Day 9 in Japan




The first company we visited in Tokyo is IBM Japan. This company established in United State and has lots of branches all over the country. IBM in Japan is one of the most necessary branch which bring more profit than the main company in United State.

Japan is a big opportunity for IBM. With slower revenue growth than in North America in Europe for US based IT companies, Japanese GDP was increasing nearly to 6 percent and occupy a big portion of global profit compare to other Asian company.

To take part in Japanese business, ITM Japan also suffers some challenges.
Japanese business market is a very homogeneous market. People in Japan have preference to buy local product from local company so that it is very difficult for a foreign company to interrupt in Japanese market.

From culture part, Japan also has some difference to compare with United State.

First, the customer value is different. In US, customer is easily influence by the effect of advertising. But for Japanese customers they did not pay many attention on the advertising. They care more about the products advanced technology, availability and specific reequipment. To summary, Japanese customer care more about the goods’ quality. However, the thought for Mr. Tony, the vice president, is just totally opposite with the Nestle company which they used many strategies to advertising they product like cooperate wish Michelin chef and design types of different KitKat and sell them as souvenir.

Second, the management value is different. In US, same as I just learnt from the accounting class, manager like CFO and CEO are more care about the return on ratio, stock price, and so on. But in Japan, managers are more care about market share, new product ratio. For example, many electronic productions like Sony, they keep update their new product so that they could occupy more market share and gain more profit. To expend the market share, Nestle also occupies with many other famous local and internationally company, like banks, steel companies, newspaper companies, hospital and so on.

Third, market entry process is different. In Japan, the sequence is customer discovery, validation, creation, and then Building company which is totally conflict with the sequence in the United Stated.

From Tony Nemeika, “Foreign companies that do not modify their business strategies to fit Japan-unique market conditions usually fail.” This sentence could explain a contra-statement which I wrote before, that IBM thought advertising is not important which Nestle disagree. Buying souvenir to friends or family members is a type of culture in Japan. Various types of KitKat in different parts of regions just could be a distinctive present to their family. So, what Nestle did is they mix their product and culture together which is “modifying their business strategies to fit Japan unique market condition.” As expected, different types of KitKat are sold successfully.

Also, when to dealing with its competitors, like Apple, what Nestle did is they cooperating with each other. This could let two big company to gain more profit and escape the loose which from the competition between each other’s. This win-win solution is c for both companies.
 

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