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Mint
15-05-2025
- Business
- Mint
Business bestsellers survive but where did management gurus go?
Once upon a time, a best-selling book would grant its author guru status. Having your name embossed on the hardback cover was an unofficial badge of expertise, whether you were an aspiring management thinker, a boardroom sage or a speaker-circuit regular. Unlike keynote invitations, books delivered credibility and had intellectual cachet. Not anymore. In an era where everyone seems to have published something, has the gold standard of thought leadership lost its lustre? To understand how this happened, flashback to 1982, when In Search of Excellence by Tom Peters and Robert Waterman hit retail shelves with evangelical zeal. American businesses, battered by stagflation, oil crises and the rise of Japan Inc, were in search of reassurance. The book offered exactly that: proof that US companies could still thrive, and more importantly, a codified playbook for success: eight easy-to-recall traits, apparently data-driven and actionable enough for managers to feel empowered. Also Read: When will business books focus more on corporate failures than successes? Critics later pounced on its methodological flaws and Peters allegedly even confessed to having 'faked the data" in retrospect. But the damage was done. A new genre was born: the business bestseller. And with it, a new mantle: of the business thought leader. From that point on, books were no longer just idea containers. They became platforms for corporate wisdom. Successful authors got lucrative speaking engagements, management consultancy gigs, corporate board seats and media publicity. Business books became business. High stakes meant new tactics. Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema, authors of The Discipline of Market Leaders, reportedly spent over $250,000 buying their own books across the US to get into the New York Times bestseller list. It could let them hike their speaking fees and get bigger consultancy and book deals. In India, many business authors, especially those who were already well known for their professional success, have become public figures. Gurcharan Das's India Unbound transformed him from a former CEO into a public intellectual. Nandan Nilekani's Imagining India served not just as commentary, but as a policy guide. Raghuram Rajan's Fault Lines earned him stardom beyond the field of economics. Also Read: The best business books tend to be about music and sports Today, the business book has become something of a glorified business card. Many are padded essays stretched to 200 pages, bloated with anecdotes, loaded with buzzwords and dressed in covers screaming for attention. With an estimated 12,000 business books published every year, the genre is suffering a global glut. Few books offer a breakthrough idea. Many are simply checklists. And in a world of digital content overload, thought leadership is shifting to more dynamic platforms. Podcasts, newsletters, X threads, LinkedIn posts and short videos are shaping professional discourse faster than traditional publishing cycles can churn out books. A book can take two years to write and publish. A podcast can go live right away and viral soon after. Publishers are adapting: Simon & Schuster recently announced it will reduce reliance on expert reviews on back covers. This isn't merely administrative; it's an acknowledgment that curated praise doesn't drive sales. Another brutal reality for authors is that a book that takes four years to write can vanish in four months, even before it gets a chance to appear in a cheaper paperback edition. This doesn't mean books are obsolete. They allow for depth, with slowly built and layered arguments. Jonathan Haidt's The Anxious Generation, which explores the profound impact of digital life on young people, is a case in point. The book format allowed him to explore a cultural phenomenon in a way no blog post or tweetstorm ever could. Books are also timeless. They endure in libraries, sit on shelves and signal intellectual gravitas. But their monopoly over idea dissemination is over. Today, thought leadership is an ecosystem. Books are part of it, but so are newsletters with subscriptions, viral LinkedIn posts, Substack essays, X threads and, yes, 30-second videos on Instagram or YouTube Shorts. Political influence has gone the same way. Also Read: From stock market advice to the Medimix story, business books to add to your TBR So, what should a would-be thought leader do? Write that book with a big idea, yes. But don't stop there. Treat it as one gear in a larger machine. Build an audience through diverse platforms that use voice, video and short-form text. Share ideas in real-time. Experiment. Engage. Books are for depth. Podcasts are for reach. Newsletters are for loyalty. Tweets are for traction. Master the digital mix. Books will still matter