Welcome to "Entering the Japanese Market"
Hello, and welcome to "Entering the Japanese Market," by David Luhman.
David, after graduating with special honors in aerospace engineering and journalism from the University of Colorado in Boulder, went to Japan where he spent five years working at a small Japanese trading company, an American maker of mini-super computers, and finally, a Japanese securities company.
During his time in Japan, he became fluent in Japanese and eventually became the president of Tokyo's only Japanese language Toastmasters club.
Now he's back at the University of Colorado where he's earning an MBA in Finance. However, as part of his on-going effort to help people do business in Japan, he's produced several tapes about doing business there.
In this tape, David discusses how to enter the Japanese market through trading companies, joint ventures, a branch office or a wholly owned subsidiary. And now, here's David Luhman.
Hi, I'm David Luhman and thanks for investing your time and money to listen to "Entering the Japanese Market." In this tape, I'll give you some ideas about how to set up good relationships with trading companies or joint venture partners, and decide whether a branch or wholly owned subsidiary is right for you.
Now I know that there are other tapes regarding "business in Japan," but I've found that these tapes often concentrate cultural issues - for example how to drink tea or how to accept name cards.
I think that knowing these cultural issues is fine, but I think that knowing about hard business issues is more important. For example, I think that your Japanese customer or partner will forgive you if you commit a fax paux, but I doubt if your bankers or shareholders will forgive you if you lose their money over there.
So I want to try to help you by providing lots of specific information. But note that because of the specificity and timeliness of the information, much of it could change.
So please use this information in the spirit it is intended. This is a great place to get ideas as you start your journey into the Japanese market, but you should consult with others before you commit large resources to Japan.