Q: Can you talk about doing business in Japan? The ethos, and what it is like to do business there?

Jonny Hendriksen
Founder & CEO
Shuttlerock
Previously ValueClick

A: All in all I ended up in Japan for 21 years, so a long long time. 21 years in Japan has taught me a few things. The Japanese are always very much team first. Take the Japanese football team, it’s taken many years to be good at football. They always famously used to pass the ball around in front of the goal, because no one wanted to step out of the group and score. They used to bring in Brazilian coaches, and the biggest thing they were having to teach the Japanese was to go on their own. There is a time and a place to forget the rest of the group, and go score a goal. I guess the same can be said with regards to Japanese society and groups; that they’re very aware of the team.

Because there is so much history in Japan there are a lot of rules in society. I think Japanese find it very relaxing to come to NZ or go overseas because they’re not so constrained. In Japan there are a lot of rules to abide by, so when you first arrive in Japan for a foreigner you can wonder whether you’re doing the right thing or not.

They’re very big on communication. Even for us, we’ve got a wonderful team in Japan but it’s all about going and meeting someone in person; it’s very much face to face. It’s going to be very difficult to do business in Japan through a website or from afar, because it’s really all about relationships. After 5pm business is huge, so you’ll be going out quite regularly with clients. You really build up some long term friendships. The Japanese will do business and do business for a long time but I think they don’t jump into relationships as quickly as we might do in the West. I think they do want to find out more about you as a person. It means a lot to them to know who they’re doing business with. So they really spend the time to understand who you are, and based on that they’ll build a relationship.