Carl Kay will discuss the huge opportunities available to entrepreneurs in Japan’s service sector industries.  Foreigners seem to be the first to notice that practices in Japan, including the strategic application of information technology, often lag the norms in other industrialized countries. Japan not only fails to export software, it is behind in implementing information technology strategically at home to deliver breakthrough service and value that could raise the quality of life here.

The poor state of the offerings to consumers in Japan in areas such as financial services, real estate brokerage, shopping malls, and hospitals is not likely to be news to members who have lived here for any length of time. What is surprising, however, is the number of foreigners who have built successful businesses here addressing these problems.

Foreigners are leading the way, and Kay will illustrate how the businesses portrayed in his book may be “weak signals” of important changes breaking out to the mainstream of Japan’s economy and society.

Carl Kay majored in Japanese at Harvard and in 1982 founded a company specializing in Japanese technical translation and software localization. Sixteen years later, he sold the company to Lionbridge. Since then Kay has been a consultant and angel investor. He is co-author with Tim Clark, publisher of the Japan Entrepreneur Report, of the new book Saying Yes to Japan: How Outsiders are Reviving a Trillion Dollar Services Market.