especially in policy, academia and legacy media, but they no longer offer an automatic key to the kingdom of influence. In a world oversaturated with information, clarity is currency, velocity is value and reach is power. So, have we reached 'peak book' point à la 'peak oil'? Quite possibly. The hardcover may no longer be the sovereign badge of authority it once was. But in the age of agile content and restless attention, thought leadership is no longer about a singular polished manuscript. It's about being present, persistent and plural. Anyone who writes a book now to get an important idea across must also embrace digital channels. Because in the new world of ideas, it's not just about being read. It's about being ubiquitous—heard, shared, seen and of course remembered. The authors are, respectively, professor at Columbia Business School and founder of Valize; and Fortune-500 advisor, startup investor and co-founder of the non-profit Medici Institute for Innovation. X: @MuneerMuh
Asia Times
28-03-2025
- Automotive
- Asia Times
Trump's tariffs won't save Musk from China's BYD
No one wins in a trade war, as economists have insisted for decades. Yet Elon Musk sure does seem to be blowing this maxim to smithereens. In January 2024, the Tesla billionaire warned that America's electric vehicle industry had no chance of beating China's without massive tariffs. Fast forward 14 months and Musk finds himself in the winner's circle as Trump hits the global car industry with 25% tariffs. As Musk told shareholders back then: 'Our observation is generally that Chinese car companies are the most competitive car companies in the world. If there are no trade barriers established, they will pretty much demolish most other car companies in the world,' he continued. Though China has many EV success stories, Musk clearly had BYD in his sights. At the end of 2024, just as Trump was gearing up for another stint in the White House, China's EV juggernaut leapfrogged Tesla on revenue as BYD sales topped the US$100 billion mark. BYD, backed in its early days by Warren Buffet, did so by wooing customers with a savvy high-tech fleet of EVs and hybrid vehicles, leaving Japan Inc in the dust. Case in point: BYD's recent disclosure of a new charging system, powered by an enviable ecosystem, giving drivers 400 kilometers of range in five minutes. Commenting on BYD's 100% stock surge over the last 12 months, Michael Dunne, CEO of Dunne Insights, credits BYD with 'achieving the most explosive growth we've seen in the auto business in a hundred years' while noting that 'this thing has been on fire.' Yet Trump's auto tariffs have Musk getting some of his best headlines in years. Musk's EV giant has enormous factories in Texas and California that produce all the cars it moves in the US market. This mostly protects Tesla from Trump's new taxes on autos and parts. By very sharp contrast, carmakers from Germany's Volkswagen AG to South Korea's Hyundai Motor to US giant General Motors are all in the collateral damage zone. Goldman Sachs analyst Mark Delaney thinks Trump just upped the price of imported cars by between $5,000 and $15,000. Thanks to supply-chain arrangements, the cost of locally manufactured automobiles could surge by as much as $8,000. This 'hurricane-like headwind,' as analysts at Wedbush Securities describe it, is compounded by Trump choosing 25% rather than, say 20% or 30%. The levy Trump settled on, they argue, is 'almost an untenable head-scratching number for the US consumer.' To be sure, says Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives, 'we continue to believe this is some form of negotiation and these tariffs could change.' But for now, he added, the industry is in quite a whirl. Tesla, says Garrett Nelson, analyst at CFRA Research, is the 'least exposed' auto giant. Musk's company, it's worth noting, is already touting itself as making the 'most American-made cars.' TD Cowen's Itay Michaeli agrees that Tesla is a 'relative winner' in the tariff wars. 'Tesla a relative beneficiary given 100% US production footprint, substantial US sourcing and with Model Y competing in a midsize crossover segment where close to 50% of vehicles could be subject to tariffs,' Michaeli says. Analysts at Deutsche Bank, note that 'Tesla and Ford appear to be the most shielded [from tariff impacts] given location of vehicle assembly facilities although Ford does face incremental exposure on imported engines. GM has the most exposure to Mexico.' Nor is Tokyo happy. Toyota Motor, the globe's biggest automaker, exports roughly half the vehicles it sells to the US market. This is despite Toyota running sprawling factories in Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi and Texas and large engine plants in Alabama and West Virginia. It's also despite Japan's 100% compliance with the free-trade agreement Trump 1.0 negotiated with former Japanese leader Shinzo Abe. One question is the impact on US consumer sentiment. Even if one can argue, as Trump World does, that these tariffs will boost investment in US manufacturing that increase auto-industry efficiency, the disorientation factor could matter more. 