Keeping the good times rolling, we headed off to visit a private British consulting firm in Tokyo called Intralink. They, like JETRO, assist companies looking to get operations going in Japan. It was clear after a few minutes into the meeting that Intralink's value to foreign companies would far exceed JETRO. The meeting was largely a Q&A which really was very informative and engaging. I find the discussion based meetings we have had to be far more informative than the straight presentations.
Intralink's business model was something I hadn't expected. They actually serve as agents of their clients on the ground in Tokyo doing a lot of the heavy lifting through networking and getting sales leads. Although they are legally unable to actually make sales on their clients behalf the service they provide seemingly would add a lot of value in a business environment very different from traditional western "transactional" type models.
Intralink also has an office in Taiwan. Talking with Jeremy, the contact we met at Intralink, I discovered that most of the employees are foreigners who first came to the country as English teachers. Had I stayed in Taipei for a few more years I could certainly see myself on that career path. Never say never...
Moving on, our next visit was to Avaya, a telecom company that spawned from Lucent (AT&T) that Paul and Keiko helped start. After a brief overview of the company we were given a presentation from one of the regional sales managers, Gary. Avaya is a very unique company in Japan because it managed as a hybrid of Japanese and Western cultures (high context vs. low context). Gary mostly discussed the dynamic of being a foreigner in Japan but he could have done more justice to the great organization that Avaya has become but nonetheless an informative and good experience. Although I had known how important quality or "product stability" is to the Japanese, Gary's insight helped me understand how to practically approach Japanese clients who have raised concerns over quality issues. Gary relayed a story about how at Avaya quality issues are resolved remotely but that in once instance he had sent engineers to a Japanese client even with the joint understanding that they would be unable to help or speed up the repair.
I could write a lot about our visit to Docomo, a large technology company in mobile handsets but the best word I can use to describe it is "stunning". During the tour we were taken on, we were able to interact with the company's products as well as gain insight into their vision for the future. I have to admit Docomo's vision for the future impressed me, and I'm a Star Trek geek.
The tourist element of this day was a visit to Akihabara popularly known as the "Electric City". Stores upon stores of electronic equipment and components. I enjoyed playing a few arcade games at "Club Sega" and eating some excellent tempura for dinner.
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