When presenting with a business card, you should take the following steps:
Verify the name and the title
First read the English side but then turn the card to the Japanese side when accepting it, for the reasons pointed earlier. Even if your Japanese knowledge is actually zero, you have to verify the name. Make a note of every person you deal with. Junior and senior relationships are very essential in Japan. Sometimes you can make contact with two persons in the department with the same status. By verifying the kanji, if that’s the case, you may define who has a higher position as there could be some extra titles, subtitles or notes in Japanese. Take notice that more than one Japanese position may be conveyed into the same English word. “Managing Director” and “Executive Director” are samples of that.
You should understand the hints of rank
Knowing your partner’s position is not enough; you should also understand what it implies. Director’s roles may not be simply determined, but applying of various Japanese positions with the same English version has significance undoubtedly identifying who has a higher rank and who has a lower one. You would never understand this unwritten (in English) rating, if you don’t examine the Japanese positions. For example, it could show the person’s advancement within the organization or display which department he works in. Bear in mind that junior people who don’t have high ranks are also valuable for you and it’s essentially to make contact with them because they will make ready a background report on the firm you present and on your offer upon which the definitive decision will be ground. There are the following main principles of contact:
The major point is the same level contact
A junior personnel member from a Japanese firm could feel uncomfortable when he has dealings straight with a senior manager in your business firm. Primary contact gatherings are good, but your purpose is to establish business relationships between your junior personnel and their Japanese associates. Actually you should make contacts at the same level, although it may be reasonable for lower-ranking staff members of larger firms to deal with senior managers of smaller companies. If lower-level contacts in your firm are not maintained, a senior manager can not achieve success even he is esteemed.
Foreign business experts try to avoid titles
Pay attention that in some firms particularly in smaller companies, you can find only a few people who can speak English. That may cause a difficult issue for you as they can be unskilled or incompetent about your goods or services and even their own: they can be no more than “foreign traders”. In this situation, you have to find the Japanese-speaker, who has title and capability, and hire the foreign trader to perform your objectives. Make sure that he comprehends your words and if you need to feel certain that the Japanese-speaker is getting the right words; repeat your ideas in various expressions. If you let the foreign trader to supervise you, your title will imply nothing.
Even senior managers can not be aware of peculiarity
The common bottom-up Japanese style of management implies more formal or figurative administration. If you are a top manager, try to be respectful, when making dealings with such people and you should know that they may be useful generally for networking, recommendations and counsel. Don’t make uncomfortable yourself or them by asking about peculiarities, especially when they are not replying.
You should make a distinction between managers in small and big organizations
Opposite from their colleagues in large corporations, top executives in small firms have more power, are aware of details and rapidly take decisions. These autonomous directors are called one-man-Shacho. But according to the ranking junior managers should not have actually a decision-making authority.
Authority and competition between departments may replace titles
You should know that not only age defines a status in Japan. Like in Western corporations, some departments manage budgets, cope with special projects, co-operate with definite countries, or are empowered to do some other tasks. You should not undervalue significance of even one junior manager of the group; he can be present at the assembly because he controls the budget, and for that reason takes the definitive decision to support or decline your offer.
Why not employ corporate family connections
As somewhere else, in Japan associated companies or affiliates present valuable counsels, introductions, and even long-lasting business connections. Actually in smaller firms, the president or director could have been a top manager in a larger corporation and now he may run his own company. The corporate name or logo on meishi you were given can show you a trace towards these groups.
Each foreign entrepreneur has to know that knowledge of meishi could provide useful approaches into Japanese market.
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