Supporters for the Japanese SMEs in their expansion toward business abroad

M==

> What Masato says as “prepare supportive outsourcers for the SMEs
> and let them concentrate in their business
> as usual as possible” is agreeable.
> The challenge would be will there be supportive outsourcers
> for the SMEs? Would that be really possible?
> If yes, what kind? How to prepare?.

I would like to post my answer to your question above.
The answer is yes. Let me answer “what kind.”

I think there are countless outsourcers (if broadly defined) out there to support or facilitate the Japanese SMEs’ oversea business expansion. Let me put them in five categories as follows.

First one is public organizations. JETRO is the best known one, which is very much supportive when SMEs plan to participate in some foreign exhibitions. There are other public organizations, like local prefectural governments, with these functions in them. They often have subsidization system for SMEs to expand the business overseas. Local Gyosei Shoshi (administrative scrivener) would know about the subsidization.

The second one is Goyokai Dantai (industry association). As I wrote before, Gyokai Dantais overall exist for facilitation of the domestic business. However, there are some particular Gyokai Dantais that render the supportive service for the SMEs developing oversea businesses as J== pointed out.

The third one is what I call personal brokers. They are individuals who were often employees of Shosha (large trading companies). Some of them simply advise, acting as consultants. Some of them act as outsourcers to provide lacking functions of SMEs in doing business with overseas. Others act as distributors. Many of them are networking each other. If you find one in the internet search, you will probably end up finding several of them.

The fourth one is specialized outsourcing SMEs for this purpose. For example, my friend is a director of a company called Sales In China Co. Ltd. It has a wide range of service repertoire for any companies (large, middle, or small, the size doesn’t matter probably) wishing to sell their own products through the Chinese shopping sites.

The last one is most invisible ones that play a very big role in exporting Japanese products as well as in raising the “Japan Brand” among foreign grass-root markets. They are local wholesalers and distributors that have happened to start exporting the Japanese products overseas.

For example, a customer company of my client (a B2C product manufacturer) is a wholesaler in Niigata. The company found Russian sailors buying piles of Hokkairo (pocket-size disposable heater), female sanitary products, and restroom deodorizers, at the local drugstores. So the company first started to open a branch shop to sell the items at the harbor. Eventually the size of the sales grew so large that it had to fill the containers to deliver to the ships. Now that the business is well known in local area. And local SMEs that deal with those related items bring in the merchandize of them into the wholesaler.

These cases, that I call “incidental oversea business” are observable everywhere. The incidental oversea business initiator, as you see in the Niigata wholesaler’s case, becomes a powerful oversea business outsourcers for others as a result.