Category: Japanese customers

“Everyone has responsibility, but nobody can take responsibility” – the roots of nemawashi

One of the most practised concepts in Japanese business is nemawashi, often described as “Japanese style consensus building”. Sometimes explanations go further, getting into the word’s literal meaning- to dig around the roots of a tree in preparation for transplantation. When I talk about nemawashi in my training sessions, I try to create a more vivid image by pointing out that if you want to transplant a mature tree, just yanking the tree out of the ground by the trunk will kill it. The metaphor holds if the goal is to transplant a new idea in a Japanese company. If you were approach whoever you think has the decision making authority (‘the trunk’) and obtain only their approval, it is likely the decision would die in implementation, because you did not get the understanding or agreement of all the other people likely to be affected or interested (the roots).

Europeans do consensus too…

Europeans from consensus oriented national cultures like those of the Netherlands and Sweden, respond to this lesson by saying “well of course, we would always do this kind of consensus building anyway, it’s common sense.” In the Netherlands, consensus-based decision making is known as the polder model. Polders are low lying tracts of reclaimed land protected from the sea by dykes. In the past, all Dutch, regardless of whether they were peasants or noblemen, whether they lived on or near the polders, had to reach a consensus on how to protect them, and everyone had to be involved in carrying out the plan, otherwise all would suffer. Nowadays the word describes the kind of political consensus reached between government, the unions and business to adjust wages or social benefits or environmental protection.

…but it’s differently interpreted

Both Dutch and Japanese would therefore say they have a long history of consensus based decision making, but a study published in the Journal of Management Studies* concludes that “the concept of consensus is interpreted quite differently by Japanese and Dutch managers.” In Japanese companies, nemawashi is carried out through a series of informal, often one-on-one discussions, so that there is already a consensus when the meeting to discuss the “transplantation” is held. The meeting, then, is more about formally recognising the decision. In Dutch companies, the consensus is reached during a meeting, often through quite heated debate. Also, the Japanese managers demand a more complete consensus, whereby all agree, including other departments, whereas Dutch “appreciate the process of trying to reach consensus, but when a difference of opinion persists, the decision is taken by someone”.

This someone would therefore be expected to take responsibility for the decision, if things were to go wrong. In Japan, the view is that a comprehensive consensus is necessary to avoid putting the decision maker and the company at risk, and to preserve harmony and the employee loyalty. Given the time and care taken to get such a comprehensive consensus in Japan, once a decision is made, there is no turning back. To the Dutch, this is symptomatic of Japanese companies, where “everyone has responsibility, but nobody can take responsibility”.

*Comprehensiveness versus Pragmatism: Consensus at the Japanese-Dutch Interface, Niels G. Noorderhaven, Jos Benders and Arjan B. Keizer, Journal of Management Studies, 2007

This article by Pernille Rudlin originally appeared in the Nikkei Weekly.  This and other articles are available as an e-book “Omoiyari: 6 Steps to Getting it Right with Japanese Customers”

 

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Not just Toyota – the Brexit rebalancing has already started

Toyota‘s warnings at Davos that it was having to consider how to survive in the UK after Brexit were preceded by a very under-the-radar announcement that it would be making some redundancies at its Burnaston plant.  It is a sign of what is to come for Japanese companies in the UK and our research (see below) shows that a rebalancing is already being undertaken by many.  Whereas Japanese companies increased their employment across Europe, Middle East & Africa by nearly 10% from 2015 to 2016, UK employment levels remained unchanged.*

Toyota said that a reduction was necessary as the initial burst of production needed for new models introduced in 2015 is now stabilising.  Indeed, Toyota’s total workforce in the UK had already fallen by 3.6% in 2015/6 and by 9% across Europe.

Now it is clear that the UK really will leave the Single Market and the Customs Union, where there are long term trends in place already, such as automation or phasing in and out of models, Brexit will provide the impetus to rebalance resources across Europe and beyond, to maintain integration in the Single Market or ease of serving other growth markets if Europe disintegrates further and/or growth slows.  Hardline Brexiters, Trump and Putin may welcome the disintegration of regional arrangements, but multinationals are moving in the opposite direction, integrating their operations regionally and globally both in terms of supply chains and people.

