely swim. The idea is that, instead of heading into familiar markets and the accompanying bloodbath of price strategy versus differentiation strategy, you aim at pristine new areas. Budget airlines and the first eco car that Toyota put on the market would be good examples of this. Incidentally, i-mode is mentioned in the book as a successful example of a blue ocean strategy. I think that the Osaifu-Keitai credit service also deserves the blue ocean appellation too, because, in addition to using a mobile phone like a credit card, the idea of being billed later for very small transactions was something that even the credit card sector itself had yet to introduce. Until then, nobody had ever thought of paying for a 120 yen can of Coke or a 160 yen train ticket with a credit card.
The reason that the credit card companies had never offered such a service was the prohibitive costs involved. And users would have been unlikely to accept the time spans involved in paying for this, that, and everything with a credit card. Moreover, if you buy something for 10,000 yen with a credit card, the commission is only around 100 yen, but the credit card company has to pay for the costs of posting statements and running its system. The figures just didn’t add up. However, in the case of a telecoms company like DoCoMo, all that needs to be done is add an extra line for the expenses incurred on the user’s monthly phone bill.
The background of this situation is the relatively low rate of credit card use in Japan, which is around 7% to 8% compared to 25% in Europe and America. We thought that if people become accustomed to buying small items by credit then perhaps some of the younger ones will go on to buy expensive items by credit, which would boost the size of the Japanese credit card companies’ market. For their part, the credit companies were deeply interested in the question of how they could get young people to carry and use credit cards—our idea dovetailed perfectly with their needs. And the results are still evolving before our very eyes.

Gathering information from people, and thinking for yourself causes a chemical reaction

I think that the best way of getting ideas and gathering information is to actually listen to people. I asked many people for their opinions when I was working on the Osaifu-Keitai project.
Those days were a case of overcoming a hurdle only to find another one standing in our way; the path of a telecoms company like DoCoMo, as it sought to enter the credit sector, was littered with obstacles. The biggest of these was the problem of know-how about credit. While we were struggling with this issue, one day a sign outside a certain shop caught my attention: “Credit cards accepted.” Hoping that I might learn something useful, I had a chat with the person working in the shop, who told me that people rarely paid with credit cards.
Learning that users were few and far between may have suggested that we were at the end of the road. But reminded of the words of the person in the shop, I thought: “If there aren’t many users, why don’t we make the Osaifu-Keitai compatible with credit cards.” The Osaifu-Keitai, which originated from the idea that carrying round a bundle of plastic cards was a nuisance, actually represented a threat to the credit card companies. But my new idea was a piece of lateral thinking—to merge the credit cards and the phone. With this idea, a system could be developed in which the credit companies—which felt threatened by the entry into their sector of a telecoms company—would actually end up making money with us. The idea eventually led to the concept mooted by then director of Mitsui Sumitomo Card, who said, “It might just make some headway in the small payment sector—let’s make a new brand.”
Elsewhere, by seeking the opinions of retail professionals like director of am/pm Japan and  director of Family Mart, many potential bottlenecks became apparent. Proceeding step-by-step by listening to people, enriching ideas, and making alliances—this was the concept of the Osaifu-Keitai.

