We enjoyed discussion at “Moshi moshi, Japan?” (held in Geneva on Friday, 17 April) on “How does a Swiss innovative start-up fight to enter the Japanese market?”
Mr. Shaban Shaame, CEO & Founder, EverdreamSoft, an innovative vendor of Moonga, a game soft run over the mobile device, such as smartphones and tablets.
Highlights of discussion
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I found that a large download volume of Moonga, our game soft, from Japan. I thought “Why?”, as I knew that people don’t speak English as default in Japan. This made me to think that there must be a big Moonga market there.
I went to Japan (in 2009) to find a business partner who could translate the game into Japanese and who’d provide graphics for the games. Communication with the Japanese was difficult. I din’t know Japanese and they din’t know English. We managed to negotiate a contract using Google translator, though sometimes English translated by Google function didn’t make sense.
Japanese people are hard workers, more than Swiss people are. However, whether their hard work is efficient is questionable. Some (or many?) people work hard where their boss is near by.
In the Japanese work ethics, a group culture is strong. All the people in the same office stay working till midnight. Some cohesion power must be working.
Consensus is extremely important in the Japanese decision-making at any level.
Is change possible? — Yes but only slowly.
Lay-off is difficult and rare in Japan. Hence employing someone involves a risk to an employer. Mobility is still low in the job market.
Re. Women at work, maternity leave is guaranteed by law but employers don’t like it. Mobbing to women exists in some offices.
Then, we discussed bit coin; what it is, how it works, where can we use it, etc.
Forthcoming meetings —
Friday 8 May, Uchi and Soto, the key concepts of the Japanese relationship building
You are cordially invited for “Moshimoshi, Japan?“, Geneva on Friday, 13 March.
“Moshimoshi, Japan?” is an informal meet-up with people who are doing business with Japan. Though Japan is a fascinating market, its business culture is nothing like others. In addition, handling the culture well is the key to success with Japan.
What are other people doing to work well with Japan?
What works and what doesn’t?
What breakthrough did other people make?
Let’s exchange experiences and discuss over coffee!
Mr. Shaban Shaame, CEO & Founder, EverdreamSoft
on “Japanese market for innovative startups“
Participants: Anyone interested in business with Japan.
Date and time: From 18h00 to 19h15, Friday,13 March
Place: Starbucks, Rive, Geneva central area
Languages: French and English
Organisation fee: CHF 10.-
Please register: By e-mail or phone call to Yoshiko Kurisaki, Europe-Japan Dynamics
We enjoyed the first meeting of “Moshi moshi, Japan?”, held Geneva, 23 January 2015.
Anne opened the floor by presenting her experience with a sales team in Tokyo. All the people around the table shared his/her experience and insights on Japan.
Key words:
“We wanted the branch in Japan to adhere to the global process. The Japanese team said, ‘yes’, but in practice, there was no change. They continued doing it in their own way as before.”
“To do business with Japan, one must meet people regularly, say, 3 to 5 times a year.”
“Meeting with the Japanese in informal opportunity is important.”
“It is annoying though that one must think what’s behind all the time.”
“Be careful, the Japanese don’t say ‘No’, but say it in very different manners.”
“Japan is at the highest end of the ‘High context culture’. Emotional intelligence counts in communication.”
“Stay open-minded, accept what it is and build the trust, before business.”
Thank you very much for all the people who participated in the meeting.
Forthcoming meetings —
Friday 13 February, The Japanese mindset seen from a recruiter
Friday 13 March, Japanese market for innovative start-ups
Friday 17 April, Uchi and Soto, the key concepts of the Japanese relationship building
Friday 26 June, Negotiations with Japanese companies (To be confirmed)
Participants: Anyone interested in business with Japan.
Time: From 18h00 to 19h15
Place: Starbucks, Rive, Geneva central area
Languages: French and English
Organisation fee: CHF 10.-
Registration: By e-mail or phone call to Yoshiko Kurisaki, Europe-Japan Dynamics
At the beginning of the new year of the sheep, you are cordially invited for the first meeting of “Moshi moshi, Japan?” to be held in Geneva on Friday, 23 January.
“Moshi moshi, Japan?” is an informal meet-up with people who are doing business with Japan. Though Japan is a fascinating market, its business culture is nothing like other cultures. In addition, handling the culture well is the key to success in business with Japan.
What are other people doing to work well with Japan?
What works and what doesn’t?
What breakthrough did other people make?
Let’s exchange experiences and discuss over coffee!
Mme. Anne Van Walleghem, Head of Compensation & Benefits, Global HR, Nobel Biocare, will share her experience on “How do we work with Japan over the distance?”
Participants: Anyone interested in business with Japan.
