Japanese Ventures & the Future of the Economy 2Interview with Masanori Fukata, Director of Game Changer Catapult in Panasonic Corporation

A Major Japanese Company Leading
Entrepreneurship – the Case of Panasonic
By Japan SPOTLIGHT
How can we promote entrepreneurship? Many nations, in particular OECD nations, are seriously
searching for the answer. OECD nations with mature economies are facing the limits of growth and theirmeans of enhancing growth are also limited due to fiscal constraints and exhausted monetary policies. To
overcome these limits and stimulate growth, they will need innovation and entrepreneurship.
Entrepreneurs occasionally play a key role in innovation, so promoting entrepreneurship is vital for them.
But entrepreneurs have to take risks, and pay the costs associated with them, which are often too big for
an individual to pay. So they will need support to reduce these costs. In Silicon Valley, for example,
Stanford University provides the seeds of innovation with their academics, and entrepreneurs welleducated in science and engineering turn them into businesses with the help of consultants and lawyers.
Many venture capital firms finance their entrepreneurial projects.
Japan, which is often referred to as a nation where entrepreneurship cannot be raised due to its
conservative business culture and an education system discouraging young people from taking risks, isfacing the urgent need for entrepreneurship against the background of its stagnant economy. Can it find aunique way to achieve it? In this interview, Masanori Fukata, director of Game Changer Catapult, in
Panasonic Corporation, a Japanese electronics giant, explains how entrepreneurship can be raised in Japan.
(Interviewed on July 31, 2019)

Self-Introduction
JS: First, could you please briefly

introduce yourself?

company.

Game Changer Catapult

JS: Could you tell us about the
Fukata: I joined Panasonic in 1989. After
beginning of Game Changer
Catapult in 2016?
having been a trainee in the United States andCanada, I came back to Japan and worked on
Fukata: When I was in charge of newsales and marketing of audio/video,
business development, my colleagues and I
televisions, digital cameras, etc. for overseas
sensed a big wave of changes in ourmarkets in AVC Corporation, an in-houseproduction process, both with products andcompany of Panasonic. I was also working as
the consumers themselves. The digitalleader in the sports marketing office inrevolution totally changed our world.
Panasonic’s head office for the Olympic
Anybody could be a producer by using IT, orGames, from Athens 2004 until Beijing 2008.
other new technology such as a 3D printer,I was transferred to Canada in 2010 andand direct sales and delivery of the goods
worked there until 2014 as a director in the
Masanori Fukata
from producers to consumers was also madeconsumer sales division. After coming backpossible by the expanded use of the Internet. In addition to improved
to Japan in 2014, I have been in charge of new businessconvenience, consumers’ interests started to change from ownershipdevelopment in Panasonic’s Appliances Company since 2015. Iof hardware to software, such as empirical data brought about by thestarted Game Changer Catapult, an in-house group in PanasonicInternet. Consumers became less satisfied with mass produced
engaged in stimulating innovation at the company, in 2016. We callgoods and increasingly participated in production processes throughourselves an innovation accelerator. We also founded a new businesscrowdfunding. There were even cases where consumers would
support company in 2018 called BeeEdge Co., Ltd. as a joint venture
provide other consumers with their services. Thus, the simple
between Panasonic and Scrum Ventures, a San Francisco-based
producer-consumer relations were not dominant any more. Such aventure capital firm. I am also one of the board members of this50 Japan SPOTLIGHT • November / December 2019https://www.jef.or.jp/journal/

Japanese Ventures & the Future of the Economy 2

drastic change in business circumstances and the expected rapidchanges ahead obliged us to think about how to deal with things in
the future.
While we were thinking about future strategies, I had a chance totalk with Dr. John Seely Brown, a CEO of the Deloitte Center for theEdge and a member of an advisory board for innumerable
companies. He highlighted three major points concerning possible
new business strategies. The first is that business firms in the 21st
century will need the capability to learn about completely new
phenomena, while those in the 20th century could expand theirbusiness by improving efficiency based on empirical facts in thepast. For example, Amazon was started as a bookstore but now
provides voice-based assistant and cloud server services. Google
was started as an Internet search engine, but is now developing auto
driving technology. Contemporary giant companies are quickly
changing their business operations in flexibly responding to thechanging needs of consumers and society as well as rapidlychanging economic situations. At Panasonic, without having hadsignificant changes so far in our business operations, we will need tothink about new strategies under these situations – otherwise we
may not survive as a large company. That’s my interpretation.
The second point he mentioned was that crucial changes will
happen in the “edge” areas connecting a company to the rest of theworld, and not in its core. Thus we will need to reform the peripheral
parts of an organization first, such as business divisions rather thanthe headquarters. His third point was that we should unlearn our
preoccupations and old ideas learned from successful experiences in
the past and start learning about the new phenomena surroundingus.
So after that discussion I began to think that we will have tounlearn the old ways of thinking and think more flexibly about new
phenomena such as open innovation, new working styles, in-houseentrepreneurship, and so on, and this eventually led us to foundingGame Changer Catapult.
JS: Do you aim to be an in-house game changer?
Fukata: When we see a drastic change in business rules andenvironment, we must be players who can change the game and not
be followers of the old game. So first, we organized an in-house
discussion among our Panasonic colleagues in their thirties andforties about Panasonic’s ideal business in 2025, and how we would
solve consumers’ problems and what kind of home and commercial
appliances business we should conduct in the future. In order torealize the plans we discussed, four of the core members of the
discussion group started Game Changer Catapult. A catapult is apiece of equipment used to send an aircraft into the air from awarship and thus we wanted to fire off many in-houseentrepreneurial ideas and people outside the company.

