DoCoMo Japans Wireless Tsunami doc

[...]... one company: DoCoMo So anyone who cares about recapturing boom times—anyone who wants to see the tech sector come roaring back—needs to know DoCoMo s story Certainly, all the players who are now investing for this wireless future (as well as the skeptics not investing) need to know Yet the one company that has really pulled this off has remained almost an unknown Those who do care about wireless know... i-mode, DoCoMo made commerce on the mobile Internet compelling—so compelling that it is fast becoming universal throughout Japan Even there, in an economy plagued by recession for ten years or more, the result has been the kind of tech-fueled boom that the entire developed world is now praying for By delivering mobile Internet access that people actually use for new kinds of business, DoCoMo cre- 1 2 DoCoMo: ... boyfriend planned on talking a lot FIGURE 1-6 Cell phone companies in Japan: 1998 subscribers millions of subscribers 25 20 15 10 5 0 DoCoMo IDO Cellular Phone Digital Phone SOURCE: JAPAN TELECOMMUNICATIONS CARRIERS ASSOCIATION Tuka Digital Tuka 12 DoCoMo: Japan’s Wireless Tsunami Creeping Cellularitis At first, Yasuko’s phone spent a lot of time “sleeping” in her handbag As she had predicted, she could... she racks up at least $150 a month in mobile phone charges “When she goes over $200 in a single month, my mother really gets upset,” says Yasuko 18 DoCoMo: Japan’s Wireless Tsunami Masako Accessorizes Any good mobile phone user in Japan—whether they use DoCoMo, JPhone, or Au—knows about carrying straps Yasuko has one, with kyoro-chan on it (Kyoro is a retro anime character, an old cartoon that “is old... conducting wireless- commerce research at Accenture’s Institute for Strategic Change, a think tank focused on ideas that lead to immediate management action From this perspective, it seemed obvious that DoCoMo s success really matters We felt strongly that no company that had succeeded so thoroughly—especially in a field with so much intense and skillful competition—could be ignored After all, DoCoMo had... Technically, much of that is possible now on the wireless Web services marketed outside Japan But, as anyone who has tried those services knows, most are not yet ready for prime time DoCoMo s i-mode is not only ready; it is a runaway success, a blockbuster hit That’s why the story matters This is a big story Only a complex set of passions could give DoCoMo the explosive energy needed to reach its current,... the eternal mystery of why we humans do what we do, on the other Consider the following DoCoMo: Japan’s Wireless Tsunami 6 The Tale of Two Sisters “I think you’re talking to the wrong person.” A mutual friend had suggested that Yasuko Sato would be a good example of an Internet phone user: Japan’s new wired (well, wireless) generation She obviously didn’t agree To almost any global businessperson, Yasuko... why DoCoMo s i-mode service had swept its entire national market by storm at exactly the moment when wireless data offerings worldwide were being met with a resounding yawn We began our research looking for strategies, tactics, technologies, details of execution and leadership—all the ingredients that case studies traditionally focus on And that’s what we found, at first But once we got behind the DoCoMo. .. Yasuko had always believed it was important to take the dog for a short walk, but once she accepted wireless as a real phone, the walks grew a little longer If she talked while she walked, she could even discuss the most private of subjects; FIGURE 1-8 Phones turned off 14 DoCoMo: Japan’s Wireless Tsunami no one was likely to hear enough of any particular conversation to really make a difference So... with concrete actions you can take to convert the lessons of DoCoMo into extraordinary performance for your own firm Introduction xv After all, passion is great…but why get all worked up over something you can’t act on? We believe that a look inside DoCoMo will give you some great stories, some new ideas, and some insight into the emerging wireless economy But much more important, we believe that the .