'For consumers navigating higher prices in the short term, the promise of future gains may feel distant – at least for now,' says Jessica Caldwell, head of insights at advisory Edmunds. Then, there are the retaliation risks. As Robert Habeck, Germany's economic affairs minister, warned Thursday (March 27): 'It needs to be clear that we will not take this lying down.' European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called Trump's tariff escalation 'bad for businesses, worse for consumers.' The stories analysts like to tell about the global car industry are rarely straightforward. Musk, for example, didn't found Telsa – he bought the company from Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. Nor is it clear Tesla would've survived without a ginormous $465 million federal loan from US President Barack Obama's administration. Would BYD, meantime, be where it is today without the role German design veteran Wolfgang Egger, an Alfa Romeo veteran, played in helping to create the brand? Or the role Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway played as an early marquee-caliber cash infuser and the 'halo effect' it imparted? Then there's China's own efforts to keep global auto companies at bay. 'It is no secret that President Donald Trump loves tariffs,' Dunne of Dunne Insights explains. Trump, Dunne notes, says 'I'm the Tariff Man' and 'with zero trace of inhibition.' But 'what's less well known,' Dunne says, 'is that China embraces tariffs in a big way, too. And China's love affair with tariffs – quiet, almost clandestine – has been going on for decades. A tall, imposing brick wall of taxes on imports, blended with targeted industrial investments, have played a pivotal role in China's rise as a manufacturing powerhouse. How powerful? In 2024 alone, China ran a one trillion-dollar trade surplus with the world.' When Dunne started his first company in Beijing in 1990, 'China was an automotive weakling. Annual production was less than 500,000 cars; thin wood shavings compared to more than 13.5 million that Japan produced.' To 'gain industrial traction,' he adds, 'regulators in Beijing slammed the door shut on imports. They set tariffs at 100%. They also strictly limited the number of import licenses granted each year. It was a double layer of protection – non-tariff barriers on top of tariffs.' Ultimately, 'China's message to global automakers was crystal clear,' Dunne notes. 'If you want to sell cars in China, you will need to manufacture them inside China. And to secure an approval to manufacture inside China you must first marry up with a Chinese partner. And, by the way, the Chinese partner will own no less than 50% of the joint venture.' In 2024, China produced 31 million vehicles, three times more than the US, where the automobile was invented. Beijing's tariff and non-tariff barrier matrix largely remains intact. In the 35 years that China spent becoming an auto manufacturing superpower, Dunne notes, 'China never permitted car imports to exceed 6% of the total market.' Even so, Trump's tariffs are testing the global economy's shock absorbers as rarely before. And they're causing Musk's EV company some serious agita. Tesla is facing backlashes around the globe over Musk's outsized and controversial role in the Trump White House. In February alone, Tesla registrations in European Union countries fell 47%. Trump's Attorney General Pam Bondi went so far as to call acts of arson of Tesla cars and showrooms 'domestic terrorism.' Analysts at William Blair & Co write that 'pushback from Musk's foray into politics' has led to 'brand damage and even vandalism,' for Tesla at a time when the company's supply has been impacted by its pivot to the Model Y and 'Chinese competition continues to heat up.' This latter point is worth remembering, though. The surge in BYD's stock relative to Tesla's 40%-plus plunge since mid-December is a reminder that the China EV threat isn't a passing one. The irony is that BYD is arguably the hottest car company in the world and yet consumers still can't buy one in the US. Former US President Joe Biden, for example, slapped 100% taxes on Chinese EVs. Yet Musk's problem is no longer just the Buffett favorite BYD. It's an entire fleet of EV upstarts clogging the commercial roads in Asia's biggest economy. And increasingly, Global South nations where lower-cost Chinese EVs are thriving. The shares of mainland EV startup Xpeng jumped 85% since the start of the year. Nio and automotive conglomerate Geely — which runs EV startup Zeekr and others — are seeing double-digit share price gains, too. It doesn't mean the rallies will continue, but it does mean that the future isn't necessarily Tesla's to lose. No matter how close Musk sits to Trump's Oval Office. Follow William Pesek on X at @WilliamPesek