Matching the alliance with latent needs

If you know from the start that there is an untapped market, a “blue ocean” somewhere out there, and work towards that, anybody can be successful. If you run a company, it is probably worth investing in such blue ocean areas, and individuals too can flourish by doing something nobody else had one and harnessing the attractions of their originality.
But if these blue oceans were so easy to find then nobody would have any trouble. It’s hardly likely that any one can both visualize and realize a blue ocean on their own.
As I have already mentioned, there isn’t really such a thing as a completely new idea. Virtually every “new” service and product and all the “new” ideas that appear are in fact modifications, combinations or the splitting up of something that already exists. However, I think that the reason that some of these become hits is not just that they were in some way modified or combined, but that they discovered a way of responding to some latent need in society.
This latency is a vital point. People’s dissatisfaction and sense of inconvenience offer hints for finding these latent needs. They are to be uncovered behind phrases such as: “Why don’t they make something like this….” and “If only they made this…”
You cannot discover latent needs by, for example, conducting a questionnaire. Because at the time of the questionnaire, these needs have yet to materialize. While you can evaluate an existing product with a questionnaire, you cannot really understand anything about products or services whose users are not yet visible.
The Osaifu-Keitai was a match of latent needs and an alliance. You may be under the impression that its development was achieved through massive negotiations like corporate alliances, but I think that the major factor was the sharing of latent needs. I suspect that around seven or eight people out of ten think that the profusion of cards in their wallets is a nuisance, and it is therefore likely that a great many of them have thought how useful it would be if they could all be combined into a single common card.
However, once the latent needs for a common credit are discovered, even a company that is big enough to make that a reality is not going to find the implementation of such a plan to be an easy task. It’s like having to go around all the card, distribution, and railway companies and asking them to gather under your umbrella from square one. However interesting the idea may seem, people at your own company and outside companies may well ask whether it merits such an arduous task, and it is possible that nobody will take you seriously. But if a group of people from telecoms, convenience stores and credit card companies pulls together and draws in more supporters with a shared vision of “wouldn’t this be good,” before you know it you will have a plan that can please everyone. If you yourself lack the knowledge and skills to do this, then be humble enough to rope in some people or companies that do have the knowledge and skills, and get them to think together with you. By acting as the producer who draws all these threads together, you will be able to realize the most successful things possible. This is how to think about building things up through alliances.
Managing a company is in many ways like this. The owner of a restaurant chain can achieve success without being able to cook. Success will depend on his ability to blend excellent chefs, interior coordinators who can create a pleasant restaurant, and an accounting staff that can rigorously calculate basic costs. Skillful coordination and production is vital in both the management of companies and the realization of projects. In other words, there is a better chance of something being realized if you involve other people and think together with them, rather than racking your brains on your own.

The difference between brainstorming and alliance: is there feedback?

Some readers may feel that since they both involve the exchanging of opinions, alliances are like brainstorming sessions. In the latter, people try to suggest various opinions (without rejecting those of others) in an attempt to come up with “some good ideas.” They tend to consist mainly of people from planning departments, and are conducted with an extraordinarily positive air of producing these wonderful ideas. While I certainly agree that this is one good method of producing ideas, the basis of the alliance-style idea creation concept is quite different.
The basis of alliance-style idea creation begins with this question: “How can I make this concept of mine go well?” It’s a question of assessing what you should do to get the other company interested, and to whom it would be beneficial to speak to.
The alliance isn’t about gathering ideas from each and every direction; it’s a case of repeatedly polishing a single idea. It requires you to steadfastly maintain the concept and sense of direction that form the axis of the alliance.
The fact is that while there are plenty of “proposals” at brainstorming sessions, there is rarely much room for “feelings.” Yet it is these “feelings” that are more important to the process of idea creation. Because, as I have explained with regard to “blue oceans,” it is not the positive ideas—the sense of wanting to do something—that leads to blue oceans; rather, it is the negative, dissatisfied idea of “why don’t they make this?”
Mobile phones were a response to people’s dissatisfaction at not being able to make calls unless they were near a public phone; convenience stores a response to their dissatisfaction with everything being shut at night; the Osaifu-Keitai a response to their dissatisfaction with the ridiculous amount of cards in their wallets. However, despite all these being considered unsatisfying, there is absolutely no proof that “if we make this it’s going to sell.” When business projects are planned they usually involve market research, data analysis and forecasts et cetera. They are formulated logically and then proposed.
Platform and Alliance thinking begins with the arguments of “why don’t they make this? This would be useful,” not a sense of “I want to do this.” If you gain a consensus at this point, the process will snowball and plans to make a reality of the idea will start to take shape.
New, unheard of businesses, are a question of predictions about the future, and since no prerequisites exist, a way of thinking that is born out of emotion will become necessary.

Platform and Alliance thinking needs somebody who can become “the leader”

If you use the platform and alliance thinking method when you are looking at things, ideas that may at first seem hackneyed or vague can rapidly become more feasible by getting other people involved. But you must maintain a strong passion and impetus, a sense that you are going to carry through your project come what may. You may be given some negative opinions about your idea, but you have to go out and find comments that will help to point you in the right direction. Steering the project is your role, and leadership is essential for making your own platform and the alliance. Promoting the alliance is a little like being a bus driver, with everybody else as your passengers.
So what should you do in order to reach your destination? First, commitment is vital. In other words, you must pluck up the courage to decide that this is what you want to do, that it is good for the company, and then make sure that everybody knows about it. Maybe this side of my personality helped, but I have always—without breaching confidentiality—been open in telling people what I am thinking about, regardless of whether they are within or outside the company, clients, bosses or junior staff. This is why I have always found alliances growing up around me before I even realized.
Of course, I am not trying to tell you that as long as you have commitment you’re dreams will come true. But getting the right sort of people involved will greatly enhance the chances of an idea turning into a reality. It’s good to provide plenty of information about yourself, even if it’s not directly linked to work—the fact that you are interested in cars, or World Heritage, or trying out restaurants and so on. It’s quite possible that this will lead to all sorts of common topics, which may in turn broaden the horizons of the alliance.
By building up lots of alliances around you to formulate your own Platform and gaining the trust of other people by providing them with information, people will help you as a matter of course.