Fujitsu already made similar move in announcing 1800 redundancies in the UK in October 2016 – part of 3300 job losses across Europe.  It stated it was not related to the Brexit referendum result, but part of a longer term transformation programme – mainly to do with moving more of its IT services support to lower cost bases.

Our latest compilation of the Top 30 Japanese companies in Europe and the UK – now most annual reports for year ending March 2016 have been published –  shows that this process had indeed started before the referendum.  Fujitsu has reduced its workforce in the region it calls EMEIA (Europe, Middle East, India and Africa) by 3% from 2015/2016 and in the UK (in which it was possibly overweight anyway, thanks to the legacy of having acquired ICL) by far more – 15%.

Fujitsu is still the biggest Japanese employer in the UK, with over 10,000 employees, but if it dips much below 8000 as a result of the latest round of redundancies, then Nissan, currently with 7,657 employees, might well overtake it.  Nissan’s UK workforce grew 2.9% in 2015/6 and actually shrank across Europe by 2% in the same period.  Calsonic Kansei, one of Nissan’s key suppliers, also grew its workforce by 10% in the UK to 1,729.  Presumably this will hold until the new Nissan models will come online in 2019 giving a year or two of high production and sales, until, well, see Toyota above.  As previously posted, car manufacturers operate on the basis that a factory needs to serve a market of at least 100 million consumers in order to be sustainable.  The EU qualifies, as does Russia – but the UK on its own does not.

Other big increases in the UK workforce were due to acquisitions – Mitsui Sumitomo & Aioi Nissay Dowa group acquiring Lloyds underwriters Amlin and Insure The Box, Softbank acquiring ARM  and Dentsu Aegis acquiring various agencies in Europe and the US, absorbing their UK workforce with it. Organic growth highlights were Hitachi (18.8% up) – building on its Hitachi Rail acquisitions – soon to be employing 900 at its Newton Aycliffe plant, Ricoh (up 11% in the UK but only 1% in Europe) and Fast Retailing, expanding their Uniqlo and Comptoir des Cotonniers retail business, with 1100 employees, up from 700 the previous year.

However Hitachi expanded 70% across Europe, presumably due to the acquisition of Ansaldo rail businesses in Italy and NTT Data also expanded across Europe by 20% to 18,000 employees  (NTT Data’s UK workforce is surprisingly small compared to Fujitsu, at around 450 as of 2015). Automotive supplier Yazaki grew by almost a quarter, to reach 45,200 – a large part of this being its manufacturing in Eastern Europe and North Africa – similar locations to the largest Japanese employer in Europe, Sumitomo Electric Wiring, whose workforce shrank slightly to 56,273.

What next for the UK and Japanese companies in Europe?

I would give up any hope of expanding automotive manufacturing in the UK.  As outlined above, the shift eastwards in Europe, to Turkey and also to north Africa has already taken place.  Which would seem to negate the need for suppliers to be in the Single Market, but note that the EU already has free trade deals with Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria and Turkey is in a customs union with the EU.  Yazaki (headquartered in Germany) and Sumitomo Electric Wiring (tripartite headquarters across Italy, UK and Germany) used to have manufacturing in the UK but are now largely focused on pre-sales engineering.  Calsonic Kansei still has manufacturing in the UK, but has recently invested in plants in Spain and Russia where – not at all coincidentally – Nissan has factories.

The UK still has strength in the design side of the automotive engineering, and I wonder whether the UK government deal with Nissan didn’t have some kind of grant or tax break for supporting this, to cushion the blow to the manufacturing side from any tariffs.  Although Nissan’s European headquarters are in Switzerland, there is a large design centre in the UK.  Similarly Honda has an R&D operation as well as a Formula 1 team based in the UK.

