Japanese-German Mini-Symposium, Session 1
Since 2018, the THM Business School has been organizing an annual research colloquium with researchers from the Ritsumeikan University in Japan.
The links to the colloquia of the past two years can be found here:
– Research Exchange 2018
– Research Exchange 2019
Due to the Corona pandemic, this year’s meeting had to take place in virtual space. On 26 October 2020, a Japanese-German mini-symposium was organized. This series of three research meetings takes place once a month. Within a timeframe of two hours, a researcher from Japan and Germany will have the opportunity to share their research results. A total of 18 participants attended the first meeting.
Osamu Imada, honorary professor of the Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto Japan, gave a presentation on the impact of digitization of production systems and business models in Japan. Currently, Mr. Imada focuses his research on the development of ICT (Information and Communication Technology). This technology helps enterprises to collect and process mass data. The importance of this instrument was illustrated by the example of the two large Japanese companies “Hitachi, Ltd.” and “PTC Japan”.
Afterwards, Professor Dr. Gerrit Sames, professor at the THM Business School and co-initiator of the DIGIMARI project, gave a presentation on the digitization of business processes in Germany. On the basis of a study it became clear that small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have to make up leeway on the transformation of their business processes. Mr. Sames explained that standardized solutions that are easy to implement could close this gap. Without innovation, SMEs would lose their attractiveness in the labor market.
After the two presentations, an active exchange about current researches and findings emerged between the participants. The mutual interest in joint research projects was expressed.
The first session of the Japanese-German Mini-Symposium was a great success and another great example of the progress of international research between Japan and Germany in the field of digitization and digital transformation.