Factors behind the well-chronicled decline of famed Japanese brands are legion, including an inability to ditch loss-making divisions and focus on core businesses, an obsession with building 'better' products that consumers don't want, and risk-averse 'salaryman CEOs' hobbled by a search for consensus.
Those management mindsets have contributed to the woes of companies such as Sony, Panasonic and Sharp, set to lose a combined $17 billion in the year to end-March.
"Japan is seeking something like stability," said Tadashi Yanai, 63, listed by Forbes as Japan's richest man with family assets of $10 billion, and CEO of Asia's largest apparel retailer, Fast Retailing. "Stability is fine, but if you try to be stable without a desire to grow, there is no stability.
"I think the biggest problem is that that awareness has faded," Yanai said at his biggest store just days before it opened last month in Tokyo's glitzy Ginza district as part of a bid to rejuvenate profits for casual clothing chain Uniqlo by burnishing the brand at home and expanding abroad.
For Yanai - a second-generation retailer and author of a book titled "One Victory, Nine Failures" - and other successful CEOs, fear of failure isn't part of their management lexicon.
"Without knowing what I was going to do, I decided to jump off the cliff," said Mikitani, recalling his decision in 1995 to quit a job at the then-prestigious Industrial Bank of Japan and start his own firm - a move he says he'd never contemplated until the bank sent him to study at Harvard Business School.
Kohey Takashima, 38, whose online grocery firm Oisix Inc has yet to list publicly but who already dreams of expanding in Asia, said he has never calculated the cost of failure.
"I didn't think about the risk, because I didn't think I would fail," said Takashima, who worked for consultancy McKinsey & Co before starting his company with college friends.
"If you think you might fail, you won't take the risk," said Takashima, whose company in 2008 won the Porter Prize for innovative companies, named after Harvard Professor Michael Porter, author of the book "Can Japan Compete?"
A clear focus on satisfying consumers rather than mindlessly upgrading technological quality is another characteristic of the newer breed of thriving firms, experts and executives say.
"Companies that are struggling focus on product features, added functions, physical features. But by producing these, they don't really satisfy the consumer," said Shintaro Okubo, partner at consulting firm Bain & Co's Tokyo office.
"Those that are doing well are not bringing new features or functions, but entertaining the consumer."
Rakuten's Mikitani hopes that approach can differentiate his "online shopping mall" model from global giant Amazon, as he pushes overseas through M&A deals, though analysts say he may struggle in developed markets where Amazon has a big head start.
"People like to buy products and be proud of it, not just the product, but the process," Mikitani said in the fluent English he insists his executives must learn.
"Of course, price and convenience are also very important, but our strategy or way of thinking of our business (is that) shopping is not just about convenience and price, it's about experience and communication."
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