Doing business in Japan

Today people around the world are more connected to each other then ever before and money and information flow more quickly then ever. Products and services produced in one part of the world are gradually becoming more and more available all across the globe. The main reason for this is the globalization of companies and businesses. I have a big interest in doing business across boarders and I would like to work abroad in the future. I thought about how often you refer to international companies, makes phone calls to another country to do businesses and when I worked for IKEA and a design agency called Bas Brand Identity, Japan always came up as an innovative and inspirational country.

A few weeks ago I did a presentation in my Intercultural communication class about doing businesses with Swedish people to learn about my own culture and to find out strengths and weaknesses in the Swedish business environment. As the time pass by I have been doing some research for companies I work for in Sweden about interior design and packaging design. During this time I have been curious and interested to do a research about doing business with the Japanese people. By being in Japan now for half a year I am also very interested to come back to Japan to work and with the Japanese peoples high taste of foreign products and companies I will probably face Japan in different ways when I work in Sweden as well. But by doing international business also mean dealing with differences and misunderstandings. According to anthropologist Edward T hall business starts with a relationship and by watching his movie “Doing international businesses” I learned that the Japanese people wants to get to know their clients very well before doing business. This means that they wants to spend very much time together with their clients both at work and after work to get to know them well. According to Edwards T Halls book “Hidden differences, doing business with the Japanese” the Japanese people pay much attention to detail information. You should be well prepared with a lot of background information and you should also be prepared for many questions and be able to answer them. In the negotiations, remain humble, indirect and not threatening, Edward T Hall writes that, you should not put people in the spot and do not disagree openly. The Japanese professionals are well educated in doing business with the west and will try to modify their behaviors to accommodate you. Since international business means dealing with cultural differences, which can result in misunderstanding through language, behavior and communication styles you should study the language and the culture of the country you plan to do business with.

As I wrote before I have while I have been in Japan done some research for the companies I work for in Sweden which include trends in stores, interior design and packaging design. The agency do a lot of businesses with Japan and I had a short conversation with one of them some days ago to talk about what they thought about doing business with the Japanese people. The first thing that came up was that the Japanese people are very friendly, we in Sweden share a devotion to long-term business relationships and so do Japan therefore we work very well together. She mentions that their friendly attitude can sometimes be too much. It is difficult to do businesses with people who says yes and means now. After all those years we have been in business I have start to understand that the Japanese people does not prefer to use the word no, but this can be very complicated when we should make decisions. Before we end up the phonecall she say's that Japan is a very interesting country to do business with because the Japanese culture is very very different from ours!

Resources: International Business of John J. Wild, Kenneth L. Wild, Jerry C.Y Han.

Edward T Halls movie “Doing international businesses”

Edward T Halls book: Hidden differences. Doing business with the Japanese.