Japan is still the 3rd largest economy market with intellectual labor forces and many famous potential business partners such as Toyota, Panasonic, NEC, Mitsubishi, et al, attracting many number of global technology ventures.
Some tech ventures took time but successful enjoy huge return in and from Japan market, such as Google, Amazon, Apple, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, UberEats, Square, Zoom etc, but I, approached by 200-300+ global tech ventures for Country Manager Japan positions, also saw lots of ventures could not dominate here as they did in their home market or even shut down. Why?
They did not hire the strong leadership country manager or key executive. They did not work in right way with right (semi-customized for Japanese/EastAsian) standard with right (semi-customized for Japanese/EastAsian) thought model to hire and even make business partnership with established corporation under Japan’s seniority and follower culture.
There are 3 key tips on how to hire a Country Manager and work with Japanese and Asian employees and business partners.
First, Obtain trust from them as HQ executive to Asian employees and also as the company to (potential) Asian business partners. Due to religious background (Confucianism/Buddhism), Japanese and East (SouthEast) Asian cannot distinguish “dislike/disagree his opinion” and “dislike himself”. When you see Japanese drama or Korean drama, they talk a lot from feelings. For example, Korean “Dae Jang Geum” discuss lots from the point of “they like her/him or dislike” about the opinion or positions they choose. However, the famous US drama “24 (Twenty Four)”, Jack Bauer ordered his team, saying “do job” “this is job”, so you should do because it is job and it is not important if you like the task or even if you do not like the person who work with in the next one hour. This order or philosophical standard to work with Japanese/East Asian does not work well.
Obtaining trust takes time, as Western knows, thusly business speed in Japan requesting trust first verbally or non-verbally first takes more time because you need to invest on trust, non-marketing activities much more than for Western companies. However, once you successfully create trust-based relationship w/ employees and business partners, the connections are so strong, beyond Western expectation, not easy to break, which means your Japanese/Asian subsidiaries employees and business and sales development partners work hard and continuously deliver good results for your service or for the company. Every Japanese business partners and end-users also begin to follow to the trust once recognized and move from the competitors very rapidly and very dominantly. Thusly great technology ventures like GAFAM (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft) and other unicorn or smaller ventures enjoy great success, sometimes 15-40% revenues only comes from Japan, beating local competitors. First and foremost, focus on obtaining trust and keeping the high level of trust with Japanese and East Asian employees and partners.
Second, acquire strong brand recognition in Japan seniority and follower culture. The first Japanese partner might be good and deliver several sales, but still small company compared to Panasonic, NEC, NTT Docomo etc, thusly not recognized as the best brand or services to obtain enough trust from the end users point of view. Try to get big or No.1 market leading partners I strongly recommend to have partnership, as I did with NEC, Sony, Panasonic, NTT, NTT Docomo, etc and market leaders in each segment such as J-League clubs, Entertainment companies, mobility companies, Security software companies, Tokyu railway, MIT, famous universities and big local governments and central government. Also try to increase brand recognition anywhere. For example, negotiate to put names in online their ticket pass icon in Apps, “powered by company name” or “company logo” like “Intel inside”. Or put company name as co-issuer of the Japanese partners monthly press release if you already set up K.K (Kabushiki Kaisya, Japanese entity).
Third, please be careful of job-hoppers from the same industry but not graduates from the top Japanese universities. Due to Japan’s unique educational and only one time job entry structure, Japanese usually have only once chance to join famous established company immediately after graduating top universities. I see many Western technology ventures decide to hire country managers because they work in the same industry or even in competitors. I understand working in the same industry could be safer-net for Western hiring managers, however, if they are job-hoppers in the same industry, they only use the previous resources or previous partners to bring to you, and a few years later they move to competitors again bringing your partners to them. As you know, there is no same business, no same tasks, no same company, no same partnership, no same negotiation. Under uncertainty, strong leadership with high track record not only from global venture experiences but also from established corporations experiences are keys to success in Japan seniority and follower culture where the Western HQ must take care.
If you just hire the person because the candidate have the same industry background, please double check they can have partnership because of him/her-self or because of the company? Check their Japanese university or established company’s name is one good tool to evaluate for safer net, doing business in Japan and East Asia.
I saw many times Western hiring managers chose country manager candidate who can speak English well and explain good logical strategy to speak, but later failed to enjoy huge achievements in terms of market share or sales from Japan, because he is good at speaking but not good at actual execution or adaptation in negotiation with Japanese business partners. To avoid this failure, you should choose and trust by evaluating their results, skills of actual execution and adaption from different business cases, and their university and established corporate working histories.
Why? This reason also comes from the Japanese cultural point of view. Japanese hesitate to speak openly even though they are good at adaptation/integration, because, firstly Japanese mainly use indirect communication, and secondly due to samurai spirit or “sin and shame culture (defined by Ruth Benedict)”, speaking words equal to promises for Japanese. So if they share data and develop strategy w/ you, this means promise not to break it and make them feel sin and shame if they fail to achieve. From Japanese/Asian point of view, Westerns are good at excuse to protect themselves when they do not meet objectives nor break promises. So creating/showing trust, relying on their execution, and giving spaces for them to avoid sin and shame are very important for long term success in Japan and East (SouthEast) Asia, even though you do not get direct answers. Working with Japanese/EastAsian employees and other potential partners is somehow the same way.
Posted on 2022/02/11. Updated on 2022/2/16, 18