zlacker

Even Nokia's mobile phones business was on the chopping block for a time. Boston Consulting Group did a thorough assessment of Nokia's business in 1991 and came to the conclusion that the company wouldn't be able to compete with Motorola and the Japanese mobile makers.

> From the cross-linked article, on "what could not be done"

Amazing...

>>001sky+(OP)
Nobody could have competed with the Japanese manufacturers, if they had only started selling their phones outside of Japan. The BCG guys simply lacked the cultural sensitivity required to understand the extent of Japan's navel-gazing.

Americans often act and think as if the rest of the world don't exist, but the Japanese are far, far worse. Navel-gazing = size x ethnocentricity. What Japan lacks in size compared to the US, it more than makes up for in ethnocentricity.

I remember seeing an XKCD comic which featured a fact about "there only being [x amount] of [x type] lighthouses in the nation". "In the nation". So typical.