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Japan's IT industry is so thoroughly messed up I don't even know where to begin. However, for the scope of this article, I would say that Japanese enterprise s

by flocial 15y ago

Japan's IT industry is so thoroughly messed up I don't even know where to begin. However, for the scope of this article, I would say that Japanese enterprise solution companies (this is where the so-called "system integrators" live) is a tangled, incestuous mess. I'm only going to talk about one small aspect of it. One of the great tragedies of the Japanese software industry is how it seems to have taken on the worst aspects of the construction industry and the manufacturing industry. Many of the large companies dominate the industry, at least in terms of large contracts from major corporations and government. Some names that come to mind are NTT (the telecoms giant has a whole universe of IT subsidiaries), NEC, Fujitsu, etc. Yes, all companies from Japan's past glory days. Naturally, these companies get the lion's share of stable income. Of course, they have more work than they can handle or do so they naturally close the contract THEN find a company to implement it for them. Middlemen Casual students of Japan might have heard of "shitauke" which roughly equals outsourcing but the concept is completely different. Just as many Japanese car manufacturers have their own go to parts makers, these parts makers might have their own go to parts makers ("magouke" or grand children outsourcing). So basically, you have this massive web of IT companies that are inter-connected and related in some way. So big corporations get contracts, little companies get the scraps. This distorts the market because naturally the companies with big name brand value keep a greater share of the profit while the weaker outsourcing companies make it happen. So even within these outsourcing companies, they might try to cope by hiring temp programmers (yes, this is common in Japan and they live in internet cafes no less) or even outsourcing it to a third world country. In most cases, the big IT corporations (that hire top recruits from the best colleges) are filled to the brim with project managers who might have the raw ability or potential to code but spend their front line career simply writing up specs and enforcing ridiculous deadlines. As an anecdote, many symptoms of this malaise abound. ATMs malfunctioning because of bad system code (prevalent when upgrading systems created by mega bank mergers, the latest and most notorious being on the recent earthquake when a donation account took down the entire bank), the Tokyo Stock Exchange shutting down from massive trade volume (despite having nothing like American high frequency trading), the pension system database not designed to give people unique keys (or something like that), etc.

nandemo 15y ago
> Just as many Japanese car manufacturers have their own go to parts makers, these parts makers might have their own go to parts makers ("magouke" or grand children outsourcing). I've worked for a "great-grandchild" outsourcer. Megacorp A outsourced to B, which hired C, which hired my company. I actually worked at A's offices so personally it was a good experience for me, though my salary was crap -- around my 2 year anniversary I talked to a recruiter, who kindly informed me that sanitation workers in the US earned about the same as me. Once I went to Europe for a business trip. Though A's employees had all their expenses paid, my own contract with my company didn't predict that clients would ask grunts like me to go on international business trips, so they only paid a fixed daily allowance in yen (for meals and the like). To make it worse, the euro was really high against the yen, so my allowance amounted to 7 euros or so. After 2 weeks in Europe I was in the red. It was still a good experience though, and I always boast about it in job interviews in Japan.
- flocial 15y ago
  Yeah, I've worked in fancy offices too (in my case earning more on contract than regular employees, without plump benefits but hey). My experience is that being the outsourced to is a polar experience. You're either a hired gun with special status or some dispensable clean up crew. It's a symptom of the rigid labor laws that limit everyone from achieving their potential.

by flocial 15y ago

nandemo 15y ago

> Just as many Japanese car manufacturers have their own go to parts makers, these parts makers might have their own go to parts makers ("magouke" or grand children outsourcing). I've worked for a "great-grandchild" outsourcer. Megacorp A outsourced to B, which hired C, which hired my company. I actually worked at A's offices so personally it was a good experience for me, though my salary was crap -- around my 2 year anniversary I talked to a recruiter, who kindly informed me that sanitation workers in the US earned about the same as me. Once I went to Europe for a business trip. Though A's employees had all their expenses paid, my own contract with my company didn't predict that clients would ask grunts like me to go on international business trips, so they only paid a fixed daily allowance in yen (for meals and the like). To make it worse, the euro was really high against the yen, so my allowance amounted to 7 euros or so. After 2 weeks in Europe I was in the red. It was still a good experience though, and I always boast about it in job interviews in Japan.

flocial 15y ago
Yeah, I've worked in fancy offices too (in my case earning more on contract than regular employees, without plump benefits but hey). My experience is that being the outsourced to is a polar experience. You're either a hired gun with special status or some dispensable clean up crew. It's a symptom of the rigid labor laws that limit everyone from achieving their potential.