The concept of “give, give, give and take”

Though you might think that this is a contradiction of what I have just described, you are not going to find that a helpful alliance is created straight away just by distributing information. Because in order to gain people’s help, you will need to be considerate enough to maintain, manage and improve that information.
An alliance is not just a group of friends. No progress will be made if you limit its membership according to whether you like or dislike somebody. But if it’s not based merely on amicable relationships then what else is there? The answer is probably a shared purpose and some sort of benefit or interest. If you want to use an alliance, you must continuously provide the other people with merit. What exactly do I mean by “merit?” You don’t have to think about this too deeply. Just imagine what the anxieties and dreams of the other person or his company are, and create a relationship where you can think about them together. By patiently making other people aware of what you have to offer in this way, you can earn their trust.
This will require that you make them aware of the fact that you are moving perseveringly towards that goal, and show them that your ideas are always under progress. If you allow yourself to be discouraged by others or suggest that perhaps your idea isn’t going to work after all, all the ideas, trust and expectation that have built up around you with expectation will be eroded in an instant.
The other people in the alliance may still be dismissive of your idea, or not yet convinced of your ability. But if you show them that you are working towards realizing a project, they will understand that you are “thinking with them” and are therefore more likely to cooperate with you. When I was working on the Osaifu-Keitai project, I always tried to get across to those around me the message that the project would be of benefit to their company. Though you will naturally have your own underlying hopes, you must always adhere to the concept of bringing benefits to the other party. The philosophy is one of “give, give, give and take,” in other words, for every merit you gain for yourself try to give three more to your partners. Quite naturally, the other party will also start to seek their own benefits, and when these merge, the benefits for you will be considerable.

Chapter 3 Alliance information sorting skills

Change yourself into a magnet for information

Become a magnet for information!

With the idea of the alliance, the meaning of collecting information and sorting information makes a 180° shift.
I would suggest that the reason why the work of collecting and sorting information causes you so much trouble is that finding “good information” is a somewhat difficult task. The world is overflowing with information, but perhaps you can’t take out and use the information that ties in with your work or ideas whenever you want or in an effective way.
In this chapter on alliance information sorting skills, all these problems will be swept away. Because once you’ve acquired the know-how, the meaning of the need to collect or sort information will basically disappear.
First, with alliance information sorting skills, information is something that collects around you, not something that you actively collect.
Because you transmit information first, the people in your alliance will automatically bring you information without you having to go out and look for it.
In my case, by transmitting information about the Osaifu-Keitai and mobile phones people from the credit world brought me information about credit, and people from the convenience store world brought me information about convenience stores, quite naturally. Since this was live information from people who are the cream of their profession, it was a great deal fresher and reliable than anything I could have found by browsing on the Internet or searching through bookstores.
And rather than trying to sort or process this information on my own, I then modified and blended it, and transmitted it to other people.
For example, when I was given some documents about a particular field, having glanced over and gained the gist of them, I might think, “Mr. A would be interested in this issue, so I’ll put him in charge; I’d like him to become an expert on the matter,” and pass the information on to Mr. A, a junior colleague. Of course, if there is a Mr. B who is desperately keen to the work, you give the documents to Mr. B.
In other words, once I have gained the information and briefly chewed it over, I decide which part of the alliance should keep or store the information, rather than sorting it on my own.
In this way the stream of new information ends up going through the Mr. As and the Mr. Bs of the world, and is stored up field-by-field, client-by-client. What you have to do is play a role like a hub airport. And if you don’t have any subordinates yourself, it’s worth trying to form an alliance with colleagues in departments outside of your own.

