求一篇最近的商务英语方面的文章 7000个词
Company's Woes Are Wake-Up Call For Japanese Firms
Japanese companies have started to call in consultants and public relations experts to learn about crisis management, alarmed at the scathing criticism directed at Toyota Motor Corp. in the U.S. over its slow response to its growing recall crisis.
Despite its deep-rooted history in the U.S., 'crisisu managemento,' as it is known in Japan, is still a relatively new discipline here. The Toyota fiasco has been a harsh wake-up call for Japanese companies with sprawling global operations, which are realizing the need to make their organizations more nimble in responding to problems.
Executives at Weber Shandwick and Fleishman Hillard in Tokyo, both public relations firms, have been visiting Japanese companies -- in sectors ranging from manufacturing to services -- to teach them what they can learn from Toyota's recall of more than eight million vehicles and how to improve their crisis communications.
'This is not just a Toyota issue but a corporate Japan issue,' said Shin Tanaka, the president of Fleishman Hillard Japan.
Despite their huge presence overseas, most Japanese companies still operate within a tight vertical structure, meaning that decisions are made top-down from the home country, and a flow of information doesn't necessarily reach divisions in different departments. Howard Stringer, the chief executive of Sony Corp., famously said he wanted to 'smash' the 'silos' that existed within the consumer electronics behemoth so it could create better products across different departments.
'We have the lowest birth rate in the world. The reality of this market is that domestic demand is declining and companies are being forced globalize,' said Akihiko Kubo, the president of Weber Shandwick in Japan. 'A company can't apply the same model it has been using domestically to its global operations.'
'We are very keen to see if there is anything we can learn from this,' said Hideyuki Yamamoto, a Japan Tobacco Inc. spokesman, who declined to say whether the company had hired an outside consultant since the Toyota controversy erupted in January.
Japan Tobacco, the country's third-biggest cigarette maker, has also learned from its own unpleasant recall experience, which forced it to institute new measures to deal swiftly with crises and help manage their risk. Two years ago, 10 people in Japan were poisoned after eating Chinese-made frozen dumplings made by Japan Tobacco's food division. A number of dumplings, or gyoza in Japanese, were found to contain pesticide, and thousands of people complained of falling ill following the initial reports.
'We have laid out a structure where bad news can be shared as quickly as possible with top management,' said Mr. Yamamoto. 'We have learned that if anything could undermine our corporate reputation we must share it with top management quickly.'
Sony has also beefed up its quality controls following a lithium ion battery recall in 2006, in which it replaced nearly 10 million battery packs in a voluntary replacement program, after some laptop batteries were found to overheat and catch fire.
Following the debacle, an executive in charge of product quality and safety was established, as well as an 'escalation rule': If Sony receives a report of a product malfunction that has safety implications, it must be reported to the product-safety executive within eight hours.
-----WSJ
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