Asia Times
11-03-2025
- Business
- Asia Times
Japan braces for Trump's worst as yen takes trade war fire
Self-awareness isn't often a strong suit among top Bank of Japan officials. Take Haruhiko Kuroda, arguably the most globally known governor the BOJ has had in its 143-year history. His notoriety stems from a 2013-2023 campaign to end deflation, one that supersized the BOJ's balance sheet to twice the size of Japan's US$4.7 trillion economy. The resulting plunge in the yen propped up Japan Inc. But now it risks running afoul of the Donald Trump 2.0 presidency in ways complicating Tokyo's 2025. Already, Trump is sending rhetorical shots Japan's way. That has Kuroda playing defense for his successor at BOJ, Kazuo Ueda. Japan, Kuroda says, must repair 'any misunderstanding' in Washington that it's intentionally weakening the yen to boost exports. 'In fact, the Japanese government has been making huge efforts to prevent the yen from weakening,' Kuroda told local media, pointing to moves to raise interest rates and even intervene in currency markets. The BOJ, Kuroda stressed, 'is not intentionally guiding the yen lower with monetary policy. If there's any misunderstanding on that point, it needs to be addressed.' What really must be addressed, though, is Tokyo's understanding of how its policies are going over globally. Denial doesn't change the fact that the most consistent policy over the last 13 governments has been an undervalued yen. Or that a key reason the BOJ has been holding rates at, or near, zero since 1999 is to protect manufacturers facing increasing competition across Asia. Spin doesn't change Japan's status as the globe's top creditor nation. Twenty-six years of zero rates gave rise to the so-called 'yen-carry trade.' Over time, investors got into the habit of borrowing cheaply in yen to fund bets on higher-yielding assets everywhere. This strategy has kept aloft everything from Argentine debt to South African commodities to Indian real estate to the New Zealand dollar to derivatives on New York exchanges to cryptocurrencies. That's why the yen's recent surge pulled the floor out from under markets around the globe. When the yen zigs sharply, markets have long tended to zag. As such, the BOJ's move on July 31 last year to raise rates to the highest level since 2008 shook world markets. The same happened in January this year, when the BOJ hiked rates a second time to 0.50%. Arif Husain, head of fixed income at T Rowe Price, speaks for many when he calls the yen-carry trade the 'San Andreas fault of finance.' There's growing doubt, though, that the BOJ will keep tapping the monetary brakes as US President Trump layers on ever more tariffs, including threatening to tax Japan's all-important auto industry. The worry is that higher borrowing costs would exacerbate headwinds caused by Trump's 20% tariffs on China, levies on steel and aluminum and 'reciprocal tariffs' to come. Yet Japanese inflation is running a bit hotter than the BOJ would like. In January, Japanese inflation jumped 4% year on year, the highest in two years. That's double the BOJ's inflation target. It's also a rate that's exceeding average wage growth. It's not the environment that Japan wants heading into an escalating trade war. Japan's fourth-quarter growth was weaker than expected. The government's second estimate of gross domestic product (GDP) showed output rose just 0.6% quarter over quarter, down from the initial 0.7%. 'The revisions broadly align with our expectations and confirm the picture of an economy struggling against weak domestic demand,' says Stefan Angrick, head of Japan Moody's Analytics. It means 'Japan's economy is, at best, treading water,' Angrick says. Fourth-quarter data, he adds, 'masks an economy struggling to get out of first gear. Consumption is going sideways as pay gains have trailed inflation for the better part of three years. Sticky inflation and lackluster pay growth will push real wage gains further into the distance and, with it, an improvement in domestic consumption.' What's more, Angrick says, 'the deteriorating trade outlook means Japan can't count on exports to save the day. Media reports released Tuesday confirm new US tariffs on steel and aluminum won't spare Japan.' Takeshi Yamaguchi, chief Japan economist at Morgan Stanley MUFG, says that 'we expect the BoJ to stay on hold at the March 18-19 monetary policy meeting.' Others were less put off by Japan's GDP showing. To Sonal Desai, chief investment officer at Franklin Templeton Fixed Income, recent data 'supports the view that rates will face heightened upward pressure as monetary policy tightens. The BOJ is likely to hike at least twice more this year, but we are tilting to three.' Desai expected short-term rates to top 1% this year. There's also an argument that delaying rate hikes might enrage Trump as the yen remains weaker than it might otherwise be. Earlier this month, Trump claimed he warned the leaders of Japan and China they mustn't continue to weaken their currencies. 