Japanese business
About time
A
S A BUDDHIST priest performed last rites at a temple in Tokyo, Naganuma Fumihiro, an entrepreneur, beamed. It was in fact a celebration: he and two colleagues had gathered to send scores of
hanko, the personal seals that epitomise Japan’s analogue business practices, to the afterlife. “It's not quite the Meiji restoration, but it’s a big turning-point, a paradigm shift for working culture,” Mr Naganuma said.
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Covid-19 has turbocharged digitisation around the world. But for all its technophile reputation, Japan has more ground to make up than other big economies in its embrace of information technology (