JS: What have you been doing specifically?
Fukata: We aim at creating new values and business andaccelerating innovation, and thus for a small in-house organization
providing a significant impact on our company and in the end society
itself. Our mission is to shape the future of home electric appliances,including not only the products but also their related services andcontents. In more detail, we categorize a variety of home andcommercial appliances businesses into five domains based upon
their value – “living space and housework”, “caring after children andeducation”, “media and entertainment”, “food solutions”, and “healthand esthetic solutions”. We try to create business in each category
by providing the optimal services for an individual customer byutilizing artificial intelligence (AI) or the Internet of Things (IoT). We
hope this will lead to solving social issues affecting each individual
and thus eventually enhancing the “well-being” of every person.
Our activities can be understood by a three-layered pyramid(Chart). The base line of the pyramid is to create innovative ideas anda friendly corporate culture to materialize them. The second layer is
to elaborate a new business model based on those new ideas, andthe top layer is to realize the business in accordance with the model.
To make the ideas more specific, we create corporate culture fordiscussions with not only in-house people but also outsiders. The
prototypes (the basic business models) based on the new ideas areprovided at venture exhibition events, such as South by Southwest(SXSW) in Austin, Texas, every March, or at Slush Tokyo. We brush
up those prototypes after seeing the response of society, and thenwe select the ones with positive feedback and work on creating abusiness framework.
Meanwhile, there are mainly two methods for acquiring new ideas.
One is a business contest among all the ideas provided by
employees with entrepreneurial passion. We select the great ideas
CHART

Overview of Game Changer Catapult’s
activities producing new values● In-house R&D or business development(as we have been working on up to now)

Realizing the business
operation● Speedy integration of clients’ responses
to our business prototypes in venture
exhibition events

Elaborating
a business model
Creating innovation-friendly
corporate culture formaterialization of ideas● Improve the prototypes into a businessmodel in collaboration with clients andbusiness partners● Create an opportunity for discussion of
new business ideas inside and outside
the company

Source: Chart presented by Masanori Fukata at interview

Japan SPOTLIGHT • November / December 201951

Japanese Ventures & the Future of the Economy 2from among the ones provided and try a lean start with a small
budget allocation. The other is that members of Game Changer
Catapult start up a new business in an area considered strategicallyimportant by ourselves. The themes adopted have to lead to gamechange in the future and be what the applicants truly want to realize.
During the three years so far, more than 120 new ideas have beencreated, and among those two or three new practical businesses
were born.

Relationship Between Game Changer
Catapult & Panasonic Mothership
JS: While that the members of Game Changer

Catapult inside Panasonic often transform your ideas
into business operations in collaboration with othercompanies rather than Panasonic, could your group,a part of Panasonic, expect collaboration from yourcolleagues in Panasonic?

Fukata: Our group belongs to Panasonic’s Appliances Company,
which has R&D, business divisions and sales & marketing divisions.
But in some cases we find it difficult to ask our Panasonic colleagues
for cooperation in starting up new business operations, since they
are fully occupied with their own existing business operations. But it
is true that we can take advantage of the benefits of being a memberof a large enterprise, such as consulting with Intellectual Property
Rights (IPRs) experts in our own company. However, due to thedifferent business assignments of our group’s and our own
colleagues’ inside our company, in promoting our business inpractice, our small team of core members is like a venture company
doing what it can as promptly as possible. Thus, there could be a
conflict of business interests between the two, but this can becoordinated ultimately by consultation inside the company.
JS: Let me clarify how many people are working inyour group.

Fukata: At this moment, 12 members are working on administrationand specific projects in progress. In addition, 40-50 people every
year join our activities, selected from among applicants to participate
in their innovation projects, while they simultaneously work at theirown jobs.
JS: The people working on your project and their

original job in Panasonic simultaneously may find it
difficult to devote themselves to both.

Fukata: It is certainly necessary for them to work as efficiently as
possible. At their work for Game Changer Catapult, we allow them to
52 Japan SPOTLIGHT • November / December 2019

allocate up to 25% of their working time to our projects. If theysucceed in turning that model into a practical business and get a
positive response from the client or customers and decide tocontinue the project, we then have the option to create a working
environment for those people to be transferred to Game Changer
Catapult from their own working section and engage in full-timework in our group.

New Thoughts & Business
JS: We need to think about what kind of civilization

will emerge from the Fourth Industrial Revolution, as
it will affect many aspects of our social economy. Do
you work on promoting understanding of the global
implications of new technology both inside andoutside Panasonic?

