Global Supply Chain in Japan's IT Service Sector

Abstract

In today's global economy, global supply chains are being built in every business process from a perspective that transcends national and regional boundaries. In the past, efforts in building a global supply chain were initially focused on “visible products” of manufacturing and other industrial sectors. In recent years, however, the use of global supply chains in business strategies has spread beyond the manufacturing industry into such areas as the IT service sector, which target “invisible products.” Many developing and emerging countries in Asia have excellent IT companies and engineers as the IT service sector is one of the most suitable industries for starting a new business because there is no need to collect large capital investments or hold inventories of materials and components. For this reason, there is a high entrepreneurial spirit in the IT service fields in developing and emerging countries. This paper discusses the current state and challenges of global supply chains in Japan's IT service sector, in which Japanese and overseas IT companies are involved.