Natsume targets Non-Japanese consumers

9.7

Rating

Natsume is a brand that we have been following since its inception. Founded by 4 MBAs from Tokyo,Natsume is developing a unique 100% made in Japan collection.

McKinsey keeps on telling that 10 exceptional luxury brands will emerge from Asia and we have no doubt that Natsume is one of them. 

The Asia Career Times believes that this company can go very far has they could meet current luxury requirements:

• Quality (using Japan high requirements)
• Authentic (100% of the design, materials (including Japanese laquer and silk) and handcraft is made in Japan) 
• Focus (they do not target massive sales and jump on China, they are very focused on their Niche)
• Slow Growth (Luxury Marketing is really different from other products and going too fast can make your product appear like a very common item)

For those reasons we believe that people interested in a career in Luxury should always keep an eye on Natsume.

Nastume can be visited at http://natsume-japon.com

Japanese phone companies to support new ventures

Japanese companies turn to American methods and address new venture people and companies via carpet fundings.

NTT DoCoMo Inc. said Friday it will set up a venture fund to help start-up companies devise services and technologies that can be applied to its own operations.

Read More

Venture of the Month: CareerBecause.Asia

Opening of Entrepreneurship Week 2011 to Overcome Global Economic Crisis

The 4th Entrepreneurship Week will be held from Nov. 7(Mon.) to 12(Sat.) jointly led by Korea International Trade Association(Chairman & CEO Il Sakong), Korea Chamber of Commerce, Federation of Korean Industries, Federation of Small and Medium Business and Korea Employers Federation and supported by the Ministry of Knowledge Economy.

 Marking the 4th anniversary the Entrepreneurship Week began to be he

Asian Entrepreneurs win World awards

Four role-models whose entrepreneurial achievements and commitment to society make them role-models for entrepreneurship creating wealth and social justice have been awarded the Entrepreneurs for the World Awards at this year’s World Entrepreneurship Forum held in Singapore.

The Young Entrepreneur Award, a new award category for entrepreneurs below 35, has recognised Ms Reese Fernandez, Co-Founder of Rags2Riches in the Philippines. Her venture has revolutionised women’s business practices and lives by transforming rugs from recycling scrap material into fashion handbags, eyeglasses or wine-bottle holders, sought by high-revenue customers, bringing revenues and self-confidence to employed women.

This year’s winner of the Social Entrepreneur Award is Mr William Drayton, Founder of Ashoka, USA. Mr Drayton was the first person to coin the term “social entrepreneurship” and started Ashoka in 1980. The not-for-profit organisation is established in 60 countries and supports the work of 2,000 Ashoka Fellows, selected for their impact on their social and business environments, in replicating and scaling their ventures so as to have a global impact.

The winner of this year’s Politician Award is Ms Anneli Hulthen, Mayor of Göteborg, Sweden. She is Mayor of an entrepreneurial city that has implemented several initiatives, such as “Expedition Forward”, “Business Emergency Programme” or “Brew House Incubator” widely praised among European cities for their positive impact on entrepreneurs’ ventures and the related creation of jobs.

Finally, this year’s Entrepreneur for the World Award has been given for the first time to a company, FOSUN International. The Shanghai-based conglomerate with a wide array of activities such as pharmaceuticals or healthcare, being present on the global front through its 7.1% stake in Club Med, generates an annual revenue of 4.5 billion euros and has perfectly aligned its strategy to answer Chinese population’s social needs (such as ageing population or new consumption habits).

The winners received their trophies, designed by the French jeweler Korloff, at a Gala Dinner graced by Singapore’s Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Teo Chee Hean. The World Entrepreneurship Forum^[1], drawing 130 selected entrepreneurship experts and thought leaders from 60 countries is being held for the first time in Singapore this year, from 2-5 November on the theme “Entrepreneurship - A Driver for Innovation and Technology“. A public gathering in NTU on 4 November morning will allow 450 persons from Singapore Business Community to benefit from the most outstanding entrepreneurial stories of Forum Members.