80% of the UK economy is services, and we are a net exporter of services.  Delivery of services requires you to be close to the customer.  So what the UK needs to ensure is that the customers with the biggest budgets – the regional headquarters of multinationals, Japanese or otherwise – stay in the UK.   Our professional services – not just finance but R&D, design, IT, consulting, accounting, legal, marketing – all thrive because they are supporting these regional headquarters. Lower taxes and deregulation might keep some headquarters happy, but ultimately they have to worry about their proximity to customers too.  By leaving the European Union, the UK will be perceived as less close to EU customers (and also the regulatory environment).  We have to hope that the positive, proactive “global” UK that Theresa May outlined in her recent speech really does come together, and deals are quickly negotiated with African and Middle Eastern countries, so that the UK can position itself as the EMEA (Europe, Middle East & Africa) regional headquarters of choice.

The UK is currently the regional base for over half of the top 30 Japanese companies in Europe or EMEA.  Keeping it that way will also, as the Japanese government itself pointed out, need a free movement of people in the region and a liberal immigration policy.  If this becomes an issue, which it already has of course, the other trend I have highlighted elsewhere, of an increasingly virtual structure, where regional management and functions are scattered around a region, will intensify and will be increasingly difficult to service from one location, particularly if that location is not part of the Single Market or immigration has become a sticking point in free trade agreements.

If this happens, then UK services companies are going to have to open more offices across the EMEA region and relocate their personnel accordingly – as various banks have already announced.

(*Percentages calculated only for those companies where annual report figures for the EMEA or Europe region and the UK were available.)

The Top 30 Japanese employers in Europe (showing changes 2014/5 to 2015/6 in total global employees, Japan based employees, EMEA based employees) and the Top 30 Japanese employers in the UK (showing changes 2014/5 to 2015/6 in total UK employees, regional HQ location, region covered, percentage UK of Europe and of global) are available to download, if you sign up for our free monthly newsletter:

Reports, profiles and other research on the Top 30 largest Japanese companies in Europe, Middle East and Africa are available to subscribers to our premium, paid newsletter – subscriptions are available here.

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How to negotiate with the Japanese – don’t

shutterstock_327525641A friend from business school days phoned me last week to ask for my advice on negotiating with Japanese business people. He was about to fly out to Japan to meet a potential joint venture partner. “I suspect my usual negotiating style might cause offence”, he said. “And apparently I may already have committed a faux pas, because when we met with them in the UK, I tossed my business cards around the table”.

After explaining how to exchange business cards with slightly more finesse, I asked him for full details of the company and people he was going to meet. One lesson we learned during our negotiation course at business school, which is applicable whatever the culture you are dealing with, was “prepare, prepare, prepare”. This means not only knowing as much as you can about the people and company you are meeting, but also being an expert in every single detail of your company and its products or services.

I warned him that other approaches we learnt at business school may not work so well if his counterparts are traditional Japanese business people rather than MBA wielding ‘young guns’. Traditional Japanese business people want to be reassured that you are someone they can trust in the long term. If they spot that you are using tricks and tactics in your negotiation, they may worry that you are insincere and that in the future, if something goes wrong in the deal, you will be adversarial rather than cooperative. For example, it is better to open with a reasonable offer price, rather than a deliberately outrageous position from which you expect to be beaten down by half.

Other negotiating tactics, such as having a BATNA (best alternative to negotiated agreement) may be useful, and indeed you may be asked who else you are talking with or supplying to. Too much focus on a written negotiated agreement may be a mistake however, as it will not be the endpoint with a Japanese partner, rather the start of a relationship, subject to change and unofficial amendments in the future. Also, your Japanese counterparts may need to have further internal discussions, so do not expect to come out of a meeting with the final deal.