The value of information increases dramatically when it is sent to people who need it rather than just collected

This may not have come to the surface yet, but at most companies sales opportunities are being lost and trouble is frequently occurring because information is not being shared by people in different departments and sections.
They are all sitting on their information. I often hear phrases like, “The matter has ground to a halt at that manager’s place.” It’s not just that the information has stopped; the problem is that the manager himself has turned into a bottleneck.
At first glance alliance information skills may look like a somewhat irresponsible process of fobbing off work onto other people, but this is not all the case. By relaying information as swiftly as possible, the location of the information is clarified into human units. In doing so, if for example you obtain some information about convenience stores and there is an awareness that such information should be passed on to Mr. B, then everyone else is sure to pass on information of that nature to Mr. B. Mr. B accumulates a vast amount of the latest information on convenience stores and becomes a professional in that field. If that happens, then everybody turns to him for advice on convenience store matters, and he in turn passes on information about convenience stores to other members of the alliance. One piece of information is thus sorted and processed, its value increased several times, and then brought back to you. This is the effect of alliance information sorting skills.
Incidentally, if you take a look at actual hub airports such as Amsterdam’s Schiphol and Singapore’ s Changi, you will see that they become jam-packed with airplanes, cargo and people. Likewise, when you become the information hub of your alliance, there is a chance that you may become overcrowded with information. In order to deal smoothly with this you have to play a role similar to the airport’s control tower. It is therefore vital that you learn how to transmit the information you gain as quickly as possible. One more point. The art of information “traffic control” is to carefully classify it, pass it on to the alliance and get rid of it. Any information that you are in two minds about should be chucked out.
In factory and store operations, the process of gaining information and immediately passing it on is managed to the extent that the task is expected to be completed within five seconds. But relaying information at these speeds is something that isn’t even on the agenda in the white collar sector.

Lunchtime is the optimal information-gathering skill

Of course it is “people” who are the bedrock of alliance information sorting skills. In my own case, it is lunchtime that is the most effective core aspect of my information-gathering skills using other people. Why is lunchtime the most effective tool? First of all, I want the reader to understand that however many meetings with people in other sectors or seminars you attend, information isn’t going to fall into your lap. That’s not enough to make your alliance expand. Presumably your friends do not constantly phone you with exclusive pieces of hot news. Because even if they had that hot news, the likelihood is that they would keep it under their hat.
So in order to gain the information you need from the people around you, you must first make it clear to them what sort of person you are, what you can do, and what information you need.
If you continue to make others aware of these facts, eventually they will start to think, “Ah, so-and-so knows all about this, I’ll introduce him to you,” or, conversely, “I’ve got the same problem as you,” thus naturally leading you to the information you want.
And you will often find that the information that is useful to your idea actually lies in the emotions or true feelings hidden behind that information. Creating a chance for an informal chat is a much more effective way of gathering information than ceremoniously asking questions in the company meeting room.
So where is the easiest place to create a chance for this informal chat? Inviting someone out for a drink is one answer, but this ends up using two or three hours of that other person’s time, and while alcohol may be effective in loosening tongues, it also tends to put any talk of work on the back burner. You might be able to ask your friends out for an “idle chat,” but this is hardly a proposal that you can out to a client, particularly if they are of a higher station and age than yourself.
But an invitation to lunch is often surprisingly effective. While there are many ways in which people spend their dinnertime and afterwards, and some people go home to eat with their families, virtually everybody goes for lunch.
Unlike dinnertime, lunch is taken during working hours, time is limited, and the other person feels that you are not placing too much of a demand on their time. This also makes it easier for you to ask out women or your senior colleagues. The other person is unlikely to feel badly if you make a rule of paying for their lunch. While they are expensive in the evening, high class restaurants usually offer a reasonably priced lunch menu. Moreover, since time is at a premium during lunch it is easier to get straight to the point. If you allow around one hour for lunch, and limit your conversation to what you really want to know about instead of showering the other person with questions, you will find you are able to obtain valuable information.
I make a point of asking things like: “What sort of person is so-and-so?” “What interests you lately?” and “What are your views on the way I think about this?” If I can ask these things, the fine details of the work and the concrete matters can be dealt with later by e-mail or further meetings.
Even when you don’t have any burning questions or matters that you are anxious to discuss, I thoroughly recommend taking lunch in order to find out what the other person has been up to recently and what they are interested in. As long as you are prepared to do the questioning, all sorts of information can be gleaned from even the most rambling chatter. This information is infinitely more useful than the answers to questionnaires or what you find out from business interviews.
In addition to the gathering of information, what is really important about lunch is that it gives you an opportunity to assess at first hand whether or not the other person is reliable and whether or not there appears to be any chance of doing some fun work with them in the future.
I gather that the question of “Do you think that you would like to work with this person?” is the most carefully examined part of the entrance examination at Google; likewise it is the lunchtime alliance that deepens the bonds between trustworthy people.
People’s self-defense mechanism leads them to instinctively pull away when suddenly approached. Studying that person as much as you can at first and then building up an intricate relationship will lead to a more successful and long-lasting friendship. Of course, you can sometimes hit it off and make friends straight away, but in terms of business alliances it is more effective to spend some time getting the person to know you, getting to know them, and giving them some breathing space.
Though lunch is going to cost you some money, look at it as though you were buying a few books—just having lunch several times a week will bring you much precious information. I myself have often found that an apparently directionless lunch appointment has led to conversations such as, “So-and-so knows all about that, why don’t the three of us have lunch together some time?” which have tied in with business and helped to expand the alliance much more than mere information gathering.

