A reluctant Japan Inc at last enters the digital age

AS A BUDDHISTITIT priest performed last rites at a temple in Tokyo, Naganuma Fumihiro, an entrepreneur, beamed. It was in fact a celebration: he and two colleagues had gathered to send scores of , the personal seals that epitomise Japan’s analogue business practices, to the afterlife. “It's not quite the Meiji restoration, but it’s a big turning-point, a paradigm shift for working culture,” Mr Naganuma said.Covid-19 has turbocharged digitisation around the world. But for all its technophile reputation, Japan has more ground to make up than other big economies in its embrace of information technology (). “Japan is a developing country in terms of ,” Mr Naganuma laments, exaggerating only slightly.