The amount of time this takes, and the seemingly unending questions may result in the Western side beginning to wonder if they are trusted, and if the deal will ever happen.  Westerners prefer to make step by step concessions, expecting give and take, particularly when it comes to divulging sensitive information.  Japanese negotiators want to know and even see everything before they make any commitments.  This is due to risk aversion – they know that none of the executives on their side will want to agree to anything unless every single possible risk and issue has been uncovered and dealt with.  But of course this can be a deal breaker for the Western side, who do not want to show all their intellectual property or ‘dirty laundry’ until they can be reasonably sure of good faith on the other side, that the deal will go ahead.

Indeed much of the concrete detail may be settled outside the negotiating room. When I was working in building material sales in Japan, our Zimbabwean suppliers used to visit once a year to negotiate prices and shipping schedules. The first time I participated in the negotiation meeting I was surprised to find that we spent the first day exchanging data and views on industry trends. During a coffee break I asked one of the Zimbabweans when we would get down to the ‘real’ negotiation and talk about prices.

“Don’t worry,” he said, “tonight your boss and my boss will go out for a Korean barbecue and some beers, and they’ll settle the prices then. It happens every year.” Sure enough, the next day, as if by magic, a piece of paper with agreed prices appeared.

This article by Pernille Rudlin originally appeared in the Nikkei Weekly.  This and other articles are available as an e-book “Omoiyari: 6 Steps to Getting it Right with Japanese Customers”

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Reconciling being a Good Company, risk and overseas M&A – Tokio Marine
tokio marine symbol

The dynamic helicoid-shaped figure represents innovation and creativity to anticipate the future, while gently embracing and supporting our customers and the earth. This logo expresses our wish to prosper and grow on a global scale together with our customers. To the logo, we applied a gold color, which symbolizes the preciousness of humankind and the earth. We also applied blue to the helicoid-shaped figure, the color conveying such meanings as intelligence, cleverness, affinity, and the future.

Yes, it really is spelt Tokio Marine, and they have to stick with it because there is a shipping company called Tokyo Marine.  Tokio Marine Holdings is historically part of the Mitsubishi group of companies, founded in 1879 as Japan’s first non-life insurance company.  The President, Tsuyoshi Nagano, was appointed in 2013 and seems determined to carry on his predecessor’s overseas M&A strategy, which included the acquisition of UK Lloyd’s underwriters Kiln, for £442m in 2007.  He explains in a recent interview with Nikkei Business that overseas acquisitions are not just for growth, but also to spread Tokio Marine’s own risk, avoiding the “all your eggs in one basket” of business being too focused on earthquake, typhoon and volcano prone Japan.

Currently overseas business represents around 1/3 of Tokio Marine’s insurance premiums and around 40% of profit.  “Domestic growth, if we did nothing proactive, would be around 0-1% a year, or 2-3% if we take a more proactive stance.  Overseas growth is around 7-8%.”  Around half of the overseas profit is from the US.  Nagano is now looking at developing markets for further growth, but is still interested in finding further good partners in North America or Europe.  Tokio Marine has three regional holding companies in North America and Europe, and some profits are retained for further investment, and to protect against currency fluctuations.

Nagano believes that the longevity of Japanese companies (there are over 3100 Japanese companies who have survived more than 200 years) is to do with their focus on “how to make sure customers choose us, rather than how do we sell”.  The same approach will hold for overseas, he says – to be the company of choice, a company that is useful  and “plays a part” in the region, upholding the Group Message  of “To be a Good Company”.

“It’s not enough for me to say nice words” Nagano admits – in-house training is needed, and to that end around 20 future leaders are selected each year from around the world, who undertake training in the US, UK and Japan.  The Japanese part includes a discussion with Nagano himself, and a visit to the Tohoku area to see for themselves the devastation caused by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami and meet the people impacted by what happened.

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Succeeding in a Japanese Company Telesummit

I’m one of the interviewees at the Japan Intercultural Consulting “Succeeding in a Japanese Company Telesummit” – a series of interviews broadcast over the internet over March 4th-20th.

It’s free to register and listen during that period, and downloads can also be bought as a package later,

More details here.