The alliance lunch is a place for natural business communication

While the idea of meeting people for lunch is fine, when the question of where to eat and the fact that people may be working at the time are considered, you may well think that there are restrictions on the sort of people who can be invited out at that time of day. But this is just another stereotyped view of lunch. Whether they are in the office or outside, the timing with which it occurs to people to have lunch usually coincides, and the meal is probably taken as a natural matter of course.
However, I regard lunchtime as a clear opportunity for gathering information, and look forward to it. First of all I configure a schedule that includes lunch, so I sometimes have “lunch in Ginza” marked in my diary up to two months beforehand. I also make an effort to ensure that lunchtime is never left blank. This enables me to conscientiously plan the schedule for my alliances through lunch. For example, if I know that I have an appointment in Shibuya in a couple of weeks time, I start to ask myself who I know in the vicinity. Reminded of somebody who I haven’t met lately, I might send an e-mail telling them I shall be near their office and suggesting lunch. If you fill up your lunchtimes in this manner, your connections with other people will continue to grow.
The most important feature of alliance-forming lunches is to remember to be grateful to the other person for sparing their valuable time. This is why I make a point of going to restaurants near that person’s place of work where possible. If you get the chance to see where the person works, go and take a look. Understanding the atmosphere in his or her company is surprisingly useful to the alliance.
Rather than merely obtaining information, one of the great pleasures of these lunchtimes is letting the power of successful people rub off on me, and coming in to touch with his aesthetics. When I make an appointment for lunch, I do so with a sense that it is worth more than ten or twenty business books, that it is a chance to get close to “living” business, even if it may be no more than an incidental meal for the other person. I am flexible about the time and place, and try to fit in with my acquaintances’ plans regardless of whether they are a junior colleague or a student. Lunching with young people is stimulating, and is something I value greatly.
I think my lunchtime methods are somewhat similar to the European and American idea of the “Power breakfast.” The Japanese, however, are not accustomed to meeting each other early in the morning, and most people would be reluctant to force someone to get up early for the sake of a meeting. So let’s make the most of our lunchtimes. Please do not eat lunch alone anymore.

