I don’t want to spoil the surprise so be sure to check for updates in mid/end of may. In the meantime (while I am enjoying tasty asian cuisine and colorful sunsets at Odaiba beach after relaxing in traditional Japanese Onsen for hours) you are invited to take a look at a recent “just for fun” project: topsellerblog.de. The German platform for brand clothing gives you a high quality listing of brand clothes available online directly at the selling companies. Third party services like Google friend connect allow you to easily share your thoughts on the products.

The picture above was shot today when I had some time to play around with the camera while I was waiting for the new haircut of my wife to get completed (about 4 hours). It is a small square with some benches, artistic water installations and some shadow (where I had to hide to protect myself of the burning sun). The place is located between the Imperial Palace (right in the opposite direction from the presented view) and the Tokyo Station (which is behind the big buildings).

As we have internet connection right in the room I already have uploaded some photos of the first days which can be found in the photo gallery Tokyo 2007 album.

Our journey has taken us to many places already: Tokyo Disneyland, Harajuku, Shinjuku, Akihabara, Ueno (where we are staying), Saitama, etc. etc. and there is still some time left. Hooray.
The images in the gallery are just a teaser. Many great shots to follow soon.

Some weeks ago I attended a presentation about Kaizen (held by Mr. Minoru Tominaga, a recognized expert about Kaizen) which gave me back my hopes. Hopes about a better world. Kaizen is a Japanese concept which has spread to many companies all around the world. It literally means “constant improvement” and can be applied to many different aspects of business (or even life). Since it’s development the concept naturally experienced continually changes on itself and at the moment Kaizen often focuses on customer relationship and customer care. In Japan customers are called “honorable guests” and that already describes it perfectly. The customer is “king” and should at least be treated with the greatest respect possible. I do not want to go into detail about this topic but there are many companies (even in the western world) which try to improve their relationship to their customers. I too think that in the near future it will be an important factor to survive the tough business battles. In the last years company were trying to achieve the best quality to keep their position on top. As many competitors forced themselves to increase quality the level is almost the same. But one thing which can still distinguish one company from the other is indeed their way of treating their customers. I do not demand to get any presents or anything for free from companies. But I demand respect. The same respect I would give to other humans.

Lately I got the impression more and more that companies try to get their advantage at any cost (even with dubious methods). If you pick up your phone or start your email client and tell customer care about any problem there is a hight chance that they tell you without any hesitation that you are right and that they will solve the problem immediately. If you are confused now and do not know what I mean then I have a short example story which occurred some weeks ago. We went on a holiday to Portugal and decided beforehand that we will need a rental car. So we booked an Avis car as they were the cheapest (after some price comparison). We received a coupon which covered all the costs in Portugal. By showing the coupon to the Avis branch office they would give us the car and there would not be any extra costs (except some local insurance which had to be paid at the office). Everything went like planned except that when returning the car the clerk charged us a much higher one way fee than covered by the coupon. We did not argue but simply paid the difference. Back home after some days I decided to tell Avis customer care about the incident. Avis customer care checked all the facts and decided that they would give us back our money within the next days. No arguing, nothing. Of course I only told the very short version of this story and I maybe will again choose Avis as their customer support was really cooperative and nice. But the overall impression is that those things might occur not by accident but on purpose. In that case it really might have been a small mistake but there are more cases like that. First you are cheated and if you complain they will correct their fault like nothing happened.

That should not be. You should not be cheated in the first place.

Now after all that complaining we finally have reached the main story. A story about my heroes. A company in Spain which produces olives. The company I am talking about is HUTESA Agroalimentaria, S.A.. Some days ago I bought (like many times before) three glasses of olives. The olives themselves are filled with almonds and I pretty like them. When arriving at home I realized that something was different with the olives. Instead of whole almonds I only found olives stuffed with almond halves. If it would have been like that from the beginning I would not have bothered but I thought it must be some kind of silly joke. How could someone reduce the quality of a product just to earn some more money. I know that happened many times before to other products but this is terrible. Stuffing olives with only almond halves. I really felt miserably tricked. The next day I decided to send some feedback to Hutesa. No complaint or anything mean… just saying that I am not happy with their product and that I will not buy their olives anymore.

Sure not to have made any difference but with a great relief I went on to life my usual life. To my great surprise I received a very nice answer on the very same day. They said they are sorry to loose me as their customer and that the cause of the measurement was the pressure by a very big client of theirs. They decided to use almond halves to stay competitive. I did not answer immediately and the next day I received the same message in Spanish (they must have thought that I could not read their first email and tried to reach me again). This time I replied immediately.

Again I received a reply saying that they wanted to inform me that due to my claim they will put whole almonds inside again. Now I got really happy on one hand as I caused a change (Yes!! It still is able to change the system!). But on the other hand now I am very worried that they might not be competitive enough with other olive companies. I do not want my claim to cause any layoffs or other social dramas. I wrote the same to them and that is where we are now. As soon as there are any news I will keep you updated.

One thing I also promised is to write about this on my blog (although there are not many readers) I wanted to tell everybody about this very nice company. And I really do not know what is wrong with our global market. Who are the bad guys? First for me it was the company producing the products. Then after telling me the horrible truth it seems to be the food trade. But if you ask them I am pretty sure they are not the root cause either. They also might suffer from mean competition. Is this true capitalism? Will it get worse? Has it just started in Europe?

Now I seem to look very stupid. The little boy discovering the “evil” face of capitalism. Running my own business together with two partners I hope we will do well in the long run. But I am optimistic that even companies with a heart can be successful. For me Hutesa will be my first choice olive company (because they care about their customers). And I hope other customers will also show initiative and take actions when they are not happy with any product. Do not make it your goal to change anything immediately but if enough people give feedback there has to be a change. You have the right to let anybody know how you feel. You do not have to insult anybody but you can express your unhappiness. Corporations and companies might one day realize that real and honest respect towards their customers and clients is increasing their competitiveness.

HUTESA Agroalimentaria, S.A.

We will head for Tokyo (and the rest of Japan) around the 20th of July. About two and a half weeks will give us enough space to discover the still very unkown culture. Looking forward to get to know my wife’s dynasty and to experience new customs and rites. Our route is well planned (but of course leaves some gaps for spontaneous decisions) and it will bring us to locations (apart from Tokyo) ranging from Iwate in the north to Miyajima in the south of Japan. Sadly I am not going to see Witvogel and The telephones at the motion livehouse in shinjuku at the 6th of August as that is the day of our return. Nevertheless this journey should be the best thing ever. No matter what we are doing… Walking through the big cities and getting to know the country and the people is pleasure enough.

But I have to be patient. As I said there are some things to occur first and there are some events which might even arise to the same level of excitement than this year’s trip to Japan (which is very very hard to achieve). Starting with one minor but very amusing event this weekend – the annual reunion with my colleagues from university at a lake in the mid-distance neighbourhood.