My topic is “Profitable Relationship Building with External and Internal Japanese  Customers” and the other topics are:

    • Working with Your Japanese Boss
    • Understanding and Influencing Decision Makers in Your Japanese Company
    • Becoming Part of the Team in Your Japanese Workplace
    • Relationship Building with Japanese — in Person and From Afar
    • Skillfully Interfacing with the Parent Company in Japan
    • The Influence of Cultural Differences on Business Processes and How to Improve Your Performance
    • How to Keep Japanese From Falling Asleep in Your Presentation
    • How to Give and Receive Feedback with Japanese
    • How to Avoid Meeting Madness in Your Japanese Company
    • Same Words, Different Meanings — Effective Communication with Japanese
    • Getting on the Same Page in Your Japanese Company

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Japanese companies in Europe split on whether to stick or twist

According to the latnn20130430a3a-200x200est annual survey by the Japan External Trade Organization of Japanese companies in Europe, 48.1% are expecting to maintain their current size of operations in Europe and 45.6% are expecting to expand over the coming year.

The survey, which had responses from 843 Japanese companies in 25 countries across Europe, including Turkey, indicates that the main area for expansion is the sales function and particularly promising lines of business were thought to be high value added products like medical equipment, food processing in Western Europe and automotive parts in Central and Eastern Europe and Turkey.

Russia was cited as the most promising target for increased sales from Europe, followed by Turkey, Germany, Poland, India, UK, ASEAN, France, Czech Republic and South Africa. Those who were intending to grow their European business said their reasons for being optimistic were that they thought there was latent demand potential in the region, expecting the economy to have bottomed out in 2012, and also a high acceptance of value added products in the region.  Existing relationships with customers in individual countries were also of course a key reason for choosing those countries as a focus for sales growth.

We’ve certainly noticed a big increase in interest and activity in Turkey amongst our Japanese corporate contacts and clients, and today’s news of the first visit by a Japanese prime minister to Russia in 10 years, accompanied by 100 corporate executives, reinforces the possibility that Russia is going to be the focus for 2013.  We’re getting consultants lined up for Japan Intercultural Consulting in Russia and Turkey accordingly.

 

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Getting to know the Japanese customer

The party trick of a president of a Japanese engineering company I knew was to recite off by heart all the birthdays, universities and family details of his key clients. To him this was a critical part of the long term business relationships he had built up with his clients – something his father, who founded the company – had also done.

This may not be so unusual even for a Western salesman, particularly these days with LinkedIn and Facebook providing so much detail on individuals. I sense, however, that Western companies who supply to Japanese companies are nowhere near equal to Japanese suppliers in their intimate understanding of the Japanese client company as a living entity – its history and its personalities.

Japanese suppliers have an ‘unfair’ advantage in that there is so much published (in Japanese) about Japanese business. Not only are there all the daily and weekly publications of the Nikkei group, to which this newspaper belongs, but, if I can be allowed to mention it, other rival business magazines and daily specialist newspapers. The attention of younger generations may be shifting to digital media, but Japan still has one of the highest readerships of newspapers and magazines in the world.

Japanese blue chips are still so much part of people’s daily lives as lifetime employers, providers of benefits such as accommodation and even spouses – as well as defining one’s status in society – that very few Japanese companies need to worry about what their levels of “brand awareness” are amongst the Japanese populace.

Outside Japan it is entirely different of course. All too often the name is familiar, but when asked exactly what the company provides, the average non-Japanese consumer hesitates. Many Japanese companies are aware that they have a name recognition problem overseas, but are not sure what to do about it and it is often not in their nature, or the nature of their executives to trumpet themselves loudly, especially not in English.

As a result, if you want to supply to a Japanese company inside or outside Japan, you need to understand that the Japanese company does not see the need to explain itself or does not know how to explain itself. It somehow expects you to know. The fact that you are reading this newspaper is a start, but you may also wish to make it a daily habit to search the English version of Nikkei.com as well for customer names and competitor names.

