Ken Worsley’s excellent Japan Economy News provides this morning’s suggested reading.
It is a fact that American exporters in many industries assume a holier-than-thou mentality. “My product is American, and, therefore, it’s great.” That is no longer true. “Made in America” was once synonymous with high-quality, if only because Americans had the means to produce when others did not. The American-made products of today often epitomize mediocrity — just look at the entertainment products we export — and cost more than those produced elsewhere.
We as exporters need to remove pride from the equation until it is damn well deserved. Ask yourself and your organization this question: what are we doing to ensure that my international customer receives the best value for his money? Then ask it of your customer. The disparity in the responses will very likely shock you.
The Japan Critical of American Beef Exporters – And Therein Lies the Lesson by AsiaBizBlog, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
It is curious that although American pop noise (which includes rap, hip-hop, rock, etc.), much American film, and almost all of its television are of such a low standard that they cannot be described as entertainment–much less as art–and are thus not of the high standard of much of America’s erstwhile exports, this rubbish makes fortunes in foreign markets for American entertainment conglomerates. The world may no longer be so interested in eating American beef or driving American cars, but its appetite for American car crash movies exceeds its
appetite for Gauloise and truffle scented French
art films, for example. In other words, it
sometimes pays,and pays well, to aim low.