Japanese business culture is one of the most misunderstood aspects of doing business in Japan, so maybe it’s not surprising that hundreds of thousands of people have browsed this Japanese business culture section since it first went online over a decade ago in 2004. Japanese business culture affects many things about doing successful business, especially B2B business, in Japan, so it’s sad that so many foreign company executives have such wrong perceptions about it.
First a disclaimer: I am just a foreign executive who has lived in Japan for more than two decades, whose interest in Japanese business culture results from needing to understand how it affects successfully doing business in Japan. There are many others, far more qualified than me, to lecture about the reasons why Japanese business culture evolved the way it has. My only interest, and what we will focus on in this section, is how it affects us in business meetings, negotiations, and successful selling in Japan.
Based on more than two decades of direct sales and executive experience in the Japanese market, dealing face to face with Japanese at all corporate levels, we will look from an insider’s perspective at how Japanese business people think and how Japanese companies make decisions. Hopefully you and your company might then better understand what is going on over ‘the other side of that table’.
Many very successful companies never start business in Japan, or only enter the Japanese market through a distributor, because they fear Japanese business culture. Often it’s the result of the wrong perception, maybe fueled by those infamous myths of doing business in Japan, that dealing with Japanese business culture is too risky. Fortunately, Japanese business culture is not an impenetrable barrier to successful business in Japan, as proven by the very large Japanese market share that Apple, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Microsoft, Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Tiffany & Co., and many others enjoy.
Yes, Japanese business culture is different to that of the US or Europe, but the differences do not make it any more risky to do business in Japan than elsewhere in the world if your company has quality products or services. In fact, certain aspects of Japan’s business culture, such as the very stable long-term relationships resulting from the conservative Japanese sense of loyalty to trusted partners and suppliers, are very beneficial for those foreign companies that understand how to swim with Japan’s cultural tide as opposed to vainly struggling against it.
So how is Japanese business culture different? (to be continued)