Entrepreneurs 'creating jobs around the world'

An estimated 40 per cent of all new jobs are provided by around one per cent of entrepreneurs, new statistics suggest. A report published by the World Economic Forum (WEF) indicates businesses should examine the strategies that make such companies …

View the original here:
Entrepreneurs ‘creating jobs around the world’

Venture of the Week: Moso, video for social communication

Moso is an application designed for Macintosh that helps you create your videos instantly  Eincluding music, video, photos, sound effects, motion text and credits  E It is called video for social communication because you can instantly publish videos on all social media (FaceBook, Twitter and YouTube). The design and idea should bring a lot of users to Moso.

Once you start playing with Moso, the possibilities are endless!

Keeping in touch with family on Facebook
Hilarious viral videos on YouTube
Introducing products for online shops
Video messages for a friend’s wedding
A communication tool for artists and entertainers

The Asia Career Times believe that if Moso was able to set its application for non-Mac users, this would really create a mass effect.

Venture of the Week: Wonderpod (www.wandoujia.com)

Founded by Kai-Fu Lee, the former Google China president, Wonderpod is a  distribution platform for applications and multimedia called Wonderpod. Also known as Wandoujia in Chinese. It currently offers free applications, including one that lets users download clips from some Chinese video streaming websites.

Lee also launched a company called Tapas, which was the first operating system based on Android for the Chinese market. It offers a number of features that are catered to Chinese users. Some of the ideas are similar to what’s already available in the U.S. One feature, for example, lets users sync their contacts with Chinese social networks. A second displays the lyrics of a song in a karaoke-fashion, and a third feature detects what cities calls are coming from.

The first handsets running the custom Tapas operating system are manufactured by Haier, Sharp, and Tianyu.

Venture of the Week: Orange Scape

OrangeScape is a Chennai, India based product company founded in the year 2003, with a vision of simplifying business application development.

OrangeScape provides Platform as a Service (PaaS) to build domain rich solutions, the easiest and fastest way. OrangeScape uses a modeling driven visual development environment for creating business applications and can be deployed as SaaS or on-premise applications.

The application deployed as SaaS runs on OrangeScape Cloud. OrangeScape Cloud, leverages the cloud infrastructure of Google App Engine or Microsoft Azure (planned release) to provide massive scalability and storage capacity. Unlike most alternatives (like salesforce.com), that are proprietary to one platform, OrangeScape’s technology has the plumbing that is required to enable the ISVs to run on different cloud platforms, or on-premise, without make changes to their solution.

The application deployed on-premise runs on OrangeScape Enterprise. This runs on standard application servers on Java or Microsoft environments, with configurable option to use popular relational databases such as Oracle, SQL Server, MySQL, DB2. This helps ISVs to build a single solution and deploy it on-premise for customers who are not yet ready for SaaS.

have  alook at their website, it is worth knowing more about OrangeScape

Book of the Day: China Entrepreneur: Voices of Experience from 40 Business Pioneers

Why you should read China Entrepreneurs: Voices of Experience from 40 Business Pioneers?

Launching a business in China? Give yourself a “second mover advantage.” China-bound entrepreneurs and small business owners: learn from experienced China hands before you bring your business to the world’s largest and most dynamic consumer market.

Preparing to manage a small business in China, the world’s largest, most dynamic consumer market? Hundreds of thousands of other international businesspeople are too, but only a small percentage of them will succeed in bringing their start-up dreams to life in the Middle Kingdom.

Give yourself a huge head-start by learning directly from experienced China pioneers. CHINA ENTREPRENEURS delivers street-tested advice on launching, growing, and operating your own business in China. Authors Juan Antonio Fernandez, professor of Management at the China Europe International Business School, and Laurie Underwood, accomplished journalist and Director of External Communications at CEIBS, use their combined 26 years of China experience to interview 40 successful international entrepreneurs who have launched and built businesses in China.

These entrepreneurs share their first-hand advice, anecdotes and best practices in tackling the key challenges of winning in the China market, from negotiating with government and winning necessary start-up approvals, to hiring and keeping the right staff, to collecting payments and to safeguarding intellectual property. In addition, the experiences of the entrepreneurs will be juxtaposed against insights from experienced China consultants who assist start-ups in operating in China. Thus the book will balance extensive, on-the-ground business advice against the insights of consultants who have risen to prominence in the China business environment by advising SME business operators on succeeding in China.

Interested? Get this book in The Knowledge Store