As Japanese companies have been through upheavals since the economic bubble burst in 1990 and the Asian banking crisis in 1997, some understanding of who merged with whom and where the power consequently lies (again, second nature to most Japanese suppliers) needs to be grasped.

It would also be a mistake to imagine that all Japanese companies are alike in their overseas operations. If they expanded overseas by acquisition, they may behave just like a local customer, and the purchasing manager may well be non-Japanese. However, at some point, the Japanese corporate culture will kick in, and identifying those moments when the Japanese way of doing things has taken hold will be key to avoiding unnecessary frustration and misunderstanding.

This article by Pernille Rudlin originally appeared in the Nikkei Weekly.  This and other articles are available as an e-book “Omoiyari: 6 Steps to Getting it Right with Japanese Customers”

 

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Buy Japanese

The new financial year has started for most Japanese companies. Many employees must be sitting gazing at spreadsheets, wondering what to make of the last quarter, which in many industries was supposed to be a final fillip to the year as sales people and purchasers rush to close deals before the end of March. Executives must also be staring at the stream of results and forecasts being submitted by each business unit, flicking through their midterm plans, wondering what, exactly, they can say at forthcoming annual results press conferences and investor relations briefings that would be credible.

All around Japan, sombre entrance ceremonies for new students and employees are taking place in schools, universities and companies and there will be much use of words like “gambare!” (do your best), knowing that in many schools, universities and companies, these ceremonies cannot take place, or that many people who should be there are missing.

In amongst all this uncertainty, people will be looking for reassurance and stability. There will be some comfort in the inevitability of the cherry blossom season arriving, even amid devastation. But the reliable seasonal rhythms of Japanese business have been radically disrupted, making it difficult to focus on the long term. And as anyone who has done business with Japanese companies will know, supplier and customer relationships are founded on the long term view. Negotiations over contracts are less about the black and white of the last tiny detail and more about seeking reassurance that a relationship can be built which will endure when things go wrong. And now things have gone spectacularly and tragically wrong. Japanese suppliers, customers and partners know that they can rely on each other to work day and night to get their usual supply chains back up and running. But what of non-Japanese customers, partners and suppliers who do business with Japan?

There have been rumours of competitors to Japanese companies seizing the opportunity of the earthquake aftermath as a chance to woo non-Japanese customers away from Japanese suppliers. Within days of the earthquake, non-Japanese customers have been asking impossible to answer questions of Japanese suppliers about when production will be resumed, what the exact long term impact is going to be and what kind of checks are going to be made to ensure that products which are not even edible are not somehow dangerously contaminated with radiation. The threat that they will take their business away in the long term for short term reasons is clear.

One comment from a Japanese rescue team member has stuck in my mind. He said we should not say “gambare” to the survivors, but reassure them we will do all we can to support them. I hope the international business community will not think it sufficient just to say “do your best” to Japan and make a donation to a relief agency. We should all be in business for the long term, and Japan needs our support even after the immediate crisis is over. So buy Japanese – the overwhelming evidence from the past is that Japanese companies will not let customers down.

This article originally appeared in the 4th April 2011 edition of the Nikkei Weekly

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The hidden value of meetings

No manager, Japanese or otherwise, has ever said to me that they wish they had more meetings to go to. It may be, though, that Japanese business people are better at finding value in a seemingly pointless meeting than many Western business people. Admittedly, in some cases the value is simply in catching up on lost sleep.

In Japan, meetings are viewed as a necessary part of relationship building, and it’s implicitly accepted that the official reason for a meeting may not be the real objective at all. It does lead to mismatched expectations for international meetings, however.

One common meeting format is the aisatsu- (greetings) or kyaku- (customer) mawari (going around). Senior executives from Japan headquarters will request local operations to fix up meetings with their counterparts at key customer or partner companies. Unfortunately, if expectations are not managed, the Western counterparts end up wondering what on earth the meeting was for.