Fukata: We believe it is important to focus on how new business andtechnology could solve the challenges of everyday life. Most
manufacturing companies are preoccupied with how to use their new
technology after they develop it. But Game Changer Catapult focuseson how it can contribute to solving social issues. In line with thisbasic philosophy of Panasonic, we are building up a system ofcollaboration with a variety of people inside and outside the company
to create new business from a wider perspective, assuming that
discussions among only engineers would lead to a limited outcome.
We would also like to have people among our members who wantto think about their own career paths, as well as members who haveexpertise in more than one area, such as IPR and new business, orengineering and networking, etc. This comes from “ambidexterity” ininnovation theory, in which an innovation-friendly organization ispresumed to pursue a well-balanced and well-considered approachto new areas and exploitation of existing areas. For example,
someone in charge of refrigerators would tend to think only about
their evolution, but we think it is important for them to discuss awide range of issues from a wider perspective, such as what would
happen in our daily life without refrigerators, or how consumers andproducers of food can be linked on the issue of food security. This
corresponds exactly to “the exploration of knowledge” under“ambidexterity”, and I think this will lead to new ideas for the future,different from the existing R&D process for home appliances. I hope
we can coach such people with ambidexterity and create a network
among them, and thus eventually create a corporate culture thatfacilitates human resources development of game changers andinnovation.
New business development divisions like ours are responsible forleading changes in the social economy. Their activities can becharacterized as a combination of creativity and business logic.
Game Changer Catapult is managing, as an established group, aJapanese Ventures & the Future of the Economy 2venue where our team members are engaged in practicing creative
innovation based on design and art thinking, while on the other hand
they are working on logical thinking and process management.
Among our guidelines, there are two important concepts. One is“unlearn” and the other is “hack”. The first means to learn about the
new while abandoning old thinking and knowledge, and the secondmeans to create new rules rather than breaking the old ones toachieve what we believe in as quickly as possible.

should not be eliminated but should coexist even though there could
be some conflict, which can be positive thing.

JS: I guess the key to enhancing entrepreneurship will

Fukata: I think one of the unique aspects of Silicon Valley is that it
has so many first-generation immigrants. They chase opportunities
to win big financial success and do not hesitate to take another riskeven if their first attempt fails. Many people in Japan tend to beafraid of being accused of failure in a society where the socialpressure is relatively high. They are thus reluctant to take risks. But I
do not think entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley are a unique case in theworld. There are a lot of good entrepreneurs with a Japanese way as
well. We are now building a scheme that enables a large company’s
employees to share an entrepreneur’s mindset and experience ofstarting up business without having to leave the company and start
up a venture on their own. If this scheme is successful in changing
the corporate culture of large companies in Japan, their business
opportunities would expand. We are thinking about how to
encourage people who can trigger innovation regardless of whether
they are a large company’s employee. With such innovative people, I
believe we can see a different society and a promising future in
Japan.

be how individualism prevails in Japanese society.
Corporate-based thinking seems to be prioritized inJapan rather than individual values. Would there beserious friction emerging between organizations andindividuals as activities like yours to stimulate
individual creativity continue?

Fukata: I believe that in our new working style now, there will bemuch less rigid enclosure of human resources by large companies inJapan. Employees will have more freedom in a large company as
individuals and in connecting with people outside the company. In
addition, it will be difficult for a single company to create a new
industry, so it will be necessary to create a new ecosystem throughcollaboration among companies, universities and the public sector.
In this situation, what will be important as a driving force forbusiness, in our view, is the brand value of a company as a platform
for realizing what an individual wants to achieve. How much you canraise your corporate value will be dependent upon how many
employees in your company can collaborate with people outside it
and how much they are ready to accept such openness. I believe thisopen process is necessary to promote innovation. Or rather it is even
useful, since if our innovative ideas are criticized by anyone fromoutside the company, we can cope with it easily by taking advantage
of our experience of internal functions inside our company.
I also believe that the role of innovation leaders in a large company
is changing. We are now aiming at developing human resources who
could reform our society and lead the global economy, rather thanjust getting a good promotion inside the company.

JS: Silicon Valley is rich in its variety of entrepreneurs.

They enjoy creating business by taking certain risks.
In Japan, there are not so many. Might one reason bethat Japanese education discourages young people
from taking risks?

Future Plans
JS: Do you have any particular plans for the future?
Fukata: We aim to accelerate starting up more new businesses
through our open innovation process. As well as the acceleration ofbusiness development, we would like to expand our activities evenmore to create a whole new ecosystem to start new industries, notonly hardware or devices but services to enhance human lives and tosolve social issues around the globe.

JS: Japanese organizations tend to exclude

disrupters. This seems to be the reason why we haveless innovation. You are intentionally trying to create
disrupters inside Panasonic. Do you have any
conflict with those who do not like disrupters inside
the company?

Fukata: Yes. People with outstanding skills or characteristics might
often be marginalized in large organizations for defending their
existing values. But I believe disrupters are necessary. Disrupters

Written with the cooperation of Naoko Sakai who is a freelance writer.

Japan SPOTLIGHT • November / December 201953