Date and time: From 18h00 to 19h15, Friday,23 January
Place: Starbucks, Rive, Geneva central area
Languages: French and English
Organisation fee: CHF 10.-
Registration: By e-mail of phone call to Yoshiko Kurisaki, Europe-Japan Dynamics
The 84th Geneva International Motor Show was a good opportunity to discover a number of “what’s new”. I’m not particularly a car lover but the show offered many things that satisfied my curiosity.
Please share with me my picks of the day.
1. Electric cars, Audi
I saw for the first time a car that receives the power source from its front nose (photos below). In the car, batteries are laid out under your feet. This signals that the shift of the power source of the car will change its design, structure, drivers’ habit to charge energy, location of energy supply, knowledge needed for garages, and more.
2. Autonomous drive – A half-way through to a robot, Nissan
It’s a dream!
Your car drives itself for you (Photos below). Moreover, the car controls its own movement and position in relation to other cars on the road to ensure the safety.
And this dream is under development in Nissan in Japan. Market launch is planned in 2020, a bit far from now but it’s OK.
The secrets are a number of small cameras and sensors attached to the car. These are the sources of the car’s intelligence. It’s a robot that moves autonomously, rather than a vehicle operated by huma beings.
3. Home charger, Toyota Prius
That is true! We request CO2 free cars. We welcome electric and hybrid cars as a solution. Our society however must install power supply infrastructure that feed those eco-cars. It’s a big task that requires time & investment.
Toyota’s solution is the “Home charger”, which allows you to supply electricity to your car at home. “Home charger” is sold in a package with Prius.
4. Wheel chair access to the stands, Nissan and Honda
Last but not the least, as far as I saw, only Nissan and Honda’s stands were designed to facilitate visitors on the wheel chair and families with baby buggies. Slopes to step in the exhibition space are sign posted with a wheel chair symbol.
Bravo for attention to diversity of customers!
Author’s pick of the day! = Autonomous Drive, Nissan
Special Prize for customer focus = Nissan and Honda for slopes for wheel chairs
I’m Japanese and live in Europe for 20+ years. Throughout these years, I worked in an international environment, in business, volunteer activities and off-time.
I sometimes feel Europe and Japan are far from each other. Not only due to the geographical distance, but more importantly people on both sides don’t know each other very well yet, at least. Yes, we have the Internet, Wikipedia, we travel over the globe, but still … something is missing.
I am lucky to have trained eyes to see Europe from Japanese eyes and Japan from European ones. My multifunctional eyes are well trained through variety of experiences piled up day by day in the past over twenty years.
Europe is full of interesting, sometimes funny, interfaces with Japan.
Why don’t I share with you, who are as curious as I am, these interesting topics caught by my Japanese eyes in Europe?
Please enjoy!
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I am a great fan of the municipal library of City of Geneva. The library provides luxury space for endless intellectual interests with quiet study rooms equipped with free wifi. It well represents Swiss devotion to the cultural support for citizens.
That said, I was shocked this week when I opened a booklet prepared by the library. The booklet lists a number of books and DVDs to suggest for future travelers to the countries of Asia and Oceania. The information is well sorted out per country, starting from A — Afghanistan.
For the cover page of the section of Japan, three photos are placed; “Geisha”, “Tokyo by night” and “Mount Fuji” (see the photo below).
What? Geisha and Mount Fuji? Do they represent Japan?
OK for “Tokyo by night”. Central areas of Tokyo looks like the photo, but I have reservation for the rest of the two.
Mount Fuji was listed as the World Heritage by UNESCO in 2013. In this sense, one can say that a beautiful view of the mountain may symbolizes Japan. The photograph used for the booklet, however, is strange. The mountain is with a temple colored in red. It is obviously an artificial image, that doesn’t exist in reality. It is an old fashioned and stereo type image of Fuji an Japan. The modern appearance of the Mount Fuji would be largely different.
What surprised me more is “Geisha”.
First of all, I’d say that the photograph looks like “Maiko”, not “Geisha”. “Maiko” is a trainee of “Geisha”, and these are two distinctly different status of women entertainers.
More importantly, “Geisha” is a product of a feudal era when women’s human rights were completely neglected. When rich men were having parties with “Geisha”, their wives stayed at home looking after children and housework.
“Geisha” women carried out difficult lives. Usually, they were “sold” by their parents when very young to the houses that keeps “Geisha”, that lease women for parties. These girls were often from poor families in rural Japan, and sold to those houses. They had to work hard as entertainers to pay back the large debt to the houses.
Knowing the history of Japanese women, I’m not comfortable to see Geisha’s photograph as a symbol of Japan. Though their status has largely been changed in the modern society, and they don’t work to pay back debts any more, majority of Japanese women are not Geisha.
What I saw here is the fact that Japan is not known, even to public libraries, where plenty of knowledge is kept. There must be an extreme short of information about Japan in Europe. It’s pity because there is plenty of interesting things to know, to see and to do in Japan.
I wish to bridge between Europe and Japan. Hence I started a series of blog postings.