2024

In Japan it used to be common practice to send gifts in summer (ochuugen) and/or in year-end (o-seibo) to the people who take/took care of you regardless of business or private. Nowadays this practice is being faded gradually, You can buy the gift at department store However, still many people are practicing. If you visit […]

In Japan, there is no legal problem to compare their products with their rival products, but Japanese companies will not point out the name of another company’s product to use it as a target for the comparison. Many foreign businesses, that come to Japan employ the same business strategy in Japan that they had success […]

Japanese business will not start to conduct business until they trust the new party. Japanese would think the result is the same, regardless of you exchange the written contract. They only want to carry out the business smoothly based on mutual trust, not on the paper. Japanese contract is often for formality If one side […]

It takes a long time in general before you can start a business with a Japanese company, so some non-Japanese try to do it in the Western way, approaching first the executives of the company. This approach will not work well. Direct sales to the top would not work The executive would probably hand your […]

Suppose you are working at a publishing company and responsible to sell advertisement space for a new magazine. You will visit prospect companies and explain how the magazine is appropriate for their customers. However. even they admit the value, they will probably ask you “which companies place ads?” Unless similar level companies are not yet […]