Don’t shy away from “inefficiency” when making an alliance with people

I have just mentioned the gathering of information at lunchtimes, but it seems that, having met a great many people, there is a tendency for “efficiency” to be emphasized in order to obtain information. However, with alliance information sorting skills, the idea of meeting people even if it comes to nothing is very important. In doing so, the volume of information that ends at your door is often considerable. The idea is rather like preparing a cabinet full of drawers for future use, rather than just concentrating on the information in front of you.
When you’ve gained a piece of information from somebody, probably the most time-efficient ways of relaying it are e-mail, followed by phone calls, and finally, actually telling somebody face-to-face. There is no doubt that if you relay the information by an e-mail or phone you will be able to do so in a concrete and pinpoint manner, which improves efficiency.
When I try to get somebody involved in an alliance, I think that the best way is to meet them in person, in small numbers—ideally just myself and one other. This is because when you meet and speak with somebody, you will often find that what they want to talk about at that time contains information that you wouldn’t have obtained from the questions you had thought up beforehand. By constantly maintaining an awareness of alliances, unexpected new ideas sometimes open up at the prompting of even the most innocent piece of conversation.
Of course, you will often have meetings that fail to lead to any direct benefits. But you just don’t know what sort of information and abilities you are going to need in a few months’ or a few years’ time. So instead of taking a short-term “is it useful?” attitude, surely it is better to listen to the views of as many people as possible and learn from them.
If you adopt this “one of these days” perspective, there is a much better chance of you encountering in the future a person who is unexpectedly helpful. Either way, things will change if you yourself transmit information and remain active. If you spend all your time making judgments about your actions you will not make any progress.
Not restricting your circle of acquaintances should also apply to contacts from previous days. I left NTT DoCoMo more than five years ago, but those of us who worked together there have formed a little club, which we call “The Chickling Club,” and still meet up regularly. (The naming of the club is not particularly profound—there is a really delicious fried food shop called “The Chickling” near DoCoMo’s head office in Tameike Sannou, and our club was formed with no greater motive than going there to eat.) The club consists of many people who you used to work under me and others who have now move on to different jobs.
Many people may who change jobs may not wish to continue to see the people who they used to work with, but I have a strong sense of gratitude to my former colleagues, and believe it is thanks to them that I have made it to where I am now. My former junior colleagues and associate are the comrades-in-arms who fought with me; their ongoing growth is a source of great joy to me, and their anxieties and struggles still cause me a great deal of concern. Now my former junior colleagues don’t have to address me as “Mr. Hirano,” their manager, they afford me with a valuable opportunity for hearing the real truth about what’s going on in all sorts of different businesses.
I would suggest that the amount of information reaching a person varies by several degrees depending on whether or not they are making the most of their former business connections, rather than merely seeking new connections and information. For one reason or another I often find myself being consulted by people who want to change jobs or are in a state of anxiety about their work. Obviously, I don’t regard these occasions as an opportunity to make an alliance or get something in return from that person. However, in the end it often leads to these people giving me a vital piece of information or introducing me to somebody a few years down the line.
I think that people who try too hard to network are overly obsessed with the question of “Is there any merit in getting to know this person?” This limits the range of people they can become acquaintances with, and makes relationships a dull affair.
You don’t know where you’re going to get your next piece of information from. So try to be useful to as large as possible a number of people, and make an effort to respond where possible to their needs. It is more important to try to make an impression on people, so that your identity will be stored away in some part of their memory.

The melting pot theory—buried treasure in the most unexpected places

Why does New York produce so many success stories? Some people say that it’s because the city is a cultural melting pot.
I think there is a similarity between information and the reason that New York produces so many successes. The interaction of different information arising from people with different outlooks makes it easy for new concepts to be born, which is why I call this idea the “melting pot theory.”
The other day, on the introduction of a friend, I went to hear the Liberal Democratic Party’s Taro Aso speak. The meeting was attended also  former IBJ colleague who has become an Senator of Japan, as well as several other friends from the finance world. The fact that politicians from both of these parties were discussing things together in the same room was interesting, and with the addition of perspectives from the finance sector, I learnt a great deal from the various opinions offered at the meeting.
What fascinated me even more, however, was the way that somebody like myself—a person with no interest in politics hitherto—suddenly felt an awareness of the problems being discussed. The views of the two parties expressed in words may differ, but their starting point is the same: a wish to improve the nation through politics. This may appear obvious, but it made me think. The experience is not going to immediately lead to useful answers, but it provided me with plenty of food for thought.
I would now like to turn to information that you catch directly with your own eyes and ears. If you want to find out for example what sorts of things are likely to catch on in the convenience store sector, you can obtain this information to a certain degree from magazines or searching on the Internet. But what you find will have been doctored by the interpretation of the specialist or journalist relaying the information, and you cannot really be sure about how accurate it is.
My point is that the affairs of the world are often strongly colored by various preconceived notions. In the case of the Osaifu-Keitai too, many of the articles about DoCoMo that were leaked to the press were along way from the truth.
But most people think that this sort of information is accurate coverage, and blindly rush ahead according to these criteria. What this experience suggested to me is that in order to come across accurate and fresh information, you have to encounter it first hand. Thinking for yourself is a vital part of the information-gathering process.
For example, let’s say that somebody makes an exhaustive search of the Internet for information about the distribution industry. He will, no doubt, have become a very well-informed person. Now let’s suppose that there is another person who meticulously walks around various department stores and shopping malls, eagerly listening to the people working there. Some people may regard this as an “inefficient” exercise, but in terms of looking, listening and thinking, that person will have been rewarded with a hands-on experience, a valuable awareness that clearly outweighs that of the Internet searcher. What decides the success or failure of work is not the question of how much information you can amass; what matters are the unique ideas that you are able to draw out of all the information you have obtained. Surely it is crystal clear which of the two examples above is the more effective display of information-gathering skills.
Perhaps knowing all sorts of information will turn you into a “walking library.” Unless you ask yourself what you feel about the information you have obtained and how you should make the most if it, it will not lead to the important results of creating new value. It is not what you know that is vital, it is what you think about based on that information, and how you execute what you have thought up.

Chapter 4 Alliance networking skills