When multi-national service providers or
small business owners outside Japan try to enter and penetrate the Japanese
market regardless of the types of services, it seems they often find Japanese
clients quite different and unique as well as the market, and find it difficult
to approach and get along with them.
There is some truth in it; however, always
remembering the key things when approaching and interacting with Japanese
clients will allow you to successfully getting know the Japanese clients and
starting business with them.
It might be a challenge to first start
interaction with them and get the very first business from them, but it is
worth the try because Japanese clients rarely betray you once they say “yes”.
Although Japanese clients tend to regard
outsource service providers as “vendor they use” rather than “partner” unlike
in the west, in many cases turn out to be loyal customers once you start doing
business with them. They tend to build
long relationship with their business partners rather than “changing partners
or vendors by short-term evaluation or for no good reason”.
1. They
want products, services and communication all in their own language
Language is probably the first and one of the
largest obstacles for multi-nationals and small business owners outside Japan
starting/doing business in Japan, whether they are service provider or
manufacturer.
Majority of the Japanese people are not
fluent in English so services needs to be provided in Japanese, so are the
labels, instructions and documents of products sold in Japan.
Japanese native with business level English
fluency is still limited in Japan, a homogenous country, so coordinator or
project manager or the like fluent in English while truly knowing Japanese
business culture need to be the contact person of the Japanese clients.
One example of Japanese language being an
obstacle is in the case of new product development and gaining approval for the
Japanese market. If you do not have a
Japan office and appropriate team/individual, not only do you require an
organization or an individual in Japan with Japan address to submit approval to
PMDA (Pharmaceuticals and Medical Device Agency = an equivalent of FDA in the
US) on your behalf. And all the
documents submitted needs to be in Japanese, as specified in GCP (Good Clinical
Practice) Article 15.
This is why pharmaceutical companies rely
on CROs (Contract Research Organization) operating in Japan with global and local
expertise plus language competency such as Quintiles
to overcome the language issue as well as knowledge and know how issue.
2. They
do not want to be the first to try something new
One of the characteristics of Japanese
people and their culture is collectivism verses individualism of the west. That is why we often say “nail that sticks
out is hammered down” in Japan. With
this background, Japanese people usually do not want to stand out from the
crowd but want to be the same with the rest of the group.
What this means is that Japanese clients
usually do not want to be the first in adopting or trying something new,
whether it is product or service. They
would usually ask “How are others. Is there
any other company/individual who already tried this? If yes, what is their comment?”
This is why getting the very first business
in the Japanese market is a challenge.
However, what this also means is that once you manage to win a business,
especially from a key opinion leader in the industry, majority of the others
would likely to follow that key opinion leader and you are more likely to be
successful in winning more business.
This is the strategy that Kiyotaka Fujii
adopted and succeeded when he was the country manager of SAP Japan 2000-2005
and drastically improved their business and market penetration in Japan.
3. They
want frequent updates in their communication style
There is a saying “No news is good news”
and there also is a Japanese equivalent; however, that does not seem to apply
in doing business with Japanese clients.
They want to be informed of the status regularly even if there are no
substantial updates from the service provider side. If they are not informed they become very
worried, and start to question if the service provide is really appropriate, is
it good for them to continue working with the service provider and so forth.
This is why frequent communication such as keeping
Japanese clients in the communication loop is one of the key success factors
for a service provider in proceeding with a project with or of the Japanese
client. That is the communication style
preference of the majority of the Japanese clients.
Of course, as often said, Japan is of
politeness and honorific culture, which needs to be taken into account in
communicating and working with them. In
Japanese there is honorific language and appropriate use of such is a minimum
requirement. Being polite also comes in
the situation such as where to sit in a meeting room or in a taxi, who speaks
first in meeting etc. as making bow when greetings.
In addition, since Japanese are usually not
so open or straight forward in their communication thus there is a saying オブラートに包む whose literal translation is “wrap up in oblate”, whose real
meaning is “beat around the bush / use indirect speech” as opposed to “come to
the point”. This is probably the “trickiest”
for foreigners communicating with typical Japanese people but something to always
bear in mind.
