This article examines how Yamaha Music Innovations, Yamaha’s Silicon Valley base, is reorganizing its own assets and rebuilding its CVC strategy for collaborating with startups.
Silicon Valley attracts the world’s most advanced technologies and ideas, but Japanese companies’ new businesses are prone to falling into excessive expectations and misunderstandings. This article is excerpted and re-edited from the book “Action First: A Practical Guide to Japanese Corporate CVCs Delivering Results in Silicon Valley” by Sugino Scott Yusuke (杉野Scott祐介), and explains how companies should approach strategy locally based on his experience as CEO of Yamaha’s local subsidiary.
When Yamaha opened its base, it set out to abandon the “more shots, more hits” strategy as its first step locally and to develop proposals that demonstrate the value it can offer startups. The article emphasizes the effort to articulate the company’s assets in order to clarify its strengths.