'You can't do it because it's unfair to us,' Trump complained. 'It's very hard for us to make tractors, Caterpillar here, when Japan, China and other places are killing their currency, meaning driving it down.' Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba is no doubt alarmed to hear Trump lump Japan with China as currency manipulators. But his Liberal Democratic Party, and the BOJ under Kuroda's leadership, set the stage for the coming clash with the most mercantilist US leader in at least 125 years. Kuroda, of course, was hired by then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to turbocharge the BOJ's quantitative easing policies. Abe's 2012-2020 premiership sought to end deflation via a sharply weaker exchange rate. Abe chose Kuroda in part because of his handiwork as a senior Ministry of Finance official in the late 1990s and early 2000s. In 2013, Abe decided the BOJ should take the lead in revitalizing Asia's second-biggest economy. Hiring Kuroda was his big economic gamble _ an aggressive assault on the deflationary forces that had weakened Japan's financial foundations over the previous 15 years. Kuroda didn't disappoint. He hoarded more than half of all outstanding government securities, a buying binge that all but halted regular bond trading. He gorged on stocks via exchange-traded funds, making the BOJ by far the biggest holder of Nikkei 225 and Topix index shares. As part of its campaign to drive the yen down 30%, the Kuroda-led BOJ branched out into other asset markets, too. By late 2018, the BOJ's balance sheet surpassed Japan's GDP, a first for a Group of Seven nation. This milestone is a reminder that for all the focus on the US Federal Reserve's ultraloose policies in Washington after the 2008 global financial crisis, the BOJ has been far more aggressive relative to GDP. And now, as even Kuroda admits, detrimental to Japan's economic development. In his waning days as BOJ head, Kuroda signaled an about-face in his views on the link between exchange rates and healthy growth. He came to realize, at long last, that the costs of devaluation outweigh the benefits. 'The yen's depreciation might have an increasing negative impact on household income through price rises,' Kuroda told business leaders in late 2022. Worse than that: the boost from weak exchange rates these last 26 years removed the urgency for disruptive structural reforms. That's particularly true of Abe, who came to power pledging to loosen labor markets, catalyze innovation, reduce bureaucracy, increase productivity and empower women. And now, an undervalued yen has Trump lumping Japan in with top American rival China. Tokyo got away with its beggar-thy-neighbor tactics during the Trump 1.0 era from 2017 to 2021 in part because Abe sucked up to Trump, and in part because Trump was linearly focused on China. The Trump 2.0 White House, though, is targeting US allies even more assertively than supposed foes China, Russia or North Korea. That's been quite a surprise for Canada, France, Germany and other top economies. And it has Japan fearing the worst to come. On Monday, Japanese Trade Minister Yoji Muto met in Washington with US officials seeking waivers on Trump's tariffs, particularly on autos and steel. To no avail, according to reports. 'The talk of tariffs is, in a lot of ways, worse than the implementation of them,' says David Bahnsen, chief investment officer at the Bahnsen Group. 'The tariff talk, reversal, speculation, and chaos only fosters uncertainty.' Bahnsen adds that, 'I don't believe the administration knows how the tariff situation will play out, but if I were a betting man, I would say that it will persist long enough to do damage to economic activity for at least a quarter or two, and ultimately result in a deal with different countries that make everyone wonder why we went through all the fuss.' Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA Research, notes that 'how long this period of investor caution persists depends on how quickly it will take the global trade clouds, and the resulting threat of recession, to dissipate.' Look no further than Super Mario maker Nintendo, whose stock is plunging along with other Japanese video game stocks on worries that Trump's antics will boost prices in the US. In fact, global investors broadly are 'reducing their positions in Japanese stocks,' including the 'most attractive stocks' that they have so far held on to. If Kuroda, Ueda or Ishiba think Tokyo is going to escape Trump's wrath, then they're the ones 'misunderstanding' where Japan finds itself as 2025 unfolds. Follow William Pesek on X at @WilliamPesek
Voice of America
23-02-2025
- Lifestyle
- Voice of America
Beauty market targets young at heart in aging Japan
