India and Japan have had a long and fruitful history of bilateral developmental cooperation since 1958. With Japan's 'Free and Open India and Pacific Strategy' and India's 'Act East' policy, the strategic and global partnership between the two countries is being consolidated, particularly in the economic, cultural and security domains.
In the last few years, the economic partnership between India and Japan has steadily progressed to greater heights. Japanese private sector interest in India is rising and currently about 1,300 Japanese companies have branches in India. The number of Japanese corporate offices' representations had grown to 4,417 by the end of 2016. India is seeing a role for Japanese government and industry in a broad spectrum of areas including aerospace, defence, infrastructure, and nuclear energy. Japan's involvement in terms of loans and aid to India spans areas such as education, energy, forestry & agriculture, health, manufacturing, transport, and water & sanitation, to name a few.
One of the mega initiatives in the railway transport infrastructure space is India's decision to introduce the Shinkansen (Japan's high-speed rail) system, which is planned to be operationalized by 2023 at an estimated budget of US $15 billion approximately, of which 80% would be a soft 50-year loan from Japan. India has been the largest recipient of Japanese Official Development Assistance (ODA) loan for the past few decades. Japan's ODA loan package for FY 2016 was Yen 371.3 billion (~ US $3.41 billion).
Japan has announced its support for training 30,000 Indians over the next 10 years in the Japan-India Institute for Manufacturing (JIM), to contribute to the 'Make in India' and 'Skill India' initiatives. With an ageing population in Japan, India has a significant opportunity of providing skilled manpower to Japan in a variety of areas including healthcare. Under the theme of 'Resurgent Japan, Vibrant India: New Perspectives, New Exchanges', various events are taking place both in Japan and in India, to promote mutual understanding between the two countries.
With such an increase in business collaboration between India and Japan, some areas of interest, which need a deeper academic and managerial involvement, are emerging. These include fields such as banking, business environment, government policies, innovation, intellectual property rights, logistics & distribution, procedures on currency hedging & counter guarantees, sourcing, technology transfer/ development/management, and understanding of local culture and business practices. Faculty at IIMB are involved in Japan-related research and courses teaching, through ongoing research collaborations and student exchange programmes with some of the top Japanese business schools.
With compelling business and national interests propelling the fast-evolving India-Japan business environment, IIMB, with its academic and research competencies, conceived the idea of establishing an India Japan Study Centre to facilitate collaborative initiatives among academia, industry and government agencies of both countries to work on areas of mutual interest.
JAPAN-CENTRIC WORK AT IIMB
IIMB has years of ongoing research collaborations and student exchange programmes with some of the best Japanese business schools and universities, like Hitotsubashi University, International University of Japan, Keio University, Tokyo University, Kyoto University, and Waseda University. There are industry relationships and collaborations as well. IIMB offers an elective course exclusively on Japan to its MBA students. Faculty at IIMB are involved in Japan-related research and teaching.
ROLE OF THE MIZUHO INDIA JAPAN STUDY CENTRE
With compelling business and national interests propelling the fast-evolving India-Japan business environment, IIMB with its academic and research competencies conceived the idea of establishing an India Japan Study Centre to facilitate collaborative initiatives among academia, industry and government agencies of both countries to work on areas of mutual interest. These would include domains such as business environment, government policies, innovation, project management, sourcing, technology transfer, development and management, sustainability, intellectual property rights, and understanding of local culture and business practices. The sectoral focus would be on infrastructure including energy and transportation, and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises.
Currently, there is no focused initiative in India among academic institutes, particularly in management institutes, to create, share and disseminate knowledge in the relevant areas of Indo-Japanese business. The Mizuho India Japan Study Centre @ IIMB aims to become a leading research and networking hub that would provide students, researchers, business managers and policy-makers with a deeper understanding of Japanese and Indian business.
Bengaluru as a location has the highest number of Japanese companies and professionals in India. Further, its innovation ecosystem has been ranked among the world's best.
IIMB is ideally positioned to start the Mizuho India Japan Study Centre as it has ongoing research collaborations and student exchange programmes with many Japanese institutes of higher learning. Focused activities of the Mizuho India Japan Study Centre @ IIMB will be aimed at stimulating, strengthening and sustaining Indo-Japanese academic-business interactions.
MISSION OF THE MIZUHO INDIA JAPAN STUDY CENTRE
To promote understanding of Japan in India and India in Japan through research, teaching and policy outreach efforts
OBJECTIVES
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To become a knowledge centre of Japanese business history, business strategies, culture, and technology innovations
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To initiate focused studies on India-Japan collaborative projects
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To promote collaborative research between partnering Japanese institutes, industry and IIMB
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To host scholars from Japanese institutes of higher learning, practitioners from industry and policy-makers
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To disseminate the outcomes of academic research in the focused areas
ONGOING INITIATIVES
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IIMB and Hitotsubashi University are partners in the Global Network for Advanced Management (GNAM), and there is an exchange of students between the two institutes during GNAM Weeks hosted in Bengaluru and Japan
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Each year, a group of 30 MBA students from IIMB visit Japan as part of the Business Planning for International Markets (BPIM) programme, which is an elective course
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IIMB has signed MoUs with six universities in Japan, namely Hitotsubashi University, International University of Japan, Keio University, Tokyo University, Kyoto University, and Waseda University
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The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan offered a short-term exchange programme called 'JENESYS 2016', under which it invited five MBA students from IIMB for eight days, to promote mutual understanding as well as global understanding of Japan's economy and society
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Ongoing research, publication and teaching collaborations with University of Osaka and Hitotsubashi University
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Senior executive programmes conducted for a Japanese company (Sony International)
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Industry relationship with Mitsubishi for support towards classroom technology
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Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on Sustainability launched in Japanese language