Magazine No 71 images

Organizations are constantly reviewing and updating their contingency plans
PTS have recently created a Management Consultancy (MC) arm which, will enable PTS to venture into different areas, out of the traditional offerings mentioned above. As MC is usually involved in business strategy and IT alignment, the objective is for MC to be a stand alone practice outside of the other existing service areas. In this new MC service, we act not only as the 'Trusted Advisor' to a client in developing strategy and roadmaps to success, BUT we can follow onto the execution and support phases of the whole project life cycle as well. MC provides the introduction for offering Managed and Infrastructure Services. This formula has been used with great success by other major consulting firms; however, with our premium client list, expanded network and skill sets, we are starting to make a major impact on the Japanese marketplace.
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Why would you want to?
The second good reason why property in Japan is looking attractive is the end of the Zero Interest Rate Policy (ZIRP). We live in a post-ZIRP world. We do not live in a 5.8% 30-year fixed world, but we no longer live in a 1% floating world either. For a country to keep interest rates close to zero for more than ten years is a massive historical anomaly and interest rates have only one way to go, no matter how often politicians strong-arming the Bank of Japan may delay them. We are now at the ‘You don’t know what you got till it’s gone’ phase, except it hasn’t quite gone. City prices have turned, or a least stopped falling and rates, although headed up, are still low. A 3.1% 30-year fixed mortgage will seem a bargain ten years from now. The boat here is obviously leaving, so that's another reason for buying. Depending on your deal, the financing may be more salient than the out-and-out price of the property. Either way, we are towards the end of the sweet spot of finance and price.
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Why would you want to?
So why would Japan’s residential property become an issue after at least thirteen, and in most places fifteen years, of falling prices? Quite a descent it was: big city residential property in Japan fell in value by 65% from 1990 to 2005. The dimensions of the fall are impressive more for how high prices were at the beginning of this period rather than their out-and-out cheapness at the end. Prices have now turned the corner. There have been three consecutive half-yearly rises from March 2005.
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Part I. How Japan’s enterprise IT has failed to learn from its most competitive industry–manufacturing

In a culture of excess communications and consensus, activity cost for an industry that, by nature, necessitates tackling high uncertainty, is especially acute. I believe that such an inefficient practice is, in fact, hurting the national competitiveness of Japan. Moreover, when applying the Toyota manufacturing principles to classify enterprise IT activities, one could easily conclude that the majority fall into the category of 'Nonvalue- added'.

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Organizations are constantly reviewing and updating their contingency plans
STARS© is a unique rating system - Site Tier Allocation Rating System, which utilises the Uptime Institute Tier Classification to further identify 4 intermediate classifications when carrying out a site due diligence.
STARS© aims to aid Landlords in realising their Tier Class.
STARS© creates a detailed analysis of facilities for Clients.
STARS© offers the following:
• Broader Tier classification scale
• Site comparison & Gap analysis
• Indicates Site potential and present limits
• Single Points of Failure (SPoF)
• Availability & Downtime Costs
• Life Cycle Costs
• Database available at PTS world-wide
• Unique Lifecycle Cost + Downtime Cost
© 2005 STARS All Rights Reserved
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Organizations are constantly reviewing and updating their contingency plans

STARS© is a unique rating system - Site Tier Allocation Rating System, which utilises the Uptime Institute Tier Classification to further identify 4 intermediate classifications when carrying out a site due diligence.

STARS© aims to aid Landlords in realising their Tier Class.

STARS© creates a detailed analysis of facilities for Clients.

STARS© offers the following:

• Broader Tier classification scale

• Site comparison & Gap analysis

• Indicates Site potential and present limits

• Single Points of Failure (SPoF)

• Availability & Downtime Costs

• Life Cycle Costs

• Database available at PTS world-wide

• Unique Lifecycle Cost + Downtime Cost

© 2005 STARS All Rights Reserved

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Organizations are constantly reviewing and updating their contingency plans

PTS exhibits a reputation of delivering quality and innovative projects. PTS’ distinctiveness in the consultancy field is the desire to excel in offering holistic solutions. This encouraged PTS to promote the ‘Integration of M&E and IT’ services. A typical project concept and strategy approach is conducted in several stages, with STARS fundamentally at the core.

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On the cover: 2007 The Year of the Data Center

Hisashi Misawa’s 'Germ Heat'
Heating everything at half the cost

Inside - Our Recruitment Special

Spring 2007
(March 2007)
No. 71

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On February 26, 2007, the Nikkei 225 Stock Average hit an 81-month high of 18,215.35 points, the highest close since May 2, 2000. While it could be that this is just another temporary year-end closing blip for the market, by companies bundling their profits into the final quarter, most analysts are saying that it is more likely a milestone on the way to the Nikkei hitting 20,000 later this year. The reasoning behind this is that due to the low yen, exporters are making some quite massive local profits, and these will be reflected in the stock prices moving forward.
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Organizations are constantly reviewing and updating their contingency plans

PTS started in London in 1983 providing IT Infrastructure solutions with a small group of forward thinking individuals. Today, PTS Consulting Group has offices throughout the globe with over 400 employees providing a wide range of services.

Contact details
PTS Consulting Japan K.K.
9F Joule A Building
1-10-10 Azabu-Juban, Minato-ku
Tokyo 106-0045
Japan
Tel: +81-3-5114-8561
Fax: +81-3-5114-8562
Email: info@pts-consulting.jp
Web: www.pts-consulting.jp

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