Yoshiko Abe is about to turn 89, but that hasn't stopped her from going to the gym every day and trying the free-of-charge makeup course at her housing complex. "It was really helpful," she said, all smiles and glowing after putting on foundation and pink lipstick, something she hadn't done in years. Japan has the largest percentage of older citizens than any other country in the world. More than a quarter of Japan's population is 65 and older, at 36 million people. In about a decade, the ratio will be one in three. No wonder the young-at-heart, like Abe, is a growing target for Japan Inc. The market for older people is estimated to grow to more than 100 trillion yen ($650 billion) in size this year, according to a study by Mizuho Bank. And that business isn't just about remedies for sicknesses and old folks' homes but taps into solid consumerism. The growth of artificial intelligence and robotics also offers promise for such services and gadgetry. Akira Shimizu, professor of business at Keio University, calls them "cool grandpas and cute grannies" who remain sensitive to trends, including the latest luxury and health products. "They think about the clothing and makeup that express their style," he said. From luxury cruises and "oldies" rock concerts, companies are leveraging the fact that older people these days remain active, go out with friends and on dates, so they want to dress up and look good, said Shimizu. Maintaining one's looks is good physical exercise because it takes hand agility to open cosmetics tubes and draw eyebrows nicely, and massaging the face gets one's saliva glands going, according to Miwa Hiraku, the makeover class instructor from the Japanese cosmetics company Shiseido. Shiseido Co., which started out as a pharmacy in 1872, said that makeup is not just good for your physical well-being but also your soul. The company has been holding free makeup courses for older people across the country. "Putting on makeup works as a switch to turn on your energy at the start of your day," said Hiraku, who vows to wear makeup even at 100. "It's not just about looking beautiful. It's about living a long healthy life." Yoshihiko Hotta, 85, the only man in the class of about 30 people, didn't try the rouge but happily put on the hand cream and went along with all the exercise routines. While acknowledging he felt some effects of aging like sore legs, he declared with conviction: "I don't think age is relevant."
Arab Times
19-02-2025
- Business
- Arab Times
Japan's beauty market target the 'young at heart'
TOKYO, Feb 19, (AP): Yoshiko Abe is about to turn 89, but that hasn't stopped her from going to the gym every day and trying the free-of-charge makeup course at her housing complex. "It was really helpful,' she said, all smiles and glowing after putting on foundation and pink lipstick, something she hadn't done in years. Japan is the fastest-aging society in the world, where more than a quarter of its population is 65 and older, at 36 million people. In about a decade, the ratio will be one in three. No wonder the young-at-heart, like Abe, is a growing target for Japan Inc. The market for older people is estimated to grow to more than 100 trillion yen ($650 billion) in size this year, according to a study by Mizuho Bank. And that business isn't just about remedies for sicknesses and old folks' homes but taps into solid consumerism. The growth of artificial intelligence and robotics also offers promise for such services and gadgetry. Akira Shimizu, professor of business at Keio University, calls them "cool grandpas and cute grannies' who remain sensitive to trends, including the latest luxury and health products. "They think about the clothing and makeup that express their style,' he said. From luxury cruises and "oldies' rock concerts, companies are leveraging the fact that older people these days remain active, go out with friends and on dates, so they want to dress up and look good, said Shimizu. Maintaining one's looks is good physical exercise because it takes hand agility to open cosmetics tubes and draw eyebrows nicely, and massaging the face gets one's saliva glands going, according to Miwa Hiraku, the makeover class instructor from the Japanese cosmetics company Shiseido. Shiseido Co., which started out as a pharmacy in 1872, said that makeup is not just good for your physical well-being but also your soul. The company has been holding free makeup courses for older people across the country. "Putting on makeup works as a switch to turn on your energy at the start of your day,' said Hiraku, who vows to wear makeup even at 100. "It's not just about looking beautiful. It's about living a long healthy life,' she said. Yoshihiko Hotta, 85, the only man in the class of about 30 people, didn't try the rouge but happily put on the hand cream and went along with all the exercise routines. While acknowledging he felt some effects of aging like sore legs, he declared with conviction: "I don't think age is relevant.'
