Companies that are already well established in Japan know that Japanese companies and universities are leading in many fields of technology such as robotics, iPS stem cells, and batteries just to name a few. It is not surprising that many foreign companies would like to participate in these technologies by partnering with Japanese companies, investing into startups, or cooperating with universities.
However, more often than not, new technology and business development is located in centralized R&D organizations in the home country. Geographical distance as well as language barriers make it difficult to identify promising developments and potential partners. Funding additional local staff for business development and technology scouting can be cost intensive. On the other hand, local sales staff may have limited capacity and will focus on developments in main business areas but not in new and rising technologies. Setting cost and time perspectives aside, in some cases it might also be advantageous to approach a company or startup anonymously without disclose your company’s name first.
San-Ten Consulting can provide you with individual, tailor-made support of your local forces in order to help fulfill the needs and demands of the headquarter without difficulties. Along the value chain Discover – Connect – Retain, we will support your technology search, CVC investments, and market research activities.
With our technology background and our focus on B2B activities in the chemicals and materials industry, San-Ten Consulting can effectively support your technology scouting activities in Japan. Backed by our network to leading universities, (governmental) institutions, and startup ecosystems, we can discover important technological developments to help filling your innovation pipeline and venture capital portfolio. After connecting you to the technology owner, we will be here for you to negotiate licenses and technology transfer.
If you are looking for investment opportunities for your (corporate) venture capital activities, we will support you by discovering promising startups. Together with our financial service partner, we can also find suitable consortium partners and represent your interests on the board of the portfolio companies.
Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SME) are the backbone of Japan’s industry and a very relevant part of the innovation system. Therefore, we can also focus on and discover SMEs with interesting new technologies and connect them to you as cooperation partners. Moreover, these companies might also be interesting acquisition targets which we can monitor for new developments, and eventually approach anonymously.
Marketing and market analysis in a Western style are still not very common in Japan, and experience is rarely found with local staff and managers. San-Ten Consulting can support, advise, and guide your local staff on all relevant topics and tasks – like market research and analysis, information gathering, methodologies, presentations, etc. In addition, we can also perform trainings in order to develop your staff to discover potential markets and technologies autonomously in the long run.
For improving oral presentation skills and slide design to give compelling English presentations to an international audience, we have developed a workshop together with the Center for International Careers (CflC). Please find more information on the website of the CfIC
If you are interested in more detailed information, please contact us without hesitation.