http://www.businesspundit.com/what-mahindra-tractors-taught-me-about-uncertainty/ Entrepreneurship, Startup Companies and Business Philosophy Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:31:15 -0600 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5 hourly 1 http://www.businesspundit.com/what-mahindra-tractors-taught-me-about-uncertainty/comment-page-1/#comment-11757 Mark Goodge Fri, 02 Jan 2009 15:53:13 +0000 http://www.businesspundit.com/?p=6951#comment-11757 Is that really so surprising, though? You say "Farmers would always use brands from the States, Europe, or Japan, period." But go back no more than a generation or so, and you can take Japan off that list. There was a time when anything Japanese was treated with the same level of scepticism as something from India is now. We've somehow conditioned ourselves over the past few decades to believe that there's something unique about Japan, the only non-Western country to have successfully penetrated Western markets to the extent that it's now treated as an equal. But the only thing unique about Japan is that it was the first. There are very good reasons why Japan was the first (US-backed reconstruction in the post-war period, mainly), but sooner or later the second, then the third, and the fourth, etc were going to come along too. And most of these other countries are far bigger than Japan. By the mid-21st century we'll probably be amazed that anyone ever bought things manufactured in the West at all. Is that really so surprising, though? You say “Farmers would always use brands from the States, Europe, or Japan, period.” But go back no more than a generation or so, and you can take Japan off that list. There was a time when anything Japanese was treated with the same level of scepticism as something from India is now. We’ve somehow conditioned ourselves over the past few decades to believe that there’s something unique about Japan, the only non-Western country to have successfully penetrated Western markets to the extent that it’s now treated as an equal. But the only thing unique about Japan is that it was the first. There are very good reasons why Japan was the first (US-backed reconstruction in the post-war period, mainly), but sooner or later the second, then the third, and the fourth, etc were going to come along too. And most of these other countries are far bigger than Japan. By the mid-21st century we’ll probably be amazed that anyone ever bought things manufactured in the West at all.

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