The Western side might have been anticipating that the Japanese company was on an acquisition hunt, or about to propose some kind of joint venture. But to the Japanese executive, it was simply about relationship building and information exchange, and if some kind of mutually advantageous new business proposition arises from it, in the years to come, so much the better.

Another meeting that is common internationally is the “getting to know you” meeting, where all players in a new project get together in the same room, and introduce themselves to each other, often in a quite personal, informal way.

This happened recently to a group of British engineering contractors – the Japanese lead contractor invited them all to a meeting to kick off the project and of course they all came armed with Gantt charts and schedules only to find themselves talking about which football team they supported. In the Japanese contractors’ mind, this was the moment for everyone to get to know and trust each other.

Japanese business people are quietly proactive in finding added value to meetings that they have been asked to attend. They realise that it is in the interstices that new ideas and deeper relationships form.

I recently arranged a meeting for a virtual team to come together for the first time in the Tokyo headquarters. The headquarters arranged the usual factory tour and visit to the corporate history museum followed by a series of presentations on what each function and region was doing.

The Western participants initially complained to me that they found the sessions dull and patronising, but then started to talk about how valuable it was nonetheless to see their colleagues face to face for the first time, and that quite a lot of planning had taken place on the train journey to the factory, and problems solved over a beer or two in the evening.

“Oh really” I responded, trying not to look like that was precisely the point of my instigating the event in the first place, “it’s good to hear you managed to get something out of it, nonetheless.”

This article by Pernille Rudlin originally appeared in the Nikkei Weekly.  This and other articles are available as an e-book “Omoiyari: 6 Steps to Getting it Right with Japanese Customers”

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When dealing with customers, a little omoiyari goes a long way

I explained in a previous article on customer service that British service sector staff are often hostile or resentful in their attitude to customers partly because of a lack of pride in their work and their company. This has arisen from their sense that they are being exploited by their employer, that their company only benefits shareholders, not society, and that “serving” people is somehow demeaning.

This could be counteracted to some extent by making sure employees do feel more positive about their employers, as seen with British companies which do have excellent customer service, such as the retailer John Lewis, whose employees are partners and owners of the company. Introducing Japanese concepts such as “gembashugi” (empowerment for the frontline staff) and “monozukuri” (a pride in craftsmanship, not just in manufacturing, but service skills too) could also help.

But as I was travelling and shopping both in Japan and the UK over the Christmas and New Year, I began to wonder whether British service standards could ever reach Japanese levels, because of a fundamental cultural difference that may just be too hard to reconcile. Japanese society is permeated by a strong concern for how what you say or do affects others, to a far greater extent than in the UK.

I realise that for many Japanese it is almost too much pressure, what one British writer on Japan has called “CCTV eyes”, where you can end up becoming paranoid about how other people might see or think about you. The positive side to it is “omoiyari”, what in English we would call “forethought” or “consideration”. It’s an ability to pre-empt what the other person might need, or how the other person might be feeling, and to do something about it, without being asked.

One British manager told me a funny story after I explained to him about omoiyari. He had been asked to pick up a Japanese colleague from Heathrow airport and take him to one of their company factories. The British manager was very busy, so he tried to drive as quickly as he could to the factory. En route, however, he was bemused by the way his Japanese colleague kept asking him about what his favourite soft drink was, and whether he thought Diet Seven Up was better than Diet Sprite. Only after hearing me describe “omoiyari” did the manager realise that his Japanese colleague was hinting that he was thirsty.

“What should I do next time if I want to show omoiyari?” the manager wondered. “Ask him if he would like to stop off to get some drinks?”

The problem with that, I responded, is that if the Japanese colleague is also practising omoiyari, he may notice that you are busy, and deny that he is thirsty, because he does not want to delay you.

The best thing would be to buy some drinks in advance and offer them to him in the car. This kind of behaviour is the ultimate in customer service.

This article by Pernille Rudlin originally appeared in the Nikkei Weekly and in Japanese in the Eikoku News Digest.  This and other articles are available as an e-book “Omoiyari: 6 Steps to Getting